Dublin (24 page)

  And then she was almost astonished to hear her own voice calmly replying.

  "This is wonderful news indeed." She gave the young noble a smile. "My son will be honoured. We are all honoured. There is only one problem."

  "What is that?"

  "He is not here. He is away." She gestured towards the estuary. "On a sea voyage. He has promised to return before winter,

  …" She sighed. "If I knew where he was I could send after him.

  He would be heartbroken indeed to miss such a great event."

  "You think he will return in time though?"

  "He knows his grandfather is not long for this world. We hope he will return before his grandfather departs. But it is in the hands of the gods."

  She offered him refreshment, but indicated that it would be better not to go into the sickroom where her father lay.

  The messenger stayed only briefly before departing.

  With him he carried messages of loyalty from the old chief and the clear impression that young Morna would hasten eagerly to the feis if he reached the island's shores in time. Her performance, Deirdre told herself afterwards, had been rather impressive. There was only one problem.

  She had just lied to the High King.

  Why had she done it? She could hardly say. But Morna must not go. She felt sure of it. Even during the brief time the messenger had stayed at the rath, she had sat there in a state of misery. When he left, it seemed to her as if a dark and dangerous presence had de-

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  parted from the place. That night, she had a nightmare in which she and Morna were approaching Tara and the starlings were rising up from the ground again in a black mist. She awoke in a cold panic. No, he must not go.

  The next day, Morna and her brothers returned.

  She had given the slaves instructions to say nothing of the messenger's visit. But in any case, no one had heard what had been said. None of them- Morna, her brothers, nor the chief himself-had any idea what she had done.

  There was risk, of course. If the new High King ever discovered the lie, he would consider it an insult.

  But at least the lie was hers. He could do to her what he liked. She didn't care. Indeed, there was only one small, niggling doubt that briefly troubled her conscience. Was it possible that she was wrong, that the new High King meant only courtesy or friendship-that in truth there was no danger to Morna in the invitation at all? Could it be that her fear was not so much for his safety, but rather that if he went to the High King and found favour at his hands, he might not want to return to her at Dubh Linn?

  Was she being not only foolish but even selfish?

  No. That wasn't it. She put the unwelcome thought out of her mind.

  The final decline of Fergus the chief began three days later.

  They were trying times. There was the sadness of watching her father slipping away; the sadness, too, of seeing Morna's grief at his passing. Her two brothers were subdued; several times Rian had seemed close to tears, and if Ronan felt anger at being passed over, even that seemed to be forgotten now. She nursed the old man assiduously. She was determined that his passing should be as gentle and as dignified as possible. But she had to admit that there was also one other consideration in her mind.

  If she could just keep Fergus alive until Samhain. Let him die, if die he must, just after that. Even if the High King found out that Morna had been at Dubh Linn then, he would hardly complain about the young man remaining to attend his chief and grandfather on his deathbed. Live, she willed him. Live another month for me.

  "Let him live," she prayed silently to the gods of her people,

  "at least past the festival of Samhain." And when, instead, he had slipped from her in early October, her grief was made even sharper by her desperate anxiety.

  They gave a fine wake for him. Nobody could fault the family of Fergus for that. For three days the guests had drunk and talked, eaten and sung. They had drunk as only the friends of the dead can do.

  Chiefs, farmers, cowherds, fishermen, they had all turned up to drink him into the better world beyond. "A fine wake, Deirdre," they said.

  They buried him, perhaps not quite as he might have dreamed- standing upright, fully armed, staring across the ford at his invisible enemies comb honourably enough, under a handsome mound beside the estuary waters. And at the same time, they proclaimed that Morna was the new chief.

  With the wake over, Dubh Linn returned to its customary quiet and settled into the rhythms of autumn. Morna and his uncles brought the cattle in from the summer pasture. In the woods, the pigs were getting fat on the fallen acorns. Down the road towards the mountains, one could hear, from time to time, the roar of a stag in the rutting season. At the rath, all was quiet. A morning might pass with only the sound of the stream splashing into the dark pool below and the gentle rustle of the falling leaves. The weather was fine, but Deirdre was conscious of the days drawing shorter andofa sharpness in the air.

  She was also conscious of the date. Samhain was not far off.

  The river crossing might be deserted now, but soon there would be parties of travellers making their way up the road from the south to- I wards the feis at Tara. And now a further realisation came to her I which, with everything else on her mind, she had not thought about before: the travellers would be passing by the rath. As chief, Morna I Would be expected to give them hospitality and to entertain them.

  Such a handsome young chief would be remarked upon. Someone arriving at Tara was bound to mention the successor to old Fergus at the Ford of Hurdles. Could it really be hoped that no word of Morna's presence would reach the ears of the High King? No, it could not. The case was hopeless. Unless she could think of something, her lie was going to be discovered.

  What else could she do? She couldn't think of anything. Send Morna away? On what possible pretext? Common sense said that there was only one thing to do. She must tell him about the High King's summons at once and let him decide what to do for himself. Yet the autumn season made it even worse. The sights, the smells, the feel of the chill autumn air, all seemed to be conspiring to drag her back to that season when she had gone so unwillingly on that terrible journey with Conall to Tara. She felt very lonely. She wished Fergus were there to give his advice, but she suspected that she knew what that advice would be. Tell Morna.

  So why didn't she do it? She couldn't. That wasn't an answer. She knew it. With every day that Samhain drew nearer, her predicament grew.

  Days passed. She began to promise herself, each night, that on the following day she would tell him.

  Each morning she would awake and decide to wait, just until that evening, in case something-she had no idea what-but something should turn up during the day to resolve the situation. And each evening, when nothing had changed, she had promised herself, once again, to tell him in the morning.

  One of the British slaves saw them first. By the time she reached the entrance to the rath, the party of horsemen was halfway across the Ford of Hurdles. There seemed to be four of them. One, close to the leader, seemed to be carrying a spear or trident of some kind, which, when it swung behind the leader's head, gave him a strange appearance, as if he were a deer with antlers. She watched curiously as they drew closer. And then, with a sudden, sickening sense, like that of a dream returning, she realised who the leader was.

  It was Larine.

  He must have come from the High King.

  He rode up the path to the rath slowly. He was not much changed. His hair was grey now, but shaved in the same tonsure. He looked fit. His face was still quiet and thoughtful. She watched his approach with a sinking heart. And he was nearly at the entrance when the strangest thing occurred. The British slaves-there were half a dozen of them now-all ran forward and fell on their knees before him. He turned as he passed and gravely made a sign over them. A moment later he dismounted and stood in front of her.

  "What is it you want, Larine?" she asked him, trying to keep the dread out of her voice.

  "Only you, and your son," he answered quietly.

  That was it, then. He had come to take them to Tara.

  Only one thing struck her as odd. The slaves were standing round, with smiles on their faces.

  "What are my slaves doing?" she demanded. "Why were they kneeling?"

  "Because they are British, Deirdre. They are Christians."

  "Then why would they be kneeling to a druid?"

  "Ah." He smiled. "You did not know. You see, I am a Christian, Deirdre." He paused.

  "In fact, I am a bishop."

  She gazed at him, confused.

  "But haven't you come from the High King?"

  He looked at her in mild surprise.

  "The High King? Not at all. I haven't seen the king in many years." He took her gently by the arm.

  "I see that I had better explain. May we go inside?" And indicating to his men that they should wait for him, he led the way.

  She was still trying to comprehend his words as they went in.

  The tall staff she had mistaken for a trident turned out to be a cross. The young man who held it proudly in his hands remained outside with the two servants as she followed Larine in. But Larine the druid now a Christian? How could that be? What did she know about Christians anyway? She tried to think.

  The Romans were Christians. Everyone knew that.

  Like many on the western island, she had vaguely supposed that with the breaking down of all things Roman across the seas, they would hear less of Christianity as the years went by. Strangely, however, the opposite had been the case.

  It was her father who always picked up the news. From the occasional merchant ships that came to the landing place at Dubh Linn, he learned that far from giving up, the Christian churches in Gaul and even in Britain seemed to see the troubles and invasions as a challenge to their religion, and they were fighting back.

  She knew there were some Christians on the island, in the south. And once in a while her father used to return from one of his journeys and report: "Would you believe it, but we've another group of Christians in Leinster now. There's only a few of them, but the King of Leinster has allowed them to be there. There's no doubt of that." But if the Christian priests had originally come to minister to the slaves, as the years went by Fergus had started to bring other scraps of news. A chief, or his wife, had been converted. One year he had heard of a development which made him shake his head. "A group of Christians are planning to set up a place of worship in sight of a druid sanctuary. Can you believe it?"

  Yet if she had supposed that Fergus would have been passionately against these foreign encroachments, she was surprised to find that his reaction was quite muted.

  The worst he would say about the affront to the druids was that it was "unwise." When she challenged him about this and asked him how the King of Leinster could have allowed such a thing, he had given her a thoughtful glance and remarked, "The king might be glad of them, Deirdre. If the druids get too powerful, it's a way of keeping them in order. He can frighten them with the Christian priests." His cynical attitude had rather shocked her.

  But even her old father would surely have been astonished to see Larine the druid entering the rath now as a Christian bishop. As they sat down, Larine gave her a friendly but searching look, expressed his regret at the passing of her father, remarked that she looked well, and then, in a matter-of-fact way, observed, "You are afraid of me, Deirdre."

  "It was you who came to take Conall away," she reminded him with a quiet bitterness.

  "It was his wish to go."

  She stared at him. He might be a grey-haired bishop now, but all she could see at that moment was the quiet druid, the supposed friend who had persuaded Conall to desert her and give up his life to the cruel gods at Tara. If the autumn season had recently brought back the memories of that terrible time, now, in Larine's presence, the day of the sacrifice itself, the sight of Conall walking out with his naked body daubed in red, the druids with their clubs and strangling ropes and knives-all these came rushing back to her with a vividness, an actuality that made her shudder.

  "You druids killed him," she cried, with a passionate anger. "May the gods curse you all!"

  He sat very still. She had insulted him, but he did not seem angry. He only looked sad. For a moment or two he did not reply. Then he sighed.

  "It is true, Deirdre. I helped perform the sacrifice. Forgive me if you can." He paused while she continued to stare at him. "I have never forgotten it. I loved him, Deirdre. Remember that. I loved Conall and I respected him.

  Tell me," he asked quietly, "do you have nightmares about that day?"

  "andbrvbar;-

  "I do."

  "So did I, Deirdre. For many years." He looked down, thoughtfully. "It was a long time since the druids had sacrificed a man, you know." He raised his eyes to hers again. "Do you approve of the sacrifices the druids make?"