The Children of Lir Read online

  “My own sister died in childbirth,” Bodb continued, slugging down a mouthful of mead. “She did not pass quietly like our beloved Aobh. When we took her to the boat, Manannán refused to carry her until her soul could be silenced. We had to sacrifice ten bulls for the passage, and still the boat rocked as it carried her across the water. You should be grateful that your sons lived, for hers did not.”

  “That is a great comfort,” Lir replied, flatly.

  “Hold your head up! She was as sunny as they come. To see you so downcast would only cause her pain.”

  Lir himself looked pained as he placed his wine before him.

  As he did so, he chanced to look up, and our eyes met.

  Aodh

  It felt like the best thing we’d ever done, leaving Sidhe Fionnachaidh. I knew it the moment we rode out that morning, with half our clan behind us dragging the ox carts and the tents. My horse, fast-footed, skipped and sidled as soon we were out the fort, as though he knew he had finally found his freedom. My lungs burst like bellows from galloping across the open grass, leaving behind the thick, stifling air of my father’s melancholy.

  From that first night at Sidh-ar-Femhin, I felt as though I had truly come home. The great city of my grandfather was full to bursting with light and song and dancing. There was food there to feed all the armies of the Tuatha Dé Danann with enough left over for the spirits and the fire.

  Whilst my sister span and laughed with Aunt Ailbhe, I raced into the crowds before anyone could think to ask me to take charge of my brothers. I knew it was just what you ask of the eldest boy, to take care of his kin, but I knew Fiachra and Conn had no need of my protection. They would have a far finer time of it without me, and I without them.

  I don’t know what I was looking for that night, rather I was looking at everything. I wanted to drink the scene in with my eyes so as not to forget a moment of it. Deep in my heart I held to the fear that next morning my father might change his mind, throw us back into the saddle and force us to ride for home. I think I was collecting memories that night, that I could relive them over and over in my mind, back in my silent bed above the water.

  The Feast of Age was glorious. All the Men of Dea came from far and wide. By day they threw long spears and raced on foot from vale to vale whilst by night they washed themselves down in oil and wrestled beside hot embers. Awards were given of precious stones and armour, and between the clans a half-hundred handfastings took place. Some of the brides pretty, some less so but hardy and quick with a smile.

  I walked between them, taking the measure of each man, flexing my muscles and comparing my shape with theirs. I saw small men fighting with stealth, tipping the weight of giants with their speed and cunning. I shadowed their movements, testing the reach of my arm and the clench of my fist.

  The great warrior Cumhaill, head of my grandfather’s guard, was fighting with Goll mac Mórna, the only other man a match for his strength. They beat down their chests with earth and cried the ancient battle cry of war, the diord fionn, before setting to. Goll got in the first punch, spit flying from Cumhaill’s mouth and fizzing to steam on the fire.

  His advantage did not last long, as Cumhaill regained his balance and charged Goll like a bull, butting his head square against his chest and felling him, landing astraddle and smashing his face first with the left fist, then the right, then the left again.

  I was cheering for Cumhaill, copying the movement of his throws, when suddenly I found myself face down in the dirt, sprawled like a clumsy maid.

  “Cac ar oineach, what’d you do that for?”

  “Want to try it for real?” My assailant grinned down. He was a slim-shouldered boy, but tall, his red hair as curly as my own. “Caílte mac Rónáin,” he said, offering his hand.

  Like an idiot, I took it and he dropped me on my arse.

  “First lesson if you want to be a fighter,” he said, that grin growing wider. “Never trust the man who’s hitting you.”

  “Piss off,” I said, scrambling to my feet.

  “Second lesson, don’t give him reason to hit you again.”

  I glared at Caílte, drawing myself up to full height, which wasn’t even his neck.

  “Come on, want to see something?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be like that, I was only teasing.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t trust you.”

  “You learn fast,” he laughed. “But come on, it’ll be fun.”

  Reluctant to leave the fight, which was now in full swing, Goll having wrapped his arm around Cumhaill in a headlock, I blew hair out of my eyes and turned into the crowd. I followed Caílte out to the edges of the settlement, where the heat of the fires hardly reached and the chill caused me to shiver.

  “Hush, listen,” he said, turning to me and holding up his hand. “Do you hear that?”

  “What?” I asked, still sulking from before.

  “Just listen.”

  All around I heard people breathing like the bellows of the blacksmith. Between the rush of air came high-pitched gasps and murmured names.

  “Curious?” he asked, and I nodded. “Can you guess what it is?”

  I could not, so he took me by the hand and led me to one of the huts.

  There on the floor were men and women, their half-naked bodies entwined and writhing like snakes. Hands fondled breasts and members, legs and lips parted, oblivious to our presence. In one corner two men were kissing, their bodies pressed flat against one another. I felt something tighten beneath my tunic and turned away.

  Caílte laughed and pulled me on to the next hut and the next; in every hut the same.

  “Come on, let’s get a drink,” he said, when the heat of the blood in my cheeks threatened to roast me alive. “They’re celebrating the death of the old with the birth of the new. Come spring there’ll be half an army born at Sidh-ar-Femhin and we’ll have to expand the walls of the fort to contain them.”

  That night I drank until the urge inside abated. I had never been drunk at my father’s fort, not like this. It was half the wine and half the intoxication of freedom, of being so far from my crannóg prison.

  My companion was the nephew of Cumhaill, that warrior I most admired, yet despite our introduction he was not a warrior by heart. When we were drunk enough, he recited poems to the fire and plucked a cláirseach from a sleeping druid, playing it fine enough to my mead-muffled ears.

  That is the sadness, you see. In all the years and all that was to come – all that they did to us – they forgot what truly mattered. In writing and rewriting our deaths, they forgot to tell that we ever truly lived.

  Fionnuala

  On the third day, Aunt Ailbhe took the twins and me for a picnic by the coast. We rode until the sun was high over the hills, until the sea appeared before us like a cloak of silver. Looking out across it, I could not help but wonder whether my brother Manannán lay beneath, watching the silhouette of our horses on the cliffs above. I wondered too whether he had noticed my father’s absence. Whether he would stand there alone next high tide by the little inlet where my mother’s boat floated forlorn and forgotten. Perhaps my father would choose to return before then, for I doubted he passed a day without thinking on her.

  On my part, I held no regrets at leaving Sidhe Fionnachaidh. I had felt more alive in those three days than in the past three hundred. The ocean breeze tugged at my hair and rosied my cheeks. It had been so easy to lose ourselves in the crowd. I had not set eyes on my brother Aodh for almost a day. He had made a friend among my grandfather’s guard and they were away being boys, practising being men.

  My apatite had returned tenfold and I stuffed my mouth with sweetmeats and mead. I danced by the fires with my kinsmen and with the suitors my grandfather indelicately thrust before me. I think, deep down, he, like me, worried that my father would soon return to Fionnachaidh. If there were a chance of settling me upon the Plain of Cashel instead, he would try to make it so. Yet my heart was filled with freedom that I was in no h
urry to relinquish.

  Ailbhe and Sorcha had packed provisions: soft goat cheese, milk, oatcakes and fruit. I had helped make the flatbread that morning. The flour at Sidh-ar-Femhin was so soft that when you added water and sank your fingers into the mixture it felt as though you were kneading clouds.

  We spread our blankets by the path, with a view of the sun upon the waves that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a wondrous sight. I wished I could grow wings and fly out across it, separated from the land and all its worries.

  Our guards hammered down an awning, an iron ring at the back and two sturdy poles at the front to provide shelter from the sun whilst Sorcha and I laid out the meal. The twins were already running, rough-and-tumbling across the grass, pretending to be Cumhaill and Goll. At last they had the freedom to be themselves, to scream and shout and release that energy which had been so stifled at home.

  “Tell me, Fionnuala, do you have a sweetheart of your own?” Ailbhe asked as she spread honey on an oatcake and popped it in her mouth. “Is there someone you’re soft on?”

  I laughed and blushed in equal measure, for the dancing the night before had raised my blood.

  “No, auntie. I have had little time for that.”

  “My poor love,” she said. “You have become old before your time, what with three brothers to raise and a father in mourning. You have arrived at the evening of life without fully enjoying the dawn.”

  I shrugged, for I did not wish to admit the depths of my solitude and, in so doing, seem thankless for my father. Through all his sadness, he had remained a kind man who had always protected and provided for us.

  “Well, perhaps the Feast of Age will turn back the days. So many young men have been watching you these past nights. You know, your mother’s beauty blooms afresh in you.”

  Sorcha laughed at this and began to sing: “The doe she danced so free and proud, the stag could not keep up, he chased her down the greenwood, hoping for a—”

  I pushed her before she could finish the line.

  “I do not wish to marry yet,” I said. “If I were to leave, what would become of my brothers? They are not old enough to take care of themselves, and without me they would be swallowed by my father’s loss.”

  Ailbhe fell serious for a moment, sipping her cup of milk.

  “Yet you are here now, my darling.” She reached across and stroked my cheek. “We must not waste a moment thinking on what might be, but enjoy what is.”

  Conn screeched with abandon as his brother chased him across the grass. I saw with horror that they were headed for the cliff. At the speed they were racing, it seemed impossible that Conn would be able to stop.

  I sprang to my feet and cried out to him. As I raced towards them my own feet planted themselves like oaks in the soft earth, it felt as though I were running yet getting nowhere.

  Ahead of me, Conn and Fiachra stopped, perfectly silhouetted against the blinding shimmer of the sea. From beneath the cliff a great flock of swans appeared, their beaks angled to the sky, their wings beating furiously in their attempt to reach the sun.

  I felt Ailbhe and Sorcha at my shoulder, as still and silent as myself.

  It was a sight to take our breath away.

  Aoife

  Seduction is a strange potion. With the space between my legs still sore from Youghal’s thrusting, I drew back from the curtain and ran to my chamber. Yet, when I turned to sleep, Lir’s black eyes were all I could see. It was an enchantment of sorts. A glance that lasted no more than a second, seared across my mind like the blacksmith’s molten iron hardening to a swordpoint.

  I thought perhaps it was the remnants of the dark juice, as all night I lay there in a cold sweat, tossing and turning, clawing at my covers, reaching for someone who did not lie beside me. Come dawn, it felt like spring sickness. I behaved as a woman possessed, devouring bread and milk that I might have the strength to sit up on the bank and watch for him. That I might chance to see him through the crowds without being seen.

  Because my sister Aobh had married so young, Bodb had kept the rest of us close. Whereas his blood sons had gone on to marry or to take wives for a time, neither Ailbhe nor I had been invited to do so. Queen Medb kept us like servants, though Ailbhe would never admit it. We dressed her and sang to her and helped to drape her neck in jewels. She had never done the same for us, which is what a mother would have done.

  When I first heard the whispers of Lir’s invasion, I was glad. They thought us too innocent to understand, yet we understood. My sisters went white as milk and hid in their rooms, but I walked up to the top of the banks and looked down across the valley, willing him to come. I thought perhaps if Sidh-ar-Femhin burned to the ground then I could walk free from its flames reborn, taking only my clothes and a bag full of riches to start my life anew in the forest.

  When peace was declared and my sister rode out with Lir as his wife, I was jealous, I will admit. I longed to leave Sidh-ar-Femhin, to see another land, to see what lay beyond our walls. I longed to know another way of living, like a wolf that grows tired of its pack and strikes out on its own.

  I had eased my suffering, taking my share of lovers, and in their absence I hardly spared a thought for Aobh or Lir. The summer after they wed, we visited upon them. It was quite a sight to behold, Bodb and Madb riding in front on their finest horses, a hundred bannermen, their scarlet flags billowing in the wind, myself and Ailbhe in a covered cart behind.

  Aobh had been pregnant with Fionnuala by that point, her belly round as an apple. We spent half a moon there, dining on the fresh river fish famed in that region, swimming in the lake and sheltering from the heat of the day beneath the dusky woods.

  I had seen then how Lir doted on her. It surprised us all, given the inauspicious circumstances of their union. Yet by then I did not feel the envy I had first felt, for I saw that even though she had escaped Sidh-ar-Femhin, she had left it for a place much the same. Lir’s great stronghold was not so very different. A little smaller perhaps, a little colder, but still a pebble cast into a green pool, still filled with the same food, the same music and the same livestock. In the faces of his people, I saw the faces of our own.

  I had never so much wanted love as adventure, and would give myself willingly to any who could provide it. That is why I held so tightly to Youghal through all those nights. He was not afraid to venture into the darkest part of the woods, where the old stones sat, surrounded by mist, or where the spirits of silence walked with eyes that glowed in the dark. He had never been afraid of anything in his entire life.

  Why, then, should Lir’s presence cause me sleepless nights? He was a strong man, broad and tall. Even in his grief you could see his proud lineage. All the Danann lords were as such. Some had red hair, others fair, yet their physiques were pleasing. That in itself was not an explanation. I had taken many pleasing men to my bed, and in the morning turfed them out so that I might roll over and resume my dreaming. It could not be that alone.

  On the third day of the feast, my foster father endeavoured to teach his grandson Aodh how to hunt.

  “I know how to hunt!” Aodh protested.

  “Aye, with a fish spear and trap, I’ll bet. But what about on horseback?”

  “Once,” the boy mumbled.

  “Once! Lir, you’ve neglected your duties.” Lir looked away, silent. “At your age, lad, you should be racing through those woods. The only way for a boy to learn is by his father’s side, eh?”

  And so, with typical assurance, Bodb convinced his uncle to saddle a horse and join the chase. A great boar had been spotted in the woods, and they were intent on bringing it down for the feast.

  My sister Ailbhe had agreed to take the twins and Fionnuala to the coast, to talk of women’s things and breathe the salt air. Aware of their plans, and wishing no part in it, I rose late in Youghal’s bed and ate breakfast by his fire alone, for he had already left to view the wrestling. In the mid-morning heat, the stench of his sweat began to offend me, for it clung to my s
kin like stale perfume. I took his horse and rode down to the woods, to the silent pool. Tethering the mare to a tree, I stood by the waterfall, allowing the sound to deafen me. The moisture from its spray formed a mask on my face. Lost in the sound of that almighty power, a thought began to form.

  Barefoot between the forest flowers, I carefully collected a handful of twigs and arranged them into the shape of a body: two arms, two legs and a bundle of dried grass for a head. I tied them together with a loose thread from my shawl and blessed my creation in the stream, silently mouthing words into its ear. Afterwards, I laid it down upon the smooth stone seat behind the waterfall.

  I knew it would be a while before the spirits heard my call, so I took the mare and rode out to check the traps Bodb’s cooks had set. In one of them I found a fat buck, its long ears pressed flat against its back, its black nose twitching at my approach.

  I opened the cage and lifted out the hare. It began to kick wildly, so I slipped my knife from my boot and slit its throat. Blood coated my face as it continued to twist until still. Back by the pool, I lay the animal out on a rock and carefully removed my clothes, folding them beside it. The water was as cold as melted snow. My flesh pinched into dimples and my nipples rose on their brown mounds, my body hardening itself to the shock.

  I forced myself deeper, submerging my skin right to my shoulders. I felt so numb it could not even be called cold anymore. Youghal’s scent had been washed away by the river and my mind felt soothed by the sound of water over rock. I scrubbed beneath my arms with moss, and lay my head back until my hair whorled about me, caught between the fingers of playful undines.