BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (21 page)

She dodged the new advisor Ith, no matter how he tried to flatter her. Ith sidled close to her at feasts, or while she potted herb seeds in a sheltered sunny space beside the great hall. To her ears, his words came out hissing like releasing bad air from a bloated sheep.

“You could become a celebrity with us, Boann! A woman of status. Just like Maedb.”

No, never like Maedb. Not a’tall like that woman
. She gave him a cold shoulder.

“These passage mounds surpass anything I have seen, even the famed stone circle on the Big Isle. You Starwatchers cover your great stones with carvings! We must discuss these carvings soon.” He hovered, almost whispering.

Distressed that this shaman had set foot at their sanctified mounds, Boann forced a smile and replied, changing the subject. She saw that unlike Bresal, Ith had a mind sharp as a dagger.

Despite rebuffs from Boann, Ith pursued the Starwatcher knowledge. During sunlight, he tried to decipher the kerbstones’ carved symbols. He aspired to learn their astronomy secrets as much as Elcmar desired to find gold. He had seen megaliths along the Seafarer peninsula and he saw megaliths on the Continent’s northern edges that piqued his interest. He found more mounds on these islands. All these tribes who build mounds know something weighty about the skies, he surmised, and at this
Bru na Boinne
complex their observations carry on day and night. These quiet ones organize their lives completely around the starwatching, they revere their astronomers: why, he wondered, what indeed happens here at midwinter solstice.

“We have only to overcome their elders in order for us to gain ascendancy on Eire. Elcmar has done well to camp here at their power center,” he told the pouting Bresal.

Ith tried to glean from Bresal what occurred at the solstice, an event so impressive that the warriors who were there swore that these quiet ones captured the full moon with the Bright Star inside their central mound. Soon after arriving, he had a sit-down with Bresal over an array of drinking cups in his cramped hut littered with animal bones, feathers, and mushrooms. Ith brought his long face close to Bresal’s.

“Howyeh—” Bresal giggled and drew back. But at Ith’s insistence, he fatuously described his sessions with Boann during the moons leading up to the Night of the Dead. “That was before Boann fled from the camp. I never laid a hand on her!” he added.

Ith tried not to sneer. “Bresal, we are shamans. We are guardians of the holy festivals, we Invaders who keep track of the moon. We count from the last light, that is to say, from nightfall as the beginning of a new day. For us the day is measured from darkness to darkness. Surely you have seen that our concept of time differs from that of the Starwatchers?”

Bresal flushed and his hand shook in raising his cup.

“Our Invader year begins at the festival we call the Night of the Dead, when the sun is leaving us. Would it be safe to say that Boann knows this much about our counting of time?”

Bresal nodded. Then, he shrugged.

Ith cajoled him. “That’s fine. Our Invader time, our day, month, and year, begin with and are defined by darkness. We divide a lunate by the moon’s phases into halves, a dark fortnight and a bright fortnight. Our system gives a year of thirteen moons, more or less.

“But we must adjust our count to keep up with the sun. Since we rarely linger in one place, we don’t record each rising of the sun. Yet we see that these Starwatchers go to great lengths to observe the sun’s exact path, and that of the moon. Every nightfall and every daylight. Can you think of anything a’tall since you’ve been on this island, anything these Starwatchers know or use, that could help us in counting time?”

Ith examined Bresal’s full moon of a face. It reflected light but gave no heat of knowledge from within, not on this subject anyway. Clearly, your man had not used his time with Boann to learn how these Starwatchers could accurately track solstices and equinoxes, much less the stars. If indeed they can do so, Ith wondered.

Slowly the sunrise moved north on the horizon. Invaders raiding cattle met new resistance and serious injuries occurred to men on each side, Starwatchers and Invaders. Smelters used copper ingots from the Lake mine, acrid smoke filled the walled camp, and more long knives and halberd points hung in the great hall. Boann suggested that it was a mistake to not hold a council of the Starwatchers with Invaders, but her opinion merited Elcmar’s harshest glare. She refrained from open comment to him when others were present in the great hall.

Cian, said to have journeyed to the Continent, had not returned to the Boyne. Boann inquired about this voyage from slaves who might know about the Seafarers’ coasts, but she gathered little and the questions gnawed at her.

She felt Elcmar’s anger simmering just below his tight surface as he supervised the camp. His temper flared occasionally, but he kept it in check when holding little Aengus. Elcmar searched for the sun metal, with added pressure on him from Taranis’ men and the new shaman Ith. He sent three warriors south to the mountains to seek the stream bearing gold, but those men did not return. Elcmar kept silent about this loss but she knew that he could not spare those warriors.

It was still the season of storms and no boats arrived. Boann waited for news of Cliodhna, and Cian.

Ith caught Bresal fondling the slave Muirgen in a fiber drying shed, and with contempt dismissed Bresal on the spot and in the young slave’s presence. Ith then avidly questioned the girl. He allowed Muirgen to be seated while he asked her about herself—and Boann. Cowering before him but openly glad to be rid of Bresal for the moment, she told him enough to make herself appear useful. When he recruited her to befriend and watch over Boann, Muirgen readily agreed.

Rumors in the camp to explain Aengus’ mysterious birth while Elcmar journeyed, had it that these Starwatchers stopped the sun. Ith viewed that as nonsense, but he repeatedly circled their high mounds and examined their odd carvings.
What do they mean by the Red Eye Of All Knowledge? Have these Starwatchers discovered a way to meddle with time?
He entertained that idea. No people had a system that accommodated the moon with the sun’s annual cycle. Time was a fluid concept and each tribe known to Ith used a different method to fix a date. Mistakes, delays, and misunderstandings resulted; these disrupted trading. An accurate calendar followed by all tribes would give a shaman, namely him, dizzying heights of power. If he gained control over such knowledge, over time itself, for him it would be a better discovery than gold. He could appear to control the sun and moon and possibly the stars, he could coordinate the whole cosmos!

He would invent a religion that went beyond mundane matters of when to plant and when to cross the ocean. The Invaders could conquer the world with Ith’s powerful new creed. That is, as soon as he figured out from the Starwatchers what that new creed would be.

He tried several more times to ingratiate himself with Boann. She engaged him as well as she could converse—and her command of their tongue improved rapidly—but still she told him nothing meaningful, nothing useful about her people’s starwatching. He sought Elcmar for his aid with breaking down Boann.

“Can we learn the Starwatcher knowledge from clever Boann? If so, I have arrived here at a propitious time. Perhaps you were wise to marry this little Starwatcher.”

The champion looked preoccupied. “Connor has not returned nor sent any metals from the north. My few Invaders camped here along the Boyne do not have time enough to search for gold. Particularly if we indulge ourselves nonstop in astronomy.”

Ith clasped his hands behind his back and had his say. “These Starwatchers put extreme effort into building and maintaining their high mounds. These mounds hold more than burials, to be sure; the quiet ones attend at their mounds every sunrise and sunset. We should find out the meaning in this, their practices, their astronomy. It could be very valuable to us especially for trade.”

“And Bresal tells me there is no gold inside or out of these mounds. He claims that the quiet ones fail in their sorcery with the skies. Somehow, these natives’ simple ways need to be redirected. Can they ever be made to produce a surplus of anything for our trade?” Elcmar added, “Taranis wants payment and he won’t wait long. There are harsh ways to make these Starwatchers work for us, but so far we have spared them. If they spent less time at their mounds and more with cattle and crops, then…” His eyes bored into Ith.

“They do produce a surplus of babies,” Ith said. The
ard ri
scowled at him. He spread his hands wide to show he had nothing to hide from Elcmar. “You know that I do not agree with putting a
geis
on their mounds. I would prefer us to be more subtle in order to learn their skywatching secrets. But we can try banning use of the mounds, as you say.” He could spend more time studying the detailed carvings if the quiet ones no longer could gather at their mounds.

They shared the objective of dominating the Starwatchers, and the two men agreed that the slave Muirgen may prove useful toward that end. Elcmar and Ith kept a close eye on Muirgen.

The lambing time drew near, and this moon brought a feasting time for the Invaders, Boann learned from Muirgen. For Boann it brought the crossquarter starwatch between solstice and equinox. She practiced speaking to sound both submissive and determined, in private with Dabilla, who licked her face with friendly joy no matter what. Then she approached Elcmar about her attendance at the mound ceremony.

He was firm, dismissive, with her. “There won’t be any ceremony for Starwatchers to attend. You and I discussed this when I returned to the Boyne—don’t you remember, Boann?”

The same words she had used with him when they fought. Undeterred, she devised a way to attend the starwatch. Slipping away was much more difficult than before, when she left the disorganized camp as Bresal prepared to glorify darkness and she shuddered to recall his oration about their Night of the Dead. She was again determined to slip out of these walls. Thinking of the slave who admirably protected little Aengus from Maedb so far, Boann thought to bring Muirgen with her. The pretext would be gathering whatever hazelnuts remained in the woods along the river. The nights were still long and the sun would set early. She could hurry back from the mounds, back to the camp for the Invader feast that would not begin until full darkness. She was certain that her plan would succeed.

That morning of the crossquarter, Boann came upon Elcmar while he was inspecting a young warrior. He barely turned his head during her speech.

“I and the slave Muirgen shall leave the camp after midsun to gather hazelnuts. Surely you see that our food supplies are short due to the rains during the late harvest?” He seemed indifferent to her excuse to leave the camp. Soon a sentry took her and the slave girl to the plank bridge and let them go off on their own.

They walked to the northwest, Boann thinking along the way that Elcmar had taken a natural interest in Muirgen. Boann had pointed out Muirgen to him as being quick, and protective of Aengus. She was pleased that Elcmar would show an interest in anyone other than his warriors and his new shaman from the Continent. This slave girl deserved a better life.

With Muirgen’s help, she filled two large netted shoulder slings of the nuts that remained in a hazelwood stand. “We’ll have to see if winter frosts have ruined these nuts,” she told Muirgen. The nuts they cracked open looked edible. Muirgen cast the meat of one hazelnut into the stream for thanksgiving, and Boann nodded approval. She held up a hazel rod to check the sun’s angle, then turned to the girl.

“We go beyond the hazel trees now. We shall have to go quickly,” and the two skimmed through the forest to the distant mounds. Boann’s mass of auburn hair swung and caught in twigs along their way and Muirgen offered to braid her hair. Though short of breath, she declined. “We must hurry. The observation is more important than how anyone looks.”

As they entered the clearing at the mound, Boann saw that there would indeed be a starwatch, albeit by a small group. Only a few astronomers stood watching while the sun met the western horizon. Perhaps the others in her village feared another attack with horses. Her blood pulsing, she joined them in her robe lined with swan feathers and looked with Daire at certain constellations, checking notches in stone and bone against the early evening stars.

Immediately after their observations finished, signal torches were lit and then quickly extinguished. No large signal fire had been laid so as to avoid arousing the intruder camp. The astronomers saw with gratitude the signal fires lit at surrounding high places by other Starwatchers.

In the twilight no one saw the distant retreating figure of Ith as he slipped from behind an outcropping and returned to the Invader camp.

Boann had but little time to talk with an elder or two, then she departed.

On their way back to the camp, Muirgen uttered the Starwatchers’ name for their ceremony and Boann found that the slave knew it fell between solstice and equinox.

The girl had been quiet and respectful at the mounds. Boann wondered if Muirgen understood their reverent observance. The signal fires coordinated the starwatching effort all over the island. The fires were lit in a series, outward from one high place to the others. These ritual fires confirmed the amazing events seen in the sky to all the people on their island. It had been done in this way for centuries, since they began building mounds as observatories. Their signal fires bound the people to the sky and to each other.