When a man was initiated into the Fíanna, his clan loyalties were transferred to his rígfénnid, and through him to the Rígfénnid Fíanna and the king. This placed the Fíanna beyond the bounds of structured society. Many considered them outcasts; they preferred to think of themselves as possessing a unique freedom. No longer subject to familial obligations, they ranged Erin as nomads, answerable only to their officers and king.
To reach Tara, Finn and his men would climb hills rounded like the backs of crouching beasts, force their way through almost impenetrable forests, traverse fertile valleys jealously guarded from sprawling hill forts. squelch through sodden emerald moss, wade glittering, peaty streams, subsist on their own hunting and foraging, and endure whatever weather they met.
“It’s stopped raining!” Cael rejoiced.
“That only means it will begin again,” Conan grumbled.
When they camped for the night, Finn slept a little apart from the others, If he cried in his sleep—as he sometimes did he wanted no one to know.
The next day, a reluctant ferryman was forcibly reminded that it was a privilege to pole members of the Fíanna across the Shannon. Donn’s knife pressed gently against his throat proved quite persuasive.
Once across the great river, they set off northward along its bank. meaning to intersect the Tara bound road that ran close by the Hill of Uisneach. they had been following the river for some time when Finn halted abruptly. “What’s that sound?”
The others paused to listen to a muffled, repetitive thud up ahead. “It’s as rhythmic as a drumbeat,” murmured Lugaid, intrigued. “Some thing man-made. I’d say.”
“Whoever it is,” Cailte remarked, “I hope they have some food on them!”
Weapons at the ready, they advanced. The path had grown wider and was now deeply rutted with cart tracks that made walking difficult. At a signal from Finn, his men fanned out to advance on either side of the trackway itself, shouldering their way through encroaching undergrowth, their eyes constantly darting.
Lugaid found himself bobbing his head in rhythm with the strange beat they were following.
The riverbank led them around a forested spur of land, and an unexpected vista opened before them. Tucked into the bend of the river like an infant in the curve of its mother’s arm was a man-made structure of unfamiliar design, but obviously the source of the sound. It was a timber building, almost square, erected upon a foundation of boulders fitted against timber pilings sunk deep into the mud of the riverbed.
The thudding sound was not so muffled now. Accompanied by a curious hiss and slap, it echoed along the waterway.
“Did you ever hear anything like that before?” Finn asked Goll.
“Never. Be ready; it could be danger.”
Finn grinned. “Is that a promise?”
When they were but a few paces from the building, a door opened and a man stepped out. He was dressed in the simplest long tunic and woven mantle, but around his waist was a swath of cloth in the pattern favoured by the inhabitants of Alba. As soon as he spoke, his accent confirmed his foreign origins.
“What do you want here? Are we attacked?” he cried with some alarm, his eyes on the weapons Finn’s band carried.
Cailte, nose wrinkling, replied, “Is that bread I smell baking?”
“It is. This is a mill, and my wife in the dwelling beyond is—”
“A mill?” Lugaid interrupted incredulously. “You mean like a quern, where women grind corn?”
Finn realized there was no danger in this encounter and sheathed his shortsword. His fían did the same. The man from Alba relaxed somewhat. “Shall I show you?”
With the fénnidi at his heels, he conducted a tour of his mill, pointing with pardonable pride to the wooden paddles—“Two of them!”—that churned the water diverted from the Shannon. Set horizontally to make full use of the river’s force, they turned the vertical shafts that operated the millstones set at their top.
Most of the warriors were quickly bored, but Lugaid was fascinated by the moving parts and insisted on being shown exactly how everything was constructed and what made it work.
Meanwhile, the others found their way to the miller’s house nearby and relieved his wife of her day’s baking. It was she who told Finn that her family had fled Alba after incurring the wrath of one king or another, and brought with them their craft of milling, setting up a business for themselves in the most peaceful place they could find. “We want nothing to do with kings and their wars,” she said repeatedly. “So we’ve come west, where it’s wild.”
“All Erin is wild,” Finn assured her.
Fergus snorted. “Only the Erin we know,” he said under his breath. “Our kings live as richly as anyone’s.”
As the fían marched away, carrying with them a large sack of flour, Lugaid said to Donn, “What a wonderful life that must be! His own business, his own snug house, a wife, and an oven for baking and children playing underfoot. He has everything a man could want, I’d say.
“When I have to let out my belt, I’d like to have a mill like that. I could ask my uncle to help me build it, he’s good at building things. I might even let him work it with me. We’re very close, you know. All my family are very close. Were very close,” he suddenly amended, remembering that the Fíanna comprised his family now.
Walking just ahead of them, Finn overheard Lugaid’s words.
All my family are very close.
The words scalded him.
Father, he thought.
Mother.
Their names lay heavy on his tongue.
Muirinn of the White Throat.
He envisioned a woman’s soft hand laid on his arm, and a woman’s huge liquid eyes, pleading. Eyes like a deer’s eyes, mournful and beautiful. “My beloved son,” said the woman in his mind, “my cherished child. My pride. Do this for me. Do the deed that cries out to he done. Uphold the honour of our family. Avenge Cuhal’s murder.
“Do it for me, my son.
“My beloved son.
“My cherished son.”
That was what she would have said, surely: binding him with the ties of family and clan obligation that gave a child his sense of place in the world. His place with those who would never reject him. Mother. Finn’s eyes were opaque, reflecting dark clouds.
The countryside had changed since they left the Burren. The stony western rim of Erin gave way to dense oak forests packed with holly and hazel, then to a lush central plain. The wind no longer smelled of the sea, but of earth and grass. The sun began a struggle against the clouds, forcing its way until the sky was a coldly triumphant blue.
Yet winter remained. The leaves clinging to the oaks were brittle, and little live things snuggled deep in their burrows. Even before Samhain, summer was dead.
Finn had driven his band at an unprecedented pace. They did not speak of it to each other, but they were proud. It was done and they had done it together. They were the better for it. They had excelled themselves, following Finn Mac Cool.
Less than half a morning’s march from Tara, he signalled a halt. “We’ll be there by midday, and you lot look as if you’d been dragged backward through a gorse patch. Go over to that stream and bathe yourselves.”
Blamec objected. “The legs are run off me with hurrying, yet now you want me to stop and bathe?”
Finn’s eyes danced. “Don’t, then. Make no effort to improve your appearance. Go to Tara just as you are, filthy, your hair a bush on your head, looking like the lowest sort of servant, some refugee from the leather-curing pits.”
The unfortunate Blamec was forced to stand watching as his companions scrubbed dried mud from their clothes with twists of dry glass. Leaving their garments to air on the bank, they leaped into the icy stream and bathed themselves. Afterward they ran a footrace, naked—Cailte won—to warm and dry themselves, then redressed and took turns braiding one another’s hair, each in the pattern specific to his own clan and tribe.
Finn took the longest to prepa
re.
A few days earlier, he had believed he had the world by the ears.
But now Feircus was dead and someone else occupied Tara, a stranger who probably knew nothing of Finn Mac Cool and would care less. He might be demoted to a common warrior. He might even be expelled from the Fíanna if the new king’s clan or tribe were enemies of his own.
He realized he had no control over his future. The only thing he could control on this day, it seemed, was his appearance.
He insisted that Cailte, who possessed the most nimble fingers, braid his hair. Then he tore it apart and had it done again. He scrubbed his teeth with a frayed willow twig and burnished his leather belt on the oily skin of his young forehead. He noticed without surprise that the thumb he had thrust into the well of the Tuatha Dé Danann was completely healed.
He even groomed the shaggy coats of Bran and Sceolaun, who wringgled resentfully as he dragged his bone comb through their coarse hair.
When nothing remained to be done and his band with the exception of the bedraggled Blamec – gleamed like new metal, Finn led the way back to the road. There he arranged his men in a unit three across and three deep, facing east toward the green ridge on the horizon.
“Carry your shields on your arms and your spears in your hands,” he ordered. “We’re going to Tara.”
5
ALMOST AT ONCE THEY BEGAN ENCOUNTERING ARMED sentries spaced at intervals along the roadway.
Five roads led to Tara from the distant reaches of Erin. In attempting to establish his superiority to all other kings, Conn of the Hundred Battles had insolently built roads across land claimed by the Ulaid, the Connachta, the Erainn, and the Laigin. Paved in boggy places with peeled logs, the royal roads allowed trading vehicles to reach Tara in all weathers.
But there was no commercial traffic now. Only the widely spaced sentries, who eyed the approaching fían with deep suspicion. “Name yourself and state your purpose!” demanded the foremost, lowering his spear to the ready position.
“Finn Mac Cool. I bring a band of Fíanna to the king.”
No flicker of expression crossed the sentry’s face. His eyes were dull, almost glassy, and there was a growth of stubble on his jaw, though warriors usually kept their jaws shaved to give more prominence to the mustaches that were their pride. The guard looked decidedly seedy—but his spear was lethal, and he held it pointed straight at Finn for several heartbeats before he waved it aside and indicated the band might pass.
They made it only as far as the next sentry before they were challenged again and the ritual repeated. And with the next. And the next.
“This is humiliating,” Finn snarled under his breath to Goll, who was walking just behind him. “They’re trying to make us feel small.”
“That’s the idea,” said Goll. “Don’t react, don’t give them the satisfaction.”
“I wish I knew who’s up there.”
“So do I, but don’t ask. Act as if we already know and are assured of a welcome.”
As they drew closer to the ridge, they could make out its details more cleanly.
Once Tara had been the royal seat of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Known as the Magic People, the Sídhe, they were the race the invading Gael had defeated by pitting Iron Age blades against Bronze Age sorcery. According to the poets, the Sídhe had used their mysterious skills to retreat into the physical fabric of Erin rather than be driven out.
And they were still there.
After countless generations, the Gael could still feel the weight of Danann eyes watching them. From earthen mounds of unimaginable antiquity, from thorn trees blooming like perfumed clouds, from dark caves and sombre forests and solitary peaks, the Tuatha Dé Danann watched. And waited for their time to come again.
Their royal palace had long since been replaced by a timber-and-wattle fortress in the Celtic style. A series of kingly strongholds had been built on Tara, each defiantly erected on the ruins of its predecessor. By now the complex included an Assembly Hall, which was also known as the Banquetting Hall on occasion, the House of the King, the Fort of the Synods, various revered graves and monuments, official and private chambers, kitchens, stables, storehouses and sheds, surrounded by ditches and a timber palisade.
As the fían approached, they saw scorch marks on the timber palisade. Attempts had recently been made to breach the walls with fire. The largest burned area had been carelessly patched with bits of planking.
Goll squinted at it with his good eye. “It appears that Huamor was telling the truth.”
The road led upward. Tara was not, strictly speaking, a hill, but a long ridge that appeared to be low until one reached the top. Only then was it possible to appreciate Tara as a royal site. The ridge commanded a kingly view of the surrounding plain.
Finn’s band passed more guards, weary-looking men with red eyes and set, stony faces. Every guard issued a challenge. None offered a greeting.
They reached the gateway named for the road they had travelled, the Slige Mor. Two massive oaken gates were closed, and a pair of spearmen stood in front of them.
Now, thought Finn. The future is now. He strode forward with Bran on one side and Sceolaun on the other.
Goll Mac Morna followed almost on his heels. The others advanced as a unit.
“I am Fionn son of Cuhal!” Finn called in a forceful voice. “I bring my fían for the Samhain Assembly and ask permission to report to the king!”
The guards eyed him unresponsively. A man came to the edge of the palisade, peered down, then vanished from sight.
“It’s too quiet,” Goll muttered to Finn’s back.
He was right, Finn realized. Usually Tara was a noisy place, bustling with servants and visitors, brehon judges coming and going, children running and shrieking with laughter, traders arriving and departing, musicians playing from dawn till dark.
Now there was no sound but the wind.
Goll moved close to Finn’s shoulder. “Don’t repeat that bit about being Cuhal’s son until you know who’s in charge here,” he advised.
Finn started to retort that he was proud of Cuhal no matter what, but he caught himself in time. “Good advice,” he agreed.
A small door opened in one of the gates just enough to allow a man to poke his head through and speak to the guards. The door slammed shut again. One of the guards said gruffly, “Go in. They’re waiting for you.”
He and his companion put their shoulders against the gates and pushed them open; the iron hinges, red with rust, creaked.
Conan was looking at the guards. None of them, he decided, were taller than Finn or stronger than Goll or heavier than himself. If he had to, he could kill several of them before they killed him. Or he could run. He would rather run.
Lugaid confided to Madan, “I’m ready this time. I’m not going to stumble over any rocks today.”
Fergus Honey-Tongue said, without conviction, “Tara in her glory. Isn’t it grand to be here.”
Finn and his nine marched through the gates, which promptly creaked closed behind them. Finn had to fight down an urge to look back. He led his men across sheep-cropped grass toward the great Assembly Hall. Banners flew over each of its fourteen doorways. Finn looked from one of them to the next.
“Not that one,” Goll advised. “That’s the Door of Confrontations. Go around to the other side and enter by the Door of Fidelity.”
They circled the rectangular building, which had originally served as a mead-hall for entertaining visiting chieftains. It was, Finn noticed, as quiet within as without. Even more ominous, no guards stood at the doorways. It was like a house of the dead.
He entered through the Door of Fidelity. It took several moments for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside. No torches burned there. Then he recognized the familiar central aisle, the side aisles, the twelve timber compartments to separate subtle strata of society.
Someone was occupying a bench on the raised dais that dominated the centre aisle. Someone who slumped, as if unconscious.
“He wouldn’t dare. It’s one of his obligations. The king of Tara has to be awake before dawn and be the last man to sleep at night.”
“Maybe that isn’t the king, then.”
“I am the king,” contradicted a groggy voice. “The new king of Tara. And I’m not asleep. Not quite. Come forward, where I can see you.”
Neither Finn nor Goll recognized the voice. Leaving his men behind, Finn started forward.
He went up the aisle alone. Only Bran and Sceolaun dared follow.
The figure on the dais remained in shadow. As he drew nearer, Finn felt the weight of its eyes on him. Hair rose on the back of his neck. “Who are you?” he asked in a hoarse croak.
“I am he who returns,” the voice replied hollowly.
Goll gasped. “Cormac!”
Finn turned toward him. “Who?”
“Cormac Mac Airt! By the wind and rain, it can be no other. When he was just a boy, he swore he’d return to Tara, and now he has.”
“Cormac son of Airt, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles,” affirmed the figure on the dais. “Now come forward, young man, so I can identify you.”
Finn approached the dais until he and the speaker could see one another clearly.
Cormac gazed at a tall youth with a frame that would be awesome in maturity. Wide, savage cheekbones provided a startling contradiction to the tenderness of the mouth. Cormac was reminded of a face he had known in his childhood, a face that had also been framed by silvery hair. “Who was your father, lad?” he wanted to know.
“I am Fionn son of Cuhal.”
Cormac smiled. Though he had survived thirty winters, his eyes glowed with undiminished vigour. A long, strongly modelled nose, long eyelids, and a tapering jaw identified him as a Milesian Gael. His ancestors belonged to a tribe of iron-forging Celts who had invaded Erin from northwestern Spain and conquered the tribes they found there—some of whom were also Celtic—so long ago that history had become legend.
The king’s hair and neatly trimmed beard were corn-coloured, just beginning to fade with the years. His large hands lay quietly in his lap like a pair of docile animals, but Finn took note of the exaggerated development of thumb and forefinger that betokened a seasoned sword warrior.
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