The Greener Shore (15 page)

The kingdom of the Laigin extended south from a river called the Liffey. A vast stretch of bog in the midlands served as the western boundary. The major tribes of the Laigin were ruled by chieftains who claimed descent from Éremon. They and their related clans comprised the warrior elite. Below them in rank were freemen with less prestigious antecedents, and then the unfree: men and women in bondage who had been seized in warfare.

The king of the Laigin was elected from among the tribal chieftains. The current king was an elderly man long past his fighting prime. Although Fíachu hoped to succeed him, his fellow chieftains also coveted the title.

A similar situation pertained in the kingdom of the Deisi, southwest of us, and also among the Ulaid in the north, from whom the Laigin obtained woven linen when the two kingdoms were not at war. Which was not often. No wonder warriors were at a premium. All Hibernia was a battleground.

Ensconced within a strong tribe, at least my little clan would have a degree of security. “We were wise to accept Fíachu’s offer,” I told Briga. “For the first time in years, we stand with the winners.”

My senior wife said smugly, “Aren’t you glad I sent you for seed corn?”

In honor of our new homes, Fíachu’s clan treated us to a celebratory banquet. The principal dish was roast swan. The bird, so rare in Gaul, was common on the lakes and rivers of Hibernia. The chieftain’s wives had pillows stuffed with swansdown. The creatures were highly regarded, however, and rarely slain for meat.

Briga managed to get through the whole meal without taking a bite of swan. When I asked her why not, she said, “They’re too beautiful to eat, Ainvar.”

Suddenly I had no appetite for mine, either.

When our lodges were ready Briga made a little ceremony of unwrapping her set of enameled bowls, lining them up, admiring them, then rewrapping them in fresh linen and secreting them at the very bottom of the wooden chest that would hold her possessions. She never looked at them again but we knew they were there.

We knew we were home.

The first night we slept in our new lodge I had a troubling dream about the Crow Court. The crows taking part in the ritual were all female, though how I knew this I could not say, since male and female crows look alike. When I awoke in the morning I interpreted my dream to mean that our women were in danger of alienating the Gaelic women.

Which proved that I had no gift for prognostication.

The following morning the air was full of the crisp, white smell of winter. Stepping outside to do the necessary, I felt ice crunch under my poor bare feet.

Later in the day I went to call upon Fíachu. I found him wearing soft, low boots of untanned leather though his legs were still bare. The boots were formed of two pieces, with a separate sole, and were slightly pointed at the toe. The upper surface was decorated with elaborate stitching.

“I didn’t know you wore shoes,” I remarked.

“My people have better sense than to walk on ice barefoot, Ainvar. I’m surprised you don’t.”

As soon as I got back to my lodge I put my old shoes on.

Almost every day brought something new. Relentless in his search for materials with which to work, the Goban Saor reported, “This land is rich beyond measure, Ainvar. There’s not only gold and iron but ample deposits of copper and lead. In fact, just about any sort of mineral one might want. Some can be ground into powder to use for enameling. Others can be polished and set as gemstones. And speaking of stone—I’ve found marble, granite, sandstone, limestone; an absolute plethora of building materials we could use if we wanted to emulate the Greeks. How clever you were to bring us here.”

I responded with a modest smile as if I had known it all along.

Never refuse a compliment.

We were frequent visitors to the chieftain’s stronghold that winter. At every opportunity, my Briga praised the beauty of the Slea Leathan women and admired their domestic skills. She made them feel good about themselves. Before spring my senior wife was the most popular woman in the whole area. Wives sought her advice about their husbands. Young girls asked her how to attract the men of their choice. More often than not, when I entered my lodge I would find Briga sitting cross-legged on the ground, plaiting some girl’s bright locks while she chatted over her shoulder with a graying matron.

Many women were drawn to Briga, but aside from sharing communal tasks such as dyeing fabric, most of them had little to do with one another. Their lives were extremely circumscribed. Loyalty was limited to their immediate families; ties of blood were considered stronger than marriage.

It was not much better for the men. The Gael clung to the heritage of personal rivalries that had plagued them since their arrival in Hibernia. A man’s “friends” were those who fought beside him or, more rarely, were willing to lend him something of value. Like love in a marriage, true friendship was considered a fortuitous adjunct to a much more important alliance.

Onuava was jealous of Briga’s popularity. She reacted by flaunting herself in front of other men. Onuava of the tawny hair and opulent breasts could still draw men’s eyes. Neither of Fíachu’s wives liked Onuava. When my third wife stood near him a fine dew of perspiration beaded the chieftain’s brow and his attention wandered.

Onuava also caused problems in another way. She kept urging me to bring Labraid back from Cohern.

“Cohern won’t release him until there is a truce between himself and the Slea Leathan,” I tried to explain to her.

“Then do it now, Ainvar. What are you waiting for?”

“It’s not that easy. Fíachu’s happy with the situation as it is.”

“Well, I’m not. Do something!” She stamped her foot and tossed her hair; the lodge echoed with her strident voice. Briga ignored her. The children hurried outside.

Vercingetorix had been able to control Onuava. He had even enjoyed her tantrums, but she rubbed my nerves raw and made my head ache. A man must have peace in his own lodge, so I spoke to Dara. “We have to get Fíachu to proclaim a truce with Cohern as soon as possible. Have you mentioned it to him yet?”

The guilty expression in my son’s eyes was my answer. “I thought maybe you would say something first, Father? Prepare the way for me?”

As chief advisor to Vercingetorix during the battle for Gaul I had been at the center of a giant spiderweb, with threads stretching in every direction. My task was to accumulate and assimilate information and determine the best way to use it. This required an understanding of our warriors and those of our allies; the Romans; their unpredictable German allies; their traitorous Gaulish allies…and foul Caesar himself.

Demanding though it was, and tragically though it turned out, I was gifted for that sort of work. My intuition about other people usually was sound. My own family was more difficult. I was never certain how to handle any of them.

“Dara, you wanted to do this, remember?”

He scuffled the earth with his toe. “Yes, Father.”

“So you must have thought you could.”

“I did at the time, but I’m not sure now. What if I make a fool of myself?”

The confidence of Vercingetorix had been contagious. It was almost enough to carry us to victory against overwhelming odds. I stood very still, reaching back into memory. Envisioning Rix at his most impressive. Then I hurled that image at my son. “You can do it, Dara,” I said as convincingly as possible. “You can.”

The following morning Dara went alone to the chieftain’s lodge. I took myself into the forest to wait. Walking in large circles; nervously rubbing my elbows. Above my head the oaks knotted their limbs in sympathy.

It was a large responsibility to lay on the shoulders of a mere boy. Onuava was not the only one with a lot at stake. She wanted Labraid back; I wanted Cormiac Ru. The Red Wolf had become something more than a son to me. We need those people who fill in the missing parts of ourselves.

Which brought me back to Vercingetorix.

There was no denying the power of Hibernia to draw people to its shores. In Thislife I would never see Vercingetorix again, but we were soul friends; we would meet again. When we did, it would surely be here.

I tried to imagine what it would be like with both of us inhabiting very different bodies. Would our spirits recognize each other? And would Briga be there, too? Would I know her? Would—

Dara came running toward me. “It’s all right, Father!” he shouted. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

Fíachu was going to meet with Cohern to discuss a truce.

It would not involve all of the Iverni, only a single clan, but would mean a radical improvement in Cohern’s situation. A runner had been sent to invite him to meet Fíachu at a point halfway between their respective clan-holdings, and Cohern had agreed.

“Fíachu’s asked me to accompany him to the meeting,” Dara proudly informed me.

Not me, but my son. I was no longer at the center of the spiderweb. I thought I was glad. Yet when I saw Dara march off with Fíachu’s retinue I felt a great longing for the old days with Vercingetorix.

We never fully appreciate today until tomorrow.

Onuava was ecstatic when Labraid returned. She paraded him around the clanhold, introducing him to everyone as the son of the greatest warrior who ever lived.

When Cormiac Ru rejoined us he looked older than I remembered. After the style of warriors, he now sported a flowing moustache and divided his fiery hair into seven plaits. But his eyes were the same, as deep and colorless as water.

I thought of the voices in the night and the little pattering footfalls. “I want you to sleep in our lodge,” I told Cormiac.

His strange eyes looked into mine and straight through them to my hidden fears. “If you wish, Ainvar.”

Onuava insisted on having Labraid with her, and the addition of two more men crowded our lodge considerably. The only solution was to build more lodges. Our little clan had not yet celebrated a new birth, but we were expanding all the same.

Life is good, I whispered to That Which Watches. It is well to give thanks whenever there is a reason to do so. The Otherworld rewards gratitude. And punishes ingratitude.

I hope Gaius Julius Caesar is ungrateful for the power he has achieved. I fondly imagine Taranis shriveling him with a bolt of white fire.

On a day of clouds and rain, Lakutu moved her children and her loom to a new lodge. Labraid carried Onuava’s possessions to another one, while she trailed behind him, warning him not to drop anything in the mud. Cormiac went hunting with Dara and Echri, and little Gobnat fell asleep early.

Briga and I were alone. I had almost forgotten what that was like. She settled down beside the hearth and patted the ground, inviting me to join her.

Briga by firelight. Her fair hair turned to russet by the flame. Her complexion as luminous as a pearl moist from the sea.

Which is her element, I wonder. Fire? Or water?

My fingers tangle in Briga’s hair. Does she know how I feel about her? I cannot tell her, I do not have the words.

Nor does she tell me. Yet once, when I looked back, she had touched her fingers to her lips.

THE ADDITIONAL LODGES DID NOT ASSURE ME OF A QUIET LIFE.
Lakutu continued to spend much of the day in our lodge, returning to her own to sleep with her children. She even had her loom brought to our lodge so she could work there. If Briga resented the amount of floor space the loom took up, she was compensated by the beautiful fabrics my second wife wove.

Onuava was a less frequent visitor to our lodge. She preferred to be in her own place, where she was the center of attention. More and more women were coming to us, however, seeking Briga’s help and advice. Her reputation as a wise woman spread beyond Fíachu’s clanhold to the wider expanse of his tribe. Soon we had visitors—not all of them female—from as far away as a day’s walk.

If they needed commonsense advice Briga gave it in full measure. Should they require healing for a physical complaint she sent them to Sulis. But when, as frequently happened, the remedies that had been efficacious for Sulis in Gaul failed to work in Hibernia, the sufferers returned to my senior wife. At Sulis’s suggestion.

Briga did not always employ traditional methods. Her gift defied tradition. Perhaps every gift defies tradition, being unique to the recipient.

Using the druid intuition she would have denied, Briga scoured the countryside for bark and herbs and grasses. Many of those she found were unknown to her, yet she intuitively selected the ones that could help in healing.

In the same way, she sought out a number of springs in different locations and took water from each. “They have different properties,” she explained to me as she poured the liquid into stone bottles. “This water is good for the eyes, this next one will heal sore throats, and that one over there will make wounds stop bleeding.”

She did not test any of the liquids before making these claims. She
knew.

She pounded yarrow and a pungent herb called finabawn into a thick paste, smeared it onto fresh grass with the dew still on it, and used this to poultice intractable boils. A plaster of cattle dung moistened with Briga’s own urine was applied to painful insect stings. When a woman complained of an excessive flow of blood during her female season, Briga gave her a decoction of setfoil and furze blossom to drink.