Freemen of the laboring class—often prisoners of war—were relegated to the round boats.
Pushing Sakkar aside, Colptha the sacrificer thrust his face into his brother’s. “What do you think you’re doing, Éremón?” Colptha hissed. Even Scotta, who loved all of her sons, said talking with Colptha was like talking with a snake.
“I’m taking us to Ierne, of course.”
Colptha’s sardonic smile revealed a wide gap between his front incisors. In secret, he sharpened the teeth framing the gap to heighten their effect. “Éber Finn’s the one taking us to Ierne,” he said. “Look to your right; Donn’s ship has already turned in the new direction, and I’m sure it’s at Éber’s direction. See him standing in the prow? On this voyage Éber has proved to be a better pilot than you or even your Phoenician; would you not agree, Sakkar?”
Sakkar knew better than to answer him.
Colptha enjoyed setting people against each other.
The sacrificer was a druid, like his brother Amergin or his cousin Corisios the diviner. Theirs were special gifts of the spirit that had been born in them. A druid might be a healer, a teacher, a judge—someone with a thirst for learning who was in touch with a world beyond the five senses. They spent years mastering their talent and gave their gifts freely to the tribe in return for its support.
Colptha offered sacrifices to the spirits who inhabited the unseen world. He was keeper of the sacred grove and representative of the trees. The Mílesians would not think of cutting timber without getting permission from the spirits of the wood. Otherwise, the logs they used for building would rot and their firewood refuse to burn.
The sacrificer might not be a likable man, but his services were indispensable.
Éremón tried to think of a sharp retort for Colptha, but the cleverness he sought eluded him. Amergin could command words; Éremón had only his sword. Waving his arm emphatically, he shouted for his crew to hurry and take over the lead.
The blur of green became more distinct as the fleet approached. Éber Finn’s wives and children crowded the rail of Donn’s galley, excitedly pointing out the island to one another and to Scotta, the widow of Mílesios.
Ír, who had begun the voyage with Éremón, capered along the deck of Donn’s ship too, laughing and careening into his fellow passengers. Éremón had insisted that Ír change galleys after the incident when the madman claimed he saw a god. According to him, the giant fish that had leaped out of the sea in the Bay of Biscay was an immortal being with a special message just for him. His wild talk unnerved not only the other passengers on the galley but also his own wife and children.
In the presence of solid, phlegmatic Donn, Ír behaved better. For a while. Until the island appeared on the horizon.
Colptha had taken the place of Ír on Éremón’s galley, at Scotta’s request. “I want our family evenly divided in case something happens to one of the galleys,” she said.
From Éremón’s point of view, the new arrangement was only a slight improvement. “I have exchanged a madman for one who is barely human,” he confided to Sakkar.
Éremón’s ship also carried Amergin—who did not involve himself in the petty power struggles between his brothers. Amergin would not have captained a ship even if he were asked. His gifts were those of the mind, not of the muscles. From the beginning he had placed himself amidships, where he could view everything that happened and store it in his capacious memory. For the rest of his life, Amergin could be summoned by any of the Mílesians to recite in detail the history of their great voyage.
Propped against the bard’s leg was the leather case he had designed to protect his harp from dampness. He liked to keep Clarsah close by. To him the harp was alive, with a name and a personality. When Éremón’s ship swept past Donn’s and into the lead, Amergin raised Clarsah in salute to his brother.
Donn was the firstborn son of the Míl, yet Éremón had been given command of the expedition while it was still being planned. Donn was steady and reliable but lacked the fire that animated his brother. Éremón loved fighting as much as he loved eating and more than he loved women. Mílesios had said he was exactly the sort of man needed to conquer a new land.
The great chieftain was dead, but his word still carried weight. His sons would respect it.
At least until they made landfall.
FIVE
IN THE CLEAR LIGHT of a summer morning the approaching fleet resembled four fat geese followed by a flock of goslings. Fisherfolk along the shore, drawing in nets laden with the night’s bounty, stopped work to stare. They observed that although basically Phoenician in design, with a high prow and brightly painted square sails, the timber galleys were not ordinary trading vessels. They had a large covered area amidships and rode exceptionally low in the water. Every bit of visible deck space was occupied by people and war carts and livestock.
By contrast, the small round coracles that accompanied them hardly even looked seaworthy.
The fishermen squinted in the sun. Eyes used to detecting the slightest ripple caused by a shoal of fish quickly noted the presence of women and children aboard the galleys. Traders never traveled with children. These were strangers, then—strangers whose intentions were unknown.
The fishermen turned their attention from bass and gray mullet to a more urgent situation. Word must be sent immediately.
Birdsong; the rustling of leaves; the breath of the wind. All carried the word. The message reached the ears for which it was intended. And was understood.
There was no need for another Being Together to make decisions. The Túatha Dé Danann knew what was expected of them.
Under Éremón’s orders the Mílesian galleys lowered their sails. The men took up their oars and prepared to row into a natural harbor sheltered by a curving arm of land. Little scallops of white foam ran in from a calm sea. Wading birds stalked the shallows, feeding on tiny crabs. It was a lovely summer’s day. Everything was perfect, a dream come true. Éremón shouted for the piper to blow the signal for going ashore. The dogs responded with a volley of excited barking. The women on the galleys began gathering their personal items and marshaling their children.
But it was Amergin who meant to be first on land. Amergin who had observed the green shape on the horizon even before his brother did and clasped the secret to himself like a lover. Amergin, the bard who had dreamed for as long as he could remember of …
“Ierne, Ierne,” he whispered. With pounding heart, he made ready to vault over the rail of the ship and drop into the hissing surf.
He was unaware of the shimmering fog until it enveloped him.
The fog descended on the Mílesian galleys and the coracles laden with servants and surplus baggage. Voices cried out in alarm. As if summoned by their shouts a wind came out of nowhere. It did not dissipate the exceptionally thick sea mist—if it was sea mist.
The treacherous wind began pushing the fleet away from the harbor. The oarsmen struggled to resist, but they were helpless against a rising gale.
And suddenly the tide was going out instead of coming in.
A party of the Túatha Dé Danann had assembled on the arm of land that embraced the bay. Their grace and bearing identified them as belonging to ancient nobility. Three queens were crowned by narrow diadems of gold, piped with copper wire. The oldest of three kings wore a belt of twisted gold set with chunks of amethyst.
The weapons they carried appeared more decorative than dangerous. Elaborately fashioned bronze swords, polished to a golden gleam, the hilts set with jewels. Knives of shiny black obsidian whose delicate edges were so sharp as to be nearly invisible. Throwing spears with shafts wrapped in gaily colored ribbons; thrusting spears with animal figures engraved on the spearheads. These examples of the metalsmith’s art seemed more appropriate for a pageant than for war.
The Dananns were not anticipating a pageant. Some of them had reported troubling dreams recently, and others described a growing sense of disquiet for no apparent reason. Now this: strang
ers approaching in unfamiliar vessels.
Hands lightly caressed sword hilts. One or two men hefted their throwing spears as if to test their balance. The Dananns stood erect and relaxed, confident of their ability to deal with anything. The elegant bronze weapons were only one element of their armory. They had others.
The voyagers on the treacherous sea began calling out to one another. Anxious cries rang from galleys and coracles, trying to retain contact. In the circumstances, it would be easy for one vessel to become separated from the others.
Their speech was distorted by the unnatural fog. Cold and thick, it poured like liquid into their open mouths. They shouted louder. They cursed the fog and the sea and one another but their words were unintelligible.
Increasingly frightened, the women added their voices to those of their men until all blended into a bleat of panic.
The guardians of the island waited patiently. Watching. The strange thick mist did not impede their vision. A light rain fell, but they did not need shelter. When the sun returned, they smiled and chatted pleasantly, retelling the old stories to one another. Laughing a little, sometimes. Making a gentle jest.
Meanwhile, the glimmering fog crouched over the fleet like a ravenous animal, blotting out the rest of the world. Cloaking, shrouding, unnerving. Stroking terrified faces with icy fingers. Light and dark were indistinguishable.
Time spiraled back on itself, past and future flowing together.
Piteous cries came from the people in the boats.
Mongan remarked to the Son of the Sun, “There was no need to excite ourselves about this after all. The tried and true methods still work.”
“By the time the strangers gain control of their vessels, they will be lost on the open sea,” Greine predicted.
The ageless beauty who stood beside him made a tiny sound of distress. “I have no desire to cause them harm.”
“No one wishes them harm, Eriu,” her husband assured her.
Their son Cynos added, “We have not touched them in any way, merely denied them approach to our land. They were able to find this place, so they should be able to find a safe harbor on Albion.”
“What if they don’t?” asked a young woman whose shining ringlets framed a heart-shaped face. “The sea can be rough, and there are children on those boats.”
Mongan put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “My Lerys has a tender spirit,” he said fondly.
“And we have a son!” she snapped. “How would you feel if our Joss were lost on the open sea?”
At these words Cipir na Cassmael na Hasis, the Windweaver—who had a young son himself—ceased the gestures he had been making in the air.
The force of the wind dropped.
Greine looked in Cipir’s direction. A silent order was passed from king to prince. Cipir’s hands busied themselves again.
The wind howled until the sea roared in reply. Yet the fog remained.
Lerys was the first to hear the music. Cocking her head to one side, she listened with parted lips. A single plangent note rose above the wind. It permeated the fog, transforming the opaque mist into the living voice of melancholy, the embodiment of unbearable longings.
Lerys tugged at her husband’s arm. “Oh, do listen, Mongan!”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “That strange sound? Where is it coming from?”
“Out there in the fog. Someone is playing a harp. Listen, everyone!”
Cynos said, “I never heard a harp like that, Lerys.”
“There has never been a harp like that before,” she told him.
While the Dananns strained to hear, the unfamiliar music fought the wind and the sea for supremacy. “Could it be a eulogy for a fallen warrior?” Mongan wondered aloud.
The harp, if it was a harp, added other themes. The music, if it was music, gave voice to sunshine. And moonlight. A woman’s exultant cry as she bore a child. The clashing antlers of rutting stags. Hope and fear and courage.
Underlying all was an insistent beat like the thud a mighty heart.
Deeply moved, Greine told his companions, “That is more than music; it represents an entire world.”
Fodla whispered, “A world almost too beautiful to bear.” Her husband, Cet of the Laughter, nodded agreement.
Banba the Brave dropped her hand to the hilt of the obsidian blade she carried in her belt. “What you hear is a trick,” she pronounced.
Ladra and Samoll, the king’s ceremonial spear carriers, immediately took up defensive positions on either side of Greine. He waved them away. “I see no danger yet. Wait until I summon you.”
“Children,” murmured Eriu. “There are children on the boats.” She turned her luminous gray eyes on the fog, the luminous gray fog that swelled and shifted above dark, cold water capable of swallowing an entire fleet. Without hurrying, she began to follow the muffled sounds of the fleet as it drifted along the coast.
The rest of the party followed her.
“The fog is lifting!” cried a hoarse voice aboard one of the galleys. The voice that had been shredded by hysteria as the fleet drifted blindly through the mist. Perhaps days had passed; no one could tell. Amergin had the disturbing sensation that time was being held in abeyance. In a bid to force its return, he had taken Clarsah from her case in spite of the humidity that could damage her strings. His strong, sure fingers had strummed an insistent rhythm. The rhythm of days and nights, of seasons and years.
The fleet had remained together by following the sound of the bard’s harp.
Now the fog was blowing away like a bad dream. When the voyagers caught glimpses of land ahead, they shouted and cheered. Some of the women began to weep with relief.
“I told you I would bring you here,” Éremón stated repeatedly. “I told you.” But no one was listening. All attention focused on the radiant island emerging from the mist.
The clear light of a summer’s afternoon illumined a fretted coastline heavily populated by great flocks of puffins. The endearing, comical faces of the seabirds seemed to smile a greeting to the newcomers.
A flock of delighted children grinned back at them.
The fleet drifted closer to shore, where rocky cliffs descended toward the mouth of a river. On the far side was a long beach of firm sand and shingle, and beyond that a sloping upland crowned with forest.
When he saw the trees, Éremón’s boast turned into a glad cry. “There will be game in those woods. Fresh meat!”
The sons of Mílesios reached for their hunting spears and whistled to their dogs.
Afterward Mongan would wonder if he should have felt an intimation of the future then. Had any of the elders been with them, they might have recognized the portents. But the elders were not required for situations such as this; the Danann nobility were responsible for guarding the sacred island. And even the wisest of the nobles, as Mongan ruefully reflected later, had failed to observe the true nature of the invaders until it was too late.
Standing among the trees, one with the alder and ash, the holly and hornbeam, blending into the landscape so the strangers could not see them, the Dananns had been distracted by the arrival of the bard.
A tall dark-haired man had been the first stranger to set foot on Ierne. He leaped off one of the galleys and ran high-kneed through the foaming surf, carrying a leather case raised at arm’s length to be clear of the water. The satchel was a work of art in its own right. Cut from the finest hides, it had been shaped to fit its contents, then embossed with curvilinear designs and brightly painted. As soon as the man reached dry land, he knelt to open the case. With reverent fingers he turned back a fold of white silk and lifted out his treasure.
The watching Dananns were transfixed.
There had never been such a beautiful harp. Even at a distance they could tell that the workmanship was exquisite. Bow-shaped and small enough to be cradled in the man’s arms, the wooden frame was richly gilded. The neck and body formed sinuous curves that were perfectly balanced by the straight line of the forep
illar. Every golden surface was elaborately ornamented. The nine strings were made of gleaming brass.
The man with the harp stood up in one lithe movement. He held the instrument high above his head and cried with all the power in his lungs, “Bard land!” Lowering the harp to the height of his heart, he ran his fingers lightly across the strings. They made a sound like spring wind rippling the willows. He smiled to himself. A lock of dark hair tumbled across his forehead as he bent his head and began to play. The music was totally different from that which he had played in the fog. Now the notes were fresh and joyous, golden and green. They danced on the air.
The high-arched feet of the Túatha Dé Danann could barely resist dancing with them.
More people were now splashing through the surf. A powerfully built man with ruddy hair paused to say something to the harper—who ignored him. The bard was lost in the moment. He and his harp might have been all alone, existing in a world outside time.
The Dananns found it difficult to look away from him. But they must. In spite of the impression he made, he was not alone; he was only the first of a veritable tidal wave of strangers hurrying to come ashore. In their eagerness, they abandoned all caution. They pushed and shoved and scrambled, the women as fiercely as the men. They were almost as tall as men and no less determined.
Torrian warned, “Someone is going to be hurt.”
“That is not our responsibility,” Greine remarked.
The spear carrier shrugged. “I was only saying.”
“He was only saying,” echoed Ladra.
Many of the foreigners carried swords in their belts. Swords with blades as long as a man’s forearm for the men, and shorter weapons resembling a dagger for the women. The blades had been forged from a dull bluish metal instead of bronze.
Observing them, Fodla felt a twinge of unease. “It might be best not to reveal ourselves right away,” she whispered to Greine. “Strangers in a strange land, they are bound to be nervous. We should allow them time to unload their ships and settle in.”
Only the Stones Survive: A Novel Page 4