Chapter 22. My Beloved Drives the Cattle Through Tír na nÓg
The hoarse blare of the carnyxes had faded into the distance, taking with it every able-bodied arm from the ringfort. Men, women, and adolescents still raw at just fourteen years of age had joined Queen Medb’s army in a march of desperation and hunger.
Behind them, over Cruachan, the drizzle was no longer just an oppressive curtain, nor a monotonous background sound. It had transformed subtly, becoming the warm accompaniment to a heartbreaking Celtic ballad sung by a young voice. It seemed to come from nowhere and from everywhere at once.
Inside Ri’s house, only Eithne and the children remained. In her heart, Remi already knew, without asking, that the atmosphere must have been exactly the same in every home within the fort.
She entrusted her wounded hand to the young woman, who seemed to know precisely what to do. While Eithne washed the rather deep cut with a clean cloth soaked in warm water mixed with apple cider vinegar, Remi asked her:
“Have you ever been through this before? At sixteen, you should be just a carefree child, Eithne, but you... you carry a massive responsibility on your shoulders.”
Eithne cast her gaze across the entire house. It felt like a peaceful, family scene. Anemo sat on one of the pallets, with Sirocco (a child once again) and Boo sleeping beside him. Aveline, her blonde sister, sat on a pile of furs, occasionally rocking the wooden cradle made of rowan wood where Cian, her beloved baby, lay sleeping. The verses of the ballad intertwined with the smoke and the pungent scent of the apple cider vinegar:
“My handsome lover, brave and bold / Went far away to fight for gold / Past whispering pines and forests of oak”
“I have!” the young woman replied after a long pause. “After every winter comes the spring hunger, and hunger drives our people to war. What is it like where you come from? I have heard that your table is always bountiful and that your people know no famine. That you possess Dagda’s cauldron, and that your drinks keep you immortal and young.”
Remi smiled melancholically, remembering home—her mother Anna, who was perhaps worried to death, Archibald Peter Stone, who was always demanding something fresh to publish, Professor Simoon, Mrs Aura, and Fleur. She stroked the crown of Eithne’s head and then kissed her forehead, out of a sudden... maternal impulse. Then she wanted to know more about the reality of this age.
“How long do these wars usually last? A long time?”
“Neither long nor short, just a few phases of the moon,” Eithne replied, and as she wrapped Remi’s wounded palm in clean cloth, she too began to sing that sorrowful ballad:
“My handsome and brave beloved
Has gone far away to raid for cattle
Beyond the forests of pine and oak
My beloved swore he would ask for my hand
If I wait for him with a wreath of oak
Leaves, but now my beloved drives the cattle
Through Tír na nÓg”
***
“You should know, bard from another world, that our brother wrote the message for your father right there, at the entrance to the cave,” Aveline whispered into Anemo’s ear. “He wrote it exactly as you told him,” the girl added with a deep sigh. “Our brothers, Gale and Taran, have gone to war, just as Mother and Father left not so long ago. In two winters, I will go after cattle too... unless I become a young mother like Eithne in the meantime. I already know how to shoot a sling and handle a knife or a spear... Taran taught me, and he was taught by Ri himself. I will teach Boo, and perhaps Boo will teach little Cian... that is, if the Grand Druid does not choose him as a sacrifice.”
“Mon Dieu! What barbarity, Anemo!” Mistral suddenly burst out. “I want to wake up from this nightmare and be back home in Clonee.”
But instead of Anemo, it was Aeolus who answered, in his typical nerdish voice of someone who had read everything there was to read from the bookcase at number 49 Ether Drive:
“This is the cruel reality of this era, Mistral!”
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