Magdalen Rising (11 page)

M
Y MOTHERS HAVE BUILT a brave little boat, a coracle made of wicker and skins and dense, packed seaweed. The boat sits low to the wave and slides up and down the swells like a child's saucer sled. Its oak mast and leather sail, lowered and raised by an iron chain, look heavier than the boat itself. For steering it has only a set of oars. Anyone else might have been alarmed at the prospect of embarking on the high seas in a small craft of such dubious design, but I've never seen another sea-going vessel, and I am still child enough to trust that my mothers know what they're doing. Besides, what they lack in nautical expertise, they can make up with their prowess in weather magic. We can count on smooth sailing—at least for awhile.

It is a clear spring dawn. A steady wind blows from the West. The sky brightens in the East. At the tattered edge of night, the morning star shines huge and bright. It's time to say goodbye to my mothers—or anyway to the six remaining on Tir na mBan. After heated debate, the mothers finally decided that Fand and Boann would be the ones to escort me to Mona and see me through the admissions process. Fand staked a claim to the greatest knowledge of worldly (as distinct from Otherworldly) etiquette. Boann was chosen for her physical strength and for the calm that descends on her ordinarily excitable nature the moment calamity actually strikes. Now Fand and Boann wait by the boat, a gentle surf swirling around their ankles. The other six mothers stand on the shore, facing me. The Cailleach has not left Bride's Valley to see me off, but I am certain she is watching us in the Well of Wisdom.

No doubt you and my mothers both know better than I do what this parting might mean. To me, finality is not yet real. I only know that after all the bustle and fuss, loading the boat, the absurd combing and re-combing of my hair, the bedecking of me with bracelets and brooches, and a torque I can't wait to take off (jewelry being the first century woman's equivalent of a credit card), we are suddenly still. It is a single moment, suspended between night and day, between breath indrawn and released. It is timeless. It is instant. It is over.

Then I am being passed from one pair of arms to another, pressed against all those breasts. It is hardest to let go of Grainne. Not only is she my womb mother, bearer of the inner sea where I began, but I can sense there's something she wants to tell me, but she won't or can't. She clings to me, and I cling back. At last we let go—or the others gently part us. I turn blindly and climb into the boat that will bear me over the second ocean.

Boann begins to row us out of the harbor between the sloping thighs of Tir na mBan. The scent of the magic orchard follows us on the wind. For days there will be hints of its blossom and fruit on the breeze, all the stronger for the orchard's being lost to our other senses. Now the sun is fully born on the eastern horizon. My mothers' voices rise with it, singing a song I've loved since my cradle days:

Boann, Fand, and I take up the song.

I peer round Boann to look back at the shore just as the sun catches Grainne's hair. O my mother, my own mother sun, bobbing up and down in and out of my sight as we ride the bigger and bigger swells. The island wobbles, shot through with blinking rainbows. When my vision clears again, we are well beyond the harbor. Tir na mBan is a shining darkness, rising from the sea, her proud breasts thrust against the sky.

This is the story of a journey (maybe all stories are) but it's not a travelogue, so I won't point out the sights or detail our stops as we sail past the Hebrides through the North Channel into the Hibernian Sea. Just hear the slap of waves, the endless whoosh of wind over water, the occasional cry of seabirds. Add Fand's admonitions to me, the running exchange of insults between Boann and Fand, our words punctuated with silences of increasing length as the immensity of sea and sky impresses us with our insignificance.

Our last stop before Mona was Man (an island sacred to my father, my mothers told me, though he failed to greet us in person). We refreshed
ourselves before taking ship in the small hours of the morning to cross our longest stretch of open sea. By late afternoon, we came in sight of Holy Island, an island's island, separated from Mona by a ribbon of water, rising to cave-riddled cliffs where thousands of seabirds nest.

No wonder islands are held to be magical. You can't reach them by pedestrian means. You have to float or fly. And there they are, with the seas surging around them, waves caressing or crashing their shores sending up spray. All those infinitesimal drops catch and intensify the light, making the air around islands brighter. When the light slants, even the grayest rocks turn gold.

“Are we almost there?” I asked, like any kid from any time in any conveyance.

“I hope so,” declared Boann. “I don't want to be anywhere near those cliffs after nightfall. Fand, are you sure there's no place to land on the North side? It looks like there might be sands over there.” She gestured with her head toward the northeastern coast of Mona, flat and shimmering in the distance.

“The Cailleach expressly said we were to sail around Holy Island and land on the southern coast of Mona at a place called Rhosneigr. That's where everyone coming from Hibernia lands for the
Beltaine
festival. So do boats coming from the South. The Cailleach was quite definite about it. ”

“Look!” I pointed, rising suddenly to my knees.

“Maeve! How many times must I tell you not to make violent motions. You'll pitch us into the drink yet.”

“In the distance!” I ignored her. “You can see other boats heading in south of Holy Island, just as the Cailleach said.”

“That might be some comfort if we had a better wind behind us. It's practically dead now,” grumbled Boann. “We must be getting out of Deirdru and Etain's range.”

“Why don't you revive it?” said Fand. “Aren't you a weather witch, too?”

“I am and I would,” huffed Boann. “But in case you've forgotten, you all made me swear by every sacred thing you could think of not to do any wind calling. As if I had no subtlety or precision. As if I couldn't control the velocity. But if you want me forsworn—”

“Oh, all right, all right,” snapped Fand. I knew she was embarrassed, because, gifted as she was in calling up fog (not exactly what was wanted
at the moment), she'd never mastered whistling and could only manage a gusty blowing damp with spittle.

“I'll do it,” I said.

“You?” For once they spoke in accord.

“I'm not a child anymore.” I straightened my spine, puffed out my ripe breasts, pursed my lips, and before either could say another word, I turned to the Northwest and let out three perfectly pitched notes—not too loud, not too soft—of exactly the right length.

The response was instant. The bellying sail and the quickened pace lifted our spirits and broke the tension. Boann laughed out loud as she gripped the chain, and Fand looked at me with something approaching approval.

“She'll do us credit,” Fand murmured to herself, just loud enough for me to hear.

We sailed on in silence for some time. As we drew nearer to the cliffs, I confess I felt some disappointment. They were not so different from the ones on the western shore of Tir na mBan. I wanted everything to be new and startling. Then, all at once, as if on some invisible cue, the cliffs came to life with an unfolding of wings and long fabulous shadows cast over their rugged surface by the slanting light. A flock of cranes rose into the deep sky over our heads.

None of us needed to cry out to the others: Look! The flight of all birds is oracular, especially cranes. From the pattern of their wings in flight came the sacred ogham alphabet, as who should know better than I, the daughter of Manannan Mac Lir, the god who carries the secrets of the ogham in his magical crane bag. That's what his strange treasures really are, the Cailleach had told me.

“What do the crane wings say, Maeve?” asked Fand

Not that writing on the wing is easy to read, mind you. The letters flash and disappear a lot more quickly than subtitles. But here the pattern repeated and repeated.

“M-A-E-V-E,” I spelled. “Maeve!” I cried with delight, but not as much surprise as you might suppose. I was the daughter of a god. Why shouldn't my father arrange skywriting for me? “The cranes are announcing my arrival.”

As soon as I spoke, the pattern shifted, again repeating and repeating until I spelled out the letters E-S-U-S, which at that time meant nothing tome.

“E-sus,” I tried the word aloud, and the cranes, apparently satisfied that I'd received the message, rose higher. Turning in an arc, they flew over the cliffs of Holyhead in the direction of Mona.

It was then that I saw the others: three black forms on the cliff's edge. At first I took them for ravens, but their wings were too loose and windblown. Also, I realized after a time, the figures were too large to be birds. Whatever they were, I sensed that their eyes were trained on our small boat. Fand and Boann had seen them, too. I caught them exchanging a speaking glance over my head.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Priestesses, I believe,” said Fand a little stiffly. “The priestesses of Holy Island.”

I did not have time to give Fand's manner or the trio's scrutiny much thought. Running with the wind, we rounded the head, and a whole new vista opened up. Now I could see miles of Mona's lush body, stretching languidly towards a whole range of mountains. The effect was wondrously different from the two pert breasts of Tir na mBan. Here was a huge, unbreaking tidal wave of mountains, shimmering and blue, with white caps of cloud. I had never seen so much land massed against the sky.

Then the foreground claimed my attention once more as we came closer to the other boats. We weren't near enough yet for me to make out the passengers, but, even at a distance, I could tell that the boats were bigger than ours, longer, with a prow and a stern (not that I knew those terms at the time) raised high out of the water. We moved towards them and away from Mona at a diagonal.

“Aren't you going the wrong way?” I asked in alarm.

“I'm going out so I can head straight in. Grab an oar and help me steer, Maeve,” instructed Boann. “When we come about, switch sides.”

While I held the oar and Boann the sail, Fand went into a tizzy.

“Where's that comb! Sit still, Maeve,” she shrilled as she nearly capsized us with her frantic rummaging. “And your gold. You must have it on when we land. Here's your torque.” She nearly choked me as she yoked me. “And your head piece. I know you're holding the oar. Just give me your other arm. There. Where is that comb? Oh, here!” She began yanking at the snarls. “You're the daughter of a god,” she reminded me. “You've been raised by queens, yes, queens. Do you hear? We can't have you looking like some captive taken in a raid. You must show your lineage, Maeve!”

I did not understand the fuss Fand was making over my appearance. I had no concept of rank. All I knew was that Fand, in her hovering, was blocking my view of the other boats. I tried to peer around her.

“Maeve!” shrieked Fand. “For the love of Bride, don't lean. We don't want to swim the rest of the way!”

“Coming about!” shouted Boann.

Our coracle joined the bobbing procession of boats and headed straight for the shore.

B
ELTAINE
, THE FEAST OF Bel, the Shining One, was one of the two greatest of the four yearly festivals. It marked the beginning of the bright half of the year just as
Samhain,
across the great round of nights and days, ushered in the dark. All through the dark time, the Pleiades rode the night. Now, at
Beltaine,
the seven sisters set, as if melting into the brimming light.

Of the festivals,
Beltaine,
later known as May Eve, was a particularly exuberant one. Oak, beech, ash, and larch were all on the verge of exploding into leaf. You could practically live on the air alone, rich as it was with the fragrance of flowering gorse, thorn, may, apple, and plum. The crops, already sown, sliced through the soil with their brave green blades as if the earth were a cake. After wintering in the byres, the cattle were about to rampage between two purifying fires out to their lush summer pastures. With the fair weather, the
Combrogos,
too, would be on the move: poets, traders, bands of roving warriors, and just plain folks getting together to have a good time.

As everyone knows to this day (and remembers with secret longing), for centuries the eve of May was a socially sanctioned orgy. Running off into the woods with someone who wasn't your spouse was practically your civic duty. You were obeying the oldest law. You were multiplying the orgasms of the sexy, fecund earth. Hey, it could only help the crops—and hence the tribes. So just this once, go ahead. Surrender. Let go and let god/dess. That was the mood of
Beltaine.

Of course, on Tir na mBan we celebrated all the festivals with our own peculiar panache. But consider the difference between a glass of champagne with a few old friends on New Year's Eve and joining the screaming crowds in Times Square. Despite a dearth of neon lights and peep shows, the Isle of Mona was a gathering place of equal popularity and more importance. Not only was it the site of one of the most prestigious druid colleges in the Celtic world, it was also the grain basket that fed the warrior kings and fueled their resistance to Rome. If that weren't enough, Mona was the first major pit stop for traders on the gold route from Hibernia's Wicklow Hills. Here the tribes congregated, not only to
revel, but to wheel and deal, to make and mend quarrels, and to debate politics and policy.

As soon as I set foot on the sand at Rhosneigr, I found myself in the midst of throngs. Can you imagine the impact on me of that concentration of human energy? For a time after I stepped out of the boat, I just stood still, feeling it rush in around me, or break over my head like a wave. A less brazen temperament than mine might have been bowled over by this first contact with the human crowd. For me it was as if something hot and pulsing had been pumped straight into my bloodstream. My every pore was open and drinking.

“Maeve!” Fand's commanding voice cut through the roaring in my ears. “Come help unload the boat.”

Compared to the other stores being unloaded on the shore, ours were meager. We had no caskets of raw gold or other metals. We had no huge smoked haunches. Warriors though my mothers were, they had not brought their horses, nor were they assembling their battle chariots on the beach. With less than half a mind, I lifted from the boat our jugs of mead and water, our baskets of oatcakes and fruit from the magical orchard. Apart from food, there was only my spare summer tunic, two warmer ones for winter, my cloak and sandals, which Fand insisted I put on, and a few heavy plaids for sleep and shelter. As Fand and Boann fashioned our belongings into separate bundles for each of us, I minded my P and Q Celtic, trying to catch phrases as they flew past me. In particular, I thrilled to the timbre of male voices and stared as openly as I dared at the bodies that issued those robust tones.

I soon observed that there was no generic model among the appended ones. Some had more facial hair than face. Others had naked chins with hair overhanging the upper lip. Sometimes the hair drooped down the side of the mouth, reminding me of walrus tusks. Still other men had no hair on their faces but their skins were rough and bristly like a pig's. As a rule, they were quite large, though many of the women were almost as tall. (Fand and even muscular Boann stood out as small in this crowd). The women shouted commands with as much authority as men. I offer this detail for your benefit. Women in authority were nothing new to me.

But I did notice that some people gave commands while others carried them out. The ones in command—male and female—had tunics of brighter colors, often striped or plaid, bordered with gold or silver braid. Their cloaks flashed with brooches and their arms clanked with gold.
The people fetching and carrying had a dimmed quality, as if a layer of dust had settled permanently. Even their hair was duller, and not from lime wash.

Lime was used to heighten appearance, not diminish it. Some of the warriors had fantastically sculpted hair, spikes and manes so stiff with lime that even the sea wind could not disarrange a single hair.

Speaking of hair, as you may have gathered, my hair—convention calls its color red, but fiery orange is more exact—is important to me, important to the story. Remember how it caught the light in Bride's Valley and served as a conduit for the fire of the stars? In case you've forgotten, my mothers, except for the golden-haired Grainne and the grey Cailleach, were all dark. Only in my dream-vision had I ever seen another redhead—until this day.

Here, in the festival crowd, bobbed head after head of flame, an erratic congregation of torches. Sometimes they swarmed in clusters, if the gene for red hair had flared in the four generations of extended family that comprise a
tuath.
At first I felt a jolt of alarm every time I saw a red-haired man, but none had the chilling features of the face in my vision. Then a subtler feeling began to surface.

You may recognize the feeling more quickly than I did. Very likely you have suffered the affront of a sibling's birth. Even if you didn't, you went to school and sat in a classroom full of gap-toothed six-year-olds. Possibly there was even another child in the class with the same first name as yours, and you were called Susie Q. to distinguish you from Susie P. One way or another, you got the gist: you're one of many.

So here I am, at fourteen years of age, in a flash no longer unique. Or only unique as in “everyone is unique,” which just doesn't cut it as far as the ego is concerned. All right, so no two people are alike, no two stars, snowflakes, or, for that matter, no two sheep, warthogs, or mayflies. Listen! There were other redheaded fourteen-year-old girls in the world. This is the stuff of identity crisis.

Little did I know my troubles with fellow redheads were only beginning. But that's getting ahead of the story. In that moment on the beach, I didn't have time to ruminate on an unsettling sensation that takes much longer to describe than it did to experience.

Twilight at that time of year goes on and on, but there was a touch of chill in the air. The shadow of Holyhead stretched towards Rhosneigr. I turned from my gawking to see what my mothers were doing. Boann was still fussing with the boat, though it was well secured, its sail neatly
folded, and Fand was tying and retying the bundles. I wonder: does every child know this dizzying moment? My all-powerful mothers appeared at a loss. They did not know how to proceed. And, most important, they no longer stood between me and the ripe, juicy world. As if on cue, someone just out of sight struck up a jaunty rhythm on a drum. A pipe shrilled. The crowd, still milling at the edges, was becoming an impromptu procession inland over the marshy dunes. The party was beginning, and I intended to be at the heart of it.

“Come on!” I commanded, picking up one of the bundles and starting to walk. With unprecedented meekness, my mothers followed.

Now that I was part of the general movement, my sense of personal displacement gave way to the pleasure of belonging to a larger body. A good beat and a common direction can bond you to strangers—or at least give you the illusion of unity. Since then I have known many human crowds, but this was my very first. A crowd is a living organism. It can easily turn into a monster, baying for human flesh, tearing to pieces any victim tossed into its maw. But the holiday crowd on Mona was, for the moment, benign, a happy creature like a big, friendly dog wanting to lick everyone's face. The air rang with snatches of song, cries of greeting between people who hadn't met since the last festival, guffaws at the revival of old jokes. As I walked along with everyone else, I did not feel excluded. I laughed, too, whether I got the jokes or not, for the pleasure of it.

I was laughing out loud when I tripped. I was not used to wearing a long tunic—as Fand had insisted women did, in contrast to men—and I hadn't yet grasped the necessity of lifting it on an uphill grade. We'd just begun to climb from the shore. Moreover, my bundle blocked my view of my feet. So down I tumbled, knocking Boann and Fand off-balance so that they staggered back a few feet. Fortunately, the crowd was moving at a leisurely pace, and we were in no danger of being trampled. Before we could sort ourselves out, we were surrounded.

I can still remember that sudden sensation of anti-gravity as a good portion of my weight was taken from me. Even more vividly I retain the image of arms thicker than any I'd ever seen, as thick as a young tree trunk, covered with black hair almost as coarse as a beast's. And gigantic hands! But the most pungent memory of that moment is of the scent. As those hands and arms drew me up to chest level, I got my first strong whiff of
man.
Maybe it's all that excess hair everywhere. Scent clings to it, not just the man's sweat, but whatever is in the air—in this
case salt from the sea, the sweet pollen scent of the trees, and the man's own particular musk. I closed my eyes and inhaled it.

“The maiden is swooning.” I not only heard but felt the vibrations of that voice. The strong arms held me secure. Small wonder Victorian ladies went in for vapors.

“Maeve!” squawked Fand. “Stop this at once!”

Of course I hadn't fainted at all, and I was much too curious to keep my eyes closed. The visual effect of staring up into a large, male face, complete with nose hairs and five o'clock shadow—(the man was one of those with a walrus mustache)—was not as appealing as the other sensations. I righted myself and drew apart.

“I thank you, kind stranger,” I said in my slightly accented P-Celtic, assuming the role of spokeswoman. Boann and Fand spoke Q only and appeared to be tongue-tied. “For your timely aid.”

I was young and mistook stilted speech for grandeur. The man hid a smile.

“My kindness was a small thing and as for my strangeness, you shall know me better.”

At a word from him, other men from his party shouldered our bundles. We fell into step together.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bran Fendigaid, ab Llyr Lleidiaith, ab Baran, ab Ceri Hirlyn Gwyn, ab Caid, ab Arch, ab Meirion...”

Welcome to the oral culture, folks. At this convention you will find no registration table, no little stick-on “Hello, my name is” tags where you scrawl one or two paltry words.

“...ab Ceiraint, ab Greidiol, ab Dingad, ab Anyn, ab Alafon...”

Never having received a formal introduction before, I confess I was somewhat taken aback myself. Fand and Boann, meanwhile, were exchanging furtive looks of deep disapproval. Despite their unfamiliarity with the P dialect, they understood enough to know that Bran Fendigaid ab infinitum was introducing himself through the paternal line. Shocking!

“...ab Brywlais, ab Cerraint Feddw, ab Berwyn, ab Morgan, ab Bleddyn...”

For my part, I was wondering how long this list could go on. We were now marching to its rhythm.

“...ab Rhun, ab Idwal, ab Llywarch, ab Calchwynydd, ab Enir Fardd...”

I was also worried about what to say when it came my turn—if it ever did.

“...ab Ithel, ab Llarian, ab Teuged, ab Llyfeinydd, ab Peredur...”

And was
everyone
going to make introductions of such length or was it just a man thing?

“...ab Gweyrydd, ab Ithon, ab Cymryw, ab Brwt, ab Selys Hen...”

We'd probably covered a good half mile of ground by now.

“...ab Annyn Tro, ab Brydain, ab Aedd Mawr.”

It took me a moment to realize he was finished. We were all a bit breathless. And come to think of it, what had stopped him? Run out of fathers, presumably. Somewhere or another, you had to start with a mother. Everyone knew that. It was only common sense. The silence lengthened, and I realized some response was expected of me.

“Yes, well.” I cleared my throat, trying in vain to remember Fand's last minute lessons in etiquette. Why wasn't she prompting me? Why couldn't she at least manage a polite greeting? “I am honored to meet you, er—”

Have you ever forgotten someone's name as soon as they said it? Try remembering someone's lineage.

“You may call me Bran.” And we were back to where we started a half an hour ago. “To the tribe of the Silures, I am king. But I don't stand on ceremony. I leave all that folderol to the bards. A king earns his fame on the battlefield and through fair dealings. If he takes care of business, others will take care of his name.”

Taking care of King Bran's name would be no small task, I considered. I had heard of the Silures. The Cailleach's geography lessons were coming in handy. I was able to call up a map from memory and place his tribe to the south of Mona on the mainland. I was not as awed as you might be to find myself ambling with a king. I was barely socialized, even to the Celtic culture of my time. Besides, there were lots of kings then, warring with other kings, raiding each other's cattle, competing for wealthy clients. They were more like your congressmen—here today, gone tomorrow, running amuck in corruption and scandal. Whereas the druids were always there, an overwhelming, overbearing supreme court. But I didn't know any of that then. Nor did I know that under King Bran's fiery leadership, the Silures had become controversial players in the debate over traffic with Rome.