Magdalen Rising (19 page)

The memory of my first blood surged back to me. I could hear the Cailleach commanding:
Anoint me.
In a flash it came to me what I must do. Viviane wasn't exactly worthy, but—

I dipped my fingers into the source and got a generous coating. Before Viviane knew what was happening, she had my bloody fingerprints smeared across her cheek.

Viviane gaped at me, stunned. But only for a moment. Then she let out a shriek that betrayed our common
bean sídhe
ancestry and lunged for me.

Apparently the druid code of nonviolence had made no impression on either of us. You can lay down your sword and shield and still have fists at your disposal, not to mention teeth, nails, knees, and feet, none of which we hesitated to use. Viviane was stronger than I'd imagined from her willowy build and the languorous poses she affected. I was heavier and better trained, but I'd never before fought with anyone who was livid with me.

Stand aside with me for a moment and watch these two redheads wrestle each other to the ground, rolling from the rock into the gorse and bracken. I am streaked with menstrual blood and scratches, both from the gorse and Viviane's fingernails. Her green tunic is torn and dirty. It's getting harder for either of us to use our hands, because our fingers are so tangled in each other's hair.

I'm sorry. Did you want to think that women have no aggression? Should Viviane and I have displayed more sisterly solidarity? Just consider. In her own self-interested, self-righteous way, Viviane was doing just that. No tiptoeing away with averted eyes for her. Though I wouldn't admit it for a long time, I respected the way Viviane cast aside her civilized pretensions in a robust rage. But then, Celtic notions of femininity did not require denial of will or temper. Womanliness included the capacity to fight fiercely on provocation. So when our ruckus attracted the attention of others, there was not the same degree of shocked censure or titillated fascination that a “cat fight” provokes in your time.

Okay. Before we break it up, let's jump back in. Now we're both on our feet again. Breasts heaving against each other. (Hers were no match for mine.) Eyes stinging with sweat. Mouths full of hair. The fury of locked muscles. Distorted glimpses of cheekbone and eyeball. The two of us one hot, straining mass of flesh. Yet for all the intensity, I have a strange, peripheral awareness of the sweetness of cooling earth, the enveloping brightness of sky.

Then someone grabbed me under the arms from behind. The earth pitched for a moment, and the edges of my vision blurred. When the ground settled and my sight cleared, I found myself staring at Viviane from a distance of several feet. Panting and bloody, Viviane was also being restrained by a pair of strong, male arms. Together we formed
the center of the attention of some half a dozen second form students. I knew their status, because they wore the blue tunics of novice ovates.

I almost (not quite) felt sorry for Viviane, who was nothing if not vain, appearing before second formers at such a disadvantage. We were not in a movie where the heroine (I'll grant Viviane that status for a second) looks fetching in her dishevelment. Viviane was a mess. Hair bedraggled, skin blotchy, eyelashes not bedewed with tears but caked with dust and sweat and separated into clumps. The student holding her was one of those ridiculously handsome Celts with blue-black hair, eyes to match, and flawless skin. They would have made a handsome couple under other circumstances.

“This is a piece of luck,” said Viviane's restrainer. “The closest I've gotten yet to this delightful experiment.”

He meant us?

“Doesn't seem to be working out too well, does it?” another laughed.

“Oh, I don't know. It all depends on your perspective.” The one with the blue-black hair grinned at me over Viviane's head. “Looks like you've had the worst of it, though.” His eyes raked my naked length.

“I have not!” I said hotly

“I did not remove her tunic, if that's what you mean.” Viviane was blushing from head to toe. “She was already naked when she accosted me.”

“I accosted
you
!” I struggled to get at her again. The grip on me tightened.

“You did! I didn't lay a finger on you, until—”

“I anointed you.” I cut her off. “That's all I did. You don't know an honor when you receive one.”

“Maeve!” she snapped at me. “We will not discuss your disgusting behavior in public.”

“Oh, public. That means us,” said a plump second form student.

“Well now,” said the blue-black one. “If we let you discuss your differences in private, how can we be sure that you will not mar your loveliness further, which would be a shame and a pity?”

“I have nothing further to say to this...this maiden.” From her tone, Viviane might as well have said “slut.”

“Let's have your word on it then, both of you. Any more displays like this one and the druids'll pack you off to the priestesses on Holy Isle.”

Viviane and I both shuddered.

“You have my word.” Viviane glared at me.

“And mine,” I said through gritted teeth.

Viviane's young man released her. She gave a toss of her head worthy of Macha, the mare goddess. Of course, the light caught her hair. Unkempt as it was, it glowed richly as Viviane strode away, in so far as someone switching her hips like that can stride.

“Wait,” called Blue-hair. “I'll give you safe escort.”

The rest of the company began to move on. My captor released me. As the heat of that unknown body receded, it occurred to me to turn and see who it was.

Oh, shit.

Just like the Eve I hadn't yet heard of, I saw that I was naked. Shame I hadn't quite grasped. But it was a hell of an awkward moment.

“Esus!” My voice came out a whisper.

His eyes averted, he turned and began to walk away.

“No, Esus. Wait! I can explain.”

You probably understand better than I did at the time what he must have felt. Here he was, a pious Jew. He'd just grabbed hold of someone who could hardly have been more unclean. A bleeding, gentile woman, for godssake. Now he was unclean, too. Yet when I called to him, he paused, turned around, and had the courage to look me in the eye. He was a mensch.

“Esus.”

I didn't know what to say, but I think all my hurt and longing came through in those two syllables.

“Maeve.”

It was the first time he had spoken my name. The sound of my name from his lips broke my heart. No dagger's thrust this, but a different kind of penetration. Deeper. No less painful for the sweetness.

“Maeve, I'm sorry. I can't handle it. It's all too much. The pork-eating, the idolatry, and now...this.” He looked down at himself in dismay. “I should never have come here. It's all a mistake.”

Again he turned away.

“Esus,” I implored. “It's not a mistake. By Bride's Breasts, I swear it's not.”

He paused for a moment by the rock where my inscription glistened in the slanting light. Did he know enough ogham to recognize his name? Over his shoulder, he shot me a swift glance that I couldn't read. Then he walked on over the rise, his body dark against the brightness.

T
HERE WAS NO WAY a bloody brawl between two female first formers could be kept quiet. It made too good a story, and we were, after all, enrolled in a college for storytellers. The tale spread, each teller embellishing it, adding a snatch of dialogue here, a visual detail there. The druids took no direct disciplinary action, but Nissyen assured us the incident had been on the agenda of more than one faculty meeting.

In the end, the druids decided to wash their hands of Women's Mysteries. They first invited, then begged the priestesses of Holy Isle to send three of their number to be resident at the college on Mona and to take charge of our hormonal excesses. Finding themselves in a position of strength, the priestesses refused until the druids agreed to accord their representatives the status of full faculty members. The priestesses also insisted that the druids develop a corresponding course in Men's Mysteries. When the druids blustered that there had never been such a course and that to institute one now would be highly irregular, the priestesses suggested the druids could do a lot with the Boar and Stag cycle. And if all else failed, the druids might assign the male students to run laps around standing stones and take bracing dips in the Menai Straits. Finally all parties agreed to the arrangements, however grudgingly. The priestesses were due to be installed at the next full moon.

Before the Crows arrived to crimp our style, I was determined to find a way to speak with Esus alone. Whenever I saw him during the day, he was in the midst of a group, often with a druid or two in attendance. He would amble along with his claque, debating some point or another, the whole party oblivious to their surroundings. Then late one afternoon I spied him walking apart from the other students with Foxface. Since admissions, I had learned that the red-bearded druid's name was Lovernios, which means the fox. He was a V.I.D. par excellence, but not one of the druids who spent a lot of time teaching small classes or tutoring individuals. He was a military strategist and was often on the road as consultant to kings. That he should single out my foster brother for special notice was unusual, and, I was sure, significant.

Esus and Foxface began moving away from the teaching groves where afternoon classes had just broken up. Because the afternoon was warm, they kept to the shade of a row of huge beech trees, which stretched out from the groves between two barley fields. The massive tree trunks gave me some cover as I followed them, for of course I did. Because of the sound of the wind blowing unimpeded across the flat fields, I could catch only snatches of their conversation. I knew they were speaking Greek, probably because Esus wasn't fluent enough in Celtic for a complex discussion. The word Roman came up repeatedly. That made sense. Foxface was giving a series of lectures to the entire college on the Gallic wars, with detailed analysis of the Roman campaign, how and why it had succeeded in conquering the Gallic tribes. Esus came from the other fringe of Rome's expanding empire. No doubt Lovernios was broadening his knowledge of Roman methods.

Then, suddenly, just as I had come out from behind one tree, Foxface, stopped, half-turned, and gestured for Esus to sit with him beneath the tree before them. There were several seconds when either one of them could have seen me as I back-tracked as silently as I could to the shelter of the tree next to theirs. Fortunately, they were deeply engrossed in their conversation, and neither looked in my direction. I could hear much better, now that they did not have their backs to me.

“Tell me about these Zealots,” Foxface was saying.

“They are a remnant of patriots who refuse to recognize Roman rule. In order to survive and go on resisting, they live in wild places in the hills, of Galilee mostly. They don't even begin to have numbers comparable to the Romans, but they make governing more difficult for the Romans by stirring up trouble, causing riots and rebellions. They attack by stealth, and sometimes single out individual collaborators for assassination.”

While my foster brother spoke, commanding Foxface's full attention, I climbed up into the crux of the beech. The long, sweeping branches veiled me, but I could see through them.

“A lot of people,” Esus was saying, “even those, like the Pharisees, who decry Roman rule, think the Zealots are too extreme, misguided in their methods. They don't like the violence, the anarchy. Other people dismiss them as fools for a lost cause. But Israel has a long history of prevailing against the odds, like David against the Philistine giant Goliath.”

“And you?” Foxface probed, seeking for something more than general information. “What do you think of the Zealots?”

Esus did not answer right away. I could imagine him chewing his cheek, his brows almost meeting in a straight line as he drew them together.

“At one time I thought I would join the Zealots.”

“I do not understand,” said Foxface. “How could you be a warrior, destined, as you clearly are, for the path of knowledge?”

“My people don't make exactly the same distinctions as yours do. King David, after all, was both a poet and a warrior.”

“I had wondered about that.” Foxface looked thoughtful and stroked his beard. “Then what did decide you against joining the Zealots?”

Again, Esus did not respond right away. I wondered if he was thinking of Anna, and debating whether or not to tell that story.

“I cannot answer that” was all he said.

Foxface hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “You mentioned collaborators. Are they merely individuals or are they an organized body?”

There followed a long and complicated discussion about the Sadducees, the distinctions between them and the Pharisees. I confess I did not pay close attention. Foxface did. I watched him listen. I could almost feel the keenness of his trained druid mind. He would remember every word. Later he would retrieve this conversation from his memory and examine each new piece of information. Then he would find the right compartment of his brain in which to store his new knowledge, so that he could tap it instantly.

Perhaps because I was seeing Foxface now without reference to myself or my strange, inexplicable fears, I was able to notice how well-proportioned his features were, how bright and intelligent his eyes. Of course, I had attended his lectures, but this glimpse of him was more intimate.

“And so,” Foxface spoke again, “your wise men, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, are divided against each other, and there is no unified resistance to Roman rule among the Jews.”

“The Sadducees are only a small part of the whole people,” objected Esus.

“But as you have said, they have disproportionate wealth and power. Naturally they want to protect it. The Romans understand their position and make use of them.”

“Yes,” agreed Esus. “It's not only wealth and power the Sadducees abuse, it's the Law of Moses itself. They observe only the letter of the Law, what is written down. We have an expression: ‘They put the Torah in a corner.' They refuse to let it live and breathe. As long as they keep clean, and fast, and make sacrifice on the appointed days, they count themselves as righteous. Since the Law says nothing specifically about whether or not to cooperate with Roman rule, they believe they are justified in doing as they please. They forget the spirit of the Law, which is justice and truth.”

“That is what comes of the written word,” observed Foxface. “If you write the law in stone, it becomes as stone. That is why we druids are sparing with inscription. It is not that we can't write, as those Roman barbarians suppose, thinking us primitive and backward. It is that we choose not to. We have too great a respect for the power of the word. And perhaps because the law is alive within us, given new birth on our tongues each time it is spoken, the wise men of the
Combrogos
have greater unity in their understanding of their law than your wise men, your priests and rabbis, your Sadducees and Pharisees.”

“But what is it worth, this unified understanding of druid law, when the tribes of the
Keltoi
are constantly warring with each other, as the tribes of Israel have long since ceased to do?” countered Esus. “And how can the druids hope to bring the tribes into unity when they worship so many different gods?”

I held my breath, anxiously searching Foxface's expression to see if he would take offense at my foster brother's brashness.

“Ah, I see you have paid attention to my lectures on the Gallic wars.” Foxface was smooth. “It is perfectly true that the Romans took advantage of our tradition of tribal warfare. This is a problem the druids must address in the Holy Isles. But if you suppose that our gods are the cause of conflict, there you are mistaken. Tribes fight over cattle and land, and sometimes out of restlessness and boredom, but not over gods.

“You say your Sadducees don't acknowledge the Law of Moses as a living, changing force. Our gods and the stories our bards sing celebrate the shifting forces of life, in all forms and aspects. We do not seek unity as an end in itself. Unity,” he shook his head. “Listen, Esus, son of a strange people, brother to the
Combrogos
in resistance to Rome, listen well. Roman rule is unity. If the Romans have their way, the whole world will live in unity—and slavery. The Romans, with all their gods,
have only one god, the Emperor. Tell me, how is that different from your one god, and the one immutable law to which your Sadducees cling?”

As much as I adored my foster brother, I found myself stirred by Foxface's eloquence. Perhaps the trees were, too. (There is a deep connection between druids and trees.) In any case, the wind, which had lulled for a time, suddenly picked up and tossed the sheltering branches of my tree. Just at that moment, Foxface looked in my direction.

He saw me. I am sure of it. That's why I didn't duck or try to run away. He was looking straight at me. Even after the veil of branches fell again, he peered through the leaves. I waited for him to call out and demand to know what I was doing there. I would not have been surprised if he had stood up and hauled me from my perch. But he did neither of these things. Instead he turned pale and wild-eyed and looked as though he might, at any moment, be violently ill.

“What is wrong!” Esus cried out in alarm.

Then the look passed.

“Nothing is wrong. Why do you ask?” He recovered himself instantly. “Are you afraid you have offended me with argument? Debate has its place in a druid education. You are young, gifted, and a little arrogant.” Foxface almost cracked a smile. “But not too stubborn to learn, I trust. I have enjoyed our conversation. We will speak again. But now other duties await me.”

Foxface rose to his feet and turned to walk back past my tree. Surely now he would expose me. But he didn't. He walked with his eyes on the ground. Esus followed, brows knit, chewing his cheek. I knew he was considering how he would answer Foxface's last argument when next he had the chance. I wanted to attract his attention, throw something, call out to him. But he was too close on Foxface's heels for me to risk it. In a moment, the opportunity was past.

Have you ever dreamed that you were writing a story? Then, as the words take form, you find yourself in the story. You keep writing, but the story leaks through the lines, bleeds through the page. You lose control of it. Well, we have dreams like that in the oral tradition, too.

That night I dreamed I was telling a tale of Queen Maeve of Connacht to a huge crowd of listeners. It is not a tale I've ever heard before, but it has some of the classic elements. Queen Maeve is off to some battle in the company of King Ailill and her chief lover Fergus. Only there are no massing hosts behind them or ahead of them. The three ride alone in
Maeve's war chariot. (She holds the reins. Who else?) Then suddenly, she draws them in, and the chariot comes to a screeching halt.

“The hell with the Brown Bull of Cuailgne!” she cries, and she hops out of the chariot.

I watch her stride away, beckoning the two men to follow her. Then, although I can still see the upturned faces of the listeners, still hear my own voice narrating, I
am
Queen Maeve. A green hill swells into view, seemingly out of nowhere. Instead of climbing it, I lean forward and rap on it with my knuckles. I can hear its hollowness. The two men draw alongside me, only they are no longer Ailill and Fergus. Or if they are, they are also Esus and Foxface. I rap on the hillside again. The hollowness rings. I rap a third time, and the ringing sound surrounds us. The delicate bones of our inner ears vibrate at an almost intolerable frequency. I glimpse the listeners holding their hands over their ears, trying to escape the sound, which, instead of dying away, grows stronger and stronger until, all at once, the hill gapes, glowing inside, all pinks and reds, as if someone lit a huge cavern of a mouth with a torch.