Priestess of the Fire Temple (3 page)

2

M
y father, Barra Mac Mell, had a rath of the usual sort, a large, round-walled wooden palisade surrounded by an earthen bank and a ditch that was filled with water except during the driest season. Perched high on a hill, it had a commanding view of every direction.

Inside its walls were stone roundhouses with their cone-shaped thatched roofs of willow rods. My mother and father had their own sleeping houses, of course—one for each of them and their retainers—and my brother and I had our own private houses as well. There were the usual guesthouses and roundhouses for the mogae, the warriors, and the craftsfolk and farmers who served the rath.

Old Father Justan was given his own roundhouse within the dun, but he seemed to spend most of his time in a little stone cell outside of the walls. He had come to us before I was born, all the way from Inissi Leuca in Armorica. He had white hair and a toothy grin and was very humble. We all liked him. Apparently there was some kind of scandal attached to him because of his beliefs, and that was the reason he had set out on a pilgrimage to the north and eventually found us and settled in our tuath.

Father Justan was a great scholar and a follower of Pelagius, the “heretic monk” from Albu who taught that all people were sacred, created by God, and thus able to save themselves by their own free will. Pelagius denied the idea of original sin and believed that every person had the natural capacity to live a holy life, and for that reason he was despised by the other Cristaidi. They insisted, as they still do, that we have to have a priest to absolve us from our original sin.

“If the people don't go to the priests, then the church can't collect any tithes, but any Cristaide can hear the confession of any other in the sight of God,” Father Justan would say.

Everyone liked to go to Father Justan for confession. He always ended by giving you a hug or an apple or some other dried fruits that he had in store. Father Justan saw the sacred in everything: the trees, the river, the plants and animals, and in all people.

“In every person I see and in everything I experience, there is a gift from divine grace. Everything comes from God; thus, the whole world is sacred to me. It's all thread of the same cloth, woven by divine providence. My little hazel bush and my stream are all the church I need.”

In that way he was very like the Druid.

Sometimes the other Cristaidi would come to his hut for a visit, and they always left angry. They could never bend Father Justan to their way of thinking.

We also had small roundhouses and a private enclosure for my teachers, our filid, Dálach-gaes and Niamh, well hidden behind a thick screen of yew. My mother felt that having houses and a nemed dedicated to the old religion within the grounds lowered our status in the eyes of guests, so she tried her best to keep them hidden from view. But Father felt differently; his views were ever the opposite of hers.

My father made a great show of hospitality towards Father Justan and the Cristaidi to keep the peace, but in his heart he still honored the old ways. I know this because shortly before he died he asked for a Pagani funeral to the shock and surprise of everyone, including me. I will tell you all about that later.

It is common knowledge that a king without a poet to praise him is a poor king, so Dálach-gaes was one of the most important figures at court in the eyes of my father. Dálach-gaes and Niamh were both tall, blond, and blue eyed, and like my mother they stood out in any gathering. It was immediately obvious that they were strangers to In Medon, the central kingdom of the island that was under the rulership and protection of my father. Some even thought they must be visitors from the Daoine Sidhe realm, with their long blond hair and regal bearing.

Besides their own house, Dálach-gaes and Niamh kept a separate hut for their children and a larger roundhouse for their students, who labored long into the night, composing their poems in the dark.

Dálach-gaes and Niamh's children studied the arts of filidecht under the guidance of their parents, alongside the other students, who came for instruction from distant tuaths. I learned to read and write my Ogum and my Greek and Latin letters at their side and also received the teachings of the fili, though I never reached the full status of an ánruth, with 175 compositions and an honor price of twenty séts. No one really expected me to make my living as a poet.

These were the only children in the rath that my father thought worthy for me to spend time with, because they came from one of the oldest families of hereditary poets. But they were such solemn and quiet creatures that we often had a hard time finding common interests. They always seemed to be tired, having been kept up late into the night memorizing genealogies and sacred stories and incubating poems.

Dálach-gaes and Niamh had a nickname for me:
Aoibhgreíne
. Compared to their sober offspring, I must have burst into their private enclosure like a ray of sunshine with my red hair and wild ways as I sporadically came and went from their school to attend the Druid rites and helped gather and apply the healing worts.

I first appeared at the gates of the nemed when I was just four years old. I can still remember the day because it was my father who brought me there. I remember that we walked across the open space of the dun together and that he held my hand. It was such a rare thing to have my father all to myself that it stood out in my mind as a very special day ever after. I am not sure why we went at that particular time. I think it was a kind of testing, to see if I had the wit to study the poetic arts.

When I saw the ritual space, the very first words out of my mouth were “What is a Drui?”

I remember that Dálach-gaes seemed impressed by the question. I liked him immediately because he crouched down to match my height and spoke to me seriously, as if I were his equal.

He replied, “That is a very good question, and one that will take a long time to answer. For now I will tell you this: a Drui is an oak-wise person, one who carries the oak wisdom in their head and their heart.”

I had no idea what that meant. “Why is a Drui like an oak?” I asked.

Dálach-gaes smiled and answered, “On the spiritual plane, an oak is the one who attracts lightning—the attention of the gods—and lives to tell the tale. An oak-knower lives like that. She is one who is like a great tree that gives wood and shade, fruits, flowers, nuts, and medicines to the people, even when they cut off her branches. She bears rain storms, snow, and sun with equal grace. She has her roots deeply and firmly in the ground and her head high in the highest clouds.

“Each time you see an acorn, let it remind you of this truth, for a mighty oak tree is hidden inside of every acorn.”

Then he reached into a leather pouch that hung from his belt, pulled out an acorn, and handed it to me.

“This is for you to keep, so that you won't forget what I have told you.”

That acorn was as precious to me as any jewel, and I carried it with me for many years thereafter.

I was immediately accepted at the Druid school, and my education began within days. Niamh was the one who taught me wortcunning, which was never a formal training. She would simply announce that it was time to gather a certain root, bark, or berry, and we would be off to the fields or the forest with baskets on our arms. “You have a certain window of opportunity to gather the medicines,” she would say. “If, in a certain year, we are too late for the harvest or if we somehow forget when something is ready, it could spell disaster, because it will be an entire sun cycle before the medicine is available for harvest again.”

I soon learned that an important part of being a Drui was to pay attention to the cycles of the land, to be aware of everything, and to forget nothing.

There were certain herbs that we had to be sure to gather every year without fail. Comfrey was easy because it grew in the garden, and every winter we had fat bunches of the hairy leaves hanging near the hearth to dry for the poulticing of wounds and fractures. Loosestrife was another staple that we brought in without fail from the bogs. There were bunches of purple heather tips, gathered just as they came into bloom, for the cough and to help us sleep, and the inner barks of apple and oak for lung fevers. And there was always reed, the mainstay of every healer's art. We waded deep into the ponds each summer to cut the freshest roots and leaves.

Niamh was a granddaughter of Lucius and Aífe, the former ard-ri and ard-rígain of In Medon. Her mother had been among the last to receive Druid training on Innis nam Druidneach, the sacred island of the Druid off the coast of Caledonia. That was before it was taken over by the Cristaidi, of course.

The Cristaidi had their own village not far from our fort, where they lived with their families in their beehive stone huts and celebrated Mass in their little stone chapel that was shaped like an overturned coracle. They kept to themselves and only came by to pester Father Justan and try to convert him to their philosophy.

We had our own small stone chapel inside the rath where I and my family attended Mass regularly, but I never understood why we had to worship indoors. If God created the whole world and the heavens, then why not celebrate outside, in the free air under God's sun, moon, and trees?

Our chapel was built under an ancient ash tree that had once marked the sacred center of a Druid enclosure. People still left gifts under the tree, such as honey, cider, cheese, and apples, to show respect for the ancestral spirits. My mother thought the gifts were an eyesore, but father gave strict orders that the offerings were not to be disturbed. Dálach-gaes would collect them after a few days and take them to the nemed to drop them into the votive pit. He said it was very bad luck to eat food that had been left out as a gift for the spirits.

Father Justan said Mass for us, and looking back I realize that I had a most unusual education, steeped as I was in the teachings of the Pagani Druid and the Cristaidi all at once. As Niamh liked to tell me, “The best honey comes from bees that feed from different flowers.”

But the pride of my father's rath was its great mead hall. It was long and narrow—so long that there were four fire pits down the center of the building, with two rows of six roof trees to either side of the hearths. There were great iron hooks on the walls so that the warriors could hang their shields on one side and the flaith could hang their shields on the other—twenty hooks on either side. My father's imposing ashwood throne presided at the far end on an elevated platform.

The walls of the hall were lavishly carved with complicated inter-lace patterns and strange beasts and foliage of many kinds. My mother was ever making the mogae polish the wood until it gleamed. The tops of the walls were painted in bright colors that the mogae had to wash and repaint frequently because of the constant wood smoke. It took a dozen servants just to keep the wrought-iron sconces on the roof trees oiled against the damp.

My mother arranged the menus for the feasts. There were always three kinds of meat—deer, oxen, and boar—that were cooked outside in deep pits. My father made sure that sheep, chickens, and fish were roasted separately for the free farmers and the mogae; he was ever mindful of the political value of hospitality.

From Letha, Mother would order huge casks of fion, a drink she considered more elegant than the local béoir. She must have been right, because the flaith and the warriors couldn't seem to get enough of it, and it made her a popular hostess.

The evening of the oenach feast was clear and dry, and there were bright stars and an enormous full moon. The high feast was always timed for maximum moonlight so that everyone could travel to and from it with ease. As the enticing smells of roasting meats and freshly baked breads mingled with the wood smoke from the cooking pits and torches, everyone assembled outside of the mead hall to await the carnyx that would summon us inside.

Looking up, I could see the glow of distant bonfires dotting the hills; the Pagani were celebrating in the old way on the mountaintops. I guessed that Dálach-gaes would be up there with Niamh and their children and students, and I longed to be with them, as I had been in years past.

In former years we had walked together to a nearby hill in the dark, and at dawn we circled the hill seven times sunwise. Then, bearing a large cristall glain and a sheaf of the new grain, we would climb the hill and leave those on the top as a thanks-offering to the land spirits.Then we'd spend the rest of the day playing games on the hillside and feasting on pig's feet, mutton, bannocks and honey, béoir, and the purple whortleberries that we gathered in our willow baskets.

Dálach-gaes, Niamh, and the older students would pair off and disappear into the whortleberry bushes from time to time to enjoy the sun and each other's company. I could hear them murmuring soft endearments and laughing softly. It was always a jolly time, and I missed it sorely.

Róisín watched me, following my gaze towards the hills as if she could read my thoughts.

“That's no place for you now, my lady. You are nearly a woman grown this summer, and it is time for you to take your proper part in the high feasts at the side of your brother and your parents.”

I am quite sure I made a face because she gave me a look of despair, as if to say that in her opinion I would never really be up to the task.

The crowd parted as a warrior approached us from inside the mead hall.

“Lady Aislinn, the ard-ri desires to speak with you before the guests enter. He wants you to come in alone.”

Then he offered his arm to help me negotiate my way through the crowd. I left Róisín to the swirl of guests outside the door.

As I stepped into the hall, I took in my mother's impressive decorations: corn dollies made from churn staffs and sheaves of new grain hung gaily from the rafters as if they were flying overhead, and large loaves made from freshly ground flour were placed in neat lines down the center of each table. There were thick bouquets of red field poppies and trailing bunches of ivy spilling from gaily painted pottery vases ranged between the bread loaves.