Only the Stones Survive: A Novel

by Morgan Llywelyn

  Without a leader—a chieftain, a king, a trusted person whose authority all agreed upon—what remained of the tribe was cast adrift.

  Their shock was followed by anger and a sense of betrayal. “How could he do this to us?” people asked one another. “How could Mongan leave the Túatha Dé Danann with no chieftain?” “What are we going to do now?”

  I understood their feelings; they were the same as my own.

  The obvious answer was for the Dagda to assume leadership again. He was a fixed star in our sky, a light that had never failed. The Dananns clamored for him to take up the fallen staff of authority. The survivors of disaster were eager for the words that would give them hope again.

  The Dagda had no answer for them.

  Or rather, he had an answer that no one recognized. Doing nothing can be an answer in itself.

  Lacking any guidance, the Dananns fell back on the routine they had established. The food collected during the night was distributed, and the clans retired to their caves to eat and rest during the day. And to worry; people who had been strangers to worry. There was a lot of discussion about the future. If we had a future, which was questionable now. We had women and children and old people but very few men—how could that sustain a tribe?

  And where would new leadership come from? A tribe without a head was no tribe at all.

  Since Before the Before the chieftains of the Túatha Dé Danann had been strong, wise, and experienced. Men mostly, although the Dagda had told me of several royal women in the ancient days who had accepted the mantle of leadership and acquitted themselves nobly.

  Now our royal line was extinguished like a torch in the wind. Mongan had been the last surviving prince. Among the refugees in the bat caves, there was no one able or willing to lead us.

  The Dananns continued to press the Dagda to be our chieftain. While he was asleep one morning, a group of women made an urgent pilgrimage to our cave to insist that he comply. Melitt tried to stop them, but they pushed past her.

  “Cornering an old man in his lair,” she complained to me out of the side of her mouth, “is like attacking a wolf with no teeth.”

  Slowly, painfully, the Dagda got to his feet to face them.

  “It is your duty to lead your tribe,” they insisted.

  “It is my duty to keep you from making a mistake,” he replied. “You need someone young and strong; I am old and weary.”

  They shouted him down: “Not old, never old!”

  An emotion akin to anger flashed in his eyes. “There is nothing wrong with being old. Reaching a great age is the reward for a life well lived, and you will not take it from me. I have my thoughts and memories and the sweet temptation of sleep waits in my bones. Someone else must supply what you need.”

  “But there is no one else!”

  “Then lie down and die,” the Dagda advised.

  That was more than they wanted to do.

  The Túatha Dé Danann formed into tiny clusters of conspiracy, buzzing with importance while they tried to force into being a person who did not exist. Tradition demanded that a chieftain be of royal blood. The few children of royal rank who were still alive were too young.

  The only alternative was a chieftain who had not been bred to lead. No one liked that idea. “You might as well suggest that a man give birth,” one woman said scornfully.

  As for me, I wandered from cave to cave, sat and listened and thought, shared food and water and worry, but did not contribute to the conversations. I felt as lost and abandoned as the rest of them. On my fingers I counted off the names being mentioned as possible leaders: Droma, who could no longer stand upright, thanks to the point of an iron spear lodged in his spine; Agnonis, blinded by a blow to the head; Saball, who had only one arm, and that without a hand at the end; and Tamal, once the most courageous of warriors, who now flinched at shadows and wet his blanket like an infant.

  This wreckage was what remained of the Children of Light.

  However, it was not all that remained. In almost every clan there were children. One, three, seven little Dananns with spun silk hair and sapphire eyes that would see a world yet unborn. Mongan was gone and the Dagda wanted to sleep, but when I met those trusting eyes, I could not look away.

  With renewed purpose I sought to engage the Dagda in meaningful conversation. “Is it possible the tribe might continue satisfactorily without a leader?”

  “Even ants,” he intoned in his best teaching voice, “have a queen whose existence gives their lives purpose and a single direction.”

  “We are not ants. We can think for ourselves.”

  Stroking his beard, he looked down his nose at me. “How do you know ants can’t think, Joss?”

  I had no answer to that. Shortly before dusk, I went outside and searched until I found a nest of ants. After scraping away the surrounding detritus of dead leaves and dry twigs, I stretched myself full length on the ground with my head close to the entrance and listened to the sounds coming from within the nest. Dry chitinous sounds, rough scraping sounds, hissing and rustling and …

  “What do you think you’re doing, Joss?” Shinann’s voice inquired above me.

  Embarrassed to be discovered in such a childish position, I jumped to my feet. “I was trying to hear the thoughts of the ants.”

  Her unique laugh sounded like water rippling over stones. “Do you understand the language they think in? It must be very different from ours.”

  “You believe they do think?”

  “Whatever lives thinks in its own way,” said Shinann. “Remember when you put your hands on the ash tree? You felt what the tree felt. If you had stayed there for long enough, you might have thought what the tree was thinking.”

  When I returned to the cave, I repeated her words to the Dagda. “I told you Shinann’s generation was remarkable,” he commented. “Between them, they brought an exceptional amount of knowledge into thislife.”

  “Into this life? They brought it from somewhere else? Are you saying they lived before?”

  “I am saying we live always.”

  I stared at him. “That’s not true. My mother died.”

  “Lerys died to you,” he said, “but not to your father.”

  “She could not be both dead and alive!”

  “Why not? Because you say so? You are not in charge, Joss—nor am I, for that matter. What we see here and now is only the visible part of an invisible whole. Thislife, lastlife, nextlife—all rivers flow into the same sea.”

  I lost patience with the Dagda and his answers that answered nothing. Did he not realize how much it hurt to talk about Lerys? “I saw my mother’s body,” I said angrily, “and I know how much she suffered! No one could have survived what happened to her.”

  “What happened to her body did not affect her spirit,” replied the Dagda. He extended his left arm with the palm facing me. “Push against this.”

  I was strong and angry and I shoved my fist into his open palm with all my weight behind it.

  He offered no resistance. Yet he did not yield.

  Caught off-balance, I staggered.

  “You pushed against my body, but not my spirit,” said the Dagda. “Both exist here and now. Only one is permanent.”

  I still do not know if ants can think, but I can think. The Dagda taught me.

  The ability to think is no good unless you use it, so I did.

  Considered individually, the bats were beautiful in their own way and very interesting. They neither harmed nor threatened us, but I did not want to live with them for the rest of my life, nor did I want my baby sister and my cousins to grow up with the odor of bat manure clinging to them.

  We would have to leave our caves by the river sooner or later. Sooner would be better, providing we had a safe place to go. During the day, I braved the light and went searching for a new sanctuary. I had to—no one else was doing it. The remaining members of the tribe were sinking into a quiet resignation, content to stay where they were even with its drawbacks ra
ther than make another change.

  Change was beginning to feel familiar to me.

  Shinann was the only other Danann who frequently left the caves during daylight. She was looking for something too. She never told me what she sought, but I knew the signs.

  I am sure she was warned, as I was, to “be careful.” The warning was unnecessary; we both knew the dangers.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE GAELS WERE SETTLING down on Ierne.

  Mighty oaks and graceful ash trees that had been growing for hundreds of years were sacrificed in a day to the human urge for construction. Forests were cleared, causeways laid across bogs, walls and timber palisades erected as one region after another was claimed by the New People. They were all calling themselves Mílesians now, wearing success like a crown.

  Emboldened by their victory over the Túatha Dé Danann, as they moved into new areas the Mílesians did not wait for the primitive tribes to attack them. They sought them out to batter them into submission.

  The natives fought back.

  The Iverni, weavers and potters and tellers of extravagant tales, slowly bowed to the superior force. The Fír Bolga, a warrior race that had occupied large swathes of the island for many generations, were not as readily vanquished. The accommodation they had achieved with the Túatha Dé Danann had been one of expediency. The Fír Bolga were fierce fighters with simple bronze weapons but had never faced anything like the mysterious capabilities of the Dananns. A single terrifying demonstration of the Earthkillers had been enough. In the interest of their own self-preservation, the Fír Bolga had accepted peace.

  But it had never satisfied them. When war with the Mílesians presented itself, the Fír Bolga were happy to oblige. They too spread out across the country, placing scouts wherever they could, watching for any signs of vulnerability on the part of their enemy.

  As long as they did not have to face the Earthkillers again, the Fír Bolga believed they had a good chance of winning.

  Mílesian guards armed with iron swords and sharpened spears were posted outside houses so new that they still smelled of raw wood. Beyond the firelight, the Fír Bolga prowled like wolves in the forest, watching.

  “We were here first,” they reminded one another. “We will be here after the invaders are gone.”

  As soon as they exchanged their marriage promises, Éremón moved Taya into the house being built for him within his stronghold. A low wall with a little wooden gate set it apart from the other structures, reflecting its prestige. No effort was spared in preparing the chieftain’s hall. A whole deer could be roasted on the stone hearth. Piles of furs provided luxurious bedding. Éremón requisitioned the best household goods from Ír’s widow and the other women for the use of his second wife.

  The other women fought back.

  One morning, Éremón was disgusted to find that some disrespectful female had emptied her night jar into his chariot.

  Sakkar used his skills as a shipbuilder to erect a stronghold for himself, which he called Delginis, then went hotfoot to Soorgeh’s new fort to make an offer for the tall girl with red hair. As soon as his offer was accepted, he hurried to tell Amergin.

  Druids were not assigned landholdings, which were individual territories to be held in the name of the clan but considered the property of the landholder. Under Gaelic belief, the earth herself belonged to the druids. Amergin was also a bard and therefore entitled to the perquisites of his rank. A balance must be struck. After giving the matter serious thought, he had claimed just enough land to build a house in the southernmost part of Éremón’s territory. Near the hill of Tara.

  Éremón offered Amergin the use of as many freemen as he needed to build the house, but when Sakkar arrived, he found his friend alone, using ax and adze with considerable skill. “You never told me you could do that,” Sakkar said.

  “Bards have hands, Sakkar, and we can use them for more than stringing a harp. I could hardly stand around and watch other men building my house. It would not be mine then, but theirs.”

  “That’s how I feel too. Here, let me help you level that beam…”

  “I can do it myself,” Amergin grumbled. Then he laughed.

  They worked side by side until the sun lengthened their shadows and their stomachs growled. Amergin rummaged among his supplies and produced bread and meat and a tiny packet of precious salt. “You’ll stay the night, Sakkar? Another day like this, and my house will be ready to thatch.”

  As they ate, Sakkar remarked, “You had better not let Éremón know you have any salt, or he’ll demand it as his right.”

  “Let him distil his own from seawater like the rest of us.”

  “He never will. He doesn’t make; he takes.”

  Amergin raised an eyebrow. “Surely he isn’t that bad?”

  “He’s getting there,” Sakkar replied. “We hoped his new wife would improve his attitude, but she’s made it worse. He’s going to incredible lengths to impress her.”

  “Taya is easily pleased. I doubt if she requires a mighty effort from him.”

  “She doesn’t, Amergin. He requires it of himself. It’s as if Éremón doesn’t believe he’s entitled to the position he holds, and he needs to keep proving it.”

  “Has anyone else challenged him for the chieftainship of the north?”

  “Not yet. I suppose the only person who could do that would be Éber Finn, and he seems to be content with what he has.”

  “Ah.” Amergin tore a bit of bread off the round loaf and touched it lightly to the salt. “There you have the whole problem with Éremón: he has never been content with what he has. He would take a bone out of the mouth of a starving hound.”

  “And bite the dog before it could bite him,” Sakkar added. The two men chuckled together.

  Turning serious, Amergin asked, “How about you, Sakkar? Are you content with what you have?”

  The former Phoenician sighed. “More than I ever dreamed possible. My red-haired woman…”

  While Sakkar described in fulsome detail the many charms of his red-haired woman, Amergin slipped Clarsah from her case and began to summon music from the soul of the harp, music to express the way a man could feel about a woman.

  A man who was not Sakkar; a woman whose hair was not red.

  Later he would unfold a blanket for Sakkar, and the two men would make their beds in the unfinished house, ready to work together in the morning. Until then, Sakkar would dream of Soorgeh’s daughter.

  And Amergin would dream.

  By the time Sakkar returned to Delginis, Amergin’s new roof gleamed with golden thatch.

  Odba was not dreaming. She was wide awake and extremely uncomfortable.

  In spite of his original inclination, Éremón had built a good house for her. On reflection, he realized that giving his first wife an inferior dwelling would make him look petty when he was trying hard to look like a king. Odba’s new house was within a short walk of the one Éremón shared with Taya—but so far he had never made that walk.

  Recently Odba had ventured out into an icy rain to pay a call of honor on Taya, who was swelling with child. Odba wanted to show Éremón how a woman of the chieftainly class should behave. Her noble gesture had resulted in a fever that was tormenting her now. Her head was pounding and her hearing had become preternaturally acute.

  She could hear faint but curiously disturbing noises outside.

  Éremón had taken a hunting party to spend several days in pursuit of wild boar. They had left men to guard the gates of the fort … but where were those guards now? And who was running across the ground inside the palisade?

  What caused the sound of timber smashing?

  Then Taya screamed.

  Odba forced herself to stand up. She swayed on her feet. The room was spinning around her. The two freeman’s wives who served as her attendants attempted to put her back in her bed, but she would not go.

  Taya screamed again.

  Odba shrugged off her attendants, grabbed a spear from the rac
k near the door, and staggered from the house. Her women followed her. They were more terrified of the punishment they would receive if they left her than of anything else.

  Dizzy, stumbling strides carried Odba across damp grass and packed earth to the house of the chieftain and his second wife. The wooden gate in the wall was smashed. The sturdy oak door of the house was standing ajar. Light from the fire on the hearth flooded the scene inside.

  Odba belonged to the chieftainly class; she refused to be afraid. Even when she saw Taya lying unconscious on the floor while a man in the clothing of the Fír Bolga was about to drive his engorged penis into her helpless body with brute force, Odba felt no fear. The courage that had enabled her to smuggle herself on board one of the galleys and follow her husband across the sea, even though she was unwanted, did not desert her now.

  Éremón had married Taya. This made Taya part of her clan. A chieftain’s wife understood these things.

  Odba hurled the spear with unerring accuracy.

  While their leader was in his death throes, the men who had accompanied him threw themselves on her.

  The hunting party returned to the fort tired but happy. Several days of skillful work with spear and javelin in the dense forests of Ierne had resulted in carts piled high with game; they were bringing enough meat to provide a sumptuous feast. Éremón expected a rapturous welcome from his clan.

  Instead, Amergin came out alone to meet him in a chariot ornamented with ravens’ feathers.

  The news the bard brought was more than his brother could comprehend at first. “They killed her? Who killed her, Amergin? That’s not possible. There must be some mistake. You say raiders killed my wife? I don’t believe it.” Stepping down from his chariot, Éremón walked in a small, erratic circle, like a boat without a rudder. Then he rested his hands on the side of Amergin’s chariot and looked up into the bard’s grave face. “They killed Taya?”

  “Taya and your unborn child are alive.” Amergin reassured him. “She was badly shaken, but she will recover.”