Magdalen Rising (41 page)

“Um, no,” I said in some confusion.

Esus laughed. He didn't want to, but he couldn't help it. Once he started, he surrendered fully, and all the tense, rigid lines in his face and body released. Think of a spring river in full sunlight. His laughter was strong and bright and swift like that. You didn't have to know what it was about. It just carried you along, the sheer joy of it. I laughed, too, and by the time our laughter subsided, we were lying in each other's arms.

We held each other for a long time, without speaking. Surely beyond the curve of our backs, people were watching, waiting. Or maybe they had already reached their conclusions. Inside the circle of each other's arms, we had made a little world, a secret world of warmth and darkness and shared breath. I drowsed peacefully. Small Moon settled down to sleep.

“Maeve.”

I snuggled closer to show that I had heard him.

“There's something I need to ask you.”

“Ask,
cariad.”

“What did I say that day?”

“What day? There have been lots of days. You're not exactly known for keeping your opinions to yourself.” Him and his god, I added to myself. Big mouths, both of them.

“You know, at Arbitrations. When I went into a trance and spoke some sort of prophecy.”

“Oh, that day. But don't you know? Has no one ever told you? Have I never told you?”

“Tell me again, if you have.”

I felt my whole body stiffen with resistance. If you have ever been pregnant, you will understand. I was bringing life into the world. I needed to believe it was benign—or would be for my baby. No shrieking, black-robed priestesses, no burning groves, no rivers running with blood. Not in my child's world.

“You prophesied the ruin of the college,” I said tersely. “But, Esus, it's not going to happen now. Everything's changed now.”

Against my will, I suddenly remembered Branwen's face that day, her wild grief, as if, instead of merely prophesying, Esus had actually transported her, for an instant, to that terrible future. But now Branwen would never have to live it. Never. It was changed now. All changed.

“How can that be, Maeve?”

I could barely hear him. He had curled himself closer, his head between my breasts, his mouth at the top of my belly. Through veils of water and layers of flesh, Moon Calf probed him daintily with her foot.

“Because.” I took his head between my hands and made him look at me. “Because we have loved,
cariad.
You know it's true. You saw. My belly. The moon. The melting. The spring. Everything's all right now.”

He wanted to believe. I wanted to believe.

“Ah, Maeve, if only it were our baby. Yours and mine.”

“But she is, Esus, she is, if you'll let her be. The rest doesn't matter.”

“Maeve, please understand me. I do not mean to speak unkindly of the child you carry beneath your heart.”

His description touched me. It was more tender and intimate than any of the nicknames my classmates had made for her.

“But I am troubled,” he went on. “The child was conceived in violence and sin.”

I hated it when he talked about sin, but I checked my anger. Maybe because his head still rested between my breasts, the impulse to comfort and reason was stronger than the urge to smack him.

“Esus, listen to me. I didn't sin. I may have broken the college rules, but I didn't sin.”

“No, you are innocent,” he agreed. I could feel him chewing his cheek. He wasn't through. “But Lovernios is not. He has made you the scapegoat, the sin eater, the one who carries the sin for others. Ssh, don't interrupt. This is important. Remember I told you about the dream I had in Bryn Celli Ddu? How you bore the pain for me? Now you are carrying his sin for him.”

“That is the silliest thing I ever heard, Esus. Truly. I'm carrying a baby, for Anu's sake, not a sin. How can you carry a sin, anyway? It's invisible, without form or substance, just like your god. ”

“You're wrong, Maeve. Sin is the heaviest thing in the world. And you are carrying his.”

“I'm not!”

He was quiet for a time.

“Then maybe I am carrying his sin.”

“What do you mean?” Something about his tone alarmed me. “Do the Cranes still think you're the father? Oh, Esus, I tried to tell the truth, but I should have tried harder. I should have said his name. If anything happens to you because of me—”

“Hush, my dove,” he said. Now he cradled my head. “That's not what I mean. That's not what I mean at all. I don't care who thinks I'm the father. I told you, I wish I was.”

“Then what is it?” I drew apart so that I could look at his face.

“He follows me. Not all the time. Not to Caer Leb. But whenever he can, he follows me.”

I didn't need to ask who he was. My whole body knew. My heart slammed against my breast bone. My palms sweated. The baby kicked frantically.

“Esus, you've got to be careful. He must have guessed that you know what happened that night. Don't go anywhere alone. He'll try to kill you!”

Esus shook his head. “It's not as simple as that. I almost wish it was.”

“Why else would he be following you?”

“I don't know. It's almost as if, well, I get the feeling that he worships me, reveres me. He seems to be waiting for some sign or revelation. In class, he defers to me, asks me questions about my people, tries to get me to hold forth. He knows I don't eat pig meat. He's taken to bringing me delicacies I can eat. Sometimes he just stares at me, silently, for hours. Whenever he corners me alone, he tries to tell me things, only he never
says anything outright. Just hints at mysteries and secrets that he claims only I can understand. The others are not worthy, he says. And he keeps referring to the prophecies I made.”

“Has he ever said anything about that night in Bryn Celli Ddu?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Have you ever told him that you know he's the father?”

“No, I haven't. Maybe I'm being cowardly. Maybe if I could get him to confess the truth, it would help him. It would heal the terrible sickness in him. The sickness in his soul.”

“You a coward? You who stood beside me in front of all the Cranes and Crows? You gave him his chance that night. You said it yourself: It's his choice. You can't force him. It would be dangerous to try to force him. Haven't you noticed? He's crazy half the time. One part of him doesn't know what the other part is doing.”

“All the same, I can't help wondering if that's what I'm meant to do, if that's why I've come to Mona, to help this man face himself.”

“Esus!” I sat up, appalled. “Are you telling me that after all this time, you
still
don't know why you're here?”

“Oh, and you do, I suppose.” His tone had lightened. “So tell me, already.”

“No,” I said, relieved but keeping my back to him. “I'm tired of telling you. This time you tell me.”

“Hmm, let's see,” he teased.

Then he drew me back into his arms.

“You,” he said. “I came here to find you.”

Come. Stand apart with me for a moment. Look at them, the young Maeve and Esus, wrapped in each other's arms. Rapt in each other's arms. I see brightness all around them. The sweet, rich darkness of the body, then the blaze. Call it a halo, if you want to, but it's not confined to the head. Let them have this moment. Let it charge every cell of their beings. Never mind what happens next. He said it: There is enough trouble for each day.

Bliss has to keep.

W
HEN THE BAD NEWS came, no one was prepared for it. Are any of us, ever, no matter how many oracles we consult? Go ahead. Read the entrails. Interpret the patterns of bird flight. Cast the ogham sticks. When the news comes, it still knocks you flat.

It arrived at a prosaic time, not dawn, not dusk, not midnight but mid-morning. We were just taking a break after genealogy class, all of us standing and stretching beneath the oaks, when we saw a band of horsemen riding from the straits towards the tree-crowned ridge where classes met. Their pace was not leisurely, and, as they drew nearer, we saw that they were warriors fresh from some skirmish. Their hair, limed for battle, stood out from their heads, stiff but battered looking. Dried blood, dirt, and sweat overlaid their swirls of woad. When they saw us under the trees, they slowed their pace and one of them cried out: “Where can we find the archdruid?”

Before any of the Cranes could answer, Branwen surprised us all by rushing forward.

“Owain!” she greeted the warrior by name. “Do you come from my father?”

He looked at her, this massive spike-haired, blue-whorled warrior, the very sight of whom struck terror into his enemies. His face suddenly puckered and he began to bawl. His comrades joined him and the whole grove resounded with their wails. Branwen stood still, a column of silence, the blood draining from her face. Viviane and I moved simultaneously to support her. The warriors wailed on.

“Shut up!” I finally shouted.

Amazingly, they stopped as abruptly as they had begun.

“You must tell me,” said Branwen, her voice faint but commanding. “I am Branwen, daughter of Bran.” She went on to recite her full lineage; it seemed to strengthen her. “If my father has set sail for the Shining Isles of the Blest, you must tell me.”

“Branwen, daughter of King Bran the Bold, your father and my king is still living.”

“Anu!” Branwen let out her breath. For an instant, her muscles relaxed. Then she braced herself.

“King Bran has been taken captive. Unless—may the gods give him strength and cunning—unless he has escaped, he is on his way to Rome.”

I will never forget Branwen's single cry. Yet in my memory it is not so much a sound as a sight. In the meadow below the ridge, a lapwing, unperturbed by the passing of the warriors' horses, suddenly dove into the sky, echoing Branwen's cry as she strove to call attention away from her nest to her own unprotected breast.

None of us heard the full story until that night when the chief bard and harper had a rough draft ready to present to the college. Then, of course, you had to wonder what details might have been added or sacrificed to meet the demands of poetic form. The long of the story took several hours to recite. Since I never had the chance to memorize the poem in full, I'll give you the short of it.

King Bran the Bold had spent the winter, along with a number of chieftains from both the Silure and Ordovice tribes, guarding the mountain passes and making a series of raids on the Atrebates and on the Roman trading settlement. The narrative included a long description of the Atrebate king's new Roman-style villa, complete with under-the-floor heating. What is more, the king had built a temple over a spring and placed in it a carved Roman image of the goddess Sulis, who the Romans claimed was the same as their Minerva. Thanks to the Roman genius for plumbing, this statue of Sulis spouted water from its mouth and breasts. You might think this a clever device; apparently the king did. But most of the
Combrogos
thought it vulgar and as close to blasphemy as anything we were able to conceive: to take the living goddess of the spring, close her in, and make her literal and personified.

Bran did his best to send a message to the Roman settlers: You won't like it here. It won't be worth the trouble. Go home while you still can. He made a hard winter even harder, stealing stored grain, cattle, even carrying off hostages—most of whom he eventually returned. Bran had no stomach for killing, except in battle, and the hostages only made more mouths to feed. He hoped the freed hostages would unintentionally join his cause and urge their fellows to make a swift and permanent departure from the Holy Isles.

Bran's raids on the trading settlement were not without effect. But instead of saying the hell with this and packing it in, the business community called for protection of the empire's investments. The Holy Isles were too rich a source of gold, tin, and meat to be left unmolested by a sprawling empire that had to keep conquering to support itself in the manner to which it had become accustomed. The Romans certainly weren't going to let a few pesky raiders stand in their way. As soon as the weather permitted, the Romans sent military aid. Instead of raiding civilians, Bran found himself facing Roman troops in battle. What's more, the ranks of his warriors were dwindling as heads of
tuaths
returned to their homesteads to plant fields and move herds. Bands of roving warriors, stationary for the winter, took to roving again, and Bran could not count or count on his followers from one day to the next.

So he did what any great Celtic warrior king would do: he challenged the Romans to send their best man to meet him in single combat. (Here the chief bard warmed to his subject, and Bran's challenge went on for a good hour.) Whether it was cross-cultural misunderstanding or deliberate Roman deceit, when Bran went alone in good faith to meet his opponent, he was surrounded and captured, though not before he lopped off a few Roman heads. His companions rushed to his defense and fought fiercely, though they were greatly outnumbered and outmaneuvered. In the end, not only was King Bran taken captive, but two hill forts were lost to the Romans. The remaining Silure and Ordovice chieftains had now scattered.

The chief bard ended his poem with a heartrending description of Bran's attempt to kill himself rather than submit to the shame of captivity. But the Romans prevented him, binding him like a slave. I wanted to throttle him. Branwen didn't need to hear any more. Clearly, he was giving the nod to poetic convention rather than relaying an eyewitness account. Yet we all knew it was true. Bran would kill himself if he got the chance. If he had the misfortune to survive, he would be exhibited in chains. A noble savage. A titillating side show in the ongoing Roman circus.

All during this excruciating recital, I'd sat next to Branwen, who insisted on hearing it to the end. She had allowed me to hold her hand. It was so cold, I doubted she had any feeling in it. Several times she gripped my hand and dug her nails in. Other than that, she was perfectly still, though no one would have blamed her if she had screamed or torn her clothes. In fact, I sensed that everyone expected some display.
But that was not Branwen's way. She just sat with her back straight, her face immobile, her tears silent.

When the last strain of the harp quivered on the air, Branwen rose and bolted. She tried to shake off my hand, but I wouldn't let go. She ran all the way to the latrines with me puffing behind her. (I was almost full-term.) She sank to the ground, and I held her braids and stroked her brow while she was violently sick.

The Crows arrived in short order. Two of them tried to shoo me away, but Moira overruled them.

“Branwen will want her. They are foster sisters.”

At that moment, Branwen did not want anyone but her father. As the Crows bore her away to the hut, her restraint finally gave way and she fought the Crows with all her slender might.

“Let me go! Let me go! I must go to him. I must find him. He needs me,” she screamed.

At last Moira slapped her across the face. I might have sprung at the old Crow, if I had not glimpsed the sorrow in her eyes. Branwen quieted at once and stared at her in shock, which, of course, was the intended effect.

“Branwen, daughter of Bran,” said the Crow, and she recited Branwen's paternal lineage. “What is your father's wish for you?”

Branwen rallied, standing up straight and lifting her small chin.

“That I should be poet, priestess, and lawgiver. Druid and wise woman. Keeper of peace among the tribes and counselor in times of war.”

“And so, he would not want you to follow him in mad, futile pursuit. He would want you to go on serving his cause, our common cause, the protection of the Holy Isles, the honor of the
Combrogos.”

“That is what he would want,” Branwen whispered. “What I want.”

But I knew what she really wanted: her father's arms, the sweet, sweaty scent of him.

“Branwen, daughter of Bran the Bold.” The Crow's voice was almost tender. “Do not be ashamed to grieve. But also do not forget that to meet misfortune bravely, as your father has done, is greatness. It is the poet's work to see that such greatness is never forgotten.”

We went into the hut and Branwen let me hold her while she wept. The Crows bustled around, heating water to bathe her face, and preparing her a hot sedative drink. Finally she went to sleep in my arms. I held my hands over her heart and felt the fire of the stars flowing through
them. Branwen's heart was already broken, Dwynwyn had said. Maybe the fire would help keep it open so that poems could be born from it.

Gradually, the heat ebbed from my hands as Branwen slept more and more deeply. Though I was exhausted, I was also wide awake. I'd had trouble sleeping lately. The baby was now so huge, no position I found was comfortable for long. My cramped bladder needed frequent relief. Yet it was not discomfort that kept me awake now, but the stirrings of my own grief, which I'd ignored before, Branwen's grief being so much greater.

When I was sure Branwen would not wake if I moved, I got up and went to the trenches. For once no Crows attended me. I guess they knew I wouldn't go anywhere tonight with Branwen needing me. She was still fast asleep when I got back, so I decided to sit outside the hut for awhile. It was a starry night, not too cold. I thought of how just a year ago I had set out across the sea with Boann and Fand. I relived the day of our arrival, our meeting with King Bran, his kindness and gallantry. I remembered the feel of his arms as he lifted me to my feet, the shock of his maleness. He was the first man I'd ever seen. Isn't that what a father is: the first man? Before Bran,
father
only meant the man I had never seen. Bran was my first father, my foster father, who had adopted me with such casual generosity and delight.

For Bride's sake, for Anu's sake, for all our sakes, why couldn't King Bran have been the one to be shipwrecked on Tir na mBan? He wouldn't have wasted time (or timelessness) railing against his fate. There would have been parties every night, sword play,
laigen
casting, and chariot races every day. All his life Bran had been longing to go wonder-voyaging to the West. Now he was being dragged in the opposite direction to a world where time was measured by the years of some emperor's reign. I wept for Bran. I wept for Branwen. I wept for myself. Without my foster father, my first father, who would stand between me and the other father, the one who refused to claim me as his, the one who wanted me dead? Who would protect my child?

I must have dozed sitting up for a while. Someone was shaking my shoulder and hissing my name. I opened my eyes and saw Viviane kneeling beside me.

“Maeve, I've got to talk to you. Alone. Is Branwen asleep in there?”

“The Crows gave her a brew.”

“She'll be out for hours, then,” said Viviane. “Poor thing. There's no other comfort for her.”

I nodded. There didn't seem to be much more to say. I started drifting off again.

“Maeve, listen.” The urgency in Viviane's tone jerked me awake. “I've just come from the teaching grove. They're having a
major
faculty meeting. They've been going at it for hours and it's not over yet. Everyone is there, including the archdruid and the rest of the priestesses from Holy Island. Someone must have sent for them.”

“It's not that far as the Crow flies,” I quipped.

“This is serious, Maeve. Some of the others from our hut are still there, hiding in the trees. I didn't want to wait any longer to warn you.”

“Still trying to discharge that old debt, Viviane?” I actually yawned.

I don't know what had come over me. Was it just drowsiness or a much deeper fatigue that left me with a strange indifference to my fate? I felt as though I had a thin film of stickiness all over me. My reactions were slowing down. It was harder and harder to move. But you know what was happening, don't you? I was caught, caught in those fine, invisible threads.

“Do you want to hear what's going on at that meeting, or not?” Viviane demanded.

“Truthfully? I just want to go back to sleep.”