Magdalen Rising (15 page)

“Yes, but we can't leave sex education to the schools, Fand!”

“So educate me, already!”

I wasn't interested in the druid's open admission policy and the repercussions of pregnancy. I wanted something I could apply to myself—and Esus.

“All right. Now, Maeve, you know about the moon?”

“The moon?” It took me a moment to sort out this apparent nonsequitor.

“Yes. The moon goes through phases like a woman. Or a woman goes through phases like the moon. At the dark we bleed, and at the full—”

“We're horny as hell,” broke in Boann. “Here's the catch, Maeve. At the full moon, you're most likely to get pregnant. But it's also the time you're most likely to get laid. Or to want to, anyway. So before you—”

“Don't mislead her, Boann. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. You see, Maeve, on Tir na mBan we're eight witches cycling together. Just us and the animals, and the moon and the tides. Very low stress. Nothing to break the rhythm. But you are young, away from home for the first time, and you're excitable—to put it mildly. Anything could throw off your courses. You can't count on counting.”

“Still,” Boann insisted, “she ought to understand the theory. Even when she's out of sync with the sky, she ought to learn to know when her own moon is full. Do you know the signs, Maeve?”

I nodded. “It's as if you're an egg cracked open. You're all runny with egg white.”

“You have to admit, our Maeve can turn a phrase.” Boann beamed at me.

“If you know that much, then you better know not to go frying any cracked eggs in the bushes,” admonished Fand freely mixing metaphors and euphemisms.

“But, Fand, that's just when she's most likely to lose her head.”

“And her maidenhead.”

“We should have thought of this.” Boann was rueful. “We could have given her a supply of those seeds. You know, what-do-ya-call-ems. But it's not seed time now, even if we could find them. Still, maybe the priestesses have a store of them.”

“There's stones,” suggested Fand. “Listen, Maeve, as soon as you can, find a smooth flat stone, preferably from the beach. Before you do anything—and as I said I really don't think you ought to—put it inside you as far up as you can.”

I stared at her unbelieving. I could not connect stone with the glimmering I had of “it” as something hot, live, melting.

“It blocks the seed from reaching fertile ground,” Boann explained. “Which is to say, your womb. Certain kinds of dried seaweed also work.”

“Oh, I wish we had time to show you,” fretted Fand. “I wish we had thought of this on Tir na mBan. We could have given you lessons, demonstrations. When I think of all the time we wasted on sword play and spear casting.”

“Well, not wasted entirely,” put in Boann. “It did improve her hand-eye coordination.”

“But if she becomes a druid, she'll never so much as touch a weapon. Druids aren't allowed to bear arms,” Fand lamented. “Why didn't the Cailleach tell us sooner? Why didn't any of us know? What's the use of our being witches if our second sight only works in reverse like everyone else's?”

Mothers are made to worry. But as I've noted, I was very much a daughter. I felt detached from their concerns. Nothing would happen to me that was not meant to. I had a destiny, and it was unfolding. Too bad they couldn't see that.

“It's no use moaning over missed opportunity,” said Boann. “We've got to tell her as much as we can right now. There's one thing we haven't mentioned yet, and it's the most important of all.”

“I can't think what we haven't thought of.”

“Sovereignty,” said Boann solemnly.

“Oh, yes, of course, sovereignty.”

Sovereignty! I pricked up my ears. For the sake of her sovereignty, Queen Maeve of Connacht had fought to win the brown bull. “Fight for our sovereignty,” she had urged me.

“Pay attention, Maeve,” said Fand. “Never go with a man—or a woman, come to that—unless you want to.”

“Not to please. Not to placate,” Boann chimed in.

“Never on any terms but your own.”

It had never occurred to me to do
anything
on any terms but my own.

“And what, exactly, were your terms with King Bran?” I decided to put them on the spot.

Fand and Boann exchanged a glance and actually blushed.

“They were extremely cordial,” said Fand.

“Pleasure. Mutual pleasure,” added Boann.

That sounded simple enough. “Are there any other terms you'd consider?” I wanted all the information I could get. I intended to come to terms with Esus as soon as possible.

Fand and Boann looked uncertain.

“Should we tell her about love?” wondered Fand.

“Doesn't love complicate matters unnecessarily?” Boann was dubious. “I've heard it sometimes results in temporary insanity.”

“And what about marriage?” persisted Fand. “I confess I've never fully understood its purpose, but Queen Maeve of Connacht seems to have managed to have one on her own terms, though there was that unfortunate mix-up over the bulls. I believe marriage often leads to cattle wars.”

“And then there's babies,” Boann reminded her. “Don't forget babies. That's sometimes one of the terms.”

Babies. I kept forgetting about them, and no wonder. I had never seen a human baby in my life. Then a disturbing thought struck me. The moon was close to full.

“About last night.” I tried to sound off hand. “Did you use stones or seaweed?”

Their answer was silence; you might even say a pregnant silence.

“You did it to get babies!” I accused. “You did it on
purpose
!”

“Now that is not strictly true,” objected Fand.

“We did it for fun,” Boann insisted. “King Bran is a jolly old soul and a good sport.”

“Simple, too,” added Fand. “A virtue in a man. But as for babies....”

“Yes, as for babies....” repeated Boann.

They both looked far away and dreamy.

“As for babies!” I prompted loudly.

“To tell you the truth, Maeve. We didn't do it on purpose, but we wouldn't mind if that's what happened. We haven't had a baby since you, Maeve.”

“Parthenogenesis isn't all it's cracked up to be,” Boann observed.

“What about Manannan Mac Lir?” I demanded. “Why did he only come once?”

“Oh, gods are like that,” said Fand vaguely. “Fickle, unpredictable. You can't leave everything to gods.”

“So it's not quite the full moon, but we can hope,” said Boann.

“You want to replace me.”

“Replace you?” They both looked genuinely startled. “Replace you! Darling Maeve! As if we could. It's just that we'd like to go on being mothers for a little while, if we can. You can understand that, can't you?”

I couldn't, really. Not then.

“I don't get it,” I said. “If thigh friendship is so much fun, and if it can get you the babies you seem to want so much, why are you living
on Tir na mBan? Why haven't I ever seen a man in my life till yesterday? What's the big deal?”

“It's not always as simple as that,” sighed Fand.

“The way it was with King Bran, she means,” explained Boann. “A good time had by all. No fuss. No muss.”

“Yes, when women don't have their sovereignty, it can be very messy indeed. Now, we are queens and witches from our own sovereign isle.” “Sovereignty, Maeve. Belonging to yourself. Your own terms,” Boann got in as much drill as she could.

“Tir na mBan stands for the sovereignty of women,” continued Fand. “If it exists nowhere else in the world, it exists there. Remember that, Maeve. Sovereignty is your birthright and your inheritance. Next to sovereignty, gold torques and brooches are mere trinkets. Never surrender your sovereignty, Maeve. Carry it with you wherever you go.”

Their words were stirring but abstract. Then an image rose in my mind of myself as a sort of floating island, shining, a sovereign vessel on a vast and dangerous sea.

D
ID YOU GO TO college? Do you remember your interview with the admissions officer? Of course you were nervous. But maybe you had other things going for you: SAT scores off the curve, straight A's, great recommendations? Interesting hobbies, at least. None of these mattered to the druids. No one had a manila folder in hand, fat with your accomplishments. The interview, so to speak, was it. And this was no cozy affair in some well-appointed little office, tendrils of ivy curling outside the window, with the interviewer doing his or her best to put you at your ease. No.

Picture this: The candidate stands before twelve druids, seated cross-legged and straight-backed on the ground. Behind him waits a crowd of competing candidates and their families. Although it is still daylight, and the huge oaks are not yet in full leaf, the grove has a hushed, dimmed quality, as solemn as any court or cathedral. On most islands—and certainly on Mona with its lush, flat expanse—the wind is ceaseless. But the druids, being druids, can command a hollow of stillness, an eye of attentive silence. If it had been the right season, you could have heard an acorn drop.

The candidate is flanked by his sponsors, who might be parents, the head of his
fine,
or even the king of the
tuath.
To have arrived at this moment, the candidate has to have the support of his people, not only for his maintenance in college (twelve to twenty years) but for his lifetime as a druid. And druids were apt to be longer-lived, being forbidden to bear arms on the one hand and, on the other, being expert practitioners of the healing arts.

“Declaim your lineage!” The druids command the candidate.

If you falter, forget it. Never mind if the preferred ancestors really did exist and have done the necessary begetting. You're going into the memory business. Reciting nine generations of direct ancestry is kindergarten stuff. There are druids on the admissions board who specialize in lineage. You're not telling them anything they don't already know. You're just meeting the first of three requirements. If the druids are satisfied
with your recital of nine generations of freeborn forefathers (that's right, fathers) then they ask:

“Who stands surety for this candidate?”

No less than twelve people will do.

To pass the third test—remember I told you how the Celts love threes? —the candidate must recite a longish piece of poetry. Not long by bardic standards, but long enough to show you have a capacity for memory and enough potential flair and style to be worth training.

You'll agree, these three tests would be bad enough even if you knew about them ahead of time and were amply prepared. I didn't, and I wasn't. What's more, one of the twelve druids on the panel, the one furthest to my left, lurking in my peripheral vision, had a sleek, red beard and watchful eyes, focused (for now) not on me but on the victim of the moment.

“Was your great grandfather or was he not Kulhwch ab Kilydd etc....” The grey-bearded spokesdruid interrupted the candidate's recital. “A notorious cattle thief taken captive during a raid, stripped of his lands and herds and reduced to the status of a slave?”

“Well, yes, but his daughter bought his freedom when she married King Lludd, and after that all his descendants were freeborn.”

“But his son, your grandfather, was not.”

“Not exactly, but later he—”

“Case dismissed.” The grey-bearded druid waved the candidate away.

As he turned, I caught a glimpse of his face distorted with the sobs he was trying to strangle.

“I can't go through with this,” I hissed to my mothers, who had me literally in hand or under arms, so that I would not go crawling through the crowd looking for you-know-who.

“Of course you can, Maeve!” they insisted. But I could tell they were nervous, too.

“What about my lineage?” I demanded.

“There's nothing wrong with your lineage,” said Fand huffily.

“But who's going to stand surety for me?”

“Never you mind. That's all taken care of.”

It took me a moment to figure out what that meant. But I'm not dumb. Neither were my mothers. Cordial terms. Mutual pleasure. I reckoned something else had been thrown into the bargain.

“What about the poetry? Why didn't you warn me about the poetry?” It's not that I didn't know stories, but I was fairly certain my mothers' stories had not been imparted to me in the proper prosodic form. “What am I going to recite?”

“Wing it,” said Boann unhelpfully.

I looked again at the druid panel listening gravely to a young woman this time. She was very tall and slender, with smooth, red hair to her waist, and she seemed excessively sure of herself. I took an instant, unreasoning dislike to her. When she finished declaiming her lineage in proud, ringing tones, the druids nodded, then signed to each other in nose ogham. That's right, nose ogham. You can use the nose as well as a seam in a rock to form the stem of ogham. Foxface's nose, being long and straight, was particularly well suited to this form of communication.

“Fand,” I whispered, “do you see that druid on the far left with the red beard?”

“What about him?”

“He was there at the sacrifices. Don't you remember him?”

“Really, Maeve, they all look alike to me. How can you tell them apart?”

“There's something about him. He makes me nervous.”

“Don't be silly, Maeve. Now hush. I want to hear the young woman recite. She's telling the story of Goewin rather prettily.” The tall redhead had passed the second test in a flash. “I don't want to miss the part where Gwydion and Gilfaethwy have to mate as swine. Such an ingenious way for King Math to avenge Goewin's honor, I always think.”

The druids approved her story, too. When she finished, she was promptly admitted to college (with scarcely a finger to the nose on the part of the druids.) Her kinfolk cheered wildly, and the rest of the crowd joined in. And it was that much closer to being my turn. My mothers' talon-like grip on me notwithstanding, I remained in that darkening grove for one reason, and one reason only.

The sun began to set, shooting its last rays to the highest tree branches. I leaned my head back and gazed at the sky beyond. Small birds, so high I couldn't tell what kind they were, flew across my range of vision. From right to left, I noted. Not a good sign. I wondered if anyone else had noticed. Then, off-setting that omen, an owl woke and cried loudly from my left side. Relieved, I lowered my eyes and looked towards the druids, reflecting that for them the cry came from the right. It struck me then that our luck was opposed.

There was a lull in the proceedings as the druids ordered some torches lit. Then the grey-bearded druid gestured for the next candidate to come forward.

It was Esus.

He stood with the merchant who had championed him, wearing a clean, plaid tunic of Celtic design. Unlike the Celts, he was not bareheaded but wore a round hat like the one I'd perched on (so to speak) in my dream. I couldn't help wondering if it was the same one, and if he had managed to get the stain out. But now was hardly the moment to inquire.

“Declaim your lineage!” the druid commanded as he had every candidate.

But Esus was not just another candidate, and everyone knew it. The crowd murmured and stirred, all of us craning our necks to get a better view, straining our ears for the first syllables to fall from his lips.

“Do you understand what you are to do?” the druid inquired.

“I do,” he answered in heavily accented P-Celtic. “I am Esus ab Joseph ab Jacob ab Mathan ab Eleazar ab...”

Do you really want to hear the whole thing? He did not stop at nine. His lineage was far, far longer than King Bran's. After awhile, the druids (who had been counting on their fingers, thrown off, perhaps by the Hebrew names) held up their hands and gestured frantically for him to stop. But he kept right on going back through Solomon and David all the way to Abraham. Why he stopped there, don't ask me. Maybe he sensed he was losing his audience.

“Er, quite,” said the spokesdruid when it became apparent that he had finally finished. “And are all these forebears freeborn men?”

“That,” he answered in his charmingly accented P-Celtic, “is a long story.”

Without waiting to discover whether or not the druids were inclined to hear him, given that his answer was not a straightforward yes, he turned his back on the panel and faced us with that extraordinarily sweet smile of his. (Sweet? Think of wild strawberries warm from the noonday sun bursting on your tongue.) He smiled that smile blindly into the crowd. And then he asked:

“Is there an Aramaic speaker in the grove?”

Is there!

“Maeve! What are you doing?” my mothers demanded as I struggled to free myself from their hold and get to my feet.

“The Aramaic speaker. That's me.”

“You!?!”

“Yes, me! The Cailleach taught me Aramaic. Don't you remember? And this is why. Now let me go!”

“Well, if it was the Cailleach's idea,” Fand and Boann conferred, “well, all right. But we're going with you.”

Like the prow of a boat, I plowed through the crowd, with Fand and Boann a trailing wake.

“I speak Aramaic,” I kept explaining to people as I stepped over or on them.

At last I stood before Esus, ignoring the heat on my left side where Foxface's gaze grazed my cheek. Now Esus's smile was for me alone. I answered with my own.

“I want to tell the story of my people.” He got right to the point. “But my Celtic isn't up to it.” He paused, then added, “I knew you'd come forward if I asked.”

Rather sure of himself for a foreigner who might be turned into a human sacrifice at any moment.

“Will you translate for me?”

“Sure,” I said, attempting nonchalance. “I'll give it a try.”

While we were speaking together as if only the two of us were of any consequence, there was a murmur rising to a roar from the waiting crowd. Urgent ogham signals, both of hand and nose, passed from one end of the druid panel to the other and back again.

Then Esus turned from me and stepped back, standing sideways, so that the druid panel and the people could see him. When he spoke, everyone fell silent. He could command a crowd even then.

“You have asked me a question, and I will answer it. But since the answer is long, I prefer to speak in my own language—”

“And I will translate,” I jumped in. I didn't need anyone to speak for me.

“Who is this maiden?”

Even before I looked, I knew it was Foxface who had spoken. Although I was trembling, I turned to face him.

“I am Maeve. Called by the Cailleach Maeve Rhuad. My name means red mead, and the fire of the stars flows in my veins.”

Don't ask me why I said that.

“She's a candidate,” Fand hastened to add.

A look passed along the druid line, then a barely perceptible nod, which I took to mean: We'll deal with her later.

“Proceed,” said the grey-bearded druid.

“Wait a minute!” A man in the crowd rose to his feet shouting. “If his ancestors aren't all freeborn, then what's the point of going further? He's automatically disqualified. We've been waiting here all day. This is a waste—”

“We wish to hear this case.” The druid cut him off. “Anyone who cannot wait may leave now. There will be no heckling. You all know the penalty for such disturbances. You, there. You've had your first of three warnings.”

The druid nodded to Esus. Until then he had been standing. Now he sat down cross-legged on the ground and motioned for me to sit facing him. Fand and Boann plunked themselves down on either side of me, eyeing Esus with suspicion. Esus waited for a moment, becoming very still.

Then he took a deep breath and began to speak.