BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (5 page)

Before he could answer, the Dagda calmed the elders, saying, “Cian has returned with this sunrise and we shall hear him.” The Dagda added dry twigs to the coals in a warming pot.

A murmur of discussion followed around the low fire and they put more questions to Cian. “How many will come?” And, “Why would they want our sun metal?” Cian supplied the elders with much to consider.

The Dagda asked, “Invader, that term they use for themselves. We call them intruders, implying that they are guests here, temporary. How long do they intend to stay?”

“They do not give me a straightforward response, and I must be careful of asking this too many ways, too many times.” Cian looked as unhappy as the elders, but there it was. “They think we worship the sun. I gather they came here to the Boyne because of our mounds.”

Oghma retorted, “That makes no sense. These intruders seem fully unaware of starwatching, they show no interest in it, none at all.”

Other voices rose. “Invaders—boatloads of drunkards and rabble, more like.”

A woman elder said, “These foreigners practice evil.” She placed astringent herbs in the fire pot to cleanse the air of the word she had used, their word for deeds unspeakable, beneath humans, an offense before the ancient ones.

All the elders held their breath for Cian’s reply.

He spoke carefully. “Their making of metals is foreign to us. It is a thing not done by Starwatchers. Yet we use fire and clay to make pots. Fire and stone can make metal.”

The Dagda said, “Our making of pots and our carving in stone do not serve to kill other peoples. We do not need their long knives! Time will show us these Invaders’ true nature.” He raised his polished mace before the elders. “We see the effects of the intruders, their fouling of streams and the noxious fumes. We must convince them of proper ways on this land rather than merely scold them.

“And, for the murderer of Sheela, a fair remedy must be agreed. Women shall be respected. If not, these Invaders must leave.”

The elders spoke in turn, and some called for vengeance for the murder. Cooler heads asked Cian to assist in negotiations. “You have a grasp of the intruders’ language.”

Cian looked doubtful. “I cannot say whether these Invaders will negotiate. And they have very different views from us about women and children.” He did endorse the elders’ goal of avoiding violence. “But we can do more than wait until the Invaders leave.” He offered suggestions but the elders resisted his ideas, their mistrust of him as palpable as the granite chamber enclosing them.

Tethra cleared his throat and the elders turned to him. “What you are saying is our island is now connected and no longer protected, by the great waters to other shores.”

“That is the long and the short of it,” Cian said. His elders sat in uneasy silence.

“When will you return to us?” asked Slainge.

“I do not know.” He sought Oghma’s eyes but Oghma turned his face away.

Cian took his leave from the elders and vanished from the Starwatchers’ council. He blended into the Invaders’ camp, a disappearing shadow as the midsun reached its zenith above the Boyne.

Tethra of Carrowkeel shifted his gnarled shoulders to look at all the elders. “We thought they would leave us, like other visitors over the generations. It appears these guests intend otherwise. Starwatchers have little means of stopping them from coming onto our island. Cian says more boats will arrive. We must remain calm. So far we do not talk of doing battle with them. But the time is ripe for us to present our grievances to these Invaders—before the summer solstice, before their metalmaking blinds the sun and leaves this land barren. We have long discussion ahead. Something must be done.”

Outside, all the Starwatchers waited at a respectful distance from the mound. Tadhg paced with the other young men, inflamed by the horrible murder. “We should have prevented this atrocity. We must fight back!” Those scouts made ready to attack the intruder camp with stone axes and stout pikes, thirsting for vengeance.

The elders deliberated further. When the sun made long shadows from the west, they appeared before the assembled people. The Dagda stood before the Starwatchers in the mound’s clearing, his whorled red mace raised for all to see. The crowd listened.

“We place restrictions on your movements though we have grave misgivings at doing so. These measures fall more to the women’s disadvantage in that we discourage all women and children from going out alone to gather herbs, nuts, or any foodstuffs. Even our strong young apprentices, male or female, must travel in pairs as they go about their work or to the mounds.”

Slainge the elder held up his hand for quiet, then added that cultivating crops or grazing livestock must be done only within the walled fields to the north of their village. A man protested that their flock wouldn’t have enough grazing area.

“We can put up longer walls,” he answered. He added that a permanent watch would be posted at the stream where they bathed and drew water. “These safeguards will be lifted when we establish better relations with the intruders,” he told them.

The Starwatchers heard these things from their elders and returned to their homes. Beyond the pall from Invaders’ fires, they contemplated their future on this, their island.

Above them, the sky shifted almost imperceptibly.

We’ll sing a song, a soldier’s song, with cheering rousing chorus,
As round our blazing fires we throng, the starry heavens o’er us.

From:
Amhran na bhFiann
, national anthem of the Republic, 20th Century CE

Invaders

C
ONNOR STOMPED AWAY
from the Invaders’ camp and the carousing, the feast, the false warmth, the sullen captive women, and stale mead. The tall Elcmar dared to tell him over the feast table and in front of the warriors newly arrived from overseas, “That crowd at the mounds haven’t left. I think we’re going to have trouble with these Starwatchers.”

He returned Elcmar’s stare. “What is it you want me to do about it? Bollix!” Connor slammed down his cup. “I’ll be having a look for myself.” He stalked from the great hall.

Dull eyes in a heavy bulk, Connor halted and sighed. It had been three nights but he was unable to lie again with any woman. His swollen hand ached.

He labored to recall the vision, the young woman he beheld for just moments on a bright morning. That beauty got away. He had made a show of it for his companions. “Quare natives, disappearing into mists, this fecking climate. Sure, I’d break that one, what a fine filly.” And that other woman they found later at twilight, that was all an accident. She bumped into them along that stream, so she had. Like your woman walking into a door, he decided.

He sat down on a small outcropping above the encampment.
Sunset! These eejit quiet ones are after watching the sun go down again. Their tedious ways, this backward place. My task here is to find metals, exploit the locals for trade. And so I shall. Great mounds of clay and stones, is it. Where’s their gold?

Invaders had found copper enough in the southwest and camped there, mining and smelting. His band of Invaders came to the Boyne eager to find gold and feed it to the new appetite for gold on the Continent, return in triumph with it. Connor wanted to go back to the drier, warmer coasts and plains to the south from where he journeyed a few seasons ago. It ate at him, his desire to be somewhere else.

He felt sick. The throbbing in his hand increased. The gods must have abandoned him. If something were physically wrong with him, a blemish, then he could not remain
ard ri
, the warriors’ champion, in this place. All his trekking into strange territory and pillaging for new trade and slaves would have been for nothing. Connor listened for the voice of Lugh, to whom he seldom prayed and offered sacrifice. His hollowness told him Lugh wasn’t listening. Possibly there was no Lugh nor any god here, not in the whole of this island.

Just infernal mists, and the quiet ones disappearing before your very eyes—when they aren’t trying to take off your manhood.

His emptiness beset him, as stars came out above. He choked, then the awful sobbing of a grown man escaped from him.

Connor’s companions found him delirious, prostrate upon the grey rocks and with an advanced fever. His left hand swelled and from it red streaks radiated up his thick forearm. His hand festered from deep within and attacked him; the very bulk of Connor could be destroyed.

A poultice made from dried leaves carried to this island from faraway forests had no effect. His hand darkened ominously.

Warriors clustered around his bed, where he was tended by a slave taken from the Continent. “Woman! Have you any medicine for his condition?”

She looked blank. “Isn’t it Bresal you should be asking?”

The men exchanged glances. Their shaman Bresal had discovered small mushrooms on this island which induced trances. Bresal would be almost useless to deliver any treatment, given the mushrooms and his experiments with various brews.

No one commented on the strange, quarter-moon-shaped puncture marks on Connor’s swollen hand, almost obscured by livid purple streaking up his forearm. A few doses from Bresal of the prized fungus balls culled on far shores also proved ineffective. Connor’s fever continued. An invisible enemy worked deep within and his red festering hand threatened his life.

Without warning, a cloud of grit swept in and covered the face of the sun. Leaves and sprouts withered in brown air that blew cold as if winter had returned. The likes of this storm had never been seen on all the island.

The camp lay low until the worst of it passed. Warriors sent out to hunt returned with dazed, thirsty animals that let themselves be captured for slaughter. The hunters reported that the Starwatchers still congregated at the easternmost mound, where a great fire blazed nonstop. Bresal the shaman sequestered himself to meditate, as he said, since it appeared to him the world was ending in darkness. The Invaders demanded that their shaman take action about Connor’s hand if nothing else.

Leery of the natives’ powers at their mysterious mounds, Bresal had the quiet one Cian brought to him. “How have your people caused this affliction of dust and winds?”

Cian looked at him in disbelief.

Bresal asked what Connor’s condition might be, why would that hand not heal. Cian suggested that a Starwatcher experienced in healing should look at the injury. That appeased Bresal, who immediately spoke to the warriors.

To quell the speculation and rumors in their camp, the intruders’ leaders put their heads together. “Bresal says there is nothing for it but to bring in a healer from among the quiet ones, someone who might be able to diagnose Connor’s sickness and give us a remedy.”

One of the beefy warriors spoke bluntly. “This is our champion. But if Connor loses his hand, that would make him unfit to lead us here and establish our foothold.”

Elcmar, an intense contender for
ard ri
and noticeably unblemished, stood apart. His rival’s predicament only improved his own chance of finding the stores of gold that Invaders believed to be hidden at the Boyne. Elcmar’s face disclosed nothing.

Another warrior spoke up. “Your man must perform with the horse to become
ard ri
. He can’t be lying wrecked for that.”

They all frowned. Already their men grumbled and took fright at the sudden turn in the weather. The process of choosing a new champion would throw their camp into more disarray. Petty battles would erupt between various
tuatha
for the right to be crowned champion at this fringe outpost. Connor had fathered a son here and there, but none was old enough to fight beside him. In any event, a warrior became
ard ri
by strength, cunning, and material advantages. Their process did not turn on hereditary succession, nor did they decide it by voting. And, they had with them no lawgiver who would normally supervise and resolve disputed claims to the position of
ard ri
by means of the tribal laws. That lawgiver had not accompanied them to this island, as he disdained forays into such rough surroundings. In his absence, brute contests and long metal knives would inevitably be used to force the choice. Bresal would hide in his cups until the matter had been decided.

Schemes hatched and spread through the camp like the poison visibly moving up Connor’s forearm. The teams which regularly played in the war games had been assembled for skill and not along clan loyalties. Now the teams split along the lines of
tuath
, and they fought in earnest despite the foul wind—or because of it.

Cian, the defector from the quiet ones, aligned himself with different teams, trying to disappear in their ranks or confuse everyone so as not to be maimed in the escalating competitions. Lucky he was for having a broad chest, and strong arms and legs; a big fellow.

Dust swirled high above, creating a fog of half light when spring should have been bursting around them. Starwatchers inspected the damage to blossoms and cereal stalks.

The Invaders began spying nonstop. The influx of quiet ones to the Boyne plain made the fortified camp nervous. Parties of warriors on horseback rode close to the Starwatchers’ clustered homes, but they avoided altogether the high mounds dominating the bend of the river.

Starwatchers remarked that the latest intruders arrived with the strange cloud. At night, incessant drumming echoed to their village from the intruders’ hide-covered hoop drums, and it took on a menacing quality. The songs of the Invaders seemed louder to the scouts sent by the Starwatchers. Their scouts observed the commotion in the camp from trees in soft wet places where mist provided cover. Not one of the scouts was detected. The Starwatcher elders were made aware of the escalating struggle and the Invaders’ war games. Still Cian did not return to his village.

Rain fell, cleansing the air. Clear drops hung in arcs along leaf stalks and dripped like peace into parched roots. The nights stayed cold. Starwatchers tended the fire at Dowth and their big signal fires stayed burning in all directions from the Boyne.

Boann heard the knock at dawn and heard Oghma speak quietly at the doorway before turning to her. She feigned sleep while he paused before telling her why Tadhg stood waiting at their door.

He stroked his fingers across her forehead. No one awakened another person by shouting; that was not done among the Starwatchers. When Boann was sitting up among the furs on her sleeping shelf, he motioned awkwardly.

“We sent a strong message about Sheela’s murder and summoned these intruders to meet in a council and they have responded. But now what they want from us is an herbalist to heal their leader. He has a grave injury. The elders have asked for you, and Tadhg has come to take you straightaway to the intruders’ camp to give medicines.—This will not wait while you bathe at the stream, I’m sorry to say. To make a long story longer, are you willing to go?”

Boann smiled at his subtlety. “Is there a choice in this matter? Our people have asked me and I am well able for it. I have taken the healer’s oath and sharing medicine is our custom.” She read concern in his eyes: did she understand the dangers of entering these intruders’ high walls to tend to their wounded leader?

“Good. I will prepare hot grains stirred with milk just as you like it, while you dress.” He knelt at their hearth but his stirring of cereals in the pot slowed as he fussed over her breakfast. She stood dressed and ready, after rummaging her baskets and stone shelves, before he poured out the food for her. Oghma fed Boann what might be her final meal. She ate carefully, to please him, conscious of his troubled eyes on her.

She pressed her hand on his heart as she left him at the open door. “Wait for sunlight to cross our threshold and bring me back.” Boann nudged him gently toward the hearth, then she stepped out into the early, blue light.

Oghma released her to Tadhg’s protection. He crossed again to the hearth, sat upright on rush mats by its warmth, and closed his eyes as the sun rose and arced slowly through the sky’s dome.

Boann feared for her father if she should fail to return. His spirit mirrored the light and dark of the sky dome. As a young man he fought alongside the Dagda, against other intruders long ago. After that hard-won battle he struggled with inner darkness, her mother said. His work became his testament. He carved in deeper relief than anyone before him, emphasizing the play of light and shadow over each kerbstone. He wanted others to experience his joyous interpretation of the sky and their ancestors’ knowledge. Even now Oghma fought off darkness, the trials brought by the new intruders. He inspired many who faltered on their way.

Except Cian. Where is Cian on this dawning?
Boann could taste the acrid smoke of the Invaders. Soon she and Tadhg would be surrounded by warriors armed with metal knives.

The walled camp stood a fair walk beyond the mounds. Its walls loomed higher with each stride. Tadhg described the intruders’ volatile nature and instability, all observed by scouts since Sheela’s murder.

“Some of us are saying we should have killed the intruders when they landed here.”

“That is not our way!”

“Shall we join them, as Cian has done?” Tadhg threw her a look. “He’s a misfit, that one.”

Birds circled and dove on light breezes. Boann felt strangely lightheaded, as if she too were floating above the earth. She reached again for her sectioned herbalist’s bag, on a loop knot over her plaited belt. She checked its contents at least five times as they hurried along, though she had herself packed the medicines before leaving Oghma at their dwelling.

They passed a swath of nodding lavender blossoms, spring flowers the color of Sheela’s eyes, and their perfume hung in the air like a charm. She glanced at Tadhg, his firm jawline, a sensual mouth, straight nose, and dark green eyes. A mass of dark brown hair framed his appealing face and neck, his body strong and well proportioned. She wondered whom he would turn to for marriage, then it struck her with bleak humor that Tadhg would have to survive guarding her to worry about marrying anyone.