Night of the Fifth Moon (13 page)

NESSA'S CLAN

Next morning, Ket was still anxious and bewildered.

‘Faelán left me out,' he railed. ‘He praised Nessa, and Lorccán and Nath-í, but he didn't have anything nice to say about me.'

‘So?' Goll was peering into the bronze cauldron used for brewing remedies. ‘Probably, there were so many good things to say, he didn't know where to begin.'

Ket scowled. ‘There isn't anything special to say about me. I'm not best at anything.'

‘Don't be so dismal. You're good at listening, and you try hard, and . . . and . . .' Goll dropped some large furry mullein leaves into the pot, and stirred them with a stick. ‘And you're good at sharing,' he finished lamely.

Ket picked up a stone and stabbed angrily at the ground. ‘None of those things are special. I know I'll be the next one he sends away.'

Goll was concentrating on his potion. He lifted the steaming leaves out of the cauldron, and let them drip for a moment off the end of the stick.

‘All right, hold out your toes.'

Ket flinched as the hot poultice was slapped onto his bare feet. ‘Now, leave it there all day,' ordered Goll, binding a length of twine around. ‘And keep your brogues on too.'

Then he was gone, following the druid between the trees, and Ket watched moodily as the two of them glided off over the plain. When they passed the cairn of the Shadow Ones, Ket fancied he heard murmuring from the grave. He turned with a shudder and crossed the clearing to the Sacred Yew to lour at the ogham rod with its baffling message.

‘We need more clues!' he exclaimed in frustration as Nessa strolled over to join him.

But Nessa seemed uninterested in the rod. She eyed Ket, chewing her lip, and tugging one of her braids.

‘Ket, I . . . I made up a poem about you.'

He stared at her.

Nessa puffed out her cheeks. ‘Well . . . Here it is. It's not very good.

Brave as a spear

He's straight of aim.

He faces fear

And dares shame.

He joins a fight

With all his might . . .'

Her voice trailed away and she cleared her throat. ‘That's all, so far.'

Ket tried to answer. He swallowed.

‘Hey, what have you found out?' Lorccán came rushing over and looked down eagerly at the birch rod.

Nessa blinked at him. ‘We weren't talking about the ogham,' she said.

‘Huh.' Lorccán raised his eyebrows disbelievingly and stalked off.

Nessa shrugged and turned back to Ket. ‘Master Faelán says I can visit my clan and find out what's happening with Gortigern and Tirech. Do you want to come with me?'

A bitter wind was driving across the plain, and howling around the cairn, but Ket felt warmed inside by a glow of pride and happiness. As the wind gusted them along, he kept glancing at Nessa, wanting to say thank you, but too shy.

Where the rocky ground gave way to bog, the first ringforts came into sight. The trackway of logs was half submerged in the soft mud, and Nessa caught hold of Ket's hand. Her fingers were icy. He clung tightly, still not speaking. But as they picked their way through the mire, he tried to send her a message with the pressure of his grasp.

Mosses and lichens grew like a woolly fleece of grey and green all around them. They could hear the trilling of skylarks and meadow pipits, and the occasional plaintive
wheep
of a golden plover. Here and there were high tufts of heather and deer grass, the russet leaves of bog cotton, and the golden seed heads of asphodel.

Suddenly, a snipe exploded under their feet, flying up in a blur of wings.

Ket and Nessa jumped in fright.

‘I nearly trod on it!' Ket exclaimed.

‘We haven't been paying proper attention,' said Nessa. ‘We've been forgetting to look and listen the way Faelán told us to.'

Now, with earnest eagerness, they kept stopping to examine things. They ran the long stalks of heather through their fingers, feeling the softness of the tiny pointed leaves.

‘And aren't the flowers pretty?' said Ket. Though their vibrant hues had faded, the dead flower heads had dried into delicate, almost transparent bells.

The two friends stopped to peer into a pit, where peat had been gouged out of the bog for fuel. The scar, with its straight, cut edges, glistened dark brown. From the centre, protruded a jagged, silvery tree stump.

‘Pity we don't have an axe,' said Nessa. ‘Master Faelán would have praised us for bringing back some of that wood.'

But Ket was glad they couldn't. He gazed uneasily at the frozen, contorted shapes of the roots. Faelán had told them that pine trees no longer grew in Ireland. This one had lain in the bog for thousands of years, and now here it was, exposed. To him, the pit seemed like a grave that had been broken open. Caught on one knotty protuberance was a brass earring and Ket hoped it was an offering to appease the angry Spirits of the Marsh.

‘Hey!' yelled a voice.

A strip of crimson cloth came dancing towards them on the breeze. Nessa jumped up to catch it and turned to look. ‘That's come from my place,' she cried, waving excitedly to a ringfort where women were tying coloured buntings to the palisades that crested the ramparts.

‘Fáilte, fáilte,' called the women.

As the two friends crossed the ditch and entered the yard, dogs leapt and barked in greeting.

‘Nessa!' cried her mother, bouncing towards them. Nessa stood stiff and awkward while Egem embraced her. ‘My, you grow taller every time I see you! But look at you, you're too thin.' Ket eyed his friend and saw that Egem was right. Nessa's cheeks were hollow, her chin almost as sharp as a knife point. ‘You don't get enough to eat at that place,' tutted her mother.

Nessa shrugged. ‘It's winter,' she said. ‘We'll find more to eat when the warm weather comes. But tell me, what are you hanging up all those coloured rags for?'

‘The king, of course. He'll come past here on his way to the chieftain's,' said Egem, stroking Nessa's arm. ‘Come inside, both of you.' She began to shepherd them towards the house. ‘I'm sure you'd like something to eat.'

‘Yes please!' said Ket.

Nessa and Egem bustled into the house, but as Ket reached the doorway, he stopped short, surprised by a feeling of uneasiness. It was a long time since he'd been inside a house. Then the sound of Nessa's happy voice, the warmth of the fire and inviting smells of cooking called out to him, and he hurried through the door.

Egem placed wheaten bread, a jug of honey and a dish of butter in front of them. Ket closed his eyes as he bit into the crust, savouring the salty, creamy taste of the butter.

Nessa nudged him, and broke off a piece of bread to toss on the burning peat – an offering to the Spirit of the Hearth. Ket coloured, embarrassed that he had forgotten.

‘Did Tirech get his payment?' asked Nessa, brushing crumbs from her lap. ‘Did Gortigern give him the calf?'

‘Of course not.' Egem snorted. ‘Gortigern refused.'

‘But he
can't
refuse. It was the brehon's order!'

Egem shrugged. ‘That bully does what he likes, and what can Tirech do?'

‘Well he can't just let Gortigern get away with it! I'm going to see Brehon Áengus.
He
can do something!' Nessa shoved her food aside and stood up. ‘Where's Uncle Tirech now?'

‘With the other men, busy mending the road for the king,' said Egem. ‘But . . . here . . .' The plate wavered in her hand as Nessa charged out the door.

‘Thank you!' Ket grabbed a slice of bread in each hand.

As he stepped out into the fresh, cold air again, he felt a quiver of relief and looked eagerly around, checking the clouds, the wind, the position of the sun. He could no longer feel comfortable hemmed in by walls and a roof.

The ringfort stood on the crest of a hill. From here, low drystone fences stretched beyond the ramparts, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. They enclosed the pastures where cattle and sheep grazed, the orchard, the vegetable garden and the crop fields, bare now for the winter. On the slopes beyond, there were other ringforts dotted about, and Ket and Nessa could see small figures toiling on the trackway that ran between them. The men were splitting oak logs to lay across a bed of brushwood and stones. The steady
thump-thumps
as they beat the wedges into the logs drifted up to the ringfort.

‘There's Uncle Tirech,' cried Nessa, pointing. ‘But come on, we're going to see the brehon.'

Brehon Áengus chewed a haunch of mutton as Nessa spoke, then laid down the bare bone, and heaved a contented sigh. His whiskers and round cheeks were shiny with grease.

‘Well now,' he pronounced, ‘if Gortigern the Intruder has not paid his fine, Tirech must give notice of distraint. I must accompany him as witness.' The lawgiver picked up a brimming mead cup and drank deeply.

‘And then, does Uncle take the calf?' asked Nessa.

‘Oh no.' Áengus thumped the cup down, and wiped his dripping moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Legally, Gortigern will have five days to respond. He may choose to settle the matter at once, or he may give a pledge to signify his willingness to settle the matter in the future.'

A serving girl offered the lawgiver a platter of cheese.

‘Ah.' He stabbed at the large round lump with his knife, and looked at the two figures standing expectantly in front of him. ‘Not today, not today.' He waved them away. ‘You can see I am occupied. Anyway, night is nearly upon us. Tell Tirech to see me in the morning.' He popped a hunk of the cheese in his mouth and lifted the mead cup again.

Out by the trackway, the men had stopped work for the day. They were weary and mud-spattered, but the new-laid surface of split logs stretched before them in a long, gleaming line. Tirech raised his eyebrows when Nessa gave him the message.

‘We'll see,' he growled.

They watched him plod off towards his home.

‘It's not fair,' Nessa complained. ‘I won't be here tomorrow; I won't know what happens.'

Darkness was gathering and the fierce wind whipped their faces, as the two friends headed back to camp. Ket thrust forward, exhilarated by the strength of the spirits he could feel in the air. The wind carried strange scraping and thumping noises down the slope towards them.

‘What's going on?' panted Nessa.

At the edge of the camp, they stopped, startled. In the yellow light of the flames, the anruth were piling up stones into something that looked like a small cairn. For a heart-stopping moment, Ket thought Faelán had died, but then he saw the tall, bearded figure by the fire. The druid was holding a bushy branch in his hand and sweeping it through the air, his long hair and cloak streaming out behind him.

‘Spirits of the Ai-i-r,' he called, his voice almost carried away by the howling of the gale.

Ket and Nessa watched in bewilderment, pulling their cloaks tight around them. In the gathering darkness, the figures of the anruth still staggered across the clearing, their arms loaded with stones.

Faelán strode forward, weaving the branch through the air, then cast it on the fire. ‘Dispel wind! Dispel!'

He stood with his arms upheld, glowering around him. The wind gave a few more fitful gusts, then ebbed away. Faelán squatted by the fire and held out his hands to the warmth. Behind him, the pile of stones was now higher than his head.

‘Hey, what's happening? What are you all doing?' Ket tried to grab Goll's sleeve as he stumped past lugging a large boulder.

‘Building a house. For the master,' said Goll shortly.

‘A
house
? For
Faelán
?' Ket and Nessa stared at each other. ‘But . . . but . . .'

‘He's getting old. The cold bothers him.'

‘But . . . but druids don't . . .'

‘Come and help,' grunted Goll, ‘instead of standing there stuttering.'

THE LONGEST
NIGHT

The morning was so icy, Ket could not feel his fingers. He tucked his hands under his armpits and sat in the darkness listening to the dawn chorus of the birds. He recognised their different voices calling from the trees around him: the
plinking
of a blackbird, the chirrup of a chaffinch, and then, drowning them all, the loud, persistent trill of the wren.

Weak, watery daylight crept over the world at last, and Ket spied the tiny wren perched on a gorse bush. Its feathers were fluffed out for warmth, and it was wagging its tail from side to side as it sang.

Everything around was covered with frost. Sparkling crystals whitened bushes, and crusted bare branches. Ket huffed, and his breath hung in a white vapour in the freezing air.

He glanced at the stone hut, still discomforted by the sight of a building in the middle of camp. Within those walls, how could the druid know what was happening in the world around him?