October 2022 – Red Branch Chronicles

The Soldier

The upstairs lounge bar was practically empty and very quiet when I arrived and there was no sign of my friends. I stood at the entrance uncertain as to whether I should go in or not when the man sitting by himself at the bar called me over. I hadn’t noticed him when I had glanced around the lounge area but now I recognised him as the American who lived on the opposite side of the square to us. My parents knew his vaguely.

‘Well, young Sullivan, I haven’t seen you in a helluva long time What’ll you have – a pint?’

He was lean and rangy and very tall and sitting beside him I felt like a child. He bought me a pint and ‘the same again’, as he called it for himself, and I offered him a cigarette.

‘Anyway, how are your mum and dad and the rest of the family?’ He asked, blowing a stream of smoke rings at his drink.

‘Fine, fine thanks’ I said, wiping the creamy head of the Guinness off my lips with the back of my hand. ‘Actually, my brother got engaged last week and he’s thinking of getting married at the end of the summer.’

‘Goddamn fool, if he’s any sense, he’ll stay single. Marriage is the worst thing he could do.’

A bit taken aback by the conviction and force in his voice, I said nothing for a while. ‘You may be right but they say it’s hard to beat the married life – marital comfort and security, you know.’

‘Don’t give me that crap, kiddo’, he snapped. ‘Look what your marital comfort and security did for me, for chrissakes – I ended up in a divorce court. You tell your brother from me to stay single and to be grateful.’

Again I didn’t know what to say – I hadn’t known he had been divorced. Perhaps he was just an unlucky guy. Both of us smoked and sipped our drinks in silence until I felt bound to say something.

How’s your younger brother Paul? I haven’t seen him around for a while. Someone mentioned that he had returned to the States.’

‘I tell you, that kid is making out alright for himself – got into the Steel Corporation in Canada and he’s in the big time now. He’s doing fine.’

‘Canada? I would have thought he’d have got a job in America. I mean, you’ve still got lots of friends and relatives there, haven’t you? Of course, I suppose he’s a bit wary of the draft. That war – the way it is dragging on – is terrible. It is the one thing that would put me off from going to the States. It’s such a shameful war.’

He turned on me viciously.

‘Don’t be so bloody goddamn superior, kiddo. That’s a moral war we are fighting and every American citizen has an obligation to fight in it.’ His voice had risen and he was squeezing my arm tightly, his eyes not seeing me, remembering …

‘I was there twice, right in the thick of it, and I know. It was the best thing possible for me, at the time.The marines took me in as some little jerky crumb that didn’t know his ass from his elbow and when it spat me out later, I was a man, but it had turned me into some kinda animal in the meantime. I was discharged – I’d been wounded and sharpnel took half my head away – you can still see the scars.’ He leaned forward and brushed back his hair so I could see the pale white lines criss-crossing his temple and vanishing into his hair. I muttered something stupid like he was lucky he didn’t get his complete head blown away, which he ignored.

‘Anyway, when I came out,’ he said slowly, as if by speaking that way, he could re-live those days that sometimes frightened him and sometimes made him smile again. ‘I just realised I didn’t love my wife any more. I had no feelings for her one way or the other. I just didn’t give a shit about anything then, I suppose. I was on this stuff the docs gave me for my head and I was going to se some crummy psychiatrist at the same time and I suppose I wasn’t feeling too well. Anyway, once I realised that I hadn’t loved Louise for about the last then years – we had been married eleven – and the only thing I could do was leave her. I said to her, look Louise, you can have everything – I don’t want a thing. I just took a few clothes and left her the apartment, the car, all the furniture we had bought together – everything. Anyway, I moved way down, away from her, to another country and I started to live with this girl – God, she was beautiful. I tell you, I really loved that kid, I swear to Christ I did. We were just waiting for my divorce to come through – Louise had agreed to it – and then we were going to get married. And then – oh Jesus, when I think of it …’ he broke off and finished his drink in a gulp before ordering another one and another pint for me.

‘What’s that you’re drinking there anyway?’ I asked as the barman placed the tall glass full of transparent something or other in front of him. ‘It looks like Seven-Up or tonic water, or something.’

‘For all you know, kiddo, that’s right. I’m meant to be on the dry – according to my old man and the doc but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. Anyway …’ he paused, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply and I noticed his hands were trembling slightly.

‘Anyway,’ he repeated ‘Two days before my divorce was due to come through, she shot herself. The bitch shot herself through the head with my service pistol. Just as I grabbed the gun, she shot herself.’ He paused again and drank deeply, rolling the glass between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes, staring at me, were blank and a nerve was jumping high up in his cheek. I turned away, embarrassed.

‘Anyway,’ he went on quietly, ‘when the cops arrived there ten minutes later, I was still standing over the body with the gun in my hand. My prints were all over the sonuva bitch and the bastards laid into me, two of them held me and the third smashed me – they were so sure it was first degree murder and they scented promotion – you know the crap – determined cops overcome ruthless killer at risk to themselves,’

I nodded, as if I knew. ‘Go on anyway, what happened?’ I was completely involved in his story now, my pint forgotten.

‘Christ, I was lucky. I knew the sheriff and he gave me a chance to tell it how it was, otherwise I would have been up shit creek. When you are just out of the service, you have no friends – they are all either still inside, dead or else dodging the draft and you have no-one to help you if you’re in trouble. I was goddamn lucky in that the sheriff believed me and the court turned in a verdict of suicide. I don’t know, I didn’t feel relieved. In fact, if you want to know the truth, I felt sweet shit all. I mean – I had nothing left – I was completely alone and the realisation was only just beginning to hit home. The only thing I could do was re-enlist.’

I tool a long drink and lit a fresh cigarette. ‘I don’t know, I said, ‘I don’t think I would have done that.’

He didn’t answer, concentrating on blowing smoke rings, gathering his thoughts.

‘I became a squad leader and about a month later we were out on patrol when we walked straight into a goddamn ambush The little bastards hit us with everything they had. The squad was wiped out except for myself and a pfc – and we were both wounded pretty badly. – I got it in the guts …’ he traced the area on the outside of his shirt with a long forefinger – and the private got it in the arms and legs. Well, I tell you, that, for me, was the end. I just lay in this stinking little hospital praying that I’d die – I had nothing to live for – there wasn’t a goddamn thing worth anything to me. Anyway, I got out of hospital first and went to se the other guy. The docs had had to amputate both his arms and his two legs and the guy was just literally a torso. Anyway, I told him I was going to top myself and that everything I had I was leaving to him. I swear the little bastard just looked at me and then he called me a pot-bellied motherfucker and threatened to beat the shit outta me. I laughed then for the first time in months, I reckon – I mean the whole idea of that ‘body’ getting out of bed and working me over – Jesus, he had no arms or legs and even if he had, he would still only be half my size. So I just asked who’d lift him out of bed and he said the nurse would and he’d beat me to death with his stumps. Christ, the nurse walked in then, she was a beautiful woman and she sat beside this little runt. Then he said to me, look, Billy, do me a favour and be my best man, we’re getting married when I get outta this place and I want you to come to my wedding. I’m telling you kiddo, I couldn’t believe it – a half-pint bastard with those disabilities and he was talking of getting married. I thought he was only joking but he was real serious. I didn’t know what to say or do, for chrissakes. I suppose I musta congratulated him or something and I promised to be the best man – but Jesus, I just couldn’t. I mean after Louise and the other woman and … and everything, I just couldn’t. Anyway, I left soon after that, I didn’t even say goodbye to the poor little sonuva bitch. I didn’t even write him a note or anything.’

I took another gulp of Guinness and felt that light-headed feeling come over me when I drink too much on an empty stomach. Curiosity gnawed at me yet I didn’t want him to think I was prying. I glanced quickly at him out of the corner of my eye – he was staring at his drink but I felt he wasn’t seeing it or even aware that he was in a bar.

‘Go on, anyway.’ I prompted gently.

‘It wasn’t all my fault, kid, I swear it.’ He insisted, grabbing my arm tightly. ‘It wasn’t really my fault, was it?’

I shook my head. ‘No, no, of course not. You were all broken up over everything that had happened.’

‘Yeah, that was it, kid. I mean, Jesus, when I came out I was just plain shagged. I was still going to this crummy shrink and I was drinking. Jesus, I was really drinking – two bottles of whisky a night – and the worst thing was I wouldn’t even be plastered after that. I’d just sit in this crappy little room, drinking my guts out, afraid to sleep. I suppose my nerves must have been shot too – every girl I saw, I’d think it was Marion and every time I fell asleep, I’d see her lying on the floor and me standing over her with the gun in my hand. Christ, I even began to wonder if I had shot her. I tell you, I was going mad.

I gestured at the barman for another round and Billy nodded his thanks.

‘The next thing was, my old man came to see me. I hadn’t gone home since I had left Louise and I don’t know how the hell he got my address. Anyway, the old bastard starts in on me, calling me a drunken layabout and to pull myself together. I could take all of that – I mean, it was true. Then the bastard started to blame Marion, it was that whore you were living with, he said. Christ, I got the little sonuva bitch by his scrawny neck and, Jesus, I really hit him. He was lying half off the bed and I was just about to boot him when I realised, Jesus, Billy, this is your old man, your father and I just couldn’t hit him again. I just stood there, holding him and I began to cry. I was just shot, my nerves were gone, every goddamn thing was ruined. But I just couldn’t take what he said about Marion – I loved her, Jesus, I really did. I mean, if my old man walked in here right now and said the same thing, I swear, I’d kill him.’

He paused and sipped the new drink the barman placed in front of him. ‘He wouldn’t though, the poor old bastard is still a bit scared of me although he pretends he has forgotten all about it.

Anyway, the folks decided to go back to the old country and mom wanted me to go with them. I mean, there wasn’t much left for me in the States – no goddamn friends, separated from my wife, and a suicide, I was really just in the shits and I suppose I knew I couldn’t just keep on going the way I was. Anyway, I reckoned the change would be good for me – Ireland couldn’t be much worse than the crummy slum I was living in at the time.’

He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one immediately, playing with the match while it burnt down.

‘Well, how do you feel now, over here? I asked. “Do you feel better?’

‘Jesus’, he said thoughtfully, as if the idea had never struck him before. ‘I don’t know, I guess not. I’m still one helluva bastard. Even though I’m not fully divorced – Louise doesn’t want to give me one now, she still loves me, she says and thinks I’ll change my mind and come back to her – but I’m seeing someone else here. In fact, I’m supposed to be meeting her here around now. I’m sure you know her, at least to see In a village this size, everybody know everybody else, right? I mean there’s no secret about it. She and her parents know I am waiting for a divorce. My old man knows about her too – he even knows her parents for chrissakes.’

He finished his drink and when I tried to buy him another one, he called me a sonuva bitch and ordered another pint for me and another for himself. I wanted to ask him how he could call the war a ‘moral’ one while claiming it had ruined his life and made an animal out of him but I hadn’t the nerve.

‘I’ll tell you one thing I either gained or lost in the war, kiddo, I don’t know, you may think it good or bad, it’s up to you to decide yourself,’ he said blowing a string of smoke rings.

I nodded wisely, sipping my Guinness slowly.

‘I lost any belief I ever had in God – no, don’t condemn me …’ – I hadn’t said anything – ‘let me finish. I was fighting, right. I had to kill or be killed There were people dying all over the goddamn place – in screaming agony. I come out of the war, I leave my wife, and then the only woman I have ever loved goes and kills herself. Now, okay, you might say it was my own fault in the first place – getting called up, for leaving my wife, for living with another woman and I’d say to you, horseshit! If God is good, why the hell would he let it all happen?Why does he let people wade through all the crap and then, at the end of it – who knows? Maybe it was worth waiting your entire life for, while, on the other hand, there could be nothing there at all when you die. Anyway, I’ve decided to take my chances – I just can’t believe in God anymore. You just go and tell me why people suffer and then I might believe again.’

He leaned back on his stool and smiled. I said nothing. What could I say that meant anything?

‘Another thing I learned was to fight. I’m telling you, kiddo, if you’re ever in a fight, just remember, the fastest boot wins. If you get in first, you win. If you don’t, you’ll end up in a goddamn hospital for a month. Christ, I remember once down in Alabama.’

His eyes lost their focus again, remembering. ‘I was there with these guys, we had just got out on leave. Jesus, we had been drinking all night and the bar keep finally threw us out and we started looking for another place to drink when the cops stopped us. One of the guys with me was black and the cops started to push him around. We were all in plain clothes, they didn’t know we were in the marines so we weren’t taking any shit so I jumped one of the bastards and smashed him. Jesus, it was just a free-for-all in the middle of the goddamn street when one of the fat sons of bitches pulls out his pistol. Jesus, there wasn’t much point in getting our asses shot off. They took us down to the courthouse basement and started to take us apart.Two of them held Joe – he was the black guy and the third cop pistol whipped him. Jesus, I screamed and screamed until the sheriff came down and told them to lay off. When he found out we were in the service, he let us out with a helluva fine and told us to get our asses out of town. Christ, all I wanted to do was to take the fat bastard apart. I told the sheriff straight, I said if I ever met his fat, pot-bellied motherfucker of a deputy again, I’d castrate the bastard. I meant it too. Jesus, I really meant it. The sheriff knew and so too did the fat little sonuva bitch and he was scared of me, he really was, even though he had the badge and the gun. But the way he had two guys hold Joe while he smashed him with his gun – Jesus, it really sickened me. But the little bastard was definitely frightened.’

‘Yeah, I’d say he was.’ I said truthfully, thinking I’d be frightened if I had Billy after me too.

‘Lemme give you a bitta advice, kid.’ He leant forward unsteadily. The drink must have been taking effect now for his speech was a bit slurred too.’Hold on a minute, willya, kid, I’m gonna take myself a slash.’ He pushed himself off the stool and walked steadily enough across the lounge.

I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head. I was confused and slightly depressed but I wasn’t sure by what – the actual squalid facts or the way he had told it all, so dead-pan, unemotionally, except for the occasional pause to grip my arm for intensity.

‘Let me give you some advice from what I’ve picked up, kiddo, okay?’ He sat back down on his stool and drained his glass before gesturing at the barman for refills. Miraculously, his speech had cleared and his eyes were sharp and focused. No matter what else, I could well believe he could drink two bottles of whisky a night.

‘Never back down from a fight,’ he insisted. ‘Never let the other sonuva bitch know you’re afraid. Even if you’re shitting bricks, at least pretend to be eager for the fight and for chrissakes, get your boot in first.’

‘Hello Billy, I’m sorry I’m a bit late, I just couldn’t get away earlier.’ The woman stood slightly behind us, smiling. He immediately got up to offer her his stool, introducing us. “Right then, what’ll you have to drink?

‘Look, really, no more for me,’ I insisted. ‘Thanks a lot all the same. Anyway, I’ve just seen some friends of mine over there and I’d better go.’

‘Sure kiddo, sure. Just remember the advice I gave you and you’ll make it fine. Give my regards to your mom and pop, okay?’

I walked slightly unsteadily over to the table where my friends were sitting on the opposite side of the lounge bar and sank down onto a chair ‘Sorry, I never noticed you guys coming in. Have you been here long?’

‘Long enough but it doesn’t matter. Who’s your man over there? Every time I looked over, there was a fresh pint in front of you.’

‘Ahh, he just lives on the other side of the square,’ I said quietly, trying to forget, but pictures I had never seen before, flashed, like a disjointed film, in front of my eyes. When I closed them it was worse. I opened them and lit another cigarette I didn’t really want.

‘Anyway, let’s finish up here now, there’s party around the corner and we’re all invited,’ Jay told me.

‘Look, I don’t feel too well,’ I partially lied. D’you mind if I don’t go with you. I think I’ll just go back home.’

4. Deichtine

The Triple Births

In the cold of the early morning, Deichtine woke to find the lifeless body of the child beside her and the tears burst from her eyes. Her grief reached such a pitch that no one in the hall could blot out the sound.

“Ah child,” crooned Ness as she held the distraught girl in her arms, “What has been given has just as easily been taken away. Cry not for there is no fault with you or your love for the child. Sure ‘tis the way of the world and a hard way it is for all that live in it but none harder is it than for us women. Here child, drink this.”

Deichtine snatched up the copper cup Ness handed her and drank deeply of the dark Burgundian wine, oblivious of the tiny fly that struggled feebly again on the surface of the wine.

***

The sour smell of sweat mingled with the tang of peat smoke in the dimly lit hut as the women crouched together. Tlachtga started crying. She was anxious, overwhelmed, and she knew she wasn’t ready. It wasn’t right. Everyone knew when a woman carries more than one baby in hers uterus, both mother and children are naturally malignant. Such a monstrous abundance as triplets reflected on her. Tlachtga arched her back as another wave of agony rolled through her body, her scream absorbed by the heavy thatch above her head. The midwife leaned forward to massage the girl’s ankles, her hands moistened with a decoction of flaxseed and peas. This had never happened before, not in her lifetime and nor that in her mother or her mother’s mother. In fact, she had never heard of it before but she knew the risks were not only for the girl squirming on the pallet beside her but also for the world outside the hut was fraught with mortal risks. The triple births of Macha had led to Conor, the king of the Ulaidh, bringing death and destruction for the heroes and the kingdoms.

The young girl panted, her breaths harsh in the dim light and, before she could stop herself, part of her hoped that the life inside her wouldn’t make it. Calatin was a powerful man, with many sons, warriors all of them and … the pain pierced her again and the gemstones the midwife had lent her to ease childbirth were doing nothing for her … it was the féis of Samhain, the start of the Celtic year, the time when cattle were brought back in from the summer pastures and livestock were slaughtered for the beginning of the darker half of the year when her body would open split open to reveal the public manifestation of the hidden and forbidden acts that had haunted her since Imbolc. This monstrous abundance she carried did not presage well for the kingdom of Connachta. Tlachtga struggled to control her raging mind. Ever since the mid wife had whispered to her that she carried three lives within her, she had been in a turmoil. How would her lord take it when he found out. He assumed she was bearing his own child and had so vaunted many a time in the hall. Yet it was his own three sons who had raped her, nine moons ago at the féis at Imbolc. She felt powerless then, unable to speak to her new husband, unable to forget the shame of what had occurred so suddenly and so violently. Unwilling to believe what the midwife had assured her of, she had soon felt the truth kicking and moving inside her. The midwife had tried to explain, scratching with a stick in the dirt. One infant head down, another head up and a third lying sideways and she could feel them now, that way as the agony consumed her again and she screamed as the pain coursed through her.

***

“Cathbad,” Deichtine called nervously “I need your help. I don’t know what to…”

“Is it that you think I don’t know what you need?” The draoidh replied, rising up to his full height from among the grove of oak trees where he had been inspecting the scat left by his totem, the wild boar.

“Come here to me now, child, for you are among the women blessed among them all for what has happened to you. Didn’t you have that dream that Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann, appeared to you?”

Deichtine, her eyes widening, nodded, bewildered by the draoidh’s foreknowledge and yet, for all that, chilled by his presence and the feeling that she had become, unwillingly, part of something bigger and more awful than anything she had ever experienced.

“Sure, wasn’t he the little fly you swallyed in the cup of wine Ness gave you?”

Deichtine nodded again and Cathbad continued.

“And in the dream, he told you that the child which you had cared for in this world was his, and that you are now heavy with child by him again and that you will bear a son who is to be called Sétanta. The colts that had been given to the boy are to be given to this Sétanta, and it is for Sétanta that the colts are to be reared.”

Even as he spoke, Deichtine felt the life stir within her and knew his words to be true.

“But Cathbad, help me, I beg you.”

Angrily, Deichtine brushed away the tears she could feel seeping down her face. “Hasn’t Fergus already declared that I am to be given to Súaltaim? How can I go to his bed when I am already with child? Help me, I beg you, sure you must have the knowledge to make this shame on me go away.”

“Shame, is it? Arr-aagh, go on with you, woman, sure haven’t you been chosen and even I can not foresee what the gods have in mind but one thing is certain, whatever I can do can just as easily be undone”

Cathbad reached out his arm and touched Deichtine gently on the shoulder. “Lookit, child, what has been done cannot be undone for the ways are foreseen and nothing that mortal man can do will bring about their changes unless it is the will of the ancient ones.”

Deichtine turned her tear-stained face up towards the unbending form of the draoidh “But Cathbad, there must be something you can do, you who can cure the bloody flux in animals and who can …”

“Quiet, say no more,” Cathbad commanded. “I will do what I can, but even that, I know, is nothing compared to what has already transpired and what will happen. Come to me tonight before the moon rises and meet me here in this grove of trees. I can give you a potion.”

“Oh, yes, Cathbad, help me, save me from this … this shame,” Deichtine interrupted, gesturing at her still flat belly beneath her tunic.

***

With a gasp, Tlachtga realized that the midwife was directing her strained pushing, massaging her greased belly downwards and towards the hearth and she took a deep breath.

“Two more pushes, my love” the midwife crooned and the first of the infants slid out into her hands. Swaddling it quickly, she passed it to a slave crouching by the pallet and returned her attention to the labouring girl.

Gently she explored the girl’s belly and could feel the child was upside down, its feet pressing down where the head should be in the birth canal. Moistening her small hand with the oil, she firmly manipulated the child back into itsproper position.

While the girl gasped and attempted to recover her strength, the mid wife leaned down and expertly opened a small ankle vein to assist in relaxing the girl.

‘Again my heart’, she urged and with several fierce pushes the second infant was delivered. The third infant which had been lying sideways suddenly shifted, flipping head down. Arms up over its head, it slithered into the old woman’s hands. Three daughters born at the one birth, deformed, each of them having but one sense.

***

The potion was bitter and thin and the smell off it nearly made Deichtine gag but by holding her nose, she was able to force it down in great sickening draughts. Be warned, Cathbad had told her, whatever the potion does to rid your body of the unwanted life within, the gods’ will can not be so easily thwarted. Barely able to place the empty beaker on the floor beside her, Deichtine felt her entrails twist within her and her spine arched in agony as she grunted with the effort. Again and again, her body twisted involuntarily and her bowels churned, a viscous fire consuming her entrails, eating away at the very life force within her. Gasping with the agony, she fell to her knees, retching and spitting a thick, mucous like saliva. Again, her body writhed and it felt as if the very spirit within her was being torn asunder. A burbling sound filled her ears, rising in pitch until she vaguely recognised that it was her own voice, broken and guttural, climbing to a shrill scream. A wetness filled her lower body and the girl collapsed in a welter of her own blood and juices.

“Still, now child, the worst is over,” Cathbad’s voice was a soft hypnotic drone while his hand was cool on her brow. “Rest now, little one, for your womb is empty and will remain so as long as you can maintain a fast. Your body has been purged and there is nothing more that I can do for you.”

Cathbad paused and gently wiped the girl’s sweating face with a cloth moistened with dew he had collected while the sun was still young, being careful to avoid touching her mouth.

“But what of my giving to Súaltaim, will anyone know what has happened?

“Worry not about that, Deichtine, for the gods will find a way that is closed to mortal man. When you go to Súaltaim, you at once will became pregnant to him, and bear him a son, just as you had so recently fostered and just as you had also in your womb until now” avowed Cathbad. “For the gods will not be denied. This triple-conceived child, born of woman and the Gods, will be hailed by all, by warriors, kings and seers; his praises will be sung for many generations; he will avenge all your wrongs; he will defend your fords; he will fight all your battles because all this has been foretold just as three spears will end three kings.

3. Conor

King Conor Mac Nessa gazed down at the lords and warriors of the Red Branch, guardians of the kingdom of the Ulaidh, assembled in the great hall at Eamhain Macha to celebrate the giving to Súaltaim of his desirable elder step-sister, Deichtine, daughter of the former king, Fergus Mac Rioch. Even now, the old fool sat at his knee alongside Conor’s mother, Ness, for whom he had so easily given up his kingdom. The hall, long and usually dim, but tonight resplendent with tallow lamps of Gaulish design hanging from the rafters, resounded to the roars and bellows of the warriors of the Red Branch as they clamoured for food and the sour, black brew of roasted barley, the air flavourful with the smells of roasted meat and fish, hazy from the central hearth smoke. And all this expense, Conor reflected sourly, just to get rid of the stuck-up bitch. He knew that Deichtine resented that he had duped her father out of his crown and that she looked down on him from her handful of seasons his senior. Good riddance to her anyway and if this was the cost, so be it. Glancing down at the table where his mother sat with Fergus, he raised his goblet and toasted his mother for all he had, he had got from her and from the draoidh, Cathbad. Where was the ould bollix now he wondered, isn’t he always lurking around in the shadows, never being where you wanted him and always there when you didn’t?

Standing up, he shook the golden rod with the three silver bells suspended over his head, gradually silencing the clamour in the hall. Conor gestured expansively at the long trestle tables loaded with platters of boar meat, venison and red fleshed fish, the lot embraced by wild fruits, nuts, herbs, mushrooms, periwinkles and oysters, before toasting the troop with his goblet of Falernian wine.

Deichtine, daughter of Fergus Mac Rioch, shook loose her long amber hair so that it rippled in a heavy wave over her creamy pale shoulders and down the back of her dress of costly, bleached linen and glanced up at her father where he sat with Ness, on polished red yew dais, below the table of Conor, the once boy king. Fergus lurched to his feet, the years showing on his face, hard and brown as aged ash wood, engraved with the fan lines of time. Raising his tankard, he waved down the scattered cheers of the men before turning to face Conor.

“Tonight is a great night not only for all of the Ulaidh but for my only daughter and the valiant champion who has claimed her, Súaltaim.” Fergus paused as raucous cheering broke out again and Conal, his beefy face as red as the neck of a rooster, staggered to his feet and roared his approval. “And we all give thanks,” he continued as the noise around him slowly subsided, “to the generosity of Conor, the high king whose bounty and fame exceed all others.”

More warriors, Bricriu of the bitter tongue, Deichtine noticed, and Conor’s sons, Cormac and Crúscraid the stammerer, rose up to roar out of them while oxen drinking horns, iron and wooden mugs were slammed down on the rough boards.

Her father was still up on his hind legs shouting over the din as Súaltaim turned and raised Deichtine to her feet and embraced her in front of them all. Not an overly strong man like the hewn block of a hacked and splintered oak shield, solid and square that Conal resembled, Súaltaim was slightly stooped from an old battle injury, mild mannered and gentle now, his short white hair receded while his eyebrows yet remained dark, over narrow, serene eyes. Deichtine pushed back her long tresses and returned the embrace. Closer to her father’s age than hers, Deichtine was yet grateful that she was being given to Súaltaim rather than some brute like Cethirn the bloody or the bitter and vengeful Bricriu.

Sitting down again, she accepted the goblet of wine her younger brother, Illand, poured for her. She would miss him, she reflected as she gazed around the assembled warriors and people she had known all her life. Illand, unlike his older brother Buinne, always made her laugh and had a knack for knowing what to say in every situation, his curly brown hair tied back from his clear forehead with the plaited band of a Craobh Ruadh warrior, enhancing his bright brown eyes; Fergus, her father she supposed too, for all his foolishness, and even Ness, her step mother, with her long honey-blonde hair framing her strong, angular face, always distant and cool, yet approachable in all ways, despite her being the mother of the cruel and arrogant Conor. How she despised him, with his snide remarks and leering looks, his pathetic vaunting of how great a warrior he was, despite the fact that harder men went before to protect him from the fray, his constant boasting giving the lie to his insecurity, fearful to make any decision for fear it might be wrong, unless supported by Cathbad the draoidh.

Idly she toyed with her goblet, twisting the fine copper stem between her fingers so that the gold ring Súaltaim had given her caught the lamp light and gleamed back at her.

The heat and noise in the hall was becoming oppressive and she leaned back in her chair, against the arm and took a deep draught from the goblet, seeing the struggling fly on the oily surface of the wine too late before the insect slid down her throat. Gulping another mouthful to wash down the fly, Deichtine became almost instantly aware of a spreading numbness throughout her body. Voices boomed in her ear then faded away to sibilant whispers while objects around her seemed to suddenly increase in size before assuming minute forms. Reaching out to put the goblet on the board in front of her, she misjudged the distance and felt herself floating up and away, out of her body and out of her chair, up towards the rafters of the hall, watching her goblet slip and fall, smaller now than a thimble and then further up and away from Eamhain Macha.

Súaltaim turned as the goblet clattered to the flagged stone floor and was just in time to catch Deichtine as she slid from her chair, a small smile forming on her lips as she swooned in his arms.

“Give room, move back, let my lady sister breathe,” Illand shouted as Buinne leapt over the table opposite, shouldering him aside, followed quickly by Conal and Cormac who brushed the food and drink from the table so that Súaltaim could lay the limp form there. Bricriu was the first to stoop and pick up Deichtine’s fallen goblet.

“What mischief has taken place here?” he roared, brandishing the goblet so wildly that the little that remained sloshed onto the flagstones. “Has my Lady been given some noxious bane?” he demanded, sniffing suspiciously at the lees that remained.

Fergus forced his way through the throng and grasped his daughter’s wrist for the beat of her pulse. “She yet lives and may come to her senses soon and …”

But then Ness was there, poised and composed giving directions for the bondmaids to carry the fallen girl to her own chambers while at the same time calming the inchoate cries of her grandson, Crúscraid who beat his own face with clenched fists at the sight of the prostrate girl.

Conor turned, startled, as Cathbad abruptly appeared beside him, his lean, pale features and shaven head gleaming in the lamplight, austere yet strangely calm amidst the hubbub surrounding them.

***

A full moon had passed since Deichtine had fallen into her trance and despite Cathbad’s skill he seemed powerless to rouse her from her slumber and the girl’s life seemed to hang in the balance while Ness nursed her as best she could, squeezing drops of honey into her slack mouth where they pooled in the hollow of her emaciated cheek.

The late afternoon sky was a lowering purple grey heralding a further fall of snow as the giant elk thundered ahead along the woodland track, its massive sweep of amber coloured horn thrusting aside the overhanging branches laden with a previous snowfall.

Conor, Bricriu the bitter tongued, Conall and Fergus accompanied by their charioteers had been out hunting since the grey dawn, although without success when the great elk had broken cover suddenly and the chase was on, the cold winter air lashing their reddened faces. Through the bare winter boles of the trees, where the snow had gathered on the bare branches, Conor could see Bricriu ahead while Conall, to his left, pounded along behind him. In a sudden fluid movement, barely glimpsed through the leafless hedges outlined in frost, the stag leapt and for that fleeting second, Conor retained that vision of the mighty beast in the air before it vanished from sight and he lurched violently to one side of the chariot as Eochaid, his charioteer, hauled on the reins to slew the chariot around, using all of his strength to hold back the yoked horses from hurling themselves over the chasm the stag had so lithely leapt.

“By the púca, that was a close one, well done there, Eochaid,” called Conal, full of admiration for the skill and strength of the slender man who drove the king’s chariot. “I thought you were going to follow your man over the cliff for sure.”

Coaxing the horses back from the brink, Eochaid shrugged his shoulders and manoeuvred the chariot back along the track while Conor, torn between admiration at the stag’s escape and anger at the lost hunt, scanned their surroundings. The Boann River curled away below them and they could see the majestic Sacred Mounds. Night was not far away and yet Eamhain Macha was more than half a day’s travel, if they had fresh mounts.

“We’ll have to stay here so, for the night,” Bricriu commented sourly, looking around the frozen landscape.

“I saw smoke over yonder,” Conal remarked, pointing with his ash spear in the direction of a small knoll partially obscured by the low brush and the thin trees.

“Right so, Bricriu go and take a look,” Conor ordered. “We’ll stay here with the horses.”

Bricriu slouched over towards the hummock and sized up the house. Small, and built low into a hollow in the ground, the heavy turf roof almost touched the snowy ground around it. Smoke drifted through the sodden thatch in wisps in the greying evening light.

“We’ll be lucky if a morsel of food will pass our gullets here tonight,” Bricriu muttered to himself and at that moment, the low door to the house was pushed open.

“Come in out of that, come in with you, you are most welcome.” The little man bowed and smiled, curtseying in a most seemly way. Barely reaching Bricriu’s chest, he was a plump little man with a round, red, beaming face and a neat, forked grey beard, but what was lacking in height was more than made up for in girth, bundled round in a garish, green and red tunic over wide, baggy pantaloons.

“Is it yourself then, the mighty warrior, from far off Eamhain Macha?” The little man inquired, genially, but before Bricriu could open his mouth to answer, he continued, “But tell me this much and tell me no more, is there anyone ailing at the court of the illustrious king Conor Mac Nessa?”

“That’s an odd question, right enough,” burst out Bricriu, his curiosity piqued by the tone of the man. “But you are right, for the lady Deichtine has been in a swoon these long days past and she about to be given to Súaltaim,”

“Arr-aagh, don’t be bothering the head off you with that matter now for all things are fixed by the gods and I have no doubt that the lady will recover in the fullness of time. Go on with you now and bring the rest of the lads in now.”

Conor was stamping his feet against the cold while Conall was sharpening the blade of his hunting spear against a stone when Bricriu returned.

“Well, any luck there at all?” Fergus demanded

“Well, it’s a quare enough place, I can tell you that much,” Bricriu replied, deciding not to mention the odd query the host had greeted him with, “but seeing as there is nothing else around, I suppose it will have to do us for the time being, but I’ll tell you this much, I’ll be glad to be gone out of here in the morning.”

The warriors and their retainers jostled in, the little man bobbing up and down with apparent pride and excitement and Conall, who had stayed near the door, puzzled at how there came to be a steady flow of warriors into the small room, yet it never seemed to fully fill up. It was only then, as the thought struck him, that he noticed the small door off to the side which led into other areas.

Pushing his way forward, Conall found Conor, Fergus and Bricriu having the full of the drink and food that was being served to all and one and that there was no shortage of either.

***

The scream broke the night, jarring Conor awake so suddenly that he knocked over his goblet of brew. The rasp of sword against iron sheath guards sounded harsh in the sudden silence as the men drew their blades. “Would you mind telling me what the… ?” Bricriu began in the sudden cold silence.

“Ah, would youse accept my apologies, don’t be startling yourselves – I should have told you noble men and warriors all – but the lady of the house, her inside” the round ball of their host jerked his thumb over his shoulder -“do be having a young one. This is our fifth, it is.”

No sooner had he ducked under the covering separating the men from a corner of the room than there was a cry from outside, immediately echoed by a cry from the corner where the woman laboured.

“Be the Púca’s bollix, and what’s that now?” roared Bricriu, wrenching the heavy leather curtain away from the doorway and ducking out into the dark, the light from inside the hut making a small rectangle of brightness on the snow.

The cry came again, this time a recognisable whinny from a mare in the lean-to at the side of the cottage and Bricriu paused to watch the miracle of a mare giving birth to a long-legged, gangly colt that suddenly plopped down on the snow, warm and steaming.

“He won’t stay there long, not with that cold up against his belly like that,” Bricriu thought to himself as the mare coaxed the colt into an upright position on its splayed, spindly legs. Lurching and falling, the colt staggered unsteadily to its feet until it could lean against its mother side while its questing mouth latched on to a teat.

“Mother of the gods tonight,” Bricriu muttered in amazement, “It’s another one,” as the mare shuddered again, sweat streaming from its flanks as a second colt began to ooze out of its mother’s body.

Ducking back under the curtain, Bricriu re-entered the hut to tell the news only to find that he was eclipsed by the fact that the lady of the house had, at that moment, just given birth to a healthy son.

“By Lugh’s hand, sure isn’t that grand news.” Conor clapped his two hands together and rubbed them briskly. “Two, you say, and colts as well. Sure that’s grand all together. Lookit here to me, we’ll give them to your man and the lady of the house inside there as a small gift and as a way of paying our compliments for the hospitality shown to us here tonight, what do you think”?

“Right so, good man, yourself,” Conall agreed immediately

And so it was done and the men continued drinking through the night.

***

“Conor, would you ever wake up.” Fergus’ voice was no less urgent than the hand tugging at his shoulder.

Conor sat up and blinked in the cold brightness of the day.

“Where is everything?”

“Sure, that’s what I’m after telling you – it’s all gone, there nothing here except for the babby and the colts – everything else – it’s all gone!”

“Mother of the gods, do you mean to tell me…?” Conor scrambled to his feet and pulled his cloak tighter around him as he scanned the barren winter landscape – the lowering sacred mound in the distance, the stunted, bare windswept trees and a few frozen puddles that began to melt as the sun rose into a leaden sky – until his gaze came to rest on Eochaid cradling the newborn infant inside his cloak while the colts clustered together against the mare’s flank.

***

The fire crackled in the smoky warmth of the great hall and the smell of roasting meat hung in the peaty air. The troop had returned to Eamhain Macha along with the infant and the two colts in the early afternoon without further adventure and with nary a sign of hide nor hair of their host of the previous night and with no explanation of the strange events which they had so unwittingly participated in, only to find that Deichtine had awoken from her deep sleep and eager to tell all who would listen about her dream.

“So,” Fergus mused, holding his daughter in his arms and looking down at her, “you think it was the fly you swallyed then and …”

“Yes, and Lugh the Sun God came to me,” Deichtine broke in excitedly. “Don’t you see, he told me that I would have his child and then he changed me into a bird and I flew away with him to the Sacred Mounds and …”

“The Sacred Mounds, you say,” interjected Bricriu thoughtfully, “but you’ve never been there, have you? How, by the Púca’s bollix, would you have known where you were, I’d like to know?”

“Amn’t I telling you,” Deichtine said, “It was a dream, I suppose, but you never know when you are dreaming, do you? I mean, it was all so real, I was high in the sky, looking down on the mound and Lugh was there and he told me to call the child Sétanta and he would have two colts, the Grey of Macha and the Dubh of Sainglen – and …”

“D’yis mean the two colts we found?” asked Conal.

“What other ones are there?” demanded Bricriu caustically, marvelling again at the question he had been greeted with by the little man the previous night.

“Never mind that for the moment,” Fergus began only to be interrupted by Conor.

“But who is going to raise him?” he demanded angrily.

“Sure, didn’t we do well out of this, all the same,” intervened Conal. “Didn’t the little round fellow give us shelter and keep the cold from the horses while we ourselves had a grand feed of food and drink and now, sure don’t we have the finest gift of all, a grand young fellow, by the look of him.”

As if on cue, the child raised its head and its dark eyes sought and found Conal, while its pudgy grip tightened on Deichtine’s firm breast.

Cathbad arched his brows at the sight but didn’t comment and continued to twine the string of carved amber beads through his long, deft fingers while the discussion continued leisurely as the men relaxed in the hall by the roaring fire.

“Well, amn’t I the one nursing the child, shouldn’t I be the one to raise him?” Deichtine.

“Oh fair enough, Deichtine, no better woman than yourself, of course, to nurse him, but what about a name for the chiseler? That’s the point, you know.” Bricriu put in his words.

“Well, if it’s just a name you’re after looking for, I will give the boy my name,” Conor said magnanimously.

“Hold on there now, but,” Fergus broke in. “Do you mean he will be brought up here in your own household?”

“And why wouldn’t he?” Conor answered belligerently. “Sure wasn’t I the one that first heard the squeal out of him?”

“Go on out of that” Bricriu snapped, rising to his feet. “Youse all know that I was the…”

“Would the lot of youse be quiet and I’ll tell you what must be done” Cathbad cut in exasperated, his voice quiet but commanding respect. Bricriu eyed the draoidh a moment before subsiding onto the heap of skins and reaching for his horn of ale.

“This is the way it will be and I’ll tell you this and I’ll tell you no more,” the draoidh continued. “The boy will be with Deichtine to nurse him; Conor to give him a good name; Sencha, chief judge and chief poet of the Ulaidh to teach him words and speaking and Amergin the poet to be his tutor. Be guided by me and let that be an end to it.” Without another word, Cathbad strode down the length of the hall and ducked out of sight behind the curtain separating his quarters from the common space.