by Jules Watson
The Gates of Macha were part of a network of ditches, banks, and ramparts that Conor had delved and raised over many years along the border of the Ulaid. There wasn’t time for earthen defenses for Connacht, though—only wood.
Day in and day out Maeve rode the borders as teams of crafters and warriors threw up stockades at river crossings and on the ridges that crossed the marshes. They would not stop a large war-band, but they would halt a horse charge and give shelter to Connacht spearmen.
The days were long and Maeve was able to stay out late, suffering only brief nights of dreams she could not control.
Someone hovering over her, his breath warm on her lips.
Her face cradled in the nook of his shoulder, as she breathed in wolfscent.
She woke from such dreams curled up, holding her belly against an ache she barely remembered.
One blustery day, she and Garvan watched a row of stakes being hammered into a boggy spur between two lakes. The sun was beginning to sink into the reed-fringed water when a rider came streaking along a track from the east.
It was his reckless speed that caught Maeve’s eye as he wheeled his horse out over the rough ground, weaving between ruddy marsh pools and jumping streams. She stopped listening to the carpenter beside her, who was complaining he needed more oak.
Garvan was already vaulting onto his pony, shouting at the rider to slow as he drew his sword. Maeve recognized the young spearman, though, and that his face was contorted with excitement, not aggression. She ran forward, waving Garvan back.
The youth hauled his horse up before her. “My lady,” he panted. The sunset turned his face scarlet, and it was sheened with sweat. “More than two hundred warriors have crossed from Ulaid lands on foot. They skirted the Great Lake and came upon the Fort of the Birches.”
Maeve’s tender belly turned over. “An attack?”
“No! They have women and children with them, and they sheathed their weapons. They say they come in peace.”
Maeve’s eyes narrowed as she tried to think past another wave of sickness, a prickling of heat across her neck. A trick?
“They want to be brought before you. They said you alone would know them.”
When she dwelled among the Ulaid, Maeve had been mostly confined to the royal halls and their surrounds on Emain Macha’s heights. The only warriors she knew by sight were …
She clutched the boy’s bridle, making his horse shy. “Do they bear red shields with a gold tree? Armbands of braided bronze, the fastening a spearhead?”
The boy gulped at her fierce tone. “Armbands, yes.”
“This is some act of treachery,” Garvan growled.
“No, my lord.” The muddy scout shook his head. “They had druids with them, and all swore on every god we know that they spoke true.”
It could not be. “Is there a slight man among them,” Maeve demanded, “someone easy to overlook, lean but muscled, fair hair, no beard, and blue eyes that do not flinch?”
“Maeve …” Garvan put in doubtfully.
“Not that I saw.” The youth’s face cleared. “But their leader is an enormous old man with lots of silver hair.”
Maeve dropped the harness, her lips falling open. She glanced at her filthy clothes. She had been in the saddle for days, sleeping on the ground at night. Her hand went to her stomach as it stirred again.
She was so overwrought she’d hardly been eating, and her insides had begun to rebel. She would meet no fighters of the Ulaid in this state.
“Hold them at the Fort of the Birches,” she squeezed out, “and bring them to my hall at high-sun in four days. Hurry.” She gave the pony a smack on its rump and stood with her cloak flapping around her as the boy galloped away.
“I’ll be back,” Maeve muttered to Garvan, and dashed into a nearby cluster of birches that feathered the darkening marsh. Clutching one of the trunks, her belly rippled and brought up a few scant mouthfuls of porridge.
She stared at her feet, panting.
CHAPTER 24
LEAF-FALL
The King’s Hall of Cruachan was packed with Connacht fighters draped in their finery.
Maeve gazed at her warriors. Their wives had pinned swaths of imported scarlet and blue cloth on them, with brooches studded in coral and amber. Their heads formed a sea of jagged crests, hair limed into spikes. Swords hung prominently on leather scabbards embroidered with gold beads, shell, and bone.
They looked a match for the Ulaid.
Two whole boars sizzled over the hearth-fire. Every lamp blazed, shining on Connacht’s wealth of furs and embroidered hangings, the tables and chairs of oiled wood, the bronze and horn platters and cups.
Maeve’s buttocks were barely touching the seat and her brow was clammy. You will stay down, she ordered her stomach, and broke a piece off the bannock on the arm of her chair, swallowing it as she nodded to her steward to bring the Ulaid leaders in.
She had ordered her women to sew raven feathers all over a scarlet cloak, and she wore it with her leather breastplate, tunic, and kilt, her battle helmet on flowing red hair. Her sword lay along her bare thigh, where it would catch the light. She would only appear to the Ulaid-men in armor, so they would remember their warrior-queen Macha. Beside her, Ailill was attired in costly wool and furs—the power of Laigin and Connacht together.
The first man had to collapse his great bulk to get under the lintel, straightening and filling the room. A craggy face, scarred nose, and hair a great silver sweep from wrinkled brow to hulking shoulders. Fergus mac Roy. So it was true.
As the Ulaid filed in, the Connacht warriors all bristled, crowding them with a forest of spears. Maeve had been the payment for a peace treaty that did not last, and old enmities had asserted themselves once more.
She flicked a finger at one of her ale-maids, who tripped forward with a two-handled cup of bronze. “My mistress and master welcome you to Cruachan Aí,” the girl said to Fergus. “Accept a sip of their finest mead, and wash the road from your throat.”
Fergus glanced at Maeve from under his brows. By accepting her mead he could not harm her at her own hearth.
He stretched out massive, scarred hands to the cup, straining the mead through his long moustache then handing it to men ranged to either side. Maeve could not see any of them clearly in the firelight and shadow.
She hauled her weary body up, the raven feathers fluttering, and touched her brow. “Fergus mac Roy. It is an unexpected pleasure to welcome a former king of the Ulaid, a warrior of the Red Branch, and kinsman of Conor mac Nessa.”
Fergus’s face spasmed. “I do not lay claim to those titles anymore,” he rumbled. His sagging cheeks grew red, his mouth twisting as if something was trying to force its way out. “We have foresworn our allegiance to Conor. We come to offer our swords to you.”
The exclamations of the Connacht warriors drowned out all else—a tumult that rose to the roof-beams. Maeve’s heart bounded with it. Breathless, her eye fell on the blond man beside Fergus. “Cormac mac Conor.”
Amid the din, Conor’s eldest son saw her lips move with his name.
Pride had always been stamped on his thin, bony face as it was on his sire’s, his sharp nose tilted above icy blue eyes. Now he was stubbled and red-eyed. He stepped forward, and when Maeve lifted her hand, her baying men fell silent.
Cormac’s voice cracked. “I no longer bear his name.”
Guests were supposed to be feasted before speaking their business, but Maeve threw aside all manners, gripping her hilt with white knuckles. “What has happened?”
Fergus’s great shoulders slumped, sorrow dragging down his mouth. He beckoned to someone behind him. The other man stirred wearily, the colored stripes of a fili barely showing through the mud on his cloak.
“Not a bard.” Maeve pointed at Fergus. “Once, over a fidchell game, you told me you spoke only the language of the warrior, sharp and clean as a blade. I want that.” She swirled her raven feathers about and sat down, gazing at Fergus.
The old warrior sighed and, waving his bard away, stepped ponderously into the glow of the fires. He looked around the throng, the emptiness in his eyes making people draw back. Only then did he begin to speak.
Fergus’s deep voice told a tale that was indeed too raw for poetry. Maeve forgot she was clutching her chair … forgot everything.
He and his sons, Buinne and Illan, had been sent over the sea to bring Deirdre and the three sons of Usnech home. Once back on Erin’s shores, they were making their way to Emain Macha when a messenger on the road drew Fergus away on unexpected business. Buinne and Illan agreed to go on with the fugitives to Conor’s stronghold, for Naisi’s pride bade him seek Conor’s pardon with all haste. Conor, meanwhile, had sent all the Red Branch heroes and Naisi’s allies on errands away from the fort.
Once the fugitives were inside Emain Macha, he betrayed them, trapping them in the empty Red Branch hall.
“No one was there to aid them but my sons.” Fergus’s eyes were glassy, fixed on the wool hanging above Maeve’s head. “Buinne abandoned Naisi in exchange for Conor’s promise of riches. But Illan …” He stopped, wiped his mouth as if he could not bear the words. “Illan stayed in the Red Branch hall to defend the sons of Usnech.”
Unbeknownst to anyone, Conor had summoned to him a chieftain from a far-flung province who was not Red Branch and had no loyalties to the brothers. This chief and his men surrounded the Red Branch hall. Conor stood outside the doors and demanded that Naisi surrender Deirdre, even though he had vowed they would all be safe in his hands. When Naisi refused, Conor’s wolves set fire to the hall. The sons of Usnech sought to escape at the back, while Illan held the great doors at the front alone.
At this point in his story Fergus began to shake.
Naisi and his brothers could not escape and had to break out through the flames. By then, Red Branch warriors had heard the news of the brothers’ return and were hurrying back to Emain Macha. Conor’s own youngest son, Fiacra, raced to the hall. There was terrible confusion, misunderstandings—and Fiacra and Illan, twin souls, ended up fighting each other amid shadow and flame.
“And then …” Fergus faltered, and forced it out in an icy stream. “Our Red Branch brother Conall arrived. Unable to see clearly in the smoke, he charged up to defend the king’s son, Fiacra. And … he mistakenly stabbed my Illan from behind. To the death.”
The silence throbbed. A single tear ran down Fergus’s whiskered chin, but he did not move. Mac Roy had loved his younger son Illan to distraction, Maeve knew.
Cormac stirred and took up the story. “I also rushed to the burning hall. There, I saw Illan bleeding, and what I thought was an enemy warrior bending over him with a sword. So I … killed him.” His breath wheezed out, eyes sank closed. “I killed my brother Fiacra, my little brother.”
Gods. Maeve crushed her hand over her mouth as mutters of horror ran around the room.
With Illan and Fiacra dead, the three sons of Usnech and the girl Deirdre were surrounded. Conor offered Naisi one last chance to give her up—a chance he did not take. In the face of all those swords, Deirdre also spurned the king.
Then the last Red Branch hero arrived—Cúchulainn.
At the mention of that hallowed name, someone behind Cormac stirred. Maeve ignored the disturbance, enthralled.
Cúchulainn thought Emain Macha was being attacked by enemies, and charged in to defend the three sons of Usnech. Even with his strength and skill, the four of them were no match for the sheer numbers of renegade warriors. Cúchulainn saved the girl, but Naisi, Ardan, and Ainnle were slain.
People gasped, swept along by the story as if they watched it play out in the writhing flames of the hearth-fire.
Fergus lifted his grizzled head and resumed the tale. He left Emain Macha to bury Illan at his own fort, while Cormac and many of the other Red Branch heroes lay wounded. Still Conor would not leave Deirdre alone, even though she was bedridden in her grief for Naisi. He tried to force himself upon her, but when she cursed him, he punished her by vowing to give her to the treacherous chieftain, Naisi’s killer, for his bed.
Maeve’s mouth twisted as she was overtaken by a memory of Conor’s bony limbs jabbing her, his cold lips capturing hers. When he took a woman, she knew, his eyes were lit with the zeal of conquering something.
On the day she was to be given away as a slave, Deirdre came out of the lodge entirely naked but for her long golden hair. Vulnerable and proud, she approached Conor and all the warriors with her head high.
Now Fergus bent his shaggy head into his hand. “I watched her walk to us like a queen, a goddess. And I—still clad in the ashes of my son’s body—I knew if that girl could defy Conor, then I had to. I could never again breathe the same air as the murderer of my son. I could not call myself Red Branch when he had ruined that brotherhood by turning us on each other. I could not stay in a kingdom that was tainted with such foulness.”
Tiernan’s prophecy shuddered through Maeve. All riven. All burning. And after, there is only ash to blow through empty halls. He was speaking of the Ulaid all along.
“I broke my oath of allegiance to Conor,” Fergus finished. “And I led from Emain Macha all those Red Branch who felt the same as me, and other warriors and their families. Now, as exiles, we seek shelter in your kingdom.”
Maeve was barely clinging to the chair. The tale had summoned Conor for her in all his dark glory, the memory making her heart hammer. But this …
This was her chance to rid herself of that fear forever. The Red Branch was now in her hands.
Cormac spoke. “My father is a murderer of innocents. His blood-taint made me a kin-slayer.” He choked on that word, mangling it. “I left Emain Macha forever, lest my shame rot me through bone, flesh, and all the blood in my body.”
Maeve stared at him, but her thoughts darted back to something Fergus had just said. All who felt the same as me. Tensing, she searched the other Ulaid men obscured by the shadows near the door. Her gaze came to rest on a hooded figure at the back. Who would shield his features in shame but Cúchulainn, the most honor-bound man in Erin?
Maeve shot from her chair in a flurry of feathers, pointing. “You … show yourself!”
The warrior hesitated, but Fergus growled under his breath and the man slowly emerged into light. Battle-scarred hands reached up to his hood and eased it back. Dark hair. Lean, secretive face.
Ferdia.
Disappointment washed over Maeve, and immediately receded. Ferdia would never leave Cúchulainn, which meant that the Hound must be on his way to join him.
Still, she was shocked by his appearance. Ferdia had always been handsome, if too sinewy and self-contained for her. Now, though, his skin was waxen, black hair hanging in tendrils that shadowed his bruised gray eyes.
She remembered a different Ferdia at Emain Macha, so smug, so insolent. Every time Cúchulainn breezed past, ignoring her, Ferdia stopped to glance over his shoulder at her, slyly amused. It had occurred to Maeve then that perhaps he saw through her desperate ploys because he was like her. He was clever, for all he tried to appear pure, his heart full of unexpressed hungers.
Cúchulainn’s name was on the tip of Maeve’s tongue when the entreaty in Ferdia’s eyes stopped her. She halted, puzzled, then realized she would get nowhere by shaming him in public. “Welcome, Daman’s son,” was all she said. “We are honored to feast such heroes in our hall tonight.”
Ferdia nodded. He wore his famous armor—a set of overlapping cow-horn plates bound with sinew that encased his torso like scales. They rattled as he dropped his chin, shuffling back among his men.
Maeve gazed at Fergus instead. She still needed to know. “What of Cúchulainn?”
Fergus’s face set in hard lines. “The Hound is still Conor’s champion. He would not renounce his oaths.”
Maeve’s glance flew back to Ferdia, but his hood was over his cheeks.
Courtesy could no longer be delayed. “Come and eat,” she said to them all. “You must be t
ired.” She gestured Fergus and his men to cushioned benches at the hearth-fire, and waved the servers in with oak platters of pig and beef from the spits, and jugs of drink. Warily, Fergus led his men through the muttering Connacht warriors, but once they sat, they ravenously fell upon the food.
“What do you think?” Maeve muttered to Ailill from their chairs, trying to absorb the implications but still stunned. Conor could be beaten. She wiped a trace of sweat from her lip.
Ailill flicked a slice of roast boar off a passing platter and folded it into his mouth. “My father always said Fergus is a man without cunning.” He smirked as he chewed. “That is what lost him his throne to Conor.”
“He wasn’t lying about his son, or Cormac about his brother.”
“Aye. But this could still be a ploy to trick us, so they can attack us.”
“It could. But Fergus is as straight as a spear-shaft; I never met a man more honor-bound.”
Ailill’s small eyes darted back to her, a frown on his brow.
Maeve urged kegs of ale and mead on the Ulaid warriors and sat back to watch the result. They barely spoke, gulping as if they were hoping for oblivion. The shock was Ferdia. He was famous for refusing any drinks that blurred the mind, for he always guarded Cúchulainn’s back, keeping a clear head when all about him lost theirs.
Now he was pouring ale down his throat.
Ailill got up to join his Laigin men, but Maeve’s eyes never left Ferdia. When he staggered up and made for the doors, she rose in his wake. Outside, farther around the curving stone wall of the great hall, Maeve came up behind the Connacht guards who had scrambled after the Ulaid warrior. She waited while Ferdia passed his water down the slope of the mound and into a shallow ditch at the bottom.
She waved the Connacht warriors back into the shadows. All of the Ulaid men had been disarmed. “Unless he is actually strangling me, stay here.” Drawing herself up, she strode to the lip of the mound that lifted the king’s hall above the plain. The grass and mud below were a dark river that lapped at the inside of the high stockade surrounding it.