The Greener Shore (14 page)

Briga welcomed us home with joyful abandon. She threw herself into my arms and pressed her body so tightly against mine that the pair of us barely made it into our lodge. “I’d begun to fear I might never see you again,” she whispered. Just before we fell onto our bed in a tangle of arms and legs.

Later—much later—Briga turned her attention to my feet. Noticing their condition, she made the tut-tutting noise familiar to every man who has a wife. She rummaged through her collection of herbs, put several aside, and took a lump of butter from the churn. I watched as she kneaded herbs into the butter.

“Sit down by the fire, Ainvar, and put your feet on that stool.”

Kneeling before me, my senior wife began rubbing the butter into my feet. She started with my toes, repeatedly caressing each one from the root to the toenail. Warmed by her hands, the fragrant grease sank into my flesh. Her fingers found every injury and soothed the hurt away. Slowly she worked her way up the arch of the foot. Rubbing, stroking, massaging. Bending over with her hair unbound, so that an occasional lock strayed across my bare ankles.

A glow of pleasure spread through my groin. Briga was making love to my feet. My poor, ugly, damaged feet.

In the morning there was not a cut or a bruise to be seen.

The following day I received a private welcome first from Lakutu, and then Onuava. Much time had passed since I last lay with Lakutu; I had almost forgotten her exotic arts. Even at her age she retained the ability to stir and surprise me. Afterward I held her tenderly in my arms and stroked her hair as she stroked mine, in mutual gratitude.

Onuava never wanted tenderness, only praise. Intensely competitive—what a match she had been for Rix!—she did her best to outdo the other two. She performed for herself, however, and not for me. Or perhaps for the shade of Vercingetorix, watching from the Otherworld.

It can be exhausting to have three wives.

“I’ve brought no seed corn with me because we’re going to plant our grain elsewhere,” I told my clan. “On the other side of those mountains is the territory of a powerful tribe. Their chieftain, Fíachu, has offered us land, not as tenants, but as equals.”

“We can’t shift to another place,” wailed Damona, “we’re barely settled in this one. I’ve just found a good puddle of clay for making pottery.”

“Our roots are still shallow,” I said. “Here we are ferns by the riverside. A flood would carry us away. On the other side of the mountains we can put down deep roots and grow strong.”

The women might be uncertain but I could see that the men were interested. After a brief conference, the Goban Saor spoke for them all. “Do whatever you think best, Ainvar. You’ve got us this far, we’ll go the rest of the way with you.”

On the next bright morning I went to see Cohern. One should never attempt persuasion on a dark day. Dara went with me. He carried a spear but it was just for show. The real weapon was in his mouth.

Cohern greeted us by saying, “It’s about time you came for that seed corn. I feared it would sprout before you collected it.”

“We appreciate the offer,” Dara replied courteously, “but we no longer need your grain. We have a gift for you, however.”

The clan chief looked from me to my son and back again. “This mere boy speaks for you now, Ainvar?”

“He’s growing fast and needs to learn the skills of a man. Negotiation is one of them.”

“If you think using a child will soften my heart and make me lower my price, I warn you: It won’t work.”

“You need not lower your price,” Dara said smoothly. “We have made other arrangements.”

While Cohern was trying to adjust to this news, Dara told him, “Fíachu of the Slea Leathan has promised not to attack your clan again if our clan joins his tribe. That is our gift to you. A chance for peace.”

Cohern’s mouth fell open.

“Let me tell you how it will be.” Dara’s voice dropped into his chest, became a rhythmic chant as his words painted pictures on the air.

We returned in triumph to the valley. No longer a man and a boy, but a man and a much younger man who had done what his father could not do.

“Dara was amazing,” I told his mother. She listened with the smug smile women wear when their children are being praised. A smile that says, I knew it all along, and most of the credit is down to me, though I’m too modest to say so.

“Dara’s skills are not yet polished,” I went on, “but he spoke with surprising authority. And his voice, Briga! It rolled and rippled, soared and sang. Within a dozen eyeblinks he captured Cohern by describing the benefits he would gain if we joined the Slea Leathan.”

“Cohern accepted it?”

“He did indeed. Dara showed him a vision he couldn’t resist.”

Dara chanted, “Fat on the knife and fat under the skin. Boys live to sire children and become old men.” He smiled at his mother. He was very pleased with himself. “Cohern’s willing for us to go now, in fact he’s eager. As soon as we arrange a truce with Fíachu, he’ll release Labraid and Cormiac Ru from his service.”

Briga looked toward me. “Are you sure you can arrange a truce?”

“Our son can,” I replied with perfect confidence. I was still caught up in the spell of the bard myself.

That night in our bed I told Briga of my plan to merge our clan into the Slea Leathan. She accepted it without hesitation, and went one step further.

“Caesar is destroying Gaul, Ainvar. His people are planting Roman crops and building Roman villas and speaking the Roman tongue. The Gauls who survive are being forced to accept the Roman Pattern. That’s the final extermination, the ultimate crime.

“We must reject the Roman Pattern entirely. This land took us in when we had nowhere else to go, so it is right and proper that we adapt ourselves to her. We’ll worship among her trees; we’ll do homage to her mountains. All the faces of the Source are sacred no matter what name one uses.”

Briga was the first of us who truly became a Gael.

The accents of Hibernia came easily to her lips. Already she knew the name of every hill and hollow in our immediate vicinity, and if they did not have one, she gave one to them. “It’s important, Ainvar,” she stressed. “Being named consecrates a common clod of earth. This is our place now; this is our earth.”

I fleetingly wondered if my Briga consecrated the earth simply by walking upon it.

Most women hate to abandon a nest once it is built. With the exception of Briga, the women of my clan were no different. So Dara painted word pictures for them, too. Larger lodges built of sturdier timber; cows who gave more freely of their milk; more children for their own to play with and grow with and marry. Best of all, the comfort of being part of a strong tribe again.

My son. Hardly more than a child himself, yet with the head of a man. The druid gift defies understanding.

We were warmly welcomed by Fíachu’s clan and given land an easy walk from his fort, with loamy fields for planting. Our new lodges would stand at the edge of an immense forest which offered an unlimited supply of timber for building and deadfall for firewood.

When we awoke in the morning, the first breath we drew would be the exhalation of oaks.

On the other side of our new clanhold Briga discovered a grove of wild apple trees. She came running back to tell me, “We can make vinegar!”

My senior wife was a great believer in the efficacy of vinegar.

She was equally pleased to find an expanse of bog in the other direction. “Sphagnum moss, Ainvar!”

“We can’t eat moss.”

“No, but we can use it to keep the bottoms of infants dry, and to stanch the flow of blood from wounds. That particular moss will soak up many times its own weight in liquid.”

I saluted Hibernia in my head. We had arrived as impoverished refugees; we were going to spend the rest of our lives in the midst of plenty.

With the help of Fíachu’s men we began to build our lodges. It would be a race against time; the women wanted the roofs thatched before the worst of the winter. The chieftain himself strolled out to observe our progress. He seemed quietly amused. Eventually I asked why.

His bright blue eyes glittered. “Cohern put you on his border to use as a buffer against me. Now the obstacle is removed.”

That possibility had never occurred to me.

The Gael were neither as simple nor as guileless as I assumed. I had to wonder if Dara would be able to affect a truce between Fíachu’s powerful tribe and Cohern’s enfeebled clan. Probably not.

Surely not.

We had betrayed Cohern after all.

“Poor Ainvar,” Briga commiserated when I shared my thoughts with her that night. “Don’t torture yourself about it. You had good intentions.”

“Look what my good intentions accomplished! Cohern was clever to locate us where he did, and now I’ve removed his only shield. He’s vulnerable to Fíachu again.”

“We could always go back to him, you know.”

“Then we’d be vulnerable to Fíachu, who would not thank us for refusing his hospitality. No, we’ll have to stay here.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it, Ainvar.”

“It’s all the fault of my head. I should never use it to make plans anymore. The time we spent at sea addled my brains with all that rolling and heaving.”

Briga laughed. I did not see anything funny.

At least we had left Cohern better-built lodges than his own. He would not occupy them while they were so close to his enemy. But Cohern expected us to change his enemies into friends.

Deep in my mind was a story I had heard long ago in Gaul, from one of our own bards. Among the early Celts there were shamans known as shape-changers who assumed the form of wild animals. Changing one thing into another seemed to be a Celtic specialty.

Like changing people into hawthorn trees…

Was it possible that the Túatha Dé Danann were Celts?

I spent a sleepless night on speculations. Outside the lodge where I lay—one which Fíachu had put at my disposal while our own were being built—was the usual complement of night noises. Sometime before dawn they changed. The rustle of trees in the wind became a chorus of sibilant voices.

Listen, I commanded my ears.

In addition to the voices there were other sounds, like the pattering of small bare feet. Moving carefully so as not to awaken Briga beside me, I got up and went to the door of the lodge. When I looked out I saw only the surrounding lodges. The bare earth was white with moonlight.

Yet I could hear whispering voices and running feet. Very, very close now.

The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

“What is it, Ainvar?” Briga called sleepily. Lakutu began to stir in her bed. Onuava coughed, and little Gobnat made querulous, about-to-wake-up sounds.

“I thought it might be raining,” I said.

“And what would you do if it were? Stop the rain?”

That was cruel; probably because she had been awakened out of a sound sleep. Briga knew I could no longer stop the rain.

I continued staring into the empty moonlight. Wondering what had been summoned by my thoughts. At last I went back and lay down again, but I still could not sleep. Fear crept over my skin like a skulk of foxes.

Once I was brave. A long time ago. Warriors must be crazy-brave, able to face anything. My courage came from being self-controlled and thoughtful. For most of my life that had been sufficient. Until Caesar. As casually as the scythe cuts the mistletoe from the oak, the fiendish Caesar had stripped me of my courage.

Briga is the opposite. When we first met she was a frightened child who aroused my most protective feelings. That which has broken me has made her stronger. She is the brave one now, as fierce as lions if need be. It is Briga who protects Ainvar, who lifts my heart and stiffens my spine.

I should be grateful. I am grateful. Yet a small, mean part of me hates her for having the courage I lack.

Love and hate; the Two-Faced One. Can the faces ever be reconciled?

chapter
VIII

W
ITH THE HELP OF FÍACHU’S MEN OUR NEW LODGES WERE SOON
built. They were even larger and more beautifully crafted than those we had abandoned. The Goban Saor carved our doors as Fíachu’s tribe carved theirs, and Glas decorated the door frames with colorful Celtic designs. Teyrnon demonstrated his ironwork by making door hinges so intricately shaped that they attracted attention in their own right. While he was forging them I wandered over to watch.

“It’s like magic,” I said, paying him the ultimate compliment. “You make it look so easy.”

Teyrnon grinned; flash of white teeth in a blackened face. “You have to work at the forge to feel the heat, Ainvar.”

Soon Fíachu’s clansmen were requesting new weapons from him. Their womenfolk asked him to fashion cauldrons and flesh forks. No one asked Teyrnon to forge a plow, though. The Slea Leathan were cattle people.

By talking with them while our new lodges were being built, I extended my knowledge considerably.

I learned that society in Hibernia was highly stratified and militarized. The island was roughly divided into a handful of kingdoms. Each was ruled by an overking who claimed the allegiance of the tribes in his territory and demanded tribute from them in the form of cattle and warriors. In return the king defended his kingdom against incursion by outsiders.