Chapter 8

Oígidecht

I saw her again some days later on the feast day of Áed Mac Bricc as we prepared for the óenach. I came to the Tiarna’s compound early, carrying word from the stables. Donchad met me at the door of the house.

‘Come in, red Sasanach’, the Tiarna said, calling me happily across the threshold. I bowed low through the doorway and came up into the warm, dim interior, my eyes adjusting slowly.

‘The horses are ready, a thiarna’. I spoke with an outdoor voice, which boomed into the quiet space within. I fell silent, embarrassed.

A low murmur of talk came from the women’s side of the house—the only sound and, looking that way, I caught sight of the Tiarna’s wife, Gormflaith, consulting with Mór and picking out jewellery and clothes from a carved timber box. Mór passed these back to Ness, who folded the items into a leather bag, her eyes low, her head bent.

I could feel the warmth of embarrassment spread over my cheeks.

‘Redder still, Alberagh’, the Tiarna said, seeing the direction of my gaze and smiling, though he did not push further. ‘Are you prepared for the óenach?’

‘I am, a thiarna, though I am not sure what to expect’.

‘Expect a great gathering; games, markets, song and drink, and at the centre of it all expect Tigernán Ua Ruairc sitting like a hen on the egg—consolidating his power over Míde and dispensing his laws and judgements’.

I nodded slowly, appreciating the meaning of his words. Understanding now that he had not struck a blow wildly against Áed Buidhe.

‘An air of understanding descends upon him’, the Tiarna said with detached amusement, as if speaking to an absent adviser. He turned his back and led me towards the fidchell table.

‘Yes’, I said, and I am ashamed that it has taken so long to fall.

‘And what is it that you comprehend?’ he asked, lifting a box to the table. I looked around to be sure that neither Conn nor Tuar lurked in the shadows, before remembering that they had been sent ahead to the óenach the day before.

‘Not difficult to tell’, I said. ‘I see that in attacking Áed Buidhe, you have attacked Ua Ragallaig. And that in attacking Ua Ragallaig, you have struck a blow for Ua Ruairc, positioning yourself on his side’.

‘Indeed’, he said. Opening the hinged box and reaching inside, he took out an object wrapped within a scrap of wool. Opening it, he extracted a palm-sized cross, filigreed gold wrought in tiny, intricate detail and inset with shining red and black carbuncles—garnet, jet perhaps. ‘You perceive much. But not all. Much will depend upon this meeting. And much will be needed to mend the breach that lies between my house and Ua Ruairc’.

As he spoke, he took two more wrapped objects from the box, uncovering each and setting them on the table. A silver brooch, lustrous in the low light, its value apparent in its heft; a simpler, more ancient ornament with the large terminals coming together to face each other fashioned into the shape of thistle heads; the third object, another brooch, this one gold, the ornament as complex as the thin massed roots of the dandelion, inlaid with amber and glass millefiori.

‘What gift for a king?’ he asked, and I considered carefully, feeling the Tiarna’s scrutiny. Feeling that my answer would have an effect on some farsighted plan he was forming for me. My eyes played over the three objects, considering all. Their artistry, their material, the significance of their shapes. He watched me placidly, not hurrying or pressing for an answer.

‘Give him the kelt’, I said finally, and his demeanour changed. He stood up straight, his hand straying to his chest where the smooth teardrop-shaped stone hung. The thunderbolt. The sídhe stone, plucked from the otherworld. ‘Press it into his hand and tell him of your dream, and of the labour involved in its getting. Of the risks taken in awakening the sídhe host, in crossing that threshold’. A shudder ran across my shoulders as I spoke these words. ‘He will be honoured’.

The Tiarna stood, motionless for the span of several heartbeats. His hand fell from the kelt then, and he wrapped the items and put them back in the box, all except the cross. This he placed in a pouch at his waist.

‘The King will not want some heathen stone. He will see a compliment in the cross. Piety, beauty and strength’.

‘Of course, a thiarna’, I said dutifully.

‘Of course’, he replied with a sternness that was not there before. ‘Now run ahead to the stables and tell them we ride’.

We set out in the mid-morning with a good company of men and the women of the household riding or following on in a number of rumbling carts, Ness among them, and I found myself searching out her gaze, finding pretext to ride by. I rode one of Áed Buidhe’s horses, wheeling ahead with Erc and Fiacra, driving the remaining herd of the captured cows along the bóthar ahead of us. We rode, as is their style, astride mats slung over the horses’ backs, steering with thighs clamped firm to the beasts’ flanks. We drove towards the appointed place, and, passing through the Tiarna’s túath, we gathered people from the smaller holdings as we went—men of all degrees, aire, boaire, betagh, men, women and children joining our march. And as our path led on to the royal slíghe, we met and mingled with people of other túatha leading carts full of wool and grain and salted fish and all manner of things to be traded or sold.

As we got nearer to the óenach, the traffic on the road became more frequent, and soon we had difficulty keeping the cattle together. It was a sight to behold, the slíghe full of moving bodies far ahead and behind, all travelling in one direction towards the great meeting.

Despite a cold wind and squalls of rain, there was an excitement among people that was difficult to contain. We spoke to those coming from away east, from Brega and Airgialla. The talk on every lip was of Mac Murchada’s Engleis mercenaries and their doings to the south. We heard that following Mac Murchada’s death in the summer, the foreigners had pushed west into Tuamhain and even north as far as the territory of the Ulaid, burning and killing and upsetting the natural order. Erc was maddened by this, as we had heard no talk of our own táin. He pronounced loudly that the foreigners had not dared set foot within our borders and boasted of our raid within earshot of all who would listen. In fact, our actions were widely known, and some people on the road congratulated us. An old woman spoke to me of it as we stopped by a stream, letting the herd drink.

‘A fine deed’, she said, ‘made even finer given there was no damage to the farmsteads you passed’.

Others, men associated with the Ua Ragallaig, hissed or jeered at our passing, but nothing more was done. It is one of their most rigidly applied laws, that all must approach the óenach under truce, regardless of the myriad different grievances and feuds. No blood to be shed at or on the journey to and from the óenach, no feuds to be prosecuted, no politics to be progressed or raids avenged. No women molested and no forced elopements. We were safe from Áed Buidhe’s vengeance, even if he had had the strength to challenge us.

The day was long on the road, and despite the high spirits, we were worn down by the constant herding, keeping the bullocks especially from veering off into pastures or upsetting donkeys and their loads. Though the location of the óenach was barely a day’s journey from our túath, we had made little over half the distance by the time the sun began to dip in the west. The Tiarna led us off the slíghe into the surrounding country, where he brought us to a farmstead of one of his clients, a bóaire who came out expectantly with his household arrayed behind, full of the laws of hospitality.

‘A thiarna’, he declared, his arms opening wide, ‘you are expected. Come forward and leave your horses and your servants with my people. Come and take the first bath and you will be the first to be seated in our mead hall’.

As the Tiarna, his family and his warriors were feasted that night, we spoke to his servants and his stable master around a fire in the open yard. They spoke fearfully of foreigners on the slíghe, passing up and down and seeking out information on who was king here and who claimed lordship there. Erc, emerging from the hall to drain his bag, laughed over his shoulder, saying, ‘There is no fear of foreigners in our túath while this arm holds a spear’.

‘Though now it holds a twig’, I said, low enough not to be heard by him, and those close to me smiled. He approached our fire then, suspicious of the silence, looking around to the young bondswomen of the household. His eyes settled finally on Ness. His neck thick and his eyes small. He went back to the feasting, and I moved around the fireside to where she sat, lowering myself down beside her. I spoke gently into her ear.

‘It may be best not to sleep in the stables with the others tonight. I fear that Erc will come looking for you when the fires burn down and ale has deadened his fear of the Tiarna’.

She looked to me, her eyes black in the flickering light. She placed a finger on my chest, and I shivered like a horse in a cloud of midges.

‘Your foresight is indeed transcendent’, she said with her lips twisting. ‘Did the sídhe leave you with any other gifts beyond that of divination?’ I smiled in the low light, surprised when her slim hand slipped into mine. We walked from the fire, our eyes adjusting to the darkness and looking into the shadows for a place to stay. We struggled with the door of the small stone house where they kept the malted grain until it opened, and we crawled inside. Making a bed for ourselves as best we could, we lay side by side, invisible to each other in the dark.

‘I have thought of you every night since I saw you first at the tóchar, a bloom on the meadow’, I said, and I heard the air exhale from her nostrils in disdain.

‘Since I rubbed your gléas for you’, she said. ‘Speak true. Speak of your red lust. Not of meadow blooms’. I shrank back from the vehemence of her words. ‘At night’, she continued, ‘I pray to Scáthach. I plead to her every night that I might find her power—the power to murder all who have harmed me’.

‘You will need more than prayers’, I said lightly, spurned, and she responded with softening tones.

‘I will need more than you—a dumb beast in the field’.

‘I am what you have’, I said, smiling unseen, ‘and the world is changing. The Sasanaigh are coming, the Engleis, those who speak my language’.

She reached out, her hand gliding beneath my léine. She touched me as before in the byre. Rougher. And in the darkness, blinding light sparked. I could hear the strangled sounds coming from my own throat. As if from a distance. She wiped my seed on the dead slabs of stone and brought my hand to her cleft, moving against my fingers and pressing this way and that. She made no sound. When she had finished, I kissed her unmoving mouth and made all of the mooning promises that young men make. That I would free her. That I would take her away. That I would kill all who had harmed her.

‘It would be different if women ruled’, she said.

‘Because there would be peace?’ I asked.

‘Because our blades would be sharper’, she said with venom, ‘blacker. And men would never hear them coming’.

Voices cut us short and we fell silent, listening. The Tiarna and his client, pissing against the wall.

‘I receive you of course with pleasure, a thiarna. With the full regalia and bounty available to me. I keep your border, I clear your roads, I send men to work your cornfields, to dig the ramparts around your house. I am bound to assist you in blood feud and I escort you to the óenach. In return, our covenant demands that you keep us safe from the depredations of outsiders. I need to know that you will come to our aid, that you will keep the foreigner away. They have come as far as our ditches, and while they have not attacked us, the people they have dislodged arrive before them like a wave before the bow of a boat’.

We listened quietly, waiting for the Tiarna’s answer. We heard them fixing their garments and the sounds of them moving off, the Tiarna’s voice drifting back to us.

‘All will be well, Caoimhín; after the óenach, all will be well’.