Finn Mac Cool

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “She swam to him and lifted her head above the water very close to his. They stared at one another. The shepherd’s first thought was of the value of an otter skin. He had no weapon within reach, but she seemed almost tame; he began to hope he could lure her onto the bank and catch her there.

  “He spoke softly to her and she moved closer, trying to remember when she had seen him last. When she had loved him last, in what lifetime …

  “He made a grab for her but she grabbed him first, with a hand that closed over his wrist as no otter’s ever could. She held him fast and began to pull him into the water with her.

  “The shepherd struggled but it was of no use; the creature who was not an otter was incredibly strong. He began to shout then, but all he did was frighten his sheep and they bolted. There was no one close enough to hear his cries for help and save him.

  “The creature who was not an otter drew him deeper, deeper into the water, and even though he was beginning to drown, he did not know he was drowning. A wild joy overcame him. He allowed himself to be locked in her embrace and it felt like coming home. He surrendered everything to her.

  “And she took him down, down into the black depths of the black water where she had once fled for sanctuary. She took him with her, but at some point she must have decided he was not the one she remembered, not one of her own kind after all, and she released her hold on him.

  “She abandoned him to the current and he began to move upward again, borne by the water. But it was too late. The life had already gone out of him, and when his body reached the surface, it floated lifeless on the breast of the river.”

  A stunned silence followed.

  Members of Finn’s audience looked at each other as if uncertain of how to react.

  “What sort of tale is that?” wondered Fidach the Foreigner. “I was expecting a bardic epic.”

  Conan said tersely, “You didn’t get one.”

  Rousing herself with a little shiver, Manissa half-turned so she could look up at Finn. Unshed tears glittered in her eyes. “Ochone, alas! What a terrible story. Where did you learn it?”

  Finn did not look down at her, but instead gazed straight at Goll Mac Morna. “My mother taught it to me when I was a child,” he claimed. “She taught me all the legends of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which she knew well, being descended from that race herself.”

  Contradict me if you date, his eyes coldly challenged Goll.

  The one-eyed man refused to accept the bait. Who would choose to believe him over Finn Mac Cool? “You have a very interesting genealogy,” was all he said. “When the historians recite it, do they mention your mother’s descent from the Sídhe?”

  Without hesitating, Finn answered smoothly, “I’ve not requested the historians to recite my genealogy yet, as until the last few years I’ve had no property that my offspring might someday inherit, nor have I inherited any from my ancestors. With the exception of the treasure bag of my father’s clan, of course.” He smiled with one side of his mouth. “And it also contains magic,” he said softly.

  Watching him, listening to him, assessing his words, Goll was convinced that Finn really believed what he was saying; believed it totally, no matter how preposterous. And if he did, he was mad. Surely, truly mad.

  But he was not always mad, Goll had to admit to himself. As commander of the Fíanna, he was sharply sane, a brilliant strategist and gifted leader of men in spite of the shadows at the edges of his mind.

  If Finn is mad, I will someday replace him, Goll thought. And if Finn is mad, what a waste, what a loss!

  As always, Goll was torn between love and hate when it came to Finn Mac Cool.

  With some reluctance, the army got underway next morning. Finn was not the only one who had found himself a woman, and there were several painful farewells. To Manissa’s disappointment, however, Finn seemed able to leave her without regret. In fact, his last words were not to her, but to her father. “I’ll arrange for the coibche to be sent to you as soon as I get to Almhain,” he promised. “I’m stopping there before we go on to Tara. And you’re to send Manissa to me next Beltaine. We’ll wed then because it’s a contract marriage.”

  Manissa was not pleased to think she must wait through autumn and winter before joining Finn, but he obviously had no intention of taking her with him now. Though there were women with the Fíanna, as she knew.

  She thought, briefly, of disguising herself and joining these women, going to Tara with them as just another of the army’s followers. Then she recalled that she was a chieftain’s daughter and restrained herself.

  “I must behave with dignity,” she assured herself, gazing into the polished metal mirror her mother had given her on her Day of First Bleeding. “Finn Mac Cool’s a self-controlled man, an unemotional man. He will want the same of me. He will want a wife of calm demeanor, nothing impetuous, nothing wild.”

  Pleased with her judgment of the man, Manissa settled herself resolutely to await the passing of the seasons.

  As the Fíanna swept northward, they fought one more battle, a brief, bitter skirmish on a morning of alternating rain and sun, when shadows chased golden light across the rolling grassland and birds flew up in alarm at the clash of swords.

  For Conn Crither, the battle seemed only the continuation of a dream. Together with his three nines, he had spent the previous night bedded down in a hollow. a little distance removed from the main body of the army. The night had been disturbed; he saw visions of three women in battle dress approaching him, promising to create additional warriors for him out of stalks of grass. His brain was still cobwebbed with sleep when a hostile band encountered the encamped Fíanna and battle broke.

  Yelling at his men to follow, Conn Crither ran to join the fighting. He somehow thought he had more men behind him than just his three fíans, and ran into the very thick of the battle as if he were invincible. So boldly did he attack that he found himself facing the leader of the opposition, and without pausing to draw breath, he beheaded the man with his sword.

  It was an act of conspicuous bravery.

  “I thought I was leading a whole army,” Conn Crither told Finn later. “I had this dream, you see …”

  Finn listened sympathetically. He knew about dreams and how they impinged on reality.

  Reaching Almhain, he paused only long enough to ascertain that no one had heard anything of Sive, and to send the coibche to Dorbha. Then, ordering Red Ridge and Donn to leave enough men behind to guard the fort and follow him themselves, he set out again for Tara.

  Everyone of any importance must be at Tara this year for the Great Assembly.

  “There will be a fortnight of sport before the Assembly itself begins,” Finn reminded his men, “and I expect the Fíanna to win every contest. The serious part of the Assembly starts three days before Samhain and lasts three days after, and every king in Erin will be there, in addition to all the brehons and the chief poets and historians … anyone who matters. I want every officer of the Fíanna there too, very much in evidence. We can hold our own with the nobility.”

  “Arrogant,” said Goll to himself, since no one else was interested.

  No sooner did they arrive at Tara than Finn began telling a highly coloured version of their most recent battle, one in which Conn Crither’s dream became part of the reality and the battle took place partly in the Here and Now and partly in the Celtic Otherworld. It was a spectacular tale, making of Conn Crither a hero out of legend, and he was the last to contradict Finn.

  Goll did not attempt to correct Finn either. He merely listened, his one eye narrowed thoughtfully.

  Feis Teamhrach, the Great Assembly of Tara, was an occasion for arguing and proclaiming law, for making new regulations when required, for updating tribal history by having recent events related by the participants, and for correcting and adding to the all-important genealogies upon which rank and inheritance depended. The entire proceedings were scrupulously committed to memory by professional poets steeped in the oral traditi
on, using the rhythm and metre of their art to carve words ineradicably in the mind.

  At the Great Assembly, Finn would be expected to relate the activities and victories of the Fíanna, to become part of the history of Erin.

  After debating with himself for some time. Goll went to see Cormac, whom he found with Flaithri, inspecting the Fort of the Synods. “Now that I’ve built a similar fort for the poets,” Cormac told his chief brehon, “I want to be certain the structures reflect the exact status and prestige of the two professions.”

  Flaithri, scowling at an iron door hinge that seemed slightly less elaborate than those on the Fort of the Poets, was about to comment when Goll joined them. Instead of criticizing door hinges, the brehon said acidly, “There is nothing in the law that permits rígfénnidi access to this building whenever they like.”

  “This is important,” Goll said. “I need to speak to the king.”

  “Ah, isn’t it always important?” Flaithri rolled his eyes roofward and turned his palms up in an eloquent gesture reminiscent of his father.

  Studying Goll’s face, Cormac gave a short, sharp nod. “This is important,” he decided. “Wait for us, Flaithri.” He followed Goll from the fort.

  A thin, cold wind was blowing across Tara. Goll turned his back to it deliberately, letting the king take it in the face. Cormac smiled. “You interpose your body between me and the wind,” he said. “A thoughtful gesture.”

  Disconcerted, Goll blinked rapidly and regathered his thoughts. “What I wanted to say to you is … is …”

  “About Finn Mac Cool?” Cormac guessed.

  “About Finn Mac Cool,” Goll conceded. “Are you aware that he’s … not himself?”

  Cormac smiled again. “On the contrary, I think he’s very much himself. He’s strutting around Tara and boasting like a rooster that’s laid an egg. Isn’t that the Finn we know?”

  Trying not to feel disloyal, Goll said, “Those boasts are lies, Cormac. Outright lies, most of them.”

  Cormac’s face was impassive. “Are they?”

  “They are. I was there, I know. He’s telling these outrageous stories and”

  “He’s always done that, it’s part of his attraction.”

  “But he hasn’t always believed them! At least, not fully. He does now, though. And he’ll tell them to the poets and believe he’s describing events accurately. I can’t let that happen.”

  “You have a laudable sense of honour, Goll.”

  “Are you patronizing me?”

  “I am not, I was paying you a compliment. Are you so rarely complimented that you can’t tell the difference?”

  Goll was embarrassed. In a voice made hoarser than usual by the emotion, he muttered, “I don’t need compliments. I’m just doing my duty.”

  “You call that doing your duty? Accusing your commander of … of what, Goll?”

  Goll threw a furious look at Cormac. “All right then, defend him! But don’t say you weren’t warned!” He spun on his heel and strode away. Cormac was a player of games himself, but the king’s games were too subtle, too shaped by the folds of the man’s mind, for Goll to enjoy them.

  Cormac returned to the Fort of the Synods and Flaithri. But later that day he drew his chief historian aside and had a few words with him in private. “My Rígfénnid Fíanna is a very brilliant warrior,” he said, “but he has a tendency to exaggerate even more than most. It might be wise to remember that when committing his descriptions of events to memory. His are splendid tales for telling around a campfire, but I cannot vouch for their accuracy, and our children’s children might not be well served if the more outrageous stories were made part of our history.”

  The chief historian, a thin-legged, round-bellied man with a prodigious memory, found this an astonishing conversation. “Are you telling me Finn Mac Cool would lie about the achievements of himself and the Fíanna?”

  “He would not lie, I think. But he … adds colour. A great deal of colour. He introduces elements into his narratives that exist only in his imagination.”

  “What elements?” the historian wanted to know.

  “I can’t even tell you, I’m not certain myself. With him, it’s hard to know what might be fact and what might be his own creation.”

  The historian pondered the king’s words in private, and made his own decision. He thereafter listened to the stories told by and about Finn with a critical ear. Only the bare facts, such as recountings of battles won and hostages taken, were memorized to be incorporated into the histories handed down from generation to generation. The tales in their vivid entirety became the property and pride of the bards, whose creativity fed upon them.

  But no matter what version of the Finn Mac Cool stories was being told, there was one eager listener. Cruina of the Questions spent little time in the Grianan after the Fíanna arrived. She could usually be found within eye-distance of Finn, a rather forlorn shadow hoping to attract his attention but unwilling to come forward and demand it.

  Finn knew she was there.

  He had sent the agreed coibche to Lochan the smith every year; as far as he was concerned, he had done his duty by Cruina. She represented a bruise on his memory that he preferred to forget. Manissa was better; he was in control of the situation with Manissa.

  “She’s still there, you know,” Cailte remarked to him one day.

  “Who?”

  “The smith’s daughter.”

  “Is she?” Perhaps I should speak to her, Finn told himself; it would be kind. But he did not really want to.

  As he had expected, Cormac had arranged for horses to be presented to the officers of the Fíanna during the period of the Great Assembly. The king summoned Finn to accompany him to the stables for a personal tour of inspection.

  “They are very fine animals,” Cormac said proudly. “As good as a chieftain might ride.”

  “Grand animals,” remarked Finn, recalling the shorter, sturdier horses Dorbha possessed. These were leggier, with finely carved heads and tapering muzzles. Their eyes were as large and liquid as a deer’s. The horses were tied by means of rope head-collars to iron rings set in pillars the length of the stable. The nearest animal to Finn was a sleek chestnut mare who turned her head as far as she could at the sound of his voice and looked at him.

  “Where did you get them?” he asked Cormac. “I’ve seen no horses like these in Erin.”

  The king grinned. “They didn’t come from Erin. After you threw such a fright on the raiders from Alba, a tribe of Britons sent a delegation over here to discuss peaceful trade with me—while you were in the south this summer, in fact. They brought horses and left with hounds instead, and thought themselves well served. They had seen nothing as large and fine as our hounds, which they say will be prized among the Britons.”

  Finn looked the length of the stable. “You have only ten horses of this breed?”

  “That’s all they were willing to trade me. But I have a selection of good strong hill ponies for the rest of your officers. Every man will be mounted, I promise you.”

  Without waiting for Cormac’s permission, Finn began untying the chestnut mare. “I’ll take this one.” He led her outside.

  The king followed. “I’ve spoken to one of my kinsmen about demonstrating the finer points of riding to you.”

  “Och, he’d waste his breath entirely. Didn’t you know? I can ride as well as you.”

  Cormac said sternly, “There’s just yourself and myself here right now, Finn, so don’t tell your tales to me. You’ve never sat on a horse in your life and I know it.”

  “Have I not?” Finn gave Cormac a smile so dazzling, so full of youth and joy and mischief, that the king was momentarily disconcerted. In that moment Finn gave a leap and threw one leg across the mare’s back. He tugged her head around with the rope affixed to her head-collar and tightened his legs on her sides, at the same time thrusting his pelvis forward against her spine.

  The mare obediently moved off in a soft little jog-trot, with Fin
n sitting as relaxed and boneless as a sack of meal on her back. He looked like a man born to ride.

  Cormac stared after him. “What to believe?” the king murmured to himself.

  A horseboy emerging from the stable overheard him and asked anxiously, “Did you speak to me?”

  “I spoke to myself,” Cormac replied gently. “I was telling myself not to be too quick to judge others.”

  Perplexed, the horseboy went on about his affairs, wondering at the inscrutability of kings.

  Finn galloped the mare in and out between the forts and halls and limewashed walls of Tara, glorying in the sensation of control she gave up to him so willingly. Even with no bit in her mouth, the mare obeyed every pressure of his legs and shift of his weight. She was lighter on her feet than the grey horse had been, and her supple joints cushioned the impact of her feet with the earth. Riding her was almost like floating. In one circuit of Tara, she taught Finn why kings ride horses.

  He guided her back to the stable. Cormac was gone, but his chief horsemaster was soon located and ordered to bring the horses designated for the rígfénnidi down to their training ground.

  It was only a short distance, but Finn rode.

  He assembled his officers and arbitrarily assigned a horse to each. One tall grey stallion he indicated, with a nod of his head, was for Cailte. “You’re both lean and grey, it’s a good match,” he said, neglecting to add aloud that the animal was obviously the pick of the lot.

  Cailte obediently took the rein from the horseboy holding the grey and vaulted aboard. The other rígfénnidi watched, awaiting their turn.

  “I told you it was easy,” Madan said to Glas. “See how Cailte did it?”

  They soon discovered it was not as easy as it looked. The horse assigned to Glas tried to kick him when he missed his first jump and kneed the animal in the belly.

  Blamec’s horse tore its rein out of its horseboy’s hand and ran backward with Blamec running after it, shouting slanders on its ancestry.

  The unfortunate Conan Maol was given the sturdiest horse, a broad brown animal with a convex nose and a bristling mane, but the two took an instant dislike to one another. Conan made repeated attempts to vault onto the horse, but each time it sidestepped just out of his reach. “Go around to the other side and swing him toward me,” Conan ordered the horseboy.