Dublin (20 page)

  For a few moments it was not clear whether Conall would answer, but in the end he said quietly, "It is not the will of the gods that I should go."

  "How would you know that?" Fergus demanded irritably.

  "If I cross the sea with you, it will not bring you any luck."

  While her father cursed under his breath, Deirdre's two brothers looked at each other anxiously.

  Had the gods cursed their sister's man? Since Conall looked like a druid, it seemed to them that he would know.

  "There's no point in getting drowned, Father," one of them said.

  "Are we to take Deirdre then, and leave you behind?"

  Fergus almost shouted. Conall did not answer but Deirdre took her father's arm.

  I cannot leave him, Father," she murmured. And though he cast eyes up at the sky with impatience, she led him to one side and continued, "Wait one more day. Perhaps he will feel differently tomorrow." And since there seemed to be no alternative, Fergus could only shrug his shoulders and sigh. Before he left, however, he warned,

  "You have not much time. There's yourself to think of Deirdre, and the child."

  For some while after her father and brothers had gone, Deirdre said nothing. There was a flock of seagulls on the shingle beach. lin and again they rose up, crying into the blue September sky, while Conall sat watching them as though in a trance. Finally they departed, and then she spoke.

  "What is to become of us, Conall?"

  "I do not know."

  "Why wouldn't you leave?" He did not reply.

  "Was it a dream you had in the night." He did not answer, but she suspected he had dreamed. "Is it that you have spoken with the gods? Tell me the truth, Conall. What is it you know?"

  "That I am to wait here, Deirdre. That is all."

  She looked at his pale, handsome face.

  "I shall stay here with you," she said simply.

  He reached out and held her hand, so that she would know he loved her; and she wondered whether, perhaps, he might change his mind before the morning.

  When she awoke, the sky was clear, but there was a thin layer of mist on the ground. Looking across the water to the shore, it seemed to her that everything was still. It was surely, in any case, too soon for anyone coming from the High King to have reached them. Then something caught her eye.

  At first, in the distance, the little shape that was advancing across the misty plain seemed like a flapping bird.

  All over the wide expanse of the Plain of Bird Flocks, the mist lay in torn veils or hovered in wisps like phantoms, and this whiteness poured over the shore and the intervening sea so that it was impossible for Deirdre to tell whether it was earth or water that lay beneath. As for the seeming bird, she could only surmise that it might be a man with a trailing cloak, borne swiftly by a chariot, unless perhaps it was one of the gods or their messengers who had taken the form of a raven or swan or some other flying thing to visit them.

  Then, where the shore would be, the ghostly presence turned and stopped. And now, as Deirdre stared, she could have sworn it was a graceful deer. But after a pause, it disappeared into the mist only to emerge once more, as if it could change its shape at will, floating very slowly, still and grey, like a standing stone, towards her little island.

  She glanced round, hoping to see her father's boat coming past the headland. But instead she saw Conall, standing behind her, looking grave.

  "It is Larine," he said.

  "He seemed to change shape as he came."

  "He is a druid," he remarked. "He could probably make himself disappear if he wanted to." And now she saw that it was Larine, in a small curragh, being rowed towards them by his charioteer.

  "Come Conall," he said quietly, as he stepped ashore, "we must talk." And as Deirdre turned anxiously to Conall, she was surprised to see that he looked relieved.

  They were a long time together, at some distance from her, like two shadows hovering in the wreaths of mist that swirled along the water's edge; and the sun had just broken above the horizon when they returned to her, and she saw that Condi's face had become transformed.

  All his unhappiness had disappeared andwitha gentle smile he took her hand.

  "All is well. My uncle and I are reconciled."

  Ill Samhain: ancient Hallowe'en, when the spirits of the dead walk for one night amongst the living.

  Samhain, the turning point, the entrance to the dark half of the year. Samhain, when the beasts are slaughtered, Samhain the sinister. Yet in the western island with its gentle climate, the month that led to Samhain was usually a pleasant season.

  Deirdre always found it so. Sometimes the days were soft and misty, sometimes the clear blue sky seemed so hard you could touch K. She loved the autumnal woods, the oak leaves brown on the trees or crisp underfoot. And when there was a chill in the air, she felt a tingling in the blood.

  Larine had remained with them on their island for three days. He had brought herbs to cure Conall. The two men would spend hours together in conversation and prayer; and even if she felt excluded, Deirdre could see that Conall was being healed in body and spirit. After this time, Larine departed, but before he left he explained to her kindly, "It will be a little time, Deirdre, before Conall is entirely well. Rest here, or at your father's.

  No one will trouble you. The High King wishes to be reconciled at the festival of Samhain, so you will come to him then." And, guessing her thoughts, he added with a smile, "You need not fear the queen anymore, Deirdre. She will not hurt you now."

  The next day, her father brought them home.

  The month they spent at Dubh Linn was a happy time. If she had any misgivings about whether Conall would tolerate her family, they were soon set at rest. He listened to her father's ancestry every evening without the slightest sign of boredom; he played hurling with her brothers and indulged in mock swordplay without killing them. He even persuaded Fergus to replace the broken planks at the Ford of Hurdles and helped him do it. She noticed that his wounds had not only healed but that one could scarcely see where they had been. As he lay down beside her at night, it seemed to her that his pale naked body was, once again, as perfect as before. As for herself, she could feel the child growing within her, and growing strong.

  "He will come at midwinter," she said happily, "like the promise of spring."

  "You say "he," was Conall remarked.

  "It will be a boy, Conall," she replied. "I can feel it."

  They would walk together along the Liffey where the willows trailed their branches, or into the groves of oak and beech. Each day they would also visit one of the three little sacred springs and Conall would gently anoint her swelling belly with water, running his hand over its roundness. There were days of mist and days of sunshine, but the breezes were very light that month, so that only a sprinkling of leaves had fallen from the trees still heavy and thick with the rich gold and bronze of mellow autumn. Only the gathering of the migratory birds foretold that the inevitable coming of winter was close. It was two days before Samhain, when crowds of starlings were wheeling around the trees at Dubh Linn, that the three chariots arrived.

  Deirdre could see her father was pleased; he had never travelled like this before. The three chariots, each with a charioteer, were splendid indeed. He and his two sons were carried in one, Deirdre in the second; the third chariot, the finest of all, was Conall's own with its two swift horses harnessed to the shaft.

  The day was fine. The sun glinted on the Liffey's wide shallows as they crossed the ford. Their path lay north-west. All afternoon they made swift and easy progress past rolling grasslands and wooded slopes. In the early evening they found a pleasant place to camp in an oak grove. The next morning the weather had changed. It was dry, but the sky was overcast. The light was leaden and grey; the slanting shafts of sunshine that sometimes broke through the clouds seemed to Deirdre to be vaguely sinister and threatening. But the rest of the party were in good spirits as they continued northwest towards the valley of the River Boyne.

  We shall be there by afternoon," her charioteer remarked.

  "We shall be at royal Tara."

  And just afterwards, her father called out cheerfully, "Do you remember, Deirdre? Do you remember Tara?"

  Of course she did. How could she forget? It had been years ago, when her younger brother was eight, that Fergus had taken them all, one summer's day, on the road to Tara. It had been a happy time. The great ceremonial centre had a magnificent site-a large, broad hill with gentle slopes that rose above the valley of the Boyne half a day's journey upstream from the ancient tomb with its midwinter passage where the Dagda dwelt.

  Except for a guardian, the huge site had been deserted at that summer season, for apart from their inauguration, the High Kings usually only came to Tara for the festival of Samhain. Fergus had led his little family up as proudly as if he owned the place, and shown them its principal features-the big earthwork circles in which the shrines and banqueting hall would be erected for the festival. He had also shown them some of the magical aspects of the site.

  "This is where the druids choose the new High King," he explained at one small earthwork. "One of them drinks bull's blood and then the gods send him a vision." Showing them a pair of stones set close together: "The new king has to pass between these in his chariot. If he gets stuck, then he's not the rightful king." But the most impressive feature to Deirdre had been the ancient standing stone near the top of the hill, the Stone of Fal. "When the true king's chariot comes and touches the Stone of Fal," he explained solemnly, "the druids hear it cry out."

  "And after that," one of her brothers had demanded, "doesn't he have to mate with a white mare?"

  "He does indeed," said Fergus proudly.

  But if these details of the king's inauguration had fascinated her brothers, the magic of Tara for Deirdre had been its situation. It was not only the magnificent views in every direction during the day, but at sunrise and sunset, when the mists lay over the valleys all round, and the Hill of Tara seemed like a floating island in the world of the gods.

  She should therefore have been happy as they drew towards it.

  Midday was past when they came in sight of Tara.

  As the three chariots sped along the broad track, the charioteers drew into a triangular formation with Conall in front, her chariot behind his left wheel, and her father's behind his right. Though the sky was still a dull, metallic grey, with only silvery glints of sunlight, the day was not cold. Ahead of them, lining the route, she noticed a scattering of people, many of them with baskets. Seeing them, Conall suddenly cast off his cloak that now, with his pale body stripped, he looked like a warrior going into battle. In their arrowhead formation, the three chariots raced forward and as they drew level with them, the welcoming people reached into their baskets and threw handfuls of wild autumn flowers into Conall's chariot. And although Conall was the High King's nephew, Deirdre was surprised that he should receive such a hero's welcome.

  The hill was looming above them now. She could see crowds of people on the long earthwork wall that enclosed the summit. In the middle of the wall stood a line of priests, holding long bronze trumpets and the great bull horns that were the sign of kingship. Behind them were the wicker-walled structures that had been erected for the festival. There were a few fires sending thin trails of smoke into the air.

  They reached a patch of flat, grassy ground, dotted with trees at the base of the hill, the track up the long slope just ahead of it. The priests were raising their trumpets. From these now came a huge, deep-throated, darkly pulsating blast that grew into a terrifying roar.

  And then the black mist arose.

  It was so sudden and so violent that she screamed. The starlings rose up in front of them with a huge whirr that was almost a roar.

  Starlings, thousands of them, enveloped the chariots in a swirling black cloud. They wheeled round them as though both they and the travellers were caught in the strange, dark vortex of a whirlwind.

  Turning and turning, their myriad flapping was so loud that Deirdre could not even hear her own screams. In front of them, all round, behind, the dark cloud rose, fell, rose again and then, just as suddenly veered away with a great rush to descend in a swoop on the nearby trees.

  Deirdre looked across. Her father and brothers were laughing.

  Conall's face she could not see. But glancing at the crowds on the earthwork walls above, she realised, with a new, foreboding horror -What they had witnessed.

  Conall had just passed through a black mist, as he came to Tara.

  The geissi were complete.

  There was no time to think of that now as they raced up the slope and into the huge enclosure of Tara. There were burning torches lining the route which led to the crest of the hill. As they reached the final stretch, two of the chariots halted, leaving Conall to proceed alone up the short ceremonial avenue with its earthwork walls at the head of which, flanked by his chiefs, the High King was standing.