Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (17 page)

“Just so. Too many essential abilities—gifts, if you like—are not available for the healing ritual. The ones we still have are…” He paused, seeking a word he did not want to use. “Insufficient. Insufficient for the purpose at hand.” He forced a smile. “But the tribe is not impoverished, Joss. Gifts are passed on in the blood, and we know that at least one of your mother’s has come to you.”

“What about my father? What is his…”

The Dagda raised a hand to silence me. “Discover the answer for yourself; that is the only way to learn. I have taught you to ask questions. You must teach yourself to find answers.”

Silently, I vowed that if I ever became a teacher, I would answer every question put to me.

I tried to identify the special gifts in people I knew, but only a few were obvious. Most were too subtle; my father’s eluded me altogether. I could not ask him outright because it was too personal. He kept his pain hidden, yet anything might touch on an open wound.

The sweet song of a blackbird could make Mongan flinch as if he had been struck by a fist.

My mother’s death had affected him in a number of ways. Even when he was physically present, he could be inwardly absent. To lure him back, I called attention to myself as often as I could. Once, when we were drawing water from a well in the forest, I claimed—with a shameless lack of honesty—“I’m not afraid of the New People, you know.”

“Mmmm.” Mongan hefted the heavy wooden bucket over the lip of the well and poured its contents into two pottery jars, which I would carry. Then he lowered the bucket for more water.

“Do you think the New People hate us?”

He flicked a disinterested glance in my direction. “Does it make any difference?”

“If anyone hates me enough to try to kill me, I’d like to know why.”

He made an effort to rouse himself. “Hate is a festering illness of the spirit born of fear, Joss. Those who hate are so consumed by fear that they may kill for the sake of killing—as if by taking another creature’s life they could add the stolen span to their own. This is an element of character that we do not possess, I am glad to say.”

I had to ask: “Don’t you hate the man who killed my mother?”

Mongan fixed his eyes on me. Looked at me, then through me and beyond me to some distant point. Without another word, he finished drawing the water and beckoned me to help carry it back to the others.

I understood there were questions I must never ask my father for fear of …

For fear of what? Hurting him more than he was hurt already?

With each day that passed, my father spoke less and less. I began to wonder if he even saw me. He never commented on how much I had grown, although I was now taller than he was. There was stubble on my jaw and hair in my groin; in another season I would be a man, while my cousins were still small children.

My father never noticed.

In order to avoid the New People, we shunned the light of day. When I recalled how much my mother had loved to dance in the sun, I was almost glad she was not with us.

Mongan said she could see us, though. He was barely talking to anyone else, but I heard him in the night, endlessly talking to her.

In spite of his personal pain, my father fulfilled his responsibilities as a leader. Because growing and harvesting grain required staying in one place—and therefore being vulnerable—we could no longer make bread, so Mongan directed us to collect the acorns that lay in abundance under the oak trees. Pounded into a paste, they could be baked and eaten like bread. Melitt sweetened them with wild fruits and honey and cooked them on hot rocks in the sun. I thought they tasted better than ever.

Or perhaps it was because I was very hungry.

In our new situation, there was no allotting one task to men and another to women. Obtaining food was important to us all. We scoured the countryside at night, looking for things we could eat. Knowing which leaves and roots and nuts and mushrooms were safe and then collecting enough to fill hungry bellies required a group effort.

Ierne produced more than enough to feed her children lavishly—if we made the most of the bounty she provided.

Unlike the New People with their long-shafted spears and their baying hounds, we did not hunt the stag and the boar. The Túatha Dé Danann did not eat fellow animals. We fished, but were careful to put back the gravid females. Piriome’s mother had the gift of recognizing them and taught the rest of us.

We had much to learn.

Something we did not know, but feared we would learn the hard way, concerned the Fír Bolga. When they discovered we had been defeated by the Mílesians, would they take the opportunity to attack us themselves? How could we possibly resist them with our depleted numbers?

To protect ourselves, Mongan insisted we must all remain together. A young woman called Shinann was a particular worry to him; I could see that from the anxiety in his eyes whenever he looked at her. Once or twice, I heard her referred to as “the first born of a new generation.” Knowing what I now knew about gifts and abilities, I concluded she must be exceptional.

Shinann was exceptionally reckless, that much was certain. Ignoring my father’s injunction, she wandered wherever she liked and returned whenever she chose.

She had been born to one of the clans in the west, at the edge of the Cold Sea, and was the only member of her immediate family to have survived the Day of Catastrophe. It is hard to know how she survived. People had seen her on the battlefield; she would have been an easy target for the invaders. Yet alive and unharmed, Shinann wandered through the forests and along the valleys in broad daylight while other Dananns stayed captive to their fears.

Mongan did not ask me to keep watch over her. I did that of my own accord, keeping her within my sight but not letting her see me. It was like a game children might play. I followed her at a distance, scurrying into hiding if I thought she might turn my way. But Shinann was always turning. Forever changing her direction, dancing and flowing and hurrying from one spot to another as if nothing could hold her longer than the blink of an eye.

She was one of those who ignored the bonds of time.

Every day, she went somewhere different. A dark pine forest softly carpeted with needles, a brilliant lake where sky and water were twins, a high mountain valley hoarding a pocket full of snow, a fetid marsh brilliant with butterflies.

A road trampled into the innocent earth, scored with the marks of horses’ hooves and chariot wheels.

SEVENTEEN

E
VERY MORNING,
Éremón dressed in full battle regalia, including leather body armor and crested helmet and a sword in his belt with traces of blood rusting the iron blade, like a badge of honor. The failure to gain a formal surrender rankled him, but he was not about to let it spoil his enjoyment.

In their encampment, the Gaels were preparing for a festival to mark the change of the seasons. Éremón wanted to include a special feast to celebrate his victory over the Túatha Dé Danann. He would hold it near the river mouth, where they had come ashore, where so many had drowned.

His way of defying fate.

Meanwhile, he accompanied some of the freemen to the edge of the battlefield with instructions to mark the outline for a project he had in mind. Éremón planned to construct a stronghold for himself in keeping with his new status. His fortress would consist of a huge earthen embankment, roughly circular, with a deep trench outside it, the whole enclosing an area large enough to contain the structures and domestic livestock required for a victorious chieftain’s household.

A massive, solid structure, firmly planted in the earth, announcing to all that Éremón ruled here!

There was to be a richly appointed dwelling for Éremón and Taya, including a great stone hearth where they could roast an entire wild boar. The house would be built of timber with broad oak beams to support the thatched roof. Nearby would be an area for not one but several stone ovens, living quarters for Éremón’s personal guards and attendants, pens for his horses and a shed for his chariots, outbuildings for storing grain and making beer—and a modest hut for Odba. Éremón’s first wife would have had a fine big house for herself if she had not refused him.

Let her sit outside her door and see how well the more compliant Taya was treated!

In the mind of Éremón, the project grew faster than grain sprouted. He also decided to build strongholds for his sons on land of their own, beginning with Moomneh. And even better houses for the boys Taya was going to bear him; boys who would be as strong as their father and as handsome as their mother. The heirs of Éremón would be able to claim the most desirable women for their wives. His grandchildren and their grandchildren would be born on fertile earth he had claimed through his own efforts. His loyal followers would receive …

“And what’s all this in aid of?” inquired a surly voice. Éremón turned to find Éber Finn pointing toward the men who were measuring the site.

“My family, of course. I’m going to build a fort and give the surrounding territory to my sons.”

Éber Finn’s eyebrows wriggled toward his hairline like a pair of ginger-colored caterpillars. “You intend to claim all that land for yourself? I don’t think so.”

Éremón dropped one hand to the hilt of his sword. “I won it on the battlefield,” he said through clenched teeth.

“
We
won it on the battlefield,” Éber Finn corrected, raising his voice to an angry bellow. “Myself and the rest of the Gael fought just as hard as you did, and we deserve our share of the spoils!”

Immediately, several clan chiefs rushed forward to make demands on behalf of their kin.

Éremón was genuinely surprised. From his point of view, he not only had led the expedition and commanded the warriors, he had taken all the risks. The battle was his to win, as other battles had been for his father before him, and therefore the richest prizes should be his and go to his sons after him.

When he tried to make this point to Éber Finn, his brother had the temerity to laugh out loud. “You’re the last-born, Éremón, your claim of inheritance comes last, not first.”

Soorgeh, one of the Gaelician chieftains, added, “You’re also the man who let the enemy escape. Why are you entitled to anything?”

“I didn’t let them escape! They were all dead, don’t you remember? But when we came back…”

“They were gone,” Éber Finn interrupted. “I remember that well enough. They tricked you, brother. Colptha warned you they were sorcerers, but you wouldn’t listen. Why didn’t you post a guard on the battlefield?”

“They were
dead,
” Éremón reiterated. “There was no reason to guard the dead.”

“Obviously, we needed to guard those. You go on making mistake after mistake, don’t you? Why our father put you in charge I’ll never understand, but you’re not in charge anymore.”

Burly warriors, their aggression still unappeased, crowded around Éremón and began to castigate him. His own followers hotly defended him. If he lost, they would lose, and they had seen how rich and fertile the land was. Their women and children had seen it too.

Fighting strangers was one thing; fighting for land already won was something else entirely. Quarrels long suppressed and grievances held in abeyance burst out like fires in dry grass. The dissension the sacrificer had cultivated in the tribe for his own amusement found voice in a furious roar that could be heard over a long distance.

Sakkar wanted to stay well out of it. Years spent in the Levant had taught him that once property was concerned, friendships, old alliances, and even family ties could be obliterated. If he took sides now, he could be excluded from part of the tribe, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Sakkar knew they would never think of him as one of their own, but that was how he had begun to think of himself. Neither a shipbuilder nor a Persian prince but a man of the Gael. He saw no need to limit the size of a dream that would always be his secret.

He remained a silent observer of the uproar until Amergin arrived.

When the commotion of the quarrel reached his ears, Amergin and Clarsah had been in a clump of willows, attempting to capture the sibilant song of the little trees. At first, the bard tried to ignore the irritating racket. As the noise gained heat and volume, he sighed, put the harp back into her case, and went to see what he could do about the latest problem.

“Here you, bard!” Éremón shouted as he approached. “We need an arbitration; my brother’s trying to deprive me of what is rightfully mine!”

Amergin could see that the quarrel was already out of control. The brehon judges who should have been consulted, and whose judgments would have been binding, had been among those drowned by the green wave.

Amergin did his best to placate his brothers. “There is more than enough land to give to everyone,” he assured them. “It may take time to determine the various holdings to the satisfaction of the recipients, but we have plenty of time. The Túatha Dé Danann will not challenge us again, and neither will the other tribes. As soon as they learn what happened here, they will leave us alone.”

Éber Finn folded his arms. “And how long will that take? Just at a casual estimate?”

Amergin noticed Sakkar standing at the edge of the fracas. “Sakkar over there has assured us this is an island. We haven’t explored its limits yet, but anything as large as this battle can’t remain secret on an island.”

“Is that right?” Éremón called to Sakkar.

He responded with a noncommittal grunt.

“Stop mumbling in your beard and come over here!” Éremón demanded.

Sakkar, whose tightly trimmed beard was no longer thick enough to mumble into, shot a pleading look at Amergin as he joined them. “Yes, this really is an island,” he affirmed.

To be certain, Éber Finn said, “So nothing stays secret for long?”

Sakkar was floundering. “I couldn’t promise that. Secrets are hard to control … I mean … things happen here which can’t be explained…”

Éber Finn asked the bard, “What in the name of all the gods is this man talking about? Is he going as mad as poor Ír was?”