The Sword of the Gael cma-5

by Andrew J Offutt

  “He lives, as we all knew, and is coming awake. Who is this poor strangely-dressed youth with the heart of a lion, mac Othna?”

  Cormac told him, briefly, and Senchann looked up at him with lifted brows.

  “Thirteen Picts?”

  “Aye, King’s son.

  The large brown eves and lifted brows turned to Samaire. “And even yourself took toll among them?”

  She nodded.

  Chuckling, Senchann of Munster shook his head. “What a band of invaders I have met this night! Why that insolent pig of a soldier was but a yapping puppy, harrying a pack of wolves, wasn’t he! A wonder he was not stretched in the dust by you…” He was looking at Samaire, and he let his voice trail off, on a rising note.

  “S-Ess, Lord Prince. And my brother Celthair.”

  “Cormac, and Celthair, and Ess, and Dondal son of a fisherman! Ah-he blinks and wonders where he is now. Be still a time, Dondal mac Dond, for it’s your head you struck, and your honour avenged, and your prince at your side.”

  “M-my… prince?”

  “Aye. And a brave young man I’ve seen ye to be. Cormac mac Othna has told me ye be a warrior born, and were on your way to my father, to offer him your sword. Is’t true?”

  Dondal’s eyes shone. “Aye, Lord prince!”

  Cormac had already spoken to Senchann on that score. The prince looked up; Cormac gave his head a slow shake. Smiling, Senchann looked down at the fallen boy.

  “Know ye now that there’s a matter of being ever ready, and of training for proficiency, and that had he chosen to draw weapon the man ye so valiantly attacked would have robbed your father of his firstborn?”

  Dondal flushed, and his eyes closed. His voice was barely audible: “Aye, Lord Prince.” After a moment he added, “And it’s great shame I wear.”

  “Well,” Senchann said, “I’ve worn the same, Dondal, and more than once. I prefer a cloak! But put it from your mind. Be assured that the man you hoped to serve would say the same to you: return to the house and service of your father, and ease the water of the fine seafood we cherish even in Cashel. Meanwhile practice, and be ever prepared to defend family and life and country. But-be not anxious to wear sword and see to the reddening of it, Dondal mac Dond.”

  Dondal whispered sadly, “Aye, Lord Prince.”

  “Understand that I am not anxious to wear Munster’s crown either, Dondal mac Dond, for that would mean that my father is stretched in the earth. But-if ever that day comes, you are to come to me in Cashel, and hand me this.”

  From within his cloak the prince brought forth a slender torc twisted of three strands of silver, each no thicker than ten strands of hair. He slipped it about the neck of the fisherman’s son. Dondal was speechless, though his mouth was open.

  Senchann rose. “Now get up, mac Dond, and join us at ale.” He looked at the silent soldier. “Captain Fiacc, a lesson learned. First that your men need be told what manners and honour are, and that being in the service of Munster is for peace, not war in taverns and insults made to women, known or unknown. And another: that things are not always as they appear, and questions must be asked, an you serve well and properly. I speak of the five men ye led-had I not called out, the just man in that encounter would have been set upon, and slain, is it not?”

  Fiacc was chewing his lip; Senchann caught Cormac’s thin smile. The prince, too, smiled. “Well, an – would have been made to slay Cormac, who but defended woman and self and honour, and more blood would have been spilled. All because the man he wounded is less than a man. Remember, Captain Fiacc.”

  “Aye, Lord Prince.”

  Senchann heaved a sigh. “Well, now I seem all unwontedly to have struck dumb both Dondal and Fiacc, let us sit down and sip, and see if we be capable of holding speech together.”

  Chapter Thirteen: The Capital of Munster

  The oak spreads mighty beneath the sun

  In a wonderful dazzle of moonlight

  green-

  Oh, would I might hasten from tasks

  undone,

  And journey where no grief hath been!

  – Edna Carberry: I-Breasil

  (the afterworld)

  “And practice, “ said Cormac mac Art.

  Dondal nodded dolorously. Crestfallen, somehow not quite so large as he’d been yet just as hulking, the boy wore his Pictish armour-in a roll across his shoulders. Stillborn was his brilliant military career, at least for the present. The fisherman’s son turned and set off along the homeward road, like a hound who’d been out overnight and now returned, weary and empty-bellied.

  Cormac turned to Prince Senchann. The two men exchanged a smile that was not without empathy for Dondal’s feelings. Senchann’s mustache writhed and his oversized front teeth gleamed in the morning sunlight. His great hooded cloak, with his smallharp, formed a pack behind his saddle, and today the slender noble wore a soldier’s tunic and sandals. Nothing else; the summer day was warm and leggings unnecessary-and Senchann had good well-muscled calves to show off.

  He twisted in the saddle to look around at the little company. The innkeeper Tuachel, standing behind his belly in the door of his inn, beamed, thinking the prince had turned to bid him good fortune. He was wrong, but kind Senchann mac Eogain nodded at the man anyhow. Then he looked from face to face of his companions.

  With two soldiers from the Kilsheed garrison, Samaire, Ceann and Cormac were well-mounted. The two from Leinster hardly looked like prince and princess, but then neither did Senchann Eoghanacht. Samaire had spent much time with her hair, which was circled and woven with three bands of gold and silver-hair-jewelry formerly hidden within her peasantish clothing.

  Senchann squared in his saddle. At his nod, the soldier who would lead the little group twitched his reins. The six horses set off along the road to Cashel.

  Cormac rode beside the prince, with Ceann and Samaire just behind. The other solider rode last. As they walked, then trotted and cantered and then again walked their horses, Cormac gained information. He was careful, his questions seeming no more than normal curiosity.

  There was no bad blood, he learned, betwixt Munster and its neighbours, Connacht and Leinster. Between those western and eastern kingdoms a small portion of Meath’s southern land bordered Munster, forming a corridor between the Shannon-with Connacht on its other bank-and Leinster. All was well, too, with Meath. Munster was at peace; Eirrin was, as Samaire had said, at peace.

  As careful with his answers as Cormac was with his queries, Senchann allowed that the Munstermen heard that Feredach an-Dubh was no good king.

  “There might be… a certain… nervousness in some quarters among us,” the prince said, “that Feredach might, ah, see the need to… mollify his people and make them forget their… dissatisfaction with him, if such exists.”

  Cormac watched the flower-tasting of a bright yellow butterfly. He’s learned to talk like a king. It’s “if’ and “maybe” and “perhaps” and “might be” and “some quarters among us, “ and even those not without further modification. He said, “Oh… by seeking an enemy, you mean, to give the Leinstermen some common purpose, someone to rage against?”

  “You understand considerable, Cormac mac Othna.”

  To that Cormac made no reply. Aye, he knew the way of kings. There was nothing new about a king, finding himself in trouble at home, looking about for some excuse to make war and thus unite his people-and appease them with sword-won booty.

  “Lord Feredach, then,” Cormac said, “is not the man his father was.”

  “Ah no! That man was well-known and well-liked by the crowned head of Munster. For the matter of that, it’s good His Majesty Eogan felt about Feredach’s older brother Liadh’s being on the Leinsterish throne.”

  “Is’t true King Feredach had his brother Liadh slain, Lord Prince? Or is that not a question to ask of a king’s son?”

  “It is not a question to ask of a king’s son,” Senchann said tightly. “But I will tell you this-who knows?

&nbs
p; “I’ve heard naught of Feredach’s younger brother and sister, since his ascension.”

  Senchann mac Eogain shrugged. “People in other lands hear little of me either, I suppose, or my brothers and sisters!”

  Cormac chuckled. “They’ll be hearing of you, Lord Prince-a king’s son who goes about in a plain brown robe, and hooded, with a smallharp and no horse!

  “It is a way to learn… things,” Senchann said, with a little smile. “Ah-now this section of road I well remember as a good one. Rossa!” he called to the soldier ahead. “Let’s let them run, until we come to Brown Dog Hill!”

  The soldier turned back a grinning face, and booted his mount. So too did Senchann, and then Cormac. The latter rode with his teeth clenched and an expression of some pain on his face. He tried very hard to relax and roll with the horse’s gait as one did on a ship asea. He’d spent very little time atop a horse, and much preferred the unsteady planking of a ship beneath his feet than hard leather saddle under his hams and a horse’s broad frame tugging at his thighs. The hill, named long and long ago for a reason no one remembered, came near not soon enough for Cormac mac Art.

  They slowed, paced their restless mounts up the long incline. As they began the easier descent, Cormac started to speak, but then they broke into a trot.

  Again he clenched his teeth to keep them from clacking and against his grunts; this trotting was worse by far than the gallop, which was relatively smooth-by comparison. Men yet wondered and strove to learn whether it was true all four of a horse’s feet left the ground when he galloped; there was no way to be certain, but wagers and arguments were still made. As to the trot-to Cormac that gait felt as if the beast he rode was dancing on one foot. He gripped tightly with his thighs, and was happy when they reached the base of the hill, where the road both leveled and grew as full of curves as a cow’s pathway.

  The prince’s words had assured Cormac that it were safe for Ceann and Samaire to make known their identity to King Eogain. Cormac felt it politic to advise the prince in advance of their identities, rather than letting him learn in his father’s keep. He waited until they stopped, just after crossing a stream, and made a midday meal of bread and cold meat. Then, quietly, he asked Senchann to find duties elsewhere for the two weapon-men. With a look, Senchann did.

  “There is nether bad blood nor high friendship between the kings of Munster and Leinster,” Cormac said, looking at Ceann and Samaire. “King Eogain held regard for both King Liadh and his father.”

  Ceann nodded. “Then we might tell the prince and his father the reason for our journey northward.”

  With. narrowed eyes, Senchann looked from one of them to the other, then opened his mouth to speak-or demand, morelike.

  “Lord Prince, as we are wary of all men, we three have been less than honest with you,” Cormac said, gazing into Senchann’s eyes. “Lord Prince Senchann of Munster, I present the Lord and Lady Ceann and Samaire, prince and princess of Leinster.”

  “We hope you understand the reason for our deception, my lord,” Samaire. said, while Senchann sought to grasp again the loosed reins of his mind.

  After a time he said, “My Lady… I do not.”

  So they told him, and Senchann’s jaw tightened. In coming to the end of their tale of dark treachery and captivity and then bloody rescue, Ceann and Samaire identified Cormac only as “Cormac mac Othna, and him of far Ulahd.”

  At last there was silence but for insect-buzz and bird-song and the nearby gurgle and ripple of the little stream they had just crossed. After a time of thought, Senchann heaved a great sigh.

  “It is an ugly tale. A man does treachery on his brother to gain a throne not rightfully his-and then on his younger siblings as well, to keep the throne he sits… less than regally.”

  “Less than competently!” Ceann snapped.

  “I thank you for your confidence,” Senchann mac Eogain said, “and suggest that it be yourselves and not I who tell this ugly story to my royal father.”

  Of course; they had assumed nothing other.

  “Then if we’ve finished here,” Senchann said, “let us tear the horses away from their grazing, to be certain we raise fair Cashel before dark.”

  They did, but only just. The rearing little mountain called the Rock of Cashel hove into sight well before the city itself, and the sun was already dying. It was reddening the land with dusk when they reached the gates of the city at the base of the skeletal hill. Atop it, they saw that the adherents of the new faith had been allowed to raise a chapel. Before it, huge and out of cut stone, stood the symbol of their faith.

  Cormac was not happy to enter a city watched over by a Roman execution device; that mighty cross was to him a somber and most ugly sentinel. Many men the Romans had bound to such horrors, to die of thirst and hunger and exposure. Nor had there been many such as that first Caesar, nearly six centuries ago. He had gained a reputation for mercy by ordering his men to slay with swift swords and spears the slowly dying men they had crucified. (Most likely, Cormac thought, because their groans went not well with Julius’s dinner!)

  Now the long-exiled Gael felt foreboding. He frowned and his lips were tight.

  His Celtic bloodline ran back thousands of years, even to Atlantis, whose cross had been open at the bottom: a symbol of life, not death. He had rather they arrived at some time other than when a dying sun sent that granite cross’s long sullen shadow over Cashel. It reminded him of betrayal and death, and he brooded nervously over their decision to reveal all to Senchann and Eogan his father.

  Chapter Fourteen: The King of Munster

  The berried quicken-branches lament in lonely sighs,

  Through open doorways of the dun a lonely wet wind cries;

  And lonely in the hall he sits, with feasting warriors round,

  The harp that lauds his fame in fights hath a lonely sound.

  – Edna Carberry: Art the Lonely

  Once in his riever days Cormac had taken a bone-deep swordcut in the back of the right thigh. It was both agony and danger to his life, and his men sadly took him to a little island above Alba, there to heal or die. There he lay, for a long month. With the aid, whether medical or arcane he never knew, of an Alban Druid, Luchu and the strange voiceless girl Seimsolas-Light of Beauty-mac Art had recovered.

  Sure, he mused the morning after their arrival in Cashel, and it’s that wound I’d rather have again than these saddle-born kinks in legs and backside!

  At least he had rested well last night. Tired, dusty, saddle-weary, they had assured Senchann they wanted nothing so much as a night’s sleep. The prince had practically smuggled them into the Hall of Guests. In that many-chambered building next the royal house, they had eaten well. After a brief talk, they retired. Out of the conversation had come agreement that Cormac’s true name would continue secret.

  Now, in mid-morning of the following day, they followed Prince Senchann into the royal house.

  Two spearmen with ornate sword scabbards, gold-worked hilts and tall, lozenge-shaped shields presided over the double-doored entry. Both men wore tunics of white and were well-girt with fine gleaming armour of red leather, studded with faceted bosses of steel. A long plume of white hair fell down each man’s back from his helm; dyed or bleached ox tails, the three pilgrims supposed.

  Between those men and the tall doors passed the four, and into that long broad room.

  Massive, squared beams of oak roofed the Hall of Kings in Cashel of Munster. Others, even thicker, supported the beams from a floor of cut, set stone; these uprights were stained a deep red-brown and banded about with ruddy bronze. The area they framed could have accommodated easily the milling of a hundred people. Over a hundred more could sit simultaneously at the tables that ran along the sideward walls. Cormac mac Art wondered if so many supped here nightly, and he thought not.

  There were no other weapon men; indeed the hall was entirely deserted. Not even the king was in his great hall this day, and the three foreigners wondered.

&nbs
p; Well-attired and long-cloaked, the trio exchanged bemused looks as they followed Prince Senchann. Up the center of the broad long hall he strode, and with each step the purple-worked hem of his voluminous and swirly cloak draped over his rising heel. The yellow of primrose was the cloak’s colour; pure shining silk was its cloth.

  Cormac walked with no more comfort than he sat. A day in that unaccustomed place-the saddle-had left him with buttocks tender to the bone. They were muscle-sore when he walked, as were his inner thighs. He bore it, and concealed his discomfort, as he followed the son of the king to audience with the king.

  But where was the king?

  They soon learned: behind an unmarked door with no handle or sidework, disguised as one of ten black-stained panels at the head of the hall. Beyond was an over-warm little parlour hung all about with thick, heavy draperies of deep carmine. The flooring between them was covered from corner to corner with a rich carpet of an even deeper red.

  A man sat in a chair on a raised area at the far wall. He was the room’s only occupant.

  The room was the colour of blood; its single denizen was not.

  Indeed he appeared to have in his veins no more than a pint of the red juice of life, for all his fat. Shadeflower white was this man with the double circlet of twisted gold about his head, resting on thin locks of auburn and grey. The outsize red mustache that bushed beneath his nose and covered his upper lip and part of his cheeks only emphasized his pallor, as did the deep, deep blue of his robe. A great carcanet of gold covered his upper body from neck past the pectorals, where his belly began. The huge necklace winked with garnets and pearls and blue agates.

  His visitors entered and stood, for the Eirrin-born did not bend knee even to crowned head.

  In addition to the armchair from which presided the king, there were five other seats in the room: backless chairs of wood, like those of the Romans.

  His Majesty Eogan Eoghannact, Cormac mused, sped the words and departure of his visitors and petitioners by seating them as uncomfortably as possible! They were bade to sit, and did.