Island of Shadows Read online

  ‘Put that knife away,’ Eola repeated. There was utmost confidence in his voice as if he were speaking to a recalcitrant child.

  Rónán Mac Méin moved forward and grabbed the sailor’s shoulder in a huge, calloused hand, spinning him round roughly.

  ‘I am captain of this ship, Ablach. I will say what is to be done. You have sailed your last voyage with me. Now sheath your knife and get to the masthead. You’ll not come down before we reach the coast of Mumhan.’

  Ablach paused only a second but, at the fierce light in the captain’s eyes, he sheathed his knife sullenly and strode off towards the rigging.

  Rónán Mac Méin glared after him for a second or two and then turned to Buimech and Eola.

  ‘You may have this child into your care, Buimech, if that is your wish,’ he said. ‘My wish is that a wind will blow that will take us to the shores of Éireann.’

  ‘The wind will come. Be patient,’ replied Buimech, moving to the casket and lifting the baby from the silken cushions. She turned with a smile of joy to her husband, holding the infant in her arms and crooning softly to it. It chuckled and held out its little hands to her.

  The sailors began to disperse with uneasy mutterings. Rónán Mac Méin returned scowling to the stern deck.

  Eola watched them disperse with a cautious eye. He glanced aloft to where the figure of Ablach was ascending the rigging. Then he turned to his wife.

  ‘Is there meaning to this, Buimech?’ he asked.

  ‘Manánnan Mac Lir, god of the oceans, has brought this child to us so that she may be taught our skills and wisdom.’

  ‘She?’

  Eola stared down at the child nestling in his wife’s arms. He had no knowledge to make out whether the child was girl or boy as it lay wrapped in the green silken shawl.

  ‘She,’ confirmed Buimech. ‘She has been sent to us to be raised as our own.’

  Eola stared at his wife. It was true that the one sadness in both their lives was their lack of children. Yet they had both accepted it as the will of the gods and were content with their love for each other. Now his wife had spoken and he was willing to accept this strange child from the sea as a gift from the gods. Yet … and yet, if only the child had been a boy. A boy he might have instructed in his skills so that the child would become the mightiest warrior in all Éireann.

  Buimech smiled at her husband as if reading his thoughts.

  ‘Have no worry. She is destined for greatness. Thousands of years hence, the children of Éireann will still be talking of her before their fires at night. Her name will be forever on the lips of heroes. This I know, Eola. She will be the mother of champions and the teacher of champions. And even the greatest champion in all Éireann will one day bow before her and humbly ask for her wisdom and knowledge.’

  Eola raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

  ‘How can such a prophecy be?’

  ‘It can be because it is, Eola.’ She smiled down at the infant, still clinging fiercely to the golden medallion. She is now our child … our daughter.’

  ‘But where did the child come from? Who gave it birth?’ demanded Eola.

  ‘That is not for us to ask,’ his wife replied. ‘But one day this child will search for the answers to those questions. That will be her trial. But it is not our concern. Our task is to nurture, love and train her. And we must guard these symbols … ’ She nodded to the medallion and to the intricately designed casket. ‘One day they will help her in her task.’

  Buimech suddenly raised her face and turned westward.

  Was there a faint haze there? A faint haze low down on the horizon?

  She raised the child in her arms, holding her up at the full length of her reach, stretching towards the horizon.

  ‘We accept the task,’ she whispered. ‘Now you may send the wind.’

  Eola shivered slightly. A moment passed before he realised that the cause of the reaction was not superstition but a sudden coolness in the temperature. A soft breeze was blowing on his cheek. The flat blue level of the sea was breaking up into a series of little white crests. There came an abrupt crack of canvas.

  ‘The wind! The wind!’ cried a sailor.

  Suddenly there was a stampede of bare feet on the sanded wooden boards of the ship and the sailors raced to their stations.

  Rónán Mac Mein’s voice grated across the decks.

  ‘Stand by! Stand by to turn her into the wind!’

  Buimech chuckled in delight.

  ‘So it is written in the sky. So shall it be.’

  Eola sighed. ‘Such knowledge is beyond my understanding.’

  ‘Each to their own craft, Eola,’ replied his wife. ‘Our task will be to ensure this child has knowledge and understanding from both of us.’

  The great sail was cracking now as the Cáoc was turned skilfully into the wind and began to race towards the distant coast of Éireann, beyond the northern horizon.

  The baby in Buimech’s arms gurgled happily as if it knew that it had passed through some danger and was now heading homewards.

  Even Eola smiled at the baby’s infectious laughter.

  ‘The child has no name,’ he said. ‘We should name her.’

  Buimech nodded thoughtfully and was silent for a moment or two.

  ‘She has emerged from the shadow of death with her origins shrouded in mystery,’ she observed. ‘Then let her name be called “Shadow”. Yes, that is a good name for her. Henceforth, we shall call her Scáthach.’

  Chapter Two

  The girl crouched behind a clump of whitethorn and dog-brier at the edge of a forest clearing, beside the bend of a stream. Here the stream eddied to provide a drinking pool where, for time beyond counting, numerous species of forest animal had worn a path down its bank — the majestic buck deer, the timid fawn, the cunning fox, the fearless wolf and the ferocious boar. Large and small, all the wild beasts came along that path to satiate their thirst at the pool. And this the girl knew as she relaxed on her heels behind her thorn bush hide, a bow held loosely across her knees, an arrow already half slung.

  She was tall, her long limbs supple and well-shaped, yet, on closer inspection, the muscles were well developed, though not disproportionately so, implying a strength unusual in someone of her sex and age — an age which was scarcely more than a score of years. The skin was fair yet tanned as one used to a life in the open. Her face was oval in shape with a broad forehead. The eyes seemed at first glance to be deep green in colour, although a second glance showed them changeable in tone, as if reflecting her variable moods. Her face was not one of beauty but it was a face which made people look twice. It reflected a certain humour and vitality which bore a distinction of character, of perception and intelligence. Most striking of all was her hair: flaming red which, when caught by the sun’s rays, glittered and flickered as if a million tiny flames danced in it. She wore it unbraided, falling to her shoulders and down to her waist. The only adornment was her minn n-oir, a small diadem of gold with its colour-enamelled centre-piece which was worn around the forehead to denote that she was of no mean rank in society.

  She wore a cloak of deep yellow hue which fell from her shoulders to her knees and which was edged with otter-fur. Beneath the cloak she was clad in a collarless tight-fitting jacket with short sleeves with a matching short skirt that reached just above the knee. Both were of linen dyed saffron in colour. At her waist was a leather criss studded with bosses of silver and bronze from which hung a bossan, a purse of elaborate ornamentation. From the criss, at her left side, hung a short sword and hunting knife in a double-sheath of workmanlike leather. A quiver full of arrows hung from her right. Her shoes were of half-tanned hide, free from hair but retaining the pliability of rawhide.

  The girl’s hands were noteworthy by their delicacy, with their slender, tapering fingers and carefully manicured nails, which seemed to be incongruous to the bow in her hand as if she clutched some alien instrument. Such well groomed hands and her long unbraided hair were hallmarks
of beauty and held in great esteem by the people of Éireann.

  The girl sat back on her heels, her eyes half closed, yet there was a marked attention in her stance as her keen ears listened carefully to the sounds of the forest around her, picking out each sound and carefully categorising it. She could hear the movement of deer not far away, a buck and a roe. A boar was snuffling through the undergrowth on the far side of the stream. She could also hear a scampering of hares followed by the soit growling of an over-optimistic wolf as it trotted after them in search of a meal. All this the girl could make out against the windy rustling of the trees and the constant chorus of numerous species of birds.

  Time passed yet the girl made no movement in her position. She was like a statue, moulded firmly into the forest environment as if she had been carved out of granite. Even when a flying insect alighted on her face, she made no move to brush the irritant aside.

  Eventually she heard the sound she was hoping for.

  Only an almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles in her arms and legs showed an acknowledgement of the sound.

  Along the well-worn trail to the watering hole came a sturdy red roe which paused every so often to sniff suspiciously at the air and listen in order to ensure its natural enemies were not within close proximity. It reached the pool and lowered its head to the water.

  The girl now rose swiftly to her full height in one flowing motion; at the same time her delicate hands strung the arrow to the bow, drawing back the string to her shoulder and releasing it almost, or so it seemed, without aiming. Miraculously a second arrow appeared strung to the bow before the first was scarcely on its way. Then the second arrow was speeding after the first and yet a third arrow was strung already.

  The roe leapt as the first arrow caught it, entering almost to the flight of the feather, and the beast was falling lifeless by the pool by the time the second arrow embedded itself within an inch of the first arrow.

  There was no sound. The death had come so quickly and quietly that not even the bird song was disturbed in the clearing.

  The girl stood quietly for a moment, all senses alert for any danger. When she perceived that all was well she unstrung the third arrow and replaced it in the quiver at her side. She moved quietly but quickly forward and knelt beside the carcass of the deer. Her mouth turned down briefly as she gazed on the creature’s beautiful red hair and symmetrical lines.

  ‘Forgive me, Os, god of the deer folk,’ she whispered. It was a formula all hunters repeated on the killing of such an animal, for they, like all animals, were slaughtered from necessity, for food, or warm clothing. In return their spirits were propitiated by the hunters so that man and beast could live in harmony. For in the philosophies of the people of Éireann, all creatures were related, all were possessed of an indwelling spirit, even the tall trees and granite rocks. Thus humankind was but a part of nature and must coexist in amity with it in all its aspects. The wild beast supplied food and clothing and the gods must be thanked for that. Nothing was to be taken for granted by man.

  And in the killing of a deer, above all creatures, one had to be careful; for had not Fionn Mac Cumhail, the captain of the Fianna, bodyguard to the High King, come across a deer near this very spot and been about to slaughter it when that very deer spoke to him: Had it not been Sadbh, the goddess, who had been turned into a deer for refusing to marry an evil, powerful druid? And was not Fionn’s famous son Oisin, the ‘little deer’, born out of a union between Fionn and Sadbh? Yes; deer were mystical creatures whose hunting was carried out with due reverence.

  The girl carefully cut her arrows from its heart and threw them into the water as an offering to appease the spirit of Os, god of the deer-folk.

  When due ceremony was ended, the girl hooked the bow over her shoulder and bent down to seize the roe by its front legs with one hand and the hind legs with the other, swinging it up onto her shoulders as if it had been some light weight. Having settled her burden, she began to stride easily along the forest path. She paused once to gaze at the position of the sun. It lacked a short while until noonday and she calculated that she would be able to reach her father’s fortress at Uibh Rathach, on the other side of the mountain, by early afternoon. She smiled happily for he would be well pleased with the results of her morning’s hunting. He it was who had suggested that she return with a deer for the feasting table that evening. She had not protested for she had known it was another of his tests to see whether she was fit to wear the champion’s tore that he promised would one day be hers.

  She journeyed easily through the forest until the ground began to rise and the trees gave way to shrub and then the shrub gave way to low-lying gorse and the bald rocks of the granite mountains which surrounded Uibh Rathach. The hills were wild and rough with many rock precipices swept by the winds. She paused and shifted the weight of the slaughtered animal on her shoulders before starting her ascent up the stony path which would lead her over the shoulder of the mountain to within sight of her father’s fortress, standing at the head of a horse valley within sight of the sea.

  She had hardly begun the upward climb when there was a strange croaking cry in the sky above her and a black object hurtled out of the sky at her feet. She took an involuntary step backwards, one hand sliding to the short sword at her side.

  At her feet lay a dead crow, its wings outstretched and twisted.

  The girl gave a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Gods of the De Danaan between me and all evil!’ she whispered.

  The crow was the symbol of death and battles whose black shape was often used by the Mórrigú, goddess of death and slaughter. For a dead crow to fall out of the sky was an omen of evil. It sent a shiver through the supple frame of the girl.

  For a moment she peered down at the carcass, as if seeking a reason for the death of the bird in flight. Then, hesitantly, she skirted the creature and began to hurry on, climbing swiftly now along the path. Trying to suppress the unease which she now felt, the girl was alert, her eyes moving rapidly from side to side, seeking danger, as she continued the climb.

  At last she reached the shoulder of the mountain and moved around it into the valley which was dominated by the fortress of Uibh Rathach.

  Her anxious gaze surveyed the valley and once again the breath was caught within her.

  A black pall of smoke was rising from Uibh Rathach. It was not the single thin stream from a cooking fire but a large black billow rising from the buildings within the great stone walls. Even from this distance her narrowed eyes could see flames leaping and see what appeared to be bundles of rags, which she knew to be bodies, lying around the walls.

  With a sudden cry, she flung aside the burden of game, and began to run forward down the mountain path towards the fortress.

  As Scáthach entered the smashed, burning gates of the fortress, she saw several of the household of Uibh Rathach had fallen trying to defend themselves against the raiders. But when she saw Buimech with the fallen Eola her eyes took in nothing else. She ran to them and fell on her knees.

  Eola of Uibh Rathach had sold his life dearly. Five strange warriors lay stretched in death around him, terrible wounds bearing witness to the old warrior’s battle fury. By his side knelt Buimech, cradling Eola’s head in her lap. Her eyes were beyond tears. They were wide and disbelieving, the skin stretched tautly around them, the mouth set grimly.

  She had no need to ask whether Eola was dead.

  ‘Who did this evil deed, my mother?’ she whispered, her emotions filled with a mixture of horror and outrage.

  Buimech raised her eyes to her adopted daughter. ‘Alas, this was written in the heavens, my child. The prophecy is fulfilled.’

  ‘Prophecy?’

  Buimech sighed.

  ‘It is a story that will be long in the telling, child.’ Scáthach shook her head impatiently.

  ‘Tell me who did this and let me attempt to overtake them while their trail is still fresh.’

  Buimech shook her head.


  ‘No, child. They have fled across the seas. The day will come when you exact vengeance for this deed but first you must be armed with knowledge.’

  ‘But what happened?’ demanded the girl.

  ‘This morning, while you were hunting, a strange vessel arrived in the bay below here. Eola and I offered hospitality to the captain and his crew. The hospitality was abused. They turned on us, slaughtering Eola and sacking the fortress.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Let me tell you all in the time appointed.’

  Gently, Buimech laid Eola’s head down, and rose to her feet, gazing around. She was not one to demonstrate her emotions and she seemed cold and detached to the young girl, who was fighting desperately to keep her sorrow in check for it was unseemly to display it while her mother displayed none.

  ‘Come, child,’ Buimech said at last, ‘let us gather our household and prepare Eola’s pyre.’

  It was dawn, the exact moment when the sun’s extremity began to emerge over the eastern horizon, that Buimech, acting as both wife and druid, lit the funeral pyre of her husband. All the rituals had been observed. Buimech and Scáthach had washed the body of the fallen warrior and dressed it in the finest clothes, together with armour, shield, sword and spears. Then the body was placed on the fuat, a bier, laden with the bushy branches of the common birch. Buimech had cut the traditional, a rod of aspen, with the name and station of Eola in Ogham characters, and laid it alongside him, so that his name and deeds would accompany him into the Otherworld. The fuat was placed on a wheeled cart which was drawn by two oxen to the place of burning, a spot high up on the mountainside above Uibh Rathach.

  The removal of the body to the site, which was done just before the dusk of evening, was accompanied by the survivors of the household of Eola who, as tradition prescribed, accompanied the body with great cries of lamentation and wailing and the clapping of hands in sorrow. Words expressive of their sorrow and praise of the dead — the nuall-guba, or lamentation of sorrow — echoed across the mountainside. All night this act of the caoineadh, the keening, was carried on, for this was the time of watching and all around the body torches blazed so that the Evil Ones, the misshapen Fomorii, gods of corruption and harm, could not come near to claim a soul.