“If I can hold it until he is old enough to succeed me, and I am ready to give up my kingship to him.”
Ethni gave her husband a hard look. “Do you mean to hold on to it selfishly all your life?”
“I can be king,” Cormac reminded her, “as long as I am unblemished and strong enough to wield a sword. That’s the law.”
“Sons often grow tired waiting for their fathers to relinquish the sword to them.”
Cormac dropped his voice so no one else could hear as he said, “Are you threatening me, Ethni? Are you so ambitious for an infant still at the breast?”
“All mothers are ambitious for their sons,” said Ethni the Proud with the faintest shrug of one strong shoulder.
That night the king held a great banquet in his new hall, in honour of his wife’s arrival. It was the first true banquet ever to be held in Cormac’s Banquetting Hall, and would set the pattern for innumerable events to follow.
Cormac and his retinue reclined on fur-draped couches on the west side of the hall. The king was attired in his best: his crimson cloak, his gold torc around his neck, a white linen shirt threaded with crimson at the throat and wrists, a multicoloured tunic belted with a girdle of gilded leather inlaid with precious stones. Even his leather shoes were banded with gold.
For this occasion Ethni feasted beside her husband, in the company of bards and brehons. Beyond them were the members of the king’s court in order of descending rank, and as this was no Assembly and so no other nobles were present to fill the hall, the rest of the vast space was occupied by Fiachaid and Finn and their men.
“Watch the king as a hawk watches a sparrow,” Finn had warned his fían before they entered. “Do whatever he does, the way he does it. Eat as he eats, drink as he drinks. Don’t root at your food like hogs in acorn mast, but follow Cormac’s example in manners at all times. I want it to look as if the Banquetting Hall is filled with nobles, not rabble.”
“I know how to eat,” growled Conan. “I’ve been doing it for years.”
Cailte added, “There’s only one way to eat, and that’s right- and left-handed and as quickly as you can, before someone takes it away from you.”
Finn glared at him. “No one’s going to take anything away from us. Eat as if you expect there will be more whenever you want it, because there will be. Eat like a king.”
That night, among the fragrant cedar pillars that upheld the roof soaring high above them, Finn’s fénnidi watched Cormac covertly and tried to eat like kings.
Sometimes, as Finn continually tested his men and devised new challenges for them, Cruina the smith’s daughter came to watch. The practice sessions of the Fíanna were drawing spectators from throughout Tara by now. Ethni’s servant women came every evening to stand on the sidelines, pointing out with a stabbing finger or a darting eye this or that man, commenting on his prowess, or possible prowess, giggling behind their hands.
“Ignore them,” Finn commanded his men.
He was aware of Cruina. but he paid no heed to her. Then on one exceptionally cold evening, when the wind was howling through Tara like a mad thing, he saw from the corner of his eye that she was shivering. She stood apart from the other women, watching silently, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. Finn abruptly turned and went to his own quarters. When he came back, he had the great animal-skin cloak over his arm. Without saying a word, he put it over Cruina’s shoulders and went back to his mean.
Lochan, when he heard of it, was overjoyed. He took the gesture as a public sign of commitment and began referring to his daughter Cruina as being “married to the Rígfénnid Fíanna, you know,” with great pride. He did not quite dare say “wife,” however. He was very aware there had been no contract.
He was also aware, as was Cruina, that Finn made no other gesture toward her.
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Lochan would have been horrified to learn of any relationship between one of his daughters and a fénnid. Already that time was over.
Finn Mac Cool was proving himself a force to be reckoned with, a hero and champion whose embrace would honour a woman. Several of the noblewomen who had accompanied their cousin Ethni to Tara turned to look at him as he strode by.
One or two of them also cast speculative glances toward his band; his always-burnished, always-gleaming band, whose unfailing courtesy toward women was being rigidly enforced by their Rígfénnid Fíanna.
Finn found himself lecturing Fergus Honey-Tongue almost daily. The man seemed constitutionally unable to avoid passing remarks with women, and for him. oral conversation was just a prelude to physical communication.
Finally an exasperated Finn dragged him into the stable and threatened, “If I see you put your paws on one more woman, I’m going to break both your arms, Fergus!”
The warrior was perplexed. “But she smiled at me, Finn. She likes me. Are you trying to say I can’t ever enjoy another woman? That’s madness!”
“I didn’t say that at all. I’m just telling you not to gobble them right- and left-handed. See how the king treats his wife? As if she’s valuable, not digestible.”
“But she is valuable. If someone harmed her, they’d have to pay her family three white cows as an honour price.”
“Then,” ordered Finn, “treat every woman as if she were worth three white cows.”
Fergus looked at him aghast. “I don’t understand Finn anymore,” he subsequently lamented to Goll Mac Morna.
“Did you ever?”
“I thought so. He was just one of us.”
“Is that what you thought?”
“And why not? When we joined the Fíanna, he was simply another fénnid. Better with weapons, maybe, but aside from that, no different. Quieter, sometimes. And …” Fergus paused, slowly enumerating in his mind those things that after all, he now realized had made Finn different from the beginning. “And bolder sometimes. And that poetry … he goes off somewhere inside his head when he’s composing or reciting poetry, someplace we aren’t allowed to follow him.
“He does that out in the country, too. Once we’re in a forest, or on a hilltop, have you ever noticed what happens to Finn, Goll? He sort of … glows. It’s like he’s come home again. He gets a look about him I never see on his face when he’s under a roof.”
Goll said, “Finn’s wilder than the rest of us. He has a quality in himself you and I don’t have.”
Fergus, thinking he understood, nodded. “The magic, you mean. His mother being of the blood of the Tuatha Dé Danann and all that.”
“That’s not true, Fergus.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it’s true. Finn told us himself.”
“And that makes it true?”
“Is he not always talking to us about honour? Insisting that we be honourable no matter what? It’s practically the only song he sings. Do you really believe a man like that would lie?”
Goll’s lips twisted cynically. “In my experience, it’s a man like that who’s most likely to lie … if only to himself.”
“Then you don’t understand Finn at all.”
“And you do? You just said you didn’t.”
Fergus snapped, “Obviously I understand him better than you do, Goll Mac Morna!”
Goll’s patience with Finn was running thin. Even though he was older than the others and had once commanded the Fíanna himself, Finn insisted he perform the same feats and pass the same tests as everyone else. Goll considered this insulting. And almost impossible, physically. Years of battle and hard travel had ground him down more than he wanted to admit.
He began to suspect Finn not only knew this, but was deliberately taking advantage of it to undercut his position with the other men. That meant Finn must still see him as a rival; an obscure compliment.
Goll began trying harder than any of the others during the almost nightly competitions at Tara.
The days were growing longer, however; more work was being done, leaving less time for Finn’s incessant drilling. As Lochan freque
ntly remarked to his daughter, “Beltaine’s approaching faster than you think, Cruina. Has Finn said nothing to you yet? No mention of a contract, or of a marriage at the dawn of summer?”
“How could he, when he doesn’t speak to me at all?” she replied sadly.
“Then that’s your fault, isn’t it? Make an effort, girl!”
Cruina began dyeing her fingertips bright red and curling her hair into ringlets that looked like frizzed hemp whenever it rained, which was often as spring descended on Tara. She stationed herself where Finn could not fail to see her a dozen times a day.
He always nodded formally and walked past without a word.
Finally she could wait no longer. The promise of spring was thick in the throat of the day, reminding men that battle season would soon begin. Last details of construction were being completed by the fénnid. even as professional carpenters were being recruited from the nearby populace to replace them when the Fíanna took to the hills again.
On a misty morning with vapour rising in silver waves from sodden earth, Cruina stepped directly into Finn’s path and stood there, daring him with her eyes to dodge around her.
He stopped. “Can I do something for you?” he enquired politely.
“You can talk to me.”
“What have we to talk about?”
“Our marriage!” she burst out.
“You said there was no marriage. Is there anything else, or can I go?”
“You said you wanted a contract marriage!”
“That was then and this is now.”
“You don’t want to marry me?” She met his eyes squarely. “Answer me, Finn. They are saying of you that you tell the truth, that you insist upon it for all the Fíanna. Tell me the truth now. Do you not want me?”
To his dismay, Finn realized his heart was pounding. She was standing a little too close to him. The day was a little too warm. Blood was running in his veins like a river.
“I want to lie with you,” he said in a voice from which he withheld any trace of emotion. “I want to lie with many women. I want to eat all the fat meat in Tara and drink all the ale. But I don’t do it; I have other things to do.”
“Are you going to take me as your wife at Beltaine?” Cruina demanded to know.
He smiled then. “Cruina of the Questions.” He almost reached out. He almost touched her. But he could not risk another humiliation with this woman. The next time he touched a woman, he had promised himself, it would be one who did not know about his initial failure. “I shall soon be away for a long time. If I wed you at Beltaine, you would not see me until Samhain, and perhaps not then, depending on what happens in the coming year,” he told her. “Better for you if things continue as they are.”
Giving her a smile that she could interpret any way she chose, Finn left her standing there.
Cruina stood for a long time, head down, listening to his words in her mind. Analyzing the tone of his voice. Trying to believe what she wanted to believe.
Then she drew in a slow, deep breath, lifted her head, and retraced her steps to her father’s house.
As Beltaine approached, the Fíanna began to assemble from their various winter quarters. Runners came almost daily to Tara, advising of the readiness of this company or that and their expected arrival to be given their summer’s orders. Meanwhile, other runners were arriving from chieftains who had sworn loyalty to the new king and now requested some of his Fíanna to patrol their borders or fight their enemies or intimidate doubtful friends.
“You realize we won’t actually leave Tara until quite some time after Beltaine,” Goll told Finn. “You’ll have to personally issue orders to each rígfénnid, and that means waiting here until the last one comes in. And you’ll have to plan your own season, of course.”
Finn nodded. “Whatever we do, it will be the thing Cormac most needs done.”
As the bands of Fíanna arrived, Finn met them personally. Each rigfénnid was informed, to his astonishment, that there would be additional testing of his men before they were allowed to go back out into Erin in the king’s name. Some of the older officers were amused. “That youngster takes a lot on himself,” one commented to Goll Mac Morna.
“He does, but it isn’t a bad idea. Sharpening them up before battle season can only benefit them if there is any serious fighting to be done.”
“Och, there’s always serious fighting to be done!” the other said heartily.
The sun steadily grew hotter, brighter, closer. Finn began to dream of rustling silken summer, of being adrift loose-footed in the honeye’d season, all juice and joy. He chafed at the need to remain within the walls of Tara, making assignments, listening to complaints, balancing needs and demands.
He wanted to run free again.
12
RED RIDGE ARRIVED AT TARA AS FINN AND HIS MEN were making the last preparations for their departure. He appeared at the Slige Mor gates with his shield on his arm and Finn Mac Cool’s name on his lips.
The sentry was suspicious. “Where did you meet him?”
“I knew him in the Burren.”
“The Rígfénnid Fíanna doesn’t come from the Burren.”
Red Ridge hesitated. Rígfénnid Fíanna? “I don’t need to see him yet, I just want Finn Mac Cool. He’s a rígfénnid with one company and he—”
“I knew you didn’t know him,” said the sentry. Raising his voice, he called over his shoulder, “Ronan! There’s an imposter here who claims to know the Rígfénnid Fíanna! Come separate his joints, will you?”
A large redheaded man approached, grinning like a bear scenting honey. As he walked toward Red Ridge, he began bending his fingers and cracking his knuckles with a sound like bones breaking.
Red Ridge hefted his spear and stood his ground. “Finn Mac Cool will vouch for me. Send for him.”
The sentry watched him with an appraising eye. “Doesn’t bluff,” he remarked aloud. “Come inside then, and we’ll send for Finn. If he knows you, you might live until sundown. If not …” The sentry shrugged.
The large redheaded man cracked his knuckles again and looked as disappointed as a child deprived of its ball of mutton fat smeared with honey and studded with pine nuts.
As they waited for Finn, Red Ridge stared through the open gateway. What he saw dazzled him. Numerous structures, all of them big, all of them new, walls gleaming white with limewash, every exposed timber elaborately carved with the finest craftsmanship, brilliant banners fluttering from every ridgepole, splashes of green and blue and crimson vivid against golden thatch. Tara was colour and light, opulence and power.
Finn, the Finn I know, would never be in such a place as this, Red Ridge told himself. The wisest thing to do would be to saunter off down the road as casually as possible, right now, hoping not to feel the thud of a spear between the shoulder blades.
But before he could put action to thought, Red Ridge saw an apparition striding toward him and stayed where he was, rooted by astonishment.
The face was that of Finn Mac Cool. So was the strangely silver hair, now divided into many partings and tightly plaited, each plait fastened with a twist of dyed leather. The figure was as tall as Finn, the shoulders as improbably wide, but there the resemblance ended.
This man wore a great woollen cloak striped and speckled with yellow and green and black, and deeply fringed in red. Beneath this he appeared to have a linen tunic bleached snowy and embroidered with green knotwork. Such garments would require the weaving and sewing of many women, and Finn Mac Cool—the Finn that Red Ridge remembered—surely had no such women.
The man in the striped-and-speckled cloak hurried forward, calling warmly, “Red Ridge! I was beginning to think you forgot us.”
Red Ridge struggled for words. “I never forgot. I had to stay with Iruis until the wedding, but when the wine still stood in the cups, I left him and hurried here. I ran most of the way, I think, hoping you’d still be here, or at least they’d know where you were, but … I never expected …” He paused
and made a single gesture that included Finn and Tara and a setting beyond his powers of description. “I never expected this.”
Finn threw back his head and laughed. It was the same laugh, boyish and merry; the same Finn Mac Cool.
Even the sentry smiled, and Ronan the redheaded man.
Red Ridge began to relax.
Finn took him by the arm. “Come inside and say hello to the others, Goll and Cailte and the fían. They’re all here with me. In a couple of days we’ll be leaving; you got here just in time.”
He led Red Ridge through the gateway and into the gleaming, golden fortress. Out of the corner of his eye, Finn watched the newcomer’s face and took delight in his obvious amazement.
Finn’s original band gave Red Ridge a warm welcome and introduced him to the second and third nine, plus an assortment of other warriors and rígfénnidi who would serve the king that summer. Finn said the same to each of them. “This is a good man, this Red Ridge.”
Red Ridge glowed.
But that night as they sat by the feasting fire, he made a mistake. Looking around expansively at his fellow fénnidi, his belly full of fat meat and his cup brimming with barley ale, he said with satisfaction, “So this is what it’s like to be in the Fíanna.”
Bald Conan growled, “You aren’t in the Fíanna. This is what it’s like, but not for you—except as our guest.”
Red Ridge straightened up. “But I thought—”
“You thought Finn would just take you in and say ‘Well done’? Hardly. You’ll have to pass tests, the same as the rest of us.”
“I can learn poetry,” Red Ridge said. “It may take me a little while, but I’ve a good head.”
“You’ll need more than that,” Donn informed him.
“I’m good with sword and spear, too.”
Cael sniggered. “Insufficient. To join the Fíanna now, you have to be able to walk on the water, fly through the air, sing through your eyes, and breathe through your eyes.”
The others burst into raucous laughter.
Reassured by it, Red Ridge said, “You’re joking, of course.”
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