Magdalen Rising (29 page)

You can hardly accuse me of being derivative in my choice of a bird father for Esus. I didn't know the story of Leda and the swan, and angels were not part of my cosmology. As for the Holy Spirit taking the form of a dove, well, it's never been entirely clear whether the H.S. is male or female—though when I was a dove, I believe I remained true to gender. In any case, this was no tender little dove but a
big
bird I invoked for Miriam. This bird of mine had fiery wings and a face with the bright, impersonal beauty of a star. In short, I outdid myself on Esus's behalf and only wished I could go back and spiff up my somewhat pedestrian silkie—if a sea mammal can be called pedestrian.

I was just getting to the birth scenes—in effect the beginning of this story you're reading, the story I've been wanting to tell for two millenia—when I was whisked off stage, so to speak. Picture the scene as Vaudevillian slapstick, if you like, someone yanking me with a crooked
cane. It was a little like that, except in the wings waited a phalanx of druids, Nissyen among them, looking far more distressed than I had the sense to be, wringing his hands. Before anyone could inform me of the precise depth of the shit I was in, the crowd threatened to get completely out of control.

The chant rose louder and louder, accompanied by foot stomping. The druids held a hurried conference in nose ogham.

“All right,” said the grey-bearded Druid, who happened to be head of the literature department. “Go back out there, but make sure you bring your outrageous improvisation to a definite end immediately after the births. No
Heroic Exploits.
No
Wonder Journeys.
Is that quite clear?”

So I returned to the center of the circle and told the crowd all about the attendant animals at both our births and the eight sets of lactating breasts that greeted me. (The crowd loved that part.) I spiced up Esus's story by having him born in a cave, his family in hiding from a jealous Roman-puppet king. (The tax plot twist, devised so as to have him born in Bethlehem, and the no-room-at-inn routine do not come from me.) Finally, as a sop to my teachers, I had three druids from the Holy Isles arriving to prophesy over him.

“And that's all for now, folks,” I concluded. “The story continues even as we speak.” Which gave my story an edge over all the others—or so I fancied in my naiveté.

The crowd gave me a standing ovation.

“Did I pass?” I asked the panel of deeply disconcerted druids.

“Your performance, indeed your status at the college, will have to be thoroughly reviewed,” Greybeard informed me.

“Am I finished with exams for this evening?” I asked.

“You're finished.”

That sounded ominous. But at the moment I couldn't summon much concern about my academic status. I was merely relieved that I could go at last, but when I turned to walk away, Nissyen followed me.

“Oh, Maeve, Maeve.” His voice was tender and reproachful.

“Didn't you like my story, Nissyen?” I pleaded. “The
Combrogos
did.”

“Maeve, that's not the point and you know it.”

“I know,” I admitted, and I managed to hang my head.

I was supposed to be learning the stories of the people. The mind and memories of bards and druids were not private property. They were store houses, story houses. If those minds were not full of knowledge, it was almost as disastrous for the
Combrogos
as an empty granary.

“Just tell me, Maeve, why did you do it?”

“Oh, Nissyen. I'm sorry. I couldn't remember anything. Now I can. It's all coming back. But when I stood there facing the crowd, I couldn't remember one thing about
Lugh's Conception.”

“Well,” he sighed. “At least you got the narrative structure of the
Hero's Conception
right. I'll see if I can get you credit for that.”

“I'm sorry,” I said again. And I hugged his body with its hollow bird bones.

“Where are you going now?” he asked, justly suspicious.

“Back to the hut. I'm not feeling too well.” Neither of these statements was exactly a lie. Not exactly. I was cold and tired and intended to stop at the hut for a heavy cloak and some oatcakes before I went on to Bryn Celli Ddu.

“Then I expect to find you safely tucked into bed when I get back,” Nissyen told me. “The truth is, I'd prefer not to let you out of my sight, but there's still more of our lot to recite. This ordeal is far more excruciating for me than for any of you. Here you've set the whole literature department on its ear. And Viviane, word perfect as she was, looking white and fey as some changling. I'm beginning to think it was a mistake to admit females,” he grumbled.

And he turned back to the storytelling, leaving me at liberty to continue my own story.

I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next.

I
SAY I COULD HARDLY wait to find out what would happen next, and that is true. But whatever surprises awaited me, and all good storytellers are taken by surprise from time to time, my illusion that I was in charge of my own tale was still intact. I am sure I am not alone in this view of my life as a wonderful story, starring myself and a few select others. When you were young, weren't you the star of your story? Aren't you still? True, as we age the genre often changes from pure adventure-romance to something riddled with irony at best, but it is hard to relinquish the hope that there is a more or less coherent plot that will resolve itself to our advantage. Every time we read a story or see a film we are bolstering this belief.

I was raised by mothers for whom reality was infinitely malleable—or anyway subject to endless revision. The New Age solipsism: “You create your own reality” was not new in the least to them. In all oversimplifications, there is an element of the more complicated truth. It is equally true that we are all victims of circumstance. In this apparent paradox lies the power of our stories and our lives. Here is the heart of the mystery: that moment when our own inner force meets forces beyond our control. That moment when the plot thickens or falls apart completely. Suddenly we find ourselves in an altogether different story; or worse, we begin to suspect that there is no story at all. In this moment, when we discover we are not the sole authors of our lives, what we choose matters. We shape this moment even as we are shaped by it. Forever.

According to the story I was telling myself, I was now about to risk danger (though naturally I would triumph) in order to guard the one I loved, to be near him at his hour of need. Hadn't Anna said: “Don't despise this shitty little dove. Someday you may need her.”

I didn't intend to stop at Caer Leb for more than the few seconds it would take me to grab my heavy cloak and some food. But when I neared our hut, I hit a wall of fear and pain so strong that it stopped me as surely as if it had been made of stone. I stood stunned, confronted
with a totally unexpected choice. I sensed—I use the word sense advisedly; I could practically smell the panic in that hut—that if I went inside I would be hopelessly deflected from my long-laid plans. If I wanted to find out what was happening to Esus in Bryn Celli Ddu, I had better walk on right now and forget about my cloak. My right leg was all for going. I could feel the muscles straining, but my left remained rooted.

Branwen, I thought. What if that was Branwen in there, sick or grieving?

I closed my eyes and tried to see who it was behind the hut walls and what was wrong. But sixth sense or second sight, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't work that way. It doesn't exist to let you off the hook. It doesn't make everything clear and simple. On the contrary, it often gives you information that you wish you never had. Now, instead of bursting into the hut and happening on whatever it was, I had to decide whether or not to face it. I tried to think of Esus at the Mound of the Dark Grove being prepared for some awful rite, braving Yahweh's wrath and his own fears. I willed him to call out for me in some way. Nothing.

Then I heard someone moaning in the hut. My left foot led; my right followed. I lifted the flap and stepped inside. The air was thick with the stench of sweat and blood. It took me a moment to spot her lying on the far side of the hut. Then she moaned again: Viviane, her face whiter than the moon's. Her eyes were closed. The way the blue veins stood out on her eyelids remains in my memory.

Viviane must have heard my indrawn breath or felt the draft that came in when I lifted the flap. Very slowly she rolled her head in my direction; just as slowly, she opened her eyes.

“Maeve, don't tell.”

Her voice was so weak! I crossed the hut and knelt beside her. Even before I looked, I knew she was lying in a pool of blood. I felt cold all over. My hands were shaking. I had no idea what to do. Still, Viviane held me with her eyes, trying to bend me to some crazily persisting will. Then she shuddered, and her eyes closed again.

“Viviane, you've got to tell me what happened.” I tried to take charge. “I've got to find a way to help you.”

“Help me what?” She almost managed a sneer.

“Live!”

She opened her eyes again and we stared at one another, each acknowledging the other unspoken possibility.

“I tried to take it out myself,” she said, barely whispering. “I took potions to make the blood come, and when it didn't, I opened myself with an awl.”

As she spoke I picked up one of her hands. It was colder than a dead fish, but the rest of her was hot. I didn't know anything then about the fever from infections that complicated so many childbirths and abortions. We never had any sickness on Tir na mBan. Until this moment, death was no more to me than a plot device, a way to dispatch heroes when they'd had their full share of battles and exhausted their luck. Now I was confronted with sudden knowledge beyond Viviane's few words, beyond words themselves, since I lacked even rudimentary ones for what had happened.

“At first I thought it was all right. I could see that it had come out of me. You wouldn't believe how it hurt. But I didn't cry out. I didn't want anyone to know. I buried it. I won't tell you where. For a few days, I thought the blood was just the stored up moon blood. Then it got worse. I don't know how I made it through my recital, but I did. I did.”

“Don't talk anymore,” I said. “You're wasting your strength. Just lie still. Sleep if you can.”

As quietly as I could, I stood up, fully intending to run top speed back to the festival to grab the first Crow I could find. The most terrifying female mystery was happening right here in this hut. The Crows had to do something.

“Maeve!” The fear in Viviane's voice was naked. “Don't go.”

“Viviane, I've got to get help. Look, I know you don't want anyone to know. I know you're afraid you'll get sent home. But that doesn't matter now. I've got to get the Crows. They'll know what to do.”

“Don't go,” she whispered.

She touched my bare leg with her hand. The cold went straight to my bones. And I understood what she did not have the strength to say: By the time you get back it will be too late.

“All right,” I said. “But you've got to let me help you.”

She closed her eyes. Some infinitesimal movement of her facial muscles indicated assent. I had no idea what to do, but some basic human response to crisis seems to be water. I got clean rags and fetched fresh water. Lifting Viviane's tunic, I began to wipe the blood away, a futile exercise. Soon I was drenched in blood up to my elbows. I stopped and stared at my hands in dismay. Then Viviane opened her eyes again and caught mine. I knew, without words, that we were both remembering
our fight, my hands and her face smeared with my blood then. Strange as it may sound to you, I believe if we'd had the strength we would have laughed out loud. We didn't need laughter to seal the bond that formed between us in that moment, a literal blood bond. Don't get me wrong. We were still enemies, but now we loved each other whether we liked it or not.

It was then that I felt the fire of the stars beginning at the top of my head, flowing swiftly to my fingers. The blood on my hands dried instantly. Of course. Water was the wrong element altogether. We needed fire. Following the pictures forming in my mind, I placed one hand over Viviane's womb. With the other I reached right up inside her sex, coming as close as I could to holding her womb between the palms of my hands. Then I closed my eyes.

I was on Tir na mBan. There was my womb mother, Grainne of the golden hair, burning away the cold, the damp, the fog, calling the sun's brightness and heat, making herself a chalice for light. Now that cup of fire poured over me, through me into the dark, red sea. I don't know how much time passed. The fire kept flowing through me until I could see the sun, Grainne's sun, blazing inside Viviane's womb, drying the blood, burning away the fetid heat of fever.

One last image came to me and lingered. A smooth, sun-drenched rock by the sea on a hot, still day. You know what that feels like. Imagine it. You've just come out of sea water cold as a winter night. You lie down on the heated rock. It warms you right through. It's lightly crusted with salt like your own body. You drowse there on the rock, perfectly at peace.

When I opened my eyes at last, Viviane was asleep, breathing deeply. Her bleeding had stopped, and her hands were warm again. I took the bloody rags outside and tore away what I could of her ruined tunic. My legs and arms felt so heavy, as if they weren't part of me but were separate objects that I had to lift and maneuver. I had no strength left over for thought—not even thought of Esus. My last conscious memory of that night is of lying down next to Viviane and covering us both with a heavy plaid.

I am moving slowly in some pitch dark, narrow place. Though my shoulders just clear the cold, sweating walls, I have the impression of being purposefully squeezed down a passage. Think of a snake swallowing a mouse. Think of contraction of vaginal muscles or bowels; only
here, the direction is in, not out. When the passage opens into a larger space, I remember the sweet, salty walls and the warm spring I found beneath Bride's breast. But now there is no sound of water. And it's cold, terribly cold.

Suddenly, I know I am trapped. I turn around and around, feeling for the passageway, but like a throat, it has closed after swallowing me. I keep pacing round and round, dizzying myself, my breath growing shorter and shorter, the sound of it amplified by the cold, rock walls. A bizarre notion comes to me that I have somehow swallowed myself. Then a cry rings out, so loud, so anguished, I don't know how the walls of this place can contain it.

Esus.

The darkness whirls around me, and I hurtle towards him, the center of gravity. We become the still point, the axis, cosmic twins curled in the womb. We lie with our heads crooked in each other's crux. I want to stay here, just like this, forever. Contained. The sweet meat of the hazelnut, safe inside the shining salmon.

Then the sheltering darkness splits wide open. Images, harsh with light, break in. I see that same strange, stripped tree I saw before. The tree pierces the empty sky and sends bleeding cracks splintering across it. No, it's not the sky that's cracked. It's the lips, the dry lips. They are my lips. Their pain is lost in the agony of every muscle, in the cruelty of my own hanging weight. Something touches my lips, wet, sour. My pain-blurred vision clears for a moment. Below me I see hair the color of fire and a strangely familiar face streaked with dirt and tears.

“Maeve!” I don't recognize the name, but I know I have heard the voice before. “Maeve Rhuad.” It's the Cailleach. “Maeve Rhuad come back to yourself.”

Then I hear my own voice crying, “Come back! Come back!” I am standing on the slope of Bride's breast. I am standing before the Mound of the Dark Grove. I am standing in a garden crying into a gaping emptiness. “Come back. Come back!”

Someone's arms encircle me.

“Esus?” I whisper. “Esus?”