BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (8 page)

Boann obeyed Cian and made her way home, worried anew for his safety among the warriors.

She went over the hazy moments when she awoke, the tinkling gear and the horse’s sharp hot smell. Suddenly she realized of the tall Invader: he does not smell like the others. Her mind swirled with the heat. What did this Invader want, what did he know? Had he seen the bite on the man Connor’s hand, that red hand she failed to save?

Boann remembered Sheela’s injuries and began to shake. These Invaders live as savages, and Cian with them; had she really seen him wearing a metal dagger and what had he done with it? She gagged. Dizzy, she reached her doorway and fainted onto the flags. This time she woke to see Airmid’s face coming into focus.

“Boann, you must tell me what’s wrong. You who brave all kinds of weather for starwatching and herb-gathering, lying here in a weak pile!”

“It’s nothing. Too much heat in the meadow. I should have drunk some water at the stream. You know that I tend to get lost in daydreams. That’s all, too much heat.”

Airmid’s hands explored Boann’s head. “You should have gone with me if it’s the stream where you’ve been. Och, what a great lump coming up on your head! You’d better be lying down.”

She glanced at her trug of herbs spilling across the stone pavers.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take your share of herbs with mine to do the infusions or the drying, whatever is necessary for these.” Airmid helped her to her bed platform and settled her into its furs laid over sweet hay.

Boann acquiesced; her latest brush with intruders exhausted her. As she closed her eyes Cian’s stern words echoed in her head: Don’t be out alone again.

Five suns passed. Early with the sixth light, Tadhg came to her door. She was always glad to see him, reliable fellow that he was. Since their captivity in the walled camp, Tadhg treated her differently. No words were spoken but she could feel him and smell him at twenty paces’ distance, and saw discreetly that he reacted the same way to her. But she knew Tadhg grieved for Sheela and she did not encourage him.

He looked as grave now as when they were confined in the dark cell, and he returned her welcome and offer of food with a blunt command.

“You are called by the elders to the council oak. They await us there.”

Tadhg would not tell her the reason she was summoned before the elders. He led her toward the council oak, then detoured slightly and they walked the cursus, a path between earthen banks adjacent to the central mound. The Starwatchers used the cursus path on only the most serious occasions. Boann’s stomach fluttered. A large group congregated at the oak, but she did not see her father among them. Her father had already gone to his carving, alone, and until she saw him arrive, she feared that he had been attacked. Slainge indicated where they should stand together, Oghma beside Boann.

More Starwatchers arrived from the village. Airmid and the other young women fairly ran the cursus before seating themselves where they could see the council. Tadhg seated himself apart with companions, off to one side. He looked ashen in the face. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, waiting. Boann felt another flutter, to see Cian sitting there with Tadhg. Cian had not attended the elders since the violence against Sheela. She swayed slightly to see two Invaders watching her, one on either side of him.

She couldn’t think why the elders wanted to single her out. She wanted to sit down, not have all eyes on her. Oghma let his shoulder touch hers briefly and she knew he understood. Tears sprang to her eyes; she willed them back and brushed his rough hand, next to hers.

The Dagda arrived, carrying the red stone macehead. Would this council make peace with the Invaders? Did the Invaders seek to punish her for the man losing his red hand?

The elders came straight to the point, Slainge speaking for the panel.

“Beloved daughter, welcome. You know there have been serious problems for our people during the past moons. We maintain our ways without disrespect to the intruders, but we cannot say the same of their ways upon this island. Hear us, but note, we do not require anything from you in consequence of what we shall explain to you, Boann. You may refuse this latest request from the strangers among us.” A murmur arose among the Starwatchers and Slainge waited for it to cease. He went on in a voice that carried far.

“The Invaders tell us that soon they shall hold a ceremony to honor their new champion to whom they give the title of
ard ri
. This man has no wife, they say, and there is no woman among them whom he wishes to marry. Yet they say he must have a wife for their
ard ri
ceremony. He has chosen from among our women. He wishes to take you as his wife.”

Boann could not assimilate what the elders were telling her. She felt Oghma take her arm as if to lead her away before he heard any more of this.

“They claim this man met you in the Invader camp when they asked for a healer for the one called Connor. And this new champion relays to us that he recently saved your life in our meadow by the watering stream. Do you recall this?”

She could think of nothing but those predatory golden eyes. The bloody knife blade above her under the sun. Her mind reeling, she tried to plant her feet.

“Do you know the man of whom we speak?” Slainge asked.

She must answer. It seemed she had endangered all her people though she couldn’t think what she had done to arouse that Invader’s interest. She made her nod without much enthusiasm but could feel herself reddening from her neck up to her hairline. Cian would see it; she wished the earth would swallow her.

“You may address this matter while you stand before us, or you may counsel with your father and we would hear later what is your decision.” The elders did not inquire further.

She could feel Airmid and Tadhg watching her, and Cian. She could not think.

Oghma remained beside her and touched her arm again, his lips set firm. He waited for her to speak, she knew, ever mindful of what was proper to do, when to speak and when to be silent. She must consider carefully before she would reply. Words could not be taken back.

In the long pause that followed, Boann heard their childrens’ clear, high voices responding to questions put to them from the star teacher, coming from the smaller old mound of Dowth. She could see Dowth’s top across the brilliant green grass scattered with tiny white flowers below the pristine sky. Sheela’s voice came to her and a vision swirled before Boann. The mounds decrepit, forgotten. Women scorned and children neglected. Great battles, the Boyne red with blood. She felt faint again.

The Dagda brought Boann a sip of water from the river, a sacrament during this season of long sunlight. Her legs steadied after she drank from the Boyne.

She answered clearly. “What did these intruders tell you that is more than what you have told me? This man could have come to me himself for a marriage.”

The elders were equally direct with her. “He is too proud for that, Boann. We have told you everything we know. These strangers talk in circles. They say that your life is in danger. Their new champion says that he offers you his protection through a marriage. We infer that he and his warriors intend to remain at the Boyne.

“We see many trees falling beside their camp and rising as smoke. The Invaders tell us they will be taking even more animals from the forest and the river, food for their great
ard ri
ceremony. There is one more thing that we know from our own scouts: the Invaders busy themselves with making more long knives.”

The two intruder guests perked up their ears when the elders pointedly used the term, Invaders. Long knives gleamed in thongs tied at these warriors’ waists.

So they won’t leave us. Do they mean to harm us at our council oak? Do these Invaders mean to slaughter us all?
Boann wondered, seeing their weapons. She stood as unmoving as the stone foundation of the island. What was the way forward, she asked herself, the way to avoid the terrible future in her vision.

The warm sun climbed in the east over the oak’s wide branches and struck all of them with pure light. The sun’s power flowed into her. Taking more time to decide, even to the following sunrise, would not help. She would decide it here and now.

“What would my name be with this man, their new champion?”

One of the elders looked away as if ashamed. Slainge said gently to her, “
Bru na Elcmar.
Their champion is called Elcmar.”

“But what of my name? What is
Bru na Elcmar
to me? Did they say what
Bru
means?”

“Your question is very important, Boann. We considered this and we think it has something to do with their concept of a woman, or that it means a mystery or hidden place. We are not certain. These intruders speak at length, but they discourse in riddles.

“He means to take a specific woman from us in a formal marriage. He has identified you. We ascertain that you would not be a captive. And these men promised that under their laws, as with ours, any property you bring to Elcmar—rather, all the property that you now hold, as we pointed out to his emissaries—shall remain yours.”

The two Invaders scrutinized Boann for her reaction. Cian translated to them all that had been said, then he focused upon some point in the distance. All were silent.

So the tall stranger whose eyes could read my thoughts has not come for me himself.

The haughty Invader offered a difficult path yet his very arrogance intrigued her. She sensed in him a will as strong as her own. She looked over at Elcmar’s emissaries, at their long knives. Their new champion offered his protection, they said. These Invaders intended to remain among her people. Bitter smoke from Invader fires drifted to the council oak: the telling sign of making metal weapons.

Like the rest of the Starwatchers, Cian appeared to be choking on the smoke. His face gave no clue for her choice. For one heartbeat—two heartbeats—she despised Cian for leaving her no matter what was his reason. He failed to attend their equinox rites and join openly with her. Perhaps her father was right about Cian. Then she remembered him leaping off the horse, the knife’s careless slice to his flesh. Cian would be willing to die for her. There he was, unarmed but proud, between the brutish warriors. If she refused this marriage, the man Elcmar might retaliate, he might well kill Cian to make an example.

That sank in, as bleak as the vision she had seen.
We are trapped like fish in a river weir, you and I.
She couldn’t trust herself to look at Cian again. She must choose the way that offered the best outcome for all the Starwatchers, not just for herself.

The childrens’ distant voices reached her once more. She felt herself shifting, inexorably, like the sky. There was one point she would not concede in this bargain with the long knives.

While steadying her father beside her in his growing agitation, she replied to the elders with great care, “I have heard what the intruders propose for this formal marriage between our people. The covenant I make with the man Elcmar says that I, Boann, and my people, shall complete our work at the starchambers. Regardless of how long that may require.”

Elcmar heard Boann’s speech, her condition for the marriage to happen, from his men who demanded her from the Starwatchers. He consulted with the shaman.

“I don’t give a damn about her starwatching,” Elcmar said.

Bresal the many-talented shaman recited a version of the Invaders’ marriage laws from memory, burping once or twice, then he approved this contract since Elcmar agreed to it in full. The shaman announced the deal under an oak tree to all those who jostled forth from the Invaders’ camp. Let it be known: Elcmar would marry one of the natives as his first wife. Bresal forgot her name so he cut his remarks short. She would have all the rights of a first wife, despite coming from the quiet ones.

Long knives were hurled into the ground by disgusted warriors who had hoped to send for a woman from their own tuath to be joined with Elcmar as first wife. Others said he might just as easily bed a slave after he performed as the new
ard ri
.

Bresal himself had commented to Elcmar, “Sure, it wouldn’t be essential for you to take a wife immediately after the ceremony of the white horse. The point is what the
ard ri
accomplishes with the horse, and not the woman. There ‘tis.”

The camp’s approval of him dropped. Young and restless warriors wondered aloud if Elcmar had already proven to be a bad choice for their champion. They were ready enough to attack the village and Maedb’s contingent encouraged them, but in stepped Bresal at Elcmar’s behest. The shaman dispensed some of his supply of mushrooms. Soon the young Invaders became weak from the emetic effect followed by hallucinations. They forgot all talk of a coup.

The Invader camp languished and gossiped in the midsummer moonlight. Elcmar set up informers to bring him all the rumors. He learned which warriors visited Connor, who gladly accepted brown packets paying for his favors while he still acted as
ard ri
. The deposed Connor plotted with a small party to take the Invaders’ two boats to survey the land farther north. He lusted after gold, and used the unreliable weather as his mandate to search the north for it now, before autumn. He had no wish to interfere with Elcmar’s marriage plans, he said.

“I refuse to go with Connor, off to forage in the north,” Maedb announced. “Elcmar to marry a quiet one, and to have chosen that shortish, darkhaired woman. Why, she looks
old
,” sniffed Maedb. She referred to the tender age at which a slave could be violated by a warrior without any punishment or damages owed.