In the few dark hours of the short May night, Deara lay awake yet again. Despite the help the day had brought and the reassuring shape of Merdaine’s brooch in a pouch beneath her pillow, she felt uneasy. The hut seemed strange and empty, bereft of Merdaine’s spirit, untenanted, as if cold ash lay unswept in the hearth, food bowls stood unscoured and the strewn rushes browned with age as she had seen them often enough in homes abandoned after plague.
She looked up into the darkness. Through the smoke hole a single star shone in the deep midnight sky. Outside there were myriads of stars, so still and perfect the night, but from her bed she could see but one, solitary, in all that great gathering.
That was exactly how she felt. She was surrounded by people, she was close enough to touch them, speak to them, to share food with them, but all the time she remained separate. Isolated. She wondered if anyone in all Emain felt as she did, lying wide-eyed on her narrow wooden couch.
She turned onto her side, curling the woollen rug around her, seeking comfort more than warmth. She closed her eyes. Immediately she stood again in the Hall of Council. She heard Conor’s voice.
‘You lie. Your name is not Deara. It is Deirdre.’
She shivered, the memory as fearful as the moment itself had been. Yes, she was Deirdre. She bore a name given to no girl-child in all the tribes of the land. Deirdre. Deirdre of the Sorrows. Any child old enough to sit by a campfire could tell you the tale by heart. It was not the name itself but the manner of her name-giving that called up anxiety and despair within her, an aching pain, which Merdaine herself had not been able to heal, the hurt of memories which Conor would never allow to rest.
Her mind began to fill with images. Now they had begun she had no power to stop them. She felt her body stiffen, her fingernails bite the softness of her palms, her chest tighten as if to restrain her racing heart.
The horses’ hooves were drumming in her ears. Faster and faster they came, clods of earth thrown back as they galloped towards Emain and the safety of the stockades. But it was too far. With weapons flashing in the moonlight the warriors turned aside to the grove on the far hillside to make what defence they could against the assailants who had lain in wait for them almost at the entrance to their own encampment. They gathered close around a woman in their midst. Half-crazed by fear and noise the white mare crashed between the trees and stopped abruptly in the small clearing which surrounded the stone altar to the God. The woman, white as the mare she rode, half slid, half fell to the ground. She lay there writhing in pain as the warriors made what brief defence they could against the encircling host.
Tears streamed down Deara’s face, her body began to shake uncontrollably. Let it come, said Merdaine. To heal the pain you must let yourself feel it. You must accept it. Do not fight it, do not deny it. Deny it and you give it power. Accept it and it becomes part of you, subject to your own power.
She had not understood. Nor did she understand now. And now there was no Merdaine to comfort her, to wipe away her tears and assure her that one day the images would go, that remembrance would no longer be like a knife in her heart.
She could see the woman now. She lay exhausted against the God’s altar beyond the fallen lords of Emain. Across the valley horns rang out, the alarm was raised, but above the noise of warriors riding out in pursuit of the raiders came a far more menacing sound.
‘There she is, there is the evil of which I warned you. The one for whom our best warriors have given their lives so worthlessly, their honour ensnared by her evil spells. Kill her, my friends. Avenge your dead comrades.’
Conor, his staff raised in his hands, his eyes glittering, burst into the clearing, a group of young warriors at his elbow. Swords drawn, ready to do battle with the whole host of Tara, they faltered as they saw in the moonlight the dark, still shapes which lay before them and the deadly-white face of a woman in a blood-soaked gown. In that moment of stillness they heard, as Deara now did, the tiny mewing cry of a newborn child.
‘Why do you pause? Think you this is a woman? Nay, no woman this, but evil itself in woman’s garb. See she spawns evil as she has spawned death on this hillside. Come despatch her and her cub. Let us make them a sacrifice to Lug that he will give us vengeance for Tagganath and all our brave kin. What use this Nodons, this mealy-mouthed God who cures warts for hags and protects not our bravest and best? Away with them.’
The warriors surged forward. The woman raised her head. Her voice was but a whisper, but there was no fear in it. All there heard her speak.
‘Kill me if you will – gladly I go – but not this child. Here do I name her Deirdre. Sorrow is her birthright and sorrow she shall know, but the greatest sorrow of all comes to him that shall wish her harm.’
With enormous effort the woman gathered herself, so that she sat upright, her back against the stone altar in front of the well, the child cradled in her lap.
‘Send me a woman of your tribe.’
‘Woman? To be your slave? A slave’s slave?’
Conor roared in fury. He stepped from the darkness of the encircling trees into the moonlight, his dark shadow enlarged by the flicker of torches which had now been brought.
‘Stand aside, Conor.’
It was Merdaine who spoke. It was she who wrapped the child in her cloak and waved the warriors away.
‘This woman’s blood is spilt already. Go home and comfort your wives and mothers. There are dead enough to carry to the fires.’
Deara wept.
She wept for her mother who died in Merdaine’s arms. And she wept for Merdaine. She wept for the women who knelt by the bodies of husband, or son. She wept for the sorrow in the face of the brehon, the fear in the eyes of the King. She wept till her arms were damp with tears and the star had faded from the smoke hole. Then she fell asleep.
Long after dawn had broken she woke, her dream still alive in her memory. She had been walking in sunshine, across fields of kingcups. Green and gold. The colours beloved of the God. It was a sign. She knew now what she must do. Merdaine’s parting gift, the kingcups, refreshed now in the cool shadows of the hut, must be offered for Sennach, for the healing of his spirit. She must make haste with her morning duties.
The God’s well was not far from Emain. Beyond the outer rampart it lay just across the valley in a small hawthorn grove, the surviving trees of a wood which once covered the whole hillside.
At one time, individuals as well as those who served the God would visit the well. They would leave an offering, tie a scrap of fabric to the branches and ask for healing for the person from whose tunic the fragment had been cut. Merdaine could remember a time when the thorns had blossomed with tokens all the year round. Now, few people went there except herself.
Deara went often, either to fetch water for infusions, for the water from the God’s well was pure and clear and had never failed, or to pray for the sick. It was many years now since Merdaine had come with her. As soon as Deara was strong enough to bear the water pitcher by herself she had sent her alone, saying that she would worship in her own place. So Deara had come to know hours of quiet, the only times in the crowded life of the encampment when she was alone. Alone, and yet never troubled by the loneliness which was her companion in the midst of the crowded encampment. Her visits to the God’s well were always welcome. Today was no exception.
As she set off down the dusty path, Deara was aware of a sense of excitement. Some flicker of happiness had rekindled within her. Drawing warmth from the brilliant sunshine and power from the upturned faces of buttercups and daisies strewn amid the grass of the wayside,