The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance Part 34

Eochaid and Ailill did not ride together and did not know each other's strength. Ailill, obedient to Medb's warning of trouble from Conchobar, rode north and east towards Ulster; Eochaid rode mostly south and west to guard against those of Casil. The Casili had no grudge against Medb but they saw no harm in picking up a cow for slaughter that had not come from their herds, or a pig or a pretty farmer's daughter. Medb rode with a smaller escort, less to fight, although she gave a good account of herself when necessary, than to look over all the lands and the people.

Although Eochaid did his duty well enough, Medb thought less of him as a ruler. He spent too much time trying to rid Connacht of Ailill and too little judging crops and grazing lands. Half the women in the dun threw themselves at Ailill and he welcomed every one with good-humoured indifference, but the hunger in his eyes did not lessen a jot when he looked at Medb. As important, neither women nor that hunger took his attention from the crops and the pasturage or made him a less wise judge of his men and the people.

Unable to turn Medb against her favourite, Eochaid set traps for Ailill, which he avoided and commented on with amus.e.m.e.nt, enraging Eochaid further. Moreover, Medb was not amused and denied Eochaid her bed until, she said, he should understand that who she slept with was at her discretion alone.

Eochaid then saw that if Ailill died by attack or accident, Medb would blame him. So Eochaid set an open challenge on Ailill. With this, Medb did not meddle; nor did she show any preference when she came to watch the fight.

It did not last long. In a hundred heartbeats Eochaid knew himself to be outmatched. Whereupon he made a fatal error. He desired to mark Ailill before he yielded and launched a fiery attack. Ailill did not match it with defence but with an attack of his own.

Eochaid had his desire; his sword bit lightly on Ailill's left shoulder, but his extended weapon opened a path. This Ailill leaped upon his sword struck down. Eochaid was cloven from where his neck met his shoulder down to his breastbone. The jugular was sliced clean through. Blood burst in a fountain over Ailill's sword and arm, even over his face as he drew his sword out of the wound and the body fell towards him.

"You killed him!" Medb had arrived so quickly that she too was spattered with blood and her eyes were round with shock. "He was not a bad man, just not enough for me. Did you need to kill him?"

"Yes." Ailill's breath was still coming hard and his own blood trickled down his left arm. "He called you wife. I will suffer no other man to call you wife."

"If I take you in marriage, you think you will be the only man ever to lie in my bed?"

Ailill laughed. "Mother Dana forbid. I know you may drop a favour here and there for curiosity or to pay a debt or tie a cord around a man's heart. That will cause me no pain so long as I know I give you pleasure also."

Medb stepped back, away from the body that lay on the ground. She glanced down, made a gesture to summon Eochaid's men to take him up and fit him for burial. Then she looked back at Ailill.

"How would I know that? Your eyes promise, but you have never sought to fulfil that promise. You seek to share the rule of Connacht. Agreed you have saved me much loss in protecting my lands, but if I share what is mine with you, we will both be poor."

"No!" Lifting his hand in protest, Ailill very nearly spitted Medb on the bared sword he was still holding.

He gasped and pulled the hem of his tunic out to wipe the weapon so he could sheathe it. Medb had hopped aside from the motion of the sword, with practised reaction to the weapon's movement. She did not even look at it as she spoke.

"But I have resolved never to take another husband who had nothing of his own."

"Most rightly," Ailill agreed, smiling. "I will go tomorrow to fetch my own property and we can match what we have."

Medb stared at him for a long moment. "I will not wait another five years for you to make good your word to me."

Ailill laughed heartily. "No, indeed, I promise you I will not step even one foot inside the sidhe." He started away.

"Inside a sidhe?" Medb echoed to his back. "Is this what you promised to explain to me when you first came?"

He turned back towards her, leaned forwards suddenly and put his mouth to hers, not trying to embrace or hold her to him. His lips were firm but soft, not dry but not wet with spittle either. And then, just as she was about to embrace him, he drew back.

"I must go and have this shoulder bound up before I lose too much blood."

She saw then that a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his face and remembered that the lips that touched her had been cool; his skin was pale and greyish and he was unsteady.

"Go then," she said quickly. "Go and have your wound bound. You can tell me about the sidhe tomorrow."

But he was gone before dawn the next day. Medb said several words that delicately raised ladies did not know. He had taken about half the men he brought from Erna with him. Medb questioned the men he had left, but they knew nothing of where Ailill was going. They had come to him with his possessions after he had come from the sidhe . . . if that was from where he had come.

So Medb cursed Ailill to unease and sleeplessness and went with some of her own people to Tara. Her father was sorry to hear what had happened to Eochaid Dala, who had supported him in several wars. He asked whether Ailill was likely to be as useful and all Medb could say was that he would be even more useful . . . if he had not disappeared again. Eochaid Feidleach shook his head at her and told her she should not be so careless with her men one dead and another missing. Medb ground her teeth and set out for Cruachan to guard the lands Eochaid and Ailill had watched.

But when she came to the dun, Ailill was there, his cattle in the pasture, his goods spread out on the trestle tables where the people of the dun sat down to eat. There was no lack in the goods, in the silver cups and the horns wound with gold wire in their gold stands, in the platters and the linens and the close-woven cloth. He laughed at her rage over his departure and she stamped on his foot so that he howled and hopped about holding it in his hand. And then they fell into each other's arms, both laughing, and called witnesses to count over what was hers and what was his.

It was a very close thing, very close indeed, except . . . The bull with Ailill's herd was far superior to that in Medb's. Both were silent as the witnesses gave their judgment and they looked into each other's eyes. An icy chill ran down Medb's spine. A bull would bring disaster to her. Still . . .

"I promised myself that I would not take a husband to whom I would be subservient," Medb said.

"I desire you for my wife far more than I desire to rule you," Ailill said, "but the law is the law. All I can offer is to geld the bull-"

The chill struck Medb again. "No!" she cried. "It would be an evil thing to spoil so fine a bull."

Ailill nodded. "You are too clever to destroy something of value. And think, Medb, you have a dozen yearling bulls that are already better than their sire. Take me for a year while those yearlings grow into their full power on my oath not to use my authority."

Medb thought. It would not be so easy to rid herself of Ailill as of her previous husbands, but the hunger in his eyes roused her as no other man's gaze ever had. She held out her hand and he clasped it, and so they were wed before the people of the dun.

Medb ordered a great feast to mark the occasion, taking care that exactly so many steers and sheep and pigs came from Ailill's goods as came from her own. But they themselves did not attend the revels for long. When the serious drinking got underway, Medb and Ailill slipped out of the hall to her house, where Ailill's hunger was slaked at last, and then slaked again, and still again so that Medb knew no satisfaction would still it for long.

In the morning, they still lay together, sated, yet Medb was eager to start the day to see how well Ailill would keep his promise not to try to rule her. When she started to rise, however, he held her back and she laughed.

"You still desire me so much?"

"Yes."

"You think me the most beautiful woman you have ever seen?"

Now Ailill burst out laughing. "No, indeed I do not."

"You are at least honest," Medb snapped.

The laughter died and he said, solemnly, "With you, Medb, always."

Ailill held out a hand and Medb put hers into it. Ailill smiled at her. "With others . . . I am honest as is most profitable. But those beautiful women they were from the sidhe. The beauty of the women of the sidhe is unmatched and they are free with their favours. Only . . . they had nothing else and I do not mean goods and cattle. They do not care, not for me, not for their own men. And the men are the same. Sometimes kind but always careless, especially of us mortals."

He told her then about rescuing the sidhe child and that he thought he stayed there no more than five or six months. "When I left, I thought I would be coming to seek you soon after you left Emain Macha. I had no idea I had been five years with the sidhe, and none of them ever thought to tell me that time runs differently in their lios slower."

That was a weight off Medb's mind; there had always been a doubt in her about Ailill's constancy, whether he might disappear again. So she tightened her grip on the hand she held as he told her how careful he had been when he went to gather up what Bodb held for him, so as not to get caught in the time trap.

"That was well done," she said. "You have made a good friend in Bodb."

She made to rise again. This time a little to her regret he did not hold her back, but also rose from the bed. When they were dressed though, he stopped her from leaving at the door.

"Wait here," he said. "I have a morning gift for you."

Medb burst into laughter. "I was scarcely a virgin when we came together, my love. My morning gift-" Her bright eyes darkened with remembered hurt; Conchobar had given her nothing.

"-was not paid," Ailill said. "I could do nothing then. But you will have it now and it will content you for all past injury."

Which left Medb blinking and wondering as Ailill left. A very short time later the door was flung open again and Ailill stood at the side, holding the halter of . . . a bull. It was red and white as were Medb's cattle but it was every bit as fine a beast as the black and white bull that Ailill owned.

"Your morning gift," Ailill said. "Now we are equal."

Medb's eyes widened with understanding. She would go her way; Ailill would go his, but they would always be together.

"Compeer," she breathed. "Partner."

On Inishmore.

Ciar Cullen.

Inishmore, Aran Islands, Ireland 1890.

Maeve wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders against the howling wind, biting back laughter as the new master of Kildooney House made his way up the path. Green as moss, he was, from the ferry crossing. How did the Americans make the crossing when they couldn't stand the few miles from Rossaveal?

He was soaked, was Brian Fitzgerald, late of Boston. Maeve had known his father, and his father's father, and no doubt a few ancestors before them she'd since forgotten. All drawn to Inishmore, searching, longing for meaning in their life, a phantom that never materialized, or perhaps a love that was under their noses all along. A welling of her own longing filled her but she brushed it aside, not willing to open a wound she no longer cared to st.i.tch close. The pain of that mending wasn't worth the risk.

Fitzgerald took the few steps to the porch and stopped short at the sight of Maeve. She could practically read his mind. He'd expected a housekeeper, but not one of Maeve's advanced years and ugly countenance. He took a deep breath and pulled off his bowler, shaking water in a near stream from the rim.

"Mrs MacGearailt? I am Brian Fitzgerald."

"That much is obvious, lad. Welcome to Kildooney House. Welcome to Inishmore."

He nodded his thanks and stood in awkward silence, as if he needed further permission to enter. He didn't. He owned Kildooney since the recent death of his father.

"It might be best if you come in out of the rain. You need a hot meal, dry clothes and a good night's sleep. All will look better in the morning. Except for me." She winked and Brian Fitzgerald laughed in embarra.s.sment.

"I am very pleased to finally meet you." He seemed sincere.

Maeve peeked in at him as he warmed his feet near the fire, half asleep with exhaustion. The young woman enchanted within the crone stirred restlessly at his fine figure, long legs stretched out, broad shoulders wrapped in a blanket of her own making, silky auburn hair brushing his once-starched collar. No, she reprimanded herself, do not imagine he is the one who will lift this enchantment.

He was the first of the Fitzgerald men to travel without a manservant, and Maeve wondered idly how long he would stay in the rambling mansion with the quiet bearing down on him and the luxuries of Boston an ocean away. The young woman in her surfaced again momentarily, wondering too what life alone under the same roof would bring. No doubt disappointment. She would put that dream in a box and lock it with a key, throw the key into Galway Bay.

"You must let me help, Mrs MacGearailt." Brian bit back a testy tone, anxious to make headway on his writing. She dropped an enormous basket of laundry near his desk.

Maeve MacGearailt was the toughest, most stubborn woman he'd ever had the fortune, or misfortune as the case may be, to encounter. Maeve looked to be a thousand years old, give or take a few centuries. How she carried pails of water with her crooked back and withered limbs confounded him. Her body looked like one of the aged scrubby trees dotting the landscape, grown twisted and knotty against a cruel climate.

She rose in the morning before him, tidied up the mess he left in his study, cooked a hearty breakfast, and scrubbed the floor or washed the curtains by the time he brushed sleep from his eyes. He'd grown accustomed to her haggish appearance at least it no longer startled him. Although the first sight of her, standing in the doorway of the mansion, with lightning and wind as a haunting backdrop, had nearly sent him to his knees in prayer against an Irish curse.

"How far along are you now, Mr Fitzgerald?" She folded clothes in his study, a habit that irritated the h.e.l.l out of him.

Further by thousands of words if you would leave me be, he thought. "Please, let us stop this formality. Call me Brian."

"I am Maeve."

Brian frowned, feeling a bit guilty he'd never even asked about her given name, never asked her a thing about her life. How did she come to be alone at Kildooney House? Did she have family or friends? She never spoke of anything but his comfort, listening to him rant away about the difficulties of penning his grand novel. The barristers had always seen to the house, and no doubt to the pittance Maeve earned keeping the place standing.

At times in the last few months, he'd questioned the wisdom of selling the Boston Daily Traveler, the newspaper that had brought wealth and esteem to the family. At twenty-four, he'd yearned for a different life. Without a compa.s.s, he'd latched on to the first intriguing notion introduced at the reading of his father's last will and testament.

He owned a mansion in Ireland. Brian glanced at Maeve, her tattered dress and shawl blending with the tattered furnishings of Kildooney House. A mansion in Ireland had a different meaning, no doubt.

Still, it was lovely and wild and quiet on Inishmore. No social obligations pulled him away, no insipid young ladies sent unsolicited notes and invitations. There was only a warm house, a bluff overlooking a wild bay, a town four kilometre's walk away with nothing but a pub, a smithy and a few poor shops, and Maeve.

To Brian, Maeve embodied all he knew of Ireland. As far from the ton of Boston as a person could be, Maeve was ugly, evidently poor and filled with a mixture of what seemed like fort.i.tude and longing. She tugged at his heart, and he wondered why. No doubt just melancholy for his own mother and grandmother, long since crossed.

"Well, Brian, it seems you're in need of a Leannan Sidhe, but do take care should you meet her."

"Please, Maeve, no young women. I've had my fill, begging your pardon for mentioning it. I came for quiet."

Maeve cackled out a laugh so hearty she collapsed on to the couch hugging her stomach. "You don't know of the Aos Si? The faery folk? The Gentry?"

Brian rested his head on his typewriter. He'd been warned that to open the door to an Irish story could mean the waste of hours of precious time. He turned and glanced at Maeve, still red in the face from laughing. How could he be rude to her?

"Go ahead; tell me about the wee faeries."

"Wee? Ah, I see. Little brownies and such, is that it?" Maeve rose and brushed at her ap.r.o.n, which no amount of straightening would ever make crisp, and tucked her parchment white hair under her kerchief.

"I meant no offence! Do tell me." Brian bit back a curse, knowing that he had to mend this rift lest guilt haunt him the rest of the day. The novel would have to wait. It seemed it always had to wait.

"If you truly insist?" Maeve sat again, and folded her hands reverently.

"I do insist." Brian pulled the paper from his typewriter to show his willingness to listen, and lit his pipe.

"You are a writer, an artist, is that not so?"

A subtle smile pulled at her lips and Brian saw the joke. "As you well know, I have yet to write a thing of any import. I take that is an example of the famous Irish sense of humour."

"That is why you must find your Leannan Sidhe!" She clapped her hands as if she'd made the cleverest announcement. "Your muse, Brian. A Leannan Sidhe is a lovely young woman, one of the Gentry. She imbues artists with intense creativity, and from her, they rise to the summit of their abilities. But one must take care, for your muse may also torture your spirit, so alluring is her form and well . . . ways, shall we say?"

"I'm finding that writing is torture enough, without throwing a Lea-?"

"Leannan Sidhe . . ."

"Without complicating matters with one of those."

"Ah, all matters are already complicated, whether you wish for them or not."

Brian wondered if Maeve had ever been lovely, had ever inspired a young man to great heights. And as he looked into her twinkling eyes, a fine shimmering mist arose between them. Beyond the veil of mist, sat a young Maeve, a much younger Maeve. The most beautiful girl Brian had seen or imagined. He shook his head and the illusion lifted as quickly as it came. I have the imagination of an artist, he thought. If I only had the talent to match.

"Well, Maeve, if you ever run into one of the Gentry, I will gladly accept any help they are willing to bestow. For I am now one month behind in my work. I may as well have stayed in Boston. No doubt I will return there as a failure. At least, I now wish I'd not told my friends that I would return a novelist."

Maeve cheated every morning, as she had for hundreds of years. While the master of the house slept, she a.s.sumed her youthful form to perform the most arduous tasks. Technically, as a Corrigan, she could a.s.sume either of her personas at will, as long as she gave them equal time. Long ago, she'd found it easier to drift through the years as a crone. The bones ached, the muscles were weak, and there was no joy in glancing into the mirror, but men left her alone. Because no man cared about an old crone.

This is exactly what was required to break the spell of her kind. A man needed to love the crone as much as the beauty. She'd learned after much heartbreak, more than once, nay, more than a dozen times, that beauty was the only prize men cherished. Wasn't this the curse of womankind, faery or human?

A youthful body made easy work of scrubbing a floor or pulling weeds from the garden, though. Brian Fitzpatrick was blessedly a sound sleeper. Poor fellow, she mused, wondering if he'd ever finish his book. He'd made good progress in the last few weeks, but he cursed when he didn't think she heard. She'd found many pages of discarded would-be brilliance balled up under his desk or surrounding the ash can.