Only the Stones Survive: A Novel (22 page)

“I am saying we live always.”

I stared at him. “That’s not true. My mother died.”

“Lerys died to you,” he said, “but not to your father.”

“She could not be both dead and alive!”

“Why not? Because you say so? You are not in charge, Joss—nor am I, for that matter. What we see here and now is only the visible part of an invisible whole. Thislife, lastlife, nextlife—all rivers flow into the same sea.”

I lost patience with the Dagda and his answers that answered nothing. Did he not realize how much it hurt to talk about Lerys? “I saw my mother’s body,” I said angrily, “and I know how much she suffered! No one could have survived what happened to her.”

“What happened to her body did not affect her spirit,” replied the Dagda. He extended his left arm with the palm facing me. “Push against this.”

I was strong and angry and I shoved my fist into his open palm with all my weight behind it.

He offered no resistance. Yet he did not yield.

Caught off-balance, I staggered.

“You pushed against my body, but not my spirit,” said the Dagda. “Both exist here and now. Only one is permanent.”

I still do not know if ants can think, but I can think. The Dagda taught me.

The ability to think is no good unless you use it, so I did.

Considered individually, the bats were beautiful in their own way and very interesting. They neither harmed nor threatened us, but I did not want to live with them for the rest of my life, nor did I want my baby sister and my cousins to grow up with the odor of bat manure clinging to them.

We would have to leave our caves by the river sooner or later. Sooner would be better, providing we had a safe place to go. During the day, I braved the light and went searching for a new sanctuary. I had to—no one else was doing it. The remaining members of the tribe were sinking into a quiet resignation, content to stay where they were even with its drawbacks rather than make another change.

Change was beginning to feel familiar to me.

Shinann was the only other Danann who frequently left the caves during daylight. She was looking for something too. She never told me what she sought, but I knew the signs.

I am sure she was warned, as I was, to “be careful.” The warning was unnecessary; we both knew the dangers.

TWENTY-TWO

T
HE GAELS WERE SETTLING
down on Ierne.

Mighty oaks and graceful ash trees that had been growing for hundreds of years were sacrificed in a day to the human urge for construction. Forests were cleared, causeways laid across bogs, walls and timber palisades erected as one region after another was claimed by the New People. They were all calling themselves Mílesians now, wearing success like a crown.

Emboldened by their victory over the Túatha Dé Danann, as they moved into new areas the Mílesians did not wait for the primitive tribes to attack them. They sought them out to batter them into submission.

The natives fought back.

The Iverni, weavers and potters and tellers of extravagant tales, slowly bowed to the superior force. The Fír Bolga, a warrior race that had occupied large swathes of the island for many generations, were not as readily vanquished. The accommodation they had achieved with the Túatha Dé Danann had been one of expediency. The Fír Bolga were fierce fighters with simple bronze weapons but had never faced anything like the mysterious capabilities of the Dananns. A single terrifying demonstration of the Earthkillers had been enough. In the interest of their own self-preservation, the Fír Bolga had accepted peace.

But it had never satisfied them. When war with the Mílesians presented itself, the Fír Bolga were happy to oblige. They too spread out across the country, placing scouts wherever they could, watching for any signs of vulnerability on the part of their enemy.

As long as they did not have to face the Earthkillers again, the Fír Bolga believed they had a good chance of winning.

Mílesian guards armed with iron swords and sharpened spears were posted outside houses so new that they still smelled of raw wood. Beyond the firelight, the Fír Bolga prowled like wolves in the forest, watching.

“We were here first,” they reminded one another. “We will be here after the invaders are gone.”

As soon as they exchanged their marriage promises, Éremón moved Taya into the house being built for him within his stronghold. A low wall with a little wooden gate set it apart from the other structures, reflecting its prestige. No effort was spared in preparing the chieftain’s hall. A whole deer could be roasted on the stone hearth. Piles of furs provided luxurious bedding. Éremón requisitioned the best household goods from Ír’s widow and the other women for the use of his second wife.

The other women fought back.

One morning, Éremón was disgusted to find that some disrespectful female had emptied her night jar into his chariot.

Sakkar used his skills as a shipbuilder to erect a stronghold for himself, which he called Delginis, then went hotfoot to Soorgeh’s new fort to make an offer for the tall girl with red hair. As soon as his offer was accepted, he hurried to tell Amergin.

Druids were not assigned landholdings, which were individual territories to be held in the name of the clan but considered the property of the landholder. Under Gaelic belief, the earth herself belonged to the druids. Amergin was also a bard and therefore entitled to the perquisites of his rank. A balance must be struck. After giving the matter serious thought, he had claimed just enough land to build a house in the southernmost part of Éremón’s territory. Near the hill of Tara.

Éremón offered Amergin the use of as many freemen as he needed to build the house, but when Sakkar arrived, he found his friend alone, using ax and adze with considerable skill. “You never told me you could do that,” Sakkar said.

“Bards have hands, Sakkar, and we can use them for more than stringing a harp. I could hardly stand around and watch other men building my house. It would not be mine then, but theirs.”

“That’s how I feel too. Here, let me help you level that beam…”

“I can do it myself,” Amergin grumbled. Then he laughed.

They worked side by side until the sun lengthened their shadows and their stomachs growled. Amergin rummaged among his supplies and produced bread and meat and a tiny packet of precious salt. “You’ll stay the night, Sakkar? Another day like this, and my house will be ready to thatch.”

As they ate, Sakkar remarked, “You had better not let Éremón know you have any salt, or he’ll demand it as his right.”

“Let him distil his own from seawater like the rest of us.”

“He never will. He doesn’t make; he takes.”

Amergin raised an eyebrow. “Surely he isn’t that bad?”

“He’s getting there,” Sakkar replied. “We hoped his new wife would improve his attitude, but she’s made it worse. He’s going to incredible lengths to impress her.”

“Taya is easily pleased. I doubt if she requires a mighty effort from him.”

“She doesn’t, Amergin. He requires it of himself. It’s as if Éremón doesn’t believe he’s entitled to the position he holds, and he needs to keep proving it.”

“Has anyone else challenged him for the chieftainship of the north?”

“Not yet. I suppose the only person who could do that would be Éber Finn, and he seems to be content with what he has.”

“Ah.” Amergin tore a bit of bread off the round loaf and touched it lightly to the salt. “There you have the whole problem with Éremón: he has never been content with what he has. He would take a bone out of the mouth of a starving hound.”

“And bite the dog before it could bite him,” Sakkar added. The two men chuckled together.

Turning serious, Amergin asked, “How about you, Sakkar? Are you content with what you have?”

The former Phoenician sighed. “More than I ever dreamed possible. My red-haired woman…”

While Sakkar described in fulsome detail the many charms of his red-haired woman, Amergin slipped Clarsah from her case and began to summon music from the soul of the harp, music to express the way a man could feel about a woman.

A man who was not Sakkar; a woman whose hair was not red.

Later he would unfold a blanket for Sakkar, and the two men would make their beds in the unfinished house, ready to work together in the morning. Until then, Sakkar would dream of Soorgeh’s daughter.

And Amergin would dream.

By the time Sakkar returned to Delginis, Amergin’s new roof gleamed with golden thatch.

Odba was not dreaming. She was wide awake and extremely uncomfortable.

In spite of his original inclination, Éremón had built a good house for her. On reflection, he realized that giving his first wife an inferior dwelling would make him look petty when he was trying hard to look like a king. Odba’s new house was within a short walk of the one Éremón shared with Taya—but so far he had never made that walk.

Recently Odba had ventured out into an icy rain to pay a call of honor on Taya, who was swelling with child. Odba wanted to show Éremón how a woman of the chieftainly class should behave. Her noble gesture had resulted in a fever that was tormenting her now. Her head was pounding and her hearing had become preternaturally acute.

She could hear faint but curiously disturbing noises outside.

Éremón had taken a hunting party to spend several days in pursuit of wild boar. They had left men to guard the gates of the fort … but where were those guards now? And who was running across the ground inside the palisade?

What caused the sound of timber smashing?

Then Taya screamed.

Odba forced herself to stand up. She swayed on her feet. The room was spinning around her. The two freeman’s wives who served as her attendants attempted to put her back in her bed, but she would not go.

Taya screamed again.

Odba shrugged off her attendants, grabbed a spear from the rack near the door, and staggered from the house. Her women followed her. They were more terrified of the punishment they would receive if they left her than of anything else.

Dizzy, stumbling strides carried Odba across damp grass and packed earth to the house of the chieftain and his second wife. The wooden gate in the wall was smashed. The sturdy oak door of the house was standing ajar. Light from the fire on the hearth flooded the scene inside.

Odba belonged to the chieftainly class; she refused to be afraid. Even when she saw Taya lying unconscious on the floor while a man in the clothing of the Fír Bolga was about to drive his engorged penis into her helpless body with brute force, Odba felt no fear. The courage that had enabled her to smuggle herself on board one of the galleys and follow her husband across the sea, even though she was unwanted, did not desert her now.

Éremón had married Taya. This made Taya part of her clan. A chieftain’s wife understood these things.

Odba hurled the spear with unerring accuracy.

While their leader was in his death throes, the men who had accompanied him threw themselves on her.

The hunting party returned to the fort tired but happy. Several days of skillful work with spear and javelin in the dense forests of Ierne had resulted in carts piled high with game; they were bringing enough meat to provide a sumptuous feast. Éremón expected a rapturous welcome from his clan.

Instead, Amergin came out alone to meet him in a chariot ornamented with ravens’ feathers.

The news the bard brought was more than his brother could comprehend at first. “They killed her?
Who
killed her, Amergin? That’s not possible. There must be some mistake. You say raiders killed my wife? I don’t believe it.” Stepping down from his chariot, Éremón walked in a small, erratic circle, like a boat without a rudder. Then he rested his hands on the side of Amergin’s chariot and looked up into the bard’s grave face. “They killed
Taya
?”

“Taya and your unborn child are alive.” Amergin reassured him. “She was badly shaken, but she will recover.”

He left his chariot and took Éremón by the elbow. “Walk with me,” he suggested.

Éremón wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “That wasn’t so bad, Amergin; why did you startle me like that? Why come with every appearance of bad news? You played a cruel trick, and I will remember it.”

“You have not asked about your first wife,” the bard said. He tried to cushion his next words, but there was no way to make them any easier.

Éremón goggled at Amergin like a fish on a hook. “Odba? Dead?” He spoke the two words separately as if they had no connection. In his mind, they did not, could not. Wounds and fever and a vital, living woman suddenly dead and gone … it was too much to take in.

“I cannot believe any of this,” said the chieftain of the northern Gael, staring at the spoils of the chase heaped in wicker carts. The carts were still leaking blood.

A change took place within Éremón that not even a druid could have predicted. Before the sun had set, he was referring to Odba as “my beloved wife.” During her funeral, he wept copiously. After she was buried under a cairn built specifically for her, he talked endlessly of Odba’s exceptional beauty, her noble grace, her incredible courage.

While Taya recovered from the near rape and gave birth to a healthy infant, she had to listen to comparisons with Odba that made it sound as if Taya were the poor second choice. Which in Éremón’s mind, she was. After Odba was gone.

There was no doubt now that the natives on Ierne must be exterminated root and branch, once and for all. Éremón summoned every warrior in his command and sent a message to Éber Finn to do the same.

A fresh army of the Gael was required.

Éremón’s instructions were unambiguous. “Search the hills and scour the valleys, look behind every tree and under every bush, drive out the savages who murdered my mother and dear wonderful Odba. Slaughter them. Slaughter every one, even the smallest child. Pups grow into hounds.”

TWENTY-THREE

T
HE TÚATHA DÉ DANANN LEARNED
about the new Mílesian campaign in a roundabout way, as they had learned most things since the Day of Catastrophe. During her ceaseless wanderings, Shinann observed a fully armed war party marching through the fields with deadly intent.