BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (16 page)

Bresal tried to ignore the aspersions about Boann’s child. Maedb’s incessant tongue was Connor’s problem, not his. But he did want the camp to be placid for Elcmar’s return which was surely imminent, around the solstice, though Bresal was not sure precisely when winter solstice would occur. It would not do for Boann to have gone missing, that much he knew.

The soaked warriors refused to bestir themselves to go looking for the
ard ri’s
wife, their bark-fiber rain capes and hats having disintegrated in this damp. The slaves claimed they didn’t know how to make more rain gear, and none went looking for suitable bark in the soggy forest.

Wet and grim darkness, and the thin peace between Starwatcher and Invader stretched to breaking. Horrified Starwatchers found spoiled carcasses of swans littering the Boyne marshland. Their revered swans, decimated. Starwatchers took swans just at the equinox and only a set portion from the total flock. The Invaders’ massacre of winter-sheltering swans was incomprehensible.

“Inexcusable!” The Dagda and the elders sent a scout to Bresal, demanding the groups meet at winter solstice.

Since Sheela’s untimely death, their village waited patiently, past the summer solstice and longer, after Boann’s marriage and then autumn equinox; but the council with Invaders had yet to happen. The Starwatchers were willing to meet with whomever the Invaders might send.

The rains continued, occasionally as sleet. Starwatcher hunters had to go farther afield to find game and fish than before the intruders’ camp. The elders worried that hunger would be upon them all before spring. To protect food supplies and water over three seasons until the next harvest, these intruders must cooperate, must act responsibly.

The Starwatchers’ grievances had been thoroughly discussed among themselves. Scouts determined the extent of felled trees and habitat loss along the river and surrounding the Invader camp. Dead swans, and plants and fish found poisoned, had been stored inside cairns, to show the Invaders if they denied their drastic impact. In the event a cold summer or heavy rains damaged the next harvest, then there was a real risk of starvation for all—especially if bad stewardship reduced the food available by foraging, fishing, and hunting. The densely encamped Invaders must change their ways if they wish to remain here, the hunters insisted and the herders agreed.

The most pressing issue was the Starwatchers’ personal safety, particularly of their women. Restrictions on all comings and goings since the murder of Sheela had been a great inconvenience. The people had lived freely on this island since before living memory. This last item, their liberty under the skies, they would not negotiate.

Bresal arrived by surprise with his Invader delegation. He meant to find Boann, and swept up to the village clearing with an armed party on stout horses. The Dagda’s lips pressed into a hard line as the intruders approached, and he pointed his red macehead toward the mounds. Scouts led the way. Bresal decided his warriors should dismount, but he misjudged the distance. It was a fair walk to the council oak for half-clad Invaders while leading skittish horses over grasses slick with frost. Bresal looked annoyed well before they arrived at the oak and more annoyed when he saw that the only seating provided was cattle hides placed over chill ground.

He spoke first without preamble. “Boann must return immediately to the Invader camp.” He watched as his translator told the quiet ones.

Elders turned to look at the Dagda and Tethra, who each acknowledged the shaman with a blink. They made no reply. Tadhg began to state their grievances.

Bresal waved a pudgy hand. “Quiet ones! We have not come to discuss these other things. The omens are—are ominous! You have observed the unusual skies, and the flooding rains and bad harvest. The gods are angry.” Bresal attempted eloquence, but these Starwatchers looked impassive. He pulled at his bronze neck piece from the Continent, and drummed his substantial thigh with a holly switch. To his translator, he muttered, “These people have not even offered us a beverage. How can we proceed without comforts, including a drink in hand? Sitting here in the open during winter—it could kill a man.” He tried a different approach.

“Maedb, esteemed wife of our Connor, raises concerns about the child carried by Boann, that this child should have proper attentions at birth and our protection, and the inheritance due to it. As befits its station in life. Our village must raise this child. That is, unless Boann wishes to state that this is not the child of Elcmar?”

His accusations puzzled the Starwatchers. Tadhg, dumbfounded, translated to the elders who broke into questions. Boann’s hips had deepened, that was so, but unobtrusively. She might be midway, or she might be in the final stages of pregnancy. Everyone knew a pregnancy lasted around ten lunates. Didn’t these Invaders know that much? It would be indecent to quiz Boann or speculate about the child’s father.

Did the intruder shaman refer to Boann’s practice of gathering herbs under the sun? Surely these intruders no longer believed, as in the oldest myths, that the sun could impregnate a woman. The Dagda signaled that Tadhg should reply. He looked for one of the women elders to explain things rather than him, but none did, so he continued speaking in the Invader tongue.

Tadhg said, “Yes, Boann is rising with the sun in the east.”

Bresal sneered at his attempt. “Are you saying that this Dagda fathered the child?”

Tadhg groaned inwardly. This Bresal mistook him, thought that he named their Lord of the Light, the Dagda. “I say only that it is a blessing for this child to come forth with light, with the returning sun and coming spring.” Tadhg spoke as if he were telling young children about basic and universal facts.

The Dagda chuckled, and the Dagda’s son Cermait sat beside him holding back laughter.

Tadhg tried again. “We Starwatchers do not understand any concern for whose child Boann carries. Our experienced midwives shall attend to this birth. For the duration, Boann is able to take exercise and she continues in her astronomy, weather permitting. She would be happy to receive Elcmar again, whether that is before or after the birth of this child. Everyone on this island can welcome the return of the sun and Boann’s child.”

Bresal’s interpreter whispered to him. A long pause followed. Bresal perceived that an abyss of differences between Invaders and Starwatchers threatened to swallow them all. Not only did their casual approach to this coming baby irritate him, but the arrogance of Boann in removing herself from the camp. He should have brought more warriors with him. He shook his head, frowning.

The scouts including Cermait took offense at the shaman Bresal’s pained expression. Children were a gift. Starwatchers did not glorify paternity, for them any such custom had receded like long-forgotten glaciers. They reckoned kinship using the mother’s line.

“Tell them we accept children in the natural course of things!” a woman elder urged. “This is the child of Boann.”

Scouts reached for wood pikes, warriors for gleaming long knives.

The elders urged Tadhg to press for an apology, and he saw Bresal’s sneer change to tentative, hesitant. The intruders were outnumbered here.

Rather than defend a situation that needed no defending, Tadhg said, “We take the marriage contract seriously, whether before or after the arrival of a child.” This time the shaman kept silent. He confronted Bresal to list the Starwatchers’ grievances and concluded, “Your numbers on this island are small but in a short time you have caused many changes.

“We live uncrowded and we live free. We, ourselves alone, we decide how this land shall be used!” Tadhg rose gracefully and raised his arms, the sun held between his hands.

“Our gods, if you will, travel the sky in observable patterns. They are neither pleased nor angered by us. These gods teach and we learn from them. Just as the sun gives light and wisdom freely to all, we have learned to be patient and tolerant of each other. We would like to exercise tolerance of you. But we must protect this island’s health in order that we and generations after us may enjoy life here.”

Bresal perked up at the hint of what he considered to be theology coming into their exchange. On the Continent, backward peoples could be tricked into fearing that the sun would not rise, not unless they did what Invaders demanded. He had himself used omens, colored smoke and twisted guts, to coerce such people. It might be possible to trick these self-assured Starwatchers out of their gold. Simpletons, worshiping the sun. He must tell Elcmar all about this discussion. He might even have their gold before Elcmar returned!—For now, sure wasn’t his own arse freezing; he shifted position.

Bresal said only, “We would be glad to observe the sun with you in order to understand each other better.” He heard sharp retorts from the Starwatcher elders that the man Tadhg did not repeat.

The groups agreed that Bresal with his chosen Invaders would attend the forthcoming solstice sunrise at the central starchamber. At the solstice when the sun began its return north, leading them all toward spring and renewal, the two groups would formally confer. Bresal insisted, signaling with stiff hands, and the Starwatchers promised him, that they would meet inside shelter warmed by a fire until they reached an accord. The shaman and the elders exchanged touch and flint tokens and promised again to meet in council. They would find their path toward co-existence on this island.

Boann remained out of sight, and that vexed Bresal long after his meeting with the Starwatcher elders. He had forgotten to demand Cliodhna’s return to the camp, and for that Bresal endured the wrath of Maedb.

The first dawn glowed red. The mariners saw it as they embarked from the southwest coast to voyage across the great water to Gebann’s homeland. They set out in a trim, large
currach
that had been commandeered by Elcmar, along with obtaining new finery for himself, from the trader who blew in late at the mining coast. That trader now rowed with the crew, grumbling, for Elcmar gave Lir charge of this voyage. By midsun following the red dawn, the sky hung low and black and horizontal rain drove the ship. Up and down on monstrous swells they rode.

Cian thought this
currach
would be blown off the huge white horses of waves carrying them to the Continent. Soon they might be forced to the ocean’s very depths. His stomach heaved.

Gebann stood laughing as Cian released violent seasickness into the salt spray and lashing rain. “Sure, at least you’re kind to the rowers. Grab on and keep leaning out over the side, lad, we don’t want that back on board.”

Cian felt too weak to be embarrassed. This ocean sickness overcame him worse than the worst of what he experienced after too much taken of the intruders’ brews. Elcmar, Gebann whispered to him, lay ill under the skin-tented area amidship.

If the
ard ri
is too sick to show himself, thought Cian, then I am keeping well to be standing.

The sleek barque, covered in hides but with a longer and higher profile than the currach in which Cian reached the mining peninsula, held more rowers. The mariners called it a
naomhog
. The vessel had more height above the water line by means of wood planks lashed along the top through holes lined up with cleats in the framing. Lir said the higher and more pointed ends, where the upper planks met, fortified the hull against the immense waves. Cian did not see how wood and skins might withstand waves like these, but this boat carried them through the storm. He woke, terrified to see nothing around them but open water.

“The currents shift with treachery in the narrow waters between Eire and first landfall,” said Lir, then added they had missed the first landfall due to the storm. Lir calmly watched the waves and wind, and sun and stars. Cian hardly slept, as if willing the vessel to stay afloat. They traced the strange coast of Big East, then the crew cheered to see familiar islets to the southeast.

Gebann said that Cian was getting his sealegs now. He told Cian stories about the peoples who inhabited these little islands near coasts. Most of them watched the skies and built small covered mounds, and since ancient times they ventured onto the sea and traded polished stone axes. Gebann quipped, “Look sharp and you might meet some distant cousins, Cian.”

The
naomhog
landed on one of these islets for fresh water and provisions. Cian eagerly left the rocking boat. It was then, upon landing, that he did not see Elcmar among the men leaving the boat. He turned to Gebann, who revealed that Elcmar was not on the ship.

“Elcmar has not come on this voyage.” Gebann swallowed, and crossed arms over his chest. “The champion desires to pursue gold before he returns to the Boyne. Understand, lad, I had to keep it from you. I have sent your man Sreng on to the Boyne ahead of Elcmar, for the good of Cliodhna.”