Priestess of the Fire Temple (15 page)

“Oh, yes. For us, the three fires—that is, the celestial fire, the fire on the land, and the fire in the earth—are three sacred manifestations of the forces of Áine Clí. Brighid is our own beloved goddess who brings the fire and light into our human hands and minds. She is like a mother to us—our intermediary between us humans and the forces of the divine.”

“You sound very much like a Drui when you speak.”

She gathered up the hem of her white tunic in a futile effort to protect it from further encrustations of mud while simultaneously twisting her body to shield the basket of carrots into which Bláth was endeavoring to stick her nose.

“We are all Druid here,” she said simply.

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21

I
am so sorry about the behavior of my horse!” I said to the ban-Drui who was leading me to the main house. I was struggling mightily with Bláth's halter; a passion for carrots was the one blight I had discovered in her otherwise faultless manners.

“No worries. We think of all animals as individual sacred beings in their own right—especially the white ones, whom we regard as messengers from the Otherworld. Your arrival on a white mare has caused quite a stir, because for us the white mare represents the Goddess of Sovereignty. My name is Nessa, by the way; I came here from Albu.”

“I am Aislinn, from…” I paused for a moment to think what to say. It would have been far too complicated to explain my flight from Irardacht, so I finished the sentence with “In Medon.” I was impressed that Nessa had come so close to deducing my true status; sovereignty and being born a king's daughter were almost one and the same thing.

“Oh, so you are a local then? The Bríg Brigu will be very interested to meet you; she believes strongly in forging ties with the local tuaths. She says that those of us who are of a like mind should get to know each other well, to be able to help each other in the difficult times. She has often said that there will be hard times ahead for those of us who treasure the Old Religion of Ériu.”

The other Druid trailed behind us in a snaking line around the hill; apparently my arrival was a welcome diversion and not to be missed. As we rounded the final loop to the crest of the hill, I saw the carved golden oak doors in the center of the building and a tall, carved oak pole to one side of the entrance, both of which bore complicated designs of interlaced knotwork, spirals, and animal motifs. A clutch of long white feathers dangled from strings tied to the top of the pole, a familiar sight that caused another pang as I recalled the days of my childhood in the nemed of Dálach-gaes and Niamh. Many were the times we had studied the fluttering feathers that hung from our bíle to divine the will of the gods.

The golden oak doors were wide open, and whoever was inside must have seen or heard us coming because a male Drui dressed in a black lambswool tunic with a silver triskell around his neck stepped out into the sunlight, carrying a thick fighting staff. He stood before the entrance as if guarding it and formally asked my name. Then he disappeared inside for a moment, reappeared once more, and bid me welcome.

“Please tie your mount to the bíle before you enter,” he said.

Bláth had already attracted her share of admirers, so I left her to the attentions of the crowd.

Nessa took me by the hand and guided me through the doorway. I was momentarily blinded as we made the transition from the bright sunlight to the windowless interior, but my eyes quickly adjusted as I took in the details of the space. A shaft of sunlight shone from the doorway onto the smooth clay floor at a precise angle. I noticed that there was a stick set into the ground and grooves cut in a fanlike shape into the floor of the entrance. Nessa watched me as I stared at the marks on the ground.

“What is that for?” I asked.

“It's a time-keeping device. We call it Brighid's Fiery Arrow. We can tell the time of day by the angle of the shadow cast by that stick. You will find similar devices scattered all around our tuath. We have another kind, which is a standing stone into which a hole has been drilled near the top and a stick inserted. The same rays you see on the floor are carved into the stone, and the shadow of the stick falls on the carved rays and tells us the time of day. Of course it only works when the sun is shining.”

I marveled at the ingeniousness of these inventions and determined to tell Dálach-gaes and Niamh about them if ever I saw their nemed again.

The hearth at the center of the roundhouse was wide and generous; there were flat, shiny cooking stones in a ring all around it, enough to bake bread for the entire community. A magnificent cauldron hung over the flames; evidently some kind of stew was in progress.

Then I looked up and was fascinated by yet another detail. A hanging bowl of fire dangled down from the roof, positioned over the exact center of the hearth. The fire bowl was made of bronze and suspended by three thick metal chains.

Nessa followed my wondering gaze.

“That's an oil light; you've never seen one? Everything in this house is filled with symbolic meaning. The hanging bowl of fire represents the fire of inspiration and also the fires in the sky—the sun, moon, and stars. It is symbolic of the sky world and the cauldron of wisdom in the head.

“Below it is the sacred hearth that represents the fire in the land, the fire that causes life to grow, and the cauldron of motion within all beings—the spark of change and transformation that causes all plants and animals to wax and grow strong.

“Below the hearth—and invisible to your eyes—is yet another large iron cauldron, buried deep under the ground. It represents Brighid as smith, the goddess who takes the essential energies of rivers, rocks, and the land and pours them out to the people from the deepest recesses of the earth. She helps us shape those energies to make them available for our use. It also represents the cauldron of warming deep within the land and within all beings who dwell on the sacred land.

“We have smaller versions of the same things in all our houses. No matter how mean and drafty a house might be, every house here is a true Fire Temple.”

Trained in filidecht as I was, I marveled at the poetry of her words and at the mystical design of the Fire Temple that we were standing in. Encoded within the details of the building was a sermon dedicated to sacred fire, the earthly counterpart of the sun, supreme nourisher and protector of human life, the greatest healer and the strongest protective magic against ill-intentioned fairies and people.

Then I studied the walls. And such walls they were! Red yew overlaid with beaten silver, gold, and bronze, they mirrored back the light of the hearth. It was so bright inside that room that it was almost as if it were daylight.

I could not see the far end of the building, the side opposite the door, because there were carved oaken screens inlaid with silver and bronze that blocked my view of the other half of the house.

“These walls and partitions are as lovely as anything in my father's house,” I said. “How did you manage to commission such impressive works of art?”

“We have our patrons. Much of what you see here was brought to us as thanks offerings from those who were helped by our prayers. Our personal quarters are much simpler.

“Just as every sun cycle has a dark half and a bright half, and just as every moontide has the same, this temple has a light half that is open to the sun and the public, and a dark half hidden behind the screens. The dark half is the space where the Bríg Brigu and her closest attendants have their beds and their privacy,” Nessa explained. “The rest of us sleep in our own roundhouses. You must have seen those as we climbed up the hill.”

I had seen them; they were the usual grey stone or wattle-and-daub constructions with their conical willow roofs.

The gatekeeper dressed in black reappeared from within the dark recesses of the house.

“You may enter now,” he said, waving his arm in a formal gesture of welcome towards the inner sanctuary.

Once again Nessa took my hand. We circled formally around the fire in a sunwise direction and went in between the two oak screens. The first thing I noticed was the warm and inviting smell of honey and beeswax. There were lit candles on every available surface and in high niches. Fresh rushes crunched beneath my feet, and colorful tapestries graced the walls. Behind the tapestries were the same beaten-metal knotwork inlays reflecting the light of the candles. The room gleamed with a honey-rich orange glow.

The Bríg Brigu was seated on a throne made of birchwood covered lavishly with white animal pelts. She was a middle-aged woman with long blond hair that cascaded down her shoulders and well past her knees. She wore a long white wool tunic with golden knotwork embroidery along the hem and along the edges of the sleeves. I assumed that her expression of dispassionate objectivity was the result of many years of solitary meditation, fasting, and other rigorous spiritual exercises.

Around her neck was a golden torque, which sparkled in the light of the beeswax candles, and a strand of large, glass-clear amber beads. Upon her feet were leather sandals covered with strips of pure gold. Two female attendants dressed in brown wool and wearing bronze triskells and amber beads sat beside her on the floor and seemed ready to fulfill her slightest wish.

The impression was of a sunlike orb surrounded by lesser planets such as myself and the other mere Drui in the room.

“I have been expecting you for a long time,” the Bríg Brigu finally said in calm, melodious tones.

“What? I mean, how is that possible?” I stammered, feeling that I was somehow being rude by questioning her statement.

“I have seen you in the flames. I have been watching your progress.”

She stated this simply, as if it were a full explanation.

Not quite knowing how to reply, I held my peace. One of the female attendants handed me the customary cup of joy. I waited until everyone present had been given their own small wooden cup of mid and then sipped my own portion slowly, keeping pace with the rest.

“You are so very like your mother,” the Bríg Brigu observed after we had all handed our empty cups back to the female attendant.

I could not imagine what she meant. How did she know my mother? And in what way was I the least bit like her? I grew up roaming the woods and barns; my mother was a legendary hostess and lover of fine clothes and jewels. I didn't even look like my mother; my hair was an unruly river of flame, hers a perfectly tended golden waterfall.

The Bríg Brigu read my thoughts.

“Not that mother—I mean your birth mother. I knew her well.”

This was yet another shock. My birth mother? I suddenly felt the floor rising to meet me as my knees conspired to buckle despite my best attempt at composure.

Nessa moved in quickly to console me as the male Drui and the other attendants brought pillows for my head and feet. The Bríg Brigu went on with her tale without a pause.

“Yes, I knew her when she lived here many sun cycles ago. We trained together and were as sisters. I would know you anywhere. You have her eyes and her hair.”

My lower lip began to tremble, and I fought to hold back tears.

“I have no idea what you are talking about. This is scaring me, and I wish you would just tell me what it is that you know about me that I don't.”

“Very well, then,” the Bríg Brigu continued in her peaceful, even-toned manner. “Your birth mother was named Ana. She was born the daughter of a mog and a cattle lord and was brought here as a baby to be raised by our community. The chief wife of the house of her birth had her sent away rather than allow her to grow up in her father's household, where she would be legally entitled to an inheritance. She was left beside the Fire Altar with a small bag of séts to provide for her future dowry.

“I was also sent here as a girl by my clan because both of my parents had died of the flux, and I had no other kin to keep me. That was how I met her. Your father used to come here in his youth to study.”

“My father!” I interrupted rather rudely this time, completely forgetting my manners.

The attendants gasped; they had never heard anyone talk to their priestess like that. But the Bríg Brigu was not offended; she seemed to have patience as wide and deep as the ocean and continued with her story as if I hadn't caused the least offense.

“As I was saying, your father used to come here in his youth. One day he saw Ana, and he was instantly smitten. He would not be satisfied until the Bríg Ambue, our teacher of judgment and law, gave her consent for them to handfast.

“Your father was obviously delighted. Even though Ana had been born to a mog, she was very beautiful and smart, a skilled healer and a scribe. But when he eventually took her back to his clan in In Medon after he was elected king, his family—your family—insisted that he find a chief wife who would bring real status and political advantage to their tribe. That was how he got your other mother.

“Your blood kin have ancient ties to Letha, so they contracted for a princess and also a dozen or so barrels of the best fion, as I recall, as her dowry. Your father's clan sent a ship full of cow hides and two pairs of wolfhounds in exchange.

“He married Tuilelaith almost the same day that he met her. I was at the nuptials.”

That last bit about the fion certainly had the ring of truth to it. If there was one thing for which my mother was known for above all other things, it was her steady supply of fion. Everyone marveled at how she got it; every barrel was worth a mog, yet she always seemed to get it at the lowest possible price.

The house went silent. For a while the only perceptible sounds were the popping and hissing of the fire and the soft bubblings from the huge cauldron over the hearth. Everyone could see that I was in shock from the revelations and they held back speech, waiting for me to recover my composure.

As I began to see the truth, I also began to understand my mother's strange indifference to me and her attentions to my brother. We didn't look anything alike, people always said, and now I knew why. I was my father's daughter, born of a woman of low status and sent to the nemed of Dálach-gaes and Niamh to be raised and Druid-trained, while Eógan, who was of royal blood on both sides, was raised and educated by my father and my stepmother.

Stepmother. I tasted the new word in my mind a few times to see how it felt, and now my tears did flow—whether from relief or sorrow, I knew not.

“But where is my mother now? Does she still live here in this place?” I asked, wiping my eyes with only the faintest sense of hope.

“Alas, no, your stepmother sent her away as a condition of her marriage to your father. The king was so in awe of your stepmother and of her royal ties in Letha that he agreed to this, though I have reason to think that he soon came to regret it. You see, Ana was the love of his life.