I saw one of Father’s visiting chieftains nodding in agreement, while the other wore a smile of appreciation. Both Finbar and Rhian were perched on the very edge of the bench, their attention fixed on Ciarán.
“Torna said this was a deliberate plan to steal the last fodder from his fields, so that when he finally let his herd out, they would grow thin while Maelan’s cattle were fat. Maelan accused his neighbor of stirring up trouble for no better reason than jealous spite. The insults and accusations flew one way, then the other. There were covert raids; an outbuilding was set on fire. Then the raids became less covert and more in the nature of outright attacks, and before very long at all, the two chieftains were at war.
“The lovely valley of the Silverwash was gouged and split and ruined as the measured passage of grazing cattle was replaced by the violent activities of conflict. Horses’ hooves ripped up the grass. The boots of fighting men did their work. Fire scorched the birch groves and blackened the undergrowth. In place of the gentle chorus of birdsong, the screams of dying men rang out across the fields. The Silverwash ran red.
“By springtime the valley was a wreck, and the losses to each household were immense. Many had fallen, not only men-at-arms, but grooms and kitchen boys and bakers, called to fight when there was nobody else to stand against the enemy. In both households women grieved. Torna’s elder son, who had been betrothed to Maelan’s elder daughter in the time of peace, was slain, and young Finn became the heir to the chieftaincy.
“Spring hardly dared show its face in such a ruined landscape as this. A cautious bud on the cherry tree; a bluebell hiding beneath an oak still bare-limbed from winter. A blade of grass, standing brave and green in the blood-soaked soil. Torna vowed vengeance for the death of his beloved son. Maelan swore he would stand against the worst his enemy could deliver. Maelan’s elder daughter wept.
“Now, there was also a younger daughter. Her job was to tend to her sister in her grief. This meant very little rest, since the bereaved girl woke often in the night needing to be comforted. One morning, just after dawn, the younger sister, Baine, had settled her sister back to sleep and was standing by her tower window, looking out over the wreck of the lovely valley and away up the Silverwash to the Nameless Wood. She gazed and blinked, not believing her eyes. She looked again. A great tide was rushing down the stream from the forest, a monstrous wash of water that spilled over the banks and gushed between the trees and spread out on either side, heedless of margins. Birds screamed; creatures bolted; Baine stood transfixed, her eyes wide, as the wave came down over the land before her, and the water rose, and rose, and rose again. It swallowed the banks where the cattle had stood to drink. It engulfed the little grove where she and Finn had played as children, the place where they had made a treehouse, the dam they had built on a side stream, the big rocks where they had balanced and jumped and challenged each other. It ran over the shallow cave where they had continued to meet in secret, early in the mornings, after their fathers became enemies. The water kept on rising. It ate up Maelan’s grazing fields, the fields that had produced the finest cattle in all Erin. It gobbled Torna’s fields on the other side. It washed over the places where young men had died in their blood. It laid a silent blanket over the hollows where they had lain screaming for their mothers, or crying for their comrades, or begging the gods to put an end to their pain. The water rose and rose until it came to the very foundations of Maelan’s keep. A broad lake filled the valley from side to side. Gazing across its expanse, Baine thought it stretched from her father’s front door to Torna’s. If she’d had a boat, she might have rowed all the way across to Finn. Not that anyone in that household would receive her now.”
Ciarán paused, as if thinking hard about what was to come next. Or perhaps he was waiting for us to absorb the deeper meaning of the story. I was wondering when the geis was going to come in.
“The lake did not drain away over time, as an ordinary flood does. The water stayed just where it was, robbing both chieftains of any useful grazing land, and at the same time cutting off the main road. Nobody could attend the High King’s council in Tara. Nobody could go visiting. There was no way to convey stock to the markets. One thing was beyond doubt. The flood had been sent by the malevolent dweller in the Nameless Wood. The creature was bent on mischief and destruction. In Maelan’s hall and in Torna’s, the talk turned to punishing the evildoer, perhaps with fire, or perhaps by felling trees, or perhaps by hiring a mage or sorcerer powerful enough to drive it out. But when it came to the point, nobody was prepared to act. The folk of that region had been listening to tales of the Nameless Wood for generations, and their fear of it was lodged in the bone, too deep to cast out.”
“Master Ciarán?” It was Finbar who spoke, his tone clear and confident.
“You have a question, young Finbar? Ask it.”
“Why didn’t the two chieftains go over in boats and talk to each other? Didn’t they see that the flood was a punishment for what they had done?”
“Ah,” said Ciarán with a smile. “One might wish they had been so wise; one might wish each had been prepared to listen to his younger child. Instead, they struggled on awhile as things were, though the fighting was over—the new fight they faced was to live at all, now the lake had robbed them of the grazing land that had sustained them. Torna went into a decline; he had not been the same since the loss of his elder son. More and more, the management of household and land fell to young Finn, and it was not an easy job, for folk were now both fearful and angry, seeing that it was Torna’s misjudgment that had turned their lives sour. At Maelan’s keep the situation was hardly better, for Maelan had suffered a grievous wound in the fighting, and ill humors seemed likely to kill him before the summer came. In that household there were no sons, only the two girls, and the future looked grim indeed.
“Now, Finn and Baine had not seen each other since the Silverwash flooded, but they had been close friends since they were small children, and they had long-established ways of exchanging messages. So, one morning at around the time when they used to meet in their secret place, Baine hung a blue cloth out of her tower window—A meeting—and Finn, on the other side of the strange lake, hung a green cloth out of his—Tomorrow—and each knew the time would be just before dawn, so that nobody would see them slip away. The next day, at the spot where the lovely birches had been drowned, there was Finn in a little rowing boat, and there was Baine in another, and—oh, surprise!—one slender branch of the tallest birch stretched up above the lake’s gleaming surface, so the childhood friends could moor their craft while they talked. Finn and Baine reached out to clasp hands; the boats rocked gently.
“‘I missed you,’ Baine said.
“‘You are in my heart, every moment,’ replied Finn. ‘Will we go to make things right?’
“‘We must,’ said Baine.
“‘Now?’
“‘Now. Step over into my boat. If we row together, the journey will not seem so long.’
“It was long, nonetheless, and arduous, but not so hard as it would have been for man or woman alone. They rowed and rowed, and the lake stretched on and on, and by the time they reached dry land at the fringes of the Nameless Wood, dusk shrouded the mysterious trees and concealed whatever might lie beneath them. Finn had brought a knife and a flint. Baine had brought a lantern. They tied up their boat at the edge of the lake, lit their lantern, and walked into the dark wood.
“There was a path of sorts, though neither Finn nor Baine knew if it was the right one. Under the circumstances, it seemed best to trust to the natural magic of the place, magic strong enough to turn a peaceful stream into a destructive torrent, and no doubt do far worse things, if the stories were to be believed.
“‘Are you afraid?’ Finn asked Baine.
“‘If I were not afraid,’ she said, ‘I would be a fool. I am glad you are here with me.’
“‘And I that you are beside me,’ said Finn. ‘You give me courage.’
“‘You?
??ve always had that,’ Baine said, for she knew him better than anyone.
“It was a long, long walk, and the two encountered many strange and frightening creatures on the way, but eventually they reached the heart of the Nameless Wood, and it will be no surprise to you”—Ciarán glanced at Finbar—“to hear that there was a clearing, and an ink-dark pool, and strange, big-eyed creatures watching from the trees all around. And while their passage through the woods had been illuminated only by the glow of their small lantern, here in the clearing they were bathed in the silver light of a full moon. In the middle of the clearing stood a little old woman, leaning on an oak staff.
“‘Ah,’ the crone said. ‘You’re here at last.’
“It wasn’t much of a welcome, but then, they weren’t expecting one, having come more or less as penitents. The two of them introduced themselves—Maelan’s daughter, Torna’s son—and the old woman dismissed this as if she knew them already and wasn’t especially interested in who their parents were. Then Baine surprised Finn by rummaging in the bag she had brought and fishing out something very small, which she offered to the crone on the palms of her two hands.
“‘We brought you a gift,’ she said. It was a tiny metal cup, with a handle on each side: the kind of vessel a child drinks from when he is first learning to feed himself and not to spill. The cup was old and battered; clearly, it had been well used.
“The crone’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think you can get around me with gifts, young woman?’ she said, and there was a crackling of anger in the air, as if she wore her own storm. ‘With the earth torn up and the trees burned? With the river fouled and the valley heavy with the memory of pain and death? No gift can alter what was done. No sacrifice can make it good.’ The oaks around the clearing shivered in a sudden breeze; the creatures whispered among themselves.
“Finn did not like the mention of sacrifice, and he moved a little closer to Baine, his hand going to the hilt of his dagger. But he had listened to the tales; indeed, he had done so with more wisdom than most. If he bared cold iron in the presence of a fey woman, likely she and her creatures would vanish forthwith, and he and Baine would be alone in the wood, in the dark, with no answers at all.
“‘It is a gift, no more, no less.’ Baine held out the cup again, and this time the old woman took it, inspecting it closely, shrewd-eyed. ‘I would tell you what this cup means to the two of us, but I will not insult you by offering an explanation that you do not need.’
“The crone nodded. Indeed, she seemed almost to smile. ‘Broke the rules, the two of you, more than once,’ she observed. Her gaze went from Finn to Baine and back again, and no doubt she noticed that the two of them were especially fine, healthy-looking young folk, Baine with her rippling mane of golden hair and the lovely curves of her body, and Finn with his glossy curls, proud carriage and forthright blue eyes. ‘Didn’t your mothers tell you never to drink from the Silverwash?’
“Baine smiled. ‘They did, and a lot of other things besides, mostly about the terrible monsters that dwell in this forest, with their rending teeth and their little pattering feet and their capacity to swallow men and women whole.’ She glanced at Finn. ‘We used to talk about it, in our secret place down near the Silverwash. Some of it we believed and some of it we didn’t. Drinking from the stream didn’t seem to do the cattle any harm.’
“Finn cleared his throat. The old woman was looking almost benign, though he was still deeply afraid of her. But they had come on a mission, and now that Baine had offered the gift, he must ask the question. ‘We are deeply ashamed of what was done in the valley,’ he said. ‘You say no sacrifice can make it good again. But if the waters receded, and if we worked as hard as we could until the land was restored to itself, it could be healed, at least in part. If rituals were performed in the place of death, the valley could be cleansed of sorrow.’
“The old woman simply looked at him, and in his mind he heard her saying, And?
“‘If new tales were told,’ said Baine, ‘tales that were true in their heart, and if children were taught that they must remember, then folk could learn from this. They could learn that it must not be allowed to happen again.’
“The crone threw back her head and cackled. Birds flew up in alarm from the dark trees all around. ‘Taught that they must remember?’ she mocked. ‘And who will do that, when you have forgotten the most important thing of all, the wisdom observed by generation after generation until some foolish chieftain neglected to pass it on to his children, and another dismissed is as old wives’ rubbish? How can I trust you when you have forgotten the geis?’ As she spoke the word, the old woman grew tall, and her shabby clothes became a robe the hue of midnight, and her eyes were so full of power that Baine and Finn wondered if they might be burned to ashes right where they stood.
“Finn found his voice first. ‘A geis? I have heard nothing of this.’
“‘Will you tell us what it is, please?’ asked Baine. Under the courteous tone, her voice was shaking. A geis could not be good. Not when so much ill had been done.
“‘It is simple enough,’ the sorceress said, for there was no doubt that was what she was, now that she had revealed herself. ‘I would have thought even humankind could remember such a simple thing, but at some point it seems it was forgotten. It is a double geis, like that laid upon the hero Cú Chulainn. Cross the Silverwash in enmity and death will be quick to find you. Drink of its waters and you will never be the same again.’
“Finn and Baine looked at each other. There were many questions to ask and neither was confident that the sorceress would answer all of them. Which should they ask first?” Ciarán turned to look at us, his mulberry eyes intense, his face pale in the firelight. I thought he was going to speak to Finbar again—my brother sat so still beside me, he might have been in a trance—but he chose me. “What question would you have asked, Maeve?”
I hesitated, not especially happy to be singled out, since it meant every person in the hall was looking at me, but pleased that he thought my opinion worth having. “It seems to me the most important thing to know was: On whom was the geis laid?” I said. “If only on the chieftains of those two domains, then their children would be able to start setting things right. If on every person who lived in the valley, then all the men who’d been drawn into the fighting would soon die and the community would fall apart. I do not know if Finn took part in the battle, but if he did, he would be cursed along with his father, and I don’t suppose Baine could have wrought a miracle on her own, though no doubt she would have tried her best.”
I was rewarded by Ciarán’s smile, a smile with no trace of condescension in it. He was genuinely pleased by my answer.
“That was the question Baine asked, and the sorceress was happy to provide an answer. The geis had been laid on the chieftains of those two domains and on their descendants. It therefore affected Maelan and Torna, and it also lay over Finn and Baine. How fortunate that despite his father’s accusations of cowardice Finn had refused to fight.
“‘My father—’ Baine said, and at the same time Finn said, ‘But—’
“‘A geis is a geis,’ said the sorceress. The young people heard a terrible sorrow in her voice and knew that it gave her no pleasure to mete out this ancient justice. ‘These warring chieftains will fight no more. Guilt and sorrow have claimed Torna; you, Finn, are already chieftain in all but name. Baine, you must be brave. You will not see your father alive again.’
“White as a sheet, with Finn’s arm around her, Baine managed to find words. ‘My father has no heir,’ she said. ‘My sister and I are unwed. The law forbids that a woman become chieftain.’
“The sorceress of the Nameless Wood looked from Baine to Finn and back again. ‘The future is in your hands,’ she said. ‘Live your lives wisely. Teach your children the geis. Do not forget. And be glad you disregarded your parents’ warning when you were children playing in my clear waters and climbing my trees and singing songs with my birds. Be glad you drank of t
he Silverwash, for you will need every drop of the strength it gave you. Walk home now, and as you pass through my woods and over my fields, draw courage from them. If you are brave, good and wise you can face any challenge.’
“There was no need for her to spell out the obvious: that the two territories could become one through marriage, and that the geis had delivered both doom and priceless gift. Finn bowed low; Baine dropped a deep curtsy. ‘You are a being of great power,’ Finn said, ‘and rightly feared in these parts. Yet instead of harsh and cruel punishment, you have given us justice and kindness.’
“The sorceress looked him straight in his honest blue eyes, and she said, ‘The punishment your fathers have brought down on their land and their people is far crueler than anything I could devise. Besides, you are children of the Silverwash. Off with you now, or you won’t be home by morning.’
“Oddly, the path through the Nameless Wood seemed far shorter on the way back, and the moon that had shunned them earlier now lit their path. When Baine and Finn reached the spot where they had left their boat, it was to find the vessel lying aslant on dry ground. The lake was gone; the Silverwash ran as it had in times of old, a lovely, splashing stream, bright under the soft moonlight. Hand in hand, Finn and Baine began the long walk home across the sodden fields. There would be a funeral, perhaps two. There would be explanations to make and alliances to rebuild. There would be a wedding. There would be hard work and renewal. And when there were children, they would be taught the geis, and there would be peace.”
The story was ended. Ciarán’s audience afforded him the respect due to a great storyteller, which was a few moments utter silence before they showed their appreciation with the clapping of hands, the drumming of feet and shouts of acclaim. As for Ciarán himself, I could see he was exhausted, though he concealed it well. His eyes held a wish to be somewhere else, somewhere as quiet and peaceful and hopeful as the valley of the Silverwash had been that night when the young couple had walked home by moonlight. I looked at Ciarán as I might look at a troubled creature, and I saw beyond his strength and composure.