Magdalen Rising (42 page)

“Oh, fine!” Her sigh of disgust was so gusty it no doubt disturbed the leaves in the thickets near the straits. “May the children of Don be my witness, may the standing stones, and the ancient groves of oak bear witness, also, that I have done all I can to warn this—”

“Oh, you haven't tried all that hard,” I interrupted querulously. “If anything happens to me, it will still be all your fault.”

“Maeve Rhuad, you are impossible!” To prevent herself from screaming she whispered; her utter exasperation with me resulted in a lot of spit. “I don't know why I or anyone else should want to save your ridiculous carcass. Perhaps I'd better not interfere any further. Maybe you were made and meant to be a sacrifice. Anu knows you're fat enough!”

“It's not all fat,” I pointed out. “After all, I'm due to have a baby any day—”

Then, suddenly, what she had just said went home. Winning a spat with Viviane no longer seemed so vital.

“What did you say about a sacrifice?”

“Oh, do I have your attention now?”

“If you insist.” I was keeping up a good front, but my heart was pounding. Inside me, Small Moon, sensing the change, shifted uneasily. “Begin at the beginning. Please,” I added.

Viviane set the scene, and I could picture it clearly: the orange of firelight, the black and white of the Cranes and Crows; the shadowy trees, magically stilled, so that it seemed as if they attended, too; Viviane and the others, hidden behind trunks or high in limbs, scarcely breathing. Together the Cranes and Crows dissected the latest disaster to the
Combrogos:
one of the strongest kings, with the power to lead and unify tribes, was now captive. The rest of the resistance had disbanded. Roman soldiers occupied two hill forts. Though no one invoked it, Esus's prophecy of the ruin of Mona hung in the air of the grove, vivid in every mind's eye.

“There have been strange omens for almost a full-turning of the year,” the archdruid observed. “Even before their feet touched the ground of Mona, the wings of the Cranes announced their coming.” Everyone knew which
they
he meant. “Let us consider the two: One bright; one dark. One female; one male. One from the North and the West; one from the South and the East. Can anyone doubt that the gods are among us and that mystery walks in our midst? Moreover, it is a quinquennial year. It may be time, indeed it may be exactly the right time, to consider making the great sacrifice. All signs indicate that the
Combrogos
face grave danger, maybe even destruction at the hands of our enemies. We need someone to carry a potent message for us to the great protectors of the Holy Isles. Here are these two: one from the Otherworld; one from another world. If they submit to three-fold death in the fifth year...well now, two and three makes five. Hmm. Very pleasing. Very propitious.”

I'm telling you, arithmetic was a lot more dangerous in those days.

Vivane didn't wait to hear what the other Crows and Cranes thought of the archdruid's math skills. She slipped from her tree and ran to warn me.

“I don't get it,” I said, more dumbfounded than frightened. “If they think Esus and I are so mysterious and powerful, practically gods ourselves from the sounds of what the archdruid said, why would they want to sacrifice us? You'd think they'd want to keep us around, maybe offer a few sacrifices to us, but—” I gestured, at a loss for words.

“I'm not sure I get it either,” Viviane admitted. “I mean, we're still learning genealogies. But I get the impression that it's not that you are
a god now; the sacrifice makes you one. Having representatives in the Otherworld can only help the
Combrogos.”

“I don't see how,” I said. “Even if I became a god after death, why would I want to help the people who strangled me, stabbed me, and drowned me? Does that make any sense to you?”

Viviane looked nonplused. In every religion there are questions you are simply not supposed to ask. If you're properly indoctrinated, it won't occur to you to ask them. But my background had been a little irregular. As you may recall, I had always wondered how that skull got in the well. Looked like I might be about to find out.

“Ideally, you're supposed to want to, you know, offer yourself.”

“But what if I don't!”

“They might have ways of persuading you.”

“Such as?” I certainly drew a blank.

It was just before dawn and the warm night had turned chilly. I shivered. I was so cold and exhausted, everything seemed unreal. I could hardly believe I was having this conversation. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I'd wake up soon.

“Well,” Viviane pondered, taking the question more seriously than I liked. “Wouldn't you consider sacrificing yourself if it could stop the Roman troops, if it could save King Bran?”

Despite the chill, tiny beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. The whole picture changed, becoming at once more simple and more complex. If my death could save King Bran's life, would I, should I.... But my baby! What about my baby? Didn't that skew the archdruid's neat little formula? Three and three makes six. So there. He needed to do the problem over. The
Keltoi
had no doctrine of archdruidical infallibility. Took the Romans to invent something as stupid and arbitrary as that. I gave myself a shake and lightly smacked my own cheek to rouse myself. It wasn't a done deal yet.

“What about the barley cake?” I asked. “The burnt piece of barley cake? I thought everyone was supposed to have a shot at the big one?”

“I suspect that may be a formality.” Viviane furrowed her brow. “Especially in a case like this one, where it's so clear—”

“I don't think it's so clear,” I objected. “What about the gods having a say in who they want? I thought that was the point of the burnt piece. How can the Cranes and Crows be so sure the gods want me? As for Esus, he's not even one of the
Combrogos.
He doesn't believe in our gods.
If he met any of them, he'd start right in by telling them they were false idols.”

“Don't ask me, Maeve.” Viviane threw up her hands. “I don't know about the Stranger, but it's beyond me why the gods would want anyone as pig-headed as you. I'm just telling you what I heard.”

I found Viviane's insult oddly comforting.

“Viviane, why did you come to tell me? I mean, apart from your owing me your life and all that. If you really think having me sacrificed could save the
Combrogos,
why would you want to warn me?”

“To be honest, I didn't take the time to think it through. As soon as I heard you might be a candidate for sacrifice, well, I didn't think about the
Combrogos.
I just thought: Maeve. I've got to tell her. That's all. I don't know if what I did was right or wrong.”

“Well, thank you,” I said awkwardly. “No more debt now, okay? I just want to ask you one more thing. Do you think, do you really think I, we, well, the sacrifice could save King Bran? Or anyone?”

I tried to grasp it: My body, Esus's body killed three times over. Did the blood seep into the ground to become part of some underground river, some secret, vital artery that connected everything, linked and changed all fates?

And my baby. What about my baby?

“I can't answer you, Maeve,” Viviane was saying. “Talk to the Crows. Talk to Nissyen.”

But I knew who I needed to talk to. I had wasted too much time already. Grasping Viviane's shoulder, I hoisted myself to my feet. The first light reddened the eastern sky.

“Stay with Branwen, Viviane.”

“Don't rush off and do something crazy, Maeve. Haven't you learned yet not to be so rash?”

“I'm not sure I'm going to live long enough to learn anything more. You know I have tell him, Viviane, just the same as you had to tell me.”

“Let me go, Maeve. I can reach him faster.”

Would it have made any difference if I had heeded her?

I had already started to run, moving as fast as I could with a rolling ungainly gait, racing the sunrise. I had some foolish, unformed notion that if only I could find him in that soft, malleable time before light made everything hard and harsh, we could hold the blear-edged world in our hands and change the shape of our fates.

Without stopping to think, I headed straight for the yews. My instinct was right; he had gone there, too. Or had intended to. I came over the last rise in the fields and saw the yews, black and spidery, against the southeastern sky that now brimmed with gold. Then I stopped in my tracks.

Between me and the trees was a knot of druids, white robes gleaming against the darkness of the yews behind them. They were moving slowly in my direction. I say knot, but their formation was more a circle. They walked surrounding someone in the center, someone slight with dark, springy hair. Who else? To Esus's immediate left, in this ringed procession, walked the archdruid. I recognized his staff. On his right—I knew by the chill in my bones even before I could see the gleam of the red beard—was Foxface. As they drew nearer, I could see that Esus was not bound in any way, but I could not help feeling that he was a prisoner. Now they were close enough that I could hear the sound and rhythm of their voices. No one was angry; I heard no fear. The tone of the conversation was speculative, philosophical. I did not like the sound of it. I liked it even less when I could finally see Esus's expression. He appeared interested, engaged, curious. A look I knew all too well.

Esus was the first of the men to notice me. The others were all too intent on him. He looked straight at me, his mouth curving almost imperceptibly in a smile for me. His name was on my lips. Before I could call to him, he shook his head, ever so slightly, never breaking his stride. Plainly he hoped the druids would pass by without seeing me. Before I could decide what to do, Foxface, attuned to Esus's every nuance, glanced back in my direction. When he saw me, he stopped and stared, whether involuntarily or not I'll never know. Then everyone turned towards me.

At that moment, the sun spilled over the horizon. The long, twisted shadows of the yews stretched towards us.

“Ah, Maeve Rhuad.” The archdruid spoke to me pleasantly, as if he were some benign old man out for a morning walk, pleased at the sight of a fresh young thing.

“Take me, too!” I blurted out. “Wherever you are taking Esus, take me, too!”

The archdruid made sorrowful clucking noises that were soon drowned out by the scream of Crows. Great black wings sent shadows wheeling over the landscape and across our upturned faces. All at once
I was surrounded, too. The Cranes and the Crows nodded to each other politely, then led Esus and me away. From each other.

Esus went quietly. Me they had to drag, kicking and screaming. Pregnant as I was, I weighed a whole lot more than he did.

L
ET THE IMAGE OF me being hauled off by the Crows fade away. And let the picture of Esus corralled by the druids dissolve.

See instead the huge, radiant sky as the time of Shoots-Show becomes the Time of Brightness. Now look at the new green in the fields and the groves, the buds in orchard and hedgerow about to explode. Coaxed by the strong, young sun, the whole earth quivers on the brink of its long, exquisite orgasm.

Esus and I are small, small. We are dancing particles in the great pattern. Short-lived as mayflies, as May flowers. Try to see for a moment the way the druids saw. Tide going in, tide going out. See the earth ablaze with green life. Life that sustains the
Combrogos.
Now see the bright blood spurting, arcing and pouring into the earth. Glory in it. Glory in the great meeting and mating of life with death.

By the time the tribes had gathered for
Beltaine,
only two days away now, I had almost persuaded myself of that larger, impersonal perspective. How can that be, you ask, when I was last seen pitching a fit among a murder of Crows? When the Crows got me back to Caer Leb, they forced a brew down my throat. To calm me, they said, so that I wouldn't harm the child. No one seemed to worry about whatever was in the brew crossing the placental barrier. I'm telling you, drugs are nothing new. They've always been used to help people accept the unacceptable—or the inevitable, if you prefer. Drugs can be a mercy. But you should always ask yourself, who's administering them? And why? Who is being relieved? Of what?

I think the Crows intended mercy, albeit with some side benefits to the powers that be. And if you have to face the possibility of going to a threefold death, it's easier to contemplate if you're stoned out of your mind. In fact, in my youth and strength, my own death, threefold or not, did not seem very real to me. But the loss of Esus did. If the only way for me to be with Esus was to die with him, then on with the sacrifice. Despite my irregular background, I was Celt enough to see death not as a dead end but as a doorway. When we passed the portal, maybe we
would be gods. Maybe we would find the Tree of the World and twine beneath it as the snakes twined in its branches, while its golden leaves drenched us with light.

It was easy to make these pictures as I drifted in a drugged haze. Besides, listen, I was a teenager in love. Larger than life. Romeo and Juliet hadn't been dreamed of yet. But they had nothing on Maeve and Esus. Double sacrifice! What a story.

But as the drugs wore off, my doubts revived. There was one literally pressing matter that troubled me, one major boulder in the narrative flow. Though I was staying in the Crow's hut—supposedly because of my delicate condition—I had the freedom of the caer. So when everyone was busily preparing to decamp for the
Beltaine
festivities at Llyn Cerrig Bach, I sought out Nissyen for a talk.

“I don't dare walk with you,” said Nissyen. “Let's just sit on the embankment.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But I'm not going to run away this time. I doubt I could even if I wanted to.”

“That was an impressive bit of shape-shifting, fine as any I've seen. I've always said you were a natural. Watching you bound away in your doe form was worth all the grief I got for letting you give me the slip that day.”

“I'm sorry, Nissyen. I didn't know you got into trouble on account of me.”

“It's no matter, Maeve, my heart. Pay it no mind. I am the one to sorrow.”

He meant my impending tragic death, I supposed. One tear pooled at the corner of my eye. I did not let it fall. I would be brave.

“I have failed you,” he went on. “We all have, but especially I have. I failed to protect you. Then, when you tried to tell me the truth—”

“The truth?” I wasn't sure what he was talking about.

“About who got you with child.”

“I don't think you could have done anything about it even if I had told you then,” I said.

“No, I don't suppose I could have,” he said ruefully.

“But I do want to ask you something. It's about my baby.”

“Due any day now,” he remarked with forced cheerfulness, as if I were any expectant mother.

“Yes, but what if it isn't...well, born on time?”

“Babies are notorious for choosing their own time, Maeve. Best let nature take its course.”

I supposed some people did regard human sacrifice as natural, but I wouldn't have expected Nissyen to be one of them.

“I mean, what if it isn't born before
Beltaine.
Before the sacrifice.”

“What are you getting at, Maeve? What sacrifice?”

“What sacrifice!” I exploded.
“The
sacrifice. The great sacrifice. The quinquennial sacrifice by triple death. I know the Cranes and Crows had a meeting about it. Weren't you there? Didn't you know?”

“By the paps of Anu, Maeve Rhuad, were you there? We all thought you were watching over Branwen.”

“I wasn't there, but I have my sources.”

“I don't know why the august faculty of this college doesn't take the simple precaution of beating the bushes before confidential meetings.”

“Nissyen, please. You have to tell me before someone drugs me again. I need to know. Will they sacrifice me on
Beltaine,
even if my baby hasn't been born yet?”

“Sacrifice you! Who says anyone's going to sacrifice you?” Nissyen blustered.

“Oh, come on, Nissyen. Don't try to spare me. I know that's what the meeting was about.”

“Listen to me, Maeve Rhuad.” Nissyen took my face between his hands and made me look at him. “You must hear me and believe me. You are not going to be sacrificed. I swear it on the very ground of these Holy Isles.”

“I'm not?”

Have you ever woken from a dream of death? I don't mean the frightening kind where something awful pursues you, but the kind where you feel you're on the verge of some great adventure, about to discover all the secrets life keeps hidden. You're a little disappointed, aren't you? When you're about to die, everything is pure, simple. When you know you're going to live, you have to answer the same relentless question over and over: Now what?

“No, you're not.” Nissyen patted my cheeks, then let go of my face.

“But Viv—that is, my source.”

“You can say Viviane. I won't report her.”

“Well, was she lying then? She said the Cranes and Crows kept talking about the two, the dark and the bright, the male and the female. Esus and me. Who else could it be?”

“She wasn't lying to you, but that discussion wasn't conclusive.”

“You mean they changed their minds?”

That flicker of disappointment was giving way to vast relief. This might be a decision I could live with, so to speak. I'd have the baby. Then Esus and I could quietly leave when the festival crowds began to disperse.

“You may be the misbegotten child carrying the misbegotten child,” Nissyen was saying. “There seems to be general agreement on that point, always excepting myself. But the prophecy said a hero would spring from this line. Never mind if it's the last hero to stand against Rome. If the Romans are coming, the death of this child will not stop them. Better a last hero than no hero.”

“But, Nissyen, what if I had the baby today? Then I would just be myself, the bright half of the pair, the one from the Otherworld,” I quoted.

“Indeed, your origins were a consideration and, in the last analysis, a sticking point. How can we send you to the gods when they have already sent you to us? Manannán Mac Lir is your father; the warrior witches, your mothers; the mantle of Bride is about your shoulders. Would it not be ingratitude to send you back?”

I preened a bit. A gift from the gods to mere mortals. That's me.

“That's the high poetical version,” Nissyen chuckled. “The other way to look at it is that they couldn't handle you in the Otherworld, so they sent you here, and they're not in a hurry to have you back again. Either way, the conclusion is: better to leave well alone where you're concerned. If you apply yourself to your studies, you'll keep your place in college. If not, you can have your pick of chieftains, be a warrior queen like your namesake.”

“Did it ever occur to anyone that I may have plans of my own? I don't need any old lime-dipped, woad-painted hulking warrior. I have Esus! I'll go where and when he goes.”

Nissyen sighed and reached for my hand, covering it with his own.

“Maeve, my heart, I am not at liberty to tell you more. But my loyalties, which should belong to the college alone, are all askew where you're concerned. You with your hazelnut eyes and the bright salmon swimming in them. I never had a daughter in all my wandering—not one that I know of. You are the daughter of my heart. What do I care what happens to me now? What do I care if they set me out to sea in a tiny coracle? Let the gods take me—”

“Nissyen!” I felt he was getting a little carried away with his poetry of his own fate. “Tell me. Whatever it is. Just tell me.”

“Maeve, the Stranger—”

“Esus.”

“He is the one. Or he will be if the gods so choose and the burnt piece falls to him.”

“No!”

“Dear heart, the oracles have been consulted. All the signs point to him. He is the one with the power to bend time, to change the ending of the story. If he submits to the threefold death, untold power will be his. It may be that he is or will become the god whose name he bears.”

Viviane had been right. It's dangerous to be named for a god.

“And if he refuses?”

Nissyen shrugged. “Maeve, he's a foreigner. Not one of the
Combrogos.
His admission to the college is unprecedented. That he's been initiated into druid mysteries is controversial to say the least. Despite his remarkable aptitude, it seems unlikely that he will live out his lifetime in the Holy Isles serving the
Combrogos
as a druid. He has indicated no intention of doing so. A druid education is an enormous investment. You must understand that, Maeve. It is the bestowing of the greatest treasure. It is a high and sacred trust. If the Stranger were to leave the Holy Isles and take our secrets to other lands and peoples—”

“You talk as if he were a thief!” I said, outraged. “And as for your precious druid wisdom, what makes it so precious apart from your hoarding of it? If it's so wonderful, why not let it flow freely into the world, like the sacred rivers?”

“To
Rome?”

“Esus would never betray the
Combrogos
to Rome.”

“If he were captured and tortured?”

“So why didn't any of you think of that before you accepted him into your bloody college!” I demanded.

“The auguries—”

“The auguries say whatever the druids want them to say.”

“Maeve, Maeve,” Nissyen lamented. “I won't say you're not right insofar as you are able to understand. I am merely telling you that to them—us—the druids, I mean, this sacrifice looks like the best solution to a sticky problem. No one means any disrespect to the Stranger. We all agree that he is a remarkable young man with great powers. The
great sacrifice, if you can bring yourself to see it that way, is the highest honor, the greatest tribute the druids can pay.”

“And an easy way out for everyone but Esus.”

“Perhaps for him, too, dear heart.”

“I don't call the triple death an easy way out.”

“No, I don't suppose you would, but as you yourself might tell us, things are not always what they seem.”

He was right about that. I sure could tell everyone a few things. Maybe I would. Maybe it wasn't too late.

“Nissyen.” I decided to change tack. “What part did Lovernios play in this decision?”

“He is a senior and distinguished member of the college,” Nissyen hedged. “Naturally he had his chance to speak.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What did he say?”

“Maeve, am I a first former, spying on secret meetings and spreading misinformation based on my limited understanding of matters over my head?”

“No, you are not. Your information should be much more reliable. Go on. What did he say?”

“Maeve, you are asking me to break confidence.”

“So? Haven't you already done that? What about how you never had a daughter, and I'm the daughter of your heart and never mind if they put you in a boat?”

“You wouldn't really want that to happen to me, Maeve,” he reproached me. “On the other hand, I did say that, yes, and I meant it, too. All right, I'll tell you, but don't repeat what I say. Lovernios believes the Stranger to be a god. He is the one who made the strongest case for sacrifice.”