Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [55]
So autumn passed into a mild winter, and winter into spring. Then, in late spring, Deirdre told him she was pregnant.
By the midsummer after Finbarr’s return, it seemed the harvest would be a good one. In the little fields by farmsteads all over the island, the grain was ripening. The weather was fine. Lughnasa came and immediately afterwards, the High King began a tour of Leinster. He was encamped near the Slieve Bloom Mountains when the great darkness fell.
Larine would always remember how it began. He had noticed the long banks of cloud along the horizon at sunset, but it was not until he awoke in the middle of the night that he noticed that the stars had been snuffed out. Then the night ended, but it still remained dark. “The dawn,” men called it afterwards, “which was no dawn.” All morning the sky remained not grey but black. Then it turned brown. Then it rained.
It was not a storm; it was a downpour. But unlike any downpour that he had seen before, it lasted seven days. Every stream became a torrent, every riverbank a lake. Swans floated across the meadows; and in the fields, turned into muddy swamps, stood only the crushed and sodden stalks of harvest’s ruin. The High King went north into Ulster.
It was early September when he sent for Larine. The druid found him subdued.
“Three harvests lost, Larine.” He shook his head. “It’s myself they blame.” He relapsed into silence.
“What is it you wish?”
“When Conall shamed me …” the king began heavily, then sighed. “The Dagda, they say, punishes kings who are mocked. Is it true?”
“I do not know.”
“I must find him, Larine. But it isn’t easy. My men failed. Finbarr failed. None of the druids or the filidh can tell me where he is.” It had been a source of profound relief to the druid that the High King had not killed Finbarr for his failure as he had threatened. Larine had had the chance to question them closely, especially Finbarr, after their return, on the course their travels had taken and the places they had searched; but though he had considered carefully, he had not so far received any definite sense of where his friend Conall might be.
The High King looked up bleakly from under his heavy eyebrows. “Can you tell me, Larine?”
“I will try,” the druid promised, and went away to prepare himself.
He had to wait a day or two, for the days in the druid’s calendar were clearly marked as lucky or unlucky for rituals of this kind. But as soon as the time was propitious, he got ready.
The holy men of the Celtic world used many methods to see into the future. “Imbas” they called it: divining. The salmon, it was said, could impart wisdom and prophecy to some. Ravens could speak, if you knew what spells to use and how to listen. Even ordinary men, sometimes, could hear voices from the sea. But the method particularly favoured by the initiated class made use of the act of chewing. Some druids achieved powers of vision simply by chewing their thumb; but this was only a quick substitute for the proper method which was a version of one of the most ancient ceremonies known to man: the taking of a sacred meal.
Upon the day, Larine got up, washed himself carefully, and put on his druid’s cloak of feathers. Next, he spent some little time in prayer, attempting to empty his mind of anything that might interfere with his receiving whatever message the gods were pleased to send him. Then he went to the small hut where, the night before, he had prepared everything in readiness. Two other druids were guarding the entrance to ensure that nobody disturbed the sacred rite.
Inside the hut was bare except for a small table and three stands. On one stand was a little figure of the sun god, the Dagda; on another, the goddess Maeve, patroness of royal Tara; and on the third, Nuadu of the Silver Hand. On the table, on a silver dish, were