“Oh, I laid it on,” my mother agreed, “the insults as well.” And they laughed, remembering how my mother had boasted with such eloquence of her own beauty and virtue, while likening the other women to plain cows. Their happiness with each other was like a warm cloak tucked around me, and I thought to myself that my own two parents must be peerless in all of Ireland.
So despite my rough ride, I was nearly beside myself with excitement as we came to a stop outside the high fence that surrounded
the king’s dun. My mother was recognized and admitted right away and rode straight to the Royal House. It sprawled over the settlement, dwarfing every other building in the compound. How does it stay up? I wondered, marveling at the immensity of it. The cone of the roof soared so high into the sky I had to crane my head as far back as it would go to see the tip. A wonder it doesn’t catch fire when the sun’s overhead, I thought. While I goggled, my mother dismounted neatly, passed the reins to Berach and lifted me from the chariot. A quick gesture smoothed her hair and skirt, and then she turned to address the door-guards.
“I come from Cuchulainn, Champion of Ulster. I must speak with the king immediately.”
They exchanged looks.
“He is not here at present, Lady Emer.”
“Sencha, then. Is he here?”
They shook their heads in unison, but seemed hesitant to say more. My mother’s eyes flashed, and I thought to myself that the king’s men would soon wish they had been more helpful. Her voice, when she spoke, was a cold whip.
“Ulster is under attack. While we stand here exchanging pleas-antries, Maeve of Connaught marauds through our countryside unhindered. Now who in the name of the gods has authority in Emain Macha?”
The men straightened in shock. “Your pardon, Lady Emer, we thought it was...well, we knew your husband was not well-pleased to have been overlooked for Celthair’s feast.”
My ears pricked up. I had been aware that something had angered my father when he last was home—he had ridden off, in fact, in an abrupt fury—but I had not known the cause.
“No, he was not well-pleased,” my mother agreed. “And well it is that he restrained himself from vengeance on his friends, and sought a more fitting foe instead, for it is because of his patrols that the armies of Connaught have been discovered. And now, you will answer my question, before the whole of the province is overrun!”
“They are still at the feast—Conchobor and all his nobles.” It was the older of the two guards who spoke, a man with a grizzle of gray in his hair and beard. “They left four days ago and have not yet returned.”
“They will return now.” My mother could have been the queen of Ulster herself, so assured was her authority. “We have traveled the afternoon without rest or food. You will bring us provisions now, such as may be eaten on the move, and a guide. I will go myself to rouse them.”
Cathbad, the king’s chief druid, was there. He had returned alone from the feast early the previous day, his old bones craving a proper bed and his mind uneasy. When he heard Emer’s report, though, he declared he himself would accompany my mother to Dun Lethglaise, Celthair’s house on the shores of the River Quoile. A sudden fear came over me: that I would be left behind in the care of some strange woman of Conchobor’s household. I felt battered and tired from the long chariot ride, but I would travel to the ends of Ireland, I thought, rather than leave my mother now.
I needn’t have worried—at least not about that. The chariot was to be left behind, but not me. To my horror, the fellow who brought Cathbad’s horse scooped me up under the arms and planted me in front of Cathbad himself. That frightened me more
than all the warriors of Connaught! His long gray beard blew in the wind and tickled my neck, and his breath whistled over my head, but I didn’t dare move a muscle. I held myself stiff and tried to become an invisible weightless thing. But the horse’s gait was smooth and soothing, and after we had eaten, the fluttery feeling in my stomach quieted. I remember my mother passing me a cloak against the cool of the evening as the sun sank. The sky blazed with fiery color, dazzling against the dark hills.
I woke with a start as the motion stopped, first confused at where I was, and then appalled to find myself slumped against the chief druid of Ulster. I jerked away in alarm, stammering an apology, and then another as I overbalanced and nearly fell from the horse.
“It’s all right, Luaine.” His voice was a soft murmur, spoken only to me. “It’s not eating children I am here for.” It was a tired joke, even to a seven-year-old, but it reassured me all the same.
“Well, then,” he said, and I could hear the grimace in his voice as he stretched out his back. “Let us go in, and see why there is no one here to greet us.”
The men were in no condition to greet us. The smell that billowed out as Berach pulled open the oak doors was terrible—vomit, urine, and gods above! that was only the start of it. I recoiled, retching, and ran back to stand with the horses.
But my mother held her ground. She cast her eyes around the dark interior, found a wall bracket and pulled out the torch. “Do you have a flint, Berach?” Then, holding the light high, she led the two men into the fetid hall. I heard groans, and calls for help, and horrible, racking retching noises that made my own belly flip over in disgust.
The story that eventually emerged was this: The feasting and drinking had gone on for three days and three nights, by which time the food had given out. Near dawn on the third night, three men had staggered into the adjoining storehouse demanding food, and when the cook had insisted there was no more, they had beaten the poor man nearly senseless before he was able to escape their drunken fists and run from the building. Finally, roaming the grounds, they had found a haunch of beef at the top of the midden heap. It had gone off and been thrown out, but they dragged it back to the fire, cut off the obviously green parts and roasted the rest. The next morning they woke their fellows with a triumphant breakfast, and by noon the whole lot of them were desperately ill.
I do not know if Celthair was ever able to live in that house again. The men suffered such ague and griping cramps that many were unable even to stagger outside to relieve themselves. They were sick and needed nursing, but in all honesty, they were so repellent in their drunkenness and wallowing filth, that the most dedicated healer would have been hard-pressed to go near them. Certainly the servants had not been up to the task. They had fled, risking their master’s wrath rather than face such a horror.
My mother emerged from the building in angry despair. “They are useless!” she railed. “Not one man in all of Ulster fit to lead an army to battle! And where is the pride and might of our people now?”
Safe behind the red mare’s flank, I watched the drama unfold. Berach and Cathbad had built up a fire on the riverbank, and then, with makeshift torches, they plunged back into the house.
They had returned again with a man slung between them, his feet dragging weakly behind. My mother was grim, her lips pressed together so tight they all but disappeared as she flung off her cloak and rolled back her sleeves. She stripped the filthy clothes off the man, and it was only as I heard Cathbad coaxing him into the dark water that I realized who it was.
It was the white backside of the king I was staring at, and it made me sick with shame to see him like that, streaked with his own filth and weak as a newborn calf. The river must have been ice-cold so early in the year, but they all four waded through the reeds into the dark water, and my mother herself scrubbed him down while the two men supported him. She must have rinsed out his clothes too, for I heard the wet slap of them as she threw them onto the shore. “Useless,” she said again, and I wasn’t sure if she meant the king or her attempt at washing his clothing. Conchobor was brought naked and shivering to the fire, where he was wrapped in Berach’s cloak, and at last my mother made her way back to me. By then I had let my legs fold under me and was curled up in my own cloak in the dewy grass, struggling to keep my eyes open.
“Let’s go find the stables, dove,” she said, and I pulled myself to my feet. Her skirt dripped and clung to her legs as we led the three horses. The outbuildings were no more than black shadows rising against the stars, but the paths were smooth and we found the right one without much trouble. The stable, at least, was clean and orderly, shoveled out that afternoon by the looks of it. I breathed deep, grateful for the familiar smells: horse and fresh straw, leather and the sharp bite of urine. There was a pallet in the tack corner with a small oil lamp on a shelf beside it. My mother
lit the lamp from her torch, heaped the pallet with fresh straw, spread out her cloak and announced, “Bedtime.”
I was in no mood to protest. She covered me with my own cloak, and then she knelt down and kissed my cheek. “I’ll come back to see to the horses and then join you when I can. You’ll be all right here, Luaine? Not frightened?”
I shook my head and nuzzled into my mother’s cloak. This felt safe, like home. Much, much better than being out there with... “Is the king dying, Ma?”
She gazed at me, her eyes dark in the lamplight, as if considering whether to answer. The light caught her hair as she shook her head. “Cathbad doesn’t think so. He is searching now for ingredients to make a medicine.” Again her lips pressed against each other as if to hold back the rest of what she wished to say.
“Sleep well, then, little one.” My mother turned to a rack hung with horse blankets and stacked her arms high before disappearing into the dark.
Horse blankets for a king, I thought with a guilty giggle. I fell asleep listening to the whispery rustle of rats in the grain bags.
The slow deep rumble had woven through my dreams, so that I woke to a voice I already knew. I didn’t know its owner, though, and I stayed very quiet and small in my bed while I listened. My mother was gone—she had squeezed in beside me in the night, but her place was cold now.
Slowly the sound of his work came closer. I listened to the scrape of the shovel, the rustle of forked straw, the dry sibilance of grain buckets filling—the sure, deliberate movements and quiet talk of a man who knows how to put animals at ease. By the time he
came to my mother’s red mare, I had already decided I liked him. I confess I still hold the childish belief that men who are good with animals are trustworthy with people as well.
“Ah, now.” The footfalls stopped. “Aren’t you a beauty, then?” he breathed, and a swell of pride warmed me. He murmured to her as he cleaned her stall, admiring her. “Used to stabling with the best too, aren’t you? The great horses of Cuchulainn himself.”
“She is prettier than those two,” I called out. Ceara was my favorite, and I didn’t see why she should always stand in the shadow of The Gray and The Black.
There was a pause, and then a surprised chuckle. The slow footsteps came to the half-wall that divided my little room from the main barn, and I sat up hurriedly.
“Awake then, Mistress Luaine?” He swept off his cap and bowed: a small, dark man with a jumble of teeth and a ready smile. “I am Seanan, at your service,” he said.
“Where is my mother?”
“At work already, laboring to put the men of Ulster on their feet.” He shook his head. “A right wonder she is, your mother.” That seemed cheeky, and I frowned, not quite up to the task of reprimanding a grown man. He paid me no mind, but continued. “She hoped to return before you awoke, but if not, asked me to look out for you. Are you hungry?”
Gods, yes. The hunger awoke in me as soon as it was spoken, and on its heels, more urgent still, the need to urinate.
“There’s a trench out back where you can take a—” Seanan stopped short and waved a hand vaguely at the doorway. No doubt it had occurred to him that “piss” might not be a proper word for a young noble lady.
We were two nights at Celthair’s dun, nursing Conchobor and waiting for him to be fit to travel. On the second day, the house servants, or most of them, returned. Word had got out that my mother had taken charge and with someone to direct them, they regained their courage. She wasted no time chastising them but put them straight to work: restocking the cookhouse (which thankfully was a separate building adjoining the main house), finding fresh clothing for the king, fetching Cathbad the herbs he needed. One asked whether they shouldn’t also fetch out and tend their master. At that my mother’s sniff reached new heights of expressiveness.
“It is all one to me,” she said at last. “He is your master, so no doubt you owe him your service. For myself, I should think a man who manages to poison his guests ought at least to suffer alongside them.”
The servants exchanged uneasy looks, not knowing whether they had been given leave or not, but at length Celthair was brought forth and washed up and dosed with Cathbad’s brew. But my mother never paid him any mind at all, except to tell him in parting that it was only due to the loyalty of his servants that he was so well tended. Thanks to her, he never knew that they had abandoned him in his illness, but instead was grateful for their care.
We left under a threatening sky. The river was black and choppy, uneasy under the ridges of cloud—a row of dark underbellies swollen with rain—that pressed over us. My mother eyed the clouds, then the little canopy Berach was fixing over the cart Conchobor would travel in, and sighed. “Let’s hope the man
doesn’t drown before he recovers,” she muttered in his ear. Berach snorted his agreement. “He will arrive alive, Lady Emer, if I have to bail all the way to Emain,” he promised, and I saw my mother’s impatient anxiety reflected in his own pale eyes.
It’s strange, isn’t it, how a thing can be good and bad at the same time? Our stay at Emain Macha was like that.
The place itself was so different from what I expected, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Not that my parents had exaggerated— it was all there, just as they had described: the boys’ long playing field, the Speckled House full of war trophies and weapons, and of course Conchobor’s great house itself. My mother and I stayed there, in the large richly furnished room that was always kept free for Cuchulainn and Emer. I walked right around the outside of the Royal House one morning, numbering one finger for every step, trying to see how many times over I would count all my fingers before I closed the circle. I forget now how many it was—enough for me to realize that our own home of Dun Dealgan was like a farmer’s cottage compared to the king’s house. It took five circles of huge posts inside the walls to support the weight of the roof! And while we had a partial second story—a ring of small storage areas tucked under the eaves—the Royal House at Emain Macha had a full ceiling, with as much space above as below. And beautiful! Everywhere I looked there was carving and tapestry, the shine of beaten bronze and copper, rich fabrics and polished wood.