Winter Serpent

by Davis, Maggie;

  “This is the gown I wore to the Green Hall when first I was married. As we traveled to what was to be my new home I threw off my cloak so that I should ride into the yard in splendor and dignity in my bride’s dress. But when the macPhee saw me he thought me so charming he took me before him in the saddle like a child, and this was the way that I came to the hall where I was to be mistress. I was very vexed at this for I was young and it mattered much that I should appear grave and commanding. I was very small then, was I not?”

  She threw the gown on the bed.

  “Here is a gold mantle. The lining is purple silk from Byzantium and my father the bishop purchased it in Dunadd. And my gold armlets! Look at the size of them; I could use them for bracelets now. And look, a fur mantle. This is useless, for the rats and the moths have been at it. And a pair of sandals of gilded leather. But my feet even then were larger than yours are now.”

  “I cannot take these things from you,” Doireann said coldly.

  “What is the matter with them? They are not so old as you might think! Consider that I have been mistress of this house scarcely more than twenty years and the clothes have been well-packed.”

  “The clothes are indeed fine, too fine for me to accept. I have done nothing for you to reward me so.”

  “That is true. You have done nothing to earn my love. You have caused trouble among my sons and you have created a disturbance in my house and taken from me that which I would not willingly give. But you are welcome to these things. Indeed, I insist, for I give them to you freely and I am not known as a generous woman.”

  “What do you want from me then?” The macPhee looked irritated.

  “Let us not have enmity between us. We can leave touchy pride and swollen honor to the men, for they are able to settle things with swords and knives and see the end of it with the spilling of blood. A quarrel between women is never satisfied. Take the things. I give them to you gladly and it would please me to see you leave here with clothing which flatters your beauty. You can do this much for me as a debt of hospitality.”

  Doireann sat silent.

  “Well then, consider how fortunate it would be for you to return to your father’s hall not like a beggar but like a queen. It would strengthen your cause if you mean to challenge Calum macDumhnull’s leadership. And my gowns are fine. You would not be able to get better in Alpin’s house.”

  “Why do you give me these things?” Doireann insisted.

  “Say that I have compassion for you. You might have thought that I had envy for you, and this shall show you that I am not jealous. You have youth and beauty now, and mine are nigh spent. When a woman has grown sons she is old, no matter how young she was when she birthed them, nor how young she may think herself when they are almost men. In the eyes of others she is old. I could feel envy for your youth, and that is a true thing. But pity I have for you firstly, considering what I have known and what you have not. I have known love and happiness and, God willing, will live to see my sons married and their children in my lap.”

  She studied the younger woman.

  “But I can see that you have been barren of love and it has marked you. You have had no happiness, and because of this I would be kind to you. Take these things. They are less than what I would give you. I could not give you pride or courage, for you have these things and they are as much curse as blessing. But I would give you love willingly, for all that you are so lone.

  “Now, you see, you do not heed what I have to say to you, and it is a pity. But it appears that I can no more convince you of these things than I can teach my sons anything of what I have learned in my life. It is unlucky but true that we must all be convinced of ourselves. So stand up and I will help you to dress. I will prove to you that I can put my pride in my pocket and wait upon you. I can tell you what you should take, for I have a good eye for color and fit.”

  Silently Doireann let the other woman choose gowns and jewelry for her from the basket.

  “Look, the darling blue stones!” Moire cried. She held them up to her temple. “I did always like these. If your eyes are blue they will take that color. If green, then they are green. You should wear these.”

  She chose the turquoise necklace and, after much deliberating, a black woolen gown.

  “It is a bad color for some, but with your skin and the brilliance of your eyes against the necklet, even the Ard-Ri will turn burning looks on you. If he does, take your talent for trouble and bury it under the nearest stone. You are too much of a fool to have a great power over men.”

  “The macPhee has no right to insult me,” Doireann cried.

  “Lay down your pride. Did I not tell you such things are for the men? Women cannot afford it.” She dumped the remainder of the contents of the basket on the bed and repacked it with the things she had chosen. “You may have the basket, also. You do not like me, do you?”

  The girl did not answer.

  “It matters not,” the other shrugged. “Yet I am glad that I have done this. It is a lesson to your stiff pride. Look at me well, Doireann nighean Muireach. I came to you out of the good in my heart. I am a woman with seven sons, four of them almost men. Already you have child and in a little while this will mean a vast difference to you, for it will set you apart from the fair maidens with their smooth bellies and firm breasts and their airs of innocence. There may be a day when you will feel bitter envy. I hope then you will have a man who loves you and cherishes his sons and the mistress of his hall, whether you are old or no.”

  Comac Neish would have made their leave-taking brief, for he was eager to have a good start in the cool of the day, but at the last as they passed through the gates, the older boys came to walk by Doireann’s horse and urged gifts upon her.

  “Take my hound,” Niall Roy said with guilty eyes. “If I tell him to follow you to Cumhainn he will do so, and love you well at my command.”

  “No, no,” she protested.

  “Then take this,” Liamh told her, hanging a brace of fat partridge across the saddle. At the sight of the birds with their limp, curled claws, tears filled her eyes and began to roll silently down her cheeks.

  “What have you done?” Moire cried to her sons.

  Doireann looked down into the other woman’s face through her tears. Moire seized her hand and held it for a moment.

  “Oh, why do women weep?” the chieftainess cried in exasperation. She followed the mount for a few steps and then reluctantly took her hand away.

  “Take care,” she called. “Have luck!”

  The drought had tightened its grip on the land. The dust was choking in the roadways; the sullen clouds promised rain but never delivered more than a scattering of drops on the iron-hard earth. The animals of the forests were desperately bold and could be seen lurking about the open wells and springs near the villages.

  The Ard-Ri’s men became accustomed to being stopped by hunters who greeted them with questions about how the lands fared in the east. There seemed to be comfort in the knowledge that others suffered also. From them Comac Neish learned that the monks from Iona had crossed to the mainland with the sacred cloak of St. Columcille and had carried the relic deiseil, or sunwise, through the fields, flapping it in the wind and praying for rain. Their efforts had been in vain. To the naked eye it seemed the sun grew bigger, beating mercilessly on the dry woods and hard-baked paths which echoed to the horses’ hooves.

  Even the Scots talked superstitiously of the ancient sun god. They had heard it said that the god of the druids had burst his skin to spill his wrath upon those who had deserted him to follow the God of the Jews. When this last was spoken of boldly in the presence of Flann the Culdee the curadhs looked unpleasantly surprised. But Flann said nothing, drawn into his peculiar mood.

  Even so, they were shocked to encounter two old men on the track wearing halo headdresses of beaten copper wire. Flann turned in the saddle to stare after them. They returned his stare fiercely.

  “Holy St. Kevin!” macIlreach exclaimed, lo
oking back at the old men in their ragged white robes. “Surely those were ghosts from the past which I saw!” “Hold your tongue,” Comac warned him. “There are many fierce tribes in the Spean. I care not what manner of dress they wear nor what arrogance they show in the wearing of it, just so long as they do not challenge our passage to Lorne.”

  “But who would think there were druids still living to walk the land so boldly and openly?” the other asked.

  “It could not be said for sure that they were Old Ones,” Diarmidh said cautiously, with a glance at Flann. “The pagan ways are dead. There is none among us now who can say for certain that they have ever seen the druid alive and walking.”

  “Yet the sun has such a strange look,” macIlreach insisted. “Notice how it burns brightly in the long summer twilight!”

  They were glumly silent at this.

  Comac’s band of warriors were attempting to throw off the oppressive weather with their store of stories and songs. Most of the tales were overly familiar to Doireann, but when Comac Neish joined in he had a power of invention that captured them, and his was the sweetest singing voice.

  They came upon a pond that had not yet become green and slimy with drought, and as they watered the horses Comac, stirred by the beauty of the little valley, broke into the old song of Moy Mell. There were tired and the air was thick and heavy with heat but the cool words struck them and they listened.

  Fil Inis i’n-eterchain

  Immataitnet gabra rein

  Rith Find fris toibget tondat

  Ceithor cossa foslongat.

  In sweet Moy Mell beyond the sea, the singer told, there is a tree with many white blossoms. In this land beyond our life the pleasure birds sit and call the hours, casting their spell upon the fleeting happy time.

  The keening notes of the song settled about them like the dead yellow drift from the birches overhead. Moy Mell was suddenly around them, shining in the close, humid woodland. Doireann looked on Comac Neish and found it easy to imagine the Irishman, with his dark, curly hair and wild face, as a man from the past, a hero come from the forbidden land of the song, who longs again for it and cannot return.

  She blinked, confused by the enchantment of his voice and the conspiracy of the glade and the pool. Comac Neish had told her that he and his curadhs would escort her during the entire journey to Cumhainn and turn her over to Alpin’s protection when they arrived. She supposed that he would also be in the Coire for the hearings. A good many days to spend with the Irishman, then. She sighed, wondering why she had chosen to think of it in this way, and why it should seem so pleasant.

  Their journey was leisurely, full of the hospitality of the tribes. Although the chieftains were anxious over the prolonged drought and poor harvest the best was always offered to the guests according to custom.

  Comac Neish turned aside to stop at the clachan Kinlochleven to take the midday meal with Cu the Bald, an old comrade of the wars in Lothian. Doireann was at once suspicious of the dirty village and its pale naked children marred by ringworm sores. She was reluctant to dismount, but could not think of a way to refuse the chieftain’s offer of a meal. She held Ian close to her and would not let Cu’s women take him to admire him. Her coldness was an affront to their honor and the chief’s wife stalked off, failing to put in an appearance at the table when they ate.

  Comac looked somewhat surprised when Doireann spoke out herself, declining Cu’s offer to spend the night, but he did not contradict her.

  “I did not like the looks of him for all that he is supposed to be a famed warrior,” she sniffed as they rode away. “His hall was dirty and the children sickly.” “Nevertheless, he is a friend of Alpin’s,” Comac told her, “and the Ard-Ri holds him in especial esteem since he once owed his life to him.”

  “It makes no difference to me,” she said airily. “His fields are ill-kept and his clansmen look no better than a pack of thieves, which they may well be. The hospitality he offered may have been only words which come before the cutting of throats and purses. I would rather sleep on the hard ground than in that rat’s nest he calls a hall.”

  “Well,” said Comac, scratching, “it is the truth that Cu appears chieftain over more fleas than men.”

  Barra joined them. “I also have more little animals in my clothes than I would care for,” he grumbled. “I know of a place where we may turn aside from the western track and take a small path which will bring us to a waterfall. It is a good place to bathe and get rid of the vermin.”

  “If there is still a falls,” Diarmidh called, “and it is not wasted away by the drought.”

  It was still there, Barra assured them. He led the party through a narrow pass into a tiny valley thick with bushes and briers where they could hear the falls before they saw it, spilling from a rock ledge and emptying into a sandy creek strewn with large boulders. The willows and alders were filled with birds and the air thick with gnats.

  “Listen to the frogs!” Doireann exclaimed.

  “All the toads in the highlands have come to this spot,” Barra muttered. “But I see fish in the pool and they look hungry.”

  The warriors dismounted and turned the eager horses into the still green marsh below the falls. Diarmidh and Angus Og fell to work to light a smoky fire to drive away the clouds of insects. The others lost no time in stripping themselves free of their lousy clothes and plunging into the clear pool.

  “You will drive away the fish!” Barra protested, but they did not heed him. When the warriors were through, Doireann took Ian to the pool where he splashed about happily. He was as fearless in the water as he was on land, and she clutched him to keep him from slipping out of her grasp. Comac stood on the bank watching.

  “I think this is the biggest fish in the pool,” he commented.

  She smiled at him, proud of the chubby child. But he did not smile back. “If you wish to bathe now, the others are by the fire and will not bother you,” he said.

  “I will do so in time,” she murmured. “But not if you stand where you are now.”

  He did not move.

  “Yet I would watch you if you would allow it,” he said. She turned her back on him and he went away.

  The two brothers, macIlreach and Uisedean, had netted some birds and were roasting them on sticks when she returned. Under the smudge was the only place free of the swarms of midges.

  Dusk was on them when Doireann went down to the pool and at last slipped into the cool water. She pulled the gown off and hung it on a willow branch near the water’s edge to dry. The pool was quite deep in the middle, but near the shore the bottom was sandy and smooth to her feet. She lay back and soaked her hair, hoping the vermin would leave her. The sound of the falls was loud, blotting out the voices by the fire and the night songs of the birds in the trees. She floated for some time, enjoying the refreshing water. No wonder the tribesmen could talk of nothing else. Without water even man parched like the fields, his skin like a coat which itched to be shed.

  “What are you doing here?” she cried out suddenly. She put her feet on the bottom.

  Comac Neish moved his hand slightly. “I am fishing.”

  “Fishing! But the others are eating.”

  “I prefer fish to birds,” he answered. She could not see his face distinctly, for the pale sky was behind it. “Large fish,” he added slyly.

  She turned and swam away to the center of the pool. She made straight for the spout of the falls and went under it, coming up behind in a dark and slimy place filled with moss and the glistening webs of spiders. She stood hiding there and scrubbed some of the dust from her face and wrung out her long hair with her hands. She could feel the grime from it pouring through her fingers. She heard the Irishman calling her and smiled sourly to herself.

  The sounds of splashing came to her and she ducked under the stream and came up in the pool. Comac Neish had waded waist-deep into the water and was standing with his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting.

  “I thought you had drown
ed,” he cried at the sight of her.

  “Let me be, Comac Neish,” she told him. “You need not take it upon yourself to rescue me, for I will not drown.” She swam in a small circle to show him. “Well,” he said, “then I will go back to the bank, for I see you can swim. It

  is a gift I do not have.” Yet he did not move.

  “If you would be helpful,” she told him, “throw me my arasaid which hangs behind you on the branch.”

  He did not turn to look.

  “I could not find it,” he said.

  “It ill behooves you to play at games,” she said sharply.

  “Ah, but it is not a game I play,” he told her. He waded out until he was chest-deep.

  She stayed in the middle of the pool, though her arms were becoming tired. “Move aside and let me pass,” she said quietly. “I have left the child with

  Barra and must attend him before he will go to sleep.” He did not answer.

  She swam far to one side of him and pulled up out of the water. She rose, tightening her belly, holding herself proudly, and walked to where the gown hung. She slipped it over her. He did not attempt to come closer but watched with some amusement from a distance. She began to wring the water out of her hair, throwing it like a rope over her shoulder. He came to the bank and hauled himself out beside her.

  “You are right,” he said, picking up the fishing line. “Such games as chasing you about the pool are certainly frivolous, for I have seen the look which comes upon your face, stiff and warning, and it does not become you. Nor does the sorrowing and abused air which I have also seen.”

  She looked astonished at this, but he was busy with the fishing line and did not look at her.

  “Yes, I see that you think yourself much abused, and it may be that Conor’s bright words have colored your thinking. Or it may be that all this is justified. Yet I still do not see you queenly and tragic for all your beauty. Your body is white and round like a living woman’s and not marred by having carried the child. Your eyes are not like those of the Queen of Sorrows but challenging and sly, as though you secretly relish the turmoil which follows you. Another sort of woman would have drowned before coming out of the pool naked before me. You forget, I saw your lips wet and smiling when I fought Niall Roy by the pigpen, and you looked proud to be fought over.”