Magdalen Rising (45 page)

“Where are we going?” he wondered.

“Don't ask questions now.” I spoke just above a whisper. “And try not to make so much noise. You don't have to snap every twig. Think with your feet.”

For awhile we did just that. I was glad we were on a hill. The cloud cover was disorienting, and the occasional flash of lightning didn't help much, but I figured if we kept going down, we would reach the marshes. Or if we had come down the far side of the hill, we could always walk around the base. So far, I sensed we were heading the right way, and soon this sense was confirmed by other senses: I could smell the salt of the marshes, and biting insects began to swarm. Best of all, not too far away, I heard the whinny of a horse. Since horses don't usually hang out in swamps, I reckoned the Hibernian woman and her sister warriors were keeping their word and waiting for us. The footing was a little trickier now. I was so preoccupied with keeping us out of the bog that none of my senses, common or extra, registered an obstacle ahead until a flash of lightning revealed it:

Foxface, in full regalia, standing foursquare in front of us, so close that with another two steps I would have run into him.

Darkness fell again, but before I could even think of making a move, Foxface's hand closed on my arm in a furious grip. I could feel the blood vessels shattering. I would be marked like the barley bread with his fingerprints. Or Dwynwyn would. I suddenly remembered I was hidden in her shape. I was so grateful, if I could I would have bent over and kissed the bunions on her toes.

“Who is it that flees through the night with the holy one, the chosen of the gods? Who dares!”

His voice was terrible. But mine, I decided as I drew a deep breath, would be even more terrible.

“As you value your life, Lovernios, as you value your druid's hood and your poet's branch, as you value your feathers and your beaked mask, stand aside. I am about the business of the gods.”

My voice did indeed strike a deep, gritty note, as if the earth spoke, or a mountain.

“Who are you?”

“It is not for a mere mortal to know. If you knew who I was, your terror would be so great, your bowels would boil and burst their bounds.” (A suitably poetic way of saying you would shit your pants.)

Foxface was not as impressed as I could have wished. His grip did not relax. His palms did not sweat.

“Esus ab Joseph, if I saw you truly, who is this hag, and how do you come to be in her clutches?”

Clutches! Foxface was the one doing the clutching around here. I was merely holding Esus's hand.

“She would not tell me her name.”

‘Atta Boy, Esus. And it was true, too. I had never said whether I was Anna, Anu, or anyone else for that matter.

“But why do you go with her, a man of your honor and greatness?”

Foxface was sincere. He wasn't flattering. This could present complications.

“She has great powers.”

“That's right,” I asserted myself again. “Very great powers. Now get out of our way before I have to use them.”

“Not greater than yours, surely.” Foxface ignored me utterly. “Think about it. Would you choose to be a common fugitive? A no one? A nothing? And if I bring you back by force, think how your great offering will be debased. How can you, Esus, chosen of the gods, how can you allow an old hag, whoever she may be, to drag you from your destiny?”

“Destiny!” I said. “What do you know about destiny? Are you the Mórrígán that you know the hour of a man's death?”

“Save your breath, old woman. No matter what you say, he knows and I know that he is the chosen one. His hand raised up the blackened barley cake. His tongue tasted it. He is the one.”

“Sheep's pizzle!” I roared. “Answer me this, Lovernios. Answer me this, if you have testicles enough to tell the truth: From whose hand did he receive the burnt barley cake? From whose hand: the god's or your own?”

The words went home. I could feel the tremor that shook his body. I could smell the sudden sweat of fear even in the rain.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“One Who Knows,” I said in my most ominous tones.

At that moment the elements decided to get into the act. A terrific gust of wind blew back my hood and my white hair (or Dwynwyn's)
tumbled out onto the wind just in time to be illumined by another flash of lightning.

“Now I know who you are, Dwynwyn!” cried Foxface. “One who knows. Ha! You're just a meddling old woman and your talk is old woman's talk.”

“Old woman's talk indeed,” I agreed. “And if I chose to talk, ah, what tales I could tell, Lovernios, what tales. All the better for being true. All the better for being kept secret for so long. Would you like to hear a story?”

“Why would I want to listen to an old woman's stories? Come, Esus. I will take you back to the tree. No one need ever know you were gone.”

“Because, Lovernios, it is not my story I would be telling. It's your story, Lovernios. And everyone wants to hear his own story, even if he also fears it.”

“My story,” he repeated.

“Listen, Lovernios, listen. Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a young boy of great promise, who became a druid of even greater promise. He was ambitious, this druid, and he set sail for the vast western land beyond the the Isles of the Blest, the land where the sun goes each night. He dreamed of ruling there, no kings, just him, the greatest druid of all time. But he never got there, did he, Lovernios? He was shipwrecked, dashed on the rocks of one of the Shining Isles. It is called Tir na mBan.”

I felt that name take hold of him. He stood silent in the cold rain, his life passing before his eyes. I went on, making the most of what I knew, until the story of his life also became the story of mine. When I got to the night at Bryn Celli Ddu, he could not bear to hear it.

“No!” he cried out. “No!”

“Yes,” I insisted.

“Esus!” His voice was anguished. “You told her!”

“He did not.”

“Then it was
her.
That bitch. That's right. It all fits together now. I saw her on your island before, and she was just now sent there again to be kept out of the way. That was a mistake. The two of you are in it together against me. Ever since she came here, she's been out to destroy me. The bitch! The treacherous, vicious bitch—”

I could feel Esus tense. He would have struck Lovernios, but I gripped his hand harder and jumped in before he could make a move.

“Your daughter,” I said. “Your daughter. Do you hear me, man! Your daughter!”

“My daughter,” he wailed. “My daughter. But you can't tell me she is not trying to destroy me, like her bitch-mothers before her. They sent her to destroy me. I know it! I know it!”

“You know nothing,” I said. “If you knew anything at all, you would have known that all you had to do was call her daughter, and she would have answered with joy: father. As for destruction, she has no need to destroy you. You are destroying yourself.”

There was nothing more to say. The rain fell. A man wept.

“Let us pass, Lovernios.”

His hand fell from my arm.

W
E ARE RIDING, RIDING, riding through the rainy night, the horses making swift work of the ground I covered so painstakingly by foot. Not that there is an absence of pain here. My jouncing bones are so ill-padded, I know that I am still in Dwynwyn's shape. One of us is going to feel this ride tomorrow.

I am riding behind the Hibernian woman; Esus behind one of the others. We are heading southeast towards the straits, Abermenai Point to be exact, a spit of tidal land five miles past Dwynwyn's Isle where the Hibernian woman hopes to cross and hightail it into the mountains—if the tide is right. For awhile I worry about the tide. I strain my ears for sounds of pursuit. I wonder if Dwynwyn knows what's happening and how and when we will resume our shapes. But there comes a point in our dark, wet flight when I cease to think about anything. The ride seems endless.

Then the rain stops, and the air changes. As we splash across Afon Cefni onto the Maltreath sands, I see stars in the eastern sky just before they begin to fade. The open ground gives the horses a fresh burst of energy. The speed, the dawn, the smell of the sea come together in a rush of wind. Now Dwynwyn's Isle rises before us. I scan the hills for a glimpse of my own shape but see nothing as we race by and on and on, unimpeded, towards the silvery light outlining the dark mountains.

Soon Abermenai Point lies exposed before us, reaching towards the sands on the other side. The tide is at its lowest ebb. The first rays of sun shoot up behind the mountains as we race down the neck. A torch or maybe a stray spark of sun waits at the end of the land. Not sure what it is, the Hibernian woman begins to rein in her horse, but we are going too fast to stop abruptly.

Then suddenly—so suddenly that the earth and sky tumble one over the other as my stomach sails skyward and my knees buckle under me—I am back in my own shape, standing or struggling to stand on a spit of sand as three horses thunder towards me and come to a splashing halt in the straits. In another moment, Esus slips from his horse and runs to
me. We are in each other's arms, holding each other as close as we can with my belly wedged between us, both of us trembling and sobbing.

“Maeve,” he said when he could speak, “how did you know to wait for me here?”

“It would take a long time to explain.”

I wondered if I was still under a geis not to reveal that I had been the hag now that I was no longer in disguise. A glance at Dwynwyn told me nothing. She just stood, white hair gleaming in the growing light, staring at nothing with her seeing, unseeing eyes.

“Time,” said the Hibernian woman, dismounting and approaching us, “is exactly what we don't have.” I noticed she had liberated some fine new clothes as well as her horse. “It won't take long for our escapes to be discovered and out trail to be traced.”

“I was going to be the quinquennial sacrifice, Maeve,” Esus explained. “But Anu, Anna....” he hesitated.

The sun was rising; the drugs had worn off. He was starting to think again, and the Hibernian woman was right. We didn't have time for that.

“I know, Esus. I know.”

“The only thing we've got going for us is the tide,” the woman urged. “We've got to cross the straits and get into the cover of the mountains as quickly as we can. With any luck, they'll miss this tide. Of course, they can cross by boat, but that will take longer. Say your goodbyes and let's be off.”

Esus and I stared at one another.

“But Maeve is coming with us!”

“Now wait a minute.” The Hibernian woman turned to Dwynwyn. “Old Woman of Beara, you told me nothing about hauling a woman-child about to whelp. The weight alone would slow us down, not to mention I'm no midwife.”

“It is true,” said Dwynwyn. “I told you nothing.”

During this exchange, the world collapsed around me. No one else could hear it. But I did, in the lap of each wave, in the cry of the first bird. How had I failed to foresee this moment?

“Maeve comes with us!” Esus's voice broke. “Or I don't go. I can't leave her here alone. To face them alone.”

Still, I did not speak. I looked to Dwynwyn again, who now looked back at me intently but gave me no sign. The Hibernian woman, with her warrior's discipline, reined in her restlessness, sensing that there
was something here she did not understand. Her companions waited silently.

Then we heard the sound of hoof beats, still in the distance but moving closer.

“Go, Esus.” I bore down and pushed the words out. “She is right. You can't outrun them with me about to have a baby.”

“No, Maeve.”

“You must, Esus. Anna says so.” I appealed to Dwynwyn for help, though now she no more resembled Anna the prophetess than any old woman does another. But she said nothing, and Esus paid no attention to her.

“Maeve, my dove, aren't you the one who told me I was sent here to find you? Aren't you the other half of me?”

The sun shot over the rim of the world and caught in my tears, blinding me. Still, I could hear the sound of hooves, pounding, pounding.

“Maeve, we are lovers.”

“You are lovers.” Dwynwyn finally spoke, coming to stand beside us, one hand on each of us. “You are lovers, but not just of each other. You are the lovers of the world.”

“We can't love if we're apart!” Esus insisted.

“We can't love unless we part.” (I had no idea what I meant by that.)

“Not to put too fine a point on it,” the Hibernian woman interrupted, “but it's now or never.”

“Go without me,” said Esus shortly.

“As you will.” The Hibernian woman turned to remount.

I took a breath of air so deep I felt as if a whirlwind had entered me. Then I spoke in Aramaic: “Yeshua ben Miriam. In the name of the unnameable one, the god of your forefathers, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I command you to go.”

We were both stunned, our tears stopped in their tracks.

“Maeve” was all he said.

He kissed my mouth, a kiss that was as much a blow as a kiss yet no less tender for that. Then he hurled himself onto the black horse behind the Hibernian woman.

I watched them gallop into the straits, Esus, no equestrian, holding on for dear life. I had to stuff my fist into my mouth to keep from crying after him. I would have stood watching till he was out of sight, hoping that he'd become sure enough of his seat to look back and give me one more glimpse of his face, but Dwynwyn had other plans for me.

“Quick!” She grabbed my arm. “We've got work to do.”

She dragged me from the point back across the sands.

“Don't look back,” she commanded.

As if I were leaving instead of being left. As if I were Lot's wife from one of the stories Esus had told me. 0 let me be a pillar of salt. Let me dissolve on the next tide. A little more salt in the great salt sea. Let me go. Let me go.

“Hurry!” Dwynwyn urged. “Hurry!”

I stumbled after her.

“Now.” Dwynwyn halted after we'd climbed a high dune more than half a mile from the point. “This should be far enough.”

We turned. I strained for a glimpse of Esus, but the horses and riders had disappeared into the morning mists on the opposite shore. Then I caught sight of the pursuers racing full tilt towards Abermenai Point.

“Call the tide,” Dwynwyn instructed. “And the wind.”

“What?” You can hardly blame me for being a little slow on the uptake.

“You are the daughter of the eight greatest weather witches in the world. You can do it. The women and your Esus have already reached the other shore. You'll win them precious time if you can stop those riders from crossing. Don't think. Just do it. Call the tide. Call the wind. Call the rain. Now! Let it rip!”

And I did. I don't know how I knew what to do. I don't even know what I did. Somehow I opened: my mouth, my arms, my heart, every orifice and pore, every cell. Standing there howling on the dune, I met and mated with the elements. They took on my passion; I took on their power.

Now. Look. The riders wheel around to confront the source of a terrible sound. In an instant they see they are no longer the pursuers but the pursued. The tide is coming in, not slowly, inch by inch, but as a huge, black wall of water, a tidal bore driven by a furious wind and a sobbing rage from the depths of the sea. They turn inland and ride as fast as they can towards higher ground.

All but one rider. Dismounting, he sends his horse after the others. For one moment, he stands still. Then with his arms open, he walks straight towards the bore. As if his eyes are mine, I see the black water blot out the sky. Then the ocean inside me bursts its bounds. Hot tears course down my thighs.

I don't know where I am. But that's not true. I do know. I am inside my own body, deeper than I've ever been before. I am imprisoned in it. My body is the earth, and we are surrounded by it. There's Dwynwyn and Moira on either side of me. The air is thick and close with Crows' wings. It is always night inside my body. A fire burns; water steams; herbs smoke. My body rocks crazily, almost colliding with the moon and the stars as tidal bores of pain rush through it and then ebb, then rush again. Don't fight, they are saying. Don't fight. Who would I fight anymore? Take me, take me. Finish me.

But it doesn't end, not the night, not the waves. Then I start to ride them. Wave after wave after wave. They are taking me home to the Shining Isle of Tir na mBan. That's why it's so dark. I am sailing the sunless sea, and that bright light on the shore is Grainne of the golden hair. Now I see the others, less distinct, but there, surrounding her. And behind them all, the great woman-shape of Tir na mBan, Bride's breasts milky with cloud, the sloping thighs and the dense, perfumed garden between them. Look. The water lapping at the shore is thick and red. My mothers crouch and dip their fingers into the blood. They paint the rocks. They paint themselves with the blood, my blood.

“All right, Maeve Rhuad. It's time.”

I am being gathered in Crows' wings. Some of them are holding my arms, others my legs. I am squatting without having to bear my own weight.

“Bear down,” Dwynwyn says. “Look at the fire. Let your body open like a flower.”

She has it all wrong. The flames flutter like petals, butterflies feeding on flowers, soft, delicate. The fire is inside me. The sun is inside me, huge, hard, burning. I am the earth heaving; I am the sky torn by lightning; I am the husk of the seed splitting open.

“Push, bear down. Push.”

“Grainne,” I scream. “Grainne!”

I see her face in the fire. Her lips form words: Little Bright One, Little Bright One. In the flickering of a flame, I remember pushing through the dark river inside her to the mouth of the world, through the soft, opening petals.

“Little Bright One. Little Bright One,” she calls to me.

I am opening wide, torn, bleeding, blossoming, a bloody, blown rose.

“She's crowning! Bear down once more, Maeve Rhuad. There!”

The hard head slides free, and the body slips after it. Before I see, I hear the robust squalling of a tiny, new storm.

“Praise be to Bride.”

Moments later that strange, purple, undersea creature, the afterbirth, is born. The Crows ease me back down. Then in my arms Dwynwyn places the little flame, the little flower, red, wrinkled, utterly lovely. My daughter. Mine.

“Don't,” a Crow hisses. “Don't let her nurse the child. It will only make it harder for her.”

“Let them have this moment,” Dwynwyn countermanded. “Let them drink deep of it. There will be more than enough thirst to come. Let this memory be a secret spring.”

I barely hear her words; I don't consider their meaning. I am stroking my daughter's fiery hair. She latches fiercely onto my breast as if she will never let go. I whisper in her ear her secret name. As she suckles, we fall into a deep sleep.