The Greener Shore (25 page)

For a moment I feared the chief druid was having a fit. His long nose twitched violently; his eyes bulged from his head. He rose to his feet with a clenched fist and advanced on my son as if to hit him.

Dara held his ground. He was no warrior, but he had knowledge on his side and knowledge can make a man brave.

Before it could come to blows between them, I said, “Are you so afraid of the truth, Duach Dalta? Real druids never fear the truth.”

It was a calculated insult, but my own temper was dangerously close to being out of control.

He whirled toward me. “I knew you were trouble from the very first night,” he hissed, “when you asked all those questions. Fíachu never should have taken you in.”

“Did you tell him so?”

“If you were really one of us, you would know that chieftains don’t take advice from druids.”

I fought to remain calm. “Things were very different in Gaul,” I said. “Druids there had stature. The great Vercingetorix himself, who was called ‘King of the World,’ took advice from me.”

Duach Dalta curled his lip in contempt. “That’s a transparent lie. Why would any king listen to you, Ainvar?”

“Because I’ve spent my life training my head to think.”

“I can think!”

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“What do you mean, ‘how’? I…that is…thoughts come to me, of course.”

“On their own?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you mean they flit through your head uninvited, like deer running through a forest?”

Duach Dalta blinked. “I suppose so.”

“Then you’re not really thinking,” I told him. “A well-trained head continually examines the information provided by eyes and ears and nose and skin. At the same time it reflects on past experiences and considers future possibilities. All of this requires deliberate
thought.
A thorough knowledge of one’s current situation is imperative. So is a keen understanding of human nature, without which one cannot anticipate future behavior. Intuition plays no small part. And of course one must always consider the Otherworld. In the act of thinking, all of these elements are deliberately brought together, sorted through, and consulted. That is how my head functions, Duach Dalta. What about yours?”

“I…” A thread of spittle formed on his lips; thin, withered lips that refuted the evidence of his youthful body. His mouth trembled with an old man’s confusion. “I mean…”

Before he could decide just what he did mean I glimpsed a movement at the open doorway. Several youngsters peered in at us. When I was not waiting for my students at the accustomed place, they had come looking for me.

I would not humiliate the chief druid in front of them.

“It was kind of you to pay a visit to us, Duach Dalta,” I said with all the warmth I could muster. “I have enjoyed our discussion. Perhaps we may continue it another day? I am expected elsewhere now. Briga, will you give our guest some mead and make sure he is comfortable for as long as he wishes to stay?”

I took my cloak from its peg by the door and hurried outside. Dara trotted along in my wake, chuckling to himself like a stream running over stones.

“It isn’t funny,” I said, pitching my voice low so the others would not hear. “A person can’t be blamed for what they don’t know.”

“Unless they refuse to learn. That old man won’t learn anything from you, he despises you. I think he’s jealous of you.”

“He has no reason to be jealous of me, Dara.” The boy was correct, though, and I knew it. I had begun to trespass on the chief druid’s territory. Worse than that, I had made him aware of his shortcomings.

People will forgive you for many things. But not for being right.

Trusting Briga to smooth Duach Dalta’s ruffled feathers, I began the day’s lessons in the glade. On one level my head was thinking about my students, while on a deeper level I reexamined the conversation with the chief druid. I began to regret flaunting my cleverness.

But I am allowed to have pride. I too had been a chief druid.

Returning from the glade that evening, I surprised a red deer on the path. An immense stag with a spectacular, wide-branching rack of antlers. He halted, facing me, with one foreleg delicately raised. There were only a couple of strides between us, yet his huge liquid eyes surveyed me from a vast distance, as a mighty chieftain might look at the lowest of the low. Was he hiding his fear out of a sense of pride? Or was his confidence in his strength and speed so great that he could afford to give in to a momentary curiosity?

Our eyes locked and held.

For a moment I was terribly tempted. A single thought stopped me. If I saw through the eyes of the deer would I ever be able to eat venison again?

I waved my hand. The great stag bounded from the path and vanished, leaving not a leaf disturbed to mark his trail.

On the following day our lessons concerned the nature of thought. “Thinking is a creative process,” I explained. “When we think we perform an action, rather than being acted upon by someone else. Thought is infinite. It has power that we can use for ourselves or pass on. Thought is imperishable. If I give you a thought of mine, when I die that thought continues to live in you and can affect your life and the lives of others. Therefore what is more valuable than thought, and what is worth more than a head?”

“Is every head precious?” asked Niav.

“Every one. The head of a dog or a bird is as precious to that creature as yours is to you. Obviously, however, a wise head is a special treasure.”

Eoin said, “A wise human head, you mean.”

“Not necessarily,” I told him. Thinking of the red deer. And of the silver wolf, who was tangled in my thoughts like a burr in a woman’s hair. His physical intelligence was greater than all the acquired wisdom in my head.

What might we not learn from animals, I wondered, if we did not war against them?

I believed my horizons had shrunk when I ceased to be chief druid of a powerful Gaulish tribe. But they had only been altered, forcing me to look more closely at what was right in front of me. Perhaps that was a necessary part of my Pattern. If so, where would it lead me next?

More questions; always questions.

I forced myself back to the task at hand. From discussing thought it was but a short journey to the topic of magic. “Magic begins in the mind,” I told my listeners. “The first step is to imagine. What you can imagine can be made real.”

The son of one of Fíachu’s many cousins gave a delighted gasp. “Everything?” As clearly as if I could see into his head, I knew its thoughts. They were concentrated on a plump girl with plump breasts and a plump mouth.

“Magic is rarely necessary,” I said. “Thought and patience can accomplish a lot on their own. Especially patience; it’s a quality women appreciate.”

His face flamed with embarrassment. His comrades laughed.

“Is that magic?” asked Cairbre. “Knowing what he was thinking about?”

“No, it’s remembering. I was remembering my own youth. Never forget yours. Memory is a key that will unlock many doors. No matter how different someone seems, that person has a lot in common with you. Finding the common ground will give you better understanding.”

My younger students did not yet comprehend, but I saw a dawning wisdom on the face of the older ones.

We spent several days discussing the simpler permutations of magic. “Every creation of the Source contains its own magic,” I explained. I would have liked to tell them about the wolf but they were not ready.

I am not sure that I was ready for the wolf.

Instead, as a first exemplar I chose the trees. I explained their ranking, beginning with the oak, then moved on to discuss the particular magic properties of each. “Through close association with the oak one can slowly acquire some of its wisdom, which is the result of great strength as well as a long life. The oak is an observer. Its roots go deep into the earth, its head rises high into the sky. It provides nourishment and shelter for multitudes, and something of the multitudinous wisdoms of bird and insect and animal are absorbed into the great tree. Because it stays in one place it cannot act upon what it knows, but only store the knowledge. Be with the oaks. Sit beneath them, lean your head against them…and be patient,” I added for the benefit of the boy who wanted a certain plump girl.

I explained that objects made of yew wood should be given to the dying to encourage their rebirth. “The yew appears to die in its center, but the outermost branches bow down and take root, and the yew’s life begins all over again.”

“But is that magic?” I was asked.

I smiled. “All of life is magic. If you learn nothing else, learn this from me.

“The rowan is not one of the noble trees but it can work great magic. Rowan has the ability to protect. Tomorrow I want you to bring me rowan berries and rowan bark—taken gently, without endangering the tree—and we will fashion some simple protections.”

How excited they were! Looking back, I could recall my own excitement when I first began to study magic.

During the days that followed my students studied meditation with the ash tree and erected defenses with the holly. With each new lesson our numbers grew. Children told their parents, parents told their friends; soon a small crowd was waiting for me each morning in the forest.

Something else was waiting for me, too. I could sense the chief druid’s growing enmity like a stain on the air, though he did not pay me another visit. Our confrontation had left him bruised.

If Duach Dalta complained about me to Fíachu when he returned from war, I felt confident the chieftain would take my side. I had proven myself in the matter of growing grain and increased his support among the other tribes. There was now every expectation that Fíachu would be elected king of the Laigin when the time came. What had Duach Dalta done to compare?

To be certain I was safeguarded against any malice on the part of the chief druid, I gathered rowan and holly and worked a little private magic on my own. After that I stopped worrying about Duach Dalta. His abilities were no match for mine.

Arrogance was another quality I seemed to be acquiring from the Gaels.

The wheel of the seasons turned.

The Goban Saor set off on a mysterious journey and returned with a wife: his fair-haired partner from the Lughnasa festival. She was young and nimble and good-natured, with broad hips that promised easy childbearing.

“The Goban Saor will soon enrich us in more ways than one,” Keryth said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“That,” I told her, “is not a prediction but an inevitability.”

The seer threw back her head and laughed.

The number of my students was increasing. So was the complexity of their lessons, determined by their interest. When I outlined the various aspects of Gaulish druidry they wanted to know more about divination and judgment, so I asked my fellow druids to address them.

Keryth described some of the techniques she employed, such as chewing the raw flesh of a wild boar before a divination. “The boar is fearless,” she explained, “and one must be fearless when asking the Source for a glimpse of the future. In my sleep afterward, the knowledge I sought was revealed.”

Of course she did not tell them everything she did. At the heart of every branch of druidry there is a secret known only to the initiated.

My Briga did not tell even her closest friends every item she put in the cooking pot.

Sulis talked at length about the abilities of healers and the way to diagnose illness. “One of the surest methods is to taste the urine of the ill person,” she explained.

Several of the girls grimaced. One nodded.

At first Dian Cet was reluctant to discuss the duties of a judge. “In Hibernia all judgments are made by the chieftains,” he said. “What would Fíachu do if I usurped his privilege?”

“You’ll be doing no such thing. You’ll simply be telling them how it was done in Gaul. We were fortunate to be there and see the Order of the Wise at its peak. Knowledge should never be lost.”

“No,” Dian Cet agreed. “Knowledge should never be lost.”

So he did as I asked and told my students how he came to be a judge. He described the arduous tests he had been given by the Order of the Wise, to be certain he was capable of being impartial in the most difficult circumstances. “Unlike chieftain or king,” said Dian Cet, “a druid must make decisions based upon a higher imperative than self-interest.”

A boy from the fort spoke up; a lad called Morand, who was inclined to be disputatious. “That may be your way but it’s wrong. Our chieftain makes all our important decisions.”

“Suppose there was a quarrel between Fíachu and another member of the Slea Leathan. Whose side would your chieftain take in rendering judgment?”

The young fellow stared at me in consternation. I responded with a bland smile. “Every tribe has its own customs, Morand. One leaf is not superior to another, merely different. The more different leaves we examine, the more we learn about the nature of all leaves.”

Trying to beat an idea into someone’s mind only breaks the skull. Far better to allow the intended recipient to discover it for himself. I displayed druid wisdom as a merchant displays his wares, stood back, and watched my students stumble across treasures.

In time Morand became an avid student of the laws governing tribal behavior.

Another lad could not resist laying hands on wounded creatures and helping them to heal. One of the girls had demonstrably prophetic dreams. And there was my own son Dara, with the tongue of a bard.

Those of my clan who possessed gifts of the arm were proving themselves as well. Young Glas made a number of bracelets out of bone and carved flowing Gaelic designs into them. After staining them with ocher to resemble old ivory, he gave Damona her choice of the collection in return for a wide band of finely woven wool. Glas took the rest of the bracelets to the fort and bartered them for two unworked lumps of silver. Gold, being found in so many rivers and streams, was easier to acquire. Glas fashioned the silver into two interlocking knots of Gaelic design and set them with gold bosses. When the girdle was complete he presented it to his mother.