He sat up in the dark. Straw rustled, and there was the pungent odour of dried horse dung. Someone snored nearby.
Memory began to return in shards and slivers.
Gathering his men and leading them to … to the almost empty stables. Making careless beds for themselves, straw flung down in heaps. Fringing themselves on top of the straw, uncaring, too weary for any ritual washing.
Someone—Conan?—saying, “You look like death in a bowl, Finn. And that blood on you stinks.”
The hounds crowding close, sharing their warmth.
Sleep. Sinking into oblivion for an indeterminate time. And the dreams coming …
Were they fantasies? Or memories? In Finn’s mind, the distinction was becoming blurred. When he told a tale, he convinced himself of its reality so his listeners would believe. In his imagination, he envisioned events so vividly he lived them, with the result that now his brain could hardly differentiate between fact and fiction. Both had the ring of truth for him.
Muirinn of the White Throat was my mother, he reminded himself sternly, holding on to what he knew to be reality. And Cuhal Mac Trenmor was my father. There’s no doubt of that much. Clan Morna killed him before I was born, and then Muirinn …
… then my mother …
What did she do? What did she really do?
He shook his head savagely, trying to isolate the facts. But they eluded him. In his heart, he wanted the fictions. They shielded him from the truth.
Nearby, someone sighed. Someone else farted. As Finn focussed his eyes, he recognized huddled shapes on the straw.
He got to his feet quietly. Bran rose with him. Sceolaun came from his other side. The three picked their way among the sleeping men and left the stable. They emerged into an icy wind. The winter that had begun unseasonably early was chilling Tara.
But the royal seat was bustling with activity. Fiachaid’s men were very much in evidence, as were nobles and tradesmen and numerous servants. Wicker-sided carts piled high with goods were entering by the open gateways, often accompanied by chieftains astride shaggy horses.
Finn noticed a small cluster of men by the Fort of the Synods, talking with someone in a crimson cloak. He blinked uncomfortably. His eyes were crusted with matter, the lashes sticking together.
He rubbed them and took a second look. The knot of men wore tunics dyed with saffron, and woollen cloaks speckled or striped in blue, red, green, purple, and white. Taken with the yellow of the tunics, these made up the six colours that a judge, a noble brehon, was entitled to wear. For further identification once they removed their cloaks, the brehons wore conical leather caps fitted close to the skull.
But the man to whom they were talking needed no identification. Cormac Mac Airt would always look like a king.
He stood erect, no longer exhausted. Beneath a short, fitted coat of leather he wore a linen shirt embroidered with gold thread. Tight-fitting trews showed the shape of his legs, his feet were shod in soft leather. Slung around his shoulders was a heavy fringed cloak, fastened with a huge gold brooch set with gemstones. On one arm he carried a small, round shield, painted bright red, with stars on its face and gold and silver animals pursuing one another around the rim a ceremonial extravagance rather than a protection in battle.
In Finn’s eyes, Cormac shone like a red stag seen against grey limestone.
Cormac looked up, noticed Finn, and beckoned to him.
Finn approached with uncharacteristic diffidence. He was rumpled and filthy. He hated having brehons see him like that, but even more, he wished he had bathed before the king saw him.
The king’s smile was uncritical, however. “Finn Mac Cool!” he called warmly. “We were talking about you. I was just telling the judges of your great and astonishing deed in defense of Tara. I wanted their opinion as to the rights and prerogatives such valour deserves.”
“Rights?” Finn’s forehead crinkled. “Prerogatives?” Suddenly he realized he could smell dried blood on himself. His clothing was stiff with it. “Valour?”
“Don’t concern yourself now, we’ll talk about it later. I’m sure you’d like some heated water and a chance to bathe. And food and drink. Fortunately, tributes have begun arriving, so I can offer you something better than that dangerous bread your man warned us about. Go and clean yourself, and I’ll have a meal brought to you. We’re still somewhat short of people to fetch and carry, but once I’m properly established here, nothing will be too good for Finn Mac Cool.”
Obviously something extraordinary had happened. Something Finn’s tired brain did not yet remember.
Mumbling thanks, he escaped the king as quickly as he could and returned to the stable. Searching among the sleeping men. he found Goll first, but he did not want to question Goll.
He almost stumbled over Gael.
Finn bent down and shook him by the shoulder. “Gael! Wake up at once and come outside with me. I have to talk to you.”
“Hunh? Wha?” Straw rustled.
“Outside, I said. And be quiet about it.”
Gael dragged himself to his feet and stumbled out of the stable in Finn’s wake. They turned a corner and paused beneath the thatched overhang, which was so low Finn had to duck his head.
“What happened, Cael? The king claims I performed some great and astonishing deed. He’s been talking to the brehons about special rewards. But what did I do? Do you know? When I try to remember, my brain fills with fog. I must he very tired.”
“We’re all tired,” Cael replied, stifling a yawn. “But I know what you did. I didn’t see it, of course. None of us did. I wish we had. But you told us. It was magic, what you did. No one else could have done it.”
“Done what?” Finn almost screamed at him.
“Killed the monster, of course.”
Finn gaped. “Killed the what?”
“The fire-breathing monster Cormac’s enemies sent to burn Tara.” Cael said patiently. “You killed it, thanks to your very special talents, and brought back one of its three heads to show the king.”
Finn almost laughed. He had one hand half-raised to punch Gael on the arm in appreciation of the joke.
Then a memory surfaced, rising through the layers of his mind, distorted as an image glimpsed through water.
He saw himself approaching a lodge. Cormac was inside. He saw himself strutting toward the king, displaying something.
Memory returned with a rush.
Finn and his band had guarded the approaches to Tara while Fiachaid’s men recovered. As Finn had expected, there was no further attack. There was only wintry wind and silvery silence and time passing. The remaining Ulidians, if they were watching from a distance, had been deceived by Finn’s ruse. Or, more likely, they had simply pulled out and gone home as the weather worsened. And Huamor and those like him would not challenge Cormac until the spring—if at all.
But the king would need Finn’s band for only a few days. Then they would lose their particular value.
As they relieved Fiachaid’s men, Donn had passed a warning. “Rest and recover, but don’t eat any of the bread. It’s what made you sick, it’s spoiled.”
The fían had taken up their watch, which proved exhaustingly uneventful. They regretted there was not at least a token attack. Until the third morning they had nothing to do but stand leaning on their spears, watching the horizon, talking desultorily to each other, and shifting legs as they snatched moments of rest without ever lying down.
When Finn felt certain that Fiachaid’s men must be recovered, he sent Cailte back to Tara to request a change of guard.
Then destiny came toward him in the form of a solitary figure slouching down the road from the north.
“Not a pretty sight,” Finn commented to his hounds as the figure approached. Sceolaun whined agreement.
The stranger’s head was huge, grossly malformed, and bore the vacant expression of a congenital idiot. His face was painted with chevrons of blue and ochre in an archaic style only a few Ulidian warriors still
affected. With his bandy legs and lurching gait, the man looked more like an afterthought than a human being.
But he was approaching Tara with a blazing torch in his hand.
Finn hefted his spear threateningly. His other hand dropped to his sword hilt. “What do you want?” he challenged.
The idiot kept coming. A drool of spittle hung from his sagging lower lip. He was an obvious expendable, a last gesture of contempt on the part of Feircus’s men when they pulled out. They expected him to be killed. Although he probably could not understand, his was a suicide mission.
Finn felt a pang of pity. “Turn around and go back. There’s nothing but death for you here.”
The man grinned senselessly and lifted his torch. He swung it in a wide circle above his misshapen head. Greasy smoke stained the clear air.
Sitting on their haunches beside Finn, Bran and Sceolaun watched this performance with interest.
“Turn back I said!” Finn’s voice rose.
The idiot paid no attention. He walked toward Finn, whirling the torch faster and faster. He might do anything, Finn realized. There was no reasoning with a head that held no mind.
In the instant Finn’s hand tightened on his sword hilt, both dogs were on their feet, hackles lifted, fangs bared.
Mimicking them, the idiot stretched his foolish grin wide enough to reveal the broken stumps of rotted teeth. Then he hurled the torch straight at Sceolaun.
In one bound, Finn interposed his body between the torch and his hound. As he leaped, he hurled the spear. His sword was drawn before his feet touched ground again.
Both weapons found their target.
The torch glanced harmlessly off Finn’s shoulder.
Bran had leaped when he did. Finn had to grapple the dog aside to get to his victim. When he pulled sword and spear from the idiot’s body, life left with them.
Finn stared down at the paint-bedaubed corpse. He felt contempt for those who had used the creature so callously.
“Back, Bran! Leave him in peace now. And you, Sceolaun—are you burned? Och, that’s good, it never touched you.”
Finn busied himself stamping out the circle of flames that was spreading from the fallen torch. Then after extinguishing it as well, he went back to the dead man, moved by pity to cover the corpse with a cairn of stones.
Poor sad monster, he thought, looking down. What sort of a life did you have, with your head twice as big as a …
… poor sad monster?
A slow smile spread across the face of Finn Mac Cool.
He returned to Tara covered with soot and blood. In a net fashioned of weeds, he carried a bulky object. He met Fiachaid’s men coming to relieve him and they stared curiously, but he did not explain.
“Where’s Cormac Mac Airt?” he asked.
“In the House of the King. But what’s that you’ve got there? Is it—”
Finn strode past them.
He found Cormac in a rather dilapidated wattle-and-timber structure substantially unchanged since the reign of Conn of the Hundred Battles. Built like a clan chieftain’s lodge, it was circular, with a conical thatched roof extending almost to the ground, and the customary central firepit.
The pit had not been cleaned out since Feircus, and the fire was smoking badly. As he ducked through the low doorway, Finn could just make out Cormac on the other side of the fire, trying to mend a shoe by the light of the flames.
“That’s no task for a king,” Finn said by way of greeting. “My Madan can do that for you. He can repair anything.”
“You have a useful collection of men,” Cormac replied, squinting at him. “The one called Donn was here a while ago, offering to cook me a meal when he’d had some sleep.”
“You’ll never eat better. Donn can make a tasty meal out of hares’ ears and hazelnut shells.”
“Is that what you’ve brought me?” Smiling, Cormac pointed with his shoe. “A bundle of hares’ ears and hazelnut shells?”
“This?” Finn said with elaborate casualness. “Och, this is just the head of a fire-breathing monster that’s been trying to destroy Tara.”
Cormac dropped the shoe. “What did you say?”
“Monster.” Finn held it up, being careful to keep the smoke of the fire between himself and the king. He peeled back just enough of the weedy netting to reveal a smear of vivid blue and two glaring eyes beneath a bulbous forehead of unnatural proportions. “I destroyed this thing with magic,” he claimed, “after a ferocious battle. I cut off one of its three heads to show you. The other heads were ruined. That spear that Fiachaid gave me does considerable damage. I couldn’t bring you trophies so mutilated, it would be an insult. And now that you’ve seen this one, I can dispose of it too. It’s leaking all over me.”
Before Cormac could stop him, he flung the head in its net of very dry weeds into the heart of the flames.
An horrific stench filled the lodge.
“By the sun and stars!” cried an appalled Cormac. “Did you have to do that? I’m trying to live here!”
“I’m sorry.” Finn contrived to look abashed. “I didn’t stop to think. I’ve carried that disgusting thing so far I just wanted to be rid of it. Perhaps we should go outside, where we can breathe?” He turned and led the way, confident the gasping king would follow.
In the firepit, the burning head had swiftly become a grotesque and blackened ruin.
“Now I remember!” Finn said to Cael. “The fire-breathing monster. I do remember!”
“I should think you would. Three heads, you said.”
“Three heads,” Finn echoed.
“I wish I’d seen it myself. But I did see the king after you showed him one of the heads, and he looked quite shaken. Can you describe the monster for me, Finn? How big was it, exactly?”
“Och … immense.” Finn framed vague shapes with his hands. “As big as three oxen.”
“That big?” Cael raised his eyebrows.
“Or maybe only two oxen,” Finn amended quickly, calculating the actual size of the head and its relative scale to a body. “Two small oxen. But it was a monster right enough.”
“I believe you,” Gael assured him, “and so does the king, obviously. Perhaps he’ll give you woven clothes! Just think, Finn; warriors are allowed to wear only one colour and officers two, but you might even be allowed to wear three!”
Finn snorted. “That may excite you, but my ambition doesn’t end with being given the right to wear three colours.”
Meanwhile, the rest of his band awoke, yawned, scratched, cursed straw and fleas and each other, and emerged from the stable. Donn, appropriated the sack of flour the miller had given them and went off in search of the ovens. Finn gathered the others and took them to Cormac, offering them as temporary staff.
“As soon as I deem it appropriate, I’ll send for my family and household servants,” Cormac told them, “but until then, I’ll appreciate whatever help you’re able to give us.”
Behind his hand, Lugaid whispered to Goll, “Should we give him those silver cups now?”
“Not until Finn says so,” the one-eyed man replied sternly.
Because his lodge still stank of the burned head, Cormac sent Cailte to ask Fiachaid to meet him outside. They spoke together beside the mound known as the Grave of Taya, a Milesian ancestress who had made the long-ago voyage from Galicia, in northwestern Spain.
In the crisp wintry air, Fiachaid’s emotions ran from cold astonishment to hot anger. The astonishment resulted from hearing Cormac relate the details of Finn’s destruction of the giant.
“That’s absolutely preposterous!” Fiachaid exploded. “You can’t seriously believe that … that big lad killed a fire-breathing monster!”
“I didn’t say I believed it,” Cormac replied. “But hundreds will. He’s remarkably convincing.”
“I never heard of a fire-breathing monster in Erin, not with three heads or one head or no heads. He made it up.”
“Very likely,” the king agreed. “But that�
�s how reputations are made. According to those who hated him, Cuhal Mac Trenmor was a swaggering braggart—but most men loved him. He talked big and he made his followers feel big. He must have had in some small measure the quality young Finn has by the armful. The ability to excite.”
“But I always expected—”
“I know what you expected, Fiachaid. You’re obedient and trustworthy, and of my own race. All admirable qualities. But Finn Mac Cool is incredibly audacious. He’ll be like a vivid banner proclaiming the kingship of Cormac Mac Airt. People will notice him, and talk about him, and his lustre will reflect favourably on me. I need him, Fiachaid. I need him … for a while.”
At nightfall Finn and his band were summoned to the Assembly Hall. Under Madan’s direction, the broken roof had already been patched. Fresh rushes carpeted the approaches. The light of hundreds of beeswax candles glowed from the open doorways.
“This time,” Goll Mac Morna suggested, “I think we should enter by the Door of Heroes.”
“I already planned to,” replied a scrubbed and burnished Finn Mac Cool.
“What about those silver cups? Lugaid still has them.”
“I know. Bring them with us, but say nothing about them.”
They marched into the hall, a column of nine with Finn a few steps in front. His hounds followed at his heels, putting a space between himself and his men.
Cormac was waiting on the dais. Brehons stood to either side of him. Finn felt the scrutiny of judicial eyes. These were the men who interpreted the law, the agreement of an entire population as to what controls they would accept. The mightiest king was not as powerful as Brehon Law.
The faces of the judges were professionally stern. Finn felt misgivings. Even if Cormac had believed his story, would brehons be taken in? Seeing him up close like this, would they in their wisdom look through the impressive exterior and find the boy hiding beneath?
He knew only one way to shield himself. Throwing back his head and squaring his shoulders, he cried in his loudest voice, “I am Fionn son of Cuhal, slayer of monsters!”
His eyes dared anyone to contradict him.
A thundering silence descended on the hall. In that silence, Finn thought he could hear beetles busy in the thatch overhead.
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