That feeling of warmth rose considerably in the light of the hundred fires that bounced off the dark alcoves of the great hall, where our wedding celebration continued into the night. Songs filled the longhouse, with the deep heartbeat of the bodhran drum matching my own. Aric laughed with the tall, angular men from the north, and I caught only clips of their increasingly incoherent conversation since they spoke the language of my father and had been drinking most of the day. My ears stayed with my new husband, but my eyes floated around the room from cousin to neighbor to the young village girls pouring honey wine and ale in every cup.
It was the custom for the bride and groom to share one large chair, around which guests and friends gathered in a half-moon, weaving in and out, like human reeds of a basket being woven together, as they brought up small trinkets and gifts, fed us bread and sweetmeats, and toasted to our future children and to Aric’s virility in general. The latter toast was especially popular among his northern comrades, each one seeking to outdo the one before.
Everyone brought us either well-wishes or leather flagons of wine except my closest friend. I watched him appear and disappear across the room, like a salmon looking for a place to lay its eggs on the swim upstream. I smiled at his ruddy complexion and that full-face grin he had for everyone, especially the women. Everyone but me, lately. He embraced every girl he saw, his freckled arms, roped with muscle, glowing in the firelight, but he had no embrace for the bride or groom. He always looked unwashed and smelled salty from carving out timber and constructing boats from dawn until dusk. He loved his work and loved providing the boats that the explorers would take around to the network of islands that made up our larger community. He took pride in his impeccable boat engineering, but his pride left a bitter taste at the end when it turned to ego, and taking any drink whatsoever made him altogether unpalatable.
“Gingers,” I said out loud with disdain for this one in particular. I had loved him my whole life, but there was a darkness behind his grin now, an emptiness in his eyes since he had become a man and realized that the village would never see him, the builder, as the hero that the warriors and explorers were. I’m sure my betrothal wasn’t precisely helping that matter.
“Ailsa, hellloo?” said my younger and already married cousin, giggling.
“Sorry, Morna, I was just—”
“What gingers?” she interrupted.
“I was just lost in thought as usual, Morna—don’t worry about it,” I answered.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” she asked, still giggling.
Morna had been just fourteen when she had bled, beginning her moon cycle, and had quickly married. That was two years ago, and I remember thinking that she seemed even younger than that as a fifteen-year-old myself at the time. The moons had waxed and waned, and with each new moon, I had thanked the gods that I was still a girl in the eyes of my village. In many ways, I was grateful I had made it to seventeen and a half, since most of my friends and cousins were married women by now. I smiled at her from my bride chair. “Morna, I don’t know how to say this, but…” I raised my eyebrows in Aric’s direction for effect. “I’m not nervous at all.”
I gave her a wink that I thought should scandalize her enough to go and tell the first several people she saw. As she turned to go, my new husband’s breath traveled down my neck, through the wisps of curled hair falling from my garland crown. As I glanced up to my right to meet his penetrating gaze, he quickly turned to a new well-wisher, his focused, kind eyes casting a spell on every woman he encountered but me. I shook my head. I think this great warrior is afraid of me, I thought.
There were songs about his legacy already, and our union was an honor to me because of his travels as a warrior and explorer, just as it was to him because I was a Druid. But in our culture, warrior or not, songs or none, there was no higher status than that of the Druid. I saw them, the twelve other priests of the village, gathered soberly in a corner, discussing something apparently serious. It had only been six moons since I had become one, but I still felt I was on the outside of the circle—only figuratively now, of course.
The rest of the wedding guests danced to songs sung about heroes and many songs sung about love, but when it was our turn to dance alone, it was a song about the stones. Aric led me with his large hands to the center of the longhouse. Above us the roof was open in a perfect smoke-hole circle, and the night was black and cold outside. The cool air from above sent a shiver down my spine, the bodhran and flute began their song, and as I looked up into the circular portion of sky, tiny, soft snowflakes fell down onto my face. I smiled. “Hello, Papa,” I said, and the dance began.
I tried to distract myself with the adoring faces of the circle that had gathered around, but Ros’s hair burned like the fire’s flames, and his ocean-colored eyes glowed, a strong jawline exposed by his bare face, absent his usual rust-colored beard. He was marked by this land as much as I was. I wondered if I looked as much like my beloved oak grove as he looked like the restless sea, swaying and foaming with turmoil while he watched us dance.
And though Aric had been on our island since his childhood, his dark beard and tattoos seemed more exotic than usual this night. He smiled down at me, and his crescent moon eyes creased deeply in the corners, casting reflections in the firelight, not of my people but of his own ancestral past and the paths that had led the Norse here over the years. He whispered something in my ear that I couldn’t hear over the resounding rhythm of the drum, but I sensed the contrast of his gentle words and his commanding physique. I wanted him to look into my eyes when we danced, to distract me from the uncomfortable feeling of being watched, but his height enabled him to naturally look over my head at the guests around us instead.
The snow had stopped. The music had stopped. Aric led me back to our chair and dismissed himself as soon as we sat, rustling the pile of furs we were perched upon. He walked out the northern door, perhaps to urinate outside. Or maybe it was just to have a moment to himself. Who could blame him? I was craving that right now too.
Fires roared from three massive hearths in the center of the great hall. And now, six hours past sundown, covered by the shroud of night, all the people of the western isles were gathered, chaotically orbiting the festivities like fireflies.
This immense building was constructed after the stone circle, nearly one hundred years ago. Rectangular in shape, it was made of four hundred felled oak logs, each of which took ten men to carry. Hazel and birch limbs were woven into the walls and pitched roof, with three roof holes left for the smoke to escape. The rest of the roof was thatched with reeds, straw, and mud, as were the sides of the building, which blocked much of the wind, though the longhouse’s position, nestled between two hillsides, protected it from both sudden invasion and sudden gales.
There were four entrances, above which the four cardinal directions were carved into the lintels, and the doorways were covered with heavy animal hides. Inside, it felt warm with the body heat of crowds dancing, singing, and mingling in gaiety. Holly and mistletoe decorated the doorways, and herbs hung from the ceiling, mixing with the smoke to create an earthy, relaxing smell of juniper, lavender, rosemary, and cedar. There were hides overlapping on the ground and mounds of hay covered in wool and leather for lounging and sleeping for the little ones (or perhaps for the drunk adults).
The longhouse always held a long table and benches for village meetings, but now the tables were filled with meats, bread, cheeses, butter, dried jerkies, oat and barley cakes, and winter fruits and berries that fed the wedding guests. Weddings were for everyone: children, young adults, and the village elders. Some of my favorite memories had been made sneaking extra sweets and wine and lying out under the stars at the weddings of fellow villagers. Since I was the last girl of my age group to be eligible to wed, I had enjoyed many a night dancing and laughing in the pure gaiety of my own freedom. It seemed almost impossible to think of being that carefree now that I had become both a Druid and wife within six short moon cycles.
After our dance, the wedding guests were mostly gathered around the feast table or by the taller ale table. Fulfilling its purpose for the living, as opposed to the stone circle, which was a location to celebrate the dead ancestors, the giant gathering space pulsed with life: music, singing, dancing, the occasional romantic foray in the shadows. Babies were at their mothers’ breasts, young lovers and old couples alike embraced in dance or lounged while listening to stories. The older family members were served ale and plates full of food and found seats with back supports. I spied my own grandmother, her form hunched from working a quern daily for her whole life. She was just sixty-three but was one of the oldest among us and was given a place of great comfort and warmth by the fire, where she smiled and sipped wine, her eyes blinking heavily, her head swaying to the tunes of the bard.
Yes, this was truly a space for the living. I looked around me at the many faces I loved. It felt warm, comforting, and familiar, but it didn’t have the magic of the stone circle or the peace of the oak grove, and so it didn’t feel as much like a place where I belonged. Perhaps that was exactly what was on my mind when I lifted the heavy hide to duck outside and wander to the grove, but I was pulled back, a large, warm hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ailsa, it’s time,” he said.
The next thing I knew, I stood at the center of a large group gathered around a high table that kept the stronger barley liquor and cups out of reach of the children that were scattered, playing games and sleeping in their mothers’ laps. Barely having sipped my wine, I felt drunk, the world spinning around me, unsure of what was going on. Aric stood next to me, beaming, laughing, emitting his particular magnetic energy, which attracted everyone nearby. Almost everyone. He was drinking and toasting his new nuptials with all of his male companions and female admirers as they surrounded the table, filling their horns and cups. I looked at Aric and thought he truly was happy to be married, so happy that his enthusiasm lit the room. His white teeth gleamed in the firelight as he made his toast.
“To Ailsa, her dark beauty, and our future sons.”
I did feel beautiful, in fact. More beautiful than ever before. I had been dressed that morning in a wool robe, dyed in the brightest red I’d ever seen, soaked over and over in hot water, urine, and red madder to achieve the depth of hue. My grandmother had helped Ros’s sisters use the roots of hundreds of flowers to achieve the madder color of the fabric, which went from just below the collarbone to the ground, where it puddled at my feet, trailing a bit as I walked. The color was made all the more alluring, I was told by the women, by its contrast with my ivory skin and long black curls, which were gathered and braided into a crown on top of my head, with tiny purple thistles and holly woven throughout. The red dress was much lower-cut than the green cloak and hemp gown I was accustomed to wearing as a Druid, and I shrugged my shoulders back in a constant, awkward motion to make sure it did not reveal too much. It was fastened below the breast with my grandmother’s brooch, an owl carved from walrus ivory, with moonstone eyes that shimmered, changing color in the dim firelight, complementing the freshwater pearl necklace around my too-long neck that had once been my mother’s—both the necklace and the goose neck. Finally, I wore bracelets of bone and jet up each arm that made a pleasant clanking noise whenever I raised my wine glass.
My mind escaped the occasion that my body could not, as it often did. I thought back to the spring wedding that I had dressed my friend for just eight moons ago. Ros’s cousin Muirin had been married at the end of the long winter, on Beltane, the fire festival, when the revelry could continue outside until the wee hours of the morning. I had recently become a woman, having started my moon cycle at the previous full moon, and I expected Ros to announce our own engagement around the great fire where everyone danced. I just knew he would ask for my hand among the celebrations and toasts, where old stories were told, great battles remembered, warriors’ songs sung, and special announcements made. I felt my palms sweating with anticipation as we sang and danced, gazing around the fire that night, waiting for him to announce to the rest of the village what I had known as long as I could remember.
I thought about first knowing I loved him at eleven, walking along the evergreen trees by the northern coast with our friends as we explored the edges of the island we were allowed to roam. At thirteen, we would steal minutes away from our chores to visit the shoreline and skip stones into the crashing waves, wondering aloud what was beyond the island, beyond the mainland, beyond the only world we knew. He promised to fashion a boat that could take us anywhere. And then, holding hands under the blankets at fifteen, when the village would gather for special ceremonies or festivities that lasted late into the night. I lay under the stars, with Reina and Rasha, Ros’s sisters, cuddled up on one side of me, and him on the other, interlacing my fingers with his in secret under the wool blankets as we listened to the common village songs, studying the constellations in the sky that the Druids told stories about. Those had been the best nights of my life, when I didn’t feel the absence of my parents, just the nearness of him: my heart in my throat, my stomach full of butterflies. I smiled at these thoughts, which made me appear interested in the excited toasts and resultant conversations happening in present time around me, but the smile quickly faded when my mind turned to what had actually happened on Muirin’s wedding night last spring.
I had grown tired waiting for Ros to appear and make his intentions known, so I set out to search for him and found him, by my own stupidity and misfortune, under a rowan tree, drunk, kissing the bridegroom’s cousin. I had turned to run as soon as they saw me and ignored him yelling after me. Rather than confront him after they skulked back to the festivities, I plied myself with barley liquor and slumped down by the fire to quietly cry, hoping to become lost in the stories of foreign lands and ancient gods and kings told by the old women and warriors. It was not my intention to find myself next to Aric. He was so big and dark, his shoulders sprawling, surrounded by so many beautiful girls. He felt like harmless shelter, a place I could go unnoticed and unembarrassed among the crowd.
Aric had taken his first wife at seventeen, my age now, lost her at only eighteen, and found himself so deep in grief that he had never remarried. When I fell asleep by the fire, he had carried me away like he would have carried a child, lifting me as if I were nothing. He put me to bed in my grandmother’s house, and she thanked him with a bundle of herbs. The next day I awakened to a shadow of a memory that Aric had tucked me into bed and a much deeper feeling of despair over Ros in the pit of my stomach. I had dreamed that he threw himself off the island cliffs, near the mooring for his boats, in his despair. It was a dream that still haunted me. I shuddered at the thought of it now, memories of my father’s similar death racing back.
In the weeks after the incident on Beltane, I prepared for the summer solstice ceremony, in which I would officially become a Druid. I was distracted, with little time to mourn over Ros or notice what had been going on around me. Some people actually suggested he had run off in a fit of romance inspired by his cousin’s nuptials. Not likely, I thought. All the village girls and family members visiting from other islands were accounted for. I knew Ros had left alone on his small fishing boat, which he had done before in a desperate cry for attention. I didn’t have time to worry myself with his sulking. Soon enough, the summer solstice arrived. The wheel of the year continues to turn no matter what your little life may be faced with. I had learned that long ago. On the night of the solstice, after my introductory rites as Druid were performed, I found out that as I had predicted, someone had declared that he would take my hand in marriage at the Beltane fires that fateful night, but it was Aric and not Ros.
The wedding toasts continued through the wee hours of the night at my own wedding, each villager, friend, and relative outdoing the last. Somehow, as toasts devolved into drunken stories, I slipped away, back through the northbound hide, hoping to feel a steely wind on my face to wake me up. The sun had set at the stones nearly eight hours ago, and I was ready for bed. Dawn was just around the corner. Even the longest night of the year had to end, I thought.
A thousand stars twinkled above me, and I lifted my face into a refreshingly icy breeze, but instead of feeling it on my face, I felt it in my gut. A hand reached around my waist, familiarly. It was strong and weathered with work, but it was not the humongous hand of a Norseman. The lips that whispered in my ear were not a head above me, reaching downward, but at the same level as mine. The words were not gentle and quiet but firm and stoic. The softness of his mouth touched my ear, and all the feelings I was supposed to have for my husband bubbled over in me before I could turn around.
“I’ve been waiting for you to be alone,” Ros whispered, spinning me around to face him, hands still on my hips. His pale blue-green eyes were brimming with tears, and he narrowed them at me. I felt like he might shake me, but I stared him down just as menacingly, nose to nose, standing up to my full height. “You reek of wine, Ros. How much have you had to drink tonight?” I asked, pushing him away a little.
He smiled slyly, with the look of permanent mischief in his eyes that he had worn since we were very young. “Enough,” he replied before kissing me.
It wasn’t our first kiss. It wouldn’t be our last. But it was the one that changed our future. He pulled away after a few seconds. “Don’t say it, Ailsa. I know how reckless I am. I know he could kill me with one blow. I know I dishonor you and the Druids disapprove of me.” He moved his hands in a circular motion, shaking his finger, mocking how I might scold him about his antics as he finished his own prepared speech, for my ears only. “But I want you to hear this now, know I mean it, and then I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your wedding feast.” He raised his blond eyebrows at me and spoke in a whisper. “I don’t care,” he said slowly and carefully. “Not about honor or duty or death and whatever else the other Druids threaten me with.”
“That’s always been your problem, hasn’t it?” I asked. “Carelessness.”
He pulled me in to kiss me again, but jovial voices rose in the night air, floating toward us. I thought I recognized the northern accent of my father’s family, or it could have been Aric’s friends.
“Maybe so.” Ros smiled, his eyes growing bright. “But at least it was never a lack of passion.” He winked at me knowingly. “I’ll be seeing you, Ails,” he said, running off in the direction of the cliffs that he had come from that evening, while I turned to greet my northern wedding guests.