12. Lifting the Curse
Lifting the Curse
It took three arms men to wrestle Daithi into a cart, once they got him to the bottom of the hill. "Should have bound him hand and foot, then rolled him," Tuathal heard someone mutter behind him.
"'E'd probably break his neck out of spite, and then the Lord of the Land would be truly angry.
And break the wall and hedge on 'is way down.
" The second voice spoke with calm certainty.
Tuathal bit the tip of his tongue. Given how Daithi had been blaming all save himself for his fate, the man wasn't truly wrong.
"Had the king given me a proper reward, I'd not have brought back fleeces and mead," the fool now shrieked as the priests approached where he lay. "No proper son of Domnail keeps back for himself what should go to warriors." He spat toward Fiachta, and got a kick in the ribs for his reward.
Insects hummed around them in the hot, still air at the edge of salty marsh and sea.
It smelled of decay and salt, heavy with life and death both.
The tide had gone out, leaving bare sand and mud to bake.
Tracks of stick-legged birds crossed the flats, and peeping calls rose from the sea grasses.
Now, the waters crept back toward the land as the sun vanished into the western sea, behind the hills.
Ducks swam through the air overhead, returning from searching for food for their broods.
Tuathal stayed back, out of easy view of the wise ones.
Something about Eoghan chafed him, like a note only slightly out of tune, or the tiniest bit of sand in a shoe.
Or was it the One who spoke through the senior wise one that inspired discomfort? Perhaps both.
"Hear my words, you will pay for this," Daithi called. "Had I been given a proper share, Pyder's curse would have died with him."
Thunk. The wood of Eoghan's staff came down on Daithi's skull, stunning the fool.
"Duty undone and vows unmade brought ruin to the land," the priest chanted, voice heavy as his words slid through the air like a blade through soil.
"Duty undone and vows swift broken called ill to this land.
Blood pays the price, blood and life. Spill the blood. "
As he chanted, the wise ones had formed a half circle around Daithi.
Fiachta drew his sword and slid it between the arms man's ribs.
As he did, Daithi shrieked, an animal's cry, not a man's.
The priests grabbed him and dragged him to the edge of the incoming waters, pushing his face down as the first stars appeared and light faded.
Neither land nor sea, neither day nor night, neither summer nor spring, the oath breaker died twice at once.
"Leave him for the beasts," one of the younger priests, Forchel, ordered. "All of this one returns to the land, payment for broken vows, a vow given on the land."
The cool wind from the incoming waters had nothing to do with Tuathal's shiver.
No wonder the Lord of the Land angered. Daithi had sworn falsely on the very soil itself, flesh of the Lord of the Land.
He was fortunate he died among the Dunalaid and not the Brytheen.
His ending would not have been so swift.
"Go."
Fiachta acknowledged the order and left the wise ones with the body at the edge of the returning sea. His people followed, silent save for the sound of steps and wheels on the ground as they returned to the king's hill.
Meren sought his bed that night, for comfort, not for pleasure. He did not refuse her, holding her in the darkness.
Seven nights later, Tuathal leaned on the trunk of an oak and let his gaze rest on the land.
He'd been repairing the strap on the travel drum's case, and the small stitches disagreed with his eyes.
The needle and his fingers did not agree, either, but a bard cared for his own tools, like any master craftsman.
Now he rested his eyes on low green wheat that should be knee-high or taller.
Heat followed the sacrifice, and proper summer days, but ...
Truly, outside of the tales of Gwydion and the days of the great word-workers, crops did not grow in a night, nor did lambs awake to find themselves sheep.
Yet something still felt unbalanced, a song without proper tuning, the notes almost correct but not.
Or did he simply desire to roam, to see more lands, to visit other courts? No, the sense was not that.
"No other king would provide so much honor," he whispered.
The traveling merchants and lesser bards all swore to that.
Only Fiachta's court waxed so fat. The northern raiders had set the Brytheen to war, raid and counter that had lasted to the first of summer.
The king of Dunpelder on the far eastern coast had died, leaving three nephews and two sons, all of whom claimed the land even though land rights passed through the mother.
Truly, the dun earned honestly the name "place of spears" this season!
Kallia waged war on a neighbor, or had before great storms wrecked all along the eastern shore of the sea, according to the merchant traders.
The awan did not push him to travel, so he stayed, but ...
"Meren," the queen had stated the day before, as they broke their fasts before work.
"My queen?" He'd given the woman a broken gold brooch. It had once been fine, but time and bad workmanship had failed.
Aisling the Bold's eyebrows had risen over hard eyes. "Do you seek to marry, brother of my husband?"
"I cannot," he spoke before catching himself. "That is, I know not if another's gesh binds me as well, so I do not seek to wed."
She and her maid servant had both leaned back, startled. "Can that happen, that a gesh on one ties another?"
He'd drunk a little sour milk as he considered.
"In truth, oh great queen, I do not know.
In tales it can, if the one who bears the gesh brings it down on himself, like Cormak and the daughter of Lir.
I was witness, not named when the words were cast, but my teacher bears the burden, and it might have passed thus in part to me.
" Of his own gesh he would not speak. It did not matter so long as he did not borrow without returning.
The serious expression on the face of Aisling the Bold had not boded well for his peace. "I must think on this. Whispers stir among the serving women, although they remain only whispers."
What mattered it to others who shared his bed?
Among women, a great deal, especially women of a household.
Hair pulling, insults, and mischief would be the least of the trouble if the others took offense at Meren enjoying all of his attentions.
He had eaten a little more, then said, "Order in the household is to be treasured more than riches.
What I can contribute to that order, I will do.
" Sleeping alone never killed a man, unless he angered a woman or her family too greatly by doing so.
No man needed a bard's verses to know what that led to!
Now, a day and a night later, he leaned against the tree and considered the road, the curse, and power.
Blood for blood, life for life, gifts of honor to the gods, those things all men and women knew.
The priests of the gods could read the signs and secrets to know what was needed or demanded.
Two lambs chased across the pasture below the hill, kicking and bouncing before returning to their dam.
He smiled a little. The hall boasted four new lives, two boys, two girls, another sign of spring and summer. And yet ...
Unfinished, that was the sense he sought.
Summer's arrival felt unfinished, as if the proper ripening and strength held back, like a warrior waiting for the signal to rush into battle.
The air warmed but not the land? No ... "The song lacks a harmony, and the harmony lacks depth," he thought aloud.
The pattern of notes in the land remained unfinished, like a song done on a small harp that still needed the lower and upper filled in.
"That is not for me," he reminded the air. "I am not wise in that way." His masters would say that he was not wise at all, or had more often than he cared to remember.
"The secrets of an allav are not the secrets of the other wise, true," a melodious male voice said from behind him. He turned to see one of the younger priests, Forchel, the one who had seemed to disagree with Eoghan, coming up the hill. Tuathal inclined in a half bow.
Without greeting, the wise one demanded, "What hear you from the land?"
An odd question indeed. What did the priest seek from him? Tuathal turned his gaze back to the fields and pastures, the hills below the king's hill. Forchel came closer and stood at his right side.
"I hear a song unfinished, the melody ready but the harmonies not fully prepared, like a song tested on a small harp but written for a greater one." When the priest did not speak, Tuathal added, "The sense of summer has returned, but not the full strength."
"Ahh." Did he hear satisfaction in the sound? After another silence, Forchel said, "You hear the deeper wisdom, master allav. And you are correct. Something remains undone, perhaps ungiven."
A question rose within him. Tuathal stilled it. The time was not proper, the lyric too uncertain to reveal to an audience just yet. Rather than ask, he said, "Thank you, wise one. I feared I was losing more than just my wagers."
"If you wager against the king, losing is the least of your woes. If you wager against Cathal gaining sense and modesty, then your fortune will be made, should you find one so foolish or optimistic to wager with." Humor underlay the serious tone, and Tuathal smiled.
"Oh wise one, I will wager on the sheep giving plaid fleeces before I place money on Cathal's modesty." The warrior had many strengths—self-knowledge was not among them.