Courage is a fine thing but one cannot see it with one’s eyes. One cannot see pride, or honor, or hope. Or faith. Perhaps none of them exist. There was a time when I thought I glimpsed Eriu and the Otherworld and they were real to me, but I was wrong.
Do not hide from the truth, Ainvar, I admonished myself. Reject the illusion your imagination created.
We come out of the dark and we return to the dark. There is nothing else. Just the dark.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pound my fists against the sky in raging denial. I did none of those things. They would have made no difference.
When I looked to the west I saw a dull red sun sinking into a pool of its own blood. Who could say if it would ever rise again?
Containing nothing immortal, my body turned and began its slow, sad walk home.
chapter XXII
FOLLOWING A WINTER’S STORM, GRANNUS AND THE BOYS OF OUR clan spent several days collecting windfall from the forest to augment our firewood supply. Since I had nothing better to do, I joined them. It was a pleasant enough task. Mindless.
Late one day I returned to my lodge to find half a dozen men I had never seen before. They were gathered in a circle around my senior wife. While Briga talked, the strangers were chewing frantically.
My second wife still sat by her loom, patiently working the shuttle back and forth. I caught her eye and indicated the strangers with a nod of my head. “They’re from the tribe that lives at the mouth of the Liffey,” Lakutu said. “They’ve come all this way to ask for Briga’s help.”
Of course they had. Unlike mine, Briga’s gift was still valuable.
One by one, the men held out their hands for my senior wife to examine. Fisherman’s hands, red and callused and permanently chapped, with ropy tendons and ridged, broken nails. Hands that plunged into icy water and hauled heavy nets. Hands like feet; indispensable. In the course of their labors they had accrued serious injuries. Broken fingers that knit badly had shapechanged into useless claws; a tendon in the back of a hand was severed; gaping wounds that refused to heal were filled with maggots and pus.
I retired into the shadows and sat nursing my own pain.
Briga cleansed the suppurating wounds with apple vinegar and salt, and rinsed them thoroughly with quantities of pure water. She chewed sorrel leaves until her mouth was filled with a green liquid that she spat into each wound in turn, then applied poultices of ragwort and plantain leaves.
Using a sliver of deer’s shinbone for a needle, she stitched the severed tendon back together with a single strand of badger’s gut, working as deftly as Onuava had once embroidered with silk. The seepage of blood was stanched with cobwebs before the layers of cut skin were sewn closed. The hand was bound in cloth Briga had woven herself, from the wool of a virgin ewe.
She rebroke the misshapen fingers with a stone polished smooth and round by a rushing river. For this operation I thought she might need me to hold the man still, but like his companions, he appeared to be impervious to pain. He just kept chewing. Briga manipulated the bones into the correct configuration, coated them with another of her herbal pastes, wrapped each finger separately in unbleached linen, and strapped them together on a plank of ash wood.
When my senior wife had finished her ministrations, Lakutu fetched a wooden bowl and carried it from man to man. Each in turn spat out the contents of his mouth: sodden wads of herb and fungus and tiny hazel twigs.
Briga urged her visitors to sit around the fire and rest themselves. “You must spend the night with us and have a good meal to fill your bellies for the journey back.” Soon the strangers were laughing and talking with my wives as if they were old friends. I stayed quietly in the shadows and listened. No one paid much attention to me, but that was what I wanted.
To listen is to learn.
I learned that the tribes who lived around the estuary of the Liffey did not rely solely upon fishing. They had a thriving export trade in furs and skins, salted fish, and leather. Albion and Scotia were their principal markets, but they also did business with the Armoricans. They even were visited by traders from the lands surrounding the Mid-Earth Sea. The man with the broken fingers said he could make himself understood in five languages.
How little we know of the way others make a living! A man sees no farther than his own horizon, so his troubles may appear larger than they really are.
What did it matter if I could no longer work magic? What did it matter if Eriu did not exist and our spirits were not immortal? Food still tasted good in my mouth. My women still felt good in my arms—when they had time for me.
My eyes turned toward my senior wife. How serene she was within herself! The light loved Briga. Even in the dim interior of the lodge a tiny ray found and illumined her hair, encircling her head with gold. From what wellspring, I wondered, did she draw her strength?
While Briga and Lakutu were preparing additional beds for our guests, I heard one of the men say something that caught my attention. I stood up. “Did you say ‘Labraid’?”
“Do you know him?” asked the man with the broken hand.
“I know a Labraid. It’s not a common name.”
“The Labraid I know is an uncommon sort of fellow,” the fisherman replied. “A very tough man. He calls himself the Speaker Who Sails the Seas.”
Briga straightened up and turned toward me with a quizzical expression.
“When did you meet this Labraid?” I asked.
The fingers of the man’s uninjured hand spidered across his head, scratching. “A few days ago. More or less.”
“Oh, Ainvar!” Briga ran to me. Her eyes were huge.
“Where is Labraid now?” I demanded to know. “Why didn’t he come with you?”
“They weren’t able for it.”
“They?” Briga and I exclaimed in unison.
“Three of them, all sick and injured.”
Three?
Three is the number of fate.
I heard Briga gasp.
My next words were forced through dry lips. “Is one of the three a woman?”
“Couldn’t tell you. They were the only survivors in a wrecked boat that washed ashore during the last winter storm. My tribe found them. By the time I saw them, two were wrapped from head to foot in blankets. This fellow Labraid was the only one who was able to talk. That’s how I learned he calls himself the Speaker of the—”
“Did he identify the others?”
“Not exactly. All I heard him say about that was…” The fisherman paused and gazed up at the smoky underside of the thatch, trying to find a memory. “What I heard him say was, ‘Only Briga of the Slea Leathan could save the Red Wolf. She can heal anything.’ So I told a few of my friends about you and here we are!”
I wanted to smash his smug face with my fist. Yet without his unthinkingly selfish act, we might never have known about—
“Maia,” Briga whispered hoarsely. “They’ve found our Maia and brought her home.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I cautioned.
“It’s Maia. It has to be.” She tugged at my arm. “We must go to them immediately, Ainvar.”
“How far is it to your tribe?” I asked the fishermen.
“Two or three days’ walk. More or less.”
Briga said, “Horses would get us there much faster.”
“What do you mean by ‘us’?”
“You heard him, they’re badly hurt. They need me now and I’m going!”
The only horses in the area belonged to Fíachu, whom I had been avoiding for a long time. But if a trouble is meant for you, you cannot avoid it. I must do as Vercingetorix had done: take up the sword and meet it. For Maia and Cormiac Ru.
Strange, my head observed, how quickly I accepted that the third member of the group was Maia. Was faith transferable? Had Briga given hers to me?
“Very well,” I told her, “I’ll ask Fíachu for horses. But you don’t know how to ride.”
“I’ll learn,” she said flatly
. “Go ask for them.”
Vercingetorix had taught me a number of lessons. Perhaps the most valuable was the fact that there are occasions when one can think too much. If Rix was certain he must do something he did not want to do, he wasted no energy thinking about it. He just plunged in and did it.
Without allowing my head to think about the possible consequences, I set out at once for Fíachu’s stronghold. Night already had fallen but my feet knew the way. As I walked I envisioned Teyrnon working at the forge, making a sword. Mentally I followed him through every step of the process. Fierce concentration was required, but druids are trained to concentrate.
I was surprised when I found myself at the door of Fíachu’s lodge.
Only his second wife was inside, sweeping the earthen floor with a broom of hazel twigs before the family retired for the night. A plump, pretty woman who had everything a wife could possibly want except perhaps a third wife to do the chores for her. I had sometimes wondered why Fíachu, with all his wealth, did not marry more women. At least two clan chiefs of the Slea Leathan had three wives, and the old king himself was said to have five.
She looked up as I entered. “Ainvar? We haven’t seen you here for a long time. Shall I heat some water so you can wash your hands and feet?”
“I thank you for your hospitality,” I replied formally. She poured water from a large pottery jar into a bronze basin, which she set on the hearth, close to the flame. On winter nights the fire in the chieftain’s lodge was kept well fed. When the water was warm enough, Fíachu’s second wife brought the basin to me and placed it at my feet.
By now I was fully familiar with Gaelic custom. Because the owner of the lodge was absent, to show the extent of my trust I crouched down with my back to the doorway through which he would enter when he returned. After washing my hands I slipped off my winter footgear, then stood—back still to the door—and eased my right foot into the warm water. Five cold toes wriggled with delight. As soon as they began to tingle I removed them and gave the same treat to my left foot. Ah, the kindness of water! No wonder my Briga treated it with such reverence.
If Fíachu came home at that moment he could kill me with no effort at all.
My left foot was still luxuriating in the basin when I heard a sound at the doorway. All my willpower was required to keep me from turning around.
“See who’s here, husband!” Fíachu’s second wife called out. She handed me a square of linen to wipe my feet dry. “Ainvar’s come to visit us at last.”
Slowly, I turned around.
Fíachu was not smiling but at least he had no weapon in his hand. So the message of my exposed back had not been lost on him. “Ainvar,” he said. Just that, with no inflection.
Searching the eyes of Fíachu with my own eyes, I found no malice, only a guarded watchfulness.
Duach Dalta had been talking to him, all right. Intimating, insinuating. Using all his skill to manipulate the chief of the tribe.
I knew something about manipulation. “Fíachu,” I acknowledged in a tone as coldly formal as his.
“What brings you here? We thought you had forgotten us.”
“Have you forgotten me?” I asked.
“No.” Nothing else, just no. But that was enough to tell me this was not going to be easy.
The thoughts I had been trying not to think roiled in my head. If I was exiled my clan would go with me out of loyalty. Leaving behind those fine, solid lodges. The forge. The little shed where the women milked the cows. Perhaps even the cows themselves, the gentle cows who marched into the shed on their own every morning and evening.
We had lost too much already; there had to be an end to it. Resolve strengthened my voice. “Fíachu, I’ve come to ask a favor.”
Up went the tangled eyebrows. “From me? You dare to ask a favor from me?”
Think, head! Think fast now. Once you dared Caesar himself.
My head had not let me down then, and it did not let me down now. Instead it reminded me of something I had foolishly buried beneath my worries.
I threw back my shoulders and assumed the confident voice of a chief druid who has nothing to fear. “You have horses and I need three.”
Fíachu’s eyebrows did the impossible: They crawled still higher. “You want my horses?” he asked as if he could not believe the evidence of his ears.
“I need horses if I am to bring back your son.”
He looked bewildered. “But my son is dead, Ainvar. And buried.”
“One of your sons is dead. You have another.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Labraid.”
Fíachu gave a snort and lowered his eyebrows. “Don’t be ridiculous, you know he’s dead, too. Has to be, by now. Anyway, he was sired by some man in Gaul, not me.”
“Labraid was sired by the great chieftain Vercingetorix, who was known throughout Gaul as the King of the World. But the boy was carried in the belly of Onuava.”
“What has that to do with me?”
“I have very good reason to believe that Labraid is still alive.”
“So?”
I knew Fíachu; already he was searching for some piece of advantage to himself in this conversation.
“If Onuava had been your wife, Fíachu, you could claim her son as your son. Which means you could now be father to the son of the King of the World. Would you not agree that having such a son would vastly enhance your status among the tribes?”
“There’s no point in speculating,” he said brusquely. “I never married Onuava.”
I smiled. “Did you not? Perhaps I have good news. Let me tell you about a judgment Dian Cet recently rendered to another clan of the Slea Leathan.
“A prosperous cattle lord had died; a man who had sired a number of children on his wife and also on a favorite bondwoman. At the man’s death the children of both women demanded to inherit his property. The sons of the man’s wife insisted that because the other children were not born of marriage they had no right to the dead man’s possessions. The claim of the bondwoman’s children was supported by their friends, who felt they were just as deserving as the wife’s sons. The quarrel threatened to disintegrate into a full-blown war. This was to be avoided at all costs because this particular clan possessed many bondservants. In fact, they outnumbered their masters two to one.
“To resolve the situation the chief of the clan sent for Dian Cet and his apprentice, Morand. The two men deliberated the matter for a full cycle of the moon. Then Dian Cet pronounced the following judgment: ‘Any sexual act capable of resulting in a child is deemed to be a marriage, whether a child was actually born or not.’”
Fíachu scowled at me. “How could there be a marriage if no ritual took place?”
“Ah, this is the genius of Dian Cet’s judgment, don’t you see? The ritual was the act of coupling itself!
“Furthermore—and I am told this was actually Morand’s idea—Dian Cet suggested that marriage be divided into degrees. The first three degrees would be determined by the possession of property.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“It’s quite straightforward, Fíachu. The chief of the clan understood at once. And approved. Marriages in which one or both partners own valuable property such as cattle or bondservants or the freehold of land are now to be known as contract marriages, and agreed to in front of witnesses. In a union of the first degree both partners are equal in rank and property. In a marriage of the second degree the man owns the most property and supports the woman. The woman in a marriage of the third degree owns the most property, but supports the man as long as he agrees to work on her land.
“In addition…” I paused, relishing the moment. Here was the point I had been working toward, the inspiration for which I forgave my head its many failings. “In addition there is to be a fourth degree, known as ‘the marriage of a loved one.’ This has no contract based on property ownership, but transpires whenever a man takes a woman unto himself with her full consent and
she lives in the manner of a wife.”
A light came into Fíachu’s eyes.
At that moment the chieftain’s senior wife entered the lodge. She gave her husband a quizzical glance, but his full attention was fixed on me. I could have stopped right there, but the trained memory of a druid should never be cut off in the middle.
“A marriage of the fifth degree is one in which two people lie together from time to time but continue to live separately, and one does not support the other. This is the new law adopted by the second largest clan of the Slea Leathan,” I concluded.
“Five degrees of marriage,” Fíachu murmured. “An exceedingly clever concept.”
“Do you approve, then?”
“Totally, Ainvar. And let me say, I am astonished at such wisdom on the part of—”
“Two members of the Slea Leathan,” I hastily interposed. “Dian Cet belongs to your tribe now, and his apprentice, Morand, is a member of your own clan. If anyone is to be congratulated it is yourself, Fíachu.”
Fíachu swelled with pride the way a toad swells when it finds water after a long drought.
I prudently took a half step sideways in case he tried to clap me on the back. It was best to avoid the chieftain’s more ebullient gestures.
“Apprentice.” Fíachu rolled the word across his tongue, then spat it out. “That’s far too puny a title for such a fine young man. By what title is Dian Cet known among your people, Ainvar?”
“He’s a brehon judge. Brehon is our highest designation for a long head.”
Fíachu lit up the lodge with his grin. “I decree that from this moment, Morand is a brehon as well. And I further decree that the judgment of the brehons will be the new marriage law of the entire tribe of the Slea Leathan.
“Now, what was the favor you sought of me, Ainvar?” he asked ingenuously. But he had not forgotten; he promptly answered his own question. “Oh yes, horses. You want to go looking for my son, Labraid, I believe?”
His senior wife gave a gasp and put her hand over her mouth. His second wife protested, “But Labraid’s not your son, Fíachu.”
The Greener Shore Page 24