He’s not enough confidence on him, Cormac thought, and it will be his defeat. For a man without confidence was a lamb among foxes.
Caer, a busty girl who served Lady Aine, made heated eyes at Cormac mac Art that afternoon, and they dallied in the room provided him by Cumal. Nor did the passionate wench know that his mind was first much distracted by remembrances and dark thoughts on Bress mac Keth, and later that he thought only of Samaire. Knowing not where his mind had been but only that his body had pleased and him a genuine weapon man with scars and iron muscles, Caer left happy and with stars dancing in her eyes.
Samaire’s appearance at dinner that night did naught to aid Cormac’s mental state. Gone was his companion on sea and half the length of Eirrin, the sword-girt warrioress with her tall boots. The beautifully gowned and bejeweled woman at table, her orange hair elaborately ringleted and besprent with pearls and tiny red stones, was the Lady Samaire, daughter of Ulad and Princess of Leinster.
To the exiled son of Art it was as if an ocean had appeared between them, and him without bark or sail.
It’s girls like Caer for you, exile and riever, he told himself, and the others wondered at his moroseness. He had turned his mind to thoughts of leaving both Tara and Eirrin, this time forever. Samaire watched, and knew there was an ache on him.
It was no happy son of Art went to his bed early that night. The fact that sleep refused to come on him made him the angrier. He was aware, past midnight, of a commotion elsewhere in the Rath of the Boar, but considered it no business of his.
Hearing the stealthy opening of his door, he wrapped his fingers around dagger hilt and waited, holding his breath. But Cormac soon smiled; the hooded visitor was seen to be small in the moonlight. Caer, he thought, or another the silly girl blabbed to!
He was wrong. The visitor who came so stealthily to him in the night was no servant, nor even of Meath, nor a girl either. She was a woman, whose orange-red hair had lately flashed with jewels and pearls. Now it was down, and flowing loose, for it was not as a princess nor yet even a noble that Samaire came to Cormac.
Next day he learned the cause of last night’s commotion. An angry and shattered Cumal Uais announced that his champion was ill; indeed he feared the man had been poisoned. Now no less than two priests of the Jesus-god were with Tigernach. A Druid waited impatiently without, for he’d not set foot in the room occupied by Patrick’s followers-nor would they remain, were he to enter.
Cormac visited Tigernach. The man was ill. Both head and lower bowel objected to their existence, he said, with weakness upon his voice and big warrior’s hands. The two men talked, quietly and at length. Then Cormac walked, with his mind turned in, and after a long while he went to his room and fetched his sword.
Astonishment was on Lord Cumal when his guest approached him, grim of face, and sword-girt. “What means this, Cormac mac Othna?”
Cormac tugged forth the sword slowly, with his left hand. He transferred it to his right, but by the blade. Then he extended the hilt to the other man.
“It means I come to offer fealty and service to the House and person of Cumal Uais of the ua-Neill, and hope it will be accepted… until Fair’s end.”
Cumal blinked, frowning. “But… why man, ye be guest in this house!”
“Aye. And the man who-secretly from yourself and at Tigernach’s hard urging-did put defeat on him five times on the day just passed. I claim right to be called champion of Rath Cumal-and to wear your colours on the morrow my lord, in the Rites of Srreng!”
Chapter Eighteen: The Championship of Eirrin
’There hath not come to the battle gory,
Nor hath Eirrin nursed upon her breast,
There hath not come off sea, or land,
Of the sons of Kings, one of better fame.
There hath not come to the body-cutting
combat,
There hath not been aroused by manly
exertion,
There hath not put up shield on the
Field of swords,
Thine equal, O mighty son of Art.”
– Ceann Ruadh, “The Minstrel-King”
The Boar faced the Stag in the Rites of Srreng, and the latter smiled with confidence. For who knew aught of this helmeted, bushy-mustached champion of Rath Cumal of Meath, with his slitted eyes and his long roan-hued braids?
All about them clustered the fairgoers, held back from the area of combat only by many broad flat-topped stakes driven into the ground, and braided cord stretching from one to the next and the next, all around.
Confidently the champion of Rath Fergus advanced, and waited for the other man to attempt the first blow.
He did, and it was both first and last.
Up swept sword of wood hardened to the likeness of iron, and up rose the spiral-decorated cerulean shield of Fergus’s champion. Then, moving so swiftly that even some of the vast crowd of onlookers missed the act, the boar-blazoned shield slammed mightily into the lifted one. The representative of Rath Fergus of Uladh groaned aloud and staggered back. The edge of an unsharpened sword struck his right shoulder with such force that his hand twitched and sprang open to drop his own brand.
The judges were not hard put to decree that the man from Uladh would have been minus an arm, had the sword been of good steel.
Cumal was practically dancing when his victorious champion walked back to him. His eyes at least did, and so did his belly as he laughed with delight.
“Magnificent!” he cried. “Never have I seen a man put down so swiftly! Surely ye have no peer, no peer!”
His champion’s voice was low and snarly. “That was the twelfth man down here this day, my lord, and already two more contend. There be many shields and toy swords betwixt me and Br-the last combat.”
“It is yours, yours,” Cumal enthused, “It’s ours! Why ye were not so much as-he struck not one blow, or even feinted.”
“The next man will not be so disrespectful of me and thus so incautious, my lord. But my main concern is this ridiculous mustache.”
Cumal glanced around. All eyes were directed on the next set of combatants. He bent his red face close and spoke quietly, under the noise of the crowd.
“It will stay, man. It’s the getting off of it that need concern ye-but not till tonight! As to your fine dark-red locks… ye’ve only to remember they be part of your helm, Cormac, and keep it on!”
“Your pardon my lord,” the disguised man said with ill-contained anger, “but it’s Ceann mac Cor I am. Use that other name in someone’s hearing and it’s gone your smiles and hopes will be, Cumal, for you will have one champion abed and the other disqualified.”
Cormac swung away from him then, and Cumal and his wife exchanged a shocked look. But the green-eyed woman with the veil-obscured face bent out around Aine to speak to them both:
“Look not so pride-smitten, my lord and cousin. You called him by an inappropriate name and he but treated you the same. You endanger his life, husband of my cousin. Oh-and if ye knew him as do I, it’s happy and proud ye’d be to be called your proper name by such a man!”
A trumpet sounded amid the crowd’s sudden roar; a good blow had been struck. Another winner was proclaimed, and soon two new contenders circled each other with bucklers and swords of stony-hard wood.
Wearing the red tunic and boar-blazoned shield of Rath Cumal, Cormac watched every combat-and himself fought to keep his hand from checking his mustache. He noted well the big-footed, ham-handed man in the colours of Leinster’s king.
So too was Cormac watched, for Cumal had two good men set as watchdogs and protectors of his new companion. After assuring himself that Tigernach could not contend and that a false mustache and the old helmet-wig well disguised the dark Cormac, Cumal had approached the judges. They had not been swift to accept the entry of a new champion, and at the eleventh hour, with him some “Ceann mac Cor” unknown to them. Eventually they had, and now Cumal wanted none to do treachery on the man on whom he set such high hopes-and,
quietly, stakes. Cumal of the ua-Neill was a lover of the wager, as well as of good food in quantity.
At last all had contended, and after midday’s meal the second round was begun. The number Three was drawn by “Ceann mac Cor of Meath” and also by a Munsterman, a wiry fiery-haired fellow with terrible dark teeth, Iliach mong Ruadh.
The swift smaller man wore a tunic of orange and bore a bronze-faced shield on which a horse’s head was picked out in black and white enamel. It was he who struck first. His sword clattered off Cormac’s quickly-interposed buckler, but Iliach was away before Cormac could strike with a blow of his own. They circled, watching only each other.
Iliach feinted; Cormac ignored the partial thrust, for he’d noted Iliach’s gaze directed elsewhere. The smooth-rounded tip of Cormac’s wooden sword struck the other’s shield directly, with a loud thud and clang, while Iliach’s “edge” slid across the mailed thigh of “Ceann mac Cor.” A trumpet sounded, but no judge called out or dropped his white cloth. Even had the sword been of the best steel, the little slice would hardly have opened Cormac’s armour.
“A gentle blow such as that,” Cormac said, “would not slice a bedsheet, Munsterman!”
“I thought ye looked like a chatter-bird,” Iliach said with a tight smile, and feinted with his shield.
It was meant to be only a little diversion; the other man turned it into war, and carried the battle into Munster.
His left arm whipped across his body and his buckler met Iliach’s with a terrible grating clash. Back he jerked it, his arm straightening and his powerful legs already driving him forward. His foe’s swiftness was of no use to him; Iliach was hurled violently back. Even so he chopped viciously at Cormac, who was following up with a direct charge.
Held aslant, Cormac’s shield guided away the wooden brand, while Cormac’s rang on the top edge of Iliach’s buckler. Up bobbed the shield, automatically. Then an “O-o-oh” rose from the onlookers, for the arm of Cumal’s champion moved so swiftly as to blur in the air like the form of a diving eagle. His sword’s rounded tip pounded against Iliach’s leg just above the knee, and with such force that the Munsterish weapon man staggered.
White cloths dropped and the trumpet blared.
“Wounded” and eliminated, Iliach returned to his backers with a slight limp.
Cormac only backed to the nearest ring-stake, for the next clash was between the personal champions of the kings of Connacht and of Leinster.
Thud and clangour arose, and Cormac nodded. Bress of Leinster was strong, and had a way of using his sword to catch the other’s lunges and cuts. He’d then twist his big hand to turn his opponent’s sword in his grip-or force his wrist to turn the wrong way. At the same time, Bress used buckler to push, following that with a ferocious flurry of stabs and feints and cuts.
Aye, Cormac mused, and he nodded.
Connacht lost, and for a moment the eyes of Cormac and Bress met. The man looked older of course, and even more sneerily supercilious than when Cormac had known him, twelve years past.
“Ye block my view, Boar,” a voice said from behind Cormac.
He turned to see a merchant of some sort, holding by the hand a boy of no more than seven years. Cormac squatted before the man, and held his buckler upright beside him, shielding the child to the shoulders. Happily grinning, the boy watched the subsequent combats from behind the shield of a champion and winner of two bouts.
Pairs of men came and went; the clash of hardwood sword on buckler tore the air again and again. Cormac won again, and Bress as well, and then each again, and the afternoon wore on, and then but four contestants remained. Drawing for foe and position, Bress and “Ceann mac Cor” again exchanged the searching looks of good weapon men.
“One,” Bress announced, regarding his marker.
“Two,” said the truly excellent Ailechman to Cormac’s left.
“Two,” Cormac echoed, and Bress affected to look disappointed.
It was sham, for he faced a man who had been as much blessed with luck as skill this day, and all four of them knew it.
The fellow gave a good defense, at least. But he was actually knocked to the trampled sward by his foeman’s mighty shield-drive.
“Striking with the shield, by the gods of my ancestors!” This from the man beside Cormac, for they two had not troubled to move apart after learning they were to be opponents. “Bress of Leinster fights like a farmer wielding a plow!”
This, Cormac thought in wonder, from a man bearing the name Oisin Pictslayer? He sounded as though weapons were toys to him, as though he’d never drawn steel in anger or in necessary defense.
“Is use of feet forbidden here?” Cormac asked, with high innocence.
“Feet!” Oisin Pictslayer of Ailech managed to sound both scandalized and scornful.
Cormac gave him a steady, deliberately doubtful look. “Your name says ye’ve slain a Pict or more, Oisin-surely you made use of arms and feet and even teeth, had opportunity arisen!”
“It was three Picts, and I be no animal to use aught but weapons, and it is my lord Oisin, weapon man.”
“Oisin of Ailech, it is our time to contend, and were I a Pict, it’s not alive but dead ye’d be leaving here today,” Cormac growled wolfishly at the other man, who now looked as offended as scandalized. And Cormac added, drawling, “…my noble lord.”
He thought, And it’s a Pictish charge ye’ll soon be facing, my noble lord of the false name.
But while the perimeter of the combat area was large, it was not huge. The man bearing the boar-shield narrowed his eyes still more, seeking a means to mount a good running charge…
The trumpet’s notes cut the air and trembled there. Affecting to ignore his fawning admirers and wearing a supercilious smile, Bress of Leinster watched Cormac and Oisin Pictslayer advance onto the Sward of Srreng.
Astounded spectators saw Oisin strike, saw and heard his wooden blade bang off the shield of the red-tunicked man-and saw that man break and run! His deep auburn braids streamed out behind him as he dashed directly toward the encircling watchers, and the foremost among them became suddenly anxious to possess less status. A great cry arose, of mingled wailing and anger.
It was still in voice when Cormac, at the very edge of the circle of spectators, wheeled in a broad semicircle.
Around he swung, to race back at the staring Oisin. Then many jerked violently, Oisin among them, for a ferocious shrieking cry tore from the throat of this strange champion of Cumal of Tara. His antagonist was as shaken and dumbfounded by that awful ululating cry as the onlookers-and the judges themselves. There was naught in the rules forbidding any of this, but-a charge away and then back, and with the shriek of a blood-enraged eagle on the swoop?
Round his head whirled Cormac’s sword of dark wood, and fell not where any suspected-again including Oisin Pictslayer of northeasterly Ailech!
For at the last possible moment in his maniac’s charge, Cormac half spun, and chopped mightily down on the other man’s sword-arm. Oisin groaned and staggered, trying to cling to sword and regain control of a tingling, fire-assaulted arm that wanted to dangle and be cuddled. Even as the trumpet blared and while dropped signal-cloths still fluttered in air, Cormac’s rounded edge rapped Oisin’s upper shield-arm, and its “point” touched his mail over his ribs with enough force to wrest another groan from the haughty noble.
Cormac backed away. His penultimate combat, like the first, was over ere it had begun. A weapon man had found a way to make a berserker’s charge in the arena of Tara-town, and voices talked on it now as they would for many a day.
Oisin of Ailech, Lord of Tir Connail, the judges decided, had lost one arm, the use of the other, and most probably his life with steel betwixt his ribs. Grasping his sword-arm the defeated nobleman left the field, not without casting venomous looks at his conqueror. Once again a victorious Cormac backed up against the braided ring that encircled the area of contention.
A passing pretty young woman with much golden hair tum
bling past her diamond-shaped face, and her in a gown too thin for the mental equilibrium of many, laid fingers with painted nails on Cormac’s mailed arm.
“Marvelous!” she gushed breathily, with obvious excitement; her breast was heaving and flaunting its peaks against the nigh-diaphanous gown. “And whence comes that fierce cry to curdle the very blood, warrior among warrior?”
“I learned it from the Picts,” Cormac told her, without turning.
Others demanded to know what he’d said, and the words were passed back and around. Soon nearly all were laughing and shouting plaudits and “Oisin Pictslain!”-for the Pictslayer had got his defeat at the hands of one who had himself imitated a Pictish savage!
The lips of the woman beside Cormac were close to his ear, and her hand clung to his steelclad arm. “You… have slain Picts?”
He nodded, still without looking at her. That knowledge was spread; he had slain Picts afore; the man of Rath Cumal ua-Neill was a Pictslayer! Wagers flew thick as arrows in a siege.
A bright-eyed girl in her late teens pushed around Cormac on the side opposite his other over-civilized admirer. Spacious were her white-draped hips, bold her eyes, broad and full the bosom that occupied every available inch of her chest and was so firm as to imitate helmets strapped to her.
“How many Picts, you beautiful hero of a warrior?” she asked, from the throat.
Cormac mac Art looked at her, and his face was stony. “In Eirrin, in the month just passed, four on the coast of Munster, with seven witnesses that live. In Alba and among the isles… I cannot say, girl. Many.”
Those words were handed back by anxious listeners, and back, and around among the throng.
“Call me no girl,” the shining-eyed girl said, pressing against his shield-arm. “It is Dectaira I am, and the High-king my uncle!”
“My apologies,” Cormac said, and he twisted and drew forward, for both these hot-breathed women cloyed, and others pressed close behind. “My lady girl, then.”
And he went round the circle, trying to ignore the shouts and reaching hands, for it was true battle and gushing red death he knew all too well, and not people so civilized as to fawn on heroes of combats fought with the swords of boys. He halted before the end of the nobles’ platform where sat Cumal, and Aine his wife, and the veiled Samaire, and Cumal’s two sons and daughter. He who was to be champion or runner-up gazed into bud-green eyes above a grass-green veil.
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