John looked quite surprised. Then he dropped her hand and struggled up. “I just thought. I forgot the needles.” He made repeated wry faces as he stood on his feet and peered around the floor of the chamber. “My bag. My bag, eh? Did anyone find—” There in the corner, where a monk had reverently placed it, was the leather satchel which John had carried for a thousand years and then a thousand years back. He felt through it and drew out a spine-broken cardboard box.
“Here, Ailesh. I brought this for your—whattacallit—marriage portion.” His voice softened as he added, “Your bridal cows.”
Ailesh took the box and walked to the door, for light. There within were the papers of needles, all shining, perfect, as numerous as the trees in a wood. And beside them dozens of spools of bright silk caught the afternoon sun.
“By the Powers, Eoin! This is astonishing wealth! I did not believe so many needles existed in the world!” Then her excitement went out.
“But there is no need, Eoin, my treasure. I offered myself to you. For your bed. I had not the effrontery to declare myself your bride! It is not for me to make a price in such circumstances.”
“Eh, Ailesh?” John’s eyes narrowed. “What’s this? You mean a little fun, but no—uh—commitment?” He threw in the English word, speaking with increasing bitterness. “I brought the needles from my home for you, because you were in trouble, and not with the thought of forcing you into something you don’t want…”
Staring without comprehension, Ailesh put the box down. “Eoin Ban, you have saved my life, and the lives of all in this monastery. What is this talk of forcing—”
“I don’t want your bloody gratitude, my maid, nor for another damn woman to sleep with me out of charity. The needles are for you, but as for the rest of this—”
Ailesh grabbed him about the neck. “Ow,” said John.
“Out of charity? Eoin, blessed Eoin, bright as sunlight, my dear craftmaster, I could slay her for that!”
“Slay who?” John’s headache added to his confusion.
“Derval Iníon Chadhain, if it was she who took your worth from you in this manner. Eoin, I say you can have me without cows—or needles. The honor of touching you is enough for me.”
“The honor of—” John’s incipient giggle died. The girl was on her knees before him. Slowly and with some pain he sank down beside her. “I’m sorry, love. I misunderstood you. I…I’ve never…”
John Thornburn took a breath. “Ailesh, Daughter of Goban (whom I wish I had known), you have the beauty of young Bridget, and the kindness of Iosha’s own mother. I have wanted you since I fed you sausage in my kitchen, that time which seems so long ago. I was thinking all the while you were too young to feel for me in return.”
“There was Derval,” said Ailesh in a small voice.
“There was, and good luck to her, Ailesh, but—”
“But she is here no longer,” the girl finished for him.
John kissed her on the lips. “I want to keep you, Ailesh. Take the bloody needles!”
All day long he heard singing, outside or echoing from under stone. He had a vague idea it was Easter. The garbagey drink was very potent. Derval was there once when he woke up. She pushed the hair from his eyes and said nothing. Snorri came in with a roast rabbit and tried to make him eat it. When John refused with great stubbornness, Snorri squatted down beside him and ate it himself. Ailesh chased him out.
Labres MacCullen came quietly in and sat by the wall for a long time. He was there at twilight, when John awoke for a few minutes, feeling better. The next day he was on his feet, walking stiffly as a man in a body cast. He remembered nothing after the bull. (He did not try very hard.) He walked slowly into the church, with a vague idea he would like to do something nice for God. The place was garlanded with flowers, and the numerous people sitting, standing, or sprawled on the stone floor all knelt down when he walked in.
He started to back out again, only to bump into Derval.
Her eyes were filled with a confidence close to triumph. “I remember the tune, Johnnie.”
He blinked at her and then flexed his fingers experimentally. “As long as I keep my mouth shut and don’t blow it for you.”
“Not worried about that at all, love.”
Ignoring the reverence surrounding him, John walked over to the tracing blood-stuck against the wall. It was half-concealed by gifts of flowers and early fruit. Did the red of its dye seem a trifle browned? He put his finger to the paper.
“It’s drying, Derval.”
She nodded. “We can’t wait. I’ll get Labres.” She turned and paused again. “You know he’s coming with us, Johnnie?”
John wrinkled his forehead. “Eh? Well, what about paradox.”
“Paradox can suck its own… I mean, it will take care of itself. He’s needed, Johnnie. He…he shared my bad dream.” When John continued to stare she explained, “We have our own reavers, in our world. Bridget said she would put the old into the new as well. How could we refuse that?”
“Such self-sacrifice.” John smiled a bit wryly, but added, “Much luck to both of you.”
“Should you be up, Eoin?” It was Ailesh’s voice. The girl stood in the light of the church door. She carried a basket of bloody bandages, for she had come from tending those few of MacImidel’s men who had come from the encounter alive.
Instead of answering, he asked, “Do you want to go back to my house, Ailesh? Labres is going, I’m told.”
She dropped the basket on the floor. “Back…back there? To the glass house? Away?” She put both hands to her face. “If you go, of course I will follow.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it.”
Ailesh gave John a lopsided smile.
“You don’t want to.” It was a statement. John nodded. “I thought so.”
He turned to Derval, grinning. “Two came; two will go back. I do wish you a lot of luck, Derval.” He sought reflexively in his shirt pocket for the pencils he’d left a thousand years away.
“You’re not going?” Derval’s mouth hung open.
“No.” Her expression made him grin even more broadly. “Oh, don’t worry. I can’t imagine it’s all hardship and bloody battles here. I expect it to be very quiet, and you know I like things quiet.”
‘But—but if I go back without you, it’ll look like I…”
John laughed outright, until the church echoed. “Scary thought, isn’t it? But they can’t convict you of murder without a body, you know. And besides—you can say we had a fight and I took a bus. It’s something I would do.”
The church darkened, and John turned to see Derval’s elephantine horse bend his head very low to step in, led by MacCullen. Had the doorway been an inch lower, the passage would have been impossible. Tinker sniffed the floral offerings and extended his head, greedily. Labres MacCullen, with a wondering, solemn expression on his face, glanced over at Derval and handed John a stylus.
“What about your king, Labres?” asked John, remembering about Domnall Cloen. He looked up at the big man.
Sorrow pinched MacCullen’s face. “Ocho, Eoin! My grief! But what can I do for Domnall any more, or he for me? Poor Leinster is torn by the dogs of many tribes, and her heart has ceased its beat in her. It may be that I am the last poet she will have as living nation!
“Yet the Powers have created me poet and my poetry is not yet written. Derval Iníon Cuhain has shown me what I must do.”
“Derval? I believe it!” Then John’s grin faded into something sweeter and more sad. “Take care of each other,” he said to them both. He went to the window, where light through the tracing blushed his face to rose. Derval came up beside him and touched her lips to his.
“I’m sorry I’m not a nicer person, Johnnie. I’ll miss you. May Bridget and the Son of Mary bless you and keep you all your days.” She spoke in the English none but the two of them understood.
“And all the same to you,” he answered, in his bad Irish.
Glossary
/> Awley: The way Olafr sounds to Gaelic speakers. The name of the king of Dublin.
Bhean: Woman, as in bhean shidhe-woman of the other world, or in bhean uasail-nobel woman. An honorific term.
Blood Egale: Horrible Norse sacrificial custom in which the victim’s back was cut open on either side of the spine and the lungs pulled out like wings.
Bo: Cow, as in Bo aire-cow-man, term for respectable man.
Bord na mona: The government peat bog agency in modern Ireland.
Brat: Cloak or blanket worn as outer garment in medieval Gaelic counties.
Brehon: Lawyer or arbitrator in old Ireland.
Cailleach: Old woman, hag, mighty, old woman.
Caoruheacht: Cattle skill, knowledge of the herds.
Clàirseach: Triangular frame harp with metallic wire strings, used all over Europe in the Middle Ages, believed to have been important in Ireland by 800 a.d.
Coibce: Marriage portion of women.
Cotun: Cloth armor, stiffened with pitch or other substance, often padded or many layered. Worn all through early medieval period.
Craic: Fun, a good time with friends.
Cruit: Rectangular flat-box lyre, like Saxon rote or crotta.
Cuisleen: Early Irish whistles or reed pipes. Examples from excavation in Dublin resemble English tabor pipe.
Dean deifer: Make haste!
Dia Linn!: God be with us.
Dirb fine: Kin group based on common great-grandfather.
Duan uasail: Noble person. Term of respect.
Effing: Modern Dublin slang, euphemism for stronger four-letter word.
Fine: Kin group of any size.
Ful-ya, Ful-ya: Onomonopoetic cattle-soothing vocables from west coast of Ireland, especially the Connemara district.
Gaese: Personal taboo.
Gaill: Stranger, term of derogation meaning “foreigner.”
Gardai: The police in modern Ireland.
Inion: Or Ni, daughter of. An honorific title.
Inuit: The true people. The name the Eskimos call themselves.
Léinne: Shirt of linen or silk (though that was less common, silk being an imported luxury). This shirt was generally dyed a bright color, and was ankle length when not kilted up for work. It seems to have been sleeveless at an earlier period, but in the tenth century a.d. it usually had wide, long sleeves. Much later on, in the Renaissance, the sleeves became enormous bags.
Mac: Son of: Honorific title, normally preceeding the father’s name.
Mether: Three- or four-sided, carved, wooden drinking vessel, often with several handles.
Mumhan: The kingdom of Munster, one of four major political and ritual divisions of Ireland’s territory.
Ollave, Ollam: Professor, doctor of poetry and literature, unless otherwise specified in the story.
Pitis!: Gaelic explicative, meaning vulva, but not an obscenity. There are no obscene words, in the English sense, in Gaelic.
Sheelta: The language of the Tinkers, the traveling people of Ireland.
Shiun: Sister.
Slua: Host. A massing of people or beings of any kind.
Tain Bo Cualighne: The Cattle Raid of Cooley, oldest known epic poem in Irish literature. Probably contains elements from Bronze Age.
Taraigeacht: War party or, more specifically, cattle-raiding and reraiding party. Very little loss of life is believed to occurred during the course of these actions.
Timpan: Bowed lyre with any number of sympathetic strings, which were struck with the player’s thumbnail while bowing.
Taoiseach: War chieftan.
Rafted: (Newfi) In bad shape, angry.
Ramlatch: Total absurdity, bullshit (Newfi).
Righ: King, royal.
Ui: The people of. Indicates very large kin group.
Uillinn pipes: Literally, elbow pipes, the national bagpipe of Ireland. Developed in eighteenth century, probably from the Northumbrian Half Long pipes, of Northeast England. There are close to 200 different bagpipes in Europe alone, with many others in the Arab countries. They are believed to have originated in classical times, in the Mediterranian area.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1985 by R.A. MacAvoy
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0285-4
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Book of Kells Page 39