BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (26 page)

He crossed the dark-pooled river like an otter darting between its shaded banks. From there he headed upland into the blue-hazed mountains, his direction made sure from his own slashes on rock faces, and unerringly he found the discrete cupmarks he made on his notched stele. Up in the mountain valley, tucked under the steep cliffs streaked with quartz over a rushing stream, he retrieved his sizable cache of gold nuggets.

The extreme weight of his leather bags filled with gold soon slowed his trek to the southern coast.
A sleek naomhog coming for me, to carry me back to the Continent. The seas will be smoother in this season. The sooner I leave here, the sooner I might return
, Cian repeated to spur himself onward. He followed the sun anxiously and counted each sunrise.

His shoulder and back muscles throbbed with the weight of the bags. He sought to reassure himself, while keeping a constant watch as he traveled laden with sun metal. He cast one gold nugget into a bog in thanks to the earth on his descent to the south through green mountain valleys and uplands. The fertile valleys looked to have few people living in them and he thought about locating a new settlement there, far from Invaders.
I, and Boann and Aengus, Airmid and her man Ardal, and those elders and others, maybe Tadhg, who would come with us
…

But instead of stopping to assess the land’s promise, taste a morsel of soil and rub it between his fingers, Cian pressed on, south by southwest, to meet the naomhog at the correct phase of the moon. He could feel the stress of keeping his appointment with Lir’s ship as keenly as the burden of his bags of gold.
For now, it would be good if this gold rode on a horse!

He steadily made his way toward a smaller ridge of mountains, their deep profile arrayed in successively higher steps up to the northernmost peak. Gebann told him to follow the river valley lying west of this profile, among pleasant hills. The black-stepped mountains stayed on his left in the east, while he traveled south above the river’s banks on a natural path. This river shimmered, running wide and with many swans floating on it past flowers and ferns. Already the late spring undergrowth gave mushrooms and starchy roots for him to eat while walking, so that he stopped only at sunsets for a brief rest. He saw less food growing than in prior seasons and it worried him, how dangerously low Eire’s food supply had dwindled.

He had one night of restless sleep, hungry. He dreamed that he hooked a berry to a thread and caught a shining trout. Boann came to him, apple blossoms in her hair. The gold disc at her ear expanded to form the sky dome where planets battled. Men warred on the plains below, the Boyne ran red. He felt a hand pinning him by the throat, saw the shadow of an intruder over him with knife raised. Cian kicked the warrior off balance and jumped to his feet, copper dagger in hand. They wrestled.

The man looked to be a renegade, disheveled, someone on the loose from the mines or a boat. Weak from lack of eating, he judged. Cian pointed at his food pouch and when the man turned to see, he leaped on him. They fell hard, and before he used his dagger, the stranger’s head struck a rock.

Cian awoke with a start. He hastily gathered his things, then moved as fast as he could south along the river. His legs skimmed the earth, the loaded bags suddenly weightless.

For the rest of that sun, he tried to shake off the attack and whether he had killed the apparition. He regretted hurrying along the smooth river, framed by stepped mountains tinted purple-black at sunset, the most welcoming valley he had ever seen. In time he would return here with Boann and Aengus. A lump formed in his throat. He kept walking.

He made good progress and could hope to meet Lir on the appointed dawn. The river valley opened as it led him south and a pleasant river joined from the west, and later another. Among deep green forests edging lighter green banks, three great rivers flowed into a spreading silver flood. Cian followed the estuary along its east banks and caught sight of the ocean. This confluence of rivers with the sea brought back the richness of his night with Boann. He saw the mystery of water, water bringing forth life from soil just as new life emerges in a flood from the mother. He recalled with a thrill his glimpse of Aengus, born at the solstice.

Cian reached the shoreline where golden sand met the rich green-blue waters. He let the heavy bags fall from his shoulders and he watched wave after wave dissolve into the sand leaving only a slick trace.

Here water meets solid earth, held under the infinite sky
. He felt very alive and yet very close to the spirits at this thin place, a threshold between worlds.

At water’s edge he came face to face with himself. He could not be sure what he saw, a fugitive maybe, fleeing his home, and no better than the shadow who attacked him in his sleep. Cian checked his arms and legs. He wondered that he had no bruises from the attack.

The
naomhog
would arrive shortly for him to travel back to the Continent, if not on the coming sunrise then on the next. He would remain here in this thin place. Not long after sunset, he noted the constellation in the south that curled like an insect on the celestial horizon and he adjusted his internal bearings with it. During that night spent before a covered fire that cooked a small fish and seaweed, Cian watched various star patterns rising so he could help navigate on Lir’s boat.

Through the night he heard water breaking on the shoreline in hypnotic rhythm. He could turn back to the Boyne; to Boann, Aengus, and his people. The truth, heavier than his bags of gold, crushed his impulse. If he returned now for a contest with Elcmar, your man would win and take all the gold after forcing him to reveal its secret source in the mountains. Then the
ard ri
would kill him, and take revenge on Gebann.
It would happen in that order if Elcmar were thinking!
He well knew that man’s cold cunning by now.

Elcmar’s fiery disruption of the Starwatcher ceremonies might prove to be his undoing. Cian had discussed the Invader truce with his elders. He told them of the cave containing the young bodies, of the doomed future of that tribe on the faraway peninsula. “I saw evidence of great violence, mass killing using metal weapons.”

“Have the Invaders no fear of upsetting the natural balance?”

“They disregard any notion of balance. Invaders have been infected with beliefs from deep in the east, beliefs that center on man rather than on the heavens and harmony. Their Otherworld holds torture and punishment, a dark place of death that they say lies below the living world. You have encountered their hag’s image, I am sorry to hear it. Their hag symbolizes chaos, darkness.” Comments arose; he waited until they quieted.

“Do all foreigners have a custom of taking skulls?” an elder asked.

“Invaders have a fetish for the skull. I have heard they display skulls of enemies they respect. They practice burial of the body, the bones not defleshed and burned. Warriors get special treatment, and rarely, women.

“In Gebann’s homeland the Seafarers still honor their ancestors and the stars as we do. Most keep the old ways despite Invaders, and you would feel at home among them. Inside one of their mines I saw a skull and bones that had turned dark green from the copper dust where they rested. Those miners, Seafarers, respect the green bones, bones of their ancestors who learned to make metals.”

“Little green men,” one elder exclaimed and the others gave a nervous laugh.

Slainge asked, “Have these intruders taken over the lands you visited?”

“Not exactly. Usually they arrive on water, but some coasts are free of their influence. They do not appear cohesive, they compete rather than act together as we do. They seek metals and in those places Invaders could not trade for metals, they have left.” He spoke of hiding Eire’s gold until they heard from him. Above all, that the Starwatchers must guard their mounds against the Invaders’ misguided beliefs, as Gebann and others warned. He mentioned Cymru’s example. “Others have told you of changes on the big island, open stone circles replacing the long barrows. But on the shore facing us, Cymru, those people continue in Starwatcher ways. They’d be allied with us. We should increase our contacts with them, and those to the north.”

Again the elders broke into discussion.

He caught Oghma watching him, effects of the stroke still visible. His old mentor signaled using one good hand, a sign of welcome, making Cian’s heart leap.

“Do the traders have any useful knowledge? Do they share knowledge with other people on the Continent?” another asked.

“Long before intruders arrived on those shores, Gebann’s people knew the skies and navigated far out at sea to fish, and went exploring as we know. Their own artisans learned to make metals. Then these traders came along and took advantage. It appears that traders contribute little except new goods to trade. And strife.” He described Bolg’s stone fort and its hoarded grain, and the elders shook their heads.

Then he tried to explain how metals circulated, controlled by the very few, and the metals’ varied uses. He did not have time to fully explain things his elders could not see for themselves, things Cian himself was not sure that he understood about exchanging for metal.

He warned them against greed. “Wherever the making of metal occurs, it devastates the land. No matter what enticement those men offer, you must resist those who would have you ravage the earth and burn off whole forests. The ore does run out, leaving a place that is not fit for living things.

“You trained me to observe patiently and I intend to do just that. I have tried to tell you enough so that Starwatchers might not be ensnared by these Invaders. There is still much to find out on my next journey.” He thought of his full bags waiting in the mountains.

For a time the only sound was the fire, its popping bark and swish of falling embers, while his elders contemplated the fundamental changes taking place across the restless sea.

His people did not understand making war using metal, and that too must change. He took up a ceremonial stone axe, polished and perfect, never used. Serious faces turned to him. “Some of our young males must go live and train with the Invaders.” He paused for emphasis. “Your best and brightest, to be shaped into fighting men with new skills. They can train others, in time. Trained killers. You must encourage this.”

The shocked elders tried to understand. Voices rose in dissent.

“Butcher boys!”

“The Invaders’ training need not convert our young men from our values and beliefs. Cian is proof enough of that,” said the Dagda, but others grumbled.

Said another, “Already Invaders break the truce.”

“Until Starwatchers across the island have trained and have the new weapons, the long knives, you should not try to battle Invaders in their style. Yet you must prepare for war,” Cian told them, adamant. He didn’t know how much gold, nor how many suns, it would take him to acquire enough metal weapons. In any event, Starwatchers needed to know how to use those. Meanwhile they had the shaky truce at the Boyne and his elders could attempt councils with whomever Elcmar sent. The people would watch the stars, tend their crops and animals, and they would coppice trees, hundreds of trees. They listened to his ideas.

“I will return when I can.” He stirred, ready to leave.

The elders sighed to see him departing so soon. “We salute your bravery, Cian. Few would venture upon the mighty waves and for such great distances.”

There were those who doubted his judgment, wondering aloud why he left them again for strange lands. Some elders did not know what to make of him, he could see that, that and their ambivalence to do battle. Would you hobble the entire island and call that making peace with Invaders, he could ask, but he’d said enough.

His eyes singled out Oghma’s to make an apology:
See me as I am. I might never be the Starwatcher you wanted me to be
.

Oghma’s look replied:
You are a Starwatcher
.

The waves swept the shore, relentless, clattering its shells and pebbles and dispersing his reverie. He felt in a small pouch at his waist to be sure he still carried the safe-passage stone that the Dagda gave him. He would be sending more of these very stones back to the Boyne from the Continent. He smiled, shaking his head. Did Elcmar really think he controlled the great waters to Eire?

The heliacal stars faded in the aura from the coming sun.

He stood up, legs numb from sitting watch over his bags through the night. He tried to fill his lungs, the air salty and piquant with sea creature smells. Raw fear of the ocean journey seized him: to be on the watery void again and beyond sight of land, like trying to go to the moon. Spring had arrived but mariners still must overcome squalls and shifting currents and turbulent swells.

Bitter grit rose to the back of his throat. Ready to vomit and he wasn’t even on the boat; what would his elders say to that?

As he searched the sky, the sun’s majesty spilled across the horizon and lit the wavetops. Cian greeted the face of the almighty. The sun looked on with its beneficent light.

You cannot fail for trying
, the ancient one told him.

The dark shadow, the fear that stalked him, dissolved. His Starwatchers depended on him, as did Gebann and Lir. He basked in a moment of peace with the sun, his ancestors, and himself.

Ready to cross the thin place between land and ocean, he walked to the surf and splashed his face and body with bracing cold seawater. He saw the naomhog edging along the coast. Pulse racing, he placed just enough pine tinder and seaweed on his fire to make white smoke showing his position. As the sun notched above the waters, Lir’s sleek boat, fit for the ocean’s churning troughs, pulled into the shallows.