The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (47 page)

Within a month she noticed the men of the dun tended to look towards Ailil rather than Eochaid whenever an action was planned. And over that time she had noticed that the men who served with Ailil came back from their protective forays in better spirits and with fewer injuries. Before the second month of Ailil ’s return was ended, a deputation came to her to ask that she make Ailil chief of her warband.

This Medb did gladly, lifting a thick torc of gold from her neck and leaning forward to place it around Ailil ’s. He did not look at the gold symbol of power as she offered it; he looked at her bare throat and at the swel of her breasts and he wiped sweat from his upper lip when he bent his head to receive the symbol of his new authority.

Eochaid was not pleased and he whispered to Medb that Ailil and the men he had brought with him out of Erna exaggerated their successes against the raiders from Ulster. He told of secret arrangements between Ailil and Conchobar’s troops that they cease raiding now and when he was seated on the throne beside Medb he would give them her cattle as if they had been won as prizes of war.

Only the men bound to Medb herself did not confirm Eochaid’s warnings and so Medb met the glance of the dark eyes, saw the pink tongue touch the lips in the swarthy face and shook her head at Eochaid Dála.

“No,” she said, laughing. “Cattle are not the pay Ailil mac Máta desires of me. I wil not outlaw him on your word. My own men say he is a leader with whom they are content.” Others came to her also, a few she suspected were in Eochaid’s pay, but she would listen to none of them and her gaze locked more and more often on that of Ailil when he sat just below her on the drinking benches. They laughed at the same jests, and Eochaid’s expression grew blacker and blacker.

Eochaid and Ailil did not ride together and did not know each other’s strength. Ailil , obedient to Medb’s warning of trouble from Conchobar, rode north and east towards Ulster; Eochaid rode mostly south and west to guard against those of Casil. The Casili had no grudge against Medb but they saw no harm in picking up a cow for slaughter that had not come from their herds, or a pig or a pretty farmer’s daughter. Medb rode with a smal er escort, less to fight, although she gave a good account of herself when necessary, than to look over al the lands and the people.

Although Eochaid did his duty wel enough, Medb thought less of him as a ruler. He spent too much time trying to rid Connacht of Ailil and too little judging crops and grazing lands. Half the women in the dun threw themselves at Ailil and he welcomed every one with good-humoured indifference, but the hunger in his eyes did not lessen a jot when he looked at Medb. As important, neither women nor that hunger took his attention from the crops and the pasturage or made him a less wise judge of his men and the people.

Unable to turn Medb against her favourite, Eochaid set traps for Ailil , which he avoided and commented on with amusement, enraging Eochaid further. Moreover, Medb was not amused and denied Eochaid her bed until, she said, he should understand that who she slept with was at her discretion alone.

Eochaid then saw that if Ailil died by attack or accident, Medb would blame him. So Eochaid set an open chal enge on Ailil . With this, Medb did not meddle; nor did she show any preference when she came to watch the fight.

It did not last long. In a hundred heartbeats Eochaid knew himself to be outmatched. Whereupon he made a fatal error. He desired to mark Ailil before he yielded and launched a fiery attack. Ailil did not match it with defence but with an attack of his own.

Eochaid had his desire; his sword bit lightly on Ailil ’s left shoulder, but his extended weapon opened a path. This Ailil leaped upon – his sword struck down. Eochaid was cloven from where his neck met his shoulder down to his breastbone. The jugular was sliced clean through. Blood burst in a fountain over Ailil ’s sword and arm, even over his face as he drew his sword out of the wound and the body fel towards him.

“You kil ed him!” Medb had arrived so quickly that she too was spattered with blood and her eyes were round with shock. “He was not a bad man, just not enough for me. Did you need to kil him?”

“Yes.” Ailil ’s breath was stil coming hard and his own blood trickled down his left arm. “He cal ed you wife. I wil suffer no other man to cal you wife.”

“If I take you in marriage, you think you wil be the only man ever to lie in my bed?” Ailil laughed. “Mother Dana forbid. I know you may drop a favour here and there for curiosity or to pay a debt or tie a cord around a man’s heart. That wil cause me no pain so long as I know I give you pleasure also.”

Medb stepped back, away from the body that lay on the ground. She glanced down, made a gesture to summon Eochaid’s men to take him up and fit him for burial. Then she looked back at Ailil .

“How would I know that? Your eyes promise, but you have never sought to fulfil that promise. You seek to share the rule of Connacht. Agreed you have saved me much loss in protecting my lands, but if I share what is mine with you, we wil both be poor.”

“No!” Lifting his hand in protest, Ailil very nearly spitted Medb on the bared sword he was stil holding.

He gasped and pul ed the hem of his tunic out to wipe the weapon so he could sheathe it. Medb had hopped aside from the motion of the sword, with practised reaction to the weapon’s movement. She did not even look at it as she spoke.

“But I have resolved never to take another husband who had nothing of his own.”

“Most rightly,” Ailil agreed, smiling. “I wil go tomorrow to fetch my own property and we can match what we have.”

Medb stared at him for a long moment. “I wil not wait another five years for you to make good your word to me.”

Ailil laughed heartily. “No, indeed, I promise you I wil not step even one foot inside the sidhe.” He started away.

“Inside a sidhe?” Medb echoed to his back. “Is this what you promised to explain to me when you first came?”

He turned back towards her, leaned forwards suddenly and put his mouth to hers, not trying to embrace or hold her to him. His lips were firm but soft, not dry but not wet with spittle either. And then, just as she was about to embrace him, he drew back.

“I must go and have this shoulder bound up before I lose too much blood.” She saw then that a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his face and remembered that the lips that touched her had been cool; his skin was pale and greyish and he was unsteady.

“Go then,” she said quickly. “Go and have your wound bound. You can tel me about the sidhe tomorrow.”

But he was gone before dawn the next day. Medb said several words that delicately raised ladies did not know. He had taken about half the men he brought from Erna with him. Medb questioned the men he had left, but they knew nothing of where Ailil was going. They had come to him with his possessions after he had come from the sidhe . . . if that was from where he had come.

So Medb cursed Ailil to unease and sleeplessness and went with some of her own people to Tara. Her father was sorry to hear what had happened to Eochaid Dála, who had supported him in several wars. He asked whether Ailil was likely to be as useful and al Medb could say was that he would be even more useful . . . if he had not disappeared again. Eochaid Feidleach shook his head at her and told her she should not be so careless with her men – one dead and another missing. Medb ground her teeth and set out for Cruachan to guard the lands Eochaid and Ailil had watched.

But when she came to the dun, Ailil was there, his cattle in the pasture, his goods spread out on the trestle tables where the people of the dun sat down to eat. There was no lack in the goods, in the silver cups and the horns wound with gold wire in their gold stands, in the platters and the linens and the close-woven cloth. He laughed at her rage over his departure and she stamped on his foot so that he howled and hopped about holding it in his hand. And then they fel into each other’s arms, both laughing, and cal ed witnesses to count over what was hers and what was his.

It was a very close thing, very close indeed, except . . . The bul with Ailil ’s herd was far superior to that in Medb’s. Both were silent as the witnesses gave their judgment and they looked into each other’s eyes. An icy chil ran down Medb’s spine. A bul would bring disaster to her. Stil . . .

“I promised myself that I would not take a husband to whom I would be subservient,” Medb said.

“I desire you for my wife far more than I desire to rule you,” Ailil said, “but the law is the law. Al I can offer is to geld the bul —”

The chil struck Medb again. “No!” she cried. “It would be an evil thing to spoil so fine a bul .” Ailil nodded. “You are too clever to destroy something of value. And think, Medb, you have a dozen yearling bul s that are already better than their sire. Take me for a year while those yearlings grow into their ful power on my oath not to use my authority.” Medb thought. It would not be so easy to rid herself of Ailil as of her previous husbands, but the hunger in his eyes roused her as no other man’s gaze ever had. She held out her hand and he clasped it, and so they were wed before the people of the dun.

Medb ordered a great feast to mark the occasion, taking care that exactly so many steers and sheep and pigs came from Ailil ’s goods as came from her own. But they themselves did not attend the revels for long. When the serious drinking got underway, Medb and Ailil slipped out of the hal to her house, where Ailil ’s hunger was slaked at last, and then slaked again, and stil again so that Medb knew no satisfaction would stil it for long.

In the morning, they stil lay together, sated, yet Medb was eager to start the day to see how wel Ailil would keep his promise not to try to rule her. When she started to rise, however, he held her back and she laughed.

“You stil desire me so much?”

“Yes.”

“You think me the most beautiful woman you have ever seen?” Now Ailil burst out laughing. “No, indeed I do not.”

“You are at least honest,” Medb snapped.

The laughter died and he said, solemnly, “With you, Medb, always.” Ailil held out a hand and Medb put hers into it. Ailil smiled at her. “With others . . . I am honest as is most profitable. But those beautiful women – they were from the sidhe. The beauty of the women of the sidhe is unmatched and they are free with their favours. Only . . . they had nothing else – and I do not mean goods and cattle. They do not care, not for me, not for their own men.

And the men are the same. Sometimes kind but always careless, especial y of us mortals.” He told her then about rescuing the sidhe child and that he thought he stayed there no more than five or six months. “When I left, I thought I would be coming to seek you soon after you left Emain Macha. I had no idea I had been five years with the sidhe, and none of them ever thought to tel me that time runs differently in their
lios
– slower.” That was a weight off Medb’s mind; there had always been a doubt in her about Ailil ’s constancy, whether he might disappear again. So she tightened her grip on the hand she held as he told her how careful he had been when he went to gather up what Bodb held for him, so as not to get caught in the time trap.

“That was wel done,” she said. “You have made a good friend in Bodb.” She made to rise again. This time – a little to her regret – he did not hold her back, but also rose from the bed. When they were dressed though, he stopped her from leaving at the door.

“Wait here,” he said. “I have a morning gift for you.”

Medb burst into laughter. “I was scarcely a virgin when we came together, my love. My morning gift—” Her bright eyes darkened with remembered hurt; Conchobar had given her nothing.

“—was not paid,” Ailil said. “I could do nothing then. But you wil have it now and it wil content you for al past injury.”

Which left Medb blinking and wondering as Ailil left. A very short time later the door was flung open again and Ailil stood at the side, holding the halter of . . . a bul . It was red and white as were Medb’s cattle but it was every bit as fine a beast as the black and white bul that Ailil owned.

“Your morning gift,” Ailil said. “Now we are equal.”

Medb’s eyes widened with understanding. She would go her way; Ailil would go his, but they would always be together.

“Compeer
,” she breathed. “Partner.”

On Inishmore

Ciar Cullen

Inishmore, Aran Islands, Ireland – 1890

Maeve wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders against the howling wind, biting back laughter as the new master of Kildooney House made his way up the path. Green as moss, he was, from the ferry crossing. How did the Americans make the crossing when they couldn’t stand the few miles from Rossaveal?

He was soaked, was Brian Fitzgerald, late of Boston. Maeve had known his father, and his father’s father, and no doubt a few ancestors before them she’d since forgotten. Al drawn to Inishmore, searching, longing for meaning in their life, a phantom that never materialized, or perhaps a love that was under their noses al along. A wel ing of her own longing fil ed her but she brushed it aside, not wil ing to open a wound she no longer cared to stitch close. The pain of that mending wasn’t worth the risk.

Fitzgerald took the few steps to the porch and stopped short at the sight of Maeve. She could practical y read his mind. He’d expected a housekeeper, but not one of Maeve’s advanced years and ugly countenance. He took a deep breath and pul ed off his bowler, shaking water in a near stream from the rim.

“Mrs MacGearailt? I am Brian Fitzgerald.”

“That much is obvious, lad. Welcome to Kildooney House. Welcome to Inishmore.” He nodded his thanks and stood in awkward silence, as if he needed further permission to enter. He didn’t. He owned Kildooney since the recent death of his father.