Princes of Ireland Page 3

  The second reason why Deirdre hadn’t wanted to come concerned her father. She was afraid he was going to be killed.

  Fergus, son of Fergus. The ancient society of the western island was a strict hierarchy, with many classes. Each class, from king or druid to slave, had its derbfine, its blood price to be paid in case of death or injury. Every man knew his status and that of his ancestors. And Fergus was a chief.

  He was respected by the people of the scattered farmsteads that he called his tribe as a chief of kindly but sometimes uncertain temper. At a first meeting the tall chieftain might seem silent and aloof—but not for long. If he caught sight of one of the farmers who owed him obedience, or one of his cattlemen, it could mean a long and expansive conversation. Above all, he loved to meet new people, for the guardian of the isolated Ford of Hurdles was deeply curious. A traveller at Ath Cliath would always be splendidly fed and entertained, but he could abandon any hope of going about his business until Fergus was satisfied that he had yielded every scrap of information, personal and general, that he possessed and then listened to the chief talk, and talk some more, and yet some more again.

  If a visitor were especially favoured, Fergus would offer wine and then, going over to a table on which his prize possessions were kept, return with a pale object cupped reverently in his hands. It was a human skull. It had been carefully worked, however. The crown of the skull had been cut neatly off and the circular hole had been rimmed with gold. It was quite light. The pale bone felt smooth, delicate, almost like an egg. The empty eye sockets stared blankly, as if to remind you that, as all humans must, the tenant of the skull had departed to another place. The mad grin of the mouth seemed to say that something in the condition of death was meaningless—for everyone knew that around the family hearth you were always in the company of the dead.

  “This was the head of Erc the Warrior,” Fergus would tell the visitor proudly. “Killed by my own grandfather.”

  Deirdre always remembered the day—she had been only a little girl—when the warriors had come by. There had been a fight between two clans to the south and these men had been travelling north afterwards. There were three of them; they had all seemed huge to her; two had long moustaches, the third had his hair shaved except for a high, spiky ridge down the middle. These terrifying figures, she was told, were warriors. They were greeted warmly by her father and taken inside. And from a leather rope slung over the back of one of the horses, she had seen the grisly sight of three human heads, the blood on their necks congealed to blackness, their eyes staring, wide yet sightless. She had gazed at them with horrified fascination. When she had run inside, she had seen her father toasting the warriors with the drinking skull.

  And soon she was to learn that the strange old skull should be venerated. Like her grandfather’s shield and sword, it was a symbol of the family’s proud antiquity. Her ancestors were warriors, fit companions for princes and heroes, and even for the gods. Did the gods in their bright halls drink out of similar skulls? She supposed they did. How else would a god drink if not like a hero? The family might rule only a small territory, but she could still think of the sword, and the shield, and the gold-rimmed skull, and hold her head high.

  During her childhood, Deirdre could remember occasional flashes of anger from her father. These were usually brought on by someone trying to cheat him or failing to show him proper respect; though sometimes, she had realised as she got older, his show of temper might be calculated—especially if he was negotiating the purchase or sale of livestock. Nor did she mind that her father sometimes exploded and roared like a bull. A man who never lost his temper was like a man who was never prepared to fight: not quite a man. Life without such occasional explosions would have seemed dull, lacking in natural excitement.

  But in the last three years, since her mother had died, a change had taken place. Her father’s zest for life had diminished; he had not always attended to his business as he should; his anger had become more frequent, the reasons for his quarrels not always clear. Last year he had almost come to blows with a young noble who had contradicted Fergus in his own house. Then there had been the drinking. Her father, even at the great feasts, had always drunk rather sparingly. But several times in recent months she had noticed that he and the old bard had been drinking more than usual in the evening; and once or twice his moroseness on these occasions had led to outbursts of temper, for which he apologised the next day but which had been hurtful at the time. Deirdre had been rather proud of her position as the presiding woman of the house since her mother’s death, and had secretly dreaded the thought of her father taking another wife; but in recent months she had begun to wonder whether that might be the best solution. And then, she thought, I suppose I shall have to marry myself, for there surely won’t be room for two women in the house. It was not a prospect she looked forward to in the least.

  But could there be another reason for her father’s distress? He had never said so—he was too proud for that—but she had sometimes wondered if her father might be living beyond his means. She did not know why he would be. Most major transactions on the island were paid for in cattle, and Fergus had large herds. Some time ago, she knew, he had pledged his most valuable heirloom to a merchant. The golden torc, worn like an amulet round the neck, was the sign of his chiefly status. His explanation to her at the time had been simple. “With the price I’ve been offered, I can get enough cattle to buy it back again in a few years. I’m better off without it,” he had told her gruffly. Certainly there were few cattlemen in Leinster more skilful than her father. But she hadn’t been convinced, all the same. Several times in the last year, she had heard him muttering about his debts, and she had wondered what else he might owe that she didn’t know about. But it was an incident three months ago that had really frightened her. A man she had never seen before had arrived at the rath and rudely announced in front of the entire household that Fergus owed him ten cows and that he’d better pay up at once. She had never seen her father so angry, though she suspected it was the humiliation of being exposed in such a way that had really infuriated him. When he refused to pay, the fellow had returned a week later with twenty armed men and carried off not ten but twenty cattle. Her father had been beside himself and had sworn revenge. Nothing had come of his threat, but since that time, his temper had been worse than ever. He had struck one of the slaves twice that week.

  Would there be other people to whom her father owed debts at the great gathering at Carmun, she had wondered? She suspected that there might. Or would he decide that someone had insulted him? Or, after drinking, start a quarrel for some other cause? It seemed to her that such a thing was only too possible, and the prospect filled her with fear. For at the great festivals, it was an absolute rule: there must be no fights. It was a necessary rule when you had a huge concourse of people competing and feasting. To cause a disturbance was an insult to the king, which would not be forgiven. The king himself could take your life for it, and the druids and bards and everyone else would support him. At other times, you could have a quarrel with your neighbour or go on a cattle raid and get into a fight with honour. But at the great festival of Lughnasa, you did so at risk of your life.

  In his present state, she could just see her father getting into a fight. And then? There would be no mercy shown to the old chief from the obscure little territory of Dubh Linn. She trembled to think of it. For a month she had tried to persuade him not to go. But to no avail. He was determined to go, and to take herself and her two young brothers with him.

  “I’ve important business there,” he told her. But what that business might be, he would not say.

  So she had been taken by surprise by what had happened the day before they were due to leave. He had gone fishing early with her brothers and returned in the middle of the morning.

  Even in the distance, you couldn’t mistake Fergus. It was his walk. When he was out on the hills with his cattle or moving along the riverbank to go fishing, Fergus was unmist
akable. His tall frame moved with an unhurried ease; his long, slow strides ate up the distance. He seldom talked when he was walking, and there was something in his manner, as he moved across the quiet landscape, which suggested that he regarded not only this region but the whole island as his personal estate.

  He had come across a stretch of grassland, with a long stick in his right hand and his two sons following dutifully behind. His face, with its big moustache and long nose, was watchful and quietly thoughtful in repose—in which condition, Deirdre realised, it reminded her of a wise old salmon. But as he drew close, his face had broadened and creased into an engaging smile.

  “Did you catch something, Father?” she asked.

  But instead of answering her question, he had pleasantly remarked, “Well, Deirdre, we’re off tomorrow to find you a husband.”

  For Goibniu the Smith, the strange business had begun one morning the month before. He couldn’t really account for what happened that day. But then the place, it was known, was crowded with spirits.

  Of all the island’s many rivers, none was more sacred than the River Boyne. Flowing into the eastern sea a day’s journey to the north of Dubh Linn, its rich banks were under the control of the Ulster king. Slow-moving, stocked with stately salmon, the Boyne flowed softly through the most fertile soil in the whole island. But there was one place—a site on a low ridge overlooking the Boyne’s northern bank—where most men feared to go. The site of the ancient mounds.

  It was a fine morning when Goibniu came round the side of the mound. He always went up there if he was passing through the area. Other men might be afraid of the place, but he wasn’t. To the west, in the distance, he could see the top of the royal Hill of Tara. He had stared down the slope to where the swans were gliding on the waters of the Boyne. A fellow with a sickle was walking along the track by the riverbank. He glanced up at Goibniu and gave a grudging nod which Goibniu returned with ironic politeness.

  Not many people liked Goibniu. “Govnyoo” the name sounded. But whatever they felt, the smith didn’t care. Though not tall of stature, his restless eye and quick intelligence soon seemed to dominate any group he joined. His face was not pleasing. A chin that jutted out like a rock, pendulous lips, a beak of a nose that came down almost to meet them, protruding eyes, and a forehead that receded under thinning hair: these alone would have produced a face not easily forgotten. But in his youth he had lost one of his eyes in a fight, and as a result, one eye was permanently closed while the other seemed to loom out of his face in a fearsome squint. Some said that he had assumed that squinting expression even before he had lost the eye. It might have been so. In any case, people called him Balar behind his back, after the evil, one-eyed king of the Fomorians, a legendary tribe of ugly giants—a fact of which he was well aware. It amused him. They might not like him, but they feared him. There were advantages in that.

  They had reason to fear. It was not just that single, all-seeing eye. It was the brain that lay behind it.

  Goibniu was important. As one of the island’s greatest master craftsmen, he had the status of a noble in all but name. Though he was known as a smith—and no one on the island could forge better weapons of iron—his calling included working in precious metals. Indeed, it was the high prices that the great men of the island paid for his gold ornaments that had made Goibniu a rich man. The High King himself would invite him to attend his feasts. But his true importance lay in that terrible, devious brain. The greatest chiefs, even the wise and powerful druids, would seek out his advice. “Goibniu is deep,” they would acknowledge, before quietly adding: “Don’t ever have him for your enemy.”

  Just behind him was the largest of the huge, circular mounds that lay along the ridge. A sid, the islanders called such a mound—they pronounced it “shee”—and though mysterious, there were many of them.

  It was clear that the sid had deteriorated since former times. The walls of the cylinder had subsided or vanished under turf banks in numerous places. Instead of a cylinder with a curved roof, it now seemed more like a hillock with several entrances. On its southern side, the quartz facing that had once flashed in the sun had now mostly fallen down, so that there was a little landslide of pale metallic stones in front of the former doorway. He turned back to face the sid.

  The Tuatha De Danaan lived in there. The Dagda, the kindly lord of the sun, lived in this sid; but all the mounds that dotted the islands were the entrances to their otherworld. Everyone knew the stories. First one, then another tribe had come to the island. Gods, giants, slaves—their identities lingered in the landscape like clouds of mist. But the most glorious of all had been the divine race of the goddess Anu, or Danu, goddess of wealth and of rivers: the Tuatha De Danaan. Warriors and huntsmen, poets and craftsmen—they had arrived on the island, some said, riding upon the clouds. Theirs had been a golden age. It had been the Tuatha De Danaan whom the present tribes, the Sons of Mil, had found on the island when they had arrived. And it had been one of them, the goddess Eriu, who had promised the Sons of Mil that, if they gave the land her name, they should live upon the island forever. That was long ago now. Nobody was sure exactly how long. There had been great battles, that was certain. And then the Tuatha De Danaan had withdrawn from the land of the living and gone underground. They were living there still, under the hills, under lakes, or far away across the sea in the fabled Western Isles, feasting in their glittering halls. That was the story.

  But Goibniu doubted. He could see that the mounds were man-made; indeed, their construction might not be very different from the earth and stoneworks which men built now. But if it was said that the Tuatha De Danaan had retreated under them, then they probably dated from that former age. So had the Tuatha De Danaan built them? Likely enough, he supposed. Divine race or not, he judged, they had still been men. Yet if this were correct, here was the curious thing: whenever he inspected the carved stones at these old sites, he always observed that the patterns of the carvings were similar to those on the metalwork of his own day. He’d seen pieces of fine worked gold, too, which had been found in bogs and other places, and which he guessed were very old. On these, also, the designs were familiar. Goibniu was an expert in these matters. Did the incoming tribes really copy the designs left by the departed race of the goddess Danu? Wasn’t it more likely that some of the former people had remained and transmitted their skills? Anyway, did an entire people, divine or not, really vanish under the hills?

  Goibniu cast his cold eye on the sid. There was one stone there that always caught his attention whenever he passed by. It was a large one, a big slab about six feet across, in front of what had once been the entrance. He went over to it now.

  What a curious thing it was. The swirling lines with which it was incised made several patterns, but the most significant was the great trefoil of spirals on the left face. As he had so many times before, he ran his hands over the stone, whose sandlike roughness felt pleasantly cool in the warm sun as his fingers traced the grooves. The biggest spiral was a double one, like a pair of eels coiled tightly together with their heads locking in the middle. Follow one of the coils outwards and it led to the second spiral, another double one below it. The third, smaller spiral, a single one, rested tangentially on the swirling shoulders of the other two. And from their outer edges the grooves gathered in the angles where the spirals met, like tidemarks at an inlet, before flowing on in swirling rivers round the stone.

  What did they mean? What was the significance of the trefoil? Three spirals, connected yet independent, always leading inward, yet also flowing out into an endless nothingness. Were they the symbols of the sun and moon and the earth below? Or the three sacred rivers of a half-forgotten world?

  He had seen a crazy fellow make a design like that once. It was just at this season of the year, before the harvest, when the last of the old grain goes mouldy, and poor folk who eat it act strangely and dream dreams. He’d come upon him by the seashore, sitting alone, big and bare-boned, his eyes fixed upon nothi
ng, a tattered stick in his hand, tracing spirals just like these in the empty sand. Was he mad, or was he wise? Goibniu shrugged. Who knew? It was all one and the same.

  Still tracing the swirling grooves in the morning silence, his hand moved to and fro. One thing was certain. Whoever made those spirals, Tuatha De Danaan or not, Goibniu felt he knew him as only a fellow craftsman can. Other men might find the sid grim and fearsome, but he did not care. He liked the cosmic spirals on the stone-cold earth.

  And then it had come to him. It was a strange sensation. Nothing you could put a name to. An echo in the mind.

  The season of Lughnasa was approaching. There would be a number of great festivals on the island, and though he had considered the big Leinster games at Carmun, he had been planning this year to go elsewhere. But now, standing by the stone with its spirals, the feeling had come into his mind that he should go to Carmun, though he did not know why.