The Greener Shore (36 page)

Fortunately there is more than one way to mount a horse.

Once again, Grannus lifted Briga onto the gray. When he turned to the chestnut mare I warned, “Don’t try to get on the way you did last time. She’ll never stand for it. ”

“Have you a better suggestion, Ainvar?”

“Actually, I do. I’ll even demonstrate.” I led my horse into the shallows and then downriver to a point where the bank rose straight up from water’s edge. The Liffey was liquid ice. When the water came almost to my horse’s chest and the current was tugging at us both, I clambered up onto the bank above him. From there it was a simple matter to ease myself down onto his back.

“See how easy that was, Grannus? Now you do it.”

The chestnut mare danced and fretted, but the water impeded her. Grannus managed to get on without a repetition of the last time.

We resumed our journey along the Liffey’s erratic course. Eventually the river grew broader, spilling out onto the floodplain. The sun was low in the sky when we came upon a large midden of empty shells, evidence of a nearby tribe that made shellfish a staple of their diet. Grannus’s stomach growled. “Can’t we halt for a while and eat that bread and cheese?”

“Not yet,” I told him. “The mouth of the river can’t be far ahead.”

When the last rays of the winter sun were smothered by a mottled twilight, Grannus grumbled, “It’s almost dark, Ainvar, and I’ve got used to having a layer of thatch over my head at night. We’d better get there soon.”

“You sound like an old woman,” I scoffed.

Then we heard the scream.

chapter
XXIV

T
HE CRY SHATTERED THE TWILIGHT INTO A THOUSAND ICY
slivers. It might have been the ghastly shriek of a man being torn in half. Anyone familiar with Caesar knew the sound of agony.

Our horses shied violently. Grannus hit the ground with a thud. Briga and I brought our mounts under control, though they stood with their ears stiffly pricked in the direction of the scream. The direction in which we were traveling.

Cursing under his breath, Grannus got to his feet. He snatched at the mare’s dangling reins. She snorted and danced out of reach. “Let me,” said Briga.

She urged the gray horse forward, reached out, and caught hold of the mare’s reins. “Take off your sword, Grannus,” Briga said softly. Quietly. “Now give it to Ainvar.”

The sword was heavy in my hand. Alien. My fingers did not know the shape of the hilt.

“All right,” Briga told Grannus, “get back on your horse.”

He looked around but saw nothing he could use as a mounting block. “How?”

Briga sighed. In just such a way, women must have sighed over the inadequacies of their menfolk since before the before. “Lean your chest against your horse’s ribs,” she directed, “and reach across her back. Gently, Grannus! Stroke her opposite side a time or two. That’s fine. Now jump as high as you can and use your arms to pull yourself up and over.”

As long as Briga was holding her reins, the skittish mare was willing to stand. When Grannus was seated on her back I handed him his sword. Carefully. He replaced it in the sheath. Carefully.

Only then did Briga relinquish the mare’s reins to him.

I did not ask her how—or when—she had learned the trick of mounting a horse. I doubt if she knew.

My more immediate consideration was the scream. Were we riding into terrible trouble? My head thought we were, but my heart was in charge now.
Maia. Cormiac Ru.
Labraid, for that matter. I gave the dark horse a kick in the ribs and sent him cantering forward.

“How fast can you draw that sword if you have to?” I called to Grannus.

“Fast enough,” he called back.

I told Briga to stay close to me, though the admonition was unnecessary. The horses bunched together of their own accord. The gray and the chestnut hung back just enough to let my dark horse take the lead, which he did unhesitatingly. Sitting astride his warm back, feeling his muscles flex and gather beneath me, I felt like part of him. Stronger than I really was.

My head wondered: If I had not been born with the druid’s gift, might I have become a chieftain of the Carnutes and ridden into battle on a horse like this one?

Then I recalled how heavy the sword had felt in my hand. How alien.

Our destination was the tribe of Dubh Linn, the people of the Black Pool. Their chieftain was Rígan, whom I once met at the Lughnasa festival. Fíachu disliked Rígan. Given his own ambitions, Fíachu would resent anyone whose name meant “little king.”

If Rígan was taking good care of my people I was prepared to love him like a brother.

The fishermen had boasted of the size of their tribe. Their territory extended from well above the Black Pool to the southernmost shore of the bay. “All of it prosperous and peaceful,” they had assured us.

But we had heard that scream.

In an edgy voice, Grannus inquired, “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

A man on a horse is much taller than he would be on foot. And I rode the tallest horse. Glittering through the twilight like malevolent red eyes, I could see fires ahead. “I’m sure,” I told Grannus.

All around us and behind us was darkness. Somewhere in that darkness was the thing that had screamed and the thing that had caused the scream. Ahead lay a settlement with fires and shelter. At that moment I did not care if the inhabitants were friendly or not.

I urged my horse to a gallop.

Presently we reached the first fire. It was, I later learned, at the western perimeter of Rígan’s clanland. Two armed warriors huddled beside the fire, blowing on their hands to keep them warm. When we rode up they grabbed their weapons. “What do you want?” one demanded. There was a faint quaver in his voice that made me suspect he had heard the scream, too.

I drew rein. “We seek Rígan’s stronghold. His people have given shelter to members of our tribe who were injured at sea, and we’ve come to take them home.”

The warriors beckoned us closer so they could study our faces in the firelight. They looked longest at Briga. Oddly, the fact that there were three of us seemed to reassure them. “Go on, then,” they told us. “Straight ahead, it’s not very far.”

Before we rode away I could not resist asking, “Did either of you hear a scream a little while ago?”

The men exchanged glances. One muttered a Gaelic phrase I had not heard before; it sounded like
bawn shee.
The other insisted, far too hastily, “We didn’t hear a thing.”

When we were out of earshot Grannus told me, “I don’t like any part of this.” Neither did I, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

Presently we passed an outcropping of rock on the south bank of the river. Beyond lay Rígan’s stronghold. The fort differed substantially from that of Fíachu, having neither a protective ditch nor an earthwork embankment, only a palisade of woven wattles—interlaced rods of willow and hazel. There was a pervasive smell from the nearby mudflats.

At the palisade gate two more guards challenged us. Again I explained our mission; again they looked at us searchingly; again we were, with some reluctance, passed through.

There were enough fires within the compound to provide adequate light for my eyes to make their report to my head. I concluded that timber must be in short supply along the coast. The lodges were made of wattles plastered with mud from the river, and devoid of any ornamentation. The chieftain’s lodge was identifiable only by its size. We rode toward it at a walk.

A man mantled in a magnificent sealskin cloak was standing in the doorway. He wore an exceedingly grim expression; his figure was rigid with tension. When he got a good look at us he visibly relaxed. “I am Rígan,” he announced, “chief of the tribe of Dubh Linn, and this is the kingdom of—”

Interrupting him was a serious breach of tradition, but I could not wait while he recited his lineage. “You know me, Rígan, I’m Ainvar of the Slea Leathan. We’ve come for our people.”

He peered up at me. “Ainvar?”

“It is.”

He had a quick head. “Then you must mean the three from the boat. How did you know they were here?”

“Some fishermen from your tribe came to ask my wife to heal their injuries. They told us.”

He gave a terse nod. “You’d best come inside, then.” From his tone I could not tell if he had bad news for us or not.

I asked, “Will someone look after our horses?”

Rígan gave a shout and a boy came running from another lodge. I stiffly dismounted and surrendered the reins of the dark horse. Briga told the lad, “Rub these animals all over with dry blankets. Then give them just a few mouthfuls of water. Don’t let them drink deeply yet, not until they’ve had some rest.”

How did she know how to care for exhausted horses?

The inside of Rígan’s lodge was already overfilled when we arrived. Crammed with weapons and lobster pots and chests and cooking utensils, plus a loom, a hen box, an untidy pile of rescued driftwood to use in making repairs, several women who could be either wives or bondwomen, and a swarm of small children. Whatever else he might be, the little king was prolific.

At his signal, a harried-looking female of indeterminate age edged her way toward us through the crowd. One could not help but admire the way she skillfully avoided spilling the brimming basin she was carrying. As I was washing my hands I asked Rígan, “Are they alive?”

He knew who I meant. “They’re alive.”

Briga gave an audible sigh of relief.

“But they’re in bad shape,” Rígan went on. “They’re emaciated, and the one called ‘the Speaker’ told us they’d been attacked a number of times.”

At that moment the details were unimportant; I just wanted to see them. To see Maia again. “We can talk later, Rígan. First, please take my wife and me to our children.”

Our children.

“They’re in another lodge,” he said, “and may be asleep by now.”

“You weren’t.”

“I…ah…thought I heard something.”

I was torn between my desire to see Maia and Cormiac again and an almost equally compelling desire to solve the mystery of the scream. “We heard something too, Rígan; a terrible cry that frightened our horses. Do you know what it was?”

Instead of answering, he took me by the elbow and steered me toward the door.

The chieftain led us to a lodge almost at the edge of the river. The smell of mud and fish and water was stronger there. A fire within the lodge was burning low, creating more shadows than light. An old man and woman sat huddled together on a bench by the hearth. When we entered they got to their feet.

“This is Ainvar of the Slea Leathan,” Rígan told them. “Let him see the people you’re caring for.”

The old man thrust a bundle of rushes dipped in pitch into the fire. The rushlight flared. Holding the torch aloft, he led us to a pallet of woven wattles upon which lay a figure wrapped in a blanket. In the smoky light from the torch it was hard to make out details, but the figure looked long. Tall. “Cormiac?” I said tentatively.

My voice startled the sleeper, who awoke with a grunt. He threw aside the blanket and sat up. It was Labraid Loingseach.

“Ainvar?” he asked groggily. “Is it really you?”

“Ainvar and Briga,” I replied, squatting on my heels beside his bed. I tried not to show how appalled I was by his appearance. Onuava’s big strong son had been reduced to skin and bone. “We’ve come to take you home,” I said.

He threw both scrawny arms around me. Then he winced; the result, I learned later, of a festering wound in his shoulder.

Briga went on to the next pallet. I heard her say “Maia?” in a hopeful-fearful voice. Gently disengaging from Labraid’s clutches, I joined her. She called Maia’s name again. There was a stirring under the blanket. A faint yet deep male voice said, “Cormiac Ru.”

And so it was.

I snatched the rushlight from the old man and held it up so we could get a good look at the Red Wolf. He was even thinner than Labraid and his features were contorted with pain. My nose detected the odor of putrid flesh. A lesser man might already have been dead.

The fire in Cormiac’s eyes was not a reflection of the torch, but of his iron will to survive.

“I salute you as a free person, Ainvar,” he whispered.

I wanted to emulate Labraid; grab Cormiac and hug him with all my might. He was too badly hurt for that, so I contented myself with grasping his hand. It was a bundle of bones loosely held together by flesh no thicker than a fish skin. “I was afraid we’d never see you again.”

The gray eyes looked past me, seeking Briga. When they found her his pain-wracked features relaxed. “You shouldn’t worry,” he said in a slightly stronger voice. “I’ll never be far from you and yours.”

She bent down and pressed her lips against his forehead.

We turned to the third bed. I raised the rushlight higher. With trembling hands, Briga folded back the blanket, waking the sleeper beneath.

Who stared up at us.

We stared down.

At the long face, the high-bridged nose. The curly black stubble sprouting on jaw and chin. I did not recognize that particular face but I recognized the race from which it sprang.