Finn Mac Cool

by Morgan Llywelyn

  The raiders from across the sea had not come a very great distance—only from as far as Alba. It was a well-travelled route. Men from both sides of the narrow sea frequently crossed the cold and treacherous stretch of water to seize one another’s goods and women. Reprisal generally took the form of a raid from the other side next season.

  But on this occasion, reprisal was immediate and savage. Commanded by Finn Mac Cool, the Fíanna slaughtered the majority of the invaders with remarkable efficiency. Cormac, on the height, felt the blood of his warrior ancestors pounding with excitement through his veins, and at last was moved to mount his big brown horse and gallop down to join the battle personally. But just as he took up the rein and prepared to move off, a luminous mist blew in from the sea, obscuring everything.

  Cormac’s horse began to sweat. It danced nervously, arching its neck and blowing through its nostrils as if in fear. He patted its muscular crest, but the stallion would not be calmed. At any moment it threatened to bolt. The king of Tara had all he could do to control the animal with his wooden horse-goad and the single leather rein that passed from the bronze bit in the horse’s mouth up its face, between its ears, and down to his hand.

  An infuriated Cormac was so occupied with the unreasonable horse that he could not have watched the battle even had the mist lifted. He could hear the shouts and screams, however. He could hear the clash of metal on metal, the thud of metal on wood. At last he slid from his horse, swearing, and gave the rein to a horseboy so he could at least concentrate on what was happening invisibly below.

  The sounds of battle were fading. Cormac peered through the mist, straining to see. Then it lifted and the curve of blue water lay before him, with small, dark figures floating quietly on its breast and distant ships pulling away with every dip of eager oars.

  The battle was over. Finn and the Fíanna had routed the foreigners quite thoroughly.

  And Cormac Mac Airt had seen none of the fighting.

  During the long journey back to Tara for the celebratory feasting, Cormac tried, discreetly, to question men who had been in a better position to see what happened. He dared not ask any of them if Finn had won his victory through magic, but he wanted to hear each advance and stratagem described.

  To his relief, it all seemed straightforward. One of the rígfénnidi, a gruff, broad-faced man called Dremen, reported, “Finn had divided the Fíanna into bands that encircled the foreigners and separated them into small groups. Once they were broken up, it was easy to kill them, and those we did not kill ran away to their ships.”

  “What about the mist?” the king could not resist asking.

  “The mist? Och, that was good fortune! It blew in just as the battle was beginning, when all our men were in place. We knew where we were but the enemy didn’t; they became confused, and it was as easy to close on them and kill them as if they’d been birds on the ground.”

  Cormac, against his better judgment, enquired, “Where did the mist come from, would you say?”

  “Come from? From the sea, of course,” replied the puzzled Dremen. “Mists from the sea are very common, as you know yourself. You see them almost every day.”

  The explanation was simple and natural. Sea mists were indeed common; this was the season for them. Cormac should have been pleased.

  Yet part of him kept thinking of the magical mist of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and wondering about Finn.

  Finn himself was not thinking of magic, however. He was exultant, drunk with the glory of having won a huge victory in the presence of the king. Never before had the army of Tara defeated so many foreigners at one time. The poets would sing of it for centuries. The participants were reliving it now, telling one another their various stories over and over again, punching their comrades on the arms, heating the innocent air with triumphant fists, shouting and laughing and boasting until every last drop of juice and joy was extracted from the event.

  “Did you see how they ran?” Cael demanded of Madan. “Did you see how I slaughtered another hundred?”

  “Did you see how I threw my spear so hard it went all the way through that thick yellow-haired man?” Madan countered. “No one survives my spear!”

  “Nor mine.” growled Conan Maol.

  The other two turned toward him. Cael said, “I don’t recall seeing you in the thick of the fighting.”

  “I was there with my three nines, we were right in the worst of it. There was probably so much blood spewing you couldn’t see us through it. I hurled my spears and swung my sword until my arm was tired.”

  Fergus laughed. “The mighty arm of Conan the Hairless grows tired more easily than some.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It is true Would you deny you’re the laziest officer in the Fíanna?”

  “Rather I would say I have the least to do because my fíans are the best fighters. I need only lead them to the enemy,” Conan boasted.

  Cael laughed. “Are you saying your men are too blind to find the enemy for themselves?”

  Conan glowered at him.

  The army rumbled on toward Tara. Soon the singing began. Long before they reached the tall palisade and the shining white buildings within, their triumphant voices announced to all of Míd that Cormar Mac Airt had won a great victory over the foreigners.

  The king ordered a huge feast prepared and served in the Banquet ting Hall. Whole oxen were roasted over deep pits where the fires burned as hot and sullen as the desire for revenge.

  While they waited for the feast, Finn ordered his men to compete in spear-throwing competitions and footraces to keep themselves sharp as well as to impress the populace of Tara. Even in victory, he would not let them relax.

  They had to be special.

  They had to be, and remain, the best.

  The woman called Cruina of the Questions stood silently. at the edge of the racecourse, watching the runners, but Finn did not notice her. He was present too, physically. His mind was elsewhere, however. Even before the feasting he had begun talking to Sive again, telling her about the battle, assuring her of how proud he was of their new son.

  Sive, Sive, the elemental Sive.

  Once he would have taken inordinate pride in sitting, as he did that night, on a bench at the king’s sword hand, a place normally reserved for the chief bard but on this occasion given to the Rígfénnid Fíanna in honour of his victory.

  Now he accepted the honour gracefully, but with barely concealed impatience. He sat trying to assess how long the celebrating would last, and how soon he could leave for Almhain.

  To his disgust, everyone seemed happy to go on eating and drinking and boasting for days.

  Cormac was in an expansive mood. “I’m going to reward you and your officers with an unprecedented gift for rígfénnidi,” he told Finn. “When I can acquire them, I’ll furnish you with horses to ride. Make everyone look up to you as they look up to chieftains!”

  Finn drew his thoughts back from Sive. “Fir Bolg have no experience of riding horses,” he said.

  “You,” Cormac replied with confidence, “can do anything. You needn’t start building stables right away, of course. It may take some time, good riding horses are in short supply.”

  Finn nodded. His thoughts were already racing to Almhain, Building stables … seeing Sive. Oisin. Sive.

  Toward dawn, when the singing and boasting was at its loudest, he rose from his bench and went to Cailte. “I’m leaving here at sunup,” he told the thin man in a low voice. “While I’m away, you’re my second in command.”

  Cailte looked astonished. “I am? What about Goll?”

  “You are. With you in command at Tara, I won’t have to guard my back. Get some sleep, I suggest—if you can. As for me, I’m going home.”

  Without sleeping, Finn departed in the dawn light, accompanied by three fíans, the minimum complement for a commander. They were outstanding warriors every one, but he did not have the same feeling for them he still retained for his very first band of nine. As the
y marched toward Almhain, he realized he was not only eager to see Sive and Oisin again, but also Donn and Red Ridge, whom he had left in charge of guarding his fort with their own fíans.

  As they entered the bogland, Finn picked up the pace. His men pounded along behind him, splashing through sodden turf. For much of the year the Bog of Almhain was tapestried with colour. Spring brought bluebells and primroses and violets; summer was heralded by the fragrant orchid with its scent of cloves, and by the waxy white blossoms of Grass of Parnassus; autumn found yellow flags like flecks of sunlight reflected in the bog pools.

  Almhain was as treacherous as it was beautiful, however. One careless fénnid put a foot wrong and was nearly swallowed by bog before his companions caught him under the arms and dragged him to safe footing. Finn paused only long enough to warn them all to be more careful, then he ran on again. Toward hill and home.

  Rising from its hilltop, the gleaming white walls of his fort made his heart leap at first sight. He had covered all exterior walls with limewash, emulating Tara, so they dazzled in the sun. “Almhain of the White Walls,” people called it.

  Home, Finn called it. Home. Where Sive is.

  He was running his fastest now, leaving the others behind. Only Bran and Sceolaun were able to keep up with him.

  “Sive!” he shouted, all decorum forgotten. He had outrun the position of Rígfénnid Fíanna. He was only Finn, going home. “Sive!” He would grab her in his arms, he would swing her high in the air, he would …

  Red Ridge emerged from the gate behind the hawthorn and stared down at the silver-haired, grinning young man running up the hill toward him. “Finn?” he asked in a puzzled voice.

  “Of course it’s me. Where’s my wife? Go back in and tell her I’m here. Bring her to me! Or better still, I’ll go to her myself and—”

  “Wait, Finn.” Red Ridge put a delaying hand on his commander’s arm. “She isn’t in there.”

  Finn paused, wrinkling his forehead. “Not in there?”

  “We thought she was with you.” Red Ridge looked as baffled as Finn felt.

  “How could she be with me and I away fighting?”

  “But you came back. Yesterday.”

  Finn stared at Red Ridge. “I came back just now. Not yesterday.”

  “Your steward saw you You and the hounds. He told your wife you had come home, and she ran out to meet you with the baby in her arms.”

  Finn’s jaw dropped. “She what? Where were you when this happened ? Where was Donn? Why weren’t you guarding her?”

  “We were, Finn. Of course we were. But at the moment you arrived”

  “I never arrived. Not yesterday,” Finn insisted, feeling his heart begin to thunder dangerously.

  “At the moment the steward thought he saw you,” Red Ridge amended, “Donn had taken his company and gone hunting for meat; we were running low. My men were guarding the hill, of course, standing sentry duty, but somehow none of them noticed your arrival. We weren’t aware anything had happened until after Sive went out to you and didn’t come back.”

  “Didn’t come back?” Finn’s words were hollow with horror.

  Red Ridge would have given a year of his life to avoid having to meet Finn’s eyes. But he was a brave man. He met them. Whatever he saw in them chilled him to the bone. “She never came back, Finn. We’ve been searching for her ever since, her and the infant. They’ve simply vanished.”

  For a heartbeat Red Ridge thought Finn Mac Cool would kill him where he stood. Faster than the eye could follows, Finn had a sword in his hand. But he did not use it on the other man. He did not use it at all. He simply held, it, lifted it to eye level, stared at it blankly.

  Put it away.

  A sword was no use to him.

  “Vanished,” he said.

  Red Ridge hastened to explain, “We haven’t stopped searching, we had parties out all through the night. I’m surprised you didn’t meet some of them as you approached.”

  “I wasn’t looking for anyone else, 1 was just … hurrying home.” Finn drew a deep breath. He was very pale, his face almost as colourless as his hair. Red Ridge began to think it would be a wise idea to send for Bebinn and have the physician close by in case Finn had some sort of seizure.

  “Send my steward to me,” Finn ordered.

  Garveronan of the Rough Buzzing had a voice that made men flinch, but he was a good steward. Finn had recruited him personally from a fían from the west, recognizing qualities of organization and responsibility in the man. He had entrusted Garveronan with running his household in his absence.

  He had never expected betrayal.

  “I didn’t betray you!” the steward protested repeatedly, his rasping voice rising and falling like a storm of locusts. “I would never have let your wife go out to you if I had known it wasn’t you! Mind her, you instructed me when you left, and mind her I did. No stray wind chilled her, no drop of rain fell on her. Wherever she went, she was accompanied. But when I saw you and the hounds coming up the hill, of course I ran inside to tell her. And of course she brushed me aside and hurried out to you. What could be more natural?”

  The man’s face was so naked in its honesty that Finn could not doubt his words. He wanted to strike someone. He wanted to kill someone to redress the terrible loss he was already feeling. But he could not kill Garveronan, anymore than he could understand just what had happened.

  He sent for Cainnelsciath the druid. Meanwhile, and on his own responsibility, Red Ridge had summoned Bebinn the physician. Druid and healer entered Finn’s house together to find the Rígfénnid Fíanna slumped beside his firepit, his eyes burning more hotly than the coals.

  He glared at the two of them. “What do you know of my wife’s disappearance?”

  “Nothing,” admitted Bebinn with regret while professionally studying Finn’s livid face, his hoarse breathing.

  Cainnelsciath said, “I did not see her leave, but I know something of her going.”

  Finn was on his feet in an eyeblink. “What?”

  The druid ran his hands like ploughs through his ruddy hair. “I warned you not to build on this hill, Finn. It belonged to the Tuatha Dé Danann, and they do not welcome intruders.”

  Finn thrust out his jaw at a belligerent angle. “I have as much right to this hill as anyone, then. Suppose I told you I inherited it from the Dananns themselves, through my mother!” Had he not been so distracted, he would never have dared lie to a druid, but he was in a mood to lash out at anyone, to deny anything, to make any claim. To tear down walls and negate distance and alter the progress of time if need be.

  Bebinn saw with her healer’s vision that a sharp yellow light was pulsing from Finn, unmistakable aura of a spirit in torment. She slipped from the room to prepare a decoction to soothe him, if possible.

  Finn did not see her leave. All his attention was focused on his agony.

  “Whether you inherited rights to this hill or not,” the druid was saying diplomatically, “you should never have tried to live here. At least, you should never have planted a family here. I cannot be certain, Finn, but the signs indicate that the Sídhe have extracted compensation from you in the form of your wife and child.”

  It was a safe guess, neither provable nor unprovable, but it was the last thing Finn wanted to hear.

  He groaned. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because a figure that was the image of you lured Sive away. That sounds like Sídhe magic. It was at least good enough to fool your steward on a misty day.”

  Finn’s breath caught in his throat. “Mist?”

  “Indeed, there was a cloud of it obscuring the hill yesterday. You could hardly see your own toes if you took a long step. It came up suddenly, that mist—just before the man Garveronan mistook for you arrived.”

  “Mist.” Finn gazed thoughtfully into inner space, then put his thumb into his mouth and began to chew on it. After a time he said “mist” again and removed the thumb. He stared at it intently, studying the gleam of saliva
on flesh.

  “There was a mist when we fought the invaders,” he said. “It worked in our favour—then. A sea mist, rising suddenly, swirling around us, hiding us when we needed to be hidden, lifting just enough to reveal the enemy to us when we were ready to fall upon them.

  “Now another mist has worked against me. The Tuatha Dé Danann, you suggest.” He raised wondering eyes to the druid’s face. “Is it possible, Cainnelsciath?”

  In spite of his unlined complexion, the druid was not young. During his years he had learned the arts of survival as well as Goll Mac Morna, though his were different arts. He would not dream of denying the existence of magic. “Anything is possible,” he replied somberly.

  “Compensation,” said Finn, as if he had never heard the word. “Everything must balance. Isn’t that what the law requires? Ah. So. Cuhal took Muirinn from her father, Muirinn took me from mine. I took the Danann hill, they took …”

  His throat closed; he could not finish. When he clenched his fists, it was an impotent gesture, there was no reality for him to grasp. With Sive he had begun to appreciate a reality superior to his fantasies, but now that vision had been torn from him, lost in swirls of mist.

  He was human, he was Danann, he was Fir Bolg, he was prince. He was warrior and bard. His mother was a deer. His wife was a deer. His son was stolen from him as his mother had stolen him from …

  Finn groaned again, a tortured sound. “My head aches,” he muttered, shoulders slumping.

  Bebinn returned, carrying a silver pitcher with a square of bleached linen folded over the top. Beads of moisture ran down the pitcher’s sides. Edging past the druid, she took a cup from a table and poured out a fragrant liquid that she offered to Finn. “This will ease you,” she promised.