12. Lifting the Curse #2
Laughter and a smile greeted his words. "Should the sheep turn plaid, the spinsters and weavers will complain because solid colors will become the most precious pattern." Forchel shook his head a little.
They likely would, on both sides. A sea eagle swept overhead. Tuathal reached for its eyes, then caught himself as awan flowed into him.
"The gift of living is greater than life/ as the gift of skill is greater than goods.
"A proper gift will still all strife/ but falsely given leads to ruin.
"Summer comes with length of days, days that stretch unending,
"Ends the season, turns the year/ Turns the heart to shadow's mending."
Forchel grabbed him, lowered him to the ground as Tuathal's legs gave way. He closed his eyes against exhaustion and pain. His very marrow ached with fatigue. Oh, his gift had not come so strongly in years!
"A riddle in your rhymes," the wise one intoned. Tuathal managed to open his eyes. The priest knelt beside him, staff on the ground. "Yours is not an easy gift."
"No." More need not be said, if he could say it at all. The thudding in his head echoed as a great drum in a stone hall.
The priest stood, collected his staff, and strode away.
Tuathal lay back, one arm under his head, eyes closed. The ground did not sway. Until his legs regained their strength, flatness brought safety.
What did his words mean? Good and false he understood, and a craftsman had greater blood price than did a simple servant because of his greater skill.
The rest? Perhaps the wise one had understood.
He recited the words in his mind once again, then dared to sit up.
The world no longer danced. He got to his feet, brushed off a bit of dirt, and hunted up a small meal of bread and cheese.
The food settled his body. His thoughts still tumbled like waters down a hillside.
Another three days passed before one of the serving women, the young bond servant from the weaving hall, found him. "Great master allav, Queen Aisling asks that you come to the drying shed near the weaving hall."
Why? He would soon learn. Tuathal followed the girl to the half-empty shed. The doors stood open, allowing warmth and light into the dim space and speeding the drying of the dyed and washed cloth. The queen stood beside the central pillar, a gray cloaked form beside her. He hesitated.
Forchel raised one hand. "Please stay, Múinti Allave Tuathal map Brida mab Aidain. Your words are needed."
He hesitated. Color faded from Aisling's face. He gestured agreement and drew closer, making a triad of priest, bard, and queen.
Forchel nodded. "We," he rested his hand on his chest, "have been reading the signs of land and life to discern why the land does not fully heal. The signs all wise ones agree upon, and read clearly.
"The gift of a prince is needed to balance the wrong and satisfy the honor of the God of the Land. However, not all agree on what the birds and lots mean." Tuathal strained to hear the quiet, near-murmured words.
"A life?" Aisling whispered.
"That is the confusion. One says yes, the life of Caolin son of Tahdag No'Lorchin, since he is the only male child of royal blood in these lands." Forchel stopped.
Certainty swept over him, a touch of awan as well, as Tuathal asked, "And others read otherwise?" The certainty grew as Forchel gestured agreement. Aisling stepped forward, leaning into the wind of words.
"A prince can be the son of a queen," Tuathal observed. "And there are gifts other than the life in the body, yes?"
Forchel hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it once more.
Aisling's harsh breathing sounded as war pipes, so loud was it compared to the gray-clad figure's silence.
The priest's grip on his staff tightened and he whispered, "Yes.
I and another cast for war, and saw none.
Nor do the leaves speak of bloodshed of that kind. "
"What—" Tuathal changed words mid thought. "May you speak of the exact word used?"
The young priest whispered it, then stepped back. The word's weight bore down on Tuathal's shoulders, heavier than the stones of the northern mountains. He looked to the queen, then said, "Tomorrow, if you can, meet me at the edge of the hedge. Clarity comes after the storm."
Forchel gestured with his free hand. "Indeed, especially storms of summer." He inclined in a slight bow to Aisling the Bold, then departed. As his steps faded, the sounds of life returned to the air in the hall. Or had they always been present, like wind in the trees, ignored for closer sounds?
"Allav, may you speak of the word?" Her question came with fear. He guessed what she feared.
"Only this, oh queen—that it has two meanings, both demanding much. So it is with all true sacrifices, yes?" He smiled, easing the words' weight.
"Yes. Things half given never bring gain." She stood straight once more.
He bowed a little. "Exactly so, wise queen. Without effort and practice, mastery never comes." The approaching dyers slowed their steps. "And practice I must. With your permission?"
"Go." She smiled in turn. "Your words bring clarity."
"Alas, I have failed, that you unravel the riddle. I know better than to challenge womanly wisdom." He hurried out of the shed before one of the servants asked. Or more likely, asked him to help hang the heavy, wet wool on the rods.
None worked in the great hall, save the one tending the fire.
Tuathal settled himself away from the hearth, fingers stroking the clarsach's strings.
Soft notes in no order graced the air as words with no meaning filled his mind.
Order returned slowly, words like birds settling back into their hedge-held nests after the passing of men.
Old, old notes came from the strings, a song of love and longing, a lament after a raid.
"All the cattle in all the fields cannot bring back NoMorvah. "
Eoghan wanted a prince's blood. Sacrificing Caolin, a fosterling ...
War and worse would follow. And that the others disagreed—The melody shifted, one of the riddle tales flowing into the air.
Did Eoghan desire war of that kind? Or did he seek a reason to call the high king's attention to this land?
Pyder had failed his duties and cursed his lands.
To spill the blood of a fosterling for the sake of a warrior's greed?
What more would that breach of hospitality do?
What was the "gift of a prince," truly? The notes darkened, a song of treachery and betrayal.
A prince was the son of a queen or king, acknowledged and acclaimed by parents and people.
"Prince of bards" Tiernan and Fiachta had called him before the gathered men and women.
His father had become a king of the Dunalaid, his mother a low queen among the Brytheen.
Eoghan sought blood. His? Tuathal let his hands rest, silent. Perhaps. The others lacked Eoghan's certainty. For the wise ones to disagree on the meanings of the signs ... Had Eoghan been brought into greater secrets and knowledge than the others, that he seemed so certain?
Tuathal slipped the clarsach into its case and left the hall.
A steady ringing of metal came from the smiths' domain.
Few others moved at the top of the hill.
Now was the time of making cheese and butter, gathering herbs and other things of the land, bleaching cloth or cutting flax for linen, washing and combing fleeces, or it should be.
And for trysting and words of love and desire.
His body warmed at the thought of taking Meren on the soft grass and leaves on a summer night.
"Which is not now," He reminded himself.
The queen would turn her wrath on both of them, were he so foolish and Meren so willing.
That most likely was not the blood the priests felt needed to be shed.
He made his way to the edge of the land, where all elements balanced, earth and water, plant and animal, sea, land, sweet water.
The hum of insects swirled around him. Something splashed into the water closer to the sea.
Ducks gabbled to each other. Wind passed over the grasses and reeds, bending them with green grace as it passed.
Never seen but never doubted, the wind was but was not.
Tuathal turned and looked up to the king's hill. Roofs of rush or wood rose above the walls. A hill of kingship as old as ... The King of the Mounds, perhaps? Before his people's coming, either of his people.