Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur (52 page)

She knelt down in front of them, laughing. "Bran, Ossar!" It had been what — two years? And still they remembered her. Yseult was relieved at the distraction they provided from her mother's words, relieved at their simple loyalty and love.

Crimthann came over and extended a hand down to her to help her rise.

"You see, Yseult, there is still a place for you here."

She took the hand the king of the Laigin offered, wondering if he was right. Was there a place for Tuatha Dé anywhere in the world anymore?

* * * *

The routine of an Erainn rath in summer came back to her quickly. In the mornings she would go to the house of healing to see if her mother needed any assistance with the sick or injured, but this time of year, after planting and before harvest, the weather warm but not hot, there was not much to do. When it grew hotter, there would be more illnesses from spoiled food, and pregnant women and the elderly who collapsed in the heat, but not yet. Sometimes Yseult the Wise was needed elsewhere, and she and Brangwyn would take over for a time. In the afternoons, she tended the herb garden and collected herbs that grew wild. If there had been no rain for several days, plants had to be watered when sunlight no longer touched them. Always, Kustennin accompanied her; as he grew stronger and more lively, she used a sling she had fashioned to carry him on her back rather than lugging him around in his basket.

The weather grew warmer, and soon the sheep would have to be sheared. Every woman in the rath with any time to spare was to be pressed into washing and carding the wool and spinning the yarn. Preparations were already underway, the shed cleaned out where the sheep would be herded and the condition of the shears checked. During the shearing, she and the other healers would have much more work, cuts and scrapes and bruises to tend to, maybe even a broken bone.

The day the sheep were herded into the shed, she set out to collect any additional supplies they might need that didn't grow in the herb garden, Kustennin in the sling on her back: moss for dressings, elder leaves for a fresh batch of ointment for bruises, raspberry leaves for a poultice for cleaning wounds. As she left the earthwork ramparts for the woods to the west, Illann caught up with her.

"Yseult! Well met. I have been wanting to speak with you alone."

"Good. Then you can help me brave the raspberry bushes."

Illann made a face but remained heroically at her side. "I heard you are considering returning to Eriu."

She glanced at him sharply. Where could he have heard that? Perhaps she had not guarded her thoughts well enough, too used to a land without magic. She thought of Myrddin and Modrun — a land with very little magic, she corrected herself.

When she didn't reply, he continued. "You were married to the Dumnonian king against your will, but now you are here. You could stay."

"And what of my son?" Yseult asked. Said son slept peacefully in his sling, his curly-haired head resting on her shoulder.

Illann looked at Kustennin, smiling. "He's a fine boy. Any man would be happy to call him son."

There would be a place for Kustennin if she married one of Crimthann's kinship group, married Illann. That was what her former fighting companion was telling her.

But she did not want to marry Illann. She wanted the freedom to love Drystan —
and
a place for her son.

"I do not want to leave his father," she said quietly.

"But I thought —"

Yseult did not allow him to complete the thought. "Say no more, Illann. Let us enjoy the day."

He nodded.

They collected raspberry leaves together and reminisced about old times, and she almost felt at home.

* * * *

After the sheep-shearing, Yseult and Brangwyn set off with Yseult the Wise and a large party of Fianna warriors for Druim Dara to visit the site of the eternal fire. The queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann was no longer in such great personal danger now that Coirpre was High King of Tara, but the Ui Neill were still enemies, and a substantial warrior escort was necessary.

Given what her mother had told them when they arrived, Yseult was unsure whether she wanted to see the representative of the threefold goddess at all. Could Brigid still be the woman who had tricked Patraic into keeping Brehon law? Tricked him into saving the Brehon and their judgments, yes — but now Erainn law was a fusion of Tuatha Dé, Gael, and Christian. It seemed Brigid was using a similar strategy now as she had then. And so Yseult had decided to make the journey and speak with the ban file herself.

Druim Dara was less than half-a-day's ride from Dun Ailinne, depending on the weather and the state of the roads, and those were perfect. Yseult had not only reacquainted herself with Bran and Ossar since returning, Crimthann had also presented her with her mare Duchann Bhan, now a mature six-year-old, not the lively filly she had once been. As with her hounds, her horse seemed to remember her, part of home in this world half hers and half not.

They arrived in Druim Dara before the midday meal, and one of the first people Yseult saw was Patraic. He stood in front of a wooden frame of what she presumed would be the new church, helping build it with his own hands. The fringe of his hair was shot through with more gray than she remembered, and he had abandoned the robes of a holy man for a pair of breeches. The day was warm, and the men sawing the planks and fitting the boards together with dowels were almost all without shirt or tunic, including Patraic himself.

At the sound of their horses, Patraic turned. A surprised smile of recognition lit up his face; he raised his hand in greeting as they passed. Their eyes met, and Yseult caught a feeling of admiration, affection almost, from him. There was a twinkle in his eyes, as if they shared some kind of secret joke.

When they arrived at the gates of Druim Dara, they dismounted. Already, slaves were hurrying forward to take their horses; her mother was no stranger here, and there was no need for them to identify themselves. Before they had even pulled their saddlebags from the rumps of their pack animals, Brigid emerged, smiling, but Yseult could also sense a rueful tentativeness, which didn't surprise her.

"Yseult!" She chuckled. "And Brangwyn! It is good to see you again. Come, we have our finest guest house prepared for you. I'm looking forward to seeing your son, Yseult."

Brigid's own mixed feelings did much to loosen the knot of resentment in Yseult's chest. She of all people should know that there were many choices in life that offered no right decision.

She was glad she had come after all.

A loud cry came from the basket in which Kustennin had been traveling, and Yseult hurried over to get him. When she picked him up, he opened up his eyes and smiled at her. After the indeterminate dark of his first days, the color had turned the same forest green as his father. She turned to find Brigid beside her, peering at her son.

The ban file smiled. "A fine boy. Shall we walk together with him to the sacred fire?"

Yseult nodded. Brigid ruffled Kustennin's short, fine curls, and he let out an infectious baby giggle, making them both laugh.

Together they made their way to the site of the sacred fire. The flowers of the hawthorn hedge were drying up and falling off, and the berries were still small and green; it was not yet the flaming bush as it was in fall or winter, when the berries and then the leaves themselves took on the color of fire.

A priestess in a light summer robe guarded the fire, feeding it constantly. It was the most sacred duty at Druim Dara, one reserved for the female acolytes and priestesses. Twelve times a day, the tending of the sacred fire was handed off to another priestess. There were men who trained at Druim Dara as well, but tending the fire of Anu, Danu and Brigid was a task reserved for women.

"Will it continue burning?" Yseult asked quietly, keeping a comfortable distance between herself and the dancing flames. It was too warm to bask in the sacred fire, and she sympathized with the young woman who now kept it from going out, as much of an honor as it was.

"Yes, it will, Yseult. For our lifetimes and long thereafter. But only because of the decisions I have made that you disapprove of."

Yseult shifted Kustennin's weight on her hip, and he caught sight of the fire, staring. "What is to become of Anu, Danu and Brigid then?"

Brigid sighed. "You know that I had dreams of the future long before you left."

"Yes, I remember. You and my mother spoke of them often the winter we stayed here, the winter I turned fifteen."

Brigid sat down on a stone bench and patted the spot next to her. Yseult was glad to sit: Kustennin was almost five months old now and growing rapidly. She propped him on her lap so that he would have more freedom to inspect the world around him.

The ban file gazed at the fire, her expression distant. "For many years I couldn't interpret the dreams — or perhaps I was resisting the correct interpretation. But slowly they became more detailed, or I became more open to their message, I cannot say which. What I saw was the fire before us going out if I refused to tolerate this new religion. But if I accept it, the fire of Brigid will be carried into the new age."

Kustennin was cooing, very inappropriately as far as Yseult was concerned. "Ah, Danu."

"You have been considering returning to Eriu."

It wasn't a question, but Yseult answered it anyway. "Yes."

"Your role is in Dumnonia, in the land of the Bretain."

"Have you seen that too?"

Brigid placed her hands flat on the tops of her thighs. "We both have important roles to play, you and I. I sensed it, long ago, when you were little more than a child and I ban file little more than a year."

"It isn't that long ago in terms of years."

"But it feels as if so many more seasons have passed."

Yseult bounced Kustennin on her knee, thinking of all that had changed since that winter, so many dead, the Feadh Ree hiding in the hills of the sidhe, the peace of Eriu a thing of the past, and across the sea, Ambrosius missing in Gaul. She wondered if there had been any news from Ambrosius yet, wondered if the peace with the Saxons still held and if Drystan was still in Dyn Tagell. Perhaps Arthur had even called a council of the regional kings. She wished news did not travel so slowly.

And she realized with a start that she was nearly as concerned with what was happening across the Erainn Sea as she was in the land of her birth.

"How did everything change here so quickly?" Yseult asked. "The religion of the Christ still does not seem that strong. There are only few kings who claim to be Christian, and just as many who will not even allow Patraic or his disciples to enter their territory, such as Coirpre at Tara."

Brigid rose and began to pace in front of her, and Kustennin's gaze wobbled from the fire to the moving figure of the ban file. "Yes, if all I saw were the present, I might think there no need for change. But the future looks very different." She stopped. "Besides, Yseult, it is not the kings who turn to Patraic's religion for comfort. It is the common people."

Yseult was silent, thinking of the conversation she had with Ciaran so many years ago. The common man — the man with no honor price and no future.

She had to admit, she would much rather that man followed Patraic than a warrior turned traitor like Gamal.

"Just so," Brigid said, keeping pace with Yseult's thoughts. "Perhaps it is not such a bad future. And if my visions are true, you and I can carry something of the old ways into the new."

"But how? I am not a priestess as you are."

Brigid shrugged. "It is as your mother's prophecy said: your name will be like a standing stone. That is how
you
will carry the old ways into the new. More I do not know."

"And you will save the eternal fire," Yseult said.

The ban file nodded. "Patraic understands the power of symbols and magic and knows how to use the old ways to his own advantage. In exchange for some of the influence he will soon have on the minds and hearts of the people of Eriu, I can persuade him to let me continue to lead here at the ridge of the sacred oak and tend the sacred fire."

Yseult did not feel as hopeful at this vision of the future as Brigid seemed to be. "But how will you be able to ensure that the fire will still burn after your lifetime?"

The ban file sat next to her again, giving her a secret smile. "Even now, only women may tend the fire," she said. "When it is time to make the change, Druim Dara will become a place only for women — no male acolytes at all. Patraic will be happy to agree to it, since he believes that we here in Eriu are much too free with our sexual favors."