The Celtic Riddle Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One - I AM THE SEA-SWELL

  Chapter Two - THE FURIOUS WAVE

  Chapter Three - THE ROAR OF THE SEA

  Chapter Four - A STAG OF SEVEN SLAUGHTERS

  Chapter Five - A HAWK ABOVE THE CLIFF

  Chapter Six - A RAY OF THE SUN

  Chapter Seven - THE BEAUTY OF A PLANT

  Chapter Eight - A BOAR ENRAGED

  Chapter Nine - A SALMON IN A POOL

  Chapter Ten - A LAKE IN A PLAIN

  Chapter Eleven - A FLAME OF VALOR

  Chapter Twelve - A PIERCING SPEAR WAGING WAR

  Chapter Thirteen - A GOD THAT FASHIONS HEROES FOR A LORD

  Chapter Fourteen - HE WHO CLEARS THE MOUNTAIN PATHS

  Chapter Fifteen - HE WHO DESCRIBES THE MOON’S ADVANCE

  Chapter Sixteen - THE PLACE WHERE THE SUN SETS

  Chapter Seventeen - WHO CALLS THE STARS?

  Chapter Eighteen - ON WHOM DO THE STARS SHINE?

  Chapter Nineteen - WISE AM I

  Praise for

  LYN HAMILTON’S

  ARCHAEOLOGICAL MYSTERIES

  The Celtic Riddle

  “The well-drawn characters’ foray through Irish countryside and Celtic myth will delight readers.”

  —Library Journal

  “A challenging puzzle ... altogether heady stuff for the reader.”—London Free Press (Ontario)

  The Moche Warrior

  “With its setting shifting from Toronto to New York to Peru, this engaging story is a passport to adventure ... richly woven descriptions ... [a] fascinating and vividly presented subject matter and [an] artfully crafted plot.”

  —Booklist

  The Maltese Goddess

  “Exotically absorbing and culturally colorful ... Lyn Hamilton is a gifted writer, who has created an intricate who-done-it wrapped inside a mystical tale ... The Maltese Goddess is a terrific read that would make a tremendous movie.” —Midwest Book Review

  The Xibalba Murders

  Arthur Ellis Award Nominee for Best First Novel

  “A successful mystery—and series: a smart, appealing, funny, brave, and vulnerable protagonist and a complex, entertaining, and rational plot.”

  —London Free Press (Ontario)

  “Extremely well-written ... captivating ... If you can’t go to Yucatan, you can read this.” —Mysterious Women

  Titles by Lyn Hamilton

  THE XIBALBA MURDERS

  THE MALTESE GODDESS

  THE MOCHE WARRIOR

  THE CELTIC RIDDLE

  THE AFRICAN QUEST

  THE ETRUSCAN CHIMERA

  THE THAI AMULET

  THE MAGYAR VENUS

  THE MOAI MURDERS

  THE ORKNEY SCROLL

  THE CHINESE ALCHEMIST

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content

  Copyright © 2000 by Lyn Hamilton.

  All rights reserved.

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  eISBN : 978-1-440-67391-7

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Ireland is one of those special places that is not only beautiful, but where every stone, tree and place seems fraught with magic, and the sites of the great mythic events can still be found if you search for them. Those interested in exploring the mythology of Ireland might consult J. A. MacCulloch’s Celtic Mythology or Michael Dames’s book Mythic Ireland, which helped root Irish mythology in real places for me. Many others have helped me with the research on this book, particularly Jim Polk, Jane and Tim Marlatt, Jan Rush, Bella Pomer, Medora Sale, Catherine Clement, and Susie Wilson. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Harry Roe for his translation of “Song of Amairgen.” This book is dedicated to my Irish ancestors.

  Song of Amairgen

  Ic tabairt a choisse dessi i nHerind asbert Amairgen Glúngel mac Miled in laídseo sís:

  As he placed his right foot on Ireland Amairgen of the White Knee recited this poem:

  Am gáeth i mmuir

  I am the sea-swell

  Am tonn trethain,

  The furious wave

  Am fúaimm mara

  The roar of the sea

  Am dam secht ndrenn

  A stag of seven slaughters

  Am séig i n-aill

  A hawk above the cliff

  Am dér gréne

  A ray of the sun

  Am cain lubae

  The beauty of a plant

  Am torc ar gàil

  A boar enraged

  Am he i llind

  A salmon in a pool

  Am loch i mmaig

  A lake in a plain

  Am bri dánae

  A flame of valor

  Am gae i fodb feras fechtu

  A piercing spear waging war

  Am dé delbas do chin codnu

  A god that fashions heroes for a lord

  Cóich é no-d-gléith clochur sléibe

  He who clears the mountain paths

  Cía on co-ta-gair áesa éscai

  He who describes the moon’s advance

  Cía dú i llaig funiud gréne

  And the place where the sun sets

  Cía beir búar o thig Temrach

  Who drives cattle off from Tara

  Cía búar tethrach tibis cech dáin

  That fine herd touches each skill

  Cía dé delbas fáebru áiner />
  A god that fashions weapons of glory

  Commus caínte Cáinte gáeth

  An able poet. Wise am I.

  (TRANSLATION: DR. HARRY ROE)

  PROLOGUE

  THERE’ S a story attached to that, you know. It happened a long, long time ago, before Amairgen and the Sons of Mil set foot on these shores. Before the children of the goddess Danu retreated to the sidhe. Not so far back as the plague that killed the sons and daughters of Partholan. Not so far back as that. But a long time ago, even so.

  In those days, there were giants roamed the earth, and creatures with one leg and one arm, like serpents, came out of the sea. Back then, unsheathed weapons told tales, the sky could rain fire, and the shrieks of the Hag would be heard in the night. And it was then that the fiercest of battles, the struggle of light over darkness, were fought and won by the Tuatha dé Danaan. First they routed the Fir Bolg, then banished the dreaded Fomorians in the Battles of Mag Tuired.

  The tales of their heroes, their leaders in battle, we tell to this day: Lugh, luminous, shining, destroyer of the Evil Eye; Diancecht, the healer; Nuada Silver Hand; and first and foremost, the Dagda.

  Now there was a god! An excellent one, by his own description. A giant, with appetite to match. It was the Dagda had a cauldron in which pigs were cooked. This was no ordinary cauldron, nor ordinary pigs. Was always a pig ready, and the cauldron never empty, no matter how many came to dine. And, to top it all, the cauldron’s contents were said to inspire the poet and revive the dead.

  Anyway, one day the Dagda went to the camp of the Fomorians to ask for a truce, and also, for he was a crafty one, to spy on their camp. The Fomorians, some of them giants themselves, prepared for him a porridge of eighty gallons of milk, another eighty of meal and fat. Into this they put pigs and goats and sheep, then poured it all into an enormous hole in the ground.

  “Eat all of it, ” the Fomorians said, “or die. ”

  “I will then, ” the Dagda replied, and taking his ladle, so big a man and a woman could lie down in its bowl together, he started to eat. As the Fomorians watched, he swallowed every last bit of it, scraping up the crumbs in the dirt with his massive hand where the ladle couldn’t reach, then lay himself down to sleep.

  “Look at his belly, ” the Fomorians cried, pointing at the sleeping Dagda, his gut rising like a mountain from where he lay. “He’ll not be getting up from here. ”

  And what do you think happened then? The Dagda awoke, grunted, hefted his huge bulk up and staggered away, his club dragging behind him, cutting a furrow the width of a boundary ditch. Even then he was not spent, for later that day, he lay with the Morrigan, the Crow, goddess of war. But anyway, that’s another story.

  I was there then, you know. Yes, I was. Who’s to say that I wasn’t?

  Chapter One

  I AM THE SEA-SWELL

  ONE of the very few advantages of being dead, I’ve discovered, is that you can say whatever you like. Freed from the burden of exquisite politeness, you can utter whatever painful truths, cruel jibes, gut-wrenching confessions, and acid parting shots you wish, without having to endure the drama, endless protestations, embarrassment, or threats of retaliation such candor inevitably elicits.

  Eamon Byrne thought as much, I suppose, but in saying what he did, he unleashed a howl of rage and bitterness so intense, perhaps not even he could have imagined its consequences. Certainly, when I heard him speak from the grave, I thought him merely churlish and insensitive, although not altogether mistaken. But that was before I had more than a passing acquaintance with the people of whom he spoke.

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all together,” Byrne began, a smirk on his face that turned into a grimace, then a gasp.

  “Eamon always did like to be the center of attention,” Alex Stewart whispered to me, leaning close to my ear so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “Eamon also had a way with a cliché, apparently,” I whispered back.

  “Particularly,” the man went on after a few seconds of labored breathing, “particularly,” he repeated, “seeing as how I’m dead.”

  “Bit of a comedian too,” Alex added with a sigh.

  The face on the videotape leaned toward the camera, blurred, then lurched back into focus, the camera adjusted by some invisible hand. It was not an easy face to look at, sunken cheeks and eyes, an oxygen tube extending from one nostril, gray hair plastered to his head, but I could see the shadow of a proud and once handsome man.

  “I’m amazed he’d allow himself to be videotaped in this state,” I whispered to Alex.

  Alex inclined his head toward me again. “I never had the impression he much cared what people thought, Lara. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact.” As he spoke, a foot-long tortoise inched its way across the oriental carpet.

  “Shhhh,” the pinched-faced woman in the row in front of us hissed over her shoulder. Two other like-faced women in the same row turned at the first’s admonition to glare at us, mother and daughters, like three peas in a pod, the family resemblance that pronounced. I resisted the temptation of saying something unkind, and contented myself with glaring back and thinking uncharitable thoughts.

  It was an unpleasant little group, I thought: the three women, and seated between them, like spacers of some kind, two men. The men had taken their jackets off, the oppressive heat and staleness of the room vanquishing any attempt at acknowledging the solemnity of the occasion. They slouched in their chairs, two white shirts and pale necks topped by fair hair, as much as I could see of them. For a moment they made me think of the cotton batting they stick between your toes when you’re having a pedicure to keep you from messing up the wet nail polish. It was a surprisingly apt metaphor I was later to learn, not just because of what it said about the two men, but because of the way they divided the women of the family in life.

  To our left, the big toe, was the mother, Margaret, tall, fair and stylishly thin, neat in a suitably black nubbly-wool suit, with the short, boxy jacket and braid that one associates with Chanel. She was justifiably proud of her legs, good for her age, which she crossed and uncrossed at regular intervals. Next to her sat the first ball of white fluff, her son-in-law, Sean McHugh, then his wife, Eithne, Margaret’s eldest daughter, also tall, fair and thin, with an edginess about her that suggested she was the worrier of the family; then the next ball of cotton, Conail O’Connor, seated next to his wife Fionuala, the second daughter, who looked much like the others, except not quite so tall and with a certain blousiness that marked her as the vamp of the three-some. The women were united by both a rigidity in the spine and a bitterness of outlook that had carved itself into the features in their faces, most noticeably for the mother, who looked as if she had a chronic bad taste in her mouth, but already, too soon, for her daughters. The men, on the other hand, were characterized by a softness about the chin and belly that matched what I saw to be, in the very short time I’d known them, a propensity to indolence.

  The next toe, had she chosen to sit with the others, would have been Breeta, the youngest daughter. Instead, she sat slouched in an armchair, as far away as she could, in that crowded room, from her mother and siblings. She seemed a bit younger than her sisters, mid-twenties, I would have said. While the older sisters were the usual two or three years apart, there were at least six or seven years between Breeta and the next youngest, Fionuala. Breeta was, perhaps, the little surprise at the end of the childbearing years, or a last ditch effort to save her parents’ marriage. If it were the latter, it was unsuccessful, I’d warrant a guess. Overweight, with a rather pouty demeanor, but pretty nonetheless, she took after her father, I thought, looking at the face on the TV screen, with her dark hair and pale eyes, and bore only passing resemblance to the other three women. Her attitude was one I’d seen in others of her generation, a kind of studied indifference to the world around her. Whether this total lack of interest in the day’s proceedings was feigned or genuine, I couldn’t begin to guess.

 
The only person in the room who showed any evidence of regret for the passing of the deceased was a young man with flaming red hair, his face, flushed by the sun and sprinkled with freckles, genuinely solemn, I thought. He looked to be a man who did physical labor outdoors, his muscles straining the seams of his plain but neat suit jacket, his worn shirt collar tight around his neck. His name was Michael Davis, I’d learned, and in addition to being one of the few in the room who mourned Eamon Byrne, he was also one of the two people in the room treated with the same coolness by the rest of them as was Alex. Appropriately enough, Michael was stuffed into the back row with Alex and me, along with the other social outcast, a man I had been told was a lawyer representing an as yet unidentified person.

  The group was rounded out by two lawyers who were looking after Eamon’s estate, a maid by the name of Deirdre—I’d mentally named her Deirdre of the Sorrows because of her morose expression, whether habitual or brought out for the occasion I didn’t know, and because, as a loyal retainer at the Byrne estate, she was apparently entitled to the use of only one name—and another indentured individual by the name of John, also of one name only, who smelled of stale booze and whose hands shook as he pointed everyone in the direction of their seats. John kept backing out into the hall from time to time for what I assumed to be a wee nip from a flask, something I might not have noticed, save for the fact that his shoes, black lace-ups, squeaked when he walked. Nor should I fail to include in my list of those present, the tortoise, a family pet that had the run, or should I say the slow walk, of the house. It was a new experience for me, having to keep a sharp eye out to avoid stepping on a pet tortoise, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for the way Diesel, Official Guard Cat for the antiques store I co-own, manages to stay out of everyone’s way.