Magdalen Rising (47 page)

The old archdruid was nothing if not nimble. He had proclaimed Lovernios's greatness. He had even (now that the man was safely dead) proclaimed his preference for Lovernios as his successor. In short, he was out on a limb, but he had no intention of letting the bough break under him.

“Ah Lovernios, Lovernios! whom the Mighty Ones have used in their implacable, inscrutable way. Did not he himself prophesy the birth of the misbegotten child? Did not the Mighty Ones speak through him proclaiming that a great hero would be born of this line, a hero who will stand, win or lose, against Rome, who will bring the
Combrogos
fame for all time in all memories? Think how his great heart, dedicated to saving the sovereignty of the
Combrogos,
must have broken. Ah Lovernios,
Lovernios, you have played your part, offering yourself in bitter and lonely sacrifice to the gods. But your name will live. Generations of bards will sing your praises!”

The court gave way to weeping and lamentation. The archdruid went on sounding his theme, adding meter and rhyme (
He was good!
) and by the time he was through the plot was rescued, the main character rehabilitated, and the story could be told as the archdruid deemed best for the good of
Combrogos.

“But what about Maeve Rhuad?” Moira recovered first. “What is to become of her? That is what we are here to decide.”

The archdruid focused on me once more. He sighed and shook his head, back in his sorrowful mode.

“Despite what may—or may not—have come to light concerning the, uh, paternity in this case, the fact remains that Maeve Rhuad has defied the collective authority of this body. She willfully stopped the quinquennial sacrifice and has therefore threatened the survival of the
Combrogos.
None of us fears his single death. But the
Combrogos
must live. Maeve Rhuad has betrayed us all and therefore deserves to die a traitor's death.”

There was an awful silence. In it, my will to live was born again. It wasn't so much that I feared death—though who doesn't. I would have died for love. Hadn't I already proved that? I might even have considered dying for King Bran or the
Combrogos.
But dying for the archdruid's convenience, so that he could tell the story
his
way, galled me. My story wasn't over yet. One way or another, one day or another, I was going to be the one to tell it.

“For Anu's sake!” Moira burst out. “She's only a young girl! Give her a chance. Consult the oracles! It is our sacred responsibility as druids and priestesses to act, not according to our own will as you accuse Maeve Rhuad of having done, but according to the will of the gods!”

The archdruid stroked his beard and made ruminative noises.

“You are right, sister,” he said at last. “Druid law was not made by human beings for petty human purposes; it was merely interpreted and understood by those trained to have discernment. Druid law is the law of the gods and the elements, the law of life itself. It shall be as you say. We will consult the oracles. We will cast the
coelbreni.”

There was a stir of excitement and whispering in the court. Somehow from within the folds of archdruid's cloak a bag of ogham sticks emerged. (And if he had wanted to pull rabbits or doves or trick cards
from his fluttering sleeves, he could have done that, too.) Then everyone grew still again as the archdruid squeezed his eyes shut and (without peeking) drew five sticks from the pouch, then cast them into the air.

To me the sticks appeared to fall in slow motion. I watched them spinning and wobbling through the air, bouncing a little as they landed, then skidding to their resting places. Five flat sticks carved with ogham lay on the ground between the archdruid and me. The three in the middle clustered, almost forming a triangle. The last one pointed directly at me. I tried to read the markings, but I was not close enough.

The archdruid waited for a moment, eyes still closed, arms outstretched in a rather stagy gesture intended, no doubt, to indicate his openness to divine inspiration and guidance. Then he opened his eyes and proceeded to the stick closest to him. Bending down, he examined it, then he moved on to the central three. He looked longest at the last stick. Everyone waited. You could hear occasional gasps when someone who'd been holding his breath had to breathe. Finally, the archdruid finished his scrutiny and returned to his place, where he stood for a time, letting the suspense build to an intolerable pitch.

“The whole story is here,” he spoke at last. “Laid out on the ground before us. This stick,” he said approaching the one nearest him, “is the past, the foundation.”

Though I was supposedly the subject, he read the sticks in relation to where he stood. The closest stick represents the past, and the farthest future. I wondered about that, but no one else seemed to notice.

“It bears the inscription for
quert,”
he went on. That's apple to you.
“Quert
means choice. Since it is in the position that represents the past, this ogham indicates that a choice has been made, a fatal choice. On this choice rests everything that follows.”

That's what the archdruid saw. But
quert
called up for me the magical orchard on the Shining Isle of Tir na mBan. I could almost smell the heady mix of blossom and fruit. I remembered how the scent of the orchard had followed Fand, Boann, and me far out to sea.

“These three sticks,” he continued, moving to the cluster, “will tell us the nature of the choice and its consequences. Here is
Ioho.”
That's yew to you. “The tree of death and rebirth, the tree that links the worlds of
abred, gwynedd,
and
ceugant.
Maeve Rhuad chose to tamper with these mysteries. She skewed the pattern; she disrupted the flow between past and future.”

I heard the archdruid's voice, but I was seeing the green-gold light under the yew trees. Beyond sight, I felt the heat of Esus's embrace. Esus, Esus.

“Next we come to
Koad.
The central stick, the heart of the story.”

The grove. A chill came over me. It was true what had happened at the Mound of the Dark Grove was at the heart of the story.

“The grove is a sacred place; the grove is all the knowledge of all the trees. The grove is also the collective wisdom of this body of druids and priestesses. When she stole the Stranger, Maeve Rhuad violated the grove. She scorned its wisdom.”

The wisdom that had left Esus alone, tied to a tree, waiting to die.

“And so it will come as no surprise that the third of these three central sticks is
straif.”

Straif,
strife, blackthorn, crown of thorns. The skull anointed with blood. The baby crowning, crowned with the burning circle of my sex.

“Straif
is the mark of ruin, of bitter fate. Maeve Rhuad has brought ruin not only to herself but to Lovernios and, it may be, to us all.”

He let the heinousness of my crimes sink in as he slowly approached the last stick.

“This last stick,” he said as he came to a stop in front of the fifth stick, “represents the future. It is this ogham that will answer the question: What are we to do with Maeve Rhuad. Are we all agreed to that?”

It was not really a question, and he did not wait for an answer in case anyone made the mistake of thinking it was.

“Mor,”
he pronounced.

Mor.
The only ogham that does not stand for a tree, the ogham of the great, wide sea.

“Esteemed sisters, beloved brothers, the judgment of the
coelbreni
is plain. Maeve Rhuad once claimed to be the daughter of Manannan Mac Lir, son of the wave. She now claims as father the druid Lovernios, who was swept out to sea by a wave she herself raised. Therefore, not this court, but the sea itself shall decide whether she lives or dies.”

The Crows and Cranes grasped, before I did, what the archdruid meant. There was a sound in the grove, like the rustling of leaves when the wind shifts or like the subtle change in the sound of surf when the tide turns. Then Nissyen began to sob out loud. Though her face remained immobile, tears streamed down Moira's cheeks.

“Maeve Rhuad.” The archdruid turned to address me. “Having broken the laws of this college, which are the laws of life, having meddled
in high mysteries, having willfully endangered the
Combrogos,
you shall from this moment forward be excluded from all our rites and sacrifices. You shall furthermore be exiled from the shores of the Holy Isles and sent beyond the ninth wave, there to meet the judgment or mercy of the sea.”

Now let the archdruid's words echo in your ears and ring through the rising wind as the firelit grove fades, giving way to the vast, rolling sea. I am standing on the shore. My small, flat-bottomed boat is waiting for me. The sky is purple, and a young crescent moon drifts down the West, a little boat, tiny in its own sea of sky. It is twilight, one of the magical times when the way opens between the worlds.

You have to admit, the druids have flair. Like all great performance artists, they know that timing is everything—especially if you have to catch the ebb tide so that it will take the exile's boat out to sea to meet the current that will take the boat farther still. It would be anti-climactic to have your exile wash up a few miles down shore—armed with a knife.

A knife is all I am allowed to take with me—(no one tells me what I'm supposed to do with it)—no other provisions of any kind. No food, no water. I am being launched from Porth Dafarch, a tiny beach on the southwestern shore of Holy Island. The beach faces open sea uninterrupted for miles and miles and miles by any point of land.

At this moment, the beach is crowded with Crows and Cranes. Further back, perched among the rocks and cliffs that rise on either side of the beach, the entire student body of the Druid College of Mona is assembled. No one is saying personal farewells; the occasion is too formal, but I am allowed a moment to scan the crowd. I find Viviane first. Her hair catches the light and glows. She and Branwen are standing together on a ledge partway up a cliff. Nissyen and the other first formers are clustered nearby. I try to catch everyone's eye, saving Branwen for last. When our eyes meet, Branwen lets go of Viviane's hand and stretches out her arms towards me. I lift my arms to her in return, and suddenly the cliffs come alive with upraised, outstretched arms as if some enormous flock of huge birds were about to take flight.

With tears in his eyes—(real enough, I suppose, though I can tell he's enjoying them)—the archdruid comes to me and places the knife in my hand. It's a beautiful knife, with a shining blade, and a bone handle carved with swirling birds and fishes. Then he and Moira, whose eyes are red-rimmed but dry, hand me into the boat.

“It's not that we don't love you, Maeve Rhuad,” begins the archdruid.

“I know, I know,” I cut him off. “It's for my own good.”

He shakes his head sadly. “No, Maeve Rhuad. For the good of the
Combrogos.”

Then everything happens very quickly. At the very moment the tide turns, the archdruid begins intoning the words of excommunication and exile. Six brawny men push my boat through the breakers to the swells beyond. As I glide out on the tide, the archdruid's voice follows in wisps and fragments on the wind. Then another sound, higher and wilder, wings across the water: women's voices singing a hymn to the new moon, singing a hymn to me:

Their voices follow me out to the open sea, into the deepening night.