BENDING THE BOYNE: A novel of ancient Ireland (37 page)

Sreng fought alongside Eochaid, and when he saw Eochaid felled like a mighty oak, Sreng leaped and hacked off the warrior’s arm that had done it. Not far away, Slainge and young Daire each wrestled and shoved and struck blows for their lives against skilled Invaders.

Midhir joined in the fray against the Invader warriors. Showing far more valor than strength, at his age he could not spin round quickly between foes. By now the gore on the field made the grass slippery.

Aengus caught sight of Midhir as the elderly one faltered. He muscled his way through the crazed fighters, struggling to reach his foster father and take him off the battlefield. A tall figure happened upon Midhir and swooped, raising a long knife. Midhir faced Elcmar of the killing eyes as he sliced open the old man.

From far away, a woman screamed: Fuamnach.

Aengus saw Midhir crumple. Midhir, who showed him many kindnesses, who kept him safe from all harm, who shared the stars’ secrets, lay dead under the harsh sun. Just five paces’ distant stood Elcmar, amber eyes glowing, a blade in each hand, looking for his next kill. Aengus froze in that moment, oblivious to the sights, the sounds and smells raging around him, except the figure of Elcmar. Elcmar half-turned but did not react as if seeing him.

He does not know me, thought Aengus. His body snapped awake and he charged with his knife. The blow caught Elcmar unaware. Horrified, Aengus leapt away, threw Midhir’s corpse over his shoulder and left the swarming field on his massive legs.

So it was that Elcmar fell at the hand of Aengus the shining one.

The disorderly battle strewed the plain with casualties. The earth there reluctantly drank its first blood of human carnage. Survivors limped and crawled away from the ghastly scene. There followed a deep and awful silence, broken only by moans and the screeches of carrion birds who circled above the dead and dying.

Boann found Elcmar on the plain below the Great Hall. A Starwatcher knife handle protruded from his lower gut.

He looked at it then slowly up to her. “We should have known this would happen, so.”

A shudder of pain shook him. He turned with effort to look upon her face, still lovely.

“Boann…I… I have always admired your courage.” He told her the truth. She would not expect him to declare love for her. A contest of wills, he saw too late; nothing to do with love but she held his head in her lap while he lay unblinking.

He saw a large black bird above him, then it resembled Muirgen, then one bird became three black birds, three hags mocking him. He fumbled with one hand at his belt. During the battle his small carving of the death-hag must have gone missing. Pain clouded his mind. He saw himself as a child on his own, and his wandering far and away leading him to this island. To Boann, and beautiful Aengus.

“Where is Aengus?” he demanded, raising his head then falling back.

Boann watched as his spirit struggled to hold on to Eire. Elcmar died soon and without complaint, the strange glow not leaving his eyes though his spirit had gone. He smelled of sunlit grass and flowers, and not of horses or combat. His body lay straight and pleasing and for the last time, he stirred her senses.

They had never surrendered to each other, in love or in war. Something inside her gave way to see Elcmar lying dead before her, ending their battle. Boann felt aged and weary. She left the field of gore and the hovering, shrieking birds.

She was not so ready for death, but was herself badly wounded. Boann lay for many days in the high stone chamber of the
Bru
. She longed to see Aengus. He did not appear, to her sorrow, but she was relieved that her Aengus was not found by the mourners who removed the dead and injured from the battlefield.

Those friends who survived the battle attended her, giving herbs brewed into the drink of sleep. Her old dog Dabilla lay watching at her feet. Over the course of an afternoon, the young healer at her side noticed that Boann’s pulse slowed.

Boann waited for the full moon to enter in crossing the milky stream above. When the moon laid its silvery hand on her brow, she motioned for Tadhg to bring his face next to hers. She sighed. “Old friend,” she whispered with a little smile. Her eyes closed.

Later she stirred, her fingers brushing at the air above. “It was all so beautiful!”

Tadhg took her fitful hands in his. “Rest for the journey. Your work here is done. Soon you’ll be seeing your mother, and Oghma. And Sheela—.” His tears flowed.

Time collapsed into a blur of light. She rose toward it, hoping to find Cian.

Instead she saw Eire’s shores, the waves bringing great ships. More piles of riches and more troubles. More battles, tribe against tribe and father against son. The living breathing land divided like a carcass.

Boann inhaled, breath rattling. Their landscape desecrated, the ancestors forgotten. Chaotic, dreadful visions but she could not turn away, swept along as time bent, looped, folded into itself. She felt so tired. The light beckoned, brighter than any sunrise. She would walk with her ancestors. Cian would find her.

Three spirals: light, dark, eternity. She whispered, “Darkness has come to us. The people must find the light again, or we shall all suffer.”

Thousands of stars shone in the void. Boann slipped away with Dabilla into the white river of stars.

Epilogue

T
HE SUN PASSED FAR
above them in the sky, shining on the verdant island and its soaring birds and leaping fish. The white quartz glittered upon the mound of Newgrange along the sweet plains of the Boyne. Tara lay to the southwest, a motorway whizzing with traffic hard by its buried remains and over battle sites of long ago.

“Do you follow me so far?” the museum docent asked his listeners.

“Oh, yes. It’s a brilliant story.” A tourist sat spellbound. Her leather notebook that recorded years of her travels along Atlantic coasts lay unopened, just there on the table where he surprised her hours ago by joining her to have his tea.

Two students leaned forward from their adjacent table in the elegant tearoom.

The docent smiled kindly and concluded his tale.

“Many important figures fell that day on the battle plain, Invaders and Starwatchers. The elders decided that fire should summon those who yet lived to attend the mass interment. They lit a great ring of fires around the mound on Tara in the empty sockets of the stone circle they’d removed. Afterward, the elders took special care to cover the ashes of Elcmar and his bronze dagger, damaged by the flames of his pyre, with a collared pottery urn. They interred Elcmar’s bones inside the mound, where the Dagda also lay at last, upon the hill of Tara.

“We can only speculate where Boann’s mortal remains lie. When you see the Milky Way in northern skies, think of Boann.

“In retaliation for the battle, Connor rode down from the north and burned Bri Leith, the house of Midhir. In the flames and carnage there at Bri Leith, the people said, young Aengus disappeared.

“Connor ignored Maedb at Tara and carried Midhir’s daughter, Blathnat, back to the north with him. Connor re-invented himself over the coming years in the north, insinuating himself into mythic proportions despite having been caught red-handed in Sheela’s murder years before. Maedb reincarnated as well, grabbing for power, appearing and reappearing over the centuries.

“Airmid lived on to be reunited with Ardal. Her son Ruadan survived the fight, as did Muirgen and all her family, and Sreng, Cermait although badly wounded, Daire, and others.

“After the great battle over Tara, the survivors from both sides joined together out of necessity. It was truly the Least Time. Their harvest had been depleted and there were too few survivors to gather in any harvest. Starvation threatened, and plague swept the island. Cian’s agents sent food to the Boyne from Wicklow. Cian sent seeds from across the ocean, and encouraged peace on the island so that agriculture—and the gold trade—could resume. The living slowly mobilized to produce food again, and in the next growing seasons the survivors were rewarded by the natural richness of Meath’s green plains. Once more their cattle and sheep grew fat and grains hung with full kernels at harvesting.

“Gold flowed from Eire. All men of property carried a copper dagger or a long bronze knife. Eire’s smiths made copper axes by the hundreds, and in new styles that found their way overseas.

“A story circulated that Aengus drowned at the mouth of the Boyne, leaving for the Continent. A later story said that Aengus dwells forever in the golden hall of
Bru na Boinne
.”

Cian’s myth has it that he was killed, stoned to death, by Enya’s brothers. He left no known descendants with Enya. His ashes received burial close to the Loire, in a modest passage mound with a few gold artifacts and one treasured blue-green bead.

For all the status and riches Cian achieved in the hall of Taranis, he never gazed upon the sun without seeing fair Aengus. He never saw the milky river of stars without seeing Boann. He still had not found what he was looking for.

Cian’s bronze starwatching disk has not been located along the Boyne nor any place on Eire, this fair island.

The museum guide’s rambling story ended. No one moved.

The young man asked the inevitable, “How long were the mounds in use?”

“As long as sun and moon and stars do shine,” came the answer.

“What happened to Cian’s astronomy disk?” asked the young woman.

Mischief sparkled in his hazel eyes, crinkling at the corners with his little smile.

“Tell us,” they cried, and he indulged them.

“To make a long story longer, thieves unearthed an astonishing bronze disk around the dawn of the 21st century, close to the town of Nebra in eastern Germany. Archaeologists and police recovered the stolen disk, dug up by modern thieves along with ornate bronze knives. From the knives’ design and hilt decoration, these early bronze weapons could have been made far to the south, along the Mediterranean. What about the disk?

“The bronze disk weighs around two kilograms or four pounds, and is the size of a dinner plate. To find out when and where this sky disk was made, micro-analysis of the bronze indicates that its copper and tin came from northern Europe. Golden symbols of the sky gleam from its upper surface that had been treated—perhaps with rotten eggs—to have a rich blue background. The crescent moon shines forth from the disk, cradling the night on a field of stars. The disk shows several alterations made to it over time.

“Could this be Cian’s bronze sky disk? The gold shapes appear to be later additions after casting of the original disk, from a microscopic scan of its surface. There are thirty-two stars on its surface including a prominent grouping that resembles the Pleiades, the equinox stars of ancient renown. Experts debate this unique disk’s symbolism. Clearly, it was a venerated object. It is the only such disk found to date.

“Consider the man who traveled with Enya to the Boyne, the one now called the Amesbury Archer, a man of status despite his injured left knee. He merited burial within the Stonehenge ritual landscape, a prestige burial with weapons made of Iberian or Breton copper, and gold jewelry. Such an important trader would have ordered a bronze disk from Cian and sent it back to his homeland. His teeth—isotopes—tell us he came from central Europe.”

“Other objects have been found from our story. Bolg’s pleated linen shirt, made in the Nile valley. The dazzling gold cape, discovered in north Wales in the nineteenth century CE, its pieces now reassembled. The masterful gold cape speaks for itself.

“What archaeologists found here in Ireland is telling, for our purposes. The mound upon the hill of Tara contained dense burial deposits and grave goods. Elcmar’s cremated bones and his scorched dagger were exhumed at Tara. Burials continued there for a time after the early battle for Tara. The hill remains important into this millennium. Your children must see to its future.

“Creidhne’s gold disc earring, lost at the Ross Island mine in Kerry, was found and carried off but lost again in the northern reaches of ancient Eire. That gold earring lay undisturbed for thousands of years until excavated in county Down by modern archaeologists, who called it a ‘Portuguese type.’ Its design resembles the very disc that inspired Cian so long ago on the Seafarer peninsula. You see its quadrant design echoed in early Irish crosses.

“An archaeologist discovered the Dagda’s exquisitely carved macehead inside the crevice in Knowth thousands of years after Tadhg stashed it there. The sinuous carving and intense color of its polished stone combine in testimony to a consummate artisan. The Dagda’s mace is one of the treasures from that era, the Starwatchers.

“Boann’s antler shawl pin carved by Oghma was found at Fourknocks mound, just where Boann lost it as an eager apprentice learning astronomy.

“The bones of a young male were exhumed close to Newgrange mound thousands of years after he fell in battle near Gabhrah, the plain of the white horse. That burial included a gold torc made of thick Irish gold wire, twisted perfectly into a spiral along its length.” The docent paused. “This male descended in a line from Aengus or should I say from Boann, many centuries after them. You can see his fine torc here in the museum. He could read the Starwatchers’ carved symbols at
Bru na Boinne
. But he was the last person who could read them.” The docent fell silent for several moments, then resumed. “Isn’t it always the way? The victors create the myths to suit themselves.

“The gold ear disc, the Dagda’s carved macehead, and Boann’s carved pin; each tell us the Starwatchers’ story. These objects and the traces of dwellings, the burials and stone carvings and mounds, are for us to decipher—and to respect. It may never be possible for later peoples to grasp what these ancients observed and applied to their world over their millennia of starwatching.

“The great menhirs still lie shattered at the Morbihan in Brittany. Another area of stone alignments that were pushed over and buried there around 2000 BCE, is presently being excavated. This excavation may help to explain why so many Atlantic megaliths were abandoned during the time of Boann and Cian. Hundreds of sites and carvings in stone remain to be analyzed along what is currently called the Atlantic fringe.”

The docent finished the telling and he rose from the table. He looked at the middle-aged woman from the States. It had been grand, she having her coffee while he had his tea, there in the museum’s tearoom. Beyond in the majestic exhibition spaces, the gold lunulae and torcs, the gold earrings and bracelets, and the little gold boat with its delicate gold oars and mast that had been fashioned long after Cian’s voyages; hundreds of gold objects gleamed in their cases. Pottery that showed traces of firing in an open pit, polished stone and copper axeheads, the Dagda’s fantastic carved macehead, and even a cache of ossified hazelnuts; these artifacts all rested within the marble columned halls. Waiting, as if their owners might return.

Does archaeology help us to understand myth or is it myth that shapes archaeology, he could ask, and in any event whose myths and which archaeology do we choose to believe?

He could tell the museum visitors a great deal more, but on this turning planet it was late in the day.

“Ach, sure. Glad you enjoyed yourself with my tale. But I do believe the museum is soon to be closing. I’ll show you out, so. Don’t forget your notebook, madam. Follow me—and you youngsters as well, if you would.”

The two students rose sheepishly from their adjacent table. They had started out whispering, hidden behind their hands, while the old man held forth.

“Lein’s Lake Of Many Hammers!” whispered the boy, amused.

“That’s where O’Brien excavated the copper mine,” she told him.

“Flann O’Brien, was it?” He smirked.

“No, eejit. William O’Brien. The archaeologist. A major find, that was.”

They eavesdropped during the docent’s entire talk while he captivated this older woman, probably a tourist. Like her, the students stayed to listen while the august docent spoke, and took no break despite their drinking several cups of tea apiece.

“I wonder what time it is,” the girl said as they stood and stretched.

“I wonder what millennium it is,” the lad answered.

The docent led the visitors past where hidden wee faces peered out at the gold, waiting until the museum emptied of all intruders. Staff switched off lights, footsteps echoing in the exhibit halls.

Under the entrance rotunda, a wild-eyed vagrant, Mad Sweeney, scuffled with gardai and it took a third policeman to subdue and escort him outside. The visitors passed by unaware of the commotion.

Coming out of the great doors onto the high-columned portico of the National Museum, the two students were quiet, reflecting on all that the docent told them. They stood at the edge of a twilight mist, its lavender shadows curling around the semicircular steps. Damp air limned the stone pavement.

A thin place in space and time, the tourist murmured.

The young man heard it and understood. He felt seamlessly connected with earth and sky, conscious as never before. He thought to thank the older man, to seize his hand and sincerely thank him. His companion looked around her as well. Their eyes met. Not seeing the guide’s cap and dark suit among the people leaving the museum, they turned to ask the tourist, “Where is your man from inside?”

“That wonderful docent? He was just here a moment ago!”

The students and the tourist trotted after the tall figure vanishing into the soft grey. They all turned the corner onto Kildare Street, where his dignified bearing could just be seen ahead in the fading daylight. Soon he would be absorbed into the throng rushing along Stephen’s Green. The young man called out.