Page 20 of Queen of the Shadow

Scáthach snorted. “Doubtful.”

Tabiti smiled. “Earlier I heard him rhyming words with ‘magnificent feat.’”

Scáthach laughed, and the full, joyous sound had the warriors turning their attention back to her. Still grinning, she said, “Tabiti is going to have the kitchen pack meals for us. Uathach, please gather the reeds and wax. Students, each of you must also bring a blanket. We’re leaving the castle to train for the underwater feat as soon as our gear and provisions are loaded on the horses.”

Uathach’s grin mirrored her mother’s. “To the Fairy Pools?”

“To the Fairy Pools,” Scáthach agreed.

* * *

The Fairy Pools were a hard hour’s ride from Dunscáith Castle, but the beauty of the ride and the perfection of the pools made the time it took to get there more than worth it.

The Isle of Skye had a uniquely rugged beauty. The isle was an emerald, green and shining, but it was also craggy and boggy. As the group followed the jagged shoreline north, they kept the blue-gray sea on the left of them and the land on the right, dotted with yellow and pink and purple wildflowers. Littering the fields of flowers were boulders of Skye marble, which was white with crystal veins running through it. The locals called them beads of Béfionn’s necklace that had been broken and scattered throughout the isle. Scáthach knew very well that her mother had never lost such a necklace, but the people enjoyed telling the tale, so she did not correct them. The sunlight glittered off the sea, giving it facets so that it seemed Skye was truly a gem nestled within a liquid necklace.

A tall waterfall marked the entrance to the pools, the first of which was the deepest, but Scáthach led them past the large basin of water, following the waterfalls and their overflowing pools as they snaked down the Coire na Creiche hillside until she stopped at her favorite. The deep stone pool was actually two big rock circles connected by an underwater arch. The second pool, accessed through the arch, was calm and a blue so pure that it looked as if it could make the spring sky jealous.

As usual, Leannan traveled with them, galloping beside Scáthach’s horse and stretching her long, lean muscles. She loved being able to run outside the castle, and for the athletic deerhound, the hour’s hard ride to the pools was nothing. As soon as they arrived, she claimed a large flat rock as her own, stretched out, and napped, though her eyes were always slitted so she could protectively watch the Queen of Shadow.

Scáthach and the students tethered the horses and unpacked the reeds and their midday meal, which they ate sitting along the flat rocks that made up the bank of the pools.

When the meal was done, Scáthach stood, and the students went silent, giving her all their attention.

“Before we begin, it is wise, as well as polite, to offer oblation to my aunt, Cliodna, Goddess of Seas and Waterways. She has a special love for the number nine and for pearls.” Scáthach reached into the saddlebag that rested beside her, took out her offering, and then walked across the rocks to the edge of the water that always glistened the brightest of blues. “Fair Cliodna, Goddess of Seas and Waterways, my students and I show appreciation for the pools that will buoy us as we train to better ourselves, to test our limits, and to be ready to protect those who are weaker than us. Please accept our offering.” Scáthach tossed nine perfect pearls into the calmest of the pools. She and everyone with her waited and watched. The water was so clear that it was a simple thing to follow the paths of the nine pearls as they dropped down to the rock bottom. They rested there for a few moments, and then the water shivered, and each of the pearls dissolved.

Scáthach smiled at her watching students. “Cliodna accepts the offering. Let us begin. The underwater feat can be even more useful than the vault feat,” she explained. “It is especially helpful when we need the benefit of surprise. It can also hide you and provide escape if you are overpowered or taken prisoner. Tabiti, the reeds, please.” The senior warrior brought several reeds to Scáthach. They were sized between just a foot or two long to an arm’s length. All were thick, sturdy, and hollow. Tabiti held them up as Scáthach continued. “This is called bamboo. The goddess Béfionn gifted the plant to me many years ago. It comes from a land far to the east.”

“But I’ve seen them growing in the bogs around Dunscáith,” said Muirenn, a stout student from Éire.

“Yes, they grow here well,” said Scáthach.

“Too well!” added Tabiti. “They take over everything and will ruin a kitchen garden in one season, which is why you will leave here with your own reed, but no living bamboo plant.”

Scáthach nodded, then continued to explain and demonstrate to the student group how they could use the reeds to breathe through their mouths underwater. “Though it is not as easy as simply telling yourself to breathe only through your mouth,” she said. “So we use wax.”

Uathach brought forth the saddlebag that held several fist-size rounds of soft beeswax. “Much as Odysseus blocked his crew’s ears from hearing the sirens’ call, this”Scáthach pinched off a piece of the wax and worked it into a small ball, which then she flattened—“will block your nose from accidentally breathing in water and drowning you.” Scáthach demonstrated by smoothing the flattened ball of wax over one of her nostrils to seal it. “Uathach, pass out the wax. Tabiti, we’ll use the shortest reeds to begin learning the feat.”

Uathach passed out the wax and Tabiti sorted the reeds, and as they did so, Scáthach couldn’t help but notice that Cuchulainn seemed agitated. The other students were sitting, relaxed but attentive. Cuchulainn had stood and begun to pace when she’d started to explain the feat.

“Know this and hear me well,” Scáthach said. “There is nothing shameful or cowardly about panicking when your nose is sealed by wax and you’re underwater.” She didn’t look at Cuchulainn but meant her words to calm him. “It simply takes practice to get used to the sensation. Let me warn you that the pools are quite cold, so you will have to limit your time in the water.” The students rolled their wax and examined their reeds. “You’ll begin by floating on your back with the reed in your mouth. Don’t use the wax for your initial attempt. Uathach will demonstrate. You’ll put the reed in your mouth as you float. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Gently submerge your head. While your face is underwater, blow out that deep breath through the reed.” Her gaze kept flicking to Cuchulainn. He was pale, and she was almost sure he was sweating. Looking directly at him, she asked, “Are there any questions before we begin?”

Muirenn, the stout student from Éire, asked, “Does it matter which of these two pools we choose?”

“We’ll move between the two,” Scáthach said. “Those of you who are most confident in the water should begin at the far pool that holds the waterfall. The water there isn’t still like the pool here.” She pointed down to the circle of mirror-like blue she stood above.

Cuchulainn had stopped pacing. He stared down at the pools, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and she could see his breathing was quick and shallow—he seemed on the verge of panic.

“Sentanta, is there a problem?” Scáthach asked.

At the sound of his true name, his head snapped up and he turned to look at her. She’d been right. His pale face was beaded with sweat and the armpits of his tunic were dark. He stared at her so long, every student stopped inspecting their reeds and rolling their wax. They all focused on Cuchulainn.

“I can’t swim!” The words burst from him.

Into the silence came the sound of Tabiti’s sarcastic laughter. “Truthfully? The great and mighty Cuchulainn can’t swim? How can that be?”

His eyes, looking more amber than topaz in the light, skewered her. “Because of that!The great and mighty Cuchulainn,” he mimicked her voice. “It began when I was not much older than a toddler. I was always taller, faster, stronger thanallthe other children. So every adult and every youth stopped treating me like a child while I was still a child.”

As Cuchulainn spoke, Scáthach remembered thatLugh, the God of the Sun, had been the only intelligible word he’d shouted as he lashed himself into a berserker rage.