The Sword of Light - Chapter 7

That night, Hallame was alive with celebration. Nobles, warriors, shield maidens, and hunters gathered around the great central hearth which crackled and blazed, filling the room with light and warmth. It fissured and danced vehemently to lick the sizzling venison that turned round and round with agonizing slowness. The air inside Hallame was perfumed by the smells of sweet honeyed mead and hot breads and meats, of summer fruits; of earth, sweat, fire, and sex.

The noble warriors of Loch Coill sat in a spiralled pattern, first on furs and pillows, and then on benches, then finally of individual chairs, each man or woman widdershins of the man or woman beside them of higher acclaim with Feilim sitting in his high-backed chair at the centre. Ceridwyn took a seat beside Saoirse, normally Ferin’s position and gave her sister-in-law a tired smile. In an uncharacteristic show of femininity, Saoirse wore a clean, flattering blue dress and shall, the lime-covered dreadlocks of her hair pulled back into a gentler look from her usual Mohawk. Normally, the sheildmother couldn’t bear to be seen outside of a pair of breeches, covering in sweat with a sword in one had a flagon of mead in the other.

“Well,” Ceridwyn teased, “aren’t you pretty.”

Saoirse gave her a vulpine smile. “I am always pretty, but I can dress nicely when I want to,” she said.

“We’ll make a refined woman out of you yet.”

“Ha! There’s as much a chance of that as you becoming a shieldmaiden.”

Ceridwyn shrugged one shoulder. “It could happen” The women exchanged a knowing look and broke into a fit of giggles. Ceridwyn had never cared to learn the ways of warrior women. She was content with her housework and her loom, and her cooking. Besides, between Ferin and helping her parents care for her brothers and sisters, there had never been time to learn how to wield a blade. Saoirse, on the other hand, had always been wild and extroverted. Taming her would be like taming a wild horse from the grasslandsif you were to break it, it would never be the same animal again.

Ceridwyn toyed with the end of Saoirse’s sleeve. “Did you make this? I didn’t know you cared for dresswork.”

“I don’t,” Saoirse laughed. “This is the one you gifted me for my birthday two years ago. Do you not remember?”

“Oh!” Ceridwyn exclaimed. “I’d forgotten. Though I don’t think I’ve seen you wear it before.”

“Mostly at feastdays. I cannot tolerate dresses. They’re so hard to move in.”

“But so much easier to sneak a fuck in when no one’s watching.”

Saoirse gave Ceridwyn a playful shove and the two women fell into a fit of laughter. Saoirse kissed Ceridwyn’s brow, then pulled away to give her an inquisitive look. “Speaking of fucking, where are those husbands of ours?” she asked.

“Ferin isn’t coming tonight,” Ceridwyn said unapologetically.

Saoirse’s brows furrowed. “Of courseforgive me.”

Ceridwyn gave her a tired smile. “It’s all right.”

The two fell silent as Faolan strode up. “Hail, wife,” he said, taking his usual seat beside Saoirse.

“Hail, husband,” she answered him. They shared a kiss. “Where are the girls?”

“Jumping bonfire with their cousins,” he told her, “I thought it would make them happier than having to sit in here with all the adults.” Saoirse nodded her agreement. Faolan leaned forward to meet Ceridwyn’s eye, looking apologetic. He opened his mouth to say something, but had to stop short as the festivities began to fall into dutiful silence.

Throughout the lowest peak of Loch Coill, bonfires blazed, lighting up the tath like the noon-day sun. There, the low-folk danced, sang, played music together, told stories, ate, drank, and were merry. Younglings, hoping to be granted good fortune for the rest of the year, ran at full speed and launched themselves through and over bonfires one by one. It was said that if one made it to the other side unburnt, then the Gods had smiled upon them and they would enjoy a good year.

As the full moon rose into the sky, it cast a bright, silvery illumination over the land. It was by this light that Ferin, Rowan, Finbarr, Volstan, and Hjorin filled two small fishing boats with meats, cheeses, fruits, skins of golden feastday mead, sweet breads pilfered from the kitchens, wood, kindling, flint, and tinder. The five men piled into the boats alongside their sundries and paddled stealthily towards the island in the centre of the lake.

In the hot summer days, boys and girls played at trying to swim out to the island. It was said to be a holy site, a mark left from the lakeburst that formed the loch and one of the reasons why their ancestors settled in this place. Some said it was a place touched by the Gods. Insofar, only a skilled few had managed to swim the full mile to the island. In the little fishing boats, however, it was a swift journey.

The water glowed like fresh-fallen snow in the moonlight. Had it not been for the men laughing and joking as they made their way, the night would have been a silent onepeaceful and still. On the island, they tethered their boats and headed inward.

“I haven’t been here in years,” Finbarr remarked, and launched into a story of romance and conquest. The island was smallonly a quarter mile from end-to-end. Little vegetation grew here. Instead, smooth white stones formed phyllotactic spirals through the short grass, beginning at the edges of the island and moving inwards in a single-line maze. At the centre of the spiral were five standing stones arranged in a circle.

The men passed around a mead skin as they made their own small bonfire in the middle of the standing stones. It blazed in the night, all the brighter for being alone. Behind them, the highest peak of Loch Coill was silhouetted by the many bonfires that burned behind it, and yet it seemed dull and distant to them.

They ate and drank and took turns leaping and summersaulting over their bonfire before drinking some more. All the while, they laughed, made jokes, and danced together beneath the moonlight. They told stories and recalled moments of foolishness or glory amongst them, of loves known and lost and never satisfied. For each tale, there was toast after toast until they thought they would be sick from drink.

Ferin laughed. His was a thunderous belly laugh that resonated through his body and quaked down in his bones. He laughed because he was drunk. He laughed because he had cheated death that day. He laughed because even if his father refused to acknowledge him, he was surrounded by friends who loved him, and whom he loved in turn. Even as the tears welled up in his eyes and slid down his cheeks, he laughed.

Gods, it felt good.

“We’ve run out of food!” someone cried in dismay. A resounding cry of agitation following this decree. “Should someone go back for more?” Volstan asked hopefully.

“I fear we are all too drunk,” Finbarr laughed, his tongue thick and clumsy with mead.

“I’ll go,” Rowan said almost eagerly as he staggered to his feet. He teetered, trying to find his balance, but before he could Ferin grabbed him by the hem of his tunic and yanked him back down to where he’d sat moments before. “No,” he laughed, “you’re drunker than Volstan or I by an ell, my skinny friend. Stay put.”

Rowan steadied himself with both hands on the ground, leaning back to look at the stars. “I hate being drunk twice in a day,” he complained. “Makes me sick.”

“When were you sober?” Volstan teased. The lot of them had spent the better part of the day drinking and making merry before every coming to the island. Rowan opened his mouth to respond, but an involuntary hiccup escaped in place of words and sent the men tumbling down in another fit of laughter.

A sound made them jump and turn. Their bonfire blinded them to the shadows that lurked outside the firelight, bringing imagined fears to life. “Who goes there?” Ferin demanded of the darkness. “Reveal yourself.”

Out of the night strode Faolan. He was still dressed in his festival clothes. Over one shoulder he carried a sack laden with what smelled like food. In his opposite hand lay the oak crown.

“Ho, there, little brother,” he smiled charmingly. Ferin met his smile with a frown.

“What are you doing here?” he asked drunkenly. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating your victory?” Ferin knew Faolan did not deserve his condemnation, yet in seeing him he could not help but feel a certain resentment. Faolan was fair, kind, capablethe favoured eldest son of a strict and severe father. Ferin had only ever known Feilim’s contempt. Faolan could do no wrong and was friend to all who knew him. Seeing him, standing there holding that which Ferin coveted most, he was confronted by all he had ever aspired to be and the reality of what he would never become.

Faolan gave Ferin a sad look, like a dog who’d been kicked by a previously adoring master. “It’s not my victory,” he insisted. He held the oak crown out to Ferin. “This is yours by rights. You won it fairly. It was ignoble of Da to deny it to you.”

Ferin’s chest swelled with something that went beyond gratitude. The emotion surprised him. Faolan’s gesture was no small thing. To be awarded the oak crown during the Great Hunt was a significant honour, and to relinquish such an honour was not something done, or to be taken, lightly. The firelight caught Faolan’s lavender eyes, and in them Ferin could see a resolve that would broach no argument. They were of a like mind, thenby the right of honour, the crown was Ferin’s, and for Faolan to accept that which was not rightfully his would be an act of prodigious disgrace.

With trepidation, Ferin took the crown from his brother. It felt strangely light for something that carried such weight. The oak branches had been woven together intricately to create a sturdy circlet, blooming here and there with verdant leaves. Ferin could feel the gravity of the moment as he turned the crown over and over in his hands. Behind him his friends watched with hushed breaths. Before him, his brother watched him with anxious eyes. Ferin met Faolan’s gaze.

“Thank you for this,” he said seriously and tossed the crown into the fire. Cries of shock and alarm sounded behind him as his friends tried in vain to save the crown from the flames. The crown was old and dry. It burned too quickly to be snatched from the blaze and was lost to the rage of the fire.

“Why would you do that?” demanded Finbarr.

Ferin gave no answer. Faolan alone did not react to Ferin’s response. He gave his brother a knowing nod. To him, the gesture was clearthey did not need the crown to have honour. He laughed and moved forward to embrace his brother. Ferin laughed and pat Faolan on the back, hard, and, detangling from his kin, led him to the fireside to join in the private celebration.