Magdalen Rising (6 page)

“Oh, no,” I assured her, though undoubtedly my mothers would have loved to get their hands on a hero like Cuchulain. “That was Scathach and her daughter.”

“Well, then, these mothers of yours, whose side are they on?”

“Oh, yours, of course!” I said hastily. They'd never said so explicitly, but that seemed to be the bias of their narratives. “They want you to win the Brown Bull.”

At the mention of the Brown her eyes lost their focus, and I sensed she was not seeing me anymore.

“The Brown, the Brown. I must have the Brown. There are those who don't understand. They think this is just another cattle war, and I'm just a greedy, bloodthirsty bitch. Who knows what the bards will sing in times to come or how people will misunderstand my story? But you—” She fixed her eyes on me again. “Hear me now and understand. The White Horned bull was mine, born into my own herds. And when it left my herds to join Ailill's—in pursuit of a certain young heifer, I'll vow—people said it was because the White Horned did not want to be ruled by a woman! Now, do you think I can let a slur like that stand? My sovereignty is at stake.” Queen Maeve stepped closer to me. “Your sovereignty is at stake and the sovereignty of every woman. There's only one way to restore the balance between Ailill and me, between all women and men. There's only one bull of worth equal to the White Horned Bull of Connacht.”

“The Brown Bull of Cuailgne!” I cried, stirred by her speech.

“Exactly!” She beamed at me. “Now what was it you came to tell me? Have your mothers foreseen my victory?”

I was uncharacteristically speechless. In all likelihood the Ulsterman, temporarily recovered from the curse of Macha (five nights and four days of labor contractions), were massing against Maeve even now. And I didn't know if she'd consider it her victory when the two bulls fought to the death. Think about it: would you want to tell someone the end of the story when she was in the middle? I didn't, especially not after what she'd said about prophetesses.

“Speak up, girl!”

“Actually,” I said, “I started out on Tir na mBan seeking a vision of the Appended One.”

“The Appended One?” she puzzled.

“I wanted to see one of the people who piss standing up,” I explained. “We don't have them on Tir na mBan.”

“Oh!” She laughed a deep, throaty laugh. “A man, you mean! One of the ones with the cock-a-doodle-doos, the joy sticks, the magic wands.”

It occurred to me that I had come to a veritable fount of information.

“Is it true,” I ventured, “that you go with thirty men a day or go with Fergus once?”

“Thirty men a day!” Her breasts and belly shook with laughter. With the motion the patterns of woad became positively psychedelic. “Is that how my fame is sung? Well, I won't deny it, then.”

“What is it like to go with a man?”

“Colleen,” she said, “I don't need prophecy to know that you're not long for Tir na mBan. What's it like? Think of having a flame-tipped spear rushing inside you. No, no, dear, it doesn't hurt. I don't mean that. It's flash after flash of lightning and the dark, weighty roll of thunder. Sparks fly upward. Stars burst in your breasts. The darkness blazes. And if it's really good, the fire comes right up out through the top of your head. It beats a cattle war all hollow. Believe me, I'd rather fuck than fight any day. But you can't have great sex without sovereignty. Never forget that!”

“Maeve? Maeve!” Just then a voice called. A dark sounding voice with a timbre I'd never heard. It gave me goose flesh. “Hurry up. The hosts are massing. You said you only had to pee.”

“That's Ailill. I've got a battle to fight. Wish me luck.” She turned away.

“Let me go with you!” I called. “My mothers haven't trained any male heroes lately, but they've raised me to be a hero.”

On the brink of her famous battle, Queen Maeve of Connacht turned back for a moment.

“I thank you for that, colleen, but you're not armed and—” She broke off and a strange look came over her face. Under the woad she looked a little green. “A great warrior queen will spring from your line, whose fame will be equal only to my own.” Then she shook herself like a dog that's just come out of the water. “I hate it when I have second sightings. I'm a warrior, not a prophetess. No, don't tell me what I said. I don't want to know. Just tell me your name again before you return to Tir na mBan.”

“I've outgrown my childhood name, and I haven't found a new one yet.”

“Ah,” she cried. “Then it will be my pleasure to name you for myself. I can tell you are a colleen after my own heart, more like to me than my own daughter Findbhair. So I bestow on you the brave name of Maeve until such time as another name shall claim you.”

And she re-traced her steps and gave me a loud smacking kiss on both cheeks, and then on the mouth.

“Oh, Queen Maeve, how can I thank you?”

“Keep fighting for our sovereignty. Without it, there can be no balance between men and women. Without balance, no blessings, only battles.”

“I will be a warrior then, like you.”

“One small disclaimer, honey. Bearing my name doesn't make you me any more than wearing my torque would. You'll make the name your own. No, I don't know your fate beyond whatever it was I just told you. But I'll wager it will make a tale worth telling. Farewell then, Maeve of Tir na mBan, daughter of the Shining Isles.”

With that Queen Maeve of Connacht walked off towards the rise, growing larger with each step until the wild, limed hair, and massive woad-blue limbs took up the whole sky. Then she disappeared, and I was alone again, watching the morning mist rise from Lake Queen-Maeve-Takes-a-Leak.

“Little Bright One. Little Bright One.” I recognized my mothers' voices, though I could not see them, the mist had grown so thick.

“My name.” I moved my lips and sounded my voice with effort. “My name is Maeve.”

As soon as I said the word, I found myself looking up into the anxious faces of my mothers. Beyond them, I saw the fruit-laden, blossoming branches of the orchard.

“What did you say?”

For a moment I could not remember anything.

“What's that blue smudge on your cheek?” Fand fingered it. “It looks like woad.”

Then it all came back. “My name is Maeve,” I told them again. “Queen Maeve of Connacht herself has named me.”

Maeve. Maeve is my name. How do you say it? Only remember: it rhymes with wave. It rhymes with cave. It rhymes with brave.

C
URIOUSLY, THE COMING OF my name affected my mothers more than the advent of my menarche had. I was no longer their Little Bright One but a brazen young hussy named Maeve after a hot-headed, not to mention hot-to-trot, warrior queen. They must have sensed I would soon be completely beyond control. I suppose they viewed it as their responsibility to see to it that I could conduct a cattle war of my own should the need arise. So they set about getting in their last licks, and maternal indulgence became a thing of the past. From dawn to dusk it was drill, drill, drill.

“Hep, two, three, four! Haul that lazy carcass off the heather!” Imagine a sergeant-private ratio of eight to one. I didn't stand a chance. “What do you think this is? A beauty spa? It's time for target practice.”

Target practice meant spear casting. My mothers took turns providing a moving target, carefully shielding themselves, of course. None of the exercises was new to me, but before, each was just another game that I could quit when I was bored or tired. Now I constantly had to stretch the limits of my endurance. When I had been Little Bright One, I could do no wrong. All my efforts had met with a stream of praise from a seemingly endless source. Now my mothers hurled insults with more vigor than I hurled the
laigen.

“Come on, Maeve! A pig that's been turning on the spit all day has more life in its limbs than that!”

“Och, lass! You bring shame on your mothers' heads. For who could believe that the daughter of Manannan Mac Lir would have such lousy aim!”

“I swear, girl, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were turtle spawn.”

Their taunts had the desired effect. I was furious, and I learned to direct that fury through my arms into a lightning strike. Not only did I become adept at hitting a moving target, I could also cast a spear with some degree of accuracy while standing in a careening battle chariot. Swordplay was even more complicated, involving not only good hand-eye coordination but an encounter with another intelligence. There's a
great deal of thought involved in single combat, but the trick is to think with the whole body. The beginning swordswoman, like someone learning a language, is hindered by a tendency to translate. My mothers kept at it, pushing and pushing till the barrier between my mind and muscles broke down.

And I persisted, partly because my mothers gave me no choice, and partly because I wanted to be like Queen Maeve, despite her proviso that I might not necessarily become a warrior. She was an older woman who was not my mother, and I'd encountered her magically. Ergo, I hero-worshipped her. How could I not? And that intense identification prevented me from noticing that, though I became proficient in all of the warrior arts, I was not gifted. Which is another way of saying the practice of these arts gave me nothing back. No joy. No enjoyment.

The only exercises I really relished were the ones that involved my voice. My battle cries were not only bloodcurdling; they curdled the goats' milk. What's more, the hens stopped laying. Soon I was not allowed to practice any more. I also excelled at the pre-combat verbal challenge and insult. I could go for an hour without stopping, while the mother I challenged stood snorting and puffing, trying to catch me pausing for breath so that she could jump in. These sessions were deeply satisfying to me, and I wonder if all mothers and adolescent daughters might not benefit from a ritual expression of aggression. We were all passionately angry during that time. But there was nothing cold or corrosive about this anger. It was fiery, the fire of the forge, of which Bride is also goddess. My mothers were sure enough testing my mettle.

Although the ground rules were clear, and no serious injuries were sustained, there were plenty of cuts, bruises, and sprains. Here perhaps is a crucial difference between my mothers' warrior tradition and others: they practiced the healing arts as well. If my days were spent in combat, my evenings passed in learning to clean and bandage wounds, make poultices and slings, mix salves and tonics. Except for words of instruction, there was little talk at night. We were all tired, especially me. Though I was young and resilient, I was always engaged in combat, while they took turns to fight me.

And so I also learned, during those evenings, the power of silence and touch in healing deep hurt. Words had become part of our arsenal. At night we dispensed with them and rubbed liniments into each other's sore muscles. Our hands remembered the bonds between us. As we tended each other, it was not uncommon for one or more of us to weep.
No one needed to ask why. The tears were there to wash the wounds, visible and invisible, and to make the hard places soft again.

It was on such a night that I learned the purpose of the heat in my hands. I had more or less gotten used to its coming and going, accepting it as one more mysterious manifestation of puberty. Then, one evening, Fand was in a great deal of pain. Reeling from a blow from my sword, she'd fallen hard and landed on a sharp rock. Likely she'd cracked some ribs. Various ointments had been rubbed in as gently as possible, compresses had been applied, and everyone had a different opinion about which position would give her the most ease. Meanwhile, Fand was moaning and threatening to keep us awake all night.

The mothers were beginning a debate about the most effective sedative to brew for her, when I felt the fire pouring through my crown and roaring into my hands. They burned so hot I could hardly believe they didn't glow like the peat coals. I felt as though sparks, random and dangerous, were shooting into the room. Then, in a flash, it came to me: I needed to direct that fire. It wanted to go somewhere. It had a purpose.

I approached Fand, and the other mothers, instantly alert, moved aside. Silently, I placed both hands on Fand's rib cage. She gave a cry of surprise, then drew a deeper breath than she'd been able to take till then. Soon her breathing eased to a long, slow rhythm, and she rested somewhere between sleep and trance. As for me, eyes closed, I could see a river of brightness flowing into her, melting the hard crystals of pain, mending the bruised and broken place. As the fire found its rightful release, the agitation of excess energy turned to a sense of peace I'd never known before. All I had to do was remain open and let this force move through me. I held my hands still until the heat ebbed, and my hands cooled.

When I let go of Fand, I opened my eyes, feeling a little bewildered. Though I had never been more present, I also felt as though I had been very, very far away, past familiar boundaries, beyond the confines of myself. Yet here I was again, just me, nothing more. My mothers eyed me intently as they might a wild horse whose measure they were taking. Would they try to put a bridle on me? Or would they give it up and let me go. They seemed to be waiting for some sign from me: flared nostrils and a rearing on hind legs? Or a quieting that indicated they might approach. I did not know what to do or say.

“The pain's gone.” Fand spoke at last.

I nodded. Then the edges of my vision got blurry. Everything looked as though it were underwater. I stood up and moved through the thick air, heavy-limbed. At last, I dropped onto my heather bed and plummeted into sleep.

When I woke again it was deep night, but my mothers were still awake. They sat in a circle around the fire, some leaning against each other, their cloaks pooling, the boundaries between them indistinct.

“Who opened her to the fire of the stars?” one of them asked.

“The Cailleach, maybe,” said another.

“That day in Bride's Valley, they were alone together for some time before we arrived,” said a third.

I could tell you who each speaker was. Of course I knew each mother's voice as well as I knew her face. But understand: these mothers at their midnight council were more like one great mind probing itself, divided at times as great minds may be, but one entity. Their forms around the fire looked like the roots of a glowing tree that rose from their darkness. The silences between words had the quality of rich, black loam.

“Maybe it was Bride herself who gave her the fire. Didn't we name her Bride's flame?”

Their recollection of the day at the pool, their invocation of my old name brought back the moment when I saw my reflection in the water, the rich, honey light caught in my hair, igniting it. I remembered the fire in my head, how it felt like bees swarming in my skull. My mothers' minds seemed to catch the image.

“Now her name is Maeve. Her veins run with mead, and honey-fire pours from her hands.”

“Can it be right for such hands to hold a weapon? Maybe we're teaching her all wrong. Maybe she's not meant for a warrior.”

“Why can't a warrior be a healer, too? Aren't we? Don't we all know how to summon the heat into our hands? Anyone can be taught to do that.”

“That may be, but what came through her hands was not just heat. It was the fire itself. She didn't summon it. It summoned her, and there's the difference. I tell you she's one of those who has the fire in her head.”

“Fire or no fire, how does that change anything? She's our daughter. She was born a warrior-witch. And what's more she's taken the name of the greatest warrior queen of all. Doesn't that confirm her vocation?”

I had not told them what Queen Maeve had said about how I must make the name my own.

“But Queen Maeve was not just a famous warrior, she was a famous lover.”

“Which only goes to show that our Maeve can be both warrior and healer.”

“Does it follow that because Queen Maeve both fought and fucked that our Maeve can use her hands to harm and heal?”

“Listen, as long as she's here on Tir na mBan, these questions are immaterial.”

A silence followed. I could almost hear the muscles tensing.

“What do you mean.” Someone spoke slowly without inflection.

“Only this: who is there here for her to fight or heal or love—besides us?”

Good point. I listened intently for an answer.

“We need a new hero to train.”

That old saw.

“This time he won't escape so easily.”

My ears pricked up. Here was a story I hadn't heard. Who had escaped? When?

“We need a whole shipload of heroes. We'll ask the Cailleach. Surely she's had at least a premonition concerning the next shipment. It's long overdue.”

“And when the heroes come, Maeve could have a baby.”

A baby! I was aghast. I was the child around here.

“Then she'd be content, and life would go on. Our lineage would continue.”

Then I remembered: the blood, my new name. I was a child no longer. Was that what it meant to cease to be a child? You simply replace yourself? Was that what my womb mother had done? But no, it hadn't been like that. My mother was the beloved of a god. It was special. I was special. Not just generic hero spawn.

“But is she meant to stay?” someone sighed heavily. “We have to face the possibility that she isn't. We've raised her to be a hero-woman herself. We've taught her everything we know.”

“Just so she can teach it in her turn.”

“Yes, in her turn. We never meant her to go. She's ours.”

“Listen, sisters, she's no more ours than the wild horses or the lost heroes or the waves of the sea. We have more control over the weather than we have over her destiny.”

A tremor of fear and excitement shook me. I might chafe at my mothers' control, but it had not occurred to me that I might already be beyond it.

“Do you think the Cailleach knows what is to come?”

“It's almost
Samhain.
A good time for seeing.”

It was also the time I was to go to her. I could tell by the weight of the silence that they were all thinking the same thought.

“There's so little time left,” a voice quavered.

“We've done our best.”

“But is it good enough? We've taught her how to handle a weapon, but not how to handle herself. Out there. With them. ”

Them!
They must mean the appended ones. My ears strained for more. But for the moment, my mothers seemed to have worn out their words and their worry. The next sounds I heard were a mixture of sighs, snores, and settlings as they curled into each other and the comfort of sleep.

I receded into myself, calling up the image of the dark eyes I had seen in the pool the day the fire came into my head. On the whole, it pleased me that my mothers did not know what was to become of me. My destiny must be so strange and wonderful it was beyond their collective powers of imagination. My thoughts slowly turned to dreams. In them, someone I'd never seen narrated the wonder tale of Maeve of Tir na mBan. The words, instead of hanging invisible in air, took strange forms becoming not illustrations of the story but rising flames, diving birds, leaping salmon, falling stars.