TWENTY-FOUR
Oisin stretched, luxuriating in the deep softness of the bed and the wash of sunlight stealing into their chamber through the open window. So many windows, and so much sunlight, in this place! In Eire, a window was a rare thing, more trouble than it was worth when it so often had to be shuttered tight against the rain or the cold wind.
Six days into their wedding celebration—or was it seven? Time slipped by so strangely here, it was hard to be sure— Oisin was still seeing new wonders daily. So far, not one could match the woman who slept now in the bed beside him, her golden, tumbled hair kissed by a stray sunbeam. Six passionate nights, six sleepy delicious awakenings, six days spent in the delighted discovery of each other, and still every morning the sight of her, the thought that she was his, filled him with new wonder.
What would happen when the ten days were up, he wondered. It was hard to picture what “normal life” would be to these people. Perhaps he and Niamh would no longer wake up to warm baths and a table laden with fruit, warm bread, quail’s eggs and fresh-grilled salmon. But he was more than content to wait out the celebration to find out.
Each evening at the feast there were new guests come to congratulate them, many bringing handsome gifts. More than once Oisin had wished he himself had not arrived empty-handed, with no wealth of his own and no gifts to cement new friendships. At least—thanks to Finn—he had been able to give something valuable to his father-in-law. And then, long into the night, it was music and singing and the telling of tales. He could have listened all night to that music, if not for the even sweeter pleasure that awaited him in their marriage bed.
THE LAST GUESTS HAD taken their leave, all but Niamh’s sister Grian and her husband Derg. They had been introduced to Oisin a few days previous, and he had been a little discomfited by the strange, almost hungry way Grian stared at him. She did not seem much like her sister. Though Oisin enjoyed her flirtatious, lively talk, she reminded him of a harp strung too tight. Niamh’s calm grace was like a still, deep pool compared to Grian’s choppy waters. Yet when Grian had sung two nights ago, all the tightness had disappeared, and she had swept Oisin away in a river of beauty.
Derg seemed a good man, very cordial and warm. He struck Oisin, though, as a man carrying some burden or care: just a hint of strain in his features that stood out in that carefree company.
Now, Niamh had come to her new husband and asked him to join the family in her father’s Chamber of Councils. Thinking it must be some final ceremony, Oisin followed, taking his seat with Manannan, Grian, Derg and Niamh.
“The time has come when we must speak of less joyful matters.” Manannan, no more the genial host, spoke with the blunt, determined voice of a commander. Oisin, who had seen the same transformation many times in his own father, alerted like a hound on scent.
Manannan continued. “You are a fine young man, and we are all glad that Niamh has chosen you.” Oisin shifted in his seat, impatient at the preamble. He had heard more or less this same sentiment for the last ten days.
“But that is not the reason why she came to your land to find you. She was sent by me—by us,” Manannan amended, waving his hand to include Grian and Derg.
“For what purpose?” Oisin asked, startled and a little suspicious. All the tales of men being lured and tricked by the Sidhe crowded into his head. Surely his own Niamh would not…
“To ask you to save our daughter, who is Sive, your mother.” It was Derg who answered, but Oisin did not notice the annoyed frown that fleeted over Manannan’s face at the interruption. He was staring at Derg and Grian, madly trying to recall if he had ever been told anything at all about his mother’s family. Derg…hadn’t his father mentioned the name Derg? It seemed a common name here, and he hadn’t connected the two men.
“My mother is alive?” The words came out more urgent and strained than he intended.
Manannan nodded, regaining control of the meeting. “She is alive, and well enough.”
“And under the Dark Man’s sway?”
“No. If she were, there would be few left in Tir na nOg free of his chains. No, Far Doirche has been disposed of.”
Oisin shook his head, confused. “I don’t understand.” Something else was nagging at him too, something that had nothing to do with the problem at hand but kept pushing itself forward. He pushed it firmly back. His focus now was on his mother.
Manannan sighed. “It does not sit well on me to admit an error, but in this matter I judged ill. It is possible I allowed my anger at my daughter’s consort”—and here Oisin did notice Derg flush at the word—“to cloud my thinking. However it was, we left the Dark Man unhindered too long, telling ourselves he was no great threat.
“We were too late to help your mother, and for that I blame myself. It was after she turned against him that Far Doirche became reckless, rage and impatience finally breaking out and bringing his malice into the open. He began a course of random destruction, striking any hapless traveler with his wand and sending him home with instructions to burn down his sidhe, conjuring up curses and plagues and raining them down on one king after another. When that happened, the Old Ones—myself, Bobd, and others—we put our might together against him.” Manannan gave a grim, satisfied laugh. “He soon found out his upstart spells were of little use against us.”
“But my mother? You said she was all right?” Oisin was more mixed up than ever. If Far Doirche was conquered, what was left for him to do?
“She is not all right!” Grian, her voice strident. “She has not been all right for many long seasons.”
Derg leaned forward and touched Oisin’s knee. “It was Far’s serving boy, Oran, told us what happened, lad. Your mother found a way to defy the Dark Man. He had commanded her to keep her woman’s body, but she was able to change just her head into that of a deer, so that she could not sing. You remember she could become a deer?” Oisin nodded, and Derg continued. “When he couldn’t make her change back, Far went into a fury and cursed her, so that she would ever be stuck in a deer’s form.”
He sighed. “With his death, the curse should be lifted. But your mother has not changed. We think she has forgotten how, even forgotten who she is and who we are. She must have some memory of home, for she roams the hills and woodlands near our sidhe, but she will let none approach her, nor does she come near to our dwellings.”
And there was the memory he thought he had lost, so present and strong he could taste and hear and smell it. The sumptuous room faded from his sight and he was back in the cave, pressed against her warm, dappled flank, his head rising and falling with her breath. The fragrant animal heat bloomed like a cloud from her pelt and wrapped him against the cold stone floor and frosty air. His mother. His gentle, courageous, helpless mother. She had seemed helpless on the day Far Doirche dragged her away. And yet she had kept her will and outwitted him. And now she paid the price.
Oisin looked up. Four pairs of eyes were trained on him, waiting. His cheeks were wet with tears, and he took the time to wipe them dry and become once again a man of the Fianna before replying.
“I do not know how I will succeed where you have failed, when you have the same appearance as when she knew you and I am utterly different. But I will try. While there is breath left in my body, I will try.”
THAT NIGHT IN THEIR bedchamber, the other thought, the one that had worried at the edges of his mind all evening, pushed its way forward.
“Are you not coming to bed?” Niamh had already slipped under the soft, blue blanket and was sitting against a heap of jewel-colored cushions. Her hair curled in waves around her breasts, a sight to make a man’s blood grow hot with desire.
Oisin gazed at her, trying to square the facts in his mind. It was a young woman he was looking at, a lovely girl at the peak of her beauty. And yet it was not…
“Oisin? What is it, love? Is it worry for your mother that weighs on you?” She patted the bed. “Come here and tell me.”
He came, and sat, and groped for words. “You are my mother’s aunt?” Was he even allowed to marry her, he wondered. There were laws in Eire against the marriage of close blood relatives, but he doubted they covered this situation.
“Yes.” She smiled. “Why?” Then her face fell.
“Oisin, you mustn’t think…I swear I did not pretend my love to persuade you to come. It was not like that at all. When I found you, you were in that terrible war. And I knew you would not leave your father and comrades in such straits, so I waited and watched, while the killing went on and on. And the more I watched you, the more I came to love you. Oh, my heart, I was in such fear you would die!” Tears glistened in her eyes, making them even more brilliant, and what could he do but kiss her lashes to stop them from falling?
“No, Niamh, no. It is not that. It is much sillier.”
“Then what?” She was genuinely perplexed.
“You are as old as my grandmother! I thought you were young!” The words blurted out, sounding as ridiculous as he had feared. But there it was. He was married to a woman who, in his world, would be gray and withered.
She laughed, a merry cascade of music. “Well, not quite as old as her, as a matter of fact. She was well grown when I was born.” She laid her hand—a slim, white, young hand—over his. “But, yes, I am nearly her age. And I am young, as you will be many years from now. A few seasons, a few sleeps, and we will be much the same age. You will learn—age does not matter for us. Unless you are one of the ancients, like my father, who all believe they are wiser and better than the rest of us.”
Oisin shook his head. “It is more than my mortal head can understand,” he confessed.
Niamh shot him a sultry look from under her eyelashes and snaked her smooth arms around him. “There is one thing I have learned you understand very well indeed,” she whispered. The faint breath in his ear lit a fire that coursed through his veins. He took his wife in his arms— his young, eager, beautiful wife who was, impossibly, some three times his own age—and buried his confusion in the joy of their love.