No one greeted him as he walked into the village itself, carrying the Cauldron as he passed the first house. His feet scuffed the dirt into tortured patterns; in the swirls and drags lurked the memories of Macha and Roth, and then more sensual memories of two women, one who had taken his virginity in devotion to a Goddess he hadn't understood, not properly, the other who had cost him his place in the clan.
There was no point in pretending that he had not thought about Niamh; her face blazed brighter than any other memory of this place - save one, and that memory was one he was not prepared to let rise, not yet. But it was there, ever-present. He turned and looked back over his shoulder, to where he had tethered the Knucker, just below the rise where he had stood with the maiden, flowers in her hair, and watched his home burn beneath the wrath of the skull swords.
And he could feel the presence that dwelt within the earth, that fed the spirit of the nemeton and that made him whole. It swirled about through the dust and the dirt, rising into his skin, up through his bones. It sang like some vampiric lover through his veins.
He saw a lone crow in the white of the clouds, climbing, soaring, wings outstretched as it rose only to fold back its wings and plummet like a stone a moment later, swooping down on some unseen vermin.
Sláine shielded his eyes against the sun.
The crow rose into the sky once more, a vole between its sharp claws. Its beak tore at the tiny creature, unpicking its fur and flesh to get at its innards. The naked savagery of the bird on the hunt was as shocking as any kill Sláine had ever witnessed, but there was something comforting to it as well. Nature maintained her own balance. The crow was not evil despite the fact that it fed on the helpless rodent. That was their relationship in the chain of life. The predator fed on the prey.
Sláine saw the vole fall before the crow was half-way over the pasture.
It was peculiar; he could not remember ever seeing a bird eat on the wing before. Normally they landed, devoting themselves to the feast.
He carried on deeper into the village, Ukko walking quietly at his side. The little dwarf's eyes darted everywhere at once.
"You call this civilisation, big man?"
And that was exactly what it was, of course. There was order to Murias, from the common-sense demands that had dictated its layout, the mill beside the river where the currents could turn the millstones, grinding the corn, the silos and barns close to the mill, and so on. Settlements developed a life of their own as they grew from those first few dwellings into villages and towns. Practicalities of distance located the bakers and tanners near the water, and the long house close to the town square, the inn, in turn, close to the long house. The funeral grounds, burial mounds and nemeton lay along sacred geometries, ancient ley lines of power that traversed the Goddess's flesh. One of the duties of Cathbad, the archdruid, was to walk the lines finding favourable locations for the construction of the new buildings, though Sláine had never understood how one piece of dirt could be more blessed than another - they were all a part of Danu, after all. If one piece of earth was sacred, surely all the earth was? That disparity in value had always puzzled the young Sessair. Dian had never managed to explain it in a way that made any sense. Even now, with the draw of the Earth Serpent pulling on his blood, the only difference between Sourland and the good rich soil of the Goddess was how it had been treated by man.
"Just keep out of mischief, dwarf," he said, knowing the chances of that happening were negligible.
"Like I ever go looking for trouble," Ukko said, defensively.
"I mean it, Ukko. I must present myself before the Spiral Council, and beg the forgiveness of my king. I do not want to have to be worrying about the Goddess alone knows what you might be up to while my back is turned."
"You can trust me, Sláine."
"There's something ironic about the word trust issuing from your lips, dwarf," said Sláine. He saw a familiar face peering through one of the windows: the daughter of the Goddess, Brighid. He offered her a smile but the curtain fell back covering her face before he could wave. He wanted to believe that the woman did not recognise him but he knew in his heart he had not changed so much no matter how much time had passed since he went away. "Just keep out of trouble. I will find you later. I don't want it to be in the square buckled into the pillory."
"I'll make you proud," Ukko said, his grin saying so much more, before he scurried off.
Sláine stood there a moment longer, taking the opportunity to absorb all of the ghosts this place harboured. He had never thought to return, not in truth. He looked down at the Cauldron, wondering if it truly was enough to stay his execution. And then he remembered the slack-hide cows in the stockade. Sláine took the path that led into the heart of Murias. With each step the reality of his exile became more and more substantial. The last time he had walked these streets he had been a proud warrior, one of the Red Branch, this time he was little more than a wandering vagabond sunk so low his only friend was a backstabbing mealy-mouthed cutpurse with delusions of... well, delusions.
A dozen people milled in the town square. They didn't have an ounce of spare flesh between them. A mongrel pawed at the remains of its own white dung. They had no interest in Sláine. Two of the men, he saw, had been disfigured, their noses carved clean off. From a distance they appeared to have been flayed, but that was a distortion of their weathered skin on desiccating bones. These were not the same proud people he had left. What had only just begun to affect the land afflicted them far worse. Their souls were sour.
All trepidation that he had felt upon entering Murias left then, as he met the eyes of his friend, Dian, leaning on a crude crutch fashioned from a length of rowan. It took the weight from his malformed leg. A latticework of crude scars cut across the sunburnt skin. He almost hadn't recognised him, the man he had become bore so little relation to the boy he had been. There was pain behind his eyes. For a moment there was no recognition, then Dian's face split into a warm - almost desperate - smile, and in that smile Sláine saw the shadow of the boy rise up to overwhelm the pain for just a moment. And then he moved, the crutch dragging in the dirt, and the pain came back with a vengeance.
Sláine wrapped his friend in a fierce embrace, heart-sick when the young druid pulled back, wincing. Sláine held Dian at arm's length, looking from his face to his emaciated chest marked with tribal tattoos akin to Myrrdin's, and finally down at his ruined leg.
"It wasn't so long ago we were running across the fells to Lug's Spike, was it?" Dian said, shaking his head at the memory.
"I am through running, my friend," Sláine said.
"As am I. Damn but it is good to see you, man. Are you back for good?"
"Or ill," said Sláine. "It's good to see a friendly face, Dian. Few others will welcome me home with open arms, even if the king does."
"A lot of water's run under that old bridge, Sláine. Murias isn't the village it was back when Grudnew was king. Few even remember your shame, I am sure."
"You never were a good liar," said Sláine. "Speaking of shame, is she here? I think I need to apologise. Perhaps I can do that before I go in there." He inclined his head towards the thick timbered door of the long house. It had been barely more than a skeleton of wattle framework and half-dug foundations when they had snuck in at night to hide those supposedly ancient texts. He half-smiled at the memory and in that moment he was homesick for the home he had never had.
That ghost of pain flittered behind Dian's eyes again. "It's too late for that. Niamh left months ago." He looked left, and surreptitiously, right, to be sure no one was close enough to eavesdrop. "She was driven out by our beloved king's new woman."
"Do you know where she went?"
Dian shrugged his shoulders.
"Away, anywhere but here. She wasn't welcome, Sláine, in no small part because of you. Grudnew didn't want her around to remind him of his cuckolding, and when he was gone Kilian Ragall wanted her, it seemed, to spite the old king. His pursuit was relentless. The man di
d not like that he could not have what he wanted, but then he fell for Megrim and there was no place for a twice-spurned woman like Niamh. And for obvious reasons Megrim didn't want her within a hundred leagues of her man."
Kilian Ragall was a name he had not thought about in a long time. "Ragall became king?"
"It was not our finest hour," Dian admitted.
Sláine remembered Ragall's bitterness when Grudnew had taken the oath to be the Sun King, pledging himself as Danu's husband. That promise to be the mountain and the river still rung in Sláine's mind, it summed up so much of what it meant to be Sessair. What made no sense was that somehow a weak and vainglorious man like Kilian Ragall had risen to the kingship. Was he the druids's puppet or was he his own man? Sláine wondered.
"So much has changed, Dian. I hardly recognise the place. It all seems so much... smaller."
"You remember things with the eyes of a child, now you are a man. It is no surprise you see limitations where once you saw possibilities."
"Soth! You've spent too much time with that old faker, Cathbad. You're even starting to sound like him."
"I know you don't believe me, but he's a good man, Sláine. No matter what we thought when we were children, I know the man now. He isn't the sanctimonious prig we delighted in tormenting. Well, he is," Dian conceded, "but he is also a font of wisdom worth drinking from. Believe me, he never does anything without the clan's best interests foremost in mind and deed."
"Perhaps. Come, walk with me, my friend, I would hear stories of my home, but first I must present myself to the Spiral Council and throw myself on the mercy of a damn fool and a charlatan."
They walked to the long house together, Dian recounting years of privation and hardship. The blight stretched deep into the Land of the Young. Over the last six months the farthest fields had begun to sour, the crop lost. He talked of the spate of suicides that had stricken the village as hope gave way to despair as the famine took hold. It pained Sláine to listen. Instinctively he clutched the strap of his sack tighter, as though he could draw assurance from the book inside it. In his daydreams he also returned the conquering hero, triumphant, vanquishing the Drunes and their poisonous skull swords, and reclaiming Tir-Nan-Og for the Tuatha de Dannan. It was a good dream. Standing before the doors of the long house the reality was all too apparent.
He hammered three times on the huge timber doors and pushed them open, stepping forwards to stand in the doorway as light streamed into the enormous hall from behind him, bathing him in shadow. More light spilled in through the wide oculus in the centre of the ceiling, an eye onto the sky. Motes of dust twinkled and glittered as they danced their lazy reel in the air. The elders were sat on rows of benches tiered in a circle around the oculus. Kilian Ragall sat sprawled out on a low throne, furs draped over his shoulders, hollow eyes staring at the silhouette in the doorway.
Sláine did not move.
He looked from face to face around the circle, knowing that the shadows masked his identity and enjoying - and at the same time despising - the looks of fear that greeted him. He recognised Cuinn, his brother Ansgar, Orin and Phelan among others. They had stood against Grudnew for the right to rule, and now they bent the knee to Ragall. In another life his father would have been sat amongst them. These men were warriors of the Red Branch. They were fearless, the elite, the heart of the Sessair. They feared nothing - except, it seemed, shadows...
Ragall stiffed. "Who dares enter our council uninvited? Step out of the shadows, coward." It was all bluster, Sláine knew. Fear tinged the man's voice, belittling the power he pretended. It was no surprise that the spine had been ripped out of the Red Branch. Their king had lost the two things he had sworn to uphold; to have the bearing of the mountain and the relentless nature of the stream, carrying the clan forwards into the sea of tomorrow.
Sláine threw down his pack and stepped forwards into the light, standing proud, defiant. "I do. You might remember me, my king, I am Sláine son of Roth and Macha. I am son of the Sessair. I am," and he let the word hang in the air, "returned."
"Sláine Mac Roth..." Ragall said slowly, each word rolling off his tongue as though laced with venom. "Did you think to beg for my mercy? Your father was a drunk, your mother a whore and you, whelp, were never anything more than a freak. As far as I am concerned there is no forgiveness here and there never can be. Your exile stands, as does your punishment. If I remember rightly, boy, Grudnew promised death if you ever dared set foot in our land. That has not changed just because the old man has joined with Danu. I am the Sun King, just as he was, were, are, immortal, eternal, his spirit flows in my veins, his wrath is my wrath, his vengeance will be mine. You will not walk out of this place."
"Quiet, Ragall, your wind smells just as bad coming out of your mouth as it does your arse." That one line spoken from the shadows beyond the oculus was enough to deflate the man who called himself king. Sláine did not recognise the speaker, nor did he need to. The absolute confidence of their tone told him all he needed to know. Ragall was their puppet. Sláine saw the druid Cathbad lurking at the back of the chamber, wringing his hands together as he worried over something. The oddness of the gesture struck Sláine as telling. More peculiar though was the slight smile and the single nod the old man gave him when they made eye contact. The druid had denied his king, Sláine realised, wondering what the significance of it might be.
"I am king," Ragall said, though in truth it sounded no more assertive than a petulant whine. "I will not be chastised in my own house."
Another voice spoke up, heavy with irony. "Did you feed us this year, oh great Sun King?"
Another, cold, callous: "Did you nourish the fields with your blood? Wasn't that your promise?"
"No," the man Sláine recognised as Ansgar said, rising to his feet, "you went and begged the skull swords for food, you pleaded, unmanning yourself until they offered you a pax - but what kind of peace was it, oh mighty king? A pax my arse. It's a pox!"
And another: "We were warriors, Ragall. Have you forgotten? Our strength is our strength. All around us our children starve, our cattle die and our lands are ravaged by blight brought on by this menace from the south. Yet do we ride out? No. Do we take the fight to this creeping death?"
"No we do not!" several voices chorused. Feet stamped. Palms banged on the wooden rails beside the benches.
"No," the Sessair warrior went on, "instead they mock our hunger with their diseased feeding pits filled to overflowing with rotten carcasses and ruined vegetables claimed as taxes, cut the noses from those too poor to pay their tithe, and still the Red Branch sits impotent. We are warriors, man. We should not bend the knee to anyone."
Still Sláine did not move. He watched Kilian Ragall's face as each barb struck home, and then, like the most fearsome of gae bolga, was wrenched free of his body leaving him to writhe beneath the pain of their accusations.
"And yet you refuse my plea, leaving me to play the king, so I play the king for you," Ragall said, lurching to his feet. The fur fell from his shoulder. "This is your choice, council, though I see no wisdom in it. The king and the land are one, the land is dying, I have begged, I have pleaded, I have humiliated myself at the feet of the enemy, and it makes no difference, so let me die with it. Allow me to merge with the Goddess, leave it to a better man to make the sun shine once more. I am tired of this life. I am beaten, everything you say is true."
It was Cathbad who spoke, the old man's frailty belied by the shadows as he moved through them to stand in the light. "No, Kilian Ragall. Your life is not your own. You are Sun King and as such your life belongs to Danu, the Goddess, mother of the earth. You will serve as husband until the time for your death; a time of her choosing not yours. You will honour your oath. You will be the mountain, you will be the river. You will lead us and together we will cut out the canker that grows in our midst. You must show your strength. The man before you is a warrior and, now, more than ever, we need warriors. It is in your power, king, to end his exile. Welcome the
prodigal son of the Sessair home."
Ragall's face twisted in a brutish sneer as he pushed back his throne, toppling it in his anger. "There is a stench in this place, old man. So be it, you want a king? I will be your king!" his voice rose, his face reddening to match his fury. "Listen to my last command! Let the freak's exile be over! He is a fighter so let him fight! Let the freak become our monster! Let him run at the front of the Red Branch driving those tiny mortals away as his body rips itself apart in its wrath. Let him rain down his vengeance upon the bastards that threaten our land! Isn't that what you want? I hear your whispers; you look at him now and think why can't Kilian Ragall be more like that?" Ragall raged, a failed man aware of his inadequacies. His self-loathing was as real as any malady, lurking deep inside him, eating away at him, unseen, unfathomable. His voice rose once more, in a fervour: "I am worthless, but he, he is blessed by the Goddess! So that is my command, look to the freak for leadership! Let the enemy cower before his monstrosity! Hark! I am greatest amongst you! I am the soul of the Sessair! As your king I have spoken, hear my judgement. The exile of Sláine Mac Roth is over. Welcome the bastard back home! It even looks as though he has brought gifts to buy your forgiveness, perhaps they will sooth your consciences into forgetting about Grudnew's shaming," Ragall stepped down from the first row of tiered seats, his face ugly with bitterness. He pushed past Sláine, leaving the circle of light. In the umbra he turned and said coldly, "just keep him away from your women."
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