“Sown are the new fields
With bright seed of harvest’s yield
Far down the roots bind
The heart’s joy to summer’s time!”
That glance aside at her bower meant she nearly tripped over Aunt Maude. The Chief laughed gently as she caught her spinning niece and righted her, her usually rather gravely handsome features alight with the festival. Nobody was drunk before the ceremony, but wine and the whirling ecstasy of the dance and drums were in many veins. Órlaith gripped Maude tightly for one short instant before a quick, light push sent her dancing up the path to rejoin the rest of the May Queen’s maidens, all dressed in white.
“Leave the fire and come with me
We’ll lie beneath the flowering tree
And feel the breathing of the earth
Rise and fall!”
As one of the Maidens, Órlaith had set many of the stitches in the May Queen’s robe, and the more hidden white ones on her own, matching the white rhododendron flowers confining her hair. Five maidens attended the Queen, for the Elements and the Quarters and the hidden thing that united them all.
Earth and Air and Fire and Water! And Spirit!
She was Air, a belt of pale blue sapphires and cloudy white opals set in silver around her waist to symbolize it. Fire was the daughter of fiosaiche Meadhbh Beauregard Mackenzie, all dark skin and tossing plaited hair, her white robes belted with ruby and carnelian and gold. Earth and Water were both younger, Earth the granddaughter of Cynthia Carson, Water Diana Trethgar’s eldest boy’s youngest daughter. Spirit was Heuradys d’Ath, grinning at her companions with an imp’s light in her amber eyes.
“The green time sings its song again
To wake the hill, to wake the glen
And raise in every living thing
An answering call!”
Órlaith smiled widely at Delia de Stafford as she danced by, her daughter Yolande laughing behind her, their black tossing hair the same shade of night with the white blossom in it like stars. Órlaith’s stitching had improved enormously in five weeks of tutoring Delia had given her and her robe reflected it. A Beltane robe was something you made with your own hands, as an offering.
“Leap o’er the May fire
Hold close your sweet desire
For life’s Wheel will grant soon
The heart’s wish for summer’s bloom!”
Which is what I want! Órlaith thought.
Suddenly she was breathing quickly at the sound of horns lowing and dunting through the wood, as if the sound snatched her breath away. There was a music in that call too, low and hoarse and. . hot somehow, like the sound of the bull elk’s call echoing across a mountainside.
And as Fiorbhinn danced through the ancient oaks’ arch, the men from Cernunnos’ court entered the sacred grove from all points, a leaping torrent of torches and wildness, bare skin and paint and tossing fire. Raghnall McClintock of Clan McClintock was the Horned One tonight. Years back his father had sent him to Dun Juniper to learn the trade of chief, for the head of a clan was intermediary with the Powers as much as ruler and battle-leader, his folk’s link to the land and ancestors. Now he returned from his southern hills to do honor to its mistress. He was a tall man, strong through the shoulders and with long brown hair drawn back in the McClintock queue through carved bone rings, his face half-hidden behind the tanned deer mask.
And his Fire Squire was Diarmuid Tinnart McClintock, whom she’d met days ago in the preparations for the ceremony. Their glances had crossed. .
“Green shoot and pale flower
Garland the Beltane bower
Circle with joined hands
For heart shines with summer’s dance!”
Órlaith felt the movement of her blood, from face and heart and loins out to the tips of fingers and toes, an unfolding like flowers beneath the sun, like waves beating on a beach, a sweet inevitable rightness. Diarmuid was wearing the horns and deer breechclout, his feet bare on the flowered turf and the muscles of a runner and bowman moving clear as liquid metal beneath white skin that glowed taut and clear. Though he was too young for a McClintock warrior’s tattoos, swirling blue patterns in woad showed where they would run on back and shoulders, legs and arms. From behind the bright red paint on his face, she could see his dark blue eyes cast about, seeking her among the maidens.
Generally I pay more attention to ritual, she thought, halting in her dance in Earth’s place. But ritual is symbol and this is the truth it speaks.
“Leave the fire and come with me
To walk beside the dreaming sea
And watch the fading of the stars
As the new day dawns!”
Cynthia Carson giggled and pushed her back to Air’s proper place.
“Your ribbon is blue!” she whispered and exploded into giggles again.
Órlaith felt herself flush to the roots of her hair, trying to keep her place in the circle.
Panpipes sounded, weaving themselves into the hymn. She skipped forward to the maypole set in the center. Fiorbhinn and Raghnall seized the silver and gold ribbons. Each pair of Maiden and Squire took the colored ribbon of their Attribute and backed away, turning the long ribbons into a net of colored tracery in the fire-shot darkness.
“We’ll try to catch time in our hands
To hold the wave against the sand
And watch this glow upon the land
That soon will be gone!”
The drums beat and Órlaith felt a shiver stroke her backbone, like the touch of a feather drawn from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck.
This year, she prayed. Mother-of-All, this year, when we are both together, please let him. .
She hesitated, not sure what she wanted from Diarmuid this year. There was a sense of eyes opening at the back of existence. A presence. . a Presence. . fond and amused, gone before she could be sure it was anything but her own yearning. Like a warm breeze carrying with it a scent of cinnamon and musk.
The circle had danced forward and back, now pulling on the orange and purple ribbons. And the beat came and Órlaith danced, weaving in and out, over and over, hand touching each passing dancer, men tuathal, women deosil, invoking and evoking the spring, the growth, the green, the rain. And each time Diarmuid went past, he stroked her palm rather than swing her hand.
“So drum beat and flute sound
Once more we’ll circle ’round
For the world turns and the Wheel spins
And all ends that once begins!
This green hour, the heart knows,
Is brief as the budding rose
Though Wheel turn and bloom fade
The heart sings the birth of May!”
The ribbons tightened down as they danced and circled, binding the May Queen and May King in place, against the pole and each other, then the purple and orange ribbons closed upon her and the other Maidens and Squires, they were pressed forward, into the center, bound to the pole by the rest. The dancers halted and flung their hands up in a roar of laughter.