Cruina tried to swallow the offending smile. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just telling you there’s no child, there couldn’t be. We lay together, but we didn’t … I mean, you weren’t able to …” Now she was the one fumbling for words.
Her hand, forgotten, still lay on his chest.
Her words beat at him. You weren’t able to.
Finn felt an almost overpowering urge to throw her to the floor and complete what had not been completed. He could do it now. He could do it a hundred times over. He could seize her and savage her like a wolf in the forest, he could …
He shuddered back from the brink, panting and trembling. He would not put himself in a position to risk any further humiliation with this woman.
Taking hold of her wrist, he lifted her hand from his chest. When he spoke, his voice was hard, tightly controlled. “I made the offer. You did not accept. And there is no child, so there is no marriage of any kind. Are we agreed?”
Cruina sought conciliatory phrases that would not come. This was not the ending she wanted. She had been deeply angry, and hurt by his obvious avoidance of her—until the moment he came bursting into her father’s house with his silver hair gleaming and the smell of the outdoors on him.
“Are we agreed?” he demanded to know.
She licked her dry lips. “I kept your cloak,” she managed to whisper, hoping that would tell him what she could not.
“I don’t need it now,” he said coldly. He took a step backward, away from her, building invisible barriers.
She knew then how much she had hurt him. He was not a coward; he had come to offer her a contract marriage. Cruina’s eyes stung; her vision blurred. Finn was brave and honourable, he was …
… gone. While she dashed tears from her eyes, he had turned and left the house.
Cailte joined him outside and had to trot to keep up with him. “Your face is a thunderstorm, Finn. What happened?”
“We agree there is no marriage.”
“You agree? Both of you?”
“Both of us.”
“What will you do now?”
Finn considered. “Repair my honour,” he said at last. “I’m Rígfénnid Fíanna. People have to know … what that means. To me.”
They entered the gateway in the palisade. The sentry acknowledged Finn with a salute.
“Respect,” said Finn softly as if to himself, cherishing the gesture.
Their trot slowed to a walk as they approached the Assembly Hall, which was in the process of being demolished. Finn drew a deep breath and confided to Cailte, “The next time I have anything to do with a woman, I mean to be in complete control.”
“Easy to say. Not easy to do. They’re very different from us. you know. Slippery as fish, some of them.”
“I’ll control mine,” vowed Finn Mac Cool.
10
FINN REGRETTED HAVING COMMITTED HIMSELF AND HIS men to spending the winter at Tara. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep seeing Cruina. But he took it as a test, a test of himself and his control.
He no longer tried to avoid her. Whenever he saw her, he gave her the same polite nod of recognition he gave everyone, with not one degree more or less of warmth.
Once she came to him with the great mantle of wild-animal skins draped over her arm. “I meant to return this to you,” she began tentatively.
“You want nothing of mine?”
Now she was flustered. “That isn’t what I meant—”
“How kind of you to return it,” Finn interrupted in an even tone. He took the cloak from her without actually touching her. While she stood watching, unable to decide what to say or do next, he folded it as well as the bulky material would allow.
Then he turned and walked away, leaving her standing there.
That night he wrapped himself in the old cloak, his nose pressed against the skins, seeking some trace of her remembered scent. His body burned and throbbed, but no one knew.
No one except Cailte, who was aware of the commander’s restlessness as he tossed and turned throughout the night. But Cailte never mentioned it. Whatever he knew of Finn Mac Cool he kept in trust.
Afterward, Finn would think of that winter as the best and worst of his life. He endured a constant, aching awareness of Cruina, of embarrassment and frustration and baffled longing that surfaced when he was least prepared and washed over him in waves.
Most of the time, however, he was able to submerge himself not in regrets, but in joy. Tara was growing and he was helping build it. Tara was growing and so was Finn Mac Cool.
For centuries, the green ridge that dominated the plain of Mid had been but one of several royal provincial strongholds. Five generations earlier, Tuathal Teachmar had built himself a sprawling timber fort atop the Hill of Uisneach, from which the stronghold of his rivals, the kings of Connacht, could be seen on a clear day. The hilltop complex of Emain Macha in Ulidia was even older, and famed for its associations with the legendary Cuchulain and the Red Branch warriors.
Now Cormac decreed that Tara was to outshine them all. He was a man who dreamed in superlatives—a quality he subconsciously recognized in young Finn.
“I mean to be more famous than Conn of the Hundred Battles or die in the attempt,” Cormac had confided to his wife Ethni before he departed to challenge Feircus Black-Tooth.
“Come back carrying your shield or on it,” Ethni the Proud replied in the time-honoured way of Celtic women.
Tara—rebuilt, enlarged, extended—was to be emblematic of Cormac’s success. As was Finn Mac Cool. For the son of Airt, only the most spectacular would do.
“Nothing less will be sufficient to impress the other kings and force them to bow to the superiority of Tara,” he told Finn. “What my grandfather began, I mean to complete. I shall make Tara the royal hub of Erin, home of the king of the kings.”
Every ablebodied person was pressed into construction work. The fresh, clean smell of adzed wood was everywhere. Old wattle-and-daub walls were being pulled down by one work crew even as another arrived with new timbers for a longer, stronger, higher wall.
Everything was to be bigger and better.
Blamec, of course, complained.
“I don’t see why we have to work like labourers,” he muttered to Cailte as the two were securing a roof beam for one of the lesser chambers. “I thought we were supposed to be warriors.”
“We are warriors.” Cailte sighed. One had to be patient with Blamec.
“But this isn’t fighting.”
“Neither is hunting. The Fíanna does a lot more hunting than fighting, Blamec. Battles break from time to time, but we have to eat every day,” the thin man said.
Just then Madan arrived. He squinted up at the beam. “Should that not be higher?”
“Why?” Blamec challenged. “I can stand up in here.”
“That’s not the point. The king wants the buildings to be seen at a distance, so their roofs must be visible above the palisade. You’re going to have to add some courses to that wall and raise it a bit.”
Blamec ground his teeth audibly
“How much is a bit?” Cailte enquired.
“Half a spear length should do it.” Madan turned and hurried off to his next inspection.
Blamec was dismayed. “That will take us another day at the least!”
Cailte shrugged. “Have we anything better to do?”
“We could find Finn Mac Cool and break his neck for him. That would be pleasant.”
But in spite of his constant moaning, Blamec worked They all worked. Tara rose against the sky, golden-thatched and gracious, more regal than any stronghold in Erin.
One evening Finn noticed Cormac ambling all alone toward the Slige Asal gate. With a muttered imprecation against Conan for neglecting his duty, Finn followed him.
Cormac nodded to the guard, who opened for him. Finn slipped through the gate behind him. Lost in thought, the king did not notice. He strolled along the outside of the palisade for a short distance, then turned to stare
toward the west, toward the mountains huddled there in cloaking darkness.
The night was drawing down. The last rays of the sun were gone
A guard peered down from the sentry platform atop the gate, satisfied himself that Finn was with the king, and relaxed.
Cormac stood wrapped in his thoughts. Wondering what they might be, Finn watched patiently. At last he stepped closer.
“It’s very quiet out here tonight,” he remarked.
Cormac gave a start. “It is,” he said, regaining compusure.
“And growing very dark.”
“It is.”
“What do you see, then?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I’m listening.”
“Listening?”
“For the sound of breathing in the dark.”
“But we’re alone out here.”
“Are we?” Cormac turned toward the younger man. “Are we ever alone? They’re always watching us, you know.”
“They?” Finn thought he meant the Ulidians. “They’ve gone, they won’t come back until spring.”
“They never go,” Cormac said grimly. “Not the Tuatha Dé Danann. They’re always out there, night or day. The Milesians defeated them once and drove them out of their Tara, but they couldn’t kill them. Not really. They tried; with sword and spear they tried. But the Dananns just melted away into the land and the mist. We’ll have to fight them again one day, Finn. The Tuatha Dé Danann haven’t surrendered Erin. They never will.”
A chill ran up Finn’s spine.
“I’ve overthrown Feircus Black-Tooth,” Cormac continued, “and I’ll force submission on the other kings. I can do that, I have swords and spears. I have the Fíanna and you.
“But when the Tuatha Dé Danann appear and demand to take Tara back again, can I hold it against them?” Cormac’s voice rasped with a doubt Finn found disturbing.
Cormac was his future. He could not allow the king to doubt his own prospects. “Together you and I can hold Tara against anyone!” Finn proclaimed ringingly. “I killed that monster, didn’t I? The one the Dananns sent?”
“I thought the Ulidians sent it.”
“Och, the Ulaid could never have controlled such a creature. It obviously came from the Sídhe and their sorcery.”
By daylight Cormac found amusement in Finn’s tales without having to believe all of them. Now, however, in the night … in the dark … when an old fear rose in him, a fear implanted in the dawn of his life, he was less inclined to scepticism.
“Do you ever suffer from nightmares, Finn?”
“Never! What could frighten me?”
“Some things,” Cormac admitted, “terrify even the bravest. When I was a child, I used to listen to the poems of history our bard recited. The ones I heard most often were about the coming of the Milesians to Erin. The poems brought it to life for me. I could see Éber, and Éremón of the Iron Sword, and that greatest of all bards, Amergin, whose poetic vision led his brothers here.
“And I could see the Tuatha Dé Danann raising a shining mist to terrify them, and stirring up a great storm to sink their ships. How frightened the Milesians must have been, facing powers beyond the abilities of even their most knowledgeable druids! Wherever they looked there was something they could not understand but must find a way to fight. All of the Sídhe had magic, you know, even the weakest. A dangerous and subtle people. There were stories told of them …” He broke off as if he did not dare remember.
Finn waited. At last Cormac went on. “It ended with the vanquished Sídhe disappearing, but the historian always added that they were still here, waiting. Waiting to take back from us what we had taken from them. I’d lie on my bed at night with my robes over my head and imagine the Sídhe dissolving the walls of our lodge and walking through as if through water, with a shining upon them, with shining bronze weapons and shining silver eyes.
“They could shift shape, Finn. Did you know that? They could weave time. We never understood them and we never made peace with them. The stronger I become, the more I think about that unresolved conflict. I suspect they’re too jealous to let me succeed in my plans. They’re the ancient enemy of my people, and they’ll fight me. That’s my nightmare. War with the Sídhe.”
He is confiding the secrets of his soul to me, Finn thought with a thrill of pride. I am his soul-friend. But he won’t acknowledge me publicly, because I’m not a prince of his blood.
Standing beside Cormac, Finn stared into the haunted night. The wind crooned over Tara Hill, singing songs of a Bronze Age past …
What if I were a prince of an older race? Finn asked himself. And no one had told me? That’s possible, isn’t it? Who was there to tell me? Crimall spoke to me only about my father, never about the other side of my family.
“You needn’t fear the Sídhe,” he said aloud. “Not while you have me. I know how to fight magic with magic, that’s how I killed the monster. Who better than Finn Mac Cool for your ally, Finn who has magic blood himself?”
Cormac turned toward Finn. “What are you talking about?”
“My own ancestors. Everyone knows about yours. Erin was conquered with Amergin’s dream and Éremón’s iron sword. The Milesians subjugated the Fir Bolg tribes and defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann … more or less.
“But I have extraordinary ancestors myself. My mother,” he said offhandedly, “was a shapechanger. She could assume the form of a deer.” He was aware that Cormac was staring at him through the darkness. “My mother was the daughter of Tadg and Evleen, and Tadg was a son of Nuadath, chief druid to King Cathaer Mor of the Laigin. Evleen herself was kinswoman to Manannán Mac Lir.”
In an incredulous voice, the king said, “Are you trying to tell me that your mother’s mother was …”
“One of the Sídhe. The Tuatha Dé Danann. Indeed. You said it yourself, they’re still here. Sometimes they come out of their mounds and caves. Evleen mated with a druid’s son because magic calls to magic. Furthermore, I myself was taught magic by one of the women who fostered me. Lia, she was; a kinswoman of Nuadath.”
How brilliantly it ties together! Finn congratulated himself silently. Almost as if I were not making it up.
Is that possible?
Am I remembering facts I did not know I knew?
Finn Mac Cool did not know what reality was.
In the atmosphere of the moment and the grip of his own private fears, neither did Cormac Mac Airt. Unable to disbelieve, he stood beside Finn outside the walls of Tara and wondered just what sort of a Rígfénnid Fíanna he had acquired.
Later, as the king lay courting a sleep that would not come, another question occurred to him. If Finn really did have Danann blood, might he be a spy for them?
It was an unsettling thought.
Any man who sought power soon learned that his enemies multiplied in step with his success. The last thing Cormac wanted to believe was that Finn, his spectacular Finn Mac Cool, might be duplicitous. The youth had brought only credit to him so far. Yet … when the king was tired and drank too much mead, was there not a silvery shimmer to be seen around Finn?
Surely not, he told himself. It was just the effect of the light on Finn’s strange hair. Surely.
As each new building was begun, the royal druid, a ruddy man called Maelgenn, sacrificed an appropriate animal to be buried beneath the walls. The animal was to serve as guardian for the structure, and its sacrifice was to propitiate the gods of the Gael, who, with the passage of centuries, had become inextricably confused with the ancient leaders of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
When the debris of the old Assembly Hall had been cleared away, Maelgenn announced that he required the heads of fourteen wild boars to be buried under the fourteen doorways of the new hall.
“Fourteen boars? Easily done!” said Finn. All in his company clamoured for the hunt, but he insisted on taking only the original band of nine with him. “Ten of us can take down any number of savage animals,” he claimed. “More me
n would just get in our way. With nine fénnidi and a pack of hounds, I could strip Míd of game in nine days if I chose to.”
“I was just getting into the rhythm of this building business,” Blamec complained, more out of habit than conviction. Like the others, he was thrilled by the prospect of a boar hunt. Only Goll seemed preoccupied, his thoughts elsewhere, a faraway look in his eyes from time to time.
As they were preparing to depart, Lochan the smith approached Finn carrying three swords. “I haven’t had time to forge more of these,” he said, “but if these prove successful, I’ll make one for each of you.”
Finn examined one of the weapons curiously. Unlike a shortsword, it had a blade as long as his arm, and honed edges meant to cut and hack rather than to thrust and stab.
“It’s an old-fashioned sword, actually,” Lochan explained, “but if you’re going after boar, this is what you want. There was a time when all warriors carried them. It’s a Milesian design, a greatsword like this.”
Finn frowned, hefting the weapon. “Too heavy,” he decided. “We travel, we don’t want to be weighted down.”
Lochan was offended. “If it was good enough for the Milesian princess, it’s good enough for you!”
“Take it, Finn,” said Goll in his hoarse whisper.
Finn took the sword.
He gave the second one to Goll, then hesitated over the third. His men watched him tensely, each aware that it would be prestigious to receive the last weapon. Finn looked from face to face, searchingly.
Cael grinned at him. Conan scowled. Lugaid folded his arms and looked thoughtful.
Finn considered each in turn.
“Cailte,” he said at last.
To carry the heavier swords, Lochan had fashioned sheaths fitted with bronze chapes. “You wear these scabbards like this,” he demonstrated, fastening Finn’s in place at his belt. “When a man—or a boar—comes at you, bend your leg like this …” he caught Finn’s leg at the knee and bent it at an angle “ … so you can hold the scabbard behind your knee. Then you can draw the sword with one hand and keep your shield in front of you with the other.”
The shortswords were now worn by fastening their scabbards across the chest. In addition, the fían were armed with hunting javelins and an assortment of light birding spears for small game. A leather holder for the spears was worn hanging down each man’s back.
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