Priestess of the Fire Temple (4 page)

The last sheaf of my father's grain harvest held the place of honor, dressed in woman's clothing and propped against one side of the throne as if the Grain Goddess herself were lending strength and blessings to his reign. A pair of wolfhounds sporting wide red leather collars had been freshly washed and combed and now lolled companionably on the other side of the throne. They were huge and confident and barely looked up as I approached.

It was strange to be having a private audience with my father, who had taken so little notice of me throughout the years because he was often away on battle campaigns for months at a time, or busy conferring with his warriors. But as he fixed his gaze on me alone, his eyes looking deeply into mine, it was as if he saw me for the very first time that day.

“How is the oenach going for you this year?” he asked, leaning forward with interest.

“It goes well for me, Father,” I said as I curtsied out of respect.

I didn't dare tell him that I would have preferred to be dancing around the hilltop fires with the Pagani, though knowing what I know now, I doubt he would have minded.

“You are fourteen summers old and a mostly grown woman,” he said, appraising my body and form as if I were a stranger. I thought it odd that a father should know so little of his child; Dálach-gaes, Niamh, Róisín, and even Father Justan had watched me grow and knew me far better than either of my parents did.

“I have found a husband for you, a prince from Irardacht. Your union will bind our kingdoms and help us to keep the peace. Their tribesfolk are ever stealing cattle from our tuaths on the border, and we must do everything we can to stop it. This reeving has caused far too much bloodshed and loss of life. Íobar, the ard-ri of Irardacht, has agreed to this union, and the young man is here now. His name is Deaglán.” He gestured towards a dark corner of the hall.

It was only then that I noticed a movement in the shadows as a tall figure stepped into a pool of torchlight. That was how I caught my first glimpse of Deaglán.

His long black hair was plaited into thick braids, and he had a blue mantle of some soft fabric thrown over one shoulder. His scarlet léine and tunic were edged in embroidery done with gold and silver thread, and his leather trousers were strapped at the ankles with silver cloth and laced up the sides with leather strings tipped in bright bronze. He had a thick golden torque to show his status, as if anyone could fail to notice. His eyes were dark and lustrous, but he seemed to see right through me—as if I wasn't really there, as if his mind were occupied by other, more important things.

I was so young and inexperienced then. I was easily taken in by all that splendor.

Three more men stepped out of the shadows. I recognized them as men who served my father—the marshal who kept order and supervised the seating, the carnyx player who would sound three times to let the guests know when to enter, and, much to my surprise, Dálach-gaes. I should have realized that he would be acting as shanachie for the gathering.

“Dálach-gaes, I need praise poems from you this evening that will impress my guests, but more than that I need them to work magic. Íobar must know what a prize he is getting by uniting his son with my daughter.”

Now Deaglán finally began paying attention, looking anxious and vexed by turns. I am sure he was very disappointed to be getting such a young and inexperienced wife, someone he would be forced to spend his life with whether he desired me or not. He was, after all, an already seasoned warrior, and I was still a girl.

I was too inexperienced in the ways of love between the sexes to feel anything other than the strangeness of being the center of everyone's attention. Father instructed Deaglán and me to sit beside him at the high table that was set up before the throne. It was an honor to be seated next to the king and a huge responsibility, as I knew. Every third drinking horn had to be passed directly to him, and women were almost never seated at the high table. Even my mother was expected to sit with the ladies of the flaith.

The carnyx sounded the first blast, and the lesser kings from the surrounding tuaths, the ollamhs and their wives, began to enter. Even though they were people of rank, they all removed their shoes at the entrance. They were followed closely by their shield bearers, who presented their shields to the marshal and were then guided by the shanachie to hang the shields in order of rank, the highest ranking placed closest to the throne.

Another carnyx blast and the shield bearers of the warriors presented their shields, which were hung in order of rank after much careful deliberation between the marshal and the shanachie. Any perceived insult to a warrior could have nasty consequences, and so extreme care was given to their seating.

A final blast from the carnyx signaled the remaining guests to enter and remove their shoes. These guests were placed farthest from the high table, carefully seated a sword's-length apart, each under his own shield. No one sat opposite, and everyone sat side by side, with his back to the wall, for added security.

Father Justan, as usual, was nowhere to be found. He avoided these occasions of state as often as he could.

The light of the four hearths and of the many torches in their iron-work sconces sparkled and shone, reflected and magnified by the polished silver and bronze of the shields and the gold jewelry of the guests, and by the copper, silver, and polished wood plates and drinking goblets that filled the tables. The hall was suffused with a warm orange glow.

Once the lords, warriors, and wives were settled, Dálach-gaes stepped forward into a pool of light to deliver the praise poems, and the ripples of conversation gradually died down.

Welcome to the court of Barra Mac Mel

Who is famed for victory in battle

For protecting his borders

And for devotion to the gods of his people.

Who is famed for patronage of music

of poetry and scholarship

of games and competitions

and of fidchell.

Who is famed for chasing and bringing down

the noble boar and the deer.

A fearless defender of the faith.

I remember that Dálach-gaes did not say precisely
which
faith.

Then Dálach-gaes turned to Deaglán, made a small bow, and faced the audience once more.

Today you are also made welcome

By Prince Deaglán Mac Íobar

Son of the ard-ri of Irardacht

Famed for reddening of swords

For defending his borders

For hunting the red deer and boar

For racing of chariots

For hunting with hawks

And a patron of wizards.

It was well known that Irardacht was a mystical kingdom. For untold generations the Druid had come and gone from its shores to Innis nan Druidneach, so it seemed poetic to add the last bit about wizards. Dálach-gaes had no idea how Deaglán felt about wizards, but he knew that a poet could as easily blight a reputation as create one, so he sought to make the prince look as exceptional as possible in the eyes of everyone.

Lastly, he turned to me with a look of mingled pride and pity. That was the first inkling I had that my fate would be difficult.

You are made welcome as well

By my lady Aislinn of the red hair

And the blushing cheeks.

She who is learned and pure

Reverent and wise

Who knows her letters

Who is deft with a needle

Who has learned the healing herbs and grasses

And the birds and creatures of the forest

Both the seen and the unseen ones

And all the duties of a lady of the court.

Dálach-gaes made an especially low bow that was designed to enhance my status but only embarrassed me; I felt that my teacher had no business bowing before me like that. It must have strained his poetic imagination to heap such praise on such a young and unaccomplished child, but apparently the poem worked.

I recall that the ladies of the court strained their necks to look at me then, and Róisín, who was seated in a corner, began to sob audibly, which only added to the drama of the moment. My mother, who was seated with the other ladies, craned her neck towards me with an expression of disbelief. I am sure it came as a shock to see her incorrigible daughter being shown such honor in a public setting.

“Honored guests, today we celebrate the Lugnasad feast and an added joyful occasion. Today I pass the marriage cup to my daughter, Aislinn, and to her intended husband, Deaglán.”

My father rose as he spoke, ceremoniously handing Deaglán a silver goblet. Deaglán took a swallow and then handed the goblet to me. I took a sip. It was as simple as that.

The world of my childhood melted away like the mist on a lake at sunrise.

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3

T
he next morning my husband and lord was nowhere to be found. I had spent the night alone, waiting for him until I fell asleep. I had a vague idea that he had taken up with a newly widowed lady at the feast. I remember that she was very beautiful, and that her long dark hair was ornamented with silver combs. She wore a blood-red gown that perfectly set off her pale skin, and her eyebrows, mouth, and fingernails were stained crimson with elderberry juice, which made her all the more dazzling to behold. I felt wholly inadequate compared to such a graceful creature—small and dowdy by comparison. She was as gorgeous as a peacock while I was just a little brown quail.

My head was still swimming from too many cups of fion, but I dimly recalled that I had swooned the night before and that someone had carried me to my bed. The next thing I knew, Róisín was pulling my very best léine over my upstretched arms, and I was being handed a mug of spring water and a bowl of hot oatmeal gruel with butter, chopped dandelion roots and leaves, and cracked hazelnuts mixed in.

“That's the best thing for your head,” Róisín said, biting off each word.

At first I thought she was angry with me, but then I noticed that she was fighting back tears.

“Why so glum, Róisín?” I asked. “Aren't you happy for me?”

Her only answer was to pack more furiously, finally resorting to sitting on my carved wooden chest to close it, stuffed as it was with more than one of every possible article I might need in my new life. At last she stopped and looked me full in the face.

“Your mother should be doing this. It's a disgrace. You are too young!”

And then she walked over and gave me a hug.

By mid-morning all my possessions were packed into a small cart, and I was lifted on top like so much baggage. The cart was positioned in the middle of a long retinue of pack horses, warriors, and wagons bearing gifts for the king of Irardacht.

Dálach-gaes, Niamh, and the children pushed their way through the horses and riders to bid me goodbye.

“Remember that you are yet only half a sage,” Dálach-gaes was saying, though my ears could hardly take in his words through the general din. “Don't get ahead of yourself, but don't forget our teachings either!”

Then, as if he was trying to cram one last morsel of poetic knowledge into my head, he began to recite from the law of poets.

“Excellence is more venerable than age, youth takes precedence over the dotage of old age, spring is more sheltering than a tempest…Stay calm, and never doubt yourself or your abilities!”

Father Justan elbowed past the warriors to thrust a tiny carved crucifix into my hands. Hanging from a leather thong, it was a Cristaide cross imposed upon the round sun symbol of the Druid.

“Bless the land where you now go, bless the things that you shall see, bless the journey you undertake, bless the earth whereon your feet tread. The King of Glory blesses you.”

There were tears in his eyes as he uttered those words, and his hand shook as he raised his three fingers to make the blessing over me.

“
Cuimhnichibh air na daoine bho'n d'thainig sib
. Remember the people from whom you come,” Niamh added, handing me a cloth-wrapped bundle of cracked hazelnuts and dried apple slices for the journey. I could feel the love she had put into the gesture; she must have been up long into the night picking out the sweet kernels for my enjoyment.

My years of study rushed in on me as I surveyed them, my teachers, the people I loved. What exactly had it all been for? Why the endless hours of practice within the nemed, struggling to attain the level of a “flame” and then a “splendid flame”? Of what possible use were these labors to me now, bound as I was to a new husband and foreign tribe?

And what of Father Justan's teachings? Many were the days I had sat with him on the grass before his tiny stone roundhouse asking about the new god called Ísu. I never completely understood his dedication to just one god, nor his unwillingness to honor goddesses, though he did seem to feel a special reverence for the mother of God, whom he called Muire.

“If God has a mother, then shouldn't she be the one we pray to?” I had asked, thinking that the elder goddess deserved more respect than her young son.

“We love him best because he loved us first” he replied.

Deaglán finally appeared with the lady in red still clinging to his arm. He kissed her full on the lips in the sight of everyone and then mounted his nervously prancing white horse that was being steadied by a retainer. And then we were off.

They say that men who leave home to seek adventures are special heroes. But every woman who has ever left the familiar home of her birth to join the unknown clan of a husband is a heroine just as well.

As the caravan lurched forward, I wondered what I was supposed to do. Was I to ignore Deaglán as haughtily as he was ignoring me? Or should I fawn before him and try to win his attention? There was no one in the train of horses and carts to whom I could appeal; I had neither a nurse nor a Drui nor even Father Justan to consult with. I was utterly alone, set adrift like a leaf on the autumn wind.

I fingered the little wooden cross that Father Justan had bestowed on me, hoping to derive some counsel from it. The smoothness of the wood reminded me of his gentle and reassuring presence, and his words of comfort did come back to me:
Remember your centering prayer. Concentrate on the word Abba—Father—and drive all other thoughts from your mind. All will be well
.

“Abba, Abba, Abba,” I recited silently for a while, and for a space I did feel a measure of peace, and my tumbling thoughts were for a moment stilled.

That night when the entire camp was arranged around a roaring fire after supper, it was no longer possible for Deaglán to avoid me. The mogae had prepared a single pavilion for the two of us to share, and I put on the pale green silk nightgown that my mother had given me as a marriage gift. I waited under the linen sheets and furs for Deaglán to appear. When he finally did, he was drunk.

“I did not want this marriage,” he said, mushing his words and crawling under the sheets as far away from me as he was able while still remaining covered.

“I wanted to travel, to go to Greece. The last thing I wanted was to be tied down—to
you
.”

He added the last bit sharply, for cruel emphasis, as if all of this were my fault.

I did not know what to say. Róisín had tried to hastily impart the womanly arts to me as we were finishing the packing. She told me to be quiet and demure and to always submit to my lord and husband, no matter what he said or did.

“It's the only way to keep the peace,” she explained.

But it just wasn't in my nature to stay quiet. I reached out to my husband and moved closer to his side of the pallet. That was a mistake; he pulled away angrily and huddled miserably on his own side of the bed. We did not speak again that night or for the rest of the journey, which took several weeks to complete.

I recall that the men in the retinue started the first day with ribald jokes and well wishes for our marriage night, but by the second day they were already wondering what was amiss. We were a morose and silent group by the time we reached the dun of Íobar.

Íobar's fort was very different from my father's. Instead of a wooden palisade, it had a high circular wall of smooth stones and one easily defensible narrow gate. The stone wall was an effective shield against the sea winds and also against any would-be attackers. It was pocked here and there with tiny windows that afforded a lookout in every direction and just enough space to shoot an arrow or hurl a spear.

There were three rows of “dragon's teeth” around the dun—concentric rings of black rock spikes that jutted outwards at an angle, designed to impale any onrush of warriors or to slow them down so they might be easily picked off with arrows or spears.

From the outside, the fort seemed cold, fierce, lofty, and forbidding, but once inside the gate I could see that there were graceful stone stairs curving up the wall at regular intervals, and I soon learned that there was an awe-inspiring vista from any point on top of the wall: the ocean on one side, and houses, fields, and forests on the other.

The top of the wall was a popular spot for the young folk, who would dangle their legs over the side and help the warriors by keeping watch for cattle thieves. It was also a favorite spot for lovers, who would meet there to kiss under the moon.

There was the usual collection of stone roundhouses, barns, work houses, and storage sheds within the looming outer wall. They all had the familiar conical roofs of willow that I knew from my childhood. There was a large grassy sward in the center of the fort that was large enough to accommodate the king's cattle when they were brought down from their summer pastures at Samhain, and there were three deep wells within the walls from which the mogae drew water day and night. The fort was well built to withstand a siege.

The Cristaidi were just putting the finishing touches on their square stone chapel that was being built right outside the wall when we arrived. The little building was nestled in a deep earthen pit on the seaward side of the fort, because the monks wanted to be as near the dun as possible yet as far away from lay folk as they could manage. The deep pit protected them from ocean winds and chill and preserved their silence, but it meant that they were almost always in the dark.

Why they wanted to be walled off from all that is, I would never understand. Íobar had to provide them with a constant supply of beeswax candles and whale oil for their lamps at fantastic expense.

Íobar's Druid had their own sacred precinct outside of the walls. It consisted of three ancient standing stones perched on a rise surrounded by ocean on three sides. Below the hill was a large communal roundhouse that all the Druid shared.

Like the fort, the Druid's nemed looked sparse and forbidding to my eyes. I was used to the thick yews and greenery of the nemed in my father's court, but I soon learned that their sacred space had its own unique beauty. The land on which the stones were perched was thick with purple heather and covered by the glorious vault of the ever-shifting clouds and sky.

Íobar, the king, had a leather-brown face—the result of much campaigning—that was deeply lined with worry. But his eyes were calm and grey. He saw me the instant I appeared in his great hall. He looked up the moment I entered and then greeted me and met my eyes as if I were a fully grown woman of Nemed rank. I could sense that I mattered to him in a way that I never had at my father's court. Perhaps it was due to my newly married status, or maybe it was the hope of peace that I symbolized.

Íobar was kind enough as a father-in-law. His marriage gifts to me were several stylish capes and jackets made of seal, otter, badger, and fox furs—“To protect you from our cold northern winds,” as he put it.

Outwardly, at least, I was an ideal princess. I had a golden torque from my father and red leather slippers and gloves from my mother that were embroidered with golden thread. I am sure that when I stepped into the sunlight my red hair was dazzling.

Deaglán's mother had died of a fever some years before, and by then his father had three concubines for companionship. One of them took a motherly interest in me. Breachnat was short and round, with white skin and thick black curls that exploded around her face, even when she plaited them into braids or stuffed them under her shawl. Her eyes were wide-set and blue, and her expression was kind.

“It must be exciting to be a newly married wife. Does your new husband please you?” she would ask. An embarrassed silence was my only reply.

“Soon you will have a baby, no doubt,” she would opine hopefully, digging for a response.

How could I explain that my husband hadn't touched me since we met? I felt a complete failure. I did not reveal the painful truth, because I was too ashamed. As a result of Deaglán's and my silence, everyone assumed we were doing fine. Even if we spent our days apart, at night we still went dutifully to the same chamber in the same roundhouse.

Everywhere I went, the dun's inhabitants would stare at my belly before raising their eyes to my face. Everyone wanted to be the first with the news if I was at last with child. But I had still not bled in the way that women do when their belly is ready to hold a new life.

Deaglán kept to his side of the huge heather mattress we shared. Our togetherness was a fiction that we kept up for many months, until I could take it no longer.

“We can't go on this way!” I wailed one evening as a bright moon shone through the skins that covered our small windows. “Take me now! Please! You
have
to.”

“Anything to keep you quiet,” he finally said.

And at last Deaglán did the deed. He did not kiss me or gentle me in preparation for the act; he was simply rough, quick, and brutal. There was one brief moment of piercing pain, and then nothing; I was numb.

As I lay alone once more on my own side of the linens and wept silent tears, blood and male fluids oozed from my private parts. I wondered what all the fuss was about, why women and men wanted this thing so badly.

Maybe I will have a baby now
, I thought.
Then everyone will be happy
.

For many moon-tides after that, it was the same. I would not see Deaglán all day, but at night he would come into our house, as often as not reeking of fion or béoir. He would crawl over to me, grab my breasts and pull at them roughly a few times, insert his fingers into my private parts, and finally push his male member into me, making a few grunting strokes until his milky white juices were deposited and then rolling over again onto his side of the furs.

Soon he would be snoring noisily beside me, oblivious.

Things went on like that for almost a full sun cycle. Íobar would eye my belly from time to time, and I would overhear Breachnat providing him with regular reports about me and my “health.”