Kage Baker - The Fourth Branch

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The Fourth Branch

by Kage Baker

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First published in Amazing, Summer 1999

Fictionwise Contemporary

Science Fiction

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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. If you did not

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When my name was Eogan, I lived in the community at Malinmhor, having gladly embraced my

vows for the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I thought I had the best of the bargain. No

heavier tool to lift than a pen cut from the quill of a gray goose, and the beauty of the red and

green and yellow and black inks was a pleasure for my eyes, and how smooth were the sheets of fine

white calfskin waiting for me! And how sweet to refresh myself with the Gospel that I copied,

there in the little Scriptorium, when I could still believe in it!

What a world of grace fell away from me when that pagan man came among us, three weeks

before Beltane in the five-hundred-and-seventh year since Christ's birth.

But no blame to him, poor man; God knows he had the worst of it. The truth is the trouble

started well beforehand, but I knew nothing of it, happy and alone as I worked. So blinded with

the beauty I made by day, that I never noticed the frightened faces when I joined my brothers and

sisters for supper in the refectory of evenings.

And we didn't speak aloud much -- it was a monastery, after all -- and I wouldn't have

believed in the trouble, had anyone explained it to me. If our community lay in the shadow of the

high bare hill Dun Govaun, what harm in that? No rational Christian had anything to fear from a

mound of dead stone. If pagans had feared the place in the past, if they'd told stories of babies

carried off or folk seduced by small demons -- well, they were pagans, weren't they? At the mercy

of darkness, as we brothers and sisters in Christ were not. Though I remember being awakened by

the screams of a brother in his nightmares, I do remember that much now; but it signified nothing

to me at the time.

Well. When the pagan came, it was neither by day or night but in the long hour between when

the light had not faded, and when we neither fasted nor fed but sat at table with our meal not yet

begun, and our brother the Cook had just brought out the oat-kettle, and Liath our Abbess was

neither silent nor speaking, for she had just drawn in her breath to lead the grace. The pagans

believe such in-between moments make doorways into the next world, you know.

In that unlucky moment the door opened and the Porter led in a young man in very fine

clothes, perhaps too large for him.

"This is the guest Christ has sent us, who comes requiring meat and shelter for the night,"

said the Porter, and he withdrew to his duty. The man stood surveying us all with a pleasant face;

and from the dust on his rich garments it was plain he'd traveled far, and from the harp he bore,

slung in its case on his back, plain his profession of _fili,_ of chronicler after the manner of

the heathens. I thought he looked too young, to have learned so much lore as those people are

required to know.

"A blessing on this table," he said, and our Abbess, scenting a pagan, corrected him:

"_Christ's_ blessing on this table, and all here."

"Oh, by all means," he replied mildly, and smiled at the Abbess.

He dined, then, with us, and revealed that his name was Lewis, that he was indeed a pagan

well-trained in his craft of relating the old histories, and had come to offer us a bargain: he

would tell us all the wonder-tales he carried in his head and songs of the old pagan heroes, in

return for food and lodging. Our Abbess looked across at me with the eye of a cat after a mouse,

for both she and I collected these tales avidly (though we did not believe them at all).

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So the bargain was made, with the understanding that the pagan should observe no pagan

rites whilst among us, especially on the old feast day that was three weeks off, but attend Mass

daily instead. To which Lewis agreed, readily, without anger. After dining he was shown the bath-

house, and then the guest-house, and he took his leave of us for the evening with the urbane

manners of a king's son, which we thought he must be.

When it grew light next day he met me in the scriptorium, for the purpose of fulfilling his

end of the agreement, and settled himself on a stone seat. He took his harp from its case, and

frowned to himself as he tuned it. I will record here that Lewis was small-boned, high-browed,

with fine clean-shaven features and fair hair, though it did not curl. His eyes were just the

color of the sky in that twilight time in which he had come.

When he had tuned the strings to his satisfaction, he said to me:

"Brother Eogan, tell me first what tales you have collected thus far, from other travelers,

so I waste no time in repeating them. Have you _The Cattle-raid of Cooley_?"

"Yes, in good truth, we have."

"Have you _The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel?_"

"Yes, in good truth, we have."

"Would you mind awfully if we switched to Latin for this?" he inquired in that tongue.

"It'll go quicker."

"Fair enough," I replied in the same language, and we conversed in Latin after that.

"What about the Finn MacCool stories? Any of those?"

"Well, we did get a couple of songs about him from an old man who stayed here last winter,"

I told him, noting that my red ink had sat too long and giving it a shake to mix it. "I don't

think his memory was very reliable, though."

"Ah! Well, _I've_ got the complete cycle. Sounds like a good place to begin, wouldn't you

say?" He grinned and fished a horn plectrum out of a pouch at his belt.

"Let's hear it!" I replied, and poised my pen over the lovely white page. God, how I've

missed writing, just the physical act of moving the pen, making the ink flow! But let's go on with

the story.

He had hours and hours of material on the Fenians, material I'd never heard before as well

as the two stories the old man had given us (and as I'd suspected, the poor old thing had garbled

them badly). I myself was born Christian, and since my parents were zealous converts, they'd

always frowned on any of us children listening to the old pagan stories. I knew all about Patrick

and Moses and Noah, but I could never hear about Cuchulainn or Deirdre until I became a monk.

Ironic, isn't it? Anyway, Lewis relayed the whole story to me, all about Finn growing up in the

forest because evil King Goll had killed his father, so the boy was raised in secret by a pair of

druid women, who conjured a wolf-spirit to be his protector. Spellbinding! Lewis was a good

storyteller, too: he had a very mobile expressive face, elegant gestures, and a nice light

baritone. My pen just swept across the page.

We didn't even take a break until I got a paralyzing fit of writer's cramp just after the

part where Finn calls his father's ghost from the Land of the Blessed and the old chief gives him

advice. I got up and walked back and forth in the narrow stone room, swinging my arms, while Lewis

took the opportunity to pour himself a cup of watered mead from the pitcher we'd brought.

"Well!" He sipped and held the cup out to the light. "My goodness, who's your Beekeeper?

That's great!"

"A former pagan," I admitted. "Nobody else quite gets the formula right, I must confess.

You see, that's part of the Abbess' plan, here -- there's so much that's worth preserving in Eire,

so much wisdom, such traditions, so much great literature! If only it wasn't _pagan, _you see. Not

that I expect you to agree with me on that point, of course, and no offense intended -- "

"No, no." Lewis waved his hand. "Quite all right. I understand perfectly -- "

"But these wonderful stories, for example! I think it's absolutely criminal that the druids

didn't bother to write any of them down. You must realize that in another generation or two

they'll be completely forgotten, don't you? And, though we won't be the poorer for losing our

false gods, it really would be too bad to lose Finn."

"My thoughts exactly." Lewis nodded. "That's one of the reasons I'm here, to tell you the

truth. I can see the writing on the wall, and while my profession doesn't really encourage me to

write on it myself -- so to speak -- there's nothing to stop me telling everything I know to you

Christian fellows who can. In fact ... " He set down his harp and leaned forward. "In fact, I have

rather a daring proposition for you."

I stopped pacing. "It's not something sinful, I trust."

"Oh! Not at all, at least not by your standards. Look, it's simply this: I'm a bit more

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than a simple bard. I have some religious credentials as well, in my religion I mean. I was

trained for certain rituals I'll never be able to perform nowadays, with so few of us left."

"But you're so young," I said doubtfully. "I thought most of the _vates_ had died off years

ago."

"I'm older than I look." Was he evading my gaze, there, for just a second? "In any case, my

point is this: I'm quite resigned to the druids being dead as last year's mutton, but I feel badly

about their more, ah, arcane knowledge being lost. The sciences. The sacred stuff. The holy

rituals, the ceremonies and all that. Now, I couldn't _ever_ tell you Christians certain things,

being sworn to secrecy, but if you happened to overhear me talking to myself -- say if we happened

to be sitting in the same room at the time -- and you happened to write down what you heard, well,

it wouldn't be a sin for you, would it?"

"I'm not so sure about that." I sat down to consider it. "Preserving heathen history and

legends is one thing. Preserving a false faith -- I don't know, Lewis ... I seem to remember the

Blessed Patrick stating quite clearly that druid books ought to be burned, not preserved!"

He sighed and had another sip of mead. "I know what you're thinking: what if this is some

pagan plot to keep the Old Religion going by making new copies of the famous Lost Lore? I'll tell

you what you can do: once you've written down this _Codex Druidae_, you can bury it in a lead

casket ten feet below the floor of this room. I'll swear any oath you like that it'll remain there

undisturbed, unseen for a thousand years and more. Gracious, I wouldn't want it found by my co-

religionists; can you imagine what they'd do to me if they knew I'd told this stuff to a Christian

monk? We've got some pretty severe penalties for sacrilege, let me tell you!"

"It's a strange request ... " I tugged at my beard. "Still, I know how I'd feel in your

position. Couldn't we finish this cycle of stories about Finn MacCool first?"

"Naturally!" He brightened up, setting down his mead and reaching for the harp. "How's your

cramp? Feel up to some white-knuckle iambic pentameter? Let's see, I was just about to come to the

part where Finn's woman is stolen by demons of darkness..."

"Finn married?" I grabbed up my pen.

"Not exactly. It was like this..."

* * * *

So we went on like that, he and I, and the hours lengthened into days. From sunrise until midday

we'd work on the stories of Finn, or the tale of Conchobar's quest for the Four Blind Boys, or

other fascinating material, with me copying fast in simple brown ink, leaving margins and capitals

to be elaborated on and illuminated later. If the weather was fair and windless we'd move outdoors

where the light was better and Lewis wouldn't have to keep re-tuning his strings. Sometimes the

Abbess would come out, unable to restrain her desire, and read over my shoulder or listen with her

eyes closed, to hear about Fergus and the Seal-Woman. But in the afternoons, when she had gone,

we'd go inside and work on the _Codex Druidae_, the forbidden book. The actual text took no more

than a week or so to rough in; I planned to spend more time on the illumination.

I must say, any reservations I had melted away once I actually wrote the Sacred Knowledge

of my ancestors down. No wonder they'd kept it secret! Most of it was utter nonsense. I remember

one absurd formula for producing children out of nature, by combining tiny bits of the parents'

flesh in a glass dish. Some of their astronomy was fairly good, at least -- they knew, like

Pythagoras, that the Earth was a sphere -- but they had this notion that the Earth revolves around

the Sun! In fact, they thought -- but it's just too stupid to waste ink on. I confess I was

laughing as I took most of it down. Lewis was a good sport about it, at least; but no wonder he'd

abandoned the priestly caste to be a bard!

And in any case, he was a kindly young man, and I couldn't imagine him shutting unfortunate

malefactors into wicker cages and burning them alive. Not that he wouldn't have been strong

enough; one time he took his turn at serving the evening meal, though as a guest he needn't have,

and I saw him hoist the great fish-cauldron on his shoulder and bear it from the kitchen as though

it weighed nothing. I watched him mend a set of beads for one of the Sisters one evening at table,

prizing and closing the bronze links with strong clever fingers. And his speech was graceful and

witty, making us laugh so much it was as if Christ Himself were there telling jokes.

This happy time lasted until Beltane Eve. On that afternoon, Lewis and I were sitting out

of doors, and white thorn blossoms were dropping on the calfskin from the bush above me, so I kept

having to brush them away as I took down Lewis' account of the Daughter of the King Under the

Waves. Suddenly he stopped; and a second later the birds, who had been singing delightfully,

stopped too. "Liath is coming," Lewis announced, raising one eyebrow, "and something's wrong -- "

When she came into view I saw he was right, for her face was dark with unhappiness. She

wasted no time, but came straight to Lewis, and in blunt Gaelic addressed him: "Pagan man, have

you any knowledge of the ways of the _sidhe_?"

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His mouth hung open a second in surprise. "I have," he admitted.

"Good, for we have need of it. Brother Crimthann has been stolen away from us by the _sidhe

_of Dun Govaun, and must be rescued."

If Finn and all his host had suddenly leaped alive from my page, I could not have been more

bewildered. Fairy folk? Fairy folk kidnapping one of _us_? But the _sidhe_ were mere heathen

fables, they didn't exist! And I saw that Lewis was no less amazed, though courteously he asked

her to explain.

It seemed that Brother Crimthann, who was one of the younger members of our community, had

been troubled lately with bad dreams. In his dreams, the _sidhe_ came into the cell where he slept

as easily as if they walked through smoke, and bore him away with them to their palace under Dun

Govaun. There he suffered torments of fleshly temptation, but by morning woke in his cell again

with no sign of the ordeal of his dreams: not even the guilty emission of a young man so tempted.

He had sworn that the _sidhe_ were not beautiful, either, but pale and small, hairless, silent.

At this I saw Lewis start forward, like a hound catching a scent. "Now that is a strange

thing, truly," he told the Abbess.

"Strange, but not so strange as this: Brother Crimthann did not come to prayers this

morning, nor later, nor was he to be found in his cell. But Brother Aidan's hut adjoins his, and

Brother Aidan swears that in the third hour of the night the moon shone into his cell, bright

enough to flood between the stone chinks; and as you are a pagan and learned in these things I

need not tell you that there was no moon last night." The Abbess looked at him grimly. "Now, this

is a pagan matter. The blessed Patrick gave us prayers against the _sidhe, _but I never read

anywhere that fairy women carried him away from his holy bed. Can you go to them, then, and win

our brother back with that fine pagan talk of yours? Bring him alive out of Dun Govaun, and Christ

will bless you for it, druid though you are."

"I will," said Lewis, "and gladly, good Mother! Only tell me where to find Dun Govaun, and

I'll go there straight."

"Brother Eogan knows," she told him, and gave me a Look of Order. "Eogan, show him the

way."

Well, we set out from the monastery in no small excitement. I was still incredulous at

being sent off to find _fairies_, of all things, and Lewis was excited and gleeful as a child

guessing what a present might be.

"This is really marvelous!" he told me as we pushed our way through the heather. "Tell me,

Eogan, have you ever noticed this sort of thing going on before? Strange lights in the sky,

unusual marking in the fields, cattle inexplicably slaughtered in grotesque ways? Any nocturnal

goings-on in your cell?"

"Certainly not," I replied stiffly. "I sleep soundly at night, at least since I stopped

having to shave my tonsure any more. I daresay Brother Crimthann will too, when he's past thirty

and not quite so easily tempted by the flesh."

"Cheer up! Baldness looks good on some men. You think that's all it is, then, with Brother

Crimthann? He's been sneaking out at night to visit a girl?" Lewis leapt nimbly up on a rock and

peered ahead, shading his eyes with his hand. "Ah! Is that the famous Dun Govaun?"

"That's it." I regarded it sourly. "The supposed hall of the fairies. Absolutely

ridiculous! It's a completely smooth and solid hill. Not even a rabbit hole on it anywhere. As for

Brother Crimthann, he's simply run away, if you ask me. That's the problem with these boys who get

all inflamed by the idea of monastic life before they've had a chance to see what sleeping with a

woman's like." I bent to untangle a branch of gorse from the leg of my trews. "Chastity seems like

such a wonderful idea until the first time someone actually tempts them, and then they go all to

pieces. Then it's hysteria, night sweats and all Satan's fault."

"Not one of the better innovations of Christianity, if you'll pardon my saying so," Lewis

remarked as we hurried on. "Well, but perhaps we'll find a clue on Dun Govaun. I'm eager to see if

anything's up there. There are, er ... certain stories amongst my people, of creatures like the

ones Brother Crimthann described. The pale fellows. We've never been able to verify anything, of

course. So what do you think Dun Govaun is? Not a natural hill, at any rate."

"Oh, nothing more than the burial mound of some heathen king," I said dismissively; but I

glanced upward, for by then we were actually walking up the side of the great hill, and I felt my

opinion curdle in my heart. Perhaps a _giant_ heathen king, then. But surely nothing more!

"There's a place in Britain -- " began Lewis, and then he stopped still in his tracks. He

seemed to be listening intently to something; his face lit up. He began to laugh.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, in rather poor taste under the circumstances, I thought.

"They're here, Eogan! There are actually living things inside this hill!"

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