The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (46 page)

Such flames . . . red and orange and yel ow, yes, but among them and around them were glints of green and lavender, blue and silver. And they seemed to sway and leap and dance to the sound of such music as Ailil had never heard.

Beyond the fire was a dais on which was a high chair cast, it seemed, of silver. Lower than the chair were stools, three grouped together. From one a silver-haired Danaan stood, abruptly cutting off the music of his harp with a hand flat on the strings.

“Lord,” he cal ed, “what of the child?”

A crowd of Danaan rose from the benches that circled the fire and turned to look at them.

“In by a lesser gate with his mother,” Bobd said, laughing. “He was unrepentant enough, proud of how the cattle obeyed him, so that I would not further flatter his vanity by having you al petting him and tel ing him how glad you are to have him again.” Then the laughter was gone. “That little devil went right out of the
lios
into the unprotected land where no one thought to look for him at first. We were near two days behind and might have lost him, except for our guest here.” The bard or minstrel frowned. “A hard-used guest,” he said uncertainly.

“Not by us,” Bodb said, smiling. “This is Ailil mac Máta, who was injured in wresting our il -

behaved babe from the two vil ains who had seized him.”

A murmur passed through the watching crowd, and two men and a woman began to work their way around the benches to come to where Bobd and Ailil stood. Bobd continued to speak.

“If not for Ailil Dubd’s injury, which I think we must heal before we return him to the world, I would say we had wasted our effort in fol owing the boy’s trail. Ailil was intending to bring the child back to us.” The smile on his lips disappeared. “The thieves he delivered to us bound, and bound they wil remain, to labour in the depths of the sidhe without sight of sun or moon until they die.” The woman had reached them, and she stretched a hand to touch Ailil ’s side very gently. She shook her head. “And if you would hold your tongue for a moment or two,” she said severely to Bodb, “we could make a start on the curing. First do something useful. Cal for a litter.” Those words were the last thing Ailil remembered clearly. Because of his sense of wonder at what he had been seeing and hearing, Ailil had been fighting the intense pain in his side and a growing weakness. He remembered fingers gently prying his hand from Bobd’s arm, to which he had been clinging with increasing need. Then he was lying down and seeing with amazement above him a clear blue sky with white clouds and a bright sun.

Ailil closed his eyes. He knew they were underground. He remembered entering the shal ow cave, feeling a pain in his head and neck, and then seeing the long corridor form. When he opened his eyes again the sunlit sky was gone and he was lying in an ordinary chamber with a whitewashed ceiling. Beside the bed was an open window that looked out on a corner of the forest and a patch of meadow. Ailil raised a hand and touched cold stone.

The woman from the large hal bent over him, smiling. “It is only an image. You are stil in the sidhe.”

Ailil blinked and nodded, understanding. He shifted slightly. The sheet above him was incredibly smooth and the blanket was light and warm, but . . . He shifted again.

The woman shook her head. “I am sorry the bed is so hard but your ribs wil hurt less if you move in your sleep. Now—” she put an arm behind him and raised him up; Ailil was amazed at her strength because she was so slender and looked frail “— drink this and you wil soon begin to feel much better.”

It was true enough. The pain in his side disappeared almost completely, but Ailil continued to be weak and very sleepy. By what seemed to him the next day, however, he was able to sit up with only the faintest ache in his side. And the day after that, Bodb came and helped him walk around the sidhe. Ailil was surprised at how feeble he felt although by now the pain was completely gone.

He could bend and twist without a twinge. Bodb said he was longer healing than a Danaan would be and suggested that he exercise a bit before he left the safety of the sidhe.

Ailil was in no hurry. Medb had five more months to carry the child and he doubted she would leave Conchobar before her babe had survived the il nesses of childhood. He thanked Bodb for the invitation and sought out those who would be wil ing to spar with him and teach him.

A week passed. Ailil was thril ed by what the Danaan were wil ing to show him. His sword work, which had been good, was now superlative. They gave him a bow – he needed time to master its pul without strain. A month passed, and then another. He rode out with a hunting troop and took a boar without help, other than from the dogs, and when he looked at his arms and legs he realized they had lost any hint of boy. He was al man now. Another month passed and another. Ailil bethought him of what he stil needed to do to match Medb’s wealth and he told Bodb he would need to leave soon.

A week later, his horse was readied and saddlebags generously fil ed with travel supplies, his bedrol tied atop. Ailil once again thanked Bodb for his kindness and hospitality and asked,

“When I have gathered what I need, how wil I find the sidhe?” Bodb smiled. “Only desire to find it, and you wil be drawn.”

* * *

Now and again during her pregnancy Medb thought of the dark-haired boy and wondered what had happened to him. With her bel y ful and the child within acknowledged, Medb tasted this man and that – circumspectly, as she did not wish to annoy Conchobar further. But there were none among Conchobar’s liegemen or among the visitors who came that were much to her taste and she thought again of Ailil mac Máta and the red hunger in his eyes.

However, as her time drew near, Medb began to think of what she would do about the child.

Less than ever did she intend to stay in Ulster and she did not want to be tied to suckling a babe.

She would need a wet nurse.

She looked at the women who were also with child and due a little ahead of her. Among them, Ethne of the High Hil s seemed suited. She was neither unkind nor too tender-hearted; it did a child no good, especial y not the child of a king, to be too much indulged. One fault Ethne had was that she was too fond of her husband; she might get with child again too soon. Medb considered whether there was a way to have the man sent away on a long mission but, most conveniently, he went on a raid . . . and died.

The shock of grief brought on the woman’s labour and she delivered a boy child a few weeks early. Medb thought Ethne might have died of grief herself, except for the child who held her to the world. He lived, but was frail. Medb went to Ethne and asked if she would suckle her child also.

Ethne’s breasts ran with milk and her own boy took little.

“Why not?” Ethne said.

Medb made her bargain but she also saw Ethne’s eyes were dark with fear as she looked at her own child. If he died she would have nothing. She would cleave to Medb’s young one.

“You wil have the keeping of him,” Medb assured her. “I wil be busy with other things.” She was within days of her time. She had been doing women’s easy tasks for a few weeks, carding and spinning wool, for she was heavy and awkward, but now she took up her sword practice again and went to run down game in the forest. It was no surprise to anyone when her labour pains started. Nor was it much of a surprise when her bearing was quick and easy and a big, strong man-child howled on her bel y.

The women sent to Conchobar as soon as Medb was clean, and he came and looked at his son. “What wil you name him?” Medb asked.

Conchobar scowled, but his expression softened when his eyes rested on the child. “Name him Glaisne,” he said, and turned and left the house. Medb watched him go. That he had named the boy was important and during the months of their silent, wary truce she had discovered some worth in Conchobar. He ruled his people wel . She had learned much sitting beside him as Banríon of Ulster.

Ethne had attended the delivery and when Conchobar was gone she took up the child and cleaned him and wrapped him. Glaisne took the breast she offered and suckled hard.

“I wil watch over him,” Ethne said, and Medb turned on her side and slept.

In a week, Medb was wel recovered. After that she was seldom in the house. She was giving al her attention to her weapons practice and her herd, which had diminished under the care of Conchobar’s herdsmen. Seeking widely in the pasturage, she found three calves – with the red and white markings of her cows – separated from their mothers. For a moment she fingered the knife on her belt, but then dropped her hand and instead sent her youngest lover to Tara to bring back servants bound only to her.

Medb would not abide treachery. Three things she required of a husband: that he be without fear, meanness or jealousy. Conchobar was brave enough and he took no revenge on the men she now and again took to her bed. But it is mean to steal from a wife’s herd to keep her subservient. He had taken her cattle; she would take his son as soon as he was weaned. But when she returned to her house at the time when usual y she was at weapons practice, she found Conchobar bent over the child’s cradle.

Knife in hand, Medb stepped silently towards her husband. To harm his own son just because she was Glaisne’s mother . . .

But now, close enough, she heard Conchobar’s soft murmur of praise, of love. What held him bent over the cradle with a hand outstretched was no desire to do harm but the tight grip of baby fingers on his thumb.

So Medb waited warily, and the men she had bound to her by lust and by admiration and by the judicious giving of rings and armlets watched her back and helped her avoid strange accidents.

She waited a whole year longer, until Glaisne had teeth in his mouth and toddled among the men, already reaching for their bright attractions, their swords, their knives.

She waited until she saw Conchobar teaching the boy with more patience than she suspected he had. Then in the autumn of the year when Conchobar rode out hunting she cal ed the men who answered to her, gathered up her possessions – the silver plates and cups, the gold armbands and neck torcs, the embroidered linens and fur-trimmed wool mantles – and bade her herdsmen drive her cattle south, to Tara.

Eochaid Feidleach was not overjoyed to see her, but he was in contention with Tinni mac Conri, Rí of Connacht, and when Medb offered to lead the men who had come with her in Eochaid’s support he agreed. She did so wel that when Tinni was driven out, Eochaid gave Connacht and the dun at Cruachan into Medb’s hands.

For almost a month Medb watched from the wal s for a dark-haired, dark-eyed warrior with just her equal of goods. When he did not come, she laughed at herself for being a fool and wondered instead what it would be like to utterly rule her husband. So she welcomed Tinni back into Cruachan and into her bed, making sure he got no child upon her.

That was no success. Although Tinni raised no chal enge to her, she learned that her father had not put the man out for nothing. He was useless in the defence of the lands and people of Connacht against any active threat, and he was not honest; he stole, an armband here a neck torc there, to buy warriors. Medb only learned that after he was gone, but it taught her that a husband without possessions was no better than a husband richer than she.

She was rid of Tinni without much effort though. It so happened that Eochaid Dála had conceived a hot desire for her during the war against Tinni and he came and chal enged Tinni for his place. Medb made no protest, although she did not yet know Tinni had robbed her; she had no distaste for Eochaid and was pleased to take him to her bed and share with him the rule of Connacht.

Yet she stil took care not to conceive although she knew she would need an heir for Connacht.

She did not know for what she was waiting until, in the spring of the fifth year since she had come to be Conchobar’s wife, she came to the central of the seven doors of Cruachan to welcome a visitor – and her gaze met the hot eyes of Ailil mac Máta.

“You are a little late in coming to find me,” Medb said, Eochaid standing behind her and staring at the black hair and black eyes of her guest.

Ailil bowed his head. “I wil tel you why, Medb of Cruachan, but not now when it would seem I was excusing myself for not holding to my word. When you have cause to trust me better I wil tel you. Now I wil offer my services in what capacity you wish to use me.” She looked him over as she would a horse offered for sale, except that she did not examine his teeth. There was no need for that; they shone white and strong in his dark face when he smiled.

But scrawny was not a word that fitted him now – as even Conchobar would have admitted the phrase no longer suited Medb either. Ailil ’s limbs were thick with corded muscle, his chest deep and strong, and his shoulders were three axe-handles wide.

“Conchobar has not forgiven me for leaving him and taking with me my possessions,” Medb said. “Though they do not wear his plaids, raiders come from Ulster to steal my cattle and harass my farmers. I have need of fighting men to protect my land.” Ailil bowed his head again. “As you order, Rí.”

Behind her, Medb heard Eochain Dála mutter discontent. Although she did not turn, his grumblings did not please her. Eochaid seemed to think that because they were bedmates he had a lock on her body, which was pure foolishness. Her body was hers to seek pleasure with but more important, it was goods with which she won loyalty and paid for debts and favours, just as were the rings on her fingers or the armlets she wore. Any man who wished to be her husband needed to be free of jealousy as wel as brave and generous.

But she did not pay Ailil with that coin, and although he ate her with his eyes whenever they came together, he gave no sign of asking for that favour.