Finn, who had been listening without comment, spoke up. “He’s not joking. Och, we don’t have the requirements he describes, but others equally severe now. And if you want to march with us, you’ll have to meet them all before we leave here. All except the poetry, I suppose; we might wait on that until you find someone to teach you—if you assure me you can learn.”
Red Ridge nodded emphatically. “1 can learn.”
Finn’s eyes bored into his. “On your honour?”
Before Red Ridge could answer, Fergus Honey-Tongue warned him, “Say it only if you mean it. The honour of a fénnid these days is pledged with his life.”
The underlying grimness in Fergus’s voice was a warning. Red Ridge paused, then said, “Just what does that mean?”
“What it says,” Finn told him. “A member of the Fíanna will pay for dishonour on the point of a sword. My sword. That’s the rule now. If you can’t accept it, don’t apply.”
Red Ridge licked grease from his fingers and gazed at the others through slitted eyes. Their faces glowed in the firelight; their eyes glittered with the promise of adventures to come.
More than anything in his life, he wanted to be one of them.
Meeting Finn’s eyes, he said, “On my honour I will learn and do whatever is required of me. My honour rests on the point of your sword.”
Finn smiled.
That night Red Ridge slept on the cold earth outside the walls of the stable that had been rebuilt to garrison Finn’s company. No more than two spear lengths separated him from them. Two spear lengths, and the most demanding challenge of his young life.
It began at sunrise, with Blamec shaking him by the shoulder and complaining, “I don’t see why I have to be the one to make you show a leg. I’d as soon be sleeping myself. Wake up and throw off your cloak, you’re wanted down below.”
Down below was the training ground, which was already lined, Red Ridge noticed to his discomfiture, with spectators. The testing of prospective members of Finn’s Fíanna was considered an event not to be missed.
Finn, dressed in a checkered cloak this time and looking more imposing than ever, as if his youth was already slipping from him, met Red Ridge at the head of the training ground. In a ringing voice, he said, “If you would join the Fíanna, you must accept four injunctions.
“The first: you will never receive property with or through a wife, but choose her solely for her qualities.
“The second: you will never offer violence to any woman.
“The third: you will never refuse to give anyone anything you possess if they are in need of it.
“The fourth: you will never flee from less than nine armed warriors.”
Red Ridge had listened carefully, and he nodded as each prohibition was given. They did not seem too hard to accept. But then Finn continued.
“Before you can be counted as one of the Fíanna, your nearest kinfolk must guarantee that they will never seek revenge should you be killed in battle. If someone does you an injury, you may avenge yourself while you live, but no one else can do it for you if you die.” As he spoke these words, Finn covertly watched Goll Mac Morna. By now, Goll had heard this same speech quite a few times and accepted it. His features were relaxed, his one good eye calm, unsuspecting.
Finn went on. “No man shall be counted as one of the Fíanna until he can recite twelve epics to prove he knows the history of this land. As these conditions require time to fulfill, and as we have discussed before, we plan to march soon. So I shall give you until Samhain to fulfill them. But if at that time you have not done so, you will be expelled from our number and may not try to enter the Fíanna again.”
Red Ridge nodded respectfully, though he was finding it hard to reconcile this stern authoritarian with the spellbinding storyteller he had met atop Black Head. This Finn was a warrior to his spine; dominant, demanding. The dreamy boy who had captured Red Ridge with words and magic seemed someone else entirely.
But whoever he was, the Connacht man longed with all his being to be numbered among Finn’s Fíanna.
When he was shown the trench and its purpose explained, however, he had momentary doubts.
Finn ordered Red Ridge into the trench and then the original nine attacked him as if he were a mortal enemy, running toward him yelling, hurling their spears, making every effort to kill him. He defended himself as best he could with shield and staff, moving faster than he had ever done in his life. When the attack ended abruptly and he found himself still alive, he expected to be congratulated.
Instead, he was plunged headlong into the next test. “Plait your hair tightly,” Finn ordered. “Then we take you to the wood beyond Tara. We give you a standing start of the distance of one tree. Run as fast as you can, for we will be pursuing you. If we catch you, we wound you. If you are wounded, you fail the test.”
“If one plait of your hair is loosened by being snagged on a branch, you fail,” said Cailte.
Goll added, “You fail if your hands tremble.”
And from Lugaid, “You fail if you break a single fallen branch with your foot as you run your course.”
“You must avoid your pursuers with visible courage and pass through the wood without disturbing a twig in your flight,” Fergus Honey-Tongue concluded.
Aghast, Red Ridge stared at the fían. “You’ve all done this?”
“We have,” Madan said smugly. “Now it’s your turn. Of course you could leave right now and go back to Connacht … and never know if you could have done it or not.”
But Red Ridge’s fingers were already busily plaiting his hair.
They took him to the edge of the forest, gave him the briefest of head starts, and set off after him. What followed was the most harrowing experience of Red Ridge’s life so far. Once again they seemed determined to kill him, hurling spears and hewing the air with swords. In addition to avoiding them, he had to duck and dodge, break no dead branches on the ground, be touched by no twigs on the trees. He had to run with all his strength and concentrate with all his mind, run and run and …
He burst from the woods to find himself on the grassy plain of Mid, still running, his heart pounding under his ribs. He reached up to feel his hair.
The plaits were not disturbed.
He slowed to a trot, turned, and went back. They waited for him at the edge of the wood. But there were still no congratulations.
“Do you see this tree?” Finn enquired, indicating a gnarled oak twisted by centuries into a series of grotesque gestures. “Now you must leap over this branch that’s as high as your head, then turn at once and duck beneath this branch that’s as low as your knees. Touch neither with your body.”
Wearing a look of grim, slightly wild-eyed determination, Red Ridge took a running jump at the first branch, hurtled over it, then turned and ducked under the second. He thought it might just have grazed his shoulders, but he could not be sure. As he straightened up, he looked at Finn.
Finn looked impassively back. “Now drive this into the heel of your bare foot without flinching,” he said, holding out his hand. On his extended palm was a single gleaming thorn, long and dark and sharp.
“You protested that, I recall,” Madan muttered to Blamec.
“He protested everything,” Conan reminded them. “But he did it anyway.”
Red Ridge drew a deep breath, bent his right leg at the knee, reached down and drove the thorn into his heel. With all the willpower he possessed, he refrained from flinching.
No one congratulated him. Instead, Finn said, “Now run at your top speed from here back to the gates of Tara, and on the way, pluck the thorn from your foot without missing a stride.”
Blamec muttered with some satisfaction, “Everyone protested that.”
“But we did it,” said Fergus Honey-Tongue, “and the sun shone and the wind blew and we shouted our triumph.”
Red Ridge ached to shout his triumph.
Trying to ignore the pain in his foot, he set off at the run, back toward Tara. The
gates yawned open, waiting to receive him, but they seemed very far away. Every step was an agony as his weight drove the thorn deeper and deeper into his foot. He was aware of Finn and the others running behind him, watching him.
He bent at the waist and made a swipe at his foot. Missed. Ran on and tried again. Missed again. Swore. Heard someone laugh behind him. “Is there some trick to this?” he panted over his shoulder.
“Run,” called Cailte. “Bend your knees.”
He ran. The gates were getting closer. Soon he would be there.
The others could do this. Why couldn’t he?
I can, Red Ridge told himself, not believing. He grabbed at his foot again and felt the rounded head of the thorn, but his fingers were clumsy and he only drove it farther in. He knew the distance now though, and the moment in his stride when the foot was in the best position.
Just short of the gates, he made one last try. His fingernails, pincerlike, seized the head of the thorn precisely as the foot thrust forward … leaving the thorn in Red Ridge’s hand.
As he ran through the gates, he threw up both arms with a great shout of triumph.
And they all shouted with him, Finn loudest of all.
People crowded around him then, and he expected the longed-for congratulations. But there was one more requirement.
Finn led Red Ridge to a post mounted in a place of honour within the palisade, a post topped by a grotesque and blackened skull. Without explaining either the object or its significance, he told Red Ridge to stand with his back against the post. “Now,” he said, “this is the final requirement. You must swear your loyalty, on your honour.”
Red Ridge had expected this. He began, “I swear my loyalty to the Fíanna and the king of Tara, as—”
Finn’s face tightened. “Swear your honour to the Rígfénnid Fíanna,” he said in a low, intense voice. “That’s the only loyalty you need. But remember: you swear on the point of my sword, and if you fail in honour, your life is forfeit to me.”
Red Ridge gazed at Finn Mac Cool; at the piercing, commanding eyes; the wide and savage cheekbones; the tender, brooding mouth. Why, he wondered, all this emphasis on honour? How important could such a thing be to a simple fénnid? But if it was what Finn demanded … he shrugged and repeated the vow.
And even as he spoke, something seemed to clamp around his spirit like a hand.
His startled eyes flared wide. He stared at Finn Mac Cool … and felt the touch of magic.
Finn’s first nine danced around him, punching his biceps and the air and each other, jubilant. “That’s it!” cried Gael. “You’re in the Fíanna now!”
“But the poems and the guarantee from my people …”
“Later,” said Finn. “We leave Tara tomorrow, and you with us.”
Trying to hold on to the moment, Red Ridge stood beside the skulltopped post and was swept by a strange euphoria. I am part of the Fíanna, he told himself; I actually am!
Until he arrived at Tara, joining the Fíanna had not seemed such a dazzling accomplishment. For a man of his birth, it was probably the best he could do, but he realized that being part of the king of Tara’s band of sometime-warriors was no immense distinction for anyone but a fénnid.
Or had not been.
Until Finn Mac Cool.
Already, Finn was making the Fíanna something very special. Those who followed him were being driven by their commander to heights beyond themselves, beyond their perceived abilities. Finn was making his men better than they ever thought they could be and they adored him for it. Looking around at them, Red Ridge saw their adoration in their eyes—except for the single eye of Goll Mac Morna.
He recognized the same quality of adoration in himself. He was part of the Fíanna now, part of Finn Mac Cool. His feet were firmly fixed in legend.
Throughout the winter, Cormac had been making plans. As he had told Finn, his first move would be to make a circuit of Erin and wrest as much support, or submission, as he could from its various kings, before he had to face the challenge of the Ulaid. If he had the kings of the Connachta, the Erainn, and the Laigin behind him, he felt sure he could force the Ulaid to accept him as overlord.
But he could not afford to make any mistakes.
Dominance in Erin was always shifting; today’s king was tomorrow’s corpse; war was the game everyone played.
Cormac Mac Airt intended to play to win.
Long before Beltaine, he had commanded Finn, “Send runners to every fían in winter quarters, giving them exact orders as to where they are to be by the first day of battle season. Spread the Fíanna across Erin like a fisherman’s net, so that wherever I go, I have fénnidi already there, armed, rested, and ready to fight for me if need be. Tell them to be obvious; let the people see them.”
Finn had ordered a large contingent of the Fíanna, under the most seasoned rígfénnidi, to patrol the territory between Mid and Ulidia. When battle broke, it would begin there.
But as Goll had advised him, “The Ulaid won’t be here spoiling for war on the first day of battle season. I know those northerners, they’re a foxy lot. They’ll hold back for a while to see what Cormac does before they make their move. I expect them to march on Tara late in the summer, after they’ve fully assessed his strength.”
“That’s not what I would do,” replied Finn. “I’d hit him right now, before he has his allies gathered.”
“Would you?” Goll looked at Finn unblinkingly. “If you have an enemy and you break into his stronghold and batter him while he’s trying to put on his clothes in the dawn, what have you accomplished if you win? There’s little glory in that.”
“But an easier victory,” said Finn Mac Cool.
Goll managed, even with one eye, to look disdainful. “I’ve referred to your lack of style before, Finn. There is a certain way of doing things that we’ve always—”
“There is a new way now,” Finn said coldly. “My way.”
“You think you know so much about war, do you?”
“I know about winning, and I’m not talking about chess. You get what you have the strength to take. You keep what you have the power to defend.”
With the rest of the Fíanna assumed to be in place, Cormac left Tara on a high, clear, wind-scoured day with all his banners flying. He rode a powerfully muscled grey horse, a stallion whose hide was still dappled with youth. For the first time in many seasons, his kinsman Fiachaid did not ride a few paces behind him. By the king’s order, Fiachaid and his men were to stay to guard Tara, reinforced by a detachment of the Fíanna.
Cormac was surprised that Fiachaid did not protest the arrangement. Indeed, his response upon receiving the order was, “Take good care of the new Rígfénnid Fíanna, will you?”
Cormac raised an eyebrow. “I thought he was supposed to take care of me.”
“I have no doubt he will. But I should not like for anything to happen to him either. He is … special.”
“You actually like him.”
“I do,” Fiachaid agreed. “I actually do. Which is more than I can say for Goll Mac Morna. Keep an eye on that one, Cormac. I think his feelings toward Finn Mac Cool are at best ambivalent.”
Finn had never been on a horse. No Fir Bolg rode horses; the equestrian skills were above their station. The back of a horse was meant for the seat of a king, so he could survey his territory from a regal perch and his people would be forced to look up to him. Fir Bolg were expected to keep their eyes on the ground in front of them.
Finn—who chose to disregard this—often gazed at the stars.
On this morning of departure he trotted at the shoulder of the king’s horse, running with the easy grace of a warrior. He was fully armed, carrying both his swords and an assortment of spears. His plaited hair gleamed silver in the sun. Behind him flowed his Fíanna like a small river, carrying spears upright. Light glanced off the polished spearheads like stars.
With their bodies, the populace of Tara formed a channel for that river, so that it flowed bet
ween two banks of people, star-crested.
Behind the Fíanna were the king’s official attendants, a small army themselves. But there was no appointed companion for the king, no confidante and soul-friend. There was only Finn Mac Cool.
As they reached the Slige Cualann gate, Cormac reined in his horse and twisted around, looking back. His eyes found Ethni standing proudly. He raised a hand to her. She raised a hand to him. Whatever was said between them passed through their eyes.
Watching. Finn felt a thud of envy like a fist in the belly. But he did not look around in search of some woman’s eyes for himself. He knew Cruina was watching. There was nothing to communicate to her.
Cormac Mac Airt and the Fíanna swept through the gates of Tara.
Ahead of them lay history.
13
BATTLE SEASON. SWEATING AND SHOVING AND YELLING. Bared teeth and clenched fists, faces white with fear and red with rage. Shoulder into belly, elbow into throat, hurl slash thrust, dance away dance away and come back roaring.
Immortality gushing out of a body suddenly emptied of its future.
Sport and war knotted together, and the only thing a man could be sure of was the certainty that he was alive right now, this moment, this heartbeat. In battle, he was so alive!
Cormac Mac Airt travelled the roads of Erin, excluding only Ulidia, that summer, meeting friendship with friendship and hostility with hostility. Some were willing to accept his sovereignty. Others resented him, or hated him, or fought him simply because fighting was what they did.
The provincial kings were ostensibly amenable to persuasion, willing to hear him out and bide their time to see how strong he truly was. But some of the tribal kings and chieftains saw the advance of Tara’s dominion as just another tribute to be added to the load they already carried. They would not listen.
For them, Cormac had the Fíanna.
While he and his retinue were being entertained in some princely stronghold, Finn and his men were stationed outside the walls. To their astonishment, Finn would not allow the Fíanna the usual petty thievery and pillage that was the traditional pleasure of armies on the march. “When we leave one of Cormac’s allies,” he said sternly, “we shall drag branches behind us to smooth away our footprints, so nothing has been disturbed by us in the land of a friend.”
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