The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance Part 32

Kate turned on unsteady legs and collapsed on to the edge of the pool. Centuries? "What happened to Grandma's other female descendants? Are they here?"

Esras rose and came towards her. "You're the first of Aine's female line to take after her. The others took after her human husband."

Kate's breath stilled in her lungs as the truth hit her. "Mum?"

"She isn't one of us," he said softly.

Kate rocked back. Not one of us. That explained so much that had happened over the years: the way Mum had cut her off from Grandma, her antipathy to Ireland, her fear of the sea. She must have been frightened of losing Kate and maybe a little resentful that the gene, or whatever it was that defined the Rainbow People, had pa.s.sed her by.

Esras went down on his knees before her and reached for her hands. When he touched her she quivered inside, half of her wanting to fall into his arms, the other half still struggling to come to terms with his revelation that she would live for hundreds of years.

"I've waited a long time for you. If your mother hadn't hidden you from me, I'd have claimed you when you were eighteen." Esras leaned closer, resting his cheek against hers. His lips brushed her ear. "I love you, Kate."

Pleasure blossomed in her chest. His fingers stroked the inside of her wrists and trailed up her forearms to find the sensitive skin inside her elbows. A tingle of need raced across her skin.

"Do you think you'll grow to love me?" he asked.

Whether her relationship with Esras was destined or not, she could no more resist him than she could hold back the tide. "I do love you." She pressed her lips against his neck.

He gave a little sigh as his arms encircled her, pulling her on to his lap. His lips found her mouth, his kisses gentle at first, but soon becoming more demanding. After long minutes, he pulled back and whispered, "Together we'll search for our lost people. The People of Lir will become strong again now I have you."

"Can we talk about that later?" Kate pulled his face down again and kissed him. When he sucked in a breath, she smiled. "Do you think anyone will miss us if we don't go back to the feast?"

Compeer.

Roberta Gellis.

Cruachan, Connacht, Ancient Ireland before 800 BC Medb was not happy. When her father, Eochaid Fiedleach, Ard Ri of all Eriu, asked her if she was willing to go in marriage to Conchobar of Ulster, she had considered and then agreed. She was young, no more than fourteen summers having pa.s.sed since her birth, but Eochaid Fiedleach knew better than to give orders to Medb. Nonetheless she was a dutiful daughter who loved her father; she knew Eochaid Fiedleach had been the cause of loss to Conchobar and that providing a wife to Conchobar was part of the repayment of that loss.

As further repayment of the debt, Eochaid had also given Ulster to Conchobar to rule; thus the Ard Ri retained power over Conchobar. And as daughter of the Ard Ri, Medb was her husband's equal in status; when married she would be Banrion of Ulster.

But the union began to go sour from the very beginning. Medb and her escort had ridden into the dark to arrive the sooner in Ulster. They came into the Great Hall through the easternmost of the seven doors after the eating but while the men were still drinking. Silence grew as Medb walked down the aisle from the door, past the sleeping couches and past the drinking benches, to the high seat.

Medb welcomed the growing silence. She was aware of her red hair and white skin, of her eyes, green as the finest emeralds, of the muscles that rippled in her bare arms. She always intended to be fit to rule. She was well trained with sword and knife, and as well trained to run and fight as to law and logic. She walked tall as a man and proud; she expected to be admired . . . and she was not thrilled with Conchobar's greeting.

The Ri of Ulster looked her up and down and said, "Scrawny. One would think Eochaid would have sent something riper for a wife."

Before Conchobar spoke, Medb had started to bend her head in proper greeting to a husband richer than herself, but she jerked upright at his words and replied, loud and clear, "I am the eldest of the Ard Ri's daughters, and we will see how I fill out the role allotted to me."

Conchobar only laughed but added, "The flash in those eyes holds promise, though."

Medb thought him a fool to laugh at her warning, but she held her tongue. Her goods were not the equal of his, so he ruled the household. And he was many years her senior. If he thought her a child, he might be careless until he knew her better. She might have spoken again, but a movement among the men seated on the drinking benches caught her eye.

The cause of the disturbance could have been called scrawny too; he had the unfinished look of a boy growing into a man, but none of the men challenged him. Medb saw the bones held great promise, and the skin was dark and smooth. His hair was black, which stood out among the lighter browns and reds and golds in the room; his eyes, from where she stood, also looked black. And the eyes were fixed on her, not with curiosity or amus.e.m.e.nt like most of the others of Conchobar's liegemen. The expression in them . . . was hunger.

Not yet, Medb thought, and was surprised. She had to swallow a laugh. To look at another man before her husband's seed was set in her belly and acknowledged was the ultimate in stupidity. Medb was never stupid. Nonetheless, she was just a trifle regretful. Something about the young man who stared at her with such avidity attracted her interest.

She turned away to the women who had come to escort her to her quarters, unwilling to meet the gaze of her young admirer but wondering how long it would be before it was safe to speak to him. To her surprise Conchobar came down from the high seat to walk with her. He had not spoken to her again, but several of his men had come from their benches to speak to him. Perhaps they had reminded him that the girl he had offended was the Ard Ri's eldest daughter.

Likely because of the warning of his men, Conchobar decided not to wait for Medb to ripen further, as he had promised her father. He broached her that very night.

That also did not please Medb not the broaching; despite the pain, which she discounted, she enjoyed the broaching thoroughly. Seeing Conchobar reduced to a gasping, shuddering jelly taught her a valuable lesson. She saw what a woman could do to a man. She guessed at once how the act of love could be heightened to reduce a man and bind him. What angered Medb was that Conchobar had broken his promise to her father. In her eyes by breaking a promise Conchobar had smirched his honour.

Over the following weeks, she had no complaint about his diligence in his marital duties, although she suspected he still did not find her to his taste. "Rack of bones," Medb heard once under his breath. She held the memory tight. And across the width of the hall on many nights her gaze met that of the black-eyed youth, who licked his lips as if he would eat her with good appet.i.te.

Medb could have taken a bite or two of him herself, but she had not even enquired as to the dark boy's name. Her will was far stronger than her l.u.s.t. Fortunately she did not have long to wait. Within the second moon of the bedding, Medb got with child. She found that a source of satisfaction when she told her husband two moons later, and Conchobar was very pleased. He announced it to the whole household when they gathered for dinner . . . and took a new woman to his bed when the torches failed that very night.

Fool, Medb thought, as she had thought more than once before, but she made no protest even when the women of the dun cast pitying glances at her. She sat in her high seat beside her husband when he gave justice to his people and listened, and at each meal she ate and drank and spoke to him with good humour. Until one day when she had been watching the dark-eyed lad break a horse and came a little late to the table at dinner time. She found Conchobar's current bedmate sitting beside him in her chair.

"There is a stool at the end of the table," Conchobar said, and at the long tables set up in the hall for dinner some of the men looked up and chuckled at a wife being shown her place.

Medb smiled and kept on her way as if there were no one else at the table. Conchobar looked down into his ale horn, dismissing her. When she reached her chair, she seized the well-rounded, full-breasted woman by the back of her neck and the front of her gown, lifted her out of the chair, and dropped her off the dais down to the ground.

"I am the Ard Ri's eldest daughter and Banrion of Ulster." Medb's voice rose above the shriek of the fallen woman and the gasps of the men seated at the tables, and silence fell on the hall. "I do not care who you take to your bed," she continued, her voice ringing in the silence. "It is no great loss to me. But no one save I sits in the Banrion's chair beside you while I am your wife."

Conchobar had been so shocked by Medb's action and the shriek his bedmate uttered when she hit the floor that he had not moved. Now he sprang to his feet and lifted his hand to strike Medb, only to feel a very sharp pain as a knife dug into his belly just below his navel.

"If you hit me, I will rip you open as I fall," Medb murmured, smiling more broadly. "And then I will go home to my father with your seed in my belly. And Eochaid Fiedleach will appoint a new Ri to Ulster, not of your blood."

Half the men in the hall had risen from the tables at the sign of physical confrontation. Foremost was the dark boy, until he saw the knife in Medb's hand. Then, eyes glinting red with l.u.s.t as he stared at her, he laughed aloud, a full, rich sound, deeper but just as ringing as Medb's voice and the tension was broken.

Conchobar dropped his hand; Medb's eyes fixed for one moment on the boy, took in the long knife half hidden by his tunic and withdrew the knife she held ready to pierce her husband's gut. She raised her eyes briefly to meet Conchobar's glare and, still smiling, calmly stepped around her chair and seated herself. From the women's side, several came forward to help up the sobbing concubine and draw her into their group.

Medb used the knife, still bare in her hand, its tip gleaming slightly red with blood, to cut a tender slice from the roast. She ate it off the tip of the knife and licked the knife blade clean. Conchobar sat down beside her.

"I spare you for what you carry," he said.

Medb nodded, accepting the truce, and continued with her dinner with good appet.i.te.

From the end of one of the tables, where the least important of Conchobar's men sat, Ailill mac Mata watched Medb eating. It was clear enough that she had not been frightened by her husband's threat. Her daring sent a wave of warmth across his groin. That woman was what he wanted.

Her marriage to Conchobar did not trouble him. He knew what Medb would do. She would give Conchobar his son, which would pay her father's debt, and then she would break the marriage and leave, go back to her father's house. Another wave of warmth pa.s.sed through Ailill's lower body and he drew a quick breath. To have Medb . . .

Ailill had not missed Medb's expression when their glances met. But that kind of having was meaningless. She did not yet take him seriously; however, this was a woman who would grow and ripen, would challenge and reward throughout an entire lifetime. To bond with her for life would require much more than a few hot glances and a few sweet words. She would never again, he thought, come to a joining as a husband's inferior in wealth and he, Ailill smiled grimly, did not intend to be any woman's even Medb's rag for wiping up messes.

By the end of dinner he knew what he must do. When the servants came to clear away both the food and the tables, Ailill slipped into the shadows to wait. He watched with satisfaction as Medb rose to go with a gaggle of women to their quarters. Brave, she was, but not a fool. She would not make herself an easy target while her husband was still raw with her challenge.

He followed the women, swiftly, silently insinuated himself among them, and stepped to her side. His skin tingled with her nearness and when she turned her head and looked at him a tide of l.u.s.t rose through his belly to his throat. For a moment he could not speak and what he felt looked out of his eyes.

Medb's head tipped to the side; she met his gaze without lowering hers and she smiled slowly.

"My name is Ailill mac Mata," he said through a thick throat. "And I find you the most desirable of women."

Medb's eyebrows rose it was not the most tactful thing to say when she was surrounded by the women of her husband's court but before she could speak Ailill shook his head impatiently and laughed.

"I wanted you to know my name and remember me," he went on, speaking more easily, "for I will be gone from Ulster while you carry Conchobar's child. Wherever you go thereafter, I will find you."

"I am not likely to forget you," she said. "But can you just leave without Conchobar's permission?"

"I am no liegeman to Conchobar," Ailill said. "He did not think me worth inviting into his household. I am a hired sword and my time will be ended with the coming of the new moon . . . tomorrow."

They were at the door of Medb's house then. The women who attended her went in, but she could sense them cl.u.s.tering near the door, listening. She grinned at Ailill; she was very tall and their eyes were exactly on a level.

"G.o.ddess watch over you," she said, running the tip of her tongue over her upper lip and then smiling. "I will look forward to seeing you . . . whenever and wherever you find me."

He dipped his head once and was gone. Before it was fully light, he had left the dun, riding the young horse Medb had watched him break, and the first place he turned the horse's head was to Conchobar's pasturage. There he could number and judge Medb's cattle.

She had brought other things to her husband's house: silver cups and plates, gold rings and bracelets, garments and linens skilfully embroidered. Such would be easy to match. Though he made no show of it, Ailill had use of a whole family of Firbolg treasure. It was the cattle that would give him trouble not obtaining them but moving them from the Firbolg fastness to the pastures of Eriu.

The herds were easy to track and Ailill saw with relief that they were still separate, Medb's and Conchobar's herders not yet friendly enough to allow the cattle to mingle. Nor were they too far apart, as each set of herders feared being blamed for choosing less rich pastureland.

It was easy, too, to know which herd belonged to whom. Medb's herd was smaller and the cattle, Ailill thought, of better quality, but not by much. Eochaid Fiedleach had been careful of what he sent with his daughter.

Ailill spoke to Medb's cowherd and fixed in his mind what he had to match. As he rode slowly southward towards the lands his distant ancestors had so briefly occupied, he considered how many extra beasts he should have in reserve. Too many rather than too few. Medb, Ailill was certain, would give attention to her cattle to make sure her value increased. A few too many in his herd would not be important. He could always sell off or slaughter the extra animals for eating.

As the light faded, Ailill found a good camping place, an ancient, grown-over ledge a third of the way up a long worn-down mountain. There was gra.s.s for his horse on the flat area and a trickle of water at the far eastern end. Ailill filled his waterskin, watered his horse and hobbled it, threw the horse blanket on to the ground, extracted cheese, dried fruit and journey-bread from his saddle bags and settled down to eat.

It would not be so easy as simply bringing the cattle, Ailill realized, as he watched the thin sliver of new moon-rise. There were all manner of questions to be answered and problems to be solved before he could drive his herd to wherever Medb's was and propose their mating. Like . . . should he speak to Eochaid Fiedleach first or to Medb? A small shudder ran up and down his body. That was no easy question to answer, and- The thought cut off as a thin wail drifted up from the base of the hill. Ailill sat more upright. It did not sound like an animal cry. The sound came again and broke off suddenly into a yelp of pain. Ailill surged to his feet and drew his sword from the scabbard that lay on the horse blanket beside him. That was a child crying.

Upright, Ailill could see there was a fire at the base of the hill. One man sat by the fire. Beside him . . . Ailill squinted to make his sight longer and, as if at his will, the fire flared up so he could see there was a stake in the ground and a braided cord tied to it. His eyes followed the line to a small, huddled figure at the end. He leaned forward, listening intently and picked up the m.u.f.fled sound of weeping.

Now, it was no strange thing that a man should strike his son or his servant for ill behaviour or slacking his duties, but that the child should be leashed like a dog made Ailill uneasy. That a son or servant should be desperate enough to need to be tied on a dark night in the middle of a wilderness hinted at a cruel master.

Ailill looked beyond the fire and saw larger bodies. Another flare of light showed him cattle settling down for the night and a second man fixing a flimsy fence of withy boughs around them.

Perfectly ordinary. Two men driving home or to market some six or eight cows and bringing with them a youngling who had misbehaved. Ailill urged himself to go back to his horse blanket and mind his own business, but another glance showed him that the child was trembling and his ears made out m.u.f.fled sobs.

Two men. It would not be wise simply to step into their camp and ask why the child was leashed and weeping. Even if the treatment was well-deserved they might resent his interference. And he was dressed like a n.o.bleman. What he had seen in the firelight was rough garments. Would those who beat a child and did not comfort its weeping try to rob a rich lone traveller? Perhaps if he were closer he could judge better what to do.

Ailill moved off well beyond the firelight and descended the hill carefully. He could hear the child more clearly now, softly between sobs praying for help from from Mother Dana! Tuatha De Danann? The child was one of the fair folk, out of a sidhe? It could not belong to these common men.

Now Ailill moved with even greater stealth well wide of the cattle so that they and the man working on the withy fence were between him and the fire. Something slipped. It must have hit one of the cows, which grunted and got to its feet. A second cow stirred and rose, and then a third. When the fourth began to rise, the man cursed and shouted to the one by the fire to bring the child to quiet the cattle.

Ailill, who liked little ones, watched with growing anger as the child was jerked to his feet and dragged towards the cattle. The boy cried out as his arms, which were tied behind his back, were wrenched and the man holding him slapped him hard and then shook him. The leash, fastened around his neck, flapped and his foot caught in it so that he almost fell. The man holding him shook him again.

"Make them lie down again," he ordered, and when the child, who was now sobbing hard, was unable to respond, he struck him once more.

Meanwhile Ailill slipped farther around until he was behind the man who had been making the fence. The fence-maker's attention was all on the child and his abuser.

"Hurry up," he shouted, waving a branch in the face of a cow that was moving towards him.

Ailill grinned, took three steps forwards, and struck him hard on the side of the head with the hilt of his sword. His victim fell like a stone, right in front of the cow, which stopped, turned aside, and pa.s.sed the withy barrier.

"You fool!" the man holding the boy shouted. "What did you do? Trip on your own feet? Get that animal back."

Ailill did not answer. He saw he could not make his way directly through the cattle, more of which were beginning to get to their feet. He tried to run around them but some turned away from him and others stepped right into his path. Unfortunately that made him too slow to reach the man holding the child before he realized something had happened to his partner. Fear made him take fright. He jerked the boy closer by the leash around his neck and pulled his knife.

"Go away!" the man shrieked. "Take your accursed cows and go back to your sidhe or I will kill the child."

The stupid peasant did not know how rare a child was among the Tuatha De Dunaan, how precious. He thought the Dunaan had come after their cattle as a Milesian would.

"And what do you think will happen to you after you kill him?" Ailill asked in a quiet, pleasant voice more terrifying than bellows of rage. "It will take you years and years and years of screaming and begging to die. If you let him go . . . now right now without more harm, I will let you run." As he spoke, Ailill openly came closer, making sure the light of the fire glinted on the blade of his sword. "If you even scratch him with that knife, I will gut you and leave you here to die with the flies breeding in your belly."

Ailill could see a small movement, perhaps the man's hand tightening on his knife. He leaped forwards with a shout, although he knew he could not reach them in time. But the man surprised him. He turned about and threw the boy towards the fire.

The child screamed. Ailill shouted again and twisted his body desperately to divert his path. The boy, catapulted forwards, took two involuntary steps and then tripped on the leash again. He fell face towards the fire. Ailill made another desperate leap and just caught the child, his own feet coming down into the burning wood. Sparks and embers flew, scorching the back of his legs, which gave him impetus enough to leap sideways, carrying the child.

Another desperate twist brought them down to the ground so that the child was on top and not crushed beneath him. Ailill gasped as something snapped in his side, but he thrust the child off him, away from the fire, and leaped to his feet. Running thrust a dagger into his chest with each stride, but only slowed him a trifle and it was no more than thirty or forty strides before he was close enough to strike the fleeing man.

"I said I would let you run, not escape," Ailill snarled and swung his sword.

At the last moment, he turned the weapon so the flat, rather than the sharp edge, struck. If the Sidhe were as enraged as he feared they might be about the mistreatment of their child, Ailill wanted them to have both villains upon whom to slake their anger.

He seized the unconscious man by one foot and began to drag him back to the fire. That did not soothe the pain in his chest but at least he heard the child crooning to the cattle and hoped that meant he would not need to chase the cows.

His first task was to secure the man he had first struck. The cattle thief was just beginning to stir and Ailill coldly hit him again. Leather thongs from the man's own pouch fastened his thumbs together behind his back, as well as his big toes. Aside from that, Ailill let him lie where he was to go and bind the second man the same way.

The cows were bedded down where they had been originally. The child was now silent except for a shuddering sob now and again. Ailill went and squatted down beside him, drawing his knife. The child's eyes went wide. Ailill laughed.

"I only want to cut you loose, little one. I will do you no harm. How do you wish me to call you?" He knew enough of the Danaans not to ask for the child's name.

"Do you want the cows?" the boy asked, obviously trying to keep his voice steady.

"No, indeed," Ailill replied. "I am not such a fool as to wish to keep the cattle of the Tuatha De Danann which did not come to me as a gift or an agreed purchase."

He lifted the child, hissing with pain as what he feared was a broken rib stabbed him again, and set him down closer to the fire so he could see to insert the knife and cut the bonds without injuring the little boy.

The child was silent until he was free and then he sighed on a half-sob, and said, "You can call me Bress. What will you do with me?"

"Take you home, of course. And the cows too." Ailill laughed. "That is, if you know the way home. I certainly do not."

The boy began to sob more heavily and Ailill drew him close. He was a little surprised when the child actually climbed into his lap, pressed against him and clung as he wept. By ten, which Ailill judged him to be by his height and the fact that he was alone with the cattle, most boys would be trying to resist being comforted, not clinging like an infant.

The fire had been somewhat scattered when he landed in it and was now dying. Ailill caught up a stick and, holding the child with one arm, shoved the burning wood together as well as he could. There was more wood within his reach and he added about half of that to the fire. After a few moments the flames sprang up. Ailill stroked the boy's hair and he lifted his face. When Ailill saw his companion clearly, he drew a quick breath. The child he was holding could have no more than six or seven summers, although he was as big as a Milesian boy of ten. The Danaan were a tall race.

The sobs had quieted and Ailill asked, "What happened? How did you come to be taken with the cattle?" He thought there might have been a raid or a battle and the child might be a survivor.

"They said I was not big enough to mind the cows." The voice was shrill with childish resentment. "So I called to the cattle and they came and followed me. You see how they lie where I bade them."

Ailill's mouth opened, then closed. He took a deep breath. "You mean you took the cattle yourself? You were not set to watch over them?"

"No one listens to me!" The words were garbled with sobs and sniffs. "I knew a better place to graze them. The gra.s.s was thick and tender. So I took them there and they were content. But-"