Three Moons

Stories of Kings and Wolves

        Lile’s first week in Geal Forest was truly a honeymoon of learning. Her enthusiasm for the arts of a wise woman was not let down one bit. From the first day, Old Maeve took her on excursions into the forest where they would find all sorts of flowers, ferns, roots, berries and mosses that could be used as medicine, food and even poison. For now, Old Maeve only wanted her to learn to identify each plant by name and property. Does it heal, nourish or kill? These were very important distinctions. They would go over what she had learnt again and again until Maeve was convinced she could tell the difference between the juleberry, which was good for sore throats and runny noses, and the tupperberry which would cause one to throw up everything they ate for the next three days. It was difficult because both berries were large and purple, with the tupperberry having only a slightly redder hue and darker leaves. 

           Old Maeve also showed Lile some of the enchantments she had placed around her home. There was a range of protection enchantments. One was around the clearing and prevented anyone with mal intent from entering. Another floated like an umbrella in the sky and prevented them both from getting sunburnt. And yet another was over Maeve's garden that stopped insects from eating the plants. This one was the simplest and first that Lile would be learning. Enchantments were not easy to see. They were nothing more than a shift in light, a flicker of colour, or at least so Lile had been told. She had not managed a glimpse at a single one, though Maeve had pointed them out, described them and insisted that they were there.  

        “Your eyes will adjust with time,’ she assured her. ‘It is like walking out of a dark house into the sun. For a moment you can’t see a thing, but then your eyes adjust to the light. There is so much magic in this forest and when your eyes adjust you will see it all around you.”

        “Is that why you live here?” Lile asked. She had always wondered why the wise woman chose to live in seclusion, so far from any of the villages she frequented. 

        “Yes, I live amongst magic, and so it never leaves me. It is a way of life the druids adopted a long time ago. In nature, they found the life that the Mother had breathed into everything that grows and while living among it, they learnt to harness it. I am no druid, but I find that some of their methods strengthen my own art.” 

        The thought that Lile would one day be one with magic herself filled her with such wonder that she could hardly be upset at how little progress she had made in actually seeing any. Occasionally, the sceptical thought crossed her mind that it seemed unlikely that one could go from not seeing magic at all to suddenly seeing it everywhere just by being around it. But she trusted Maeve and pushed the disbelief out of her mind. Her scepticism would be displeasing to the Lady of the Forest. 

         There were some things that would make much more sense once she could see magic. For example, every morning when she woke up she would hear Old Maeve muttering to herself in the garden. At first, Lile assumed that she must be speaking incantations of a sort, but when she listened in she was surprised to hear Maeve discussing changes in weather, the phase of the moon and the various activities of forest creatures with another who Lile could neither see nor hear. 

        “Why are the bhal trees so restless all of a sudden,” Lile had heard her say. "Ever since I returned I can feel the chattering in the roots. It’s never-ending.” Maeve had paused briefly and then said, “Well, you should ask them what all the fuss is about. You’re good with trees aren’t you?” Again, Maeve had paused this time for a long while before saying, “There is a lone wolf that has been roaming around here for a few days now. Lile saw it the day we returned and I’ve spotted footprints and even smelt it occasionally. From its prints, I know that it is larger than any wolf I have ever seen. Is it one of a pack?” A pause. “Why is it alone without a family?” Another pause. “Well, regardless, I just need to know that it has no taste for humans. I would like to send Lile into the forest alone and I can’t if there is a predator on our doorstep. Can you not ask? You’re good with animals aren’t you?” Old Maeve chuckled at her last comment and did not speak again. 

        These strange one-sided conversations continued to puzzle Lile for several days until she finally plucked up the courage to inquire about them over a yummy breakfast of bread and fruit. The question did not appear to bother Old Maeve at all. She happily described a sprite-like spirit, by the name of Gren, that had been visiting her for several years. 

        “He lives in the trees,” Maeve said, “Not amongst the trees, but in the trees, like a dryad, yet his form is extremely ethereal, he does not appear to have any physical substance to him, whereas a dryad has a physical form. When I ask him what he is he ignores me or starts talking about the warmth of the sun, occasionally he just leaves. It saddens me to think that perhaps he does not know what he is himself. He is like a lost soul. I wonder that he is not the spirit of a dryad passed, a tree that has died. I enjoy his company very much. His presence is a gift. But he seems restless, and I don’t believe that he belongs here. I pray to the Lady of the Forest that he will find a home suited to him, though I will miss his wisdom and guidance when he goes. He knows so much about the ways of the forest. I have lived here for many years, yet he still tells me things I never knew.” 

        The subject seemed to sadden Old Maeve, so Lile decided to change it.                 

        “I heard you say that you have seen more signs of the wolf.”

         “Oh, yes,” Old Maeve replied. “I believe it is roaming around here. I don’t know why, but Gren will soon tell me if it is any trouble.” 

         “I don’t like wolves,” Lile said sourly.

         “Have you met a wolf before?” Old Maeve asked with a small, teasing smile.

         “No, but I’ve met the wolf army.” 

         “Ah yes, Zigor’s men.” 

        A golden wolf against a red moon was the emblem of the Basamortan Empire. Wherever its army went they carried the golden wolf on their banners. Red paw prints were painted onto their armour and some of the military commanders wore helms that resembled the head of a wolf. King Zigor was infamously known as the wolf king. Some said that he actually resembled a wolf in both appearance and manner. It was even whispered that the Moon Goddess had blessed him, or cursed him, with the strength and ferocity of the beast.

         “Humans,” Old Maeve continued, “often boast the qualities of the natural world around them, even going as far as assuming identities that do not belong to them, in order to promote themselves in some way or another. The wolf is not to blame for the use of its image by human kings. It is much happier staying out of human affairs altogether. Let it alone with space to roam, deer to hunt and a pack to call its family and it will not bother you.”

         “This wolf, in particular, seems to be bothering us.”

         “Are you bothered?” Old Maeve asked with that teasing smile. “I am not bothered. I believe if we let it be, then it will let us be.”

         “But you are not sure, otherwise you would not be asking your spirit friend for advice about it.”

         Old Maeve sighed. “You are right, and that is not like me. Perhaps, having a youngster with me has made me warier. I am burdened by the responsibility of having you around. It might be best if you leave, so that I can enjoy the wolf’s company, rather than being haunted by it.”

        Lile stiffened at the suggestion that she should return home. But Maeve gave her an impish wink that told her she was only joking and that it was time to end the discussion. But the conversation had turned Lile’s mind to home, and the oppression her people faced. She wanted to know what Old Maeve thought of King Zigor.

         “So you don’t think it’s true then, about King Zigor. You don’t think he’s actually a wolf?”

         Old Maeve chuckled. “He may be an animal, but that animal is most certainly a man.”

         “But the Moon Goddess, could she have made him wolf-like. It would explain why he was such a formidable fighter, why his armies have conquered so many tribes.”

         “Would it? Perhaps a simpler explanation is training and discipline. Have some tea.” Maeve pushed a hot mug of tea that smelt floral with a hint of spice, toward Lile. “Cloew, water gorn and millow. It should help you with your eyesight.” 

Lile thought through what each ingredient was. Cloew was a root. They had never found it on their little excursions, but Maeve had shown it to her in the workshop hidden behind the second door of her cabin. Lile wasn’t sure what it was for. Water gorn was a medicinal weed, easily found in creeks. Maeve said she used it for ‘clearing anxious or clouded minds.’ It had to be cooked a certain way though. Millow was a light pink flower that grew most commonly from the trunks of decaying trees. It was just for flavour. Lile would not have described the tea as delicious, it was bitter and the millow didn't provide much taste, but if it helped her see magic she would drink it all and then ask for more.

        “Now,” Maeve continued, “I’m not saying that Basamortah does not use magic to fight its battles or build its kingdom. They most likely have magicians or sorcerers in their courts. But magic can only do so much. It is easy to explain away all the workings of the world on supernatural meddling, but there are other things that make a tribe prosperous, a king powerful, and an army undefeatable. Gold, for example.”

         Lile pondered Maeve’s words as she sipped her tea, but if she was honest, the two were in disagreement. Maeve, a simple wise woman, may be limited in her magic, but there were magicians and sorcerers, and regarding the gods, who knew the limits to their power?

She had never seen King Zigor. As far as she knew, none of the Deargish had. The distance between them and their new ruler meant that there was no image of a real man to anchor down the rumours shared about him which grew more alarming and fantastical as years went by. Perhaps Maeve's words held some truth then. To the Deargish, King Zigor was little more than a myth and myths tended to be embellished. 

However, they had all encountered Prince Asier and his army. They were the ones who had invaded the Deargish lands. Lile thought of Asier's general who was never seen without his bronze wolf-head helm. There were rumours regarding this too. Some said that his face was had been badly scarred in battle, and that the sight was so horrific, that Prince Asier could not stand to look at him and had ordered that the helm never be removed in his presence. Of course, others said that if you removed the wolf you would only find another wolf, for the general was really half man, half wolf. While Lile had never consciously believed this, in her mind she could only picture the wolf, There had never been a man and so she could not imagine him. Such images of the general only became more beastly and terrifying after he took her brother. Remembering Cillian brought another question to mind. 

        “Ask your next question,” Maeve said, “and then we shall discuss today’s tasks.” Lile flinched, she was still getting used to Old Maeve's mind-reading powers. She wondered if Maeve was aware that she had just thought of her as a simple wise woman. She regretted those thoughts a little, not only because Maeve may know of them, but also because if she did know then she was proving Lile very wrong. 

         “What happened to Prince Asier and his army?” Lile asked.  

Maeve inhaled deeply and took a sip of her own tea before replying. “I don’t know what happened to them. But I do know that they underestimated the Wildermen, they underestimated this forest, and they underestimated the bond between the Wildermen and the forest.”

        “Are they all dead?” Lile asked.

         “I’m not sure, but it does seem likely. And how awful for the rest of us,” Maeve muttered rubbing her temples. On that, Lile and Maeve did agree, for though Lile had no pity to spare for the prince, the king’s loss had turned him against the conquered tribes. In the very first year when the prince had not returned, the king had the eldest child of every village leader, who was not of Basamortah, rounded up and hung so that their parents would feel the pain that he felt. It was awful. Lile had lost a friend that day, the man that she was betrothed to, after already losing her brother to Asier's army. Basamortah just took and took and took.

Lile thought of Cillian who had been drafted into the prince's army less than a year before the fatal campaign. She remembered Basamortan soldiers, painted with red paws, dragging him away as the general watched through the empty bronze eyes of a wolf. Instinctually, she closed her fingers around Cillian's pendant. He had torn it from his own neck and thrown it at her feet, yelling 'I'll come back,' before he was shoved into a crowd of young Deargish men, recently conquered, off to administer the same fate to new peoples. She had not seen or heard from her brother since.

         Lile’s lament was interrupted by a whistling sound outside.

         “Gren,” Maeve announced. She got up and went to the door. It opened before she reached it due to a fun enchantment that made it open and close on its own. For a moment Maeve appeared to just stand in the doorway, doing nothing. Then she turned to Lile, “Come with me,” she said. Lile followed her out of the hut and across the lawn to where the clearing ended at a line of bone trees. There, on the grass, lay two dead rabbits. “A peace offering,” Maeve said, “from the wolf. Gren says he will not hurt us. Lile, I am against killing other creatures but I am also against wasting food. So we shall accept this gift graciously."

         Maeve picked up the rabbits and walked back to the cabin, no doubt with the intention to prepare a cooked lunch. Lile lagged behind her. She did not want to eat food given to her by a wolf. 

It was then that she heard the whispers.