TWENTY-TWO
For six years Oisin had lived in near silence, with only the sounds of the woods and his mother’s voice. Apart from the occasional, dreaded appearance of the Dark Man, he had never seen another person.
Now he was plunged into the life of the Fianna, surrounded by loud, rough, boisterous men, many of whom had women to match. It’s not that he was treated unkindly; rather the opposite. He was their darling, with every man vying to teach him a skill, impart a wise lesson or make him laugh, and the women cosseting and petting him whenever they could pry him away from the men.
It was exciting and terrifying at once, and in those first months there were times when he felt he might be crushed by it all. Then he would run away and hide, and the longing that came over him for his mother and their quiet little world squeezed his heart so painfully that he didn’t see how he could go on. He wasn’t brave enough or strong enough. Sometimes he wished he could become a deer himself and spend his life alone in the forest.
But Finn—his father—helped him. If he found Oisin huddled behind a storehouse or crying in the woods, he would lift him up and just hold him without talking. Sometimes Finn would take Oisin into his own chamber, build up the fire and leave him with Bran and Sceolan. Oisin would press himself into the flanks of one or the other, and the quiet, steady presence of the great gray dogs, nearly the size of a deer themselves, comforted him in a place talking could not touch.
Finn saved the talking for the times when his son was not overwhelmed by his new home. He wanted to know all Oisin could tell him about how they had lived and what had happened to his mother, though the telling made Finn groan and beat his chest in helpless anger and sorrow, and reduced Oisin to tears. Yet it was a comfort, too, to know there was another in the world who cared about his mother’s fate.
Oisin had never slept in a bed, never seen a sword, never eaten meat (there was no deer meat for months at Almhuin, on Finn’s orders). But he learned quickly, and by Samhain he had lost his shyness and dogged the footsteps of the Fianna as if he had been born among them.
It was a fine, brisk autumn day when the anger came over him. A day for a young boy to roam the countryside and be glad for the life rushing through him, it was, and Oisin had been doing just that. With Bran and Sceolan at his side, there was little harm could come to him, and Finn was happy to see him venture out on his own.
But something swept over him—perhaps guilt at his own happiness, or a sudden glimpse of what life could have been had his mother stayed safe within the walls— and before he knew it he was scrambling up through Finn’s wooded hill, bursting through the gates with fire in his eyes and his small chest heaving with rage.
Finn was enjoying the weather too, propped against the wall of his house with his legs in the sun and his head in the shade of the thatch, “chewing his cud” as he called it after a hefty midday meal. Oisin rushed over, drew back his foot and kicked his father under the ribs with all his strength, then fell upon him with a flurry of fists.
Later he would realize he was lucky that Finn, startled out of sleep, hadn’t thrown him across the yard or stuck him with his hunting knife. Instead the great man had lumbered to his feet, shucking him off like a stable fly, and held him at bay by the shoulders.
“Hold, lad, hold!” Finn peered at the red-faced, tearstained fury of a boy, arms still windmilling the air between them. “What’s this all about?”
“Why didn’t you save her?” Oisin shrieked. “Why didn’t you find her? She came to you for protection, you told me so, and you let him steal her!”
Finn’s ruddy face darkened almost to purple and he abruptly let Oisin go, turning away with his own great hands fisted into clubs. Oisin’s rage drained out of him as quickly as it had come, and he looked with sudden fear at his father. He had gone too far, insulting the man who had saved his life and called him son. He looked up at the angry tower of Finn’s rigid body and back down at the fists clenched at his sides. It was too late for apology. Finn’s punishment would fall on him at any moment.
But Finn did not raise his fists, or even his voice, to him. When he spoke, his voice was husky and cracked, and Oisin realized with shock that it was tears, not anger, that his father was choking back.
“Do you not think I tried, lad? Do you not think I would spend my life, and gladly, for even the least glimmering hope of saving her?”
Oisin could not speak. He was confused, shamed by his own actions. Of course he knew Finn had tried to find Sive. Nearly everyone at Almhuin had told him so at one time or another. But he had failed. You could not blame a man for trying and failing, but he did. If his father had not failed, his mother would be with him now.
Finn turned back to face his son and sagged wearily against the wall. The blue eyes that looked at Oisin were naked—sorrow and anger and shame unguarded.
“Every spring and cave, every mound and standing stone, anywhere there has ever been the least rumor of a passage to Tir na nOg, I went there. I went to Tara and spent long nights on the Mound of Hostages, thinking if I was taken captive I would at least be through the veil. I got an audience with the High King’s Chief Druid and followed every scrap of advice he could give me.”
Finn ran a hand slowly down his face, like a man who has stood vigil through the night. He looked about that tired too, thought Oisin. His father shook his head.
“The way is closed to me, son. I don’t know how the Dark Man did it, but he has barred my road. I cannot get in.”
“But I can,” blurted Oisin. He was surprised at his own words. He did not know where they came from, but he was sure they were true.
Finn gazed at him thoughtfully and then smiled.
“You may be right, lad. You are more of that land than this, after all.”
“Then what do I do?” Oisin was strung taught with urgency and crippled with sudden doubt. What could he do? He remembered struggling against the invisible door the Dark Man had used to close him into the cave. He had been useless, too weak to pose any threat at all. His thin shoulders slumped.
“You wait patiently, my son.” The Finn Oisin knew was back, a man bursting with life and confidence. “You wait, and you hold on to your hope, and you train. I myself will teach you, and all the Fianna, and whatever other teachers you need we will find for you. And when you are a grown man and armed with all the skill and strength and knowledge you can master…then, then you will go to your mother’s land and conquer the Dark Man and free her.”
BY HIS SEVENTH year with Finn, Oisin had already mastered many of the feats of the Fianna. He could outrun the lot of them through the forest without snapping a twig, for he had the speed and grace of his mother’s people. In time he would have Finn’s strength and height as well, but for now he still had a boy’s thin arms and narrow chest.
Not that he was about to admit it. “I am ready now,” he insisted. The Fianna were sailing to Alba, and Oisin was determined to join them. “I can fight. Let me come and prove it.”
“No, lad. Pass me the oil, so.” Finn poured oil into a clay dish, dipped in his fingers, and began carefully oiling every inch of exposed leather on his war-harness. “You can oil my boots, if you are so eager to help.”
Oisin’s face darkened with anger. His father had dismissed his case without a second’s thought, as if he were nothing but a baby. But a baby’s tantrum would get him nowhere, so he mastered his temper, stuck out his chest and tried again.
“But why? I am well-trained, by the best, as you said. And I am nearly as tall as you!”
“And half as big around,” retorted Finn. With a sigh, he put down his harness and met Oisin’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, lad. It’s not a joking matter, and your big heart does you credit. And you are right—there is little left to teach you, at least, not until you get your strength. But you must wait for it. If you rush off to battle now, you will be killed. You have it in you to be one of the great heroes of the Fianna, only you must stay alive until you have the might to match your skill.”
Oisin scowled. “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Stand around counting the days?”
Finn smiled. “I have been thinking on that. And I am thinking that warfare is not your only talent.”
Oisin felt his interest quicken in spite of himself. Finn could only be talking about his music. His father seemed proud of how Oisin had picked up some skill on the harp from the bards who stayed sometimes at Almhuin, and clearly enjoyed hearing him sing. But the Fianna were warriors. Oisin had not thought his training could be anything different. Then his father surprised him again.
“I had my own raising with a poet, for some years.” Finn laughed at Oisin’s look. “I know, you would not think it from looking at me. But I have made some passable poems in my day. And it’s how I came to be eating the Salmon of Knowledge, because of my time with him. He thought the fish was destined for himself, but when I was fetching it out of the pan to serve to him, my thumb slipped onto the flesh and got burned, so I popped it into my mouth!” Finn laughed heartily, and Oisin could not help but join in.
“Wasn’t he mad, but?”
“I should think. But he was a gracious man, and hid it nicely. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Here I misunderstood the prophecy. These seven years I was after thinking the salmon was for me, because of my name, Finnegas, the white. But really, it was for you, Finn, named for your white-blond hair.’ ”
Finn grew serious. “You have more poetry and song in your smallest toe than I have in my whole body, Oisin. You have come as far as you can in battle skill for now, but it is time you learned your mother’s gifts. I am sending you to Cruachan, to study with old Tanai. He took service with me for a time, when he was younger, and he is a man to trust. He will teach you the sweetest music there is to be found in Eire or in Alba. And then you will not only be a Warrior of the Fianna but our Bard as well.”
Oisin did not need persuading. He had been entirely focused on becoming one of the Fianna, but now he realized that there was a yearning inside him that could not be satisfied with picking out a few tunes on a harp or singing a marching song.
“When will I go?”
“So eager to leave me, then?”
Oisin shook his head, confused by his own mixed feelings. He was eager for something—the learning, the adventure, to test his own wings. But now he saw it would be hard to leave his father, even though Finn himself had been coming and going through his whole childhood.
“It’s all right, boy. I am surprised myself at how hard it is to let you go.” Finn’s big arm wrapped around Oisin and drew him into a hard, quick hug. “We’ll make the journey together, once I’m back from this skirmish. And you will keep up your battle practice every day that you are away from us, or I will give each man of the Fianna leave to wallop you into the mud!”
OISIN WAS FORGETTING his mother. At first it upset him, the way she receded from his memory year by year, and he made songs to cement her in his mind and told himself her story in bed at night. But still their time in the cave began to seem like some fantastic dream rather than a memory, and her face faded and dimmed until he could no longer see her at all.
Only her voice remained vivid to him. He could hear it in his own singing even after his voice changed and became deep and resonant.
That was just one of many changes that happened during his five years with Tanai. He had left Almhuin a boy and returned a man, and not just in his broad chest and strong arms. He was steadier in his heart, slower to anger and more sure of his place in the world. The night of his return, after the welcomes and cheering and feasting were done, Finn had walked with him to a lookout point, where they had watched the moon pour silvery light over the bog of Almhuin and talked for long hours. And as the sun was rising, he had held him once more in a father’s embrace and said, “Now, if it is still your desire, you are ready to join with the Fianna. You will be my strong right arm, our champion and our voice. Will you take the challenges and become one of us, my son?”
“I will, Father.” And Oisin’s heart had swelled with the pride of his accomplishment but even more with the knowledge and warmth of belonging.
And as the years went by, the more joy and purpose Oisin found in his father’s world, the more distant his mother’s became.
Oisin Remembers
So many of my comrades had adventures in the Land of Youth, but I never went there. There were encounters with its people, to be sure. I will never forget that uncanny night four of us spent in a house full of enchantments. It is all a jumble in my head— the giant prodded down the road by that lovely young girl, the ram that stole our portion of meat, the toothless old man who wrestled the ram and threw it out the door, the sweet water that gave Finn such a colic we thought he was like to die from it. A bunch of Sidhe trickery and malice it was, to my mind, but Finn seemed to take some deep lesson from it all—something about truth and lies and strength—and parted from our host the next day with great declarations of friendship from both sides.
The truth is, I was not looking for a way into Tir na nOg, or to ally with its people. Rather the opposite. I believe now I tried to avoid any path likely to lead there. What had happened to the eager plans I had made as a child? They had faded with my mother’s memory.
I knew if I found myself in Tir na nOg, I was bound to find her, to save her or die in the attempt. But so much time had passed. How could she even still be living? And what was the Land of Youth to me? A land of phantasms and cruelty, evil druids and appalling loss. A land of ashes. I had no wish to go there.
Whereas here, in Eire, the ties that held me were strong and clean: my father relied on me, my comrades loved me and I them. I had honor, a growing renown and, one day, the leadership of the Fianna to look forward to. There was no challenge or battle I shied away from in this world. But my mother’s world—that world I turned my face from and pretended not to see.