Suaine and the Grow God by Stuart Gordon

Author:Stuart Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub

Fir Ama, Fir Chreig

HER first week in their company was no pleasure.

For seven days and nights one woman and forty men crouched hidden in foetid, quarrelsome, dangerous darkness. The narrow subterranean earth-house lay beneath a belt of scrawny trees amid moor not far north of Tadhg’s dun, and several times Tadhg’s search-parties thundered overhead.

But the entrance was not discovered.

Uisli left on the eighth day.

And when he was not back on the night of the ninth, Deirdre knew she might die soon, and secretly cursed her foolishness.

Othar was Othar, but his men were not. She might have been dead already had it not been for his zealous protection. Othar’s people were utterly different and yet just the same. They despised the notion of peace, disliked the thought of marriage, and suspected that she had enchanted their king. They were as reluctant to face Lug as the People were to accept Suaine. They found it hard to believe Othar’s promises. Arid in the stench and dark of their ninth night in the earth-house, with Uisli not returned, they could not believe him any more. ‘Re-make our crannogs! Dance at the Temple! Not have to skulk any longer!’ they muttered resentfully. ‘Strong Othar, you promise these things. You listen to the woman. She says that the Children of Lug are afraid of our god! She speaks of the alder-seedling in the dun of their king! But where is Uisli, your brother? What if he is dead? Will you take no revenge upon her?’

‘You chatter like children!’ Othar laughed, fast and staccato. The long imprisonment didn’t seem to have affected him in the least. ‘I have told you, I have seen. My brother will return. Be patient!’

‘What if he does not?’ grumbled a cracked voice close by, and Deirdre shivered: a stir from quiet which Othar felt and frowned at. ‘If Uisli is dead we are worse off than before …’

‘He will return with good news! Why do you doubt me?’ Othar was angrily gesturing in the dark, for Deirdre, laid out on a bed of rough skins, felt the brief cool buffets of disturbed air. ‘I have seen! I have seen: the Fir Ama will be strong once more! I have seen the green-eyed boy, his blood is alder-blood! Lug’s Children fear him, they dare not harm him, they dread the reprisal of our god! They know their Lug must quail when the Old One shifts in his dream! Tadhg loves his daughter, he’s besotted with a quest which leads in our direction! Do not frown at this bright-cheeked girl of mine, she’s our deliverance, she has told us of the boy, she pleases me!’

‘But we are few! Our children have died. The giants …’

‘They do not know what our numbers are!’ hissed Othar.

The owner of the cracked voice laughed.

‘Their brains must be curdled if they’ll accept the demands!’ And Deirdre, lying there in alien darkness, realised how it was for Suaine — except that Suaine had not chosen Tadhg’s dun, and she had chosen this.

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