Seer of Sevenwaters (19 page)

I grimaced. “I don’t always feel wise. But that is the druid path: it lasts a lifetime, and one never stops learning.”

With the arrival of the Connacht men came changes to the daily pattern on Inis Eala. Training began early in the morning and lasted until supper time. Both island men and visitors were either shut away in the practice area where we could not see them, or spread out across the island rehearsing various maneuvers. I saw them heading out with coils of rope, and heard that they were practicing cliff scaling. I wondered if the Connacht warriors were preparing for a particular assault back home, perhaps an attack by stealth on an island fortress deemed unassailable. Nobody was talking about that. Biddy and her assistants prepared enormous meals, which were devoured in near silence. Folk went early to bed.

The men snatched time for themselves when they could. I rarely saw anyone use it to rest, despite the exhaustion that shadowed even the faces of the Inis Eala men. Instead, they matched up in pairs and practiced for the challenges. It became common to stumble upon a fight when going to hang up washing or draw water from the well. Every spare corner seemed to house one of these intense contests, fought with swords, knives, staves, bare fists.

These bouts were conducted under the eye of anyone who happened to pass by. Out at the back of the infirmary, beyond the dry-stone wall that sheltered the herb garden, a similar but less public activity was taking place: Gull and Kalev were training Knut. Going out to stake up plants or spread straw, I would see Kalev and Knut locked in combat, using the new swords, while Gull circled, eyes narrowed, observing and instructing. And once or twice I saw Gull and Knut working in Kalev’s absence, the Norseman practicing with his weapon, the teacher correcting his student’s grip or the position of his upper body without the need for any common language but that of combat. I could see from the look on Gull’s face—his eyes bright and intent, his jaw firm—that the warrior he had been lay not far beneath the healer he had become. He was enjoying himself. As for Knut, the hard work of preparation seemed to suit him. When he spoke to me in passing his manner was quietly courteous. He had the look of a man who has begun to find content.

By the third day Rat had ceased agreeing to challenges; the program was full. None of the Connacht men had put his hand up to fight with the new swords. Still, the visitors were eager to show their mettle. Plenty had requested bouts against their own or the islanders, and a couple of the Inis Eala men had challenged the most promising of the visitors. It would be an entertaining day.

My conversation with Cathal had troubled me. I said nothing of it to Clodagh, but made sure I spent time with her each day, whether it was keeping her company in the mornings as she spun or wove or helped with the hundred and one tasks required to keep the community going, or sitting by her in the afternoons while she lay on her bed resting. Left to herself, Clodagh would have kept on working. I had heard her say that a daytime sleep was a ridiculous indulgence. Her increasing weariness frustrated her. Like our mother, Clodagh was wont to fill her time with activity so that there would not be too much opportunity to dwell on troubling possibilities. I told her stories as she fell asleep. I chose them carefully, and my sister saw right through me.

“You are determined to have me believe in happy endings, Sibeal.”

“Don’t you believe in them?”

A shadow passed across her face. “Perhaps I’ve had my share of good fortune already.”

“Nonsense,” I told her. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. You’re chock-full of courage and goodness. You’ll make your own happy endings.”

“I hope so. But I do feel tired, Sibeal. Tired and weak. I hate that. And I’m worried about Cathal. His dreams are terrible. Last night he woke up shouting, and he refused to tell me what the nightmare was.”

“A dream is not reality,” I said. “As for being tired, you don’t need me to point out that women who are soon to give birth do feel weary. You could ask Muirrin for a tonic.”

Clodagh grimaced. “The last one she gave me tasted like rotting seaweed.”

“No doubt a very efficacious cure can be brewed from rotting seaweed,” I said, smiling. “One might get better by sheer force of will, simply to avoid a second dose. Now shut your eyes and I’ll tell you the story about the clurichaun wars.”

“I know that one already.”

“Ah, but I’ve made up my own version, especially designed for an audience of warriors, and I want to try it out before I tell it in the dining hall.”

I was telling a lot of stories. There were the ones that sent Clodagh to sleep, and the ones that entertained the scattering of folk who stayed in the hall after supper, and there were Ardal’s stories, the tales I kept for later in the evening, to be shared in the quiet of the infirmary.

Ardal was showing a fierce determination to get well again. He reached a new milestone each day—feeding himself, getting up from the pallet unassisted, walking to the fire with his hand on Evan’s shoulder. They were of a similar height, and when I saw them standing side by side I was shocked. Ardal was so painfully thin, his arms skeletal, his borrowed robe hanging loose from his frame. Beside the well-built Evan he seemed a wraith.

Those who tended Ardal during the day found it hard to believe he had a good command of Irish, though Gull and I assured them it was so. To them the patient spoke only those few words that were essential to help them in their work. At night, when the others were gone, he stepped past other milestones, though I sensed a wariness in him even when only Gull and I were present. The two of us took turns to tell stories, choosing by instinct. Some tales were for comfort or reassurance. With others we hoped to give Ardal something to hold on to, a rope with which he might begin to haul in the complex net of the past. Sometimes we simply talked, and each night Ardal contributed a little more. If his memory was still lost in the fog somewhere, there was no doubting his will to recover it. As for his Irish, though it was strongly accented, it proved to be so fluent, I began to think he must have lived here for some years. Gull and I discussed this in private, for we both wondered why our charge had chosen to conceal his knowledge of our tongue for so long. Gull said that in another man he would have suspected an ulterior motive—an attempt to glean information under false pretenses. I thought the shock of being shipwrecked, coupled with the loss of memory, would be enough to make anyone act oddly. I could not imagine what I would do if such a calamity befell me. With everything gone, even the knowledge of one’s own identity, what could a person cling to? There would be nobody to trust.

“Armorica,” mused Gull one night, picking up the idea he had mentioned about Ardal’s possible origins, “now that sounds like a place with some good tales. Corentin had a few. Full of people turning into creatures, or creatures turning into people. One in particular I remember, where a whole city was sunk beneath the sea by a woman’s disobedience. It ended by telling that if you sailed in a particular bay under certain conditions of wind and tide, you could still hear the sound of bells ringing from under the water. I don’t know if that’s true or just part of the tale. It would be more than a little disturbing.”

“Douarnenez,” said Ardal. “The bay of Douarnenez.”

We were by the fire, the three of us, Ardal propped in the chair, Gull on the bench and I cross-legged on a mat before the hearth. Fang was in her usual spot, curled on Ardal’s knee.

“You know this tale?” Gull’s tone was calm; several times now we had trembled on the brink of a discovery, a moment of revelation as Ardal seemed to recognize something, only to see him retreat almost instantly into silence.

“Perhaps I have dreamed this. The bay . . . the bells . . . the waves washing over . . . ”

I watched the flames licking the turves of peat. I listened to the night sounds of the infirmary, the faint hissing and crackling of the fire, the creaking of timbers in the wind, the dog’s steady breathing. I thought of home hearths and times shared. The past had shaped me: the family, the keep, the forest, the tales and songs, the joys and sorrows and challenges. The loss of my twin brothers within a day of their birth, when I was hardly old enough to understand what death meant; years later, when my mother had almost believed it too late, the wondrous arrival of baby Finbar. Cousin Fainne’s brief, turbulent stay in our household. The fire that had scarred my sister Maeve, and her painful journey to recovery, one of the few times I had seen Muirrin cry. Ciarán’s decision that he would teach me. Clodagh’s quest to save Cathal from his father. My own father, so steady and wise, the strong center of household and community. Eilis’s irrepressible love of life. Everything was part of me, every little thing. I could not think of any safe question to ask.

“Breizh,” Ardal said. “That is the true name. Armorica is a name given by the Romans.”

“Your Irish is fluent, Ardal,” Gull said. “It’s not a particularly easy language to learn. You’ll discover, once Evan lets you out of the infirmary, that we’re a community of folk from everywhere. In the early days, Bran’s men spoke an interesting blended tongue, mostly Irish, but with words borrowed from here and there, a contribution from everyone. We used to be on the move then, keeping one step ahead of trouble, taking on one mission after another, running from one bolt-hole to the next. That’s changed now. We’re settled here, and everyone speaks Irish, since we provide a service for Irish kings and chieftains who need their men trained up. You can see from the hue of my skin that I’m not from these parts, and nor is my wife, who lived in Britain before we brought her here. We’re like pebbles on a riverbed, all shapes, sizes and colors thrown together. Among us we get by in a dozen different tongues. Corentin’s the only fellow we’ve had from—what was it, Brez?”

“Breizh.” The response was little more than a whisper.

“Breizh.” Gull tried the odd word, attempting Ardal’s rolled “r” and soft ending. “Corentin spoke good Irish, too. Perhaps the men of Breizh have a scholarly streak. He learned his at the court of an Irish king, before he came to us. We were sorry to see Corentin go.”

“Why did he leave?” I asked. Once a man was accepted into the Inis Eala community, it was extremely unusual for him to depart by his own choice.

“He went home. A message came to tell him that his father had died, and his mother was having difficulty holding on to the family land. Some kind of territorial struggle. Pity we couldn’t send a band of fighters to help him, but I expect he put what he’d learned here to good use.”

“An Irish king,” Ardal said, turning his deep blue eyes on Gull. “What was the king’s name?”

“Ah, that I can’t tell you,” said Gull. “Johnny might remember, or Sigurd, when he gets back. Sigurd was Corentin’s friend.”

“Ardal,” I ventured, “I did wonder if some of the items washed up on the shore here, after the shipwreck, were gifts from one person of high standing to another. They did not seem to be trade goods. Knut didn’t know who they belonged to or what their purpose was. Do you think, if you looked at them . . . ?”

A shiver ran through Ardal. His right hand curled around the dog, as if he sought comfort in her sleeping warmth. “I cannot yet walk more than the few paces from bed to fireside.”

“They could be brought here. There are lengths of silk, once lovely, I imagine, but ruined by the sea. A box containing silver adornments, earrings, armlets; the remains of a book in jeweled covers, the ink all washed away, so there is no telling if it was a Christian psalter or a collection of ancient tales.”

“Paul,” whispered Ardal all of a sudden, staring into the fire. “Where is Paul?”

Silence, broken only by the sound of the night wind beyond the four walls. My heart stood still.

“I don’t know, lad,” said Gull quietly.

“He was a good swimmer,” Ardal said. “Only a year my elder, but far stronger in all ways. We would go, sometimes, to Yeun Ellez, to the place where they said the Ankou dwelt in the swamp, rising when he chose. We feared him, and yet we were drawn to that forbidden place, enthralled by the terror of it.
I dare you, Fe—”
A sudden halt, as Ardal tripped on a word he did not want to speak. The eyes went down again. “
I dare you
, he would say.
I dare you to go right down to the edge, all by yourself, and stand there to the count of twenty.
How could I not meet that challenge? I did what he bid me, my knees knocking in terror, the dark water spreading out before me. Any moment the Ankou would rise, I knew it, he would come out of the water and seize me, and he would take me down below, never to return. I imagined drowning, how it would feel, the water coming over my head, into my nose and mouth, the pain in my chest like fire, the cold knowledge of death . . . I counted, one, two, three, all the way to twenty, and the Ankou stayed under the water. Then I turned and bolted. But Paul was gone.”

A charged silence.

“Your brother?” Gull’s voice was soft.

“My brother. My big, strong brother, who challenged me and teased me and looked after me. I shouted,
Paul! Paul, where are you?
But the only answer was the silence of the trees, and the darkness of Yeun Ellez. While I was counting, while I was waiting, the Ankou had taken him. I ran home alone, weeping. It was my fault. I had not kept him in sight, I had not thought, I had let him be stolen away and drowned . . . ” His face was sheet-white. He was right there, living it. “And when I got home,” Ardal said, “there was Paul sitting on the step waiting for me, grinning from ear to ear as I ran up with my nose streaming, my chest heaving, my face all over tears. He had always been a fast runner. I was so angry I hit him. Then he took me off to wash my face, so that nobody would know I had been crying.”