A little glimpse of the early life of Queen Maeve: this is a short scene I wrote during a writers’ group, hosted by Fiona O’Rourke. I am posting it publicly for the first time.
You are not to leave this room, Aoife tells them. She looks sternly at each of them in turn, the six daughters of Eochu Feidlech. There is dreamy Derbriu, and Eile, who is more other than her sisters (not long for this world, Aoife knows). There is Mugain and Eithne, and wide-eyed Clothru, and there is Medb, smallest and liveliest. The four came in quick succession, Eochu having no mercy on Cloithfinn. Cloithfinn, mother of the Findemna, with her grim expression and a certain fairy air, was more than equal to the task.
Eochu does not often notice his daughters but, when he does, it is Medb who catches his eye. She runs as wild as the Findemna did, when given half the chance. Aoife looks at her, and sees how she watches the door, from her vantage point by the fire. Her fingers, still chubby with baby fat, curl around straw and dust. Medb’s grey-eyed gaze is unwavering.
There are bonfires burning across the hills tonight. Tara is a constellation and the boundaries between this world and the Otherworld are almost non-existent, flimsy as cobwebs.
You are not to leave this room, Aoife says again, and she walks out. She nods at the soldiers to bar the door. They know that their lives will not be worth living if anyone crosses this threshold, whether man, or druid, or one of the Tuath Dé.
When Aoife’s footsteps have faded away, the six daughters of Eochu Feidlech look at each other. Eithne passes around the apples, and they all take out their sharp knives, which may protect them against man, or druid, but will have little effect against one of the Tuath Dé.
They don’t talk as they peel their apples. Derbriu’s tongue is sticking out of the corner of her mouth and Medb knows she wants her apple peel to curl into the initial of Ferdia Mac Liam, one of their brothers’ friends and a little too beautiful to be taken seriously. Medb doesn’t care about beautiful men. Eile isn’t paying attention to what she’s doing, and she nicks her finger. She immediately sticks it into her mouth and sucks and it takes Medb a moment to tear her gaze from the redness seeping into the pale flesh of the partially peeled apple. Mugain laughs when she sees that she and Eithne have created the exact same curling shape. Clothru is quick and practised and will not let anyone see what shape her apple peel takes. She tosses her hair and says she isn’t interested in any of their brothers’ friends, and their father’s court is full of old and bearded men.
Medb turns her attention to her apple peel and frowns as it shrivels unnaturally quickly, turning brown and disintegrating into tiny, illegible shapes.
Maybe it means you’ll have no man, says Derbriu, her eyes wide and sympathetic.
Maybe it means you’ll have many men, says Eithne, and they all laugh.
Medb shrugs, and bites into her apple.
Outside, the wind picks up, and up, until it is a bellow of laughter and screams. The bonfires do not flicker or sputter; instead, they grow impossibly taller and wilder until the sky is burning with the light of an unnatural dawn. Shadows are cast, like open doorways, and it is through these long streaks of darkness that Tuath Dé emerge, and their attendant demons and fairies quiver through the widening gaps between this world and the Otherworld.
The daughters of the High King are safe behind a heavy wooden door, protected by engravings and the strongest spells of Cloithfinn’s most trusted bandruí. Outside, the Tuath Dé sweep through the royal settlement, as though it’s theirs (and it hasn’t been theirs for a thousand years).
The daughters of the High King are safe, but they are adventurers, and they will not always live their lives inside these walls.
whelmed.blog 