BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (23 page)

“It was too late, too late,” Gebann muttered at night over cups.

Cian kept to himself at the winter solstice, aching, blaming it on the damp cold that descended on this coast. He pretended the winter storms blew here after touching his Starwatcher island, as if the wind carried a trace of Boann. Spring equinox would follow the storms.

He must take his leave of their hospitality and this pleasant, busy harbor; and Gebann agreed. At an evening meal to say farewell, he looked into his cup of dark red brew. It smelled deliciously of berries and he complimented Gebann’s wife on its brewing. But deep within, he was concerned about the smith’s shuffling gait. Gebann had made arrangements for Cian to travel east but without him. Cian could see that the once-hearty smith might have made his last ocean voyage. He thanked the smith profusely for their journey together.

Cian did not want to further trouble his kind hosts. Yet something lingered with him, an idea forming under the sun and stars since he left Eire. He turned to Gebann’s gracious wife.

“Could I see one of your earrings?”

Surprised, she handed him the small gold disc. Its shining surface was minutely etched with sets of parallel lines dividing it into equal quadrant sections. Its design spoke to Cian of the four sacred directions under the sky’s dome. This disc held their knowledge passed through generations, Seafarers and Starwatchers alike and long before new ways troubled their coasts. This elegant little gold disc, etched with the four directions given from the sky, lit up Cian’s mind. Suddenly his restless dreams of the Starwatchers’ island and beautiful Boann and the firmament above them all, made perfect sense. He slept well that night for the first time in many lunates.

Surely Gebann knew where the sun metal could be found in Eire. On his final sunrise there, Cian induced Gebann to describe where he might look for gold if he made it back to the Starwatchers.

“Any sun metal I find might be useful to return Cliodhna to you. Lir would help. I promise on my own blood that I will inquire throughout my travels—even to the hall of mighty Taranis—so that you may look upon her face again.”

Gebann studied his hands wrapped around a blossom-shaped cup, one of hers. Cian knew: smiths were shamans, keepers of secrets. Gebann would not have volunteered to tell anyone his secret, a grand source of gold waiting in Eire.

At last the great smith spoke. “I am now like your father as well as hers, young Starwatcher, and you are like a son to me. Cliodhna is now your sister. I believe what you tell me. Look for the sun metal, and our Cliodhna. It is not likely that I shall return to your island, even if Elcmar himself comes here to take me. I will be waiting here in the sunlight of our home for Cliodhna.”

He retrieved a strong leather bag. From its contents, Gebann showed him types of rocks veined with gold, including the precious white quartz that signaled the sun metal might lie close at hand. Cian handled each rock to know its weight and texture, and they flaked off samples for him to carry. Gebann then scratched marks onto a thin stone plate. These etched stone plaques, the size of one’s hand, were used by the elite on this peninsula, and Gebann warned that this one would attract attention if it were found in Cian’s possession. Gebann’s marks on this plaque for Cian showed him where to look in the eastern mountains of the Starwatchers.

Gebann took him by the shoulders. “You’re traveling by water, Cian? More ocean voyages for you, is it?” and he threw back his dark head laughing.

“Isn’t that at least the third time I’ve been tempted to hit you,” Cian sputtered.

He departed from them before dusk, on his way to a small inlet where he could slip onto a boat that would take him east to Lir. Gebann struggled to walk to Cian’s horse and threw an unsteady arm around his shoulders. He presented the smith with a gift, a carved walking stick.

“Safe journey, my son!” Gebann called as he leaned on the oak staff, his wife at his side.

Cian saw with sorrow that the smith had been poisoned in his limbs. Surely it was from the many seasons this good man had spent hovering over caustic, smoking metals.

Winter’s shorter light and cold, foggy weather protected him. Cian met few other travelers while he steadily made his way back to the port where he first entered the mining peninsula. There he joined Lir but he dreaded another miserable crossing on the great waters. Despite Lir’s best efforts to come, the stars showed that it was still the season of storms.

Lir sensed his fear and advised before they set off, “We’re three times more likely to have strong winds and heavy seas than with a summer crossing. I did hand pick this crew, so. You’ll have to trust in me and the crew.”

Cian remembered the torment on his first crossing. Again on this voyage they spent eerie days and nights in deep fog, or bitter wind and tossing waves, when he was certain they had seen the last rising of the sun. Lir interrupted their passage several times at small islands where they rested among the people living there. He skirted along the coastline all the way up the arcing coast.

The Starwatcher kept patient and tried to hide his anxiety, and learned more navigation skills from Lir and the crew. He remarked how the north stars’ position slowly changed while they voyaged into northern waters. Cian discussed with the Seafarers how the constellations spiraled around the north stars. Aware of the Northshift, the mariners looked to his Starwatchers to solve the riddle, they told him.

He thought of Boann trapped inside the Invader walls. Had she continued starwatching? His stomach churned but he willed this boat to go faster, speed him through the enormous distance to reach her. He dreamed of gold, and of freeing Boann and his people.

They saw little sea traffic during these cold lunates. That was good, said Lir, for they had less risk of encountering traders or warriors, those who might relay a message to Elcmar. Lir pointed out in the distance, the deep mouth where mighty Taranis controlled the river trade. Then Lir eased his ship west along the jagged coast, west and then north. Ahead lay the sea channel with its hazardous open water they must cross for Eire. Lir stopped and they waited several sunrises for promising skies and smooth water.

The weather held as they cleared the northwest edge of the Continent, but not their luck. Somewhere Lir scraped too close to rocks. He cursed when he saw seawater gushing into the boat. Cian scrambled between rowers, grabbed a skin, and pressed it hard where the men told him. While he tried to stem the leak, they turned back toward the south coast, a smudge on the horizon.

Leather bags, pots, and desperate hands scooped water out of the boat. They looked for a likely stretch of shore to camp and make repairs. Water rose inside the boat and lapped at their ankles. They raced against the rising water to gain the shore.

Lir threw over the side a great portion of scrap metal, damaged axes and parts of ingots that he carried to trade, with no look back as his wealth sank beneath the waves. That bronze scrap could have gotten him another boat, or seasons of ease. Cian picked up his own bundles to throw them over, but Lir stopped him. “Not necessary, lad. Keep that skin hard in the gap.”

The sun’s light faded. They all squinted at the coast for a safe cove to land before dark. The men bailed and bailed, until at last Lir saw a suitable landing place. Exhausted, the crew dragged the boat onto the rough shore and collapsed.

Rescuers came out slowly from the woods, then approached with ease when Lir spoke assuredly to them. “We are Seafarers. Not invading, only foundering. We’ll need to fix our boat here.”

Their hosts brought the drenched mariners to shelter, to fires and dry robes and hot food.

For much of the next quarter moon, the crew and Lir completed repairs using wood and hides and then pitch. All wondered if this
naomhog
would be seaworthy again. They were stuck with it. Lir had this boat built to his specifications, he owned it, and Invaders knew nothing of it and could not claim it for their trade, not unless they caught him.

Ashamed

To see themselves in one year tamed.

From:
An Horation Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland
, Andrew Marvell c. 1650 AD

Changed Utterly

T
HE LUNATE OF
spring equinox arrived. On the equinox, under orders from Elcmar, Invader warriors hauled immense logs to the Starwatchers’ ritual places. Before the sun fully disappeared below the horizon, Invaders set the logs blazing. Great fires burned where the astronomers gathered, blinding them to the skies.

At
Bru na Boinne
the fire lit by the Invaders reddened the sky and angry warriors scattered the astronomers and villagers. Enraged, but unarmed, a few young Starwatchers threw stones as heavy as they could heft, but stones did not turn back Elcmar’s warriors. Warriors forced them to flee the mounds into the forest.

Invader bonfires burned through the night at the high places and ruined any starwatching at their most revered sites. It was devastating: the elders could not conduct the proper equinox observations nor make their blessing on the people. Neighboring Starwatchers could not share the important equinox.

This ceremony would have honored the spring, one of their four holy observances. They lost their hold on the Northshift, the sky was turning without them. This equinox also marked the first anniversary of the gruesome murder of Sheela. Twice, these Invaders committed an abomination on the spring equinox. The people dragged themselves in distress back to their homes.

At the next rising of the sun, they saw the Dagda’s carved stone macehead displayed high atop a yew pole outside his dwelling. The people gathered before it. The polished whorls resembled a face with open mouth, a silent scream. The Dagda’s macehead stayed aloft until the last rays of light, and the people laid herbs surrounding it. They sent runners to other Starwatcher villages—all the able-bodied were summoned to attend a Boyne council with the next dawn.

A hot sun rose, splitting the trees. The arriving Starwatchers walked the pattern of the cursus with its views of the silver-white river and their mounds. They met in open council with their elders. This council went on through two sunrises.

A few voiced caution, saying, “We do not have enough information from other Starwatchers. Did fires profane all their equinox skies?”

Gentle Airmid spoke up. “We all know how it was that Sheela died. The elders stayed our hand against the Invaders and see what has happened. We have not been able to honor Sheela’s bones, nor remember her properly on this equinox. Our tolerance of these intruders, they misperceive as submission. We avoid violence, but receive only more violence in return.”

Tadhg rose and spoke, then Cermait, and Daire; all said the time to fight these Invaders had surely arrived.

Older Starwatchers, Slainge and Tethra and others, listened then had their say. “The smell of death grows stronger than the bitter smoke from the intruders’ fires. We could annihilate these warriors, but it might cost many Starwatcher lives.”

A woman elder added, “Starwatchers have not made war for many generations.”

The people debated. Oghma, who suffered a stroke when he saw the terrible fires, sat upright as well as he could and listened with the elders to what his people wanted. Slainge raised the delicate issue of Boann’s safety with the infant Aengus inside the intruders’ walls. All knew that Boann would be frantic to come to Oghma’s side after the message telling her of his illness, yet she had not come. Elcmar held her trapped inside the high walls. No one offered a solution.

Oghma began to shake and he waved his good hand to Daire, who bent over him to hear what he said. Daire told the assembly, “Boann knows what she must do. She stands with us.”

The Starwatchers would give the marauding intruders an unmistakable reply. The Starwatchers dispersed to gather foodstuffs and water, they fed and penned their animals, then they returned to their hearths.

That night before the quarter moon set, their scouts kidnapped an Invader warrior. The scouts held him at a place apart from their village. They made sure that this man was not a captive Seafarer or one who was otherwise sympathetic to their cause. They gave the defiant warrior a light meal laced with a root extract, and he slept soundly on that first night. The next morning’s stirabout fed to him was also dosed with sleeping herbs. When this man had peacefully passed to the spirit world, the scouts lashed his body to one of the few remaining trees close to the intruders’ camp. The dead warrior was soon found by forest animals.

Invaders went looking for the source of a terrible howling coming from the woods at the edge of their camp. Instead they found the carcass, one of their own men.

The significance of finding their warrrior’s mauled remains was not lost on the Invaders: the Starwatchers openly challenged them. It was the first mutilation of a dead warrior by Starwatchers, although in fact animals had done that work.

Invaders crowded around the tree. One of them pointed just above their heads. There someone had carved a symbol: a figure of a woman with knees wide apart below a hag face, all chiseled clearly into the wood and highlighted with red ochre. Below its ghastly face, the figure’s arms reached below her legs holding her privates open. Warriors called Ith out to the tree to examine the carving. The carved face loomed almost the same size as the lower half of the body. Ith recoiled from the sight, the first depiction of the human form he had found on Eire. The warriors gathered up the remains and fled with Ith from the hag’s image.

Heavy cobbles rained on them from the woods, and Invaders narrowly escaped Starwatcher arrows in the clearing as they scrambled to safety across their plank bridge and inside their banked enclosure.

Boann returned from her stone by the cooking pits just when Ith and the warriors surged back into the camp with the body. Ith caught sight of her and rebuked her in his rasping voice, blaming her for the mutilated warrior. Angry Invaders surrounded her, but Elcmar’s tall figure appeared and at his shout the mob parted. Her head held high, Boann walked through the heckling Invaders and into the great hall. She shut herself in the sleeping chamber with Aengus close by her.

The Invaders stayed out of sight within their walls. Elcmar huddled with Ith in the great hall, examining what course they should take. Warriors clamored outside the hall for battle. Elcmar meant to contain the wildest Invaders, those who would retaliate against all quiet ones including Boann. To wear out the agitators, Ith and Elcmar encouraged drinking, nonstop drumming, and contests of strength. Over the next sunrises, shouts still issued against Boann from Maedb’s followers, scuffling outside the great hall.

The moon above the Boyne passed into its next quarter while the Invader camp feasted and fought. Spring was not a good time to be going hungry, nor to be slaughtering their few livestock.

Boann did not speak to anyone nor take solid food. Elcmar posted a guard at her door. The unbearable walls pressed closer upon her, trapped as she was.

She had told the elders not to spare her if ever they must act against the Invader camp.

What about Aengus? She regarded the infant tenderly. She sent away the middle-aged slave woman who cowered with her inside the chamber, out to find a wet nurse for Aengus. If she could not herself escape then that slave woman, or the wet nurse if courageous, must escape with Aengus. They could say they were taking him out for an airing or setting Dabilla free in the woods… She waited, feverish, listening to the drums and wild rabble outside.

The slave returned without the wet nurse. Instead she brought her a warm salmon. Boann sat up from her bed to smell it. This salmon was very fresh; it had the green scent of the stream north of her village. It seemed a miracle to see a salmon at all given the odd weather since Sheela’s death.

The Starwatchers had sent her a message, a question: are you still among us? This message was simply the moon’s exact shape on that night, carefully slit into the silvery layer of salmon skin. Daire had made this mark at Oghma’s direction, then wrapped the salmon in wet leaves and twine, and Tadhg managed to have it delivered; she was sure of all this. She must reply to her people.

Are the slaves free to come and go without harm? What if this woman betrays me? Unsure, Boann motioned the slave away from her side.

She pricked out one vertical line and a shorter line under Oghma’s moon sign, and retied the glistening fish in its covering. She turned to the slave. “This salmon has not sufficiently cooked.

Take it out and place it exactly where you found it.” The slave hesitated, then took up the bundled salmon and left the chamber again. The shouts rose outside the great hall. Aengus’ breathing changed and he whimpered.

Distraught by his hunger, Boann pulled at a fur covering on the bed, then saw that it had a morsel of salmon left on it. She chewed this bit of fish well and fed the mash to Aengus. His eyes widened and his lips clung to her finger for its salty taste.

“You shall have the Starwatcher knowledge,” Boann promised. She cradled him until he slept. She rose from her bed, ravenous, and at a thin gap in the chamber’s walls she drank in the moonlight. It would have to sustain her.

The slave woman slipped back into the chamber. “I found one slave who has milk,” the woman said and stroked little Aengus’ cheek. “She comes presently.”

Loud cursing sounded beyond the plank door, along with a familiar long stride. Elcmar charged into the bedchamber, berating Boann for sending away food, hand on the knife at his waist. He stopped short. She had the fever, the very same that killed many Starwatchers; she saw him flinch at the deep lavender shadows under her glazed eyes.

The slave hastened to show him Aengus, content and asleep with round pink cheeks.

Boann stood pressed against the wall, heavy hair falling around her shoulders. Let him see her pinched and pale face. She looked at Elcmar from a distance, from near the Otherworld.

“I won’t eat. It’s no food I will be taking!” She told him in her tongue, then his.

Elcmar took out a small dark stone carved like the hag on the tree.

She gasped. “Where did you get this? On Eire we do not make such carvings!”

“Never mind where I got it. What do you know of the hag?”

Boann raised her chin. “Oghma would not carve a living tree with your hag of destruction. Besides, he has taken ill. He could not.”

They glared at one another.

“You will bend to me, or I will break you. You, and all your people.” Elcmar grabbed Aengus from the slave’s arms and left the chamber.

The sentry waiting outside banged his halberd across the door.

The Seafarer slave told her, “I will fetch the wet nurse to take the child.” She pushed out past the sentry.

“Aengus,” Boann breathed the name, knees collapsing. “Save Aengus.” Then all went dark.

Tadhg retrieved the salmon and returned it to Oghma and the Starwatchers. They saw that Boann lived, for the time being, and Aengus.

At the Starwatcher village, no one could be certain who carved the hag into the tree. No one asked the next person, who has done this thing? The intruders’ fires had desecrated the equinox ceremony and their remembrance of Sheela. The Starwatchers did not need to speak of the hag. Someone had spoken for all of them.

They would resist the Invaders, starve them to death. Their scouts surrounded the Invader camp, day and night, and waited.

Inside the palisade, Elcmar posted his most reliable men to guard their scarce horses. The camp bled their remaining cattle to ration a drink of blood mixed with milk, then consumed the emaciated animals one by one, wasting nothing. The cooking pits went cold, with even the grease scraped out and eaten. The Invaders ate all of their cereals including their stored seeds. All the camp had was mare’s milk, fresh or boiled down to dry curds; and broth from beef bones. New cases of fever appeared.

It required both Ith and Elcmar, and their most loyal warriors, to subdue the famished agitators. Ith took care to silence Maedb, who complained loudly without offering any viable way to make peace. Bresal looked wolfish and desperate. The warriors bickered as they drew lots for who would have to venture outside their bank and clearing for food. The Invaders’ fears multiplied as they tried to predict what the war tactics of the quiet ones might be.

“No one will find gold if we are all dead.” Ith’s hoarse voice carried to Elcmar as they sat by a sparse fire in the hearth.