The Greener Shore (34 page)

“They weren’t able for it.”

“They?”
Briga and I exclaimed in unison.

“Three of them, all sick and injured.”

Three?

Three is the number of fate.

I heard Briga gasp.

My next words were forced through dry lips. “Is one of the three a woman?”

“Couldn’t tell you. They were the only survivors in a wrecked boat that washed ashore during the last winter storm. My tribe found them. By the time I saw them, two were wrapped from head to foot in blankets. This fellow Labraid was the only one who was able to talk. That’s how I learned he calls himself the Speaker of the—”

“Did he identify the others?”

“Not exactly. All I heard him say about that was…” The fisherman paused and gazed up at the smoky underside of the thatch, trying to find a memory. “What I heard him say was, ‘Only Briga of the Slea Leathan could save the Red Wolf. She can heal anything.’ So I told a few of my friends about you and here we are!”

I wanted to smash his smug face with my fist. Yet without his unthinkingly selfish act, we might never have known about—

“Maia,” Briga whispered hoarsely. “They’ve found our Maia and brought her home.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I cautioned.

“It’s Maia. It
has
to be.” She tugged at my arm. “We must go to them immediately, Ainvar.”

“How far is it to your tribe?” I asked the fishermen.

“Two or three days’ walk. More or less.”

Briga said, “Horses would get us there much faster.”

“What do you mean by ‘us’?”

“You heard him, they’re badly hurt. They need me now and I’m going!”

The only horses in the area belonged to Fíachu, whom I had been avoiding for a long time. But if a trouble is meant for you, you cannot avoid it. I must do as Vercingetorix had done: take up the sword and meet it. For Maia and Cormiac Ru.

Strange, my head observed, how quickly I accepted that the third member of the group was Maia. Was faith transferable? Had Briga given hers to me?

“Very well,” I told her, “I’ll ask Fíachu for horses. But you don’t know how to ride.”

“I’ll learn,” she said flatly. “Go ask for them.”

Vercingetorix had taught me a number of lessons. Perhaps the most valuable was the fact that there are occasions when one can think too much. If Rix was certain he must do something he did not want to do, he wasted no energy thinking about it. He just plunged in and did it.

Without allowing my head to think about the possible consequences, I set out at once for Fíachu’s stronghold. Night already had fallen but my feet knew the way. As I walked I envisioned Teyrnon working at the forge, making a sword. Mentally I followed him through every step of the process. Fierce concentration was required, but druids are trained to concentrate.

I was surprised when I found myself at the door of Fíachu’s lodge.

Only his second wife was inside, sweeping the earthen floor with a broom of hazel twigs before the family retired for the night. A plump, pretty woman who had everything a wife could possibly want except perhaps a third wife to do the chores for her. I had sometimes wondered why Fíachu, with all his wealth, did not marry more women. At least two clan chiefs of the Slea Leathan had three wives, and the old king himself was said to have five.

She looked up as I entered. “Ainvar? We haven’t seen you here for a long time. Shall I heat some water so you can wash your hands and feet?”

“I thank you for your hospitality,” I replied formally. She poured water from a large pottery jar into a bronze basin, which she set on the hearth, close to the flame. On winter nights the fire in the chieftain’s lodge was kept well fed. When the water was warm enough, Fíachu’s second wife brought the basin to me and placed it at my feet.

By now I was fully familiar with Gaelic custom. Because the owner of the lodge was absent, to show the extent of my trust I crouched down with my back to the doorway through which he would enter when he returned. After washing my hands I slipped off my winter footgear, then stood—back still to the door—and eased my right foot into the warm water. Five cold toes wriggled with delight. As soon as they began to tingle I removed them and gave the same treat to my left foot. Ah, the kindness of water! No wonder my Briga treated it with such reverence.

If Fíachu came home at that moment he could kill me with no effort at all.

My left foot was still luxuriating in the basin when I heard a sound at the doorway. All my willpower was required to keep me from turning around.

“See who’s here, husband!” Fíachu’s second wife called out. She handed me a square of linen to wipe my feet dry. “Ainvar’s come to visit us at last.”

Slowly, I turned around.

Fíachu was not smiling but at least he had no weapon in his hand. So the message of my exposed back had not been lost on him. “Ainvar,” he said. Just that, with no inflection.

Searching the eyes of Fíachu with my own eyes, I found no malice, only a guarded watchfulness.

Duach Dalta had been talking to him, all right. Intimating, insinuating. Using all his skill to manipulate the chief of the tribe.

I knew something about manipulation. “Fíachu,” I acknowledged in a tone as coldly formal as his.

“What brings you here? We thought you had forgotten us.”

“Have you forgotten me?” I asked.

“No.” Nothing else, just no. But that was enough to tell me this was not going to be easy.

The thoughts I had been trying not to think roiled in my head. If I was exiled my clan would go with me out of loyalty. Leaving behind those fine, solid lodges. The forge. The little shed where the women milked the cows. Perhaps even the cows themselves, the gentle cows who marched into the shed on their own every morning and evening.

We had lost too much already; there had to be an end to it. Resolve strengthened my voice. “Fíachu, I’ve come to ask a favor.”

Up went the tangled eyebrows. “From me? You dare to ask a favor from me?”

Think, head! Think fast now. Once you dared Caesar himself.

My head had not let me down then, and it did not let me down now. Instead it reminded me of something I had foolishly buried beneath my worries.

I threw back my shoulders and assumed the confident voice of a chief druid who has nothing to fear. “You have horses and I need three.”

Fíachu’s eyebrows did the impossible: They crawled still higher. “You want my horses?” he asked as if he could not believe the evidence of his ears.

“I need horses if I am to bring back your son.”

He looked bewildered. “But my son is dead, Ainvar. And buried.”

“One of your sons is dead. You have another.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Labraid.”

Fíachu gave a snort and lowered his eyebrows. “Don’t be ridiculous, you know he’s dead, too. Has to be, by now. Anyway, he was sired by some man in Gaul, not me.”

“Labraid was sired by the great chieftain Vercingetorix, who was known throughout Gaul as the King of the World. But the boy was carried in the belly of Onuava.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“I have very good reason to believe that Labraid is still alive.”

“So?”

I knew Fíachu; already he was searching for some piece of advantage to himself in this conversation.

“If Onuava had been your wife, Fíachu, you could claim her son as your son. Which means you could now be father to the son of the King of the World. Would you not agree that having such a son would vastly enhance your status among the tribes?”

“There’s no point in speculating,” he said brusquely. “I never married Onuava.”

I smiled. “Did you not? Perhaps I have good news. Let me tell you about a judgment Dian Cet recently rendered to another clan of the Slea Leathan.

“A prosperous cattle lord had died; a man who had sired a number of children on his wife and also on a favorite bondwoman. At the man’s death the children of both women demanded to inherit his property. The sons of the man’s wife insisted that because the other children were not born of marriage they had no right to the dead man’s possessions. The claim of the bondwoman’s children was supported by their friends, who felt they were just as deserving as the wife’s sons. The quarrel threatened to disintegrate into a full-blown war. This was to be avoided at all costs because this particular clan possessed many bondservants. In fact, they outnumbered their masters two to one.

“To resolve the situation the chief of the clan sent for Dian Cet and his apprentice, Morand. The two men deliberated the matter for a full cycle of the moon. Then Dian Cet pronounced the following judgment: ‘Any sexual act capable of resulting in a child is deemed to be a marriage, whether a child was actually born or not.’”

Fíachu scowled at me. “How could there be a marriage if no ritual took place?”

“Ah, this is the genius of Dian Cet’s judgment, don’t you see? The ritual was the act of coupling itself!

“Furthermore—and I am told this was actually Morand’s idea—Dian Cet suggested that marriage be divided into degrees. The first three degrees would be determined by the possession of property.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“It’s quite straightforward, Fíachu. The chief of the clan understood at once. And approved. Marriages in which one or both partners own valuable property such as cattle or bondservants or the freehold of land are now to be known as contract marriages, and agreed to in front of witnesses. In a union of the first degree both partners are equal in rank and property. In a marriage of the second degree the man owns the most property and supports the woman. The woman in a marriage of the third degree owns the most property, but supports the man as long as he agrees to work on her land.

“In addition…” I paused, relishing the moment. Here was the point I had been working toward, the inspiration for which I forgave my head its many failings. “In addition there is to be a fourth degree, known as ‘the marriage of a loved one.’ This has no contract based on property ownership, but transpires whenever a man takes a woman unto himself with her full consent and she lives in the manner of a wife.”

A light came into Fíachu’s eyes.

At that moment the chieftain’s senior wife entered the lodge. She gave her husband a quizzical glance, but his full attention was fixed on me. I could have stopped right there, but the trained memory of a druid should never be cut off in the middle.

“A marriage of the fifth degree is one in which two people lie together from time to time but continue to live separately, and one does not support the other. This is the new law adopted by the second largest clan of the Slea Leathan,” I concluded.

“Five degrees of marriage,” Fíachu murmured. “An exceedingly clever concept.”

“Do you approve, then?”

“Totally, Ainvar. And let me say, I am astonished at such wisdom on the part of—”

“Two members of the Slea Leathan,” I hastily interposed. “Dian Cet belongs to your tribe now, and his apprentice, Morand, is a member of your own clan. If anyone is to be congratulated it is yourself, Fíachu.”

Fíachu swelled with pride the way a toad swells when it finds water after a long drought.

I prudently took a half step sideways in case he tried to clap me on the back. It was best to avoid the chieftain’s more ebullient gestures.

“Apprentice.” Fíachu rolled the word across his tongue, then spat it out. “That’s far too puny a title for such a fine young man. By what title is Dian Cet known among your people, Ainvar?”

“He’s a brehon judge. Brehon is our highest designation for a long head.”

Fíachu lit up the lodge with his grin. “I decree that from this moment, Morand is a brehon as well. And I further decree that the judgment of the brehons will be the new marriage law of the entire tribe of the Slea Leathan.

“Now, what was the favor you sought of me, Ainvar?” he asked ingenuously. But he had not forgotten; he promptly answered his own question. “Oh yes, horses. You want to go looking for my son, Labraid, I believe?”

His senior wife gave a gasp and put her hand over her mouth. His second wife protested, “But Labraid’s not your son, Fíachu.”

“Be quiet, woman! Did you not hear the law? Labraid’s mother was joined with me in a marriage of the fourth degree so I’m entitled to call him my son. Ainvar, if you think there’s the smallest chance that he’s alive, take the fastest horses I have and go and bring him back to me!”

He reached out and clapped me on the back after all.

chapter
XXIII

E
VEN BEFORE A PALLID SUN ROSE THE NEXT MORNING, I WAS ON
my way back to the fort to select mounts for our journey. I found Aislinn already at the horse pen. Seeing me appear out of the gloom, she said apologetically, “I’m sorry I haven’t been coming to the glade, Ainvar. But I’m kept so busy caring for the horses. I do all of the feeding and tending myself, you know.

“Make no excuses,” I told the girl. “I haven’t been there myself lately, though I’ll be resuming the classes in the future. Your father wants more brehons; more judges.”