Magdalen Rising (35 page)

“Father,” I said again.

“What do you mean by that word?” he asked.

It took me a moment to remember that “father” could be a generic title of respect.

“I mean that you are my father.”

“Who told you that?”

“No one. I just know.”

“Witch.” The word was not an epithet, just a statement. He was strangely calm, calmer than I had ever seen him. “How could you not be?”

“I'm at druid school now,” I suggested.

“You are a witch and the daughter of witches. They stole my life from me to make yours. You are no daughter of mine.”

I didn't get it. He had acknowledged me and denied me in the same breath. That's what a druid education can do for you.

“They told me Manannan Mac Lir was my father,” I said to keep the conversation going.

“Then so be it. So be it. It makes a far better story.” He seemed normal now, almost approachable. “It is terrible to be trapped in the wrong story. Mine was meant to take a different turn and have a different ending altogether.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it's
my
story!” He seemed surprised, almost offended by the question.

“Don't you have to live the story before you tell it?” I borrowed from Dwynwyn's store of wisdom.

“There will be no telling,” he said sharply. “No telling now. Now there is no story.”

I thought he was being awfully picky. If what I'd seen in the well was true and he'd been shipwrecked by my mothers, what was wrong with that as a plotline for a
Voyage
story, with
Conception and Birth
thrown into the bargain? It wasn't as boring as
Cattle Raids.

“I don't see why—” I began.

“There will be no telling,” he repeated. “I wanted to make an end at last. To choose the ending, at least. Why won't they let me? But no, there you are, calling me back, back from the sea, the sea. And that's all I ever wanted, the wide, western sea and the land beyond where the sun lives. Instead it's my boat smashed on the rocks and now you. You! Calling, calling, calling.”

Like the turning of the tide, the calm gave way to raving. Without having an exact word for it then, I understood that he was crazy. There was a rational Lovernios, V.I.D., expert on the Roman question, eloquent spokesman, just lawgiver. Then there was this Other, who had found his way to the Otherworld and returned not with gifts but ghost-ridden with murdered dreams.

“Look.” He passed his hand over his face and seemed to recover for a moment. “Maybe it's not your fault. How could it be? You didn't mean... You couldn't know...I didn't mean....It's not that I wouldn't be proud to have a—”

He stopped and stared fixedly at my womb where a little flame flickered and shrank from a sudden, cold blast.

“No,” he said, too quietly. “No. It can't happen again. Not again. It can't go on and on. No.”

I started to back away.

“There must be an ending, my little dove, don't you see?” His voice was soft, caressing. “I must make an ending, a sweet, sweet ending, don't you see?”

He kept crooning as he advanced and I backed, matching him step for step.

“Hush, hush now,” he whispered, though I hadn't said a word. “Stay, just stay still. Wait now, and I'll come to you.”

I hesitated, hypnotized by his voice. I
had
waited. I had waited so long for him to come to me.

It happened in a flash. Red and silver lunging at me. Huge jaws, wide as the sky.

“Fly!” a voice shouted. “Fly!”

I rose into the air, a few of my feathers fluttering below. Then I was winging through the sudden night, over dunes white as bone, by the light of the full
Samhain
moon.

W
HEN MY SHAPE SHIFTED again, how I got back to the confines of Caer Leb, remains a blur. Wing strokes, running strides, it was all flight, my heart, bird or human, smashing against my ribs. I have vague memories of Branwen and Viviane taking charge of me, washing and feeding me, then dressing me for the
Samhain
gathering. The other four girls hovered near. I retain the impression of being surrounded by a solid wall of female flesh. Keeping me in their midst, they bore me along to the field of the two stones where we became part of a huge crowd not only of students but cattle herders, tillers, craftsmen, as well as warriors—in short, everyone from miles and miles around.

We waited under the now high moon, our faces faintly blue in its light, for the druids to ignite the great fire. From this fire someone from every household would light a torch or take a coal to re-ignite the home hearths. So the fire of life spread from the center to the farthest reaches, like blood to each extremity, reminding us that we shared the same spark of life. We were the
Combrogos,
the companions, the people. So the archdruid assured us when he came into our midst wearing a crown of gleaming antlers. When he had paced the quarters and planted his staff at the center of the world, he gave a signal. Five masked druids brought their torches to the bonfire.

One of them was Foxface. I recognized him not only by the bird mask but by the turmoil in the air around him. My first blind impulse was to bolt. Branwen, feeling the tension in my muscles, put her arm around me. Viviane's hand closed over mine, not so much to comfort me as to have a good grip on me if I decided to do anything dumb. After a moment I realized I was safest exactly where I was.

The kindling smoked and hissed, tiny sparks jumping, rising a little high and a little higher. Then all at once, the whole thing caught. Flame leaped and licked our cold faces like a huge, eager dog. I glimpsed Esus partway across the circle with the other ovate students. He was staring into the flames intently, as if he hoped they would speak to him the way the burning bush spoke to Moses. It struck me then that Esus did not know my secret. I barely knew it. I closed my eyes and tried again to
picture a baby growing inside me. But all I could see was the after-impression of the flames of the
Samhain
fire making patterns of iridescent green on my eyelids.

Then the wind hushed and the fire lowered its voice to a whisper. The druids had that relationship with the elements. They could hush the babble of the brook, and, if an earthquake wanted to happen while they were talking, they would simply say: Don't interrupt. Wait until I've finished. It was time for the New Year's predictions. Each Crane and Crow had an area of responsibility and expertise. What followed was something like an oral farmer's almanac: long-range weather forecasts for each moon of the year, which crops to plant when, which fields to rotate or keep fallow.

When practical matters had been thoroughly covered, the predictions became more personal and cryptic, things like: “Five sons will be born to the same man under the same moon.” “A woman who has taken two husbands will wish she had none.” The druids also gave oblique, oracular judgments on various quarrels that needed attention before the next court session. There were lots of messages from the recent and the celebrity dead. By the end of the session, it was a lot like reading
National Enquirer
headlines while you wait in line at the supermarket. In short, the predictions were, among other things, an entertainment. The carefully rehearsed show had been going on smoothly, no one missing a cue or a beat when, unbidden, an old woman came forward from the crowd.

“Disaster!” she cried. “Some disaster is hovering. I can feel it. I can feel it in my liver. I can feel it in my bunions. Stones have come rolling down from the craggy mountains beyond the straits and lodged in my gall bladder. My body is wracked as if for some monstrous birth. And as for my kidneys, not to mention my knees, they are crying out a warning, crying to be heard. Disaster!”

A Crow and a Crane descended on her, murmuring sympathetically as they escorted her from center stage. But she had succeeded in stirring the crowd's vague fears. Humans in the aggregate can become a fifth element, harder to control than the other four.

“I don't know about disaster hovering,” shouted a man. “Seems to me it's already made itself right at home. What about that hailstorm that flattened the barley?”

“And what about the cattle. No one's talked about the cattle. Half of one herd was dead when we went to the far pastures.”

“Yesterday a flock of birds blotted out the sun. They were moving from right to left, every one.”

“What about the Romans? We heard there were Romans wintering on the Southeast coast of Cymru. How long until they're here?”

“Owls have been crying out every day at noon!”

The crowd had become a large, uneasy animal, scratching at bad omens as if they were fleas. And like fleas, bad omens begot more bad omens. Everyone now could call to mind some ominous sign or event. The druids had to find a way to soothe the beast.

“All these signs—and more that only we can detect—we note, we gather, we consider,” said the archdruid, with his deep, rumbling voice that was also somehow soothing, like a mountain purring. All is well; everything is under control, his tone said. “We will take action at the precise moment that it is needed. Remember: Unripe action is as bitter as unripe fruit.”

“And as bad for the bowels!” one of the Crows chimed in.

That brought everyone's mind back to the dead cattle. The archdruid stepped aside, and the Crows took over. They had performed autopsies on the cattle and had determined that the cattle had been munching nightshade. Better a case of self-poisoning than contagious disease. Still, dead cattle, spoiled meat, things going wrong stick in people's mind, leave a stench in their nostrils. The crowd was not reassured. They were worried, and they needed something to worry about.

“These Romans to the South, people say they're merchants, but what if they're spies for the Roman army?”

“How do we know they're not planning a surprise attack?”

“Even if they are merchants, doesn't their very presence in the Holy Isles anger the gods? Look at what the Romans did in Gaul. They destroyed the great sacred grove of the Carnutes.”

“The Gallic gods have no home. Their druids are impotent. Are we next?”

No one had forgotten Esus's devastating prophecies about Mona.

“Speak to us, Lovernios! Are we in danger? Speak to us!”

“Lovernios!” The whole crowd took up the cry. “We want Lovernios!”

The archdruid nodded, and Lovernios stepped forward. For the second time that day I saw him framed by fire. He wore his hood now but some tendrils of hair escaped and caught the light, looking like flares shooting from an eclipse. He was still wearing his bird mask, though
it was hard to see the details with the fire behind him and his face in shadow. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel the weight of his authority steadily increasing as the people poured their trust into him and he absorbed it.

“To this sacred ground, Roman feet are as vile vermin.”

The crowd roared agreement. I opened my eyes again. He had taken off his mask. But the face that so terrified me remained hidden. He was just a man, stern, proud, accomplished, but one of them, one of the
Combrogos.

“We are aware of the Roman merchants, so-called, living among the Atrebates, who have become Roman clients. We are taking precautions. Each Roman is under watch. Kings loyal to the Holy Isles have warriors standing guard in the mountains.”

He was soothing the people but without too many specifics, I noticed. There could be Roman spies on Mona.

“There will be no attack this winter. Winter is no time for moving armies. The great danger is that the Romans will conquer without armies, client by client, settlement by settlement. Some of our own people have forgotten that gold is not for gain but for the honor of the gods. The threat to our Holy Isles is more insidious than a foreign army. We must all be on guard—even against ourselves.”

I fervently hoped he would take his own advice.

“Even now,” he continued, “there may be strangers among us that we, in mistaken trust, have taken into our innermost secrets.”

My heart pounded. Esus. He must mean Esus. I turned my head to look at him. My foster brother's attention hadn't budged from the fire. Was he even listening?

“And there may be those native to the Holy Isles who anger the gods with wanton trespass in places sacred to the gods.”

Foxface had to mean me. I knew it, and Esus must have suspected it. He finally looked away from the fire towards Foxface.

“Just as a cowardly warrior saps the courage of his companions, so any one of us who violates the mysteries weakens the magic that protects us all.”

The crowd was restless and riled. “Who?” they shouted. “Who has done these things! You must have had a seeing. Who are they? Show us! Show us! Let us give their blood to the gods.
Samhain
is the right time for sacrifice!”

“Yes!” A Crow's voice cut through the din. “Speak if you mean anything by it. Otherwise be silent. Ungrounded suspicions cause nothing but trouble.”

Foxface just stood, staring. His whole face was in shadow, but I had the impression of his eyes sinking deeper into his skull, leaving huge hollows. Lovernios the V.I.D. had disappeared again.

“A child,” he cried out, his voice strangled as if the words wrenched themselves from his throat against his will. “A misbegotten child of a misbegotten child will be born to the
Combrogos
this year. From this line—” He gasped and clutched at his throat, but the words would not stay inside him. “From this line will spring the last—” He began to sob. “The last one of us to stand against the Romans.”

The hair stood up all over my body as I remembered Queen Maeve of Connacht's prophecy:
A great warrior queen will spring from your line.
And hadn't I glimpsed her myself in my time beneath Bride's breast? Not just seen her, but heard her battle cry. I cupped my hands over my womb, the tiny dark world where the line that would spring from me was still safely curled. For now.

The crowd was in full cry all around me. “What shall we do? Save us, Lovernios! Tell us what to do!”

Instead of answering, Foxface fell to his knees and wept into his hands. The Crows flew to attend him. The archdruid stepped forward, stretching his hands out, palms down, over the crowd. I don't know quite how he managed the illusion, if it was an illusion, but his hands seemed to grow huge, as if he could contain all of us. It was the same gesture, protective and finally futile, that I had just made.

“O my
Combrogos,”
he said. “These are strange times of stirring, shifting powers. The stars predict the passing of one age and the dawning of another, but we need not fear it. We are not craven Romans, fearful of death. We are the
Combrogos.
We know that death is only a gateway between the worlds. The druids guard at the gate and gaze at the stars, unafraid.”

“The stars are far away,” someone cried. “They burn with cold fire. We need warm-blooded auguries in times like these. Warm human blood.”

Shit! Were we going to go through this every six months?
Beltaine
and
Samhain,
the two hinges of the year. They had you coming and going, so to speak. I wanted nothing more than to go to Esus, grab his
hand, and run. But I checked the impulse. To draw attention to ourselves would be tantamount to volunteering.

“It is the beginning of a quinquennial year,” said the archdruid in his ruminative voice. “That is a propitious time for the great sacrifice. But the great sacrifice is a great—and I might add delicate—mystery. It is not like the sacrifice of animals—which we will make at the proper hour tonight. Nor is it like the sacrifice of captives and criminals, essential as such offerings are. For how can the earth nourish flesh and blood if the earth does not eat in turn?

“But the great sacrifice, the sacrifice of one who goes on behalf of the Combrogos to the gods, who becomes himself a god, this sacrifice cannot be arbitrarily decreed. It is a matter of watching for and recognizing certain significant signs.”

“Seems to me there's been plenty of signs,” someone bellowed. “What about that Stranger Lovernios talked of? We all know you druids have been teaching him your secrets. What if he betrays us all to the Romans?”

I had been waiting for that. I tensed and strained my neck to look at Esus, who had shifted position and gotten out of my direct line of vision. He didn't look as worried as he should have. He was back to flame-gazing, and if he knew that everyone was casting suspicious glances in his direction, he didn't show it.

“Yeah, what about him?” others took up the cry.

The archdruid summoned his considerable authority. His antlers seemed to lengthen. They became a forest growing over our heads. He stretched out his arms and encompassed us all. At last he spoke.

“A Stranger can be a curse from the gods or their finest gift. Either way, we cannot turn him away. He is as a geis laid upon us. He is a word that is pronouncing itself. We must all wait and listen. Listen. Listen.”

We all held our breaths. All we could hear was the wind blowing cold sparks from the stars.