Firebirds Soaring Read Free

the black moon-mottled sow had occurred within me at intervals all my life, although never before had I truly acknowledged it. Or acted upon it.
    Perhaps I was an oracle. Druids said that the wren, the little brown bird that had fetched fire down from the sun for the first woman, possessed oracular powers.
    I should feel honored to be called Wren, my mother had often told me while she still lived, for the wren is the most beloved of birds. It is a crime to harm a wren or even disturb a wren’s nest. Except—this my mother did not say, but I knew, for I had seen—once a year, at the winter solstice, the boys would go out hunting for wrens, and the first lad to kill one was declared king for the day. They would troop from cottage to cottage, accepting gifts of food and drink, with the mock king in the fore carrying the dead wren. Then they would go in procession to the castle, and the real king would come out with the golden torc around his neck; the dead wren would be fastened atop an oaken pole, its little corpse wreathed with mistletoe, and a druid would carry it thus on high while the king rode behind with his thanes and retainers in cavalcade. Therefore the wren was called the kingmaker.
    As I thought this, glad shouts sounded from the courtyard below: “High king! High king!” Gwal Wredkyte and his heir Korbye and their royal retinue had returned from hawking.
    Although I seldom adorned myself, this day I took off my simple shift and put on a gown of heavy white silk edged with lambswool black and gray. I brushed my hair and plaited it and encased the ends of the braids in clips of gold. I placed upon my head a golden fillet. Around my neck I hung a silver lunula, emblem of the goddess.
    For a long time I looked at myself in my polished bronze mirror that had been Mother’s before she died.
    Finally I took my newfound treasure—a ring the size of a warrior’s armband, just as the black sow’s owner had said—and I slipped it onto my left arm up to my elbow, where it hid itself beneath the gown’s wide sleeve.
    Then I went down to dine with my father and my cousin.
    I found them in the best of spirits.
    “Wren!” My father stood up, tall and kingly, his bronze beard shining in the torchlight, to greet me with a kiss.
    “Cousin,” declared Korbye, rising also, with equal courtesy if less enthusiasm. A comely lout accustomed to having his way with any maiden he fancied, he took it ill that his gallantries could not deceive me. Nevertheless, he held my chair and saw me seated at the small table on the dais, apart from the long ones down below where castle folk ate by the dozen. All could see the high king and his family, but none could hear what we said.
    While the three of us ate mutton soup, pork in currant sauce, and oat scones with gooseberry jam, Korbye and Father told me of hawking, how well the ger-eagle had flown, and how Korbye’s goshawk had taken a brace of hares. Not until the cheese and biscuits were served did Father ask me, “And what heard you today in the court of justice?”
    “Little enough. A matter of swine.”
    A matter of a nose ring that had, I suspected, empowered an old sow mottled like a black moon to destroy an entire field of barley.
    In other words, to do what would otherwise have been impossible.
    Facing the high king across the table, I drew a deep breath, looked into his eyes, and spoke: “Father, if your only living child were a son instead of a daughter, would he be your heir?”
    And even as he opened his mouth to reply, my heart began to beat like a war drum, hard and fierce and triumphant, for yes, yes, it was true, the ancient ring thing hidden under my sleeve endowed me with a new kind of power: not just power to know truth, but also power to impose my will.
    This I knew because my father, High King Gwal Wredkyte, answered me like a servant, whereas he should have rebuked me most angrily for asking such an impudent question at such an ill-chosen time. He should have