The Children of the Company by Kage Baker Page B

case, and frowned to himself as he tuned it. I will record here that Lewis was small-boned, high-browed, with fine clean-shaven features and fair hair, though it did not curl. His eyes were just the color of the sky in that twilight time in which he had come.
    When he had tuned the strings to his satisfaction, he said to me: “Brother Eogan, tell me first what tales you have collected thus far, from other travelers, so I waste no time in repeating them. Have you The Cattle-raid of Cooley?”
    “Yes, in good truth, we have.”
    “Have you The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel?”
    “Yes, in good truth, we have.”
    “Would you mind awfully if we switched to Latin for this?” he inquired in that tongue. “It’ll go quicker.”
    “Fair enough,” I replied in the same language, and we conversed in Latin after that.
    “What about the Finn MacCool stories? Any of those?”
    “Well, we did get a couple of songs about him from an old man who stayed here last winter,” I told him, noting that my red ink had sat too long and giving it a shake to mix it. “I don’t think his memory was very reliable, though.”
    “Ah! Well, I’ve got the complete cycle. Sounds like a good place to begin, wouldn’t you say?” He grinned and fished a horn plectrum from the pouch at his belt.
    “Let’s hear it,” I replied, and poised my pen over the lovely white page. Dear God, how I’ve missed writing, just the physical act of moving the pen, making the ink flow!
    He had hours and hours of material on the Fenians, tales I’d never heard
before as well as the two stories the old man had given us (and as I’d suspected, the poor creature had garbled them badly). I myself was born Christian, and since my parents were zealous converts, they’d always frowned on their children listening to the old pagan stories. I knew all about Patrick and Moses and Noah, but I could never hear about Cuchulainn or Deirdre until I became a monk. Ironic, isn’t it?
    Lewis recounted the whole cycle to me, all about Finn growing up in the forest because evil King Goll had killed his father, so the boy was raised in secret by a pair of druid women, who conjured a wolf-spirit to be his protector. Spellbinding! Lewis was a good storyteller, too. He had a mobile, expressive face, elegant gestures, and a nice light baritone. My pen swept across the page.
    We didn’t even take a break until I got a paralyzing fit of writer’s cramp, just after the part where Finn calls his father’s ghost from the Land of the Blessed, and the old chief gives him advice. I got up and walked back and forth in the narrow stone room, swinging my arms, while Lewis took the opportunity to pour himself a cup of watered mead from the pitcher we’d brought.
    He sipped and held the cup out to the light. “My goodness, who’s your Beekeeper? That’s great!”
    “A former pagan,” I admitted. “Nobody else quite gets the formula right, I must confess. You see, that’s part of the Abbess’s plan here—there’s so much that’s worth preserving in Eire, so much wisdom, such traditions, so much great literature! If only it wasn’t pagan , you see. Not that I expect you to agree with me on that point, of course, and no offense intended—”
    “No, no.” Lewis waved his hand. “Quite all right. I understand perfectly—”
    “But these stories, for example. It’s absolutely criminal that the druids didn’t bother to write any of them down. You must realize that in another generation or two they’ll be completely forgotten, don’t you? And, though we won’t be the poorer for losing our false gods, it really would be too bad to lose Finn.”
    “My thoughts exactly.” Lewis nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here, to tell you the truth. I can see the writing on the wall, and my profession doesn’t really encourage me to write on it myself—so to speak— but …” He set down his harp and leaned forward. “I have rather a daring proposition for