“When I set it before him, he asked if I had eaten any of it. I said I had not, which was true, because I knew he wanted it for himself. But I did tell him I’d burned my hand on the fish and sucked my thumb.
“‘Could you taste the salmon on your thumb?’ he asked me. When I admitted I could, he looked as if he would cry. ‘You had first taste of it then,’ he said, ‘so the prophecy was meant for Finn and not Finegas.’
“I protested but he would not listen. Sad though he was for himself, he made me eat the whole of the salmon and digest the wisdom it contained—and it a fish that had lived since before the before, swum everywhere, seen everything.”
“A mighty amount of wisdom, that,” said Lugaid.
“Indeed.”
“And now you have all that wisdom yourself, do you?” asked Huamor. He did not sound convinced. He was on the verge of disbelieving the entire episode.
“Not at all! I only have access. When I need to know something—like the name of the poet, which had momentarily slipped my mind in the enjoyment of your hospitality—I can put my thumb into my mouth again and the answer comes to me. Without my thumb in my mouth, I am no more wise than any other man.”
“Astonishing,” murmured Red Ridge. There was no doubt in his voice.
Finn sneaked a quick look at Goll Mac Morna, but the older man’s face was a careful blank.
“That’s how I knew we were about to be attacked last night,” Finn claimed. “I put my thumb in my mouth and at once knew there were dangerous men creeping up on me in the dark.”
Blamec cried, “That’s no word of a lie! I was the sentry and I couldn’t see or hear anyone, yet Finn insisted they were there. He knew, when there was no way of knowing.”
Huamor peered at Finn through a veil of fire smoke. “If that’s true—and your man here seems to back it up—then you’re valuable indeed, Finn Mac Cool. Too valuable for me to let you go back to Tara. Spend the winter with us in the Burren. You did good work last night, but for all we know, Ceth and his clan will regain their nerve when their bellies are empty enough and try to raid us for our cattle and corn. I’ll need you then. You can break battle on them and destroy the whole wretched brood for me.”
“I’ve already invited Finn to stay.” Iruis said.
“And I’ve refused,” Finn explained. “We don’t fight in the winter. Summer’s battle season, Beltaine to Samhain. The winter is cold and wet and it’s impossible to fight when you’re floundering in mud up to your apples. I thank you for your invitation, Huamor, but we have to go now. I mean to be out of the Burren by nightfall.”
Huamor’s bushy eyebrows rushed together like stags attacking one another. “And I mean you to stay. I need you.”
Finn tried to be polite. “You must understand, it’s impossible.” With an apologetic smile, he held out his hands palm upward.
“You have to,” Huamor snarled, all semblance of politeness abandoned. “I insist. You have to be here with me now that—” He checked himself abruptly. Cleared his throat. Essayed an unconvincing smile. “I mean, with the winter coming and the nights drawing in, we need a good storyteller to entertain us. We have none. I want to hear more of your tales, Finn. As for you …” he turned toward Goll “ … what did you say you’re called?”
“Goll.”
“One-Eye. I can see that for myself. How are you known?”
“As Goll Mac Morna.”
“Indeed! That’s who I thought you were. I know about you, you were Rígfénnid Fíanna for the Son of the Wolf. Now here you are, trotting along behind this young one. What happened? Did your apples fall off?” Huamor laughed at his own witticism.
Goll went pale with anger.
Taking pity on him, Finn said, “We haven’t time for this, we must leave right now. We have a long way to travel and the king expects us at Tara for Samhain.”
Like a trout in a muddy pool, something moved in the depths of Huamor’s eyes. “The king?”
“Feircus Black-Tooth. Whom you asked for some of the Fíanna.”
“Feircus Black-Tooth,” Huamor echoed. “Not a Connachta, or even one of the Laigin, but a northerner. A Ulidian. I swore loyalty to him, though. I thought he could do more good for me than anyone else could, and I suppose he was a good enough king.”
Finn felt a sudden tightening in his scrotum. “What do you mean, he was?”
Huamur smiled with secret knowledge. “He’s dead. Killed by a usurper in a battle at Crinna on the river Boyne.”
In a choked voice, Goll asked, “Who’s in control of Tara now?” The puckered skin around his ruined eye began to twitch spasmodically. “Who seized the kingship this time?”
“I couldn’t tell you. A runner just brought me the news this very morning. He didn’t even know. All he could say was that the survivors of the battle were sending word to Feircus’s loyal chieftains to prepare for a retaliatory attack in the spring.
“That’s why I want you to stay here,” Huamor went on, speaking into a shocked silence. “If the Ulaid have a good chance of regaining Tara, we’ll join with them of course. But if this usurper, whoever he is, looks strong enough to keep the kingship, we’ll support him. I’ll be in a grand position myself, bringing in a band of the Fíanna.”
Finn’s men were exchanging looks of astonishment. Even Goll was uncertain, caught off balance. “Feircus,” he murmured, shaking his head as if the world was moving too fast for him.
Then one decisive voice spoke up. “This band of Fíanna is on its way to Tara right now,” said Finn Mac Cool.
Moving swiftly, Huamor blocked the doorway with his body and outstretched arms. “I think not, you’re staying here. I have a clanful of good fighting men to hold you by force if you try to refuse my generous offer of winter quarters.”
“If he has as many men as all that,” Conan said behind his hand to Finn, “why did he need to send for us?”
“I think you exaggerate,” Finn told Huamor. “Your numbers of fighting men must be low or you wouldn’t have requested help from Feircus. But even if you had nine nines outside your door right now, you couldn’t hold us.” His hand was a blur across his chest. Then the point of his shortsword was pressed into Huamor’s throat while the air still hissed with the sound of the blade being drawn from its scabbard.
Huamor’s eyes bulged.
Several of the women gave soft little shrieks, and they all moved back against the walls. Red Ridge and the fénnid were quickly on their feet, looking from one to the other, wondering if Huamor would fight, wondering if Finn would kill him.
Only Iruis remained seated. He helped himself to Cael’s abandoned cup and sat watching with relish as someone at last stood up to his father.
Huamor thought of the knife in his own belt.
Finn read the thought on his face. “Don’t,” he said softly, pressing his sword point deeper.
The two men locked eyes with the blade between them.
“We’re leaving,” said Finn Mac Cool.
Huamor was no coward. But whatever he saw in Finn’s level gaze was profoundly discouraging.
“Go, then,” he said at last. “If you feel that way, it would be wrong to hold you.”
“Not wrong, impossible.” When Huamor’s shoulders slumped, Finn slid his sword back into its sheath. The hilt guard met the metal rim of the scabbard with an audible click, the loudest sound in the room except for the crackling of the fire.
“Before we go,” Finn told Huamor, “put what you owe in my hand.”
“wheat I owe?”
“For our services. You requested the Fíanna and we came. Now I must carry your payment back to the king. The king of Tara doesn’t supply warriors for free.”
“What king of Tara, you young fool? You don’t even know who he is now. You’ve missed a tremendous opportunity to be on the winning side by waiting with me until—”
“The payment,” Finn said with no inflection.
Iruis spoke up. “Give it to him, Father. Give him what he
earned by protecting me. I would be a hostage, or perhaps even dead, but for him and his band.”
Huamor glowered at his son, but he said over his shoulder to the nearest woman, “Give Finn Mac Cool a silver cup, then.”
“Not enough,” responded Finn in that flat voice Huamor was beginning to know.
“Two, then,” the chieftain said irritably, switching his scowl from Iruis to Finn.
“Not enough.”
Iruis laughed. “At last! Someone who appreciates my worth!”
Huamor rounded on his son. “You stay out of this! If you hadn’t gone up on Black Head on your own like a careless cowherd …” In exasperation he began grabbing cups and thrusting them at Finn until the other announced, “That’s enough, Huamor. Don’t impoverish yourself. Just give us a sack to carry this lot in, and we’re gone.”
“Listen here to me, Finn,” Iruis said. “If you ever return to the Burren, remember my promise of hospitality.”
“Have nothing to do with these people,” a bitter Huamor advised his son. “They’re little better than robbers themselves.”
“It’s an honest debt, Father. If we weren’t so tightfisted with Ceth and his people, perhaps they—”
“That’s enough!” Huamor snapped.
Leaving the lodge, Finn and his men stepped into clamping cold. Spiteful clouds lurked above the Barren. A clatter of sleet mixed with rain passed over them, dwindled, promised to come again.
Red Ridge ran after them. “Wait, Finn!”
Finn paused just inside the gate. “What is it?”
“I can’t leave here until after Lannat’s wedding in the spring, but then I want to join the Fíanna. If I come to you, will you train me?”
“I don’t know where I’ll be. If Feircus is dead, everything’s changed.”
“Wherever you are, I’ll find you. There may be another king at Tara, but whoever he is, he’ll want an army, and you’ll be with them. Will you take me?”
Finn’s eyes warmed. “If I’m alive and if I’m still in the Fíanna, I will.”
Satisfied, Red Ridge turned and trotted back to the lodge. Finn and his men set off eastward. Lugaid carried a woollen bag clanking with silver cups. Occasionally he opened the neck of the bag and peered inside, just to assure himself they were still there.
Wind beat against their backs, which were protected by the shields slung over their shoulders. They marched stolidly, ignoring cold and discomfort.
Goll moved closer to Finn. “Would you really have used your sword on Huamor?” he wondered aloud.
“I had no intention of letting him hold us.”
“But he’s a chieftain, Finn.”
“A chieftain pledged to Feircus, who is reputedly dead. Where does that leave Huamor? If I killed him, who’d punish me? The more important question is, who killed Feircus?”
Goll rubbed the scarred skin of his forehead, massaging the numbed, puckered flesh between thumb and forefinger. After all these years he still could not accept the lack of sensation, but must pinch and pull at his face, trying to force life to return to nerves long dead. “I don’t know, Finn. It could have been anyone. There was bad feeling over the Ulaid taking control of Tara. And Feircus’s men made matters worse, swanning around the place and insisting that Ulidia was so much better than any other part of Erin. Feircus did the same. He made a lot of enemies in a short time.”
“Including you?”
“I wouldn’t call myself his enemy.”
“Though he stripped you of command of the Fíanna?”
“It was inevitable he’d want one of his own to lead the army.”
“If Feircus really is dead, Goll, that could mean there’ll be another commander needed.”
Goll almost smiled. “Perhaps Feircus was killed by some of my old friends who were loyal to the Son of the Wolf. If that’s the situation, I could be Rígfénnid Fíanna again myself.” But he said it without real hope.
He trudged along in silence for a time, feeling his age. Then he spoke again. “Tell me something, Finn. When we get to Tara, will you give those silver cups to the king no matter who he may be?”
He’s testing me, Finn thought. Goll likes to play games. Any answer might be the wrong answer.
Making sure Goll noticed, Finn put his thumb in his mouth. Wearing an intent expression, he chewed on it for a while. When he withdrew it, he promptly asked Goll, as if the question had been suggested to him, “What would you do?”
Goll started to answer, hesitated, inhaled, drawing back his reply for rethinking.
Finn Mac Cool was a riddle Goll had yet to solve, a game whose rules he did not yet understand.
There was no doubt he was an exceptional athlete. He’d proved it once to join the Fíanna, and again to qualify as an officer. He was intelligent as well—and surprisingly adept at poetry. He could not only recite the twelve basic poems required for initiation into the Fíanna, he could also compose poetry, which none of the others attempted to do.
Finn Mac Cool was suspended between two contradictory aspects. Warrior and poet. Could a man be both?
And what sort of man would he be?
In the time Goll had been observing Finn with more than casual interest, he had seen him go from merry youth to cold, hard man and back again in the flick of an eye. Finn was deadly with his weapons, but would stop in the middle of a march to stare in delight at a cloud formation. What did that mean?
This latest ploy of his with the thumb might be just a gambit to lay claim to more wisdom than he possessed.
Or it might—just might—be a demonstration of magic.
Goll did not want to believe it was magic. He did not want to believe in anything other than himself and his weapons. But he had lived his life in Erin and had seen magic before.
“What would I do?” he repeated, stalling for time. It would be dangerous to lie if Finn had access to the truth. “Let me tell you something, Finn. Do you know why I’m still alive? When Feircus overthrew the Son of the Wolf, he could have had me killed. As your father was killed.”
Finn nodded expressionlessly.
“In Erin,” Goll went on, “loyalty has always gone to the man. I broke the pattern. When Feircus seized the kingship, I went to him straightaway, hard though it was for me, and declared my loyalty to the kingship itself. No matter who held it.”
“Did he believe you?” Finn asked with a slight smile.
“He must have done, he let me live. He demoted me, but at least I can still hunt and lie with women and play chess. If I’d been a bold lad your age, I might have done something rash. But I kept my head, in more ways than one.
“That’s why I complimented you for having an old head on young shoulders. You’re being equally wise, breaking the cycle of vengeance. Any other man would have sought the blood of Clan Morna to pay for Cuhal’s blood, but …” Goll stopped talking. There had been no change of expression on Finn’s face, yet something had altered. Perhaps the set of his shoulders. Perhaps the air that surrounded him. Something had changed. Dangerously.
Goll swiftly moved the conversation back to the original point. “To answer your question, Finn, I would hand over that silver to whoever holds Tara now and pledge loyalty to the kingship. In just those words.”
Finn put his thumb back in his mouth and assumed a listening expression. After a while, he said, “Let’s see who the king is first, shall we?”
They travelled by alternately walking and running. Fénnidi walked by swinging their legs from the hip with minimal bending of the knee, and when they ran, they used a ground-eating trot they could maintain for half a day at a time. Their ability to cover distances was legendary.
Ordinarily they would have sung while walking. People thrilled to the sound of the male music of passing companies of the Fíanna chanting paeans to heroism and freedom. Such lusty songs played no small part in encouraging new recruits. But today no one felt like singing. They were edgy, uncertain. Conversation was desultory.
“Finn,”
Goll mused, “did it ever occur to you that Huamor might have known in advance someone would try to overthrow Feircus? His problem with the outlaws could have been just an excuse he used to get some of the Fíanna in his possession. Pawns to enhance his prestige with whoever won Tara. A clever move, that.”
Finn was taken aback. The possibility had not occurred to him. “Could be,” he said noncommittally.
He began subtly edging away from Goll. The older man’s experienced cynicism made him feel raw, unfinished, his youth and bravado no match for years of successful games-playing on the twin battlefields of war and politics. Finn knew he needed Goll Mac Morna. But he was not comfortable with him. Goll had once been Rígfénnid Fíanna and would, in Finn’s mind, forever wear an invisible but disquieting mantle of authority.
Shadowed by his hounds, Finn drifted across the line of march until he fell into step beside Lugaid instead. “Run now,” he ordered.
The fían sped across an Erin divided into countless clan holdings occupied by extended families. The clan chieftains paid tribute in the form of goods and services to a ríg tuatha, or tribal king, who was responsible for a confederation of several clans. Such responsibility was based partly on blood and kinship, but largely on territory. There were almost two hundred tribal kings. Some tribes were subordinate to others, but all owed tribute to their provincial kings. The west was ruled by a Connachta overlord; the Erainn held Muma in the south; the king of the Ulaid dominated the north; the east was under the control of the Laigin.
The central province of Mid was ruled from Tara ever since Conn of the Hundred Battles, originally a Connachta prince, had established himself there and attempted to claim sovereignty over and tribute from all other kings. Such a claim was, of course, frequently disputed down the years.
Warriors of the Fíanna were drawn from subjugated tribes. Both Clan Baiscne and Clan Morna had long since been conquered and forced into submission, and were now a source of spear carriers for dominant warlords. The most that men of such clans could hope for was to rise to position of importance within the army, as they were shut out of the ruling class.
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