Priestess of the Fire Temple (10 page)

12

N
ow we were being driven down a narrow road. I could tell because there were thick stands of rustling trees above and to either side of us. I could also hear a soft lowing in the distance that sounded very much like a vast herd of cattle.

I gradually realized that our little cart was part of a long train that contained cattle both ahead and behind us. At intervals one of our captors would ride up alongside the cart to commiserate with the other guards, swearing and complaining because cows were constantly drifting off into the forest. Rounding them up was becoming a huge task because of the trees, brambles, and bushes.

By simply listening to snatches of speech, I made out that the cows were booty and so were we. But I still had no idea who had taken us and where we were headed.

After another hard day of being hauled like so many sacks of meal, we were finally pulled out of the cart and deposited onto a grassy hillside. It was evening, and someone was standing over a large fire in the distance, stirring a cauldron filled with what smelled like mutton stew. My stomach growled uncontrollably in response, as did the stomachs of the other prisoners.

“Make yourselves at home. This is where you will be living for a long while,” someone said.

“But not you or you.” He pointed to my new friend and to another man of about the same age, height, and build. I suddenly realized that I didn't even know my new friend's name.

Black, red, and brown cows milled all around us, bawling loudly, begging to be milked.

“You two: your job will be to guard the edges of the herd and protect it from wolves. And make sure the cows stay well away from the bogs and cliffs! And don't think you can just walk off. We'll be patrolling the boundaries of these hills on our horses to make sure that doesn't happen,” a man said to my red-haired friend and to the other man who was next to him.

They were each handed a staff and a sheepskin cloak against the rain, and ushered away.

I noticed then that I was the only female captive. The others were all warriors—tattooed, shorn, bleeding, and clearly defeated in battle. To be forced to tend cattle, which was usually a boy or young woman's task, was a further humiliation.

“You there, each of you, grab a calf and take it to that enclosure,” the man said to the crestfallen warriors.

I knew from my forays into my father's barnyards that cows had to be kept near their calves in order to give milk, but the calves had to be prevented from suckling. There was a fenced enclosure just for the calves. They would have to be fed by hand throughout the day.

I scanned the area quickly in the fading half-light to see if there might be any medicinal worts in the vicinity. My eyes fell on wild knit-bone and slan-lus as the most likely healing agents in sight, and I mentally determined to find a way to mash them and distribute them to the men to salve their bleeding feet and other wounds. But that would have to wait. The cows were becoming more insistent by the minute, and the next thing I knew I was being handed a large wooden bucket and a milking stool.

“Twice a day, morning and evening, you will milk these cows. And when you are not milking, you will churn butter,” one of our captors said.

There was a stack of butter churns waiting. Apparently the defeated warriors would be set to this humiliating task as well.

There were several shielings within sight, small round huts made of bent saplings and wattles and covered over with sods of peat. They appeared to be waterproof at least. I worked as quickly as I was able, knowing without being told that only when the milking was finished would I be allowed to eat a bowl of something hot and find my weary bed.

When I finally got my wooden bowl of stew, I plucked up the courage to ask a few questions.

“What kingdom is this? I mean, for whom am I now working?” I asked the man who had given us our tasks, as if I were just another dairy maid who had recently exchanged masters.

I knew that if they discovered my true status it would be very costly for my father or for Íobar to ransom me. I fully intended to escape on my own and deprive my captors of further booty.

“You are in Prince Roin's employ. His father, King Lovic, started this raid. When Lovic was killed, the whole thing became part of Roin's kingship plan. Now it's Roin's way of proving his worth to the people. He hopes that he will be elected to follow in his father's footsteps.”

But that still didn't tell me who my red-headed friend might be.

That night I bedded down in my own little hut, falling swiftly to sleep on a loose pile of straw that was covered by rough sheepskins against the damp. The moon of Beltaine shone through my open doorway, and the soft snorting and breathing of cows mingled with the songs of night.

I had no hearth to smoor and bring safety to my hut, so I visualized my inner fires glowing and sent up a prayer of thanks to whichever gods were guiding and protecting me. Then I passed quickly into a black, dreamless sleep.

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13

W
e soon fell into our weary routine. Milk the cows in the morning, carry the milk to a central location under the large ash tree, and churn the butter. Scrape the butter into wooden kegs and set the kegs into the stream. Milk the cows again in the evening and set the milk aside for churning, make more butter, and lay it in the stream. Day by day these tasks were repeated in the same order, in the same way.

Carts arrived each afternoon to pick up butter kegs and barrels of fresh milk for transport back to the local villages and to deliver empty casks ready to be refilled. The same carts brought bread, cheese, vegetables, and occasionally meat or fish for the workers.

But it wasn't all drudgery. It is well known that cows enjoy music while they are being milked, so we always traded songs while milking. Everyone joined in, especially in the choruses between verses.

I took the opportunity to provide a little bit of spiritual guidance to the men. I couldn't help it; it was part of my training.
Priestess
could have been my title, though I would tell no one.

“Be sure to pour out the first milk as a gift for the fairies,” I would say each morning. “It's important that you do this for the health of the cattle, and if you do it faithfully, the herds will be well protected.”

I knew that farmers who neglected the milk offerings invited sickness into their herds and sometimes into their own families.

I would walk over to a hollowed-out stone I had found and placed on top of a large flat rock. I always poured the first milk into the hollow as I faced the sun and sang, “A Daoine Sidhe, this is for you!”

Many of the men followed my example.

Healer
was another title that I might have claimed. I had poulticed the worst-off of the wounded warriors with wild medicines from the fields.

“You look familiar to me somehow,” said a scarred fighter by my side who was unhappily plunging milk in a large butter churn.

I had not yet been recognized and had worked hard to keep my identity a secret. Soiled as my face was and with a torn and filthy léine, tunic, and unkempt hair, so far I had succeeded.

“Oh, everyone says that. It's the red hair. You know, see one redhead and you have seen them all!” I shrugged off his comment as if I were used to such speculation.

“It's just a question of waiting for Íobar to send some of our warriors to steal back the cattle,” another man observed as we churned butter side by side under the ash tree. “All we really have to do now is bide our time.”

He was a warrior who must have been awarded many armbands and battle rings for successful campaigns. I could still see the whiteness of his skin where those ornaments had once circled his body. Shorn of his dignity, he looked thoroughly disgusted to be doing this kind of menial work.

The captive men constantly secreted away such weapons as they could devise, cudgels and staffs made from the trees of the nearby forest and slings made of old sheep hides and stones. When Íobar's troops finally appeared, they would be ready to jump into the fray immediately, to liberate each other and the cows. This was the well-understood plan.

While it was always a mark of skill and honor to capture human hostages and a herd of cows, it was an equal honor to recapture the same cows and bring them safely back home. And, if possible, Íobar would try to add more of Roin's own cows to the herd, and the round of thieving and recovery of cattle would continue.

This was how it always had been and always would be between the tribes.

One night as I lay on my little pallet of straw and sheepskins I heard a soft scratching on the leather door. I slid the door frame aside and to my amazement saw my friend. His long red hair was backlit by the moon, and he looked wider and bulkier than I remembered because of the sheepskins over his shoulders. He had also grown a stubble of beard, which I found most becoming.

“May I come inside?” he asked in a politely hushed tone.

“Of course,” I whispered back. “I am sorry that I have nothing to offer in the way of hospitality,” I murmured as he folded his long legs and made himself comfortable on the hard clay floor.

“I hardly expected food or drink. Your company is all I am after,” he said, smiling.

In the clear moon glow there was just enough light that we didn't need a candle so long as the door was kept open. But this meant that we had to keep our voices low.

I knew he wasn't from Irardacht; I certainly would have noticed his red hair if he had been at Íobar's court.

“Who are you? What is your name? And how did you happen to be captured with Íobar's men?” My words tumbled all over themselves in haste because I was afraid that our meeting would be cut off before I could finally learn who he was.

“I am Artrach, a Drui from In Medon, on a mission to the north; I was traveling with three others. One of them was also taken and, as you know, killed.”

We hung our heads for a moment, recalling the terrible shame and horror of hearing the Drui beheaded.

He said he was a Drui.
Was that really possible? My thoughts tumbled in a silent storm.

Raw emotion flooded my chest, and I suddenly felt like weeping; whether it was from relief or gratitude at finding a friend I could trust with my very life, I knew not. But now I was certain that the gods were guiding me somehow, somewhere, for some purpose. But what did it all mean? This was far too much to be mere coincidence. I gathered my reeling thoughts into coherent words.

“I have to tell you something unbelievable: I too am a Drui! Well, almost a Drui. I was half trained by Dálach-gaes and Niamh in the court of Barra Mac Mel. I am almost qualified to carry the silver branch of the poets; I have half of the poetic art!”

Then he took my hands in his. I could feel the new calluses and scratches gained from his hard work with the cows. His eyes were moist and wide, and I thought he might also be on the verge of tears.

“Is this really true?” he asked. “To be trained as a Drui is so very rare. My teachers said that only one person in ten thousand is ever chosen, and yet we have found each other. Like this!”

We spoke long into the night. I learned that he was a student at the Forest School of In Medon, and he learned that I had been trained in the arts of the Drui and fili in the school of Dálach-gaes and Niamh. We said prayers together for Amlaim, the recently murdered Drui.

“Let's see him crossing the rainbow bridge to the House of Donn in the west,” Artrach suggested.

We held hands in silence and visualized Amlaim's spirit crossing easily to the home of the God of Death in the Blessed Isles. We knew that his body would have been given only a hasty burial, so we visualized it melting quickly back into the sod, swiftly becoming food for the flowers, trees, and animals—a new expression of sacred life.

It was almost dawn when Artrach finally crept out of my little hut, and I was very sorry to see him go.

Things went on this way for several turnings of the moon. It was hard to stay up all night in conversation with Artrach and then perform the daily tasks of dairying, but somehow I managed it. The cows knew that something was amiss because I would suddenly stop singing and actually fall asleep while still sitting on my milking stool. One time a cow put her foot right into the leather milking bucket, crushing it, and I didn't even notice. I got a sharp rap on the head for that.

By now Artrach and I were cuddling together almost every night, dozing, wrapped in each other's arms more often than speaking. This meant that we were better equipped for the next day's work, and I was getting to know him on a whole other level: bone, sinew, muscle, moist lips, and tender touches.

I was amazed that after several years with Deaglán I had never felt the feelings I was now experiencing. A simple glance from Artrach reverberated deep into my belly, and his kisses sent me into shivers of quiet joy. I could lie entwined in his arms for hours just listening to his breathing, which was the sweetest music I had ever heard. I felt like a virgin, a woman who had never been touched or loved until that moment. It was all new for me, an endless wonder and delight.

I liked to think that it was the same for him. I could feel his insistent hardness the moment we lay down together. I would gently place my hand on his male parts and caress them, and he would cry out in delighted frustration.

But we never went further than that because our Druid training forbade it. We knew that if we joined our bodies we would be legally married, with all the attendant obligations and contractual responsibilities that went with that state. Neither of us would think of undertaking such a step without first consulting the Druid Council and the elders.

I learned that I could bring myself to ecstasy merely by pressing my body against his. It seemed like a miracle. How was it possible that I was experiencing more pleasure in that cold little hut than I had ever felt under the fine linen sheets and furs with Deaglán? It was a yearning pain, pleasure, and delight, all wrapped up together.

Sometimes we would simply kiss for half the night, never growing bored or tired with our patient explorations. It was as if we had entered a different time and space where nothing existed except each other, our own eternal fairy realm in a rough, dark little shieling where every moment together was a new gift from the gods.

Most evenings Artrach would reappear from the hillsides, looking for his supper. He would catch sight of me still at work under the ash tree and would come over, insisting on carrying the milk pails or butter kegs for me all the way to the stream. On the way we would hold hands and lock eyes.

“You are gazing at me again,” he would say, teasing. But he was gazing back.

When I was with him, it was as if there were some irresistible magnetic pull between us the moment I set eyes on him or when his eyes found mine. Sometimes I knew he was behind me before I even turned around. I can honestly tell you that in those short weeks, despite the hard work and other humiliations, we were both completely happy.

One day we walked to the stream together and deposited the butter kegs and milk barrels into the cold water for safekeeping, and he took my hands in his.

“I love you, you know,” he said.

“Yes, I do know,” I answered quietly.

Our hands were still wet from the chilly waters. We both knew the most ancient and hallowed marriage rite where a couple would simply join hands under running water, the gateway to the ancestors and to the Daoine Sidhe realm. Such a union would be witnessed by all the inhabitants of the Otherworld, a most solemn vow.

We were still not prepared to pledge our troth in the sight of the ancestors, but our clasped wet hands foreshadowed the possibility. It was something we both wanted. We knew this without saying the words.

“One day I will make you mine. I swear it,” Artrach murmured softly into my ear.

My response was to kiss him deeply on the lips, in full sight of the watching captives. I was amazed again at the perfect fit of our two bodies, as if we had been born for this union. Every crevice of my form matched some extension of his, while his hollow spaces perfectly fit my breasts, belly, and thighs.

We held each other in the gathering dusk, perfectly content to just stand there under the twinkling stars, pouring our body heat into each other. There were joyful whoops from the warriors.

“I think they're jealous,” Artrach said with a smile, his long red hair warming my shoulders and tickling my cheeks.

His face was so beautiful; he appeared to me like a young god sent from the Otherworld to bring the love and affection that had always eluded me.

He reached into a little bag that hung from his belt and pulled out a small object, placing it into my hand. I peered at it closely in the dusky twilight. It was a beautiful little triskell.

“I found a bit of bronze wire and pounded it out on the rocks while I was watching the cows,” he said by way of explanation. “Take the leather cord off your neck.”

I pulled off the tiny cross that Father Justan had given me so many moons before.

He took it from my hand and affixed the bronze triskell, then lifted the leather cord gently over my head once more.

“I will treasure it always,” I said, thinking that I was blessed by two streams of sacred wisdom, the Pagani and the Cristaidi, both at once.

But of all the jewels and finery I had ever received, that little bronze triskell was the most precious of all to my heart.

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