by C R Dempsey
Once through the gates, they stole the three boats the English used to patrol the river, which also provided their primary means of escape.
They gathered all the survivors and sailed downriver to Hugh’s camp. Guards alerted Hugh when the English ships were spotted on the river, and he and his men waited on the shoreline to bombard the boats with missiles. Caolan, conscious of a hostile reception, raised the Maguire’s standard from the leading boat and was met with cheers when they disembarked to tell the Maguire of their failure to retake Enniskillen.
“With no boats and no walls, we’ll soon starve them out,” said Hugh, and he retired to his tent to dictate a letter to Red Hugh and Cormac MacBaron.
The Irish confederacy settled in for a siege.
Hugh assigned Eunan to a section of the river to watch over so that the English or Connor Roe from the south could not get past the siege works and smuggle supplies into Enniskillen Castle. With the time the siege granted him, Eunan trained his new men and cast feelers to the old lands of the O’Keenan Maguires to see if he could return and reestablish himself.
* * *
A month passed until Hugh met with Red Hugh and Cormac MacBaron to plan the final assault on the castle. After agreeing to the strategy, Eunan was summoned to see Hugh, who raised a smile when his colleague broke through the sunlight door of the tent.
“Eunan, how has your training of our recruits gone?”
“Steady, but slow. We seem only to get farm boys from down south. The cream is already in the army.”
“Well, I have spoken with our allies and secured the privilege of the Maguires leading the assault to relieve their own castle. I would like you to lead that assault.”
Donnacha O’Cassidy Maguire entered the tent and grinned at Eunan.
“It is a great privilege the Maguire offers you to enhance both your own and the Maguire’s reputation and unite the people of Fermanagh behind him. It is especially a privilege for you to lead the men of ‘south Fermanagh’ into battle. The O’Cassidys will merely have to wait behind and then follow in your gloriously trodden path.”
Eunan ignored him, for he remembered the warnings Desmond had given him about Donnacha. He bowed before Hugh.
“It would be a great honour for me to lead the assault. I trust I will have ladders and other equipment to take the tower?”
“Trap the English in the tower, and our allies will do the rest.”
* * *
There were no axes and chain mail presented this time. Eunan assembled his men with whatever protections they acquired and whatever weaponry they possessed before. It was a mob of farm boys being led by young warriors to attack professional soldiers defending a castle. The sea of faces were eager, and the axe felt good in Eunan’s hand. They set off on their mission.
The men advanced through the forests between the Maguire camp and Enniskillen until they reached the siege lines of Caolan Maguire.
“Who sent you to attack during daylight hours?” asked Caolan.
“Donnacha.”
“If you survive this, I’d watch your back!”
“And he his. What is the plan?”
“You tell me. I assume you are to take the brunt of the fire from the garrison and drive them back into the tower? If you get bogged down, I’ll attempt an amphibious assault.”
“We will see this day through and ensure in the future the Maguire is properly advised.”
“Humpf! See you on the other side!”
Eunan waved his men forward. When they reached the open fields, he contemplated Donnacha’s words and Caolan’s opinion of the assault. He finally realised the O’Cassidys wanted nothing to do with him, and they would prefer him dead. Eunan cursed his relatives.
“On my mother’s grave, I will avenge how her family has treated the both of us. There will be only one O’Cassidy standing after this war, and that will be me!”
His thoughts wandered to Seamus and how this was precisely the type of situation he relished.
“What would Seamus do?”
A bullet whizzed past his head.
* * *
Enniskillen Castle had a commanding view of the surrounding lands, and they could see any attackers coming from miles away. The Maguire needed a distraction, and Eunan was it.
His men huddled together to cross no-man’s-land. Eunan and the more experienced men stayed in the middle, so they would be more likely to survive the crossing than any of the inexperienced boys. If they thought before becoming overwhelmed by fear, they would realise there was nowhere to run. They were better off seeking shelter under the walls of the castle, as it was the only cover around. Bullets whizzed over their heads, and the sounds frightened some of the green boys who yelped and pissed their pants. However, Eunan and Hugh, who watched from afar, came to the same conclusion simultaneously. The castle was running out of ammunition.
Hugh quickly rallied his men and charged towards the moat. On the Maguire’s instruction, bands of kern made their way towards the castle from multiple directions. Shots rang out, but not a Maguire man fell. The musketeers stopped firing until the attackers came within a certain range. The O’Neills and O’Donnells then took to the field, and their shot advanced to take up positions where they could provide covering fire for the assault on the castle.
Eunan and his men reached the moat. His men peppered every head that appeared over the parapet with arrows. Soon they surrounded the castle on its three land-bound sides. But all the attackers could do was pin down the defenders. They could not penetrate the castle. Then the Maguire took to the river.
Eunan and his men came out under the cover of arrows and swam the moat. The defenders resorted to casting down blocks from the tower. He scrambled up the muddy slopes and sheltered under the castle walls. His men struggled, unwilling to brave the crossing. He reached out to one poor fellow who, neither by foot nor hand, could get a solid grip to pull himself out of the moat.
“Here! Grab my hand!”
Boulders crashed all around. The man extended his hand, and Eunan tugged as hard as possible, but lost his grip. His hand was not a help, but a hindrance. He landed on top of the fellow, and they both crashed under the water. The man thrashed his arms to break the skin of the water, for his lungs needed air. The boulders fell around them, demon spawn from the castle tower. Eunan swam once more toward the shore. He looked back and saw his companion drowning. He scrambled over and pulled with all his might. Like a beached seal, he dragged the man upon the shore. Yet Eunan was not greeted with gratitude but by a hail of arrows, and what was once a seal was now a hedgehog. The life he tried so hard to save drained into the moat.
“Eunan! Eunan! Come on!”
Now was no time to mourn. Óisin called him to the wall. Eunan picked himself up and pulled his axe from the strap on his back. Óisin and several men crawled beneath the walls, with Eunan in hot pursuit.
“We must penetrate through the gaps and take the courtyard. Then the Maguire can cross no-man’s-land unhindered,” said Eunan.
“They have resorted to arrows. They must be nearly out of ammunition,” replied Óisin.
“Indeed! We must get to the gate on the other side of the courtyard and open it up for the boats.”
They crawled along the bottom of the walls, over boulders, bodies and blood, until they were below the gap in the wall. Two muskets protruded over the top of the broken wall, providing a small amount of resistance to the Maguire’s advancing kern. Eunan and Óisin positioned themselves beneath the guns.
“One, two, three!”
They both reached up and grabbed for the gun muzzles.
“Ow!” and Óisin burnt his hand and fell back below the wall, nursing his wound.
Eunan was wiser and deflected his muzzle before dispatching his man with a flying axe to the forehead. Óisin’s opponent suffered a similar fate, thanks to Eunan’s quick thinking. He now had an excellent view of the courtyard.
“Óisin, can you fight?”
“I’ll
do my best,” he croaked from the other side of the wall.
“For the Maguire men! FOR THE MAGUIRE!”
Eunan charged across the courtyard with bullets screaming around him. His men clambered in behind him, led by Óisin, and the few remaining defenders scattered and ran for the tower. Eunan did not pursue them, but ran to the recently repaired gate by the pier. Finding it locked, he smashed it open. His men followed him and joined his assault on the door. The defenders rallied at the entrance to the tower and reloaded their guns. The ships of the Maguire came around the river bend.
Bullets ricocheted off the walls.
“Óisin, give me cover! I need some time.”
Óisin tore off some of his tunics and wrapped them around his hands so he could get some solid grip on the shaft of his axe.
“For the Maguire!” Óisin led the charge, but some bullets were absorbed by his men, which frustrated his planned charge.
Eunan smashed away at the gate, Óisin drove the defenders back to the tower. The door to the tower flew open, and the English soldiers sallied forth with a blood-curdling roar. Óisin fell back, Eunan smashed at the gate once more. The pain in Óisin’s hands seared so that he could barely hold his axe up to defend himself. His men were outnumbered.
“Help Eunan! It’s now or never!”
Eunan summoned the last of his strength and crashed his axe once more into the door. His initial reward was splinters, then a hole, then a friendly face.
“Get back!” the face said, and the men from the boats who had now landed smashed through the door.
Eunan turned and charged to save Óisin. The defenders fled into the tower.
* * *
With the courtyard in rebel hands, the tower running out of ammunition, and the Maguire in command of the river, the siege quickly petered out. The Maguire men brought bails of hay and bundles of sticks and placed them below the tower. The inhabitants were offered terms: their lives, bags and baggage or be burned alive. They swiftly surrendered, filing out of the tower and into the courtyard.
Shortly afterwards, the Maguire arrived. He spoke to the ward of the castle, and the English who could still walk returned to the tower to retrieve their bags and baggage. They lined up once more in the courtyard and gave what they carried out for the wounded to them. The castle prison was emptied, and the prisoners directed to the rebel camp for water and provisions. Red Hugh and Cormac MacBaron surveyed the ruins, which had cost so many lives and much of their time and energy over the past year. Both were elated and congratulated Hugh. Hugh claimed both Enniskillen and the prisoners for himself, with no objections from the other two commanders. Red Hugh and Cormac MacBaron retired to the camp to organise the celebrations. Hugh informed his captains of their next task. Some were ordered to clean up the castle, some were sent to the camp to prepare the celebration, while the rest escorted the prisoners.
* * *
The prisoners were a sorry lot, stripped of their weapons and armour, all of which remained in Enniskillen Castle for the northern confederacy to fight over. They barely seemed like men to Eunan, these dirty beasts who had not for a long time felt the cleansing water of the Erne on their skin. The remains of their once-proud uniforms were just rags, the blood and dirt of battle etched into every crevasse, and the discernible smell of smoke battled the unnameable concoction of other foul odours. Eunan was confused about how their opponents could have resisted them for so long.
“What men are these that would let themselves fall so low? To suffer such deprivations, only to humiliate themselves so by surrendering. What men are these that should deserve our mercy when all they have done is come to Fermanagh to cause misery?”
They reached the shelter of a wood, and Caolan ordered the column to stop. The men of the Maguire stopped shoulder to shoulder with the prisoners. The Maguires stood upright and proud, buoyed by their victory. Conversely, the prisoners were stooped and broken, with pleas for mercy etched on their faces, but had not as yet descended to the depths of their lips. Eunan gulped, for he did not know what would happen next, nor did he want to imagine.
Caolan turned and raised his axe.
“You English have been a blight on the lands of Fermanagh. You stole our land, money and food, left us to starve. Then you took our town and mercilessly slaughtered the defenders. Now it is time for our revenge. By order of the Maguire, I condemn you to HELL!”
The Maguires raised their axes. The wind went cold, for Fermanagh did not want this blood. Only one man knelt in his rags, shielding his head with his hands after his comrades had been felled. Eunan stood over him with his limp axe. One by one, the men of the Maguire stared at him. Óisin nodded towards Eunan’s prisoner, the nod to signal what Eunan must do if he was to be one of the Maguire’s men. Eunan did not want to be this man. This was his birth father—the father who raped his mother.
“Eunan!”
The axe fell. The blood and brains splashed all over Eunan’s face. On his chain mail, the gift from the Maguire, the gift that ensured Eunan did his dirty work. On his axe. On the axe of this new family, the one he wanted to join so badly to cleanse his past, to cleanse his soul. It was now soiled with the blood of the slaughter of the defenceless hidden from the sight of the world in a dark forest. With one flash of adrenalin, did two souls die?
“Eunan!” Óisin put his hand on Eunan’s shoulder, but he brushed him off and ran into the forest.
27
The forest
Eunan went into the depths of the forest, not hearing the shouts, calling him to return. In his head swirled memories of his mother and father, Seamus and his brother. In his veins swirled Odin, Loki and Badu. He had joined the Maguire and wished to be a Galloglass to free himself and his clan, not to plunge his axe through the head of a broken man, once his former enemy and a proud soldier, even if the man served the crown.
He got away from the external voices and found a clearing in the forest with a blue sky for a roof, somewhere where he could do ultimate battle with the beasts in his head and banish them to the skies. Sitting on a broken log, its fissures filled with buoyant green moss, a haven for ants and other insects until he invaded their space, and upon their home, he invaded with his broken soul. It was an apt choice. It was like one of those places the priests would drum through his mind where the saints of old retreated to free their souls from sin and the trappings of the world.
Eunan picked up his axe, pride and misery in wood and iron. The blade still dripped from its latest victim. Red and white fragments sought the solace of the grooves of the wolfhound emblem. He wiped it on the moss the burial ground for the remains of the man’s brains.
“God forgive me,” Eunan cried out to the heavens. “I did it for the Maguire and my clan. If I had spared him, I would have lost all that I worked for, and someone else would have taken my place. My father, my birth father, would have gleefully committed such an act, but not me. I am a good man trapped in a body filled with bad blood.”
Eunan hung his head, for the shame would no longer permit it to be held aloft.
“The coward you killed will not be here with me in Valhalla, but you could. Alongside your father!”
Eunan flung down his axe and screamed at the sky, but Odin laughed in his mind’s eye. He collapsed in a heap on the log, the weight of the world compressing his brain, closed his eyes and prayed through the tears. But soon, tiredness overcame his anger, for he could keep up the rage no more.
“I’m even a failure at being possessed by bad blood.”
He fell asleep.
* * *
The sound of voices disturbed Eunan from his sleep. They were coming his way with sounds of joy and relief. He saw there was a pathway nearby and hid behind a boulder with a commanding view of the path. A huddled mass of dirty faces and rags came towards him with a couple of Maguire men for guides. The stooped shoulders of the escorted men gave way to extended arms that pointed the way to the cloud strewn sky. Their faces shone with their newly found freedom. Eunan
did not want to be reminded of the siege and what he was forced to do. He turned to leave until he heard what he thought was a familiar voice. Turning back to peer over the boulder just as the last of the group was passing by, the voice was confirmed.
Eunan leapt down from his hiding place as the last of the stragglers cowered back.
“Eunan!”
“Get back. No matter if you are not innocent, I don’t want to kill a woman.”
“Innocent of what? I’ve been imprisoned for months.”
“You know what Seamus did to me. But it is not you with whom I have a score to settle. Stand aside Lorcan and Manus. I’m not the boy you can exploit. Come! Fight and feel the wrath of my axe.”
Lorcan and Manus were much diminished by their months in prison and could barely raise a run, less so a fight.
“You would scythe us down like stalks of wheat. We are not the warrior you remember. The guards gave up feeding us long ago. We can offer you an apology, the rags off our backs and the prayers off our lips, for we have nothing else. If you want to fight someone, fight Seamus, for it was his orders we were following,” said Lorcan.
Eunan could not see the skeletons before him through his rage. All he saw was Seamus and his brother, taunting and teasing him.
“Has captivity made you cowards? Remember, once a Galloglass, always a Galloglass. Raise your weapon and fight.”
“We have no weapons to raise! But we are sworn to protect Dervella until Seamus returns. If you kill us, you kill Dervella, and you will die, no matter what you are to him.”
The Maguire guards came down from the front of the group.
“What is going on here?” said the guards as they parted the travellers.
“These men are traitors. They should die as our foes did from the tower. Arm them, and I will give them a respectful death.”
“Who are you to say they are traitors? What evidence do you have? For all, we know you could be a robber from the woods.”
“I am Eunan Maguire commander from south Fermanagh and the emblem you see in my axe marks me out as nobility from the O’Cassidy family. But it is my deeds that make me known, not my face. How could I carry out the actions with the stealth required by the Maguire if everyone knew my face and said, ‘there goes Eunan Maguire’? Now arm these men and let me give them an honourable death, not for their sakes but for the reputation of the Galloglass.”