Dublin (9 page)

  But they had their own religion. Soon after they arrived, she had discovered them praying together once and they had explained that they were Christians. She knew many of the British were Christian, and she had even heard of small Christian communities on the island, but knew little about the religion. A bit concerned, she had asked her father about this, but he had reassured her.

  "The British slaves are often Christian. It's a slave's religion. Tells them to be submissive."

  So she had left the burly slave mumbling his prayers while she went indoors. Perhaps in the peace and quiet of the house her mood would improve. Her hair had become tangled in the rain. She sat down and started to comb it.

  The house was a good, solid dwelling-a circular structure with clay-and-wattle walls, about fifteen feet in diameter. Light came in through three doorways which were open to let in the fresh morning air. In the middle of the interior was a hearth; wisps of smoke from the fire filtered out through the thatched roof above. Beside the fire was a large cauldron and, on a low wooden table, a collection of wooden platters-for though they had once done so, the islanders did not use much pottery. On another table near the wall, this e family's more valuable household possessions were kept: a hand some, five-handled bronze bowl; a quern for grinding grain; a pair of dice, rectangular in shape with four faces, that you rolled in a straight line; several wooden tankards banded with silver; and, of course, her father's drinking skull.

  Deirdre sat there combing her hair for some time. Her immediate irritation had subsided. But there was something else, in the background, something that had been troubling her for the last two months, ever since her return from Lughnasa, and that she did not wish to acknowledge. A tall, pale young prince. She shrugged. It was no use thinking about him.

  Then she heard the foolish slave, calling her.

  Conall was in his chariot. Two swift horses were harnessed to the central shaft. On his arm, he wore a heavy bronze armlet. Befitting his rank, his chariot contained his spear, his shield, and his shining sword. It was driven by his charioteer. Over the sea, he noticed, there was a rainbow.

  What was he doing? Even as the chariot came in sight of Dubh Linn and the ford, Conall had not been sure. He was about to conclude that it was all Finbarr's fault, but had checked himself. It wasn't Finbarr's fault. It was the girl's golden hair, and her wonderful eyes. And something else. He didn't know what it was.

  Conall had never been in love. He wasn't without any experience of women. The members of the High King's retinue had seen to that. But none of the young women he had met so far had really interested him. He had felt attractions, of course. But whenever he talked to a young woman for any length of time, he always felt as if some invisible barrier had come between them. The women themselves did not always realise this; if the High King's handsome nephew sometimes seemed thoughtful or a little melancholy, they found it attractive. And he wished it were otherwise. It saddened him that he could not share his thoughts and that theirs, in turn, always seemed so predictable.

  "You ask for too much," Finbarr had told him frankly. "You cannot expect a young woman to be as deep and wise as a druid."

  But it was more than that. Ever since his early childhood, when he had sat alone by the lakes or watched the red sun go down, he had been overcome by a sense of inner communion, a feeling that the gods had reserved him for some special purpose.

  Sometimes it filled him with ineffable joy; at other times it seemed like a burden. At first he had assumed that everyone felt the same way, and had been quite surprised to discover that they did not. He had no wish to place himself apart. But as the years went by, these sensations had not passed away but had grown. And so it was that, whether he wished it or not, when he gazed into the eyes of some well-meaning girl, he was troubled by an uncomfortable inner voice that said she was a distraction, taking him away from the path of his destiny.

  So why was this girl with the strange green eyes any different?

  Was she just a bigger distraction? He did not think she was different in kind from the other women he had met.

  Yet somehow the warning voice that usually troubled him, if it had been speaking, had not spoken loudly enough to be heard. He was drawn to her. He wanted to know more. It would have seemed strange indeed to Finbarr that he should have hesitated so long before he had sum moned his charioteer, harnessed a pair of his swiftest horses to his light chariot, and, without saying where he was going, set off to wards the Ford of Hurdles and the dark pool of Dubh Linn. And now he found her alone, with only some of the farmhands for company. Her father and brothers had gone out hunting.

  He saw at once that the farmstead of Fergus was quite a modest one, and that seemed to make his visit easier. If he had called upon an important chief, the news would have travelled all over the island in no time. As it was, he crossed the hurdles, noted privately that they needed repairing, and came quite naturally to the rath of Fergus to ask for refreshment before he continued on his way.

  She met him at the entrance. After greeting him politely and apologising for her father's absence, she led him inside and offered him the usual hospitality for a traveller. When the ale was brought, she served him herself. She recalled their meeting at Lughnasa calmly and politely; yet it seemed to him that there was a quiet, laughing look in her eyes. He had forgotten that she was so delightful. And he was just wondering for how long he should prolong his stay when she asked him whether, after crossing the ford, he had looked at the dark pool that gave the place its name.

  "I did not," he lied. And when she asked if he would like her to show it to him, he said that he would.

  Perhaps it was the fact that the leaves of the oak tree that stood above the pool had turned golden brown, or perhaps it was some trick of the light, but as he stood with Deirdre and looked down the steep bank to its calm surface, Conall had the momentary apprehension that the pool's dark waters were about to draw him in, ineluctably, down into depths without end. Every pool, of course, might be magical.

  Hidden passages below its waters might lead down into the otherworld. That was why the offerings to the gods of weapons, ceremonial cauldrons, or golden ornaments were so often thrown into their waters. But to Conall at that moment, the dark pool of Dubh Linn seemed to offer him a threat more mysterious, and nameless. He had never experienced such a sense of fear before, and hardly knew what to make of it.

  The girl close by his side was smiling.

  "We have three wells here, too," she remarked.

  "One of them is sacred to the goddess Brigid.

  Would you like to see it?"

  He nodded.

  They looked at the wells, which were pleasantly situated on the rising ground above the Liffey. Then they walked back across the open turf towards the rath. As they did so, Conall found himself uncertain what to do. The girl did none of the things that other girls did. She neither moved too close, nor brushed against him, nor put her hand upon his arm.

  When she looked at him, it was only with a pleasant smile. She was friendly; she was warm. He wanted to put his arm round her. But he did not. When they reached the rath, he said he must go.

  Was there a hint of disappointment on her face? Perhaps a little. Was he hoping there might be? Yes, he realised, he was.

  "It is this way you'll be coming when you return," she suggested. "You should stay with us for longer next time."

  "I will do that," he promised. "Soon." Then he called for his chariot and drove away.

  When Fergus came home that evening and Deirdre told him that a traveller had come through, his curiosity was immediate.

  "What sort of traveller?" he demanded.

  "It was just a man going south. He wasn't here for long."

  "And you didn't think to find out anything about him?"

  "He was at Carmun at Lughnasa, so he said."

  "And so was half of Leinster," he retorted.

  "He said he saw us there," she said vaguely, "but I didn't remember." The idea of seeing a stranger not once, but twice, and still knowing nothing of his business was so far from her father's comprehension that he could only stare at her in silence. "I gave him some ale," she said brightly. "Perhaps he'll come back."

  And at this, to her relief, her father had turned away, moved to his favourite place near his drinking skull, wrapped his cloak around him, and gone to sleep.

  For a long time after that, however, Deirdre had remained awake, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chin, thinking about the day that had passed.

  She had been proud of herself that morning. When she had first seen Conall approaching she had let out a little involuntary gasp, and then felt herself tremble. It had taken all her concentration and willpower, but by the time he reached the entrance she had herself completely under control. She had not blushed. And she had kept it up the entire time he was there. But had she given him enough encouragement to return? That was the question. The thought of putting him off was even more terrible than making a fool of herself. As they had walked to the pool she had wondered: should she move closer, should she touch him? She thought not. She believed she had done things the right way. But how she would have liked it, on the way back, if he had put his arm round her. Should she have linked her arm in his? Would that have been better? She didn't know.

  One thing she did know was that the longer she could keep her father off the scent, the better. Given his love of talk, he was sure to cause her embarrassment.

  If there was to be any hope for her with the young prince.

  ..

  And why, for her part, was she so interested in the quiet and thoughtful stranger? Because he was a prince? No, it wasn't that.

  It was an old tradition that the High King must be a perfect man. He could have no blemish. Everyone knew the story of the legendary king of the gods, Nuadu. When he had lost a hand in battle, he had resigned his kingship. Then he had been given a hand of silver, which eventually turned back into a natural hand. Only then could Nuadu of the Silver Hand be king again. So it was with the High King, supposedly. If the High King wasn't perfect, then he would not be pleasing to the gods. The kingdom would be blighted.

  To her it seemed that the handsome warrior, who, she sensed, had been reluctant to meet her at Lughnasa, had this kingly quality. His body was without blemish-she had certainly seen that. But it was his thoughtful manner, the sense of reserve, even private mystery and melancholy about him, that set him apart in her eyes. This man was special. He was not for any thoughtless, coarse-grained woman. And he had come down to Dubh Linn to see her. She was sure of that. The question was: would he return?

  The next day the weather was fine. The morning passed uneventfully, as everyone went about their usual business. It was nearly midday when one of the British slaves called out that there were horsemen crossing the ford, and Deirdre went out to see. There were just two of them, in a light cart with a small train of packhorses. One man she recognised easily. The other, a tall man, she did not know.

  The smaller man was Goibniu the Smith.

  Conall awoke at dawn. The evening before, after leaving Deirdre, he had crossed the high promontory at the foot of the Liffeys broad bay and, choosing a sheltered spot by a rock, had spent the night on its southern slopes. Now, in the dawn's early glow, he climbed up the rock and gazed southwards at the misty unveiling of the panorama below.

  On his right, catching the first gleams of the sun, the gentle hills and volcanic mountains rose into a pale blue sky in which the stars were still departing; on his left, the white mist and silver sheen of the sea. Between these elemental worlds, the great sweep of open country unrolled like a green cloak down the slopes and along the coastline as far as the eye could see until the mists curtailed it. And like a border along the green cloak's edge ran the little cliffs of the shoreline below which the sea spume spread on the distant waiting sands.

  Some way down the slopes before him, he saw a fox lope across open grass and disappear into the trees.

  All around, the dawn chorus filled the air. Far away, by the edge of the sea, he saw the silent shadow of a heron sliding over the water. He felt the faint warmth of the rising sun on his cold cheek, and turned his face eastwards. It was as if the world had just begun.

  It was at times like this, when the world seemed so perfect he wished he could open his mouth like the birds around him to give praise, that Conall would find the words of the ancient Celtic poets coming into his mind. And this morning, it was the most ancient of them all whose words came to him-Amairgen, the poet who arrived on the island with the first Celtic invaders when they took it from the divine Tuatha De Danaan. It was Amairgen, stepping ashore on a coastline like this, who uttered the words that became the foundation for all the Celtic poetry since. As well they might- for Amairgen's poem was nothing less than an ancient Vedic mantra of the kind to be found right across the huge Indo-European diaspora from the western Celtic bardic songs to the poetry of India. am the Wind on the Sea am the Ocean Wave I am the Roar of the Sea So the great chant began. The poet was a bull, a vulture, a dewdrop, a flower, a salmon, a lake, a pointed weapon, a word, even a god. The poet was transformed into all things, not just by magic but because all things, atomised, were one. Man and nature, sea and land, even the gods themselves came from one primal mist, and were formed in one endless enchantment. This was the knowledge of the ancients, preserved on the western island. This was what the druids knew.