The Fox (30 page)

When told of my vision, Lovern discerned that we – he, I and Crisi – would be the start of a new blood line. The lodge in my vision represented our family, and we were the beginning frame for it. The next generations would continue to build, creating a secure family line, establishing a safe home.

The next day I worked between the pains with the help of Sileas to ready our home for a baby. We cooked, stored water and wood. I renewed the mistletoe in the window and juniper branches under our bed. Energy ran through my veins. I did not want to sit down. Lovern was underfoot, trying to get me to settle, so I chased him out to gather herbs in the gardens around the village.

He returned for the evening meal, and Harailt joined us. The pains were strong; I knew our daughter would come soon.

“Our baby should be born by the sacred spring,” I said. “We can give her the taste of its cool water with her first breath. She will carry it with her all her life, its protection, and its memory of this home.”

All agreed.

“Harailt, go check the ill,” said Lovern. “Tell them I will be there in the morning. Tonight, I tend my wife at my daughter’s birth.” He turned to me, smiled, grasped my hand, and kissed my forehead. My love for him was never stronger. He was my protector, my baby’s father.

Our owl followed us to the grove near the spring where the waterfall’s spray was lifted to us by the evening breeze. Of the birth, I remember Lovern’s strong hands supporting me while I squatted and Sileas’s gentle hands rubbing my back. Crisi was born with the taste of her home on her lips, her grandmother watching over her, and surrounded by love. Clean and wrapped in the protective White Stag’s pelt, she did not cry until the next morning. She grew healthy and strong.

79 AD M
AY

My adult life had contained the many fears and visions of war and early death. Since Crisi’s birth, many of the fears were resting. I did not know whether they were gone or asleep like a bear in winter.

When Crisi had passed three springs, she, Lovern and I hiked up the mountain trail behind our fort. We often looked there for flowers used in healing. I was in a peaceful place in my life and watching her play brought back memories of her birth.

She was a peaceful baby, easy to care for. Even now, she would rather laugh and play than cry. I often took care of other children of our clan, and at this age they had become willful. Crisi had shown some stubbornness (I told Lovern it was from him) but usually she listened to us. I saw a wisdom in her eyes I had not seen in other children. I liked to think that she was the best child in our clan. I was sure, however, all mothers thought this way. I had heard and joined in when mothers bragged about what their children had done, but none sounded as smart as Crisi.

It seemed the goddess, Morrigna, would only bless us with one child. I prayed and made pilgrimages to the waterfall for sacred water, and done all the other things a woman must do to have a baby. But, as Lovern said before, the gods act in ways we do not understand sometimes, and I had no more children. Not even a whisper of one. I had not given up, but learned not to hope so much. Now, when my bloody time came, my heart did not cut with longing and I did not hear a ghost babe cry in the night. If it happened, I would rejoice.

This day echoed with laughter as we came around the mountain. When we saw our home, I asked Lovern to stop.

“I want to spend the rest of the day overlooking the hilltop and the valley beyond,” I said. “Our lives are very good. I wish to say thank you to the goddess Morrigna for this time of my life and my family.”

“I have a block of peat, I can start a fire,” said Lovern.

Crisi played and hid in a small cave nearby. The peat was damp, and the fire’s smoke curled around my head. I slipped into a passage dream with Aine. She was with a man. I felt in her heart she loved him and I was glad for her. I guided her eyes to look through mine. I wanted her to see my family and home. She looked through my eyes at the hilltop fort and the dwelling Crisi grew up in.

“Aine, know that I am satisfied. Here we are happy. Here life is good,” I said in my mind to her.

This was the first time I had been able to direct the dream, the first time I could pass along a message. Many things in my life changed when Crisi was born. Maybe this was one. Maybe our future was another. For the first time in many months, I had hope.

81 AD A
UGUST

We attended small
dals
every season, but every third season was a large
mor dal,
a gathering of many, and this year, Crisi was old enough for me to take her. Six of us journeyed: Kenric and Logan, now ten seasons old, Lovern, Crisi, I, and a warrior, Daimh. Daimh was a young buck who had proven himself in the practice arena and as a hunter for the clan.

“Finlay will be the appointed chieftain while we are gone,” Kenric told the clan before we left. “He will have all the rights of judgment he needs to settle small disputes. If something larger comes before the council then it will wait until I return.”

Agreement set the meeting place at the intersection of many clans. Some had far to come, and some lived close, but no one crossed the land of their enemies.

The land we traveled was beautiful. A few purple and yellow field flowers waved in the breezes along with long grass for our animals. We brought two ponies to carry our shelter and cooking tools and a few goats to milk. Logan rode rarely, but Crisi rode often as her short legs could not keep up with us and, although small, she was heavy to carry. We tied her to the pony when she fell asleep on its rocking back.

Crisi carried on long conversations with the pony. She tried to draw its attention to the birds in the sky and other animals we saw on the trail. She was very good at naming the animals and had some knowledge of the plants and trees. She was still quite young, but Lovern and I wanted her to know the land and nature she was a part of. The gods demanded it of us. He taught her much as they were together often.

We hiked through the area where running water froze in the winter, and I was glad we brought our cloaks as well as our heavier blankets for sleeping. The nights were getting cold. When we stopped for the night, Lovern set up our shelter, several large pieces of cured leather sewn together with tallow rubbed into the seam to slow the rain. I gathered pine branches to keep Crisi and me off the cold ground.

For the meals, we had handfuls of barley at dawn, dried pork at midday, and whatever animals Daimh and Logan had been able to kill during the day for the evening meal. Lovern and I added the herbs and greens we had picked along the way for flavor to the stew.

We were never hungry. We rationed the barley and dried pork, not knowing how many sunrises we would stay at the gathering or how long the trip home would be. We brought plaid cloth and bronze pins for gifts and trade. One or two of these could go for food, if needed. After a few days with so many people in one spot, all the easy game would be gone at the place of the meeting and the hunters would have to make longer trips into the forests if the meeting lasted several sunrises.

We walked for three days before we arrived in the great glen. A large hilltop fort was perched above us, and we spread out on the plain under it.

“Crisi,” I said. “Do not run off. If you get lost, I may not find you. Stay and hold my hand.” My armlets jangled against one another as I reached for her. One was the spiral bloodlines my mother had given me. Lovern gave the second to me at Crisi’s birth. He had Finlay fashion it unbeknownst to me. He asked that a raven and a fox sit on either side of each other with a knot tying them together. The armlets never left my arm. Crisi said she could find me anywhere because of the jingle sounds I made.

“But Mother, Father says I have the sense of an owl. He said I could find my way home from the woods by myself now. Am I right, Father?”

“Yes, little bird, I did say that,” said Lovern as he picked her up and set her on his shoulders, pride showing in his walk. Her long, autumn-colored hair mingled with his bronze locks. “I meant you know your way around our woods very well now as you should. But you have never been here before and there are many other people from neighboring clans. If you walk around unescorted, you may be mistaken for a slave, picked up, and put to work in a house. I know you would not like having to stay inside all day, would you?”

“No, Father. I would climb out the window and run away if I had to stay in all day.”

“As you have done at home,” I said. “Now stay with me as we go to find Rhona and the others. If you do not cause me to worry I will find you a piece of honeycomb and bread for your mid-day meal.” I smiled up at my beautiful daughter. She giggled and pulled on her father’s ears. She had grown so, and at five summers it was difficult to keep up with her energy.

A
mor dal
was a time for order and agreement, not a time for battle between clans. Chieftains from many villages and forts attended. It was a time to exchange the legends of each clan during the evening fires, different cures for illnesses and injuries that worked, and mock battles among the warriors who had come as protectors of their leaders.

Many druids attended. I was anxious to see Rhona. We had been in contact each year since I traveled to Beathan’s tomb and had grown to think of her as a grandmother to Crisi.

Haye stepped into view and I knew Rhona would be at his heels. Haye was chieftain of his clan, but she was always close by his side to take in the events and trials and give advice. He appreciated having her near. As his clan’s druidess and his mother, she had his ear often.

“Chieftain Haye,” I called. “It is a pleasure to see you.”

“Ah,” said Haye. “I see the Fox and his family are here. Lovern, have you renewed your fox skin yet this year? If not, I can cut a strip of bearskin from my coverlet and you can convert to my guiding animal spirit.”

“I could not let you take a piece of fur, even a small piece from the tiny skin you took from a cub this year. I wager it is the only bear you have seen in years. I hear you have grown too slow to hunt and are sending out your son to do your work now.”

Haye stood two hands taller than Lovern and his shoulders were almost twice the size of Lovern’s. This was evident as he towered over Lovern at this moment, frowning.

“Your ears are not working correctly, Red Dog,” Haye said. “I have taken three full-grown bears this summer alone. One could step on a fox and eat it for a morning meal.”

At this, I saw Daimh ready his hand on his sword if the words came to blows. I stepped to him and rested my hand on his arm.

“We will have no need of this now,” I said, “but if conversations get heated after the mead tonight, I will ask you to step up. Please do not drink more than two cups at the evening meal.” He nodded in agreement but gave me a look of unhappiness. He had eagerly awaited the drinking at this meeting and had not expected this request.

“No one would go with you to hunt these legend animals?” said Lovern. “How do we know you did not come upon them after a war among themselves for a female, having already killed each other? My fox would out run them and be safe in its den before your bears would understand that something ran between their legs. Phhh, it is not a fair contest.

“I have my new fox skin,” boasted Lovern, touching the band on his arm, the skin of a red fox, his guide. “I took only the oldest to leave the young ones to tickle your bears.”

At this, Haye reached around Lovern and laughed, as he picked him and Crisi, still on Lovern’s shoulders, up off the ground.

“Kenric,” Haye said looking over his shoulder, “do you not control your druid that he is allowed to insult a fellow chieftain?”

“Ach. He insults me continually. He says it makes me stronger. I want that he eat the evening meal at your side tonight and give me some peace!”

After the greetings by the men were completed and Eanruig, Haye’s son, and Logan had wrestled their hellos, I felt that it was safe for me to step up, retrieve Crisi safely from Lovern’s shoulders, and ask about Rhona. I did not see her in the trail of the dust that floated in the air around us.

“Greetings, Jahna,” said Haye, dipping his head to me. “Rhona is in the tent of Chaim. It is the large one near the central oak tree. The druids gather there. Fox, take your wife and your cub and go find out what they are brewing. Kenric and I will walk and talk about hunting large animals worth risking life and limb for and teach our sons about women.”

“Yes, I will go and if the gods be willing I will see you tonight for the meal.” Lovern touched Haye on the shoulder in friendship and then took my hand. They walked away as we headed to the tent.

“It is good to see he is well and his family is healthy,” I said.

“Mother,” Crisi said, “I want to go with Logan. He will play with Eanruig, and I want to be with them.”

She thought of him as her big brother. She had spent much time with Kenric’s and Finlay’s families. Their children all were older yet seemed to have taken her in and treated her like a sister, a sister to be loved, tolerated and taught. In turn, she had developed love for them. Especially Broc. Finlay’s son was now seven seasons and Crisi followed him like a puppy. She would be with him all day and night if I did not ask her to come home for meals and sleep. Eiric, Finlay’s wife, accepted her too and fed her along with her own when I was busy with an ill clansman. We had all become close through the loss of Beathan and my mother.

“Crisi,” Lovern said, “Logan is to be with his father, our chieftain, and Eanruig is to be with his father, his clan’s chieftain. It is not a time to have a small girl along getting in the way of men.”

She was holding my hand but at Lovern’s statement pulled away. “No. I am not a little girl. Logan gets to stay outside. I want to stay outside and go hunting with them. You are going to talk with Rhona, and I will have to sit still. I do not like that and want to go with Eanruig and Logan.”

I smiled, and my heart swelled with love and pride when I looked at her. I saw so much of my mother in her when she was like this. She tilted her head to the left when she was angry and crossed her arms. Mother did the same when she called me in from playing. She was angry that I was not inside weaving, as I should be. And I saw in her Lovern when flashes of light came from her eyes as she smiled. Her hair curled around her chin in the same rust-colored waves his did. I was there in the way she picked up injured animals and cared for them. She was our daughter, my mother’s granddaughter. She was our blood.