“That cloud is almost off the sun now.”
“You’re no use to me.”
“And yet,” he took his time, speaking meditatively, as though discussing a historical curiosity, “we must remember that I have serviced a mare.”
“So you say.”
“Oh, the thing was done. I could not be sitting here otherwise.”
The initiation ceremony when a great clan elected a new king on the island went back into the mists of time and belonged to a tradition found amongst the Indo-European peoples from Asia to the western outliers of Europe. In this ceremony, after a white bull had been killed, the king-to-be must mate with a sacred female horse. It is explicit both in the legends of Ireland and the temple carvings of India. Nor was the business as difficult as might be supposed. The mare in question was not large. Held by several strong men, her hindquarters suitably spread, she was presented to the future king who, so long as—by whatever means—he could be aroused, would have no great difficulty in penetrating her. It was a fitting ritual for a people who, since they emerged from the Eurasian plains, had depended for their leadership upon men who were wedded to the horse.
Whether the queen was thinking about the mare or not was hard to say; but after a little time she spoke again, in a low voice.
“The harvest was ruined.”
The High King frowned. Involuntarily he glanced back inside the empty hall, where the three-faced head was gazing out from its totem pole into the surrounding shadows.
“That is your fault,” she added.
And now the High King pursed his lips. For this was politics.
The High King was very good at politics. When he put his arm round a man’s shoulder, that man was always his to command—or to be duped. He knew most men’s weaknesses, and their price. His family’s success had been remarkable. His royal clan had come from the west and they were hugely ambitious. Claiming descent from mythical figures like Conn of the Hundred Battles and Cormac Mac Art—heroes they may even have invented—the clan had already pushed many Ulster chiefs off their land. Their rise had culminated, in quite recent times, in the successes they ascribed to their heroic leader Niall.
Like many of history’s successful leaders, Niall was partly a pirate. He knew the value of wealth. Since his youth he had led raids across to the island of Britain—easy pickings with the Roman legions withdrawing or gone. Mostly he had stolen boys and girls to sell to the slave markets; the profits he could use for himself and his followers. It was the custom, when one king submitted to another—when he agreed to “come into his house,” as the saying was—that he would pay tribute, usually in cattle, and give hostages for his continuing loyalty. So many kings were said to have sent their sons as hostages to Niall that he was remembered as Niall of the Nine Hostages. His mighty clan not only had dominated the island and claimed the high kingship but had forced the Leinster kings to give them the ancient royal site of Tara which they intended to make into their own dynasty’s ceremonial centre, from which they could rule the whole island.
But mighty though the clan of Niall might be, even high kings were at the mercy of larger, natural forces.
It had happened quite unexpectedly, immediately after the Lughnasa festival. Ten days of drenching rain: the ground reduced to a bog, the harvest utterly ruined. No one could remember a summer like it. And it was the High King’s fault. For though the motives of the gods were seldom clear, such terrible weather could only mean that at least one of them was offended with him.
Every place had its gods. They grew out of the landscape and the stories of the beings who had dwelt there before. Everyone could feel their presence. And the Celtic gods of the island were bright and vivid spirits. When a man went up to the island’s high places and gazed across the emerald woods and pastures, and breathed the soft island air, his heart almost burst with gratitude to Eriu, the mother goddess of the land. When the sun rose in the morning, he smiled to see the Dagda, the good god, riding his horse across the sky—the kindly Dagda from whose magic cauldron all the good things of life were provided. When he stood on the shore and looked out at the waves, it might seem to him that he almost caught sight of Manannan mac Lir, the god of the sea, rising from the deep.
The gods could be fearsome also. Down off the island’s southwestern tip, on a rocky outcrop in the roiling waters, lived Donn, the lord of the dead. Most men feared Donn. And the mother goddess, when she took the form of the angry Morrigain and came with her ravens and screeched over men in battle, she, too, could be a terrifying figure. Was she angry now?
Kings were powerful when they pleased the gods. But a king had to be careful. If a ruler annoyed a god—or even one of the druids or filidh who spoke to them—he might lose a battle. If men came to the High King for justice and got none, the gods would probably send plague or bad weather. Everybody knew: a bad king brought bad luck; a good king was rewarded with good harvests. There was a morality in it. People might not be saying so openly yet, but he knew what they were thinking: if the harvest was ruined, it was probably the High King’s fault.
Yet search his conscience though he might, the High King could not think of any great shortcoming on his part that should have brought the wrath of the gods upon him. He possessed all the kingly qualities. He was not mean: he rewarded his followers well; the High King’s feasts were splendid. He was certainly no coward. He wasn’t jealous or petty. Even his wife could have no complaint about him on that score.
What should he do? He had consulted the druids. Offerings were being made. So far, at least, no one had come up with any further suggestions. The weather at present was fine. A few days ago he had decided that the wisest course for the time being was to wait and see.
“You were shamed in Connacht.” His wife’s voice punctured the silence surrounding his thoughts like a dagger. Involuntarily, he winced.
“That is not true.”
“Shamed.”
“It was my shame in Connacht brought the rain. Is that what you mean?”
She said nothing, but, for once, a tiny smile of satisfaction seemed to pass for a moment across her face.
The business in Connacht had been nothing. It was the custom in summer for the High King or his servants to visit parts of the island and receive payments of tribute. Not only did this acknowledge the High King’s supremacy but it was an important source of revenue. Large herds of cattle would be collected and delivered back to the High King’s pastures. This summer he had gone into Connacht, where the king had received him courteously and paid without question. But there had been a shortfall and the King of Connacht had explained with some embarrassment that one of the Connacht chiefs had failed to bring his quota. As the man’s territory lay on his route home, the High King had said that he would deal with the matter himself. A mistake, he had realised afterwards.
When he had come to the chief’s territory, neither the man nor his cattle were to be found, and after a few days’ search, he had continued on his way. Within a month, the whole island knew of it. He had sent a party of men back to catch the cheeky fellow, but again the Connacht man had evaded capture. He had meant to go into the whole business thoroughly after the harvest, but the rains had distracted him. So now he was a laughingstock. That chieftain would pay dearly for this in due course, but until he had, the High King’s authority was damaged. Nonetheless, he would take his time.
“It will be a poor sort of hospitality we get this winter,” she resumed. If the High King collected tribute in summer, in winter he had another way of making his presence felt. He came to stay. And though many chiefs might feel honoured that the High King came to claim some days of hospitality, by the time that the royal party left, they were glad to see them go. “They’ve eaten almost everything we had,” was the usual complaint. If the High King wanted to eat well that winter, he needed to inspire fear as well as love.
“That man who shamed you. That little chief.” She laid emphasis upon the little. “It is ten heifers he owes you.�
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“It is. But I shall take thirty now.”
“You should not take them.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he owns something more valuable, something he is hiding.”
It never ceased to amaze the king how his wife could discover the details of other people’s business.
“What is it?”
“He has a black bull. They say it’s the biggest on the island. He keeps it hidden away because he’s planning to breed a whole herd with it and make himself rich.” She paused and looked at him balefully.
“Since you don’t do anything else for me, you could bring me that bull.”
He shook his head in wonderment.
“It is like Maeve you are,” he said. Everyone knew the story of Queen Maeve, who, jealous that her husband’s herd of cattle had a larger bull than her own herd possessed, sent the hero of legend, the great warrior Cuchulainn, to capture the Brown Bull of Cuailnge, and of the tragic bloodshed it led to. Of all the tales of gods and heroes which the bards recited, this was one of the favourites.
“You get me that bull for my herd,” she said.
“Do you wish me to get it myself?” he asked.
“I do not.” She glowered at him. “It would not be fitting.” High Kings did not lead small cattle raids.
“Who should go, then?”
“Send your nephew, Conall,” she said.
As he thought about this, the High King, not for the first time, had to admit that his wife was clever. “It may be that I will,” he said after a little while. “It would perhaps take his mind off this desire he has to be a druid. But I think,” he went on, “that it should be done next spring.”
And now it was the turn of the queen, despite herself, to glance at her husband with some respect. For she guessed what was in his mind. It might even be, she realised, that he had deliberately left the business of the Connacht man unfinished. If there was any inclination amongst the island’s many chiefs to mount challenges to his authority, he would give them the months of winter to show themselves. They might think they were plotting in secret, but he was sure to learn of it. He was not High King for nothing. Once he knew who his enemies were, he would crush them before they had time to combine.
“Say nothing yet, then,” she said, “but send Conall for the bull at Bealtaine.”
There was a rainbow. It was not unusual, in that part of the island, to see a rainbow; and now, as the sun came through the filter of moisture after a brief shower, there was a rainbow right across the Liffey’s estuary and the bay.
How she loved the Dubh Linn region. With the prospect of leaving it for Ulster ever present now, Deirdre savoured every day. If the haunts of her childhood had always seemed dear, they now seemed to be imbued with a special poignancy. Often she would wander along the river. She loved its changing moods. Or she would go out to the seashore and follow the long, curved sands, scattered with seashells, that led to the rocky hill at the southern end of the bay. But there was one place that she liked even better. It took a bit longer to reach, but it was worth it.
First she would cross by the Ford of Hurdles to the northern bank. Then, following tracks across the low, marshy expanses, she would work her way round to the long, eastwards strand that formed the upper half of the bay. Mudflats and grassy sandbars, a little way out from the shore, accompanied her for a long time; but eventually they ceased and at last ahead of her, at the end of a long spit of land, she would see the big hump of the northern peninsula. And with a new sense of joy she would go forward and start to climb.
Up on the hump of the peninsula, standing all alone, there was a pleasant little shelter. Placed there by men or by the gods long ago, it consisted of a few thickset, standing stones with a huge, flat stone slab laid on top of them at an angle, aslant against the sky. Inside this dolmen, the sea breeze was reduced to a peaceful, hissing sound. But as she sat or lay on its stony roof, Deirdre could daydream in the sun or enjoy the view.
And if Deirdre loved gazing out from the top of the peninsula, it was hardly surprising. For it was one of the finest coastal views in all Europe. Looking southwards across the great sweep of the bay, its grey-blue waters appeared to be molten yet cool—aqueous lava, skin of the sea god, shining softly. And beyond the bay, all the way down the coastline, points and headlands, hills and ridges, and the pleasant sweeps of former volcanoes formed a hazy recessional into the blue beyond.
But much as Deirdre admired this wonderful southern view, what she specially loved was to look across the headland the other way, to the north. Here, too, there was a fine open sweep of the sea, if less dramatic, and the level coastland, known as the Plain of Bird Flocks, was a pleasant region; but what interested her were two objects that lay quite near. For immediately above the headland lay another, smaller bay in the shape of an estuary; and in this estuary were two islands. The larger, more distant, whose long lines reminded her of a fish, seemed sometimes, when the waters were in motion, to be drifting out to sea. Indeed, it was nearly clear of the estuary already. But it was the smaller island which charmed her most. It was only a short way from the shore. You could row out to it quite easily, she supposed. It had a sandy beach on one side and a heathery little hillock at its centre. But on the seaward side there was a small, rocky cliff which had been cleft, leaving a sheltered gap between its face and a pillar of standing stone, with a pebble beach below. How intimate it seemed. The island was not inhabited and had no name. But it looked so inviting. She found it fascinating and would sit on warm afternoons, gazing at it for hours. Once she had taken her father up there, and if she returned late after a long ramble, he would usually smile and say, “Well, Deirdre, have you been looking at your island again?”
She had been there this morning, and had returned in an irritable mood. She had been caught in the rain shower—but that was nothing. The thought of her marriage had depressed her. She hadn’t met the man that Goibniu and her father were proposing yet; but whomever she married, it would mean leaving these beloved shores. For I can’t marry the seabirds, she thought sadly. And then, on her return, she found that one of the two British slaves had foolishly cracked a barrel of her father’s best wine and lost more than half the contents. Her father and brothers were out, otherwise the slave could have expected a whipping, but she cursed him roundly by all the gods. It had irritated her still further that, instead of apologising or at least looking sorry, the wretched fellow, hearing the gods invoked, had fallen on his knees, crossed himself, and started mumbling his prayers.
On the whole, buying the two western British slaves had been one of her father’s better ideas. Whatever his shortcomings, he had a wonderful eye when it came to livestock, whether animal or human. Many of the British in the eastern half of the neighbour island couldn’t speak anything but Latin, she had heard. She supposed that after the centuries of Roman rule, this was not surprising. But the western British mostly spoke a language very similar to her own. One of the slaves was large and burly, the other short; both had dark hair, shaved close as a mark of their slavery. And they worked hard. But they had their own religion. Soon after they arrived, she had discovered them praying together once and they had explained that they were Christians. She knew many of the British were Christian, and she had even heard of small Christian communities on the island, but knew little about the religion. A bit concerned, she had asked her father about this, but he had reassured her.
“The British slaves are often Christian. It’s a slave’s religion. Tells them to be submissive.”
So she had left the burly slave mumbling his prayers while she went indoors. Perhaps in the peace and quiet of the house her mood would improve. Her hair had become tangled in the rain. She sat down and started to comb it.
The house was a good, solid dwelling—a circular structure with clay-and-wattle walls, about fifteen feet in diameter. Light came in through three doorways which were open to let in the fresh morning air. In the middle of the interior was a hearth;
wisps of smoke from the fire filtered out through the thatched roof above. Beside the fire was a large cauldron and, on a low wooden table, a collection of wooden platters—for though they had once done so, the islanders did not use much pottery. On another table near the wall, the family’s more valuable household possessions were kept: a handsome, five-handled bronze bowl; a quern for grinding grain; a pair of dice, rectangular in shape with four faces, that you rolled in a straight line; several wooden tankards banded with silver; and, of course, her father’s drinking skull.
Deirdre sat there combing her hair for some time. Her immediate irritation had subsided. But there was something else, in the background, something that had been troubling her for the last two months, ever since her return from Lughnasa, and that she did not wish to acknowledge. A tall, pale young prince. She shrugged. It was no use thinking about him.
Then she heard the foolish slave, calling her.
Conall was in his chariot. Two swift horses were harnessed to the central shaft. On his arm, he wore a heavy bronze armlet. Befitting his rank, his chariot contained his spear, his shield, and his shining sword. It was driven by his charioteer. Over the sea, he noticed, there was a rainbow.
What was he doing? Even as the chariot came in sight of Dubh Linn and the ford, Conall had not been sure. He was about to conclude that it was all Finbarr’s fault, but had checked himself. It wasn’t Finbarr’s fault. It was the girl’s golden hair, and her wonderful eyes. And something else. He didn’t know what it was.
Conall had never been in love. He wasn’t without any experience of women. The members of the High King’s retinue had seen to that. But none of the young women he had met so far had really interested him. He had felt attractions, of course. But whenever he talked to a young woman for any length of time, he always felt as if some invisible barrier had come between them. The women themselves did not always realise this; if the High King’s handsome nephew sometimes seemed thoughtful or a little melancholy, they found it attractive. And he wished it were otherwise. It saddened him that he could not share his thoughts and that theirs, in turn, always seemed so predictable.
Princes of Ireland Page 6