Chapter 4 #4
Scáthach called the end of the drills sooner than she would for a dry-land feat. The students, Uathach, and Tabiti stripped down and spread their wet clothes on the sun-heated rocks to dry, and then wrapped themselves in their blankets and clustered around the fire so their bodies would thaw.
Scáthach, who had opted not to get wet this training trip, joined Leannan on her rock.
Scáthach leaned back and closed her eyes.
She was pleased by the progress of her students and enjoyed the waning sunlight as she decided if tomorrow was as warm as today had been, they would pack up some of the smaller vaulting poles and drill using them to leap over the streams connecting the pools before moving on to the second step in the underwater feat.
“Ahem.”
Scáthach felt Leannan’s tail thump before she opened her eyes to squint up at Cuchulainn. He had a blanket wrapped around him. His hair was drying and it formed a tricolored halo around his head.
“Excuse me, Queen Scáthach.” He shifted his weight from side to side as he spoke.
“You may call me just Scáthach,” she said.
His lips turned up. “I don’t believe you are just anything, Queen.”
She smiled.
He cleared his throat again and continued. “I wanted to thank you for earlier.”
“There’s no need to thank me. I am in a unique position to understand some of your experiences because I have had similar ones,” she said.
“Well, it is rare that I am understood. So, thank you,” he said. “May I ask you a question that deals with our similar parentage?”
Scáthach raised a brow, her curiosity piqued. “Certainly. Would you like to sit?”
He nodded and sat on the other side of Leannan, who stretched out between the two of them. The big deerhound lifted her head and huffed a welcome as he scratched under her chin and grinned warmly at her. “There’s a good girl, a fine, smart girl.”
When Cuchulainn shifted his attention from Leannan to Scáthach, his face was still alight with the warmth of the smile he had for the dog, and Scáthach was struck anew by his beauty.
Relaxed and happy, Cuchulainn was divine in his visage, and she understood why the men of Ulster were eager for him to marry.
“I have heard that your mother, the goddess Béfionn, actually raised you,” he blurted, his cheeks reddening.
Scáthach showed no surprise at his question. “Yes, she raised me from the age of five.”
“And the other warriors say you still see her. She visits here and spends time with you.”
He hadn’t phrased it as a question, but when he said no more, Scáthach nodded and said, “Yes. Mother does visit as often as she’s able.”
His brow furrowed. “But does she come to you because she wants to see you—and you her? Or because she’s watching you and judging you?”
“Are you asking me if my mother and I like each other?”
“I am. Yes.”
“That’s a curious question.” It told her many things about Cuchulainn and about Lugh.
“I apologize if the question is overly familiar.” He started to stand, and she touched his shoulder to stop him.
“I said curious, not rude or too intimate. I can easily answer your question. Yes. I honor, respect, love, and like my mother. If she watches me, it is with pride. She doesn’t judge me.
She teaches me. Béfionn made me the warrior and teacher I am.
She was just at Dunscáith yesterday, and still I look forward to when next I’ll see her. ”
Cuchulainn stared at her a long time before he spoke softly. “That is . . . nice.”
They remained silent, though it wasn’t an awkward silence. Cuchulainn absently stroked Leannan’s ears and Scáthach relaxed with her face tilted up to catch the sunlight. Eventually, she cleared her throat. “May I ask you a question that might be overly familiar?”
He nodded. “Yes. Of course.”
“Earlier you mentioned that when you were a child every adult and every youth around you stopped treating you like a child. Did that include your father?”
Cuchulainn shrugged. “I didn’t meet Lugh until I began training with the Ulstermen. It was then that my childhood came to an official end, so no because I didn’t know him when I was a child.”
“How old were you when you began training with Ulster’s warriors?” she asked.
“Seven,” he said.
Scáthach was glad his gaze was on Leannan so that he didn’t see her shock.
In éire as in Alba, the official training of warriors typically began when a child turned thirteen.
Before then they were encouraged to play warrior.
They raced one another and wrestled and even used wooden swords to mock fight.
She, too, had been gifted at an early age with strength and talent beyond fully mortal children, but a seven-year-old—no matter their parentage—was still a child.
She made sure her voice was neutral when she asked, “And what of your mother?”
“My mother? What do you mean?” He glanced up at her.
“When did she stop treating you as a child?”
He shrugged again. “I think when I started beating all the older boys in foot races. That was around the time I turned four or five. Mother has always been proud of me.” He almost smiled. “She cheered the loudest whenever I won, which was every time I raced.”
Scáthach could think of nothing to say, so she made herself smile and nod at the Hero of Ulster—while her mother’s heart ached for a little boy who had been forced to grow up too quickly.