by Sarah Rayne
“Oh any amount of it, I should think. Flynn?”
“Oh we’ll all be in it,” said Flynn, but he sounded rather absentminded now, and although he was hearing the voices of the others, and although he was vaguely aware of being in Cait Fian’s warm comfortable room and of drinking Cait Fian’s really excellent wine, his mind had flown ahead, and he was on the Plain of the Fál, preparing to sweep Cormac’s armies down to the finest victory ever known in Ireland’s history.
Cait Fian said in his soft cosy voice, “And so the splendid Horses and the beautiful Deer will come galloping down the hill to the west boundary, Flynn? Ah, yes of course the west boundary. Hoofs and teeths and all manner of noise and of course creating a very good diversion. Then what?”
“Then,” said Flynn, his eyes alight, “then the Eagles and the Swans swoop on to the battlements, and then we go in through the East Gate.”
“Oh!” said Cait Fian. “Dear me, yes, how very astute. The East Gate is never properly sentried.” He rearranged himself, curling his feet up neatly. “Do we see any flaws, any of us?”
They all thought about it carefully, and Sean, who was trying to listen, dropped The Conjoining of Men with Beasts, and made everyone jump.
At length, Conaire said cautiously, “Flynn, that’s a very good plan.”
“Simple enough to work,” said Oscar, smiling at Flynn.
“Will we trust the Wolves to be quiet?” demanded CuChulainn.
Midir said, “But we’ll have Cormac with us by then.”
Everyone said, “Oh yes, of course,” and began to study the map again, and to listen to Flynn who was by now charting the journey they would make to the Plain.
Etain said loudly, “I hope we will have Cormac with us,” and Conaire at once wanted to know what she meant.
“Has it not occurred to you,” said Etain, sitting back in her chair, quite as graceful in her own way as their host, “that we’ve decided to summon an army, and we’ve mapped out a battle plan under Flynn’s guidance, and worked out how to depose Eochaid Bres, and restore Cormac, but we haven’t actually got Cormac. We don’t even know where he is.”
“He might be safe somewhere,” said Conaire hopefully.
“But he might be a prisoner,” said Midir. “We are so close to Muileann and the Miller.”
“He might be dead,” said CuChulainn, and at once looked horrified.
“I’m sure I should have heard if he was,” said Cait Fian. “These things do get about out here, you know. People gossip so.” But he sounded just a little doubtful.
Conaire stood up and walked to the window and back. “Listen,” he said, striking his fist on the table. “If Cormac were dead, then surely it would be up to us to avenge his death. Yes?”
“Yes! Yes!” cried several voices.
“And the best way to do that, is to give the usurper his just deserts,” said Conaire.
“Quite right!” shouted CuChulainn.
“Absolutely!” said Midir.
Conaire said, “If Cormac is dead, no one will mourn him more deeply than I will. You all know that.” He looked at them with his golden eagle’s eyes sternly, and they all nodded.
CuChulainn said rather emotionally, “Oh he can’t be dead. Let’s not think about it.”
“If he is dead,” said Conaire in a hard voice, “the least we can do for his memory is to restore his throne to the rightful heir. It’s what he would want. Depose the usurper and his jackals and bring Tara back to glory! I say we remove Eochaid Bres and Bricriu no matter what!”
“Hear hear!” cried several voices excitedly, and CuChulainn thumped the table in delight: “By Dagda, he’s in the right of it!” he cried. “To war and the sooner the better! Death to all pretenders!”
“Death to all pretenders!” shouted his listeners eagerly, and Conaire grabbed his glass of wine and raised it challengingly.
“To Scáthach with them!” cried Midir.
“Remove them!” broke in Oscar.
“Send them to the Miller’s cages!” shouted the twins.
“Feed them to Morrigan!” put in CuChulainn.
“But,” said Flynn, “who are you going to put in Eochaid Bres’s place if Cormac is dead?”
There was a rather appalled silence. Then Etain said in a practical voice, “Who’s next in the succession?”
Cait Fian at once said, “Don’t anybody look at me!”
“You’re his cousin,” said Midir.
“You’re a Prince of Ireland,” added Oscar.
“And you’d make a good job of it,” suggested CuChulainn hopefully.
“But I don’t want the throne,” said Cait Fian horrified. “No, no, this won’t do at all. See now, my grandfather and Cormac’s were only second cousins. There must be a nearer heir. Who was the old man’s first cousin?”
“Ailill of the Eagles, wasn’t it?” said Oscar. “Then Conaire —”
“Oh no!” said Conaire, quite as appalled as Cait Fian. “No, you can’t bring my family into this at all. It’s the old lineage we want. Look now, if we go back to Cormac’s grandmother —”
“But you can’t go through the female line,” said CuChulainn.
“Why not?” said Etain.
“We never have,” said CuChulainn.
Etain, a martial glint in her eyes, said, “What about Dierdriu?”
CuChulainn said, “Oh. Oh yes.”
Flynn started to explain to Oscar about the Lethe Salic law he’d read about, and Sean, who was getting interested again, came over to listen.
Conaire and Cait Fian were arguing over the precise degree of relationship between their grandfathers — “First cousins,” said Conaire, but “Second,” said Cait Fian. “And very likely even third.” Midir was sketching out a genealogical tree on the back of the Muileann map, helped by CuChulainn. Neither of them heard the door swing open, but without warning, a cool, amused voice suddenly said, “Fighting over my Throne before I’m dead, gentlemen?” and they turned at once.
Conaire cried, “Your Majesty! Cormac!” and every person in the room fell to his knees; each of them placed his right hand on his heart in the symbolic ancient Oath of Allegiance which every High King of Ireland may command, but which none has never compelled.
Flynn, on his knees with the rest of them, saw the pure and undiluted joy in all their faces, and saw, as well, something he could only afterwards describe as an immense faith. It was as if they were all saying: he is with us: now everything will be all right. It was the most extraordinary demonstration of pure unswerving trust he had ever witnessed.
And then Flynn saw who stood just behind Cormac, and a tremendous happiness welled up inside him.
*
That first sight of Joanna, travel-stained and dishevelled, her eyes smudged with tiredness, affected the others remarkably. Where there had been delight and instant obedience at the sight of Cormac, now there was something that was very nearly awe at the sight of Joanna. They fell silent as she walked into the room, and from where he stood, Conaire said softly, and in a voice of extreme reverence, “Dierdriu.”
Oscar who was next to Conaire, said in a whisper, “The Portrait on the Rock. The High Queen returned.”
Flynn, staring, quite suddenly saw not Joanna, his Joanna that he knew from Tugaim, but someone quite different.
Someone whose features were indeed carved into the ancient Rock deep beneath the Bright Palace, and in whose eyes shone a light that he had never seen anywhere in anyone’s eyes before, and in whose face was such strength and beauty and humour, that for a moment his sight misted over.
The High Queen returned and the head of the Fiana with her again … the two worlds, past and future fusing at last …
He turned to look at the others, and saw such deep and unswerving love in their expressions, and such delight and gratitude, for the first time, he understood fully and completely. Joanna was in truth the High Queen of Tara returned, and her people would follow her to the ends of the world …
“I don’t understand any of it,” said Flynn, facing his love at last in the bedchamber he had earlier washed in.
“I don’t think any of us understand it,” said Joanna, watching him, and thinking: how could I have forgotten? How could I have forgotten the way his eyes slant up at the corners when he smiles, or the way his hair falls over his forehead when he talks, or the way his mouth curves … Seduced by a half-wolf and an ancient enchantment? Not quite. Perhaps I was not altogether to blame.
“We have not much time.”
“My dear love,” said Flynn, unable to take his eyes from her. And then, hungrily, “Oh Joanna, come here —”
His mouth tasted as she remembered it, and his body was hard and firm and right. She thought: this is what was meant. This is who I am meant for. Even so …
“Flynn, you must not. Not yet.” She traced the lines of his face with her fingers. “It would be cruel of me to desert Cormac until he is back at Tara. I cannot do it — and he would know.”
Flynn said slowly, “The Samhailt —”
“Yes, you understand,” said Joanna thankfully. “And I owe him so much. My life and my sanity — oh there is so much. I must stay until he has regained the throne.”
“The High Queen returned,” said Flynn.
“It is what they believe. And you cannot know how courageous he has been … Flynn I must ride against Eochaid Bres with him.” Her hand came out and Flynn took it. “But I think you must be there as well.”
Dierdriu, the first High Queen of all Ireland, with Finn of the Fiana at her side …
They looked at one another, and then Joanna tilted her head, listening.
“Can you hear it?” she said softly, and Flynn heard — felt — the low sensual beckoning note begin to thrum through the palace.
“What is it?”
“The Mindsong. The Samhailt. They are calling up the Beasts of the Bloodline.”
Flynn moved to the window. “Can we watch?”
“Yes I think so. I saw it at Scáthach, when Cormac called up the Wolves. It is rather awesome and a bit frightening, but it’s safe enough up here.”
They stood hand in hand at the window and watched as Conaire and Oscar and CuChulainn and the twins stood motionless, heads lifted a little, eyes half closed. Cormac stood a little way off, watching.
“He will not go any nearer,” said Joanna in a whisper. “To do so might distract them.”
The low humming strengthened, and Joanna felt again the urge she had felt at Scáthach; to run helter-skelter though the forests and the fields and the hills in pursuit of the call, to answer the command that was being sent out, to follow the beckoning until you could follow it no more. Her blood stirred and her senses tingled, and she felt Flynn’s hand tighten in hers and knew that he felt it also and understood. It suddenly seemed tremendously and achingly right that she and Flynn should stand together like this, hand-locked, listening to this ancient summoning, and wave upon wave of happiness flooded her body. She thought that it was too wonderful a feeling to be broken by words, and she hoped — and then was sure — that Flynn would know this, and would remain silent.
Flynn could not have spoken, even if he had not sensed Joanna’s deep need for silence. His entire body and mind and every sense he possessed was concentrated on the Mindsong; he thought, as he had thought that night on the Plain, inside the Wicker Man: I know this. I have heard this before. Once I stood on a high hilltop with someone close by, and heard the first ever Mindsong. I was there when the first people of the Bloodline sent out their call to the Beasts. A new enchantment, for it had only just been created. I heard it then and I am hearing it again, and it is one of the strongest and strangest enchantments ever known to the World of Men.
The Beasts were streaming down the mountainside now, the Chariot Horses and the Wild Deer, sleek and powerful, fleet of foot and beautiful to watch. The air was dark with the immense and cruelly beautiful Eagles and the White Swans, their wings beating on the night sky until the whole countryside was filled with the sound. The mountain became a blur of gold and white, feathers and fur and hoofs and wings, and Joanna and Flynn watched until night fell and they could see no more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Of all the great battles of Ancient Ireland, none holds greater pride of place than the famous Battle of the Wolfking. It is that battle that the poets have written of down the ages, and that the ballad-makers have sung of, and the storytellers recounted over and over. It is of that battle that the great scholar, Amairgen the Blind, speaks in the beautiful stirring “Battle of the Wolf.”
It was the first battle where beasts and humans and princes and servants joined together to drive back the might of the dreadful army raised by Bricriu to defend Eochaid Bres, and by Macha and Scald-Crow to avenge their dead sister, and for that reason, it is sometimes known as the People’s Battle. Among the different tribes and different people who took part in it, each has their own tale to tell, and these have been woven into the many strands of folklore which make up Ireland’s rich heritage.
The people of Cormacston — once the nameless Walled City of the Erl-King — feel that it is especially their battle, “For,” they were to say, “had we not joined with the King after he slew the Gentleman, his armies would not have been so strong.” And they tell how it was the men of their city who rode behind the King in the famous charge on the Palace of Tara.
The Cruithin know this to be somewhat exaggerated, but they let it lie; as Gormgall, in rather garrulous old age was to say, it did no one any harm, and the poor souls of Cormacston had had little enough pleasure in their lives. And the Cruithin consoled themselves that it was their people who had really won the day; without their knowledge of the terrain and without their stolid solid fighting, the outcome might well have been different.
Conaire and the people of the Bloodline did not in the least mind the Cruithin thinking this; as Oscar pointed out, the Cruithin were loyal and staunch, and they had served Cormac’s family faithfully and well. Let them have their share of the glory. But of course, without the Beasts, without the Eagles and the Chariot Horses and the Wild Deer and the twins’ White Swans and the Panthers of Gallan, Cormac’s army would have been on the thinnish side. Anyone who had fought in the battle — and it was remarkable the people who later tried to claim that they had been here — would have seen how the Beasts had swung the tide and ensured the victory.
Brian Muldooney, respectable citizen and sometime pig farmer, would not have dreamed of contradicting one of these beliefs; you did not contradict other people because it was extremely discourteous. But people of sense knew that it was sometimes the very smallest things that could sweep an army to victory, and it was a solid fact that if Muldooney had not gone plunging across the Plain in pursuit of his horse, from which he had become temporarily parted, then the final sweeping charge might have taken a slightly different route, and the outcome would probably have been startlingly different. The human factor, there was the thing. The Muldooneys were very big on the human factor. It would not, however, do to say this aloud, or not very often anyway.
*
They had reached the Plain of the Fál as dawn was lightening the skies, and Flynn had stood a little apart, surveying the terrain, seeing how the Plain’s height gave them the advantage, seeing as well how they might encircle Tara with their armies.
The entire landscape was as familiar to him as if he had lived in it for years, and the sense of being on his own ground again was piercingly sweet.
At his side, Amairgen said gently, “But of course it is familiar. You are Finn of the Fiana again, and you are aching to lead them all against the enemies of Ireland.”
“Am I?” said Flynn, who did not really doubt this, but who found it just the smallest bit frightening now and again.
“You know it,” said Amairgen, and smiled, and Portan who was never far from Amairgen’s side, smiled as well, because it was so wonderful to see Flynn like this, weari
ng the Wolfking’s colours and taking command of the armies as simply and.as easily as if — “As if he has never been away,” said Amairgen afterwards, and Portan said, “Yes. Just that.” And thought that Flynn would surely win this battle, and there would be a tremendous victory and they would all of them be safely inside the Bright Palace before nightfall.
When Amairgen said, “Are you afraid of what is ahead?” Portan at once said, “Oh no, for Flynn cannot fail. Joanna cannot fail.” And looked to where Joanna was standing with Cormac, dressed in dark breeches and a cambric shirt and leather boots, with the Nightcloak slung lightly about her shoulders.
Portan had been a little shy of Joanna, because surely any lady whom Flynn loved so very much must be extraordinary. Joanna would be lovely and kind of course, Portan had always known that, but would she perhaps be unapproachable? Portan, listening round-eyed to the stories of Dierdriu, and the High Queen’s return, and of how Joanna was in some inexplicable way Dierdriu reborn, had thought that it might be difficult to meet Joanna.
“She is — very lovely,” said Oscar when Portan asked what Joanna was like.
“Strong and gentle and intelligent,” said Conaire.
“A leader,” said CuChulainn, who had been very pleased to discover Joanna, and who had in fact enjoyed a long talk with her about some of the old battles. “Well read in our history,” he added.
The twins said that she was fun: “If there is amusement to be found in a situation, she will find it,” said Etain.
Portan, putting all of this together, had tried to form some kind of image of Flynn’s Joanna, of the girl for whom they had all come so far, and for whose sake they had endured so much. And then, in the end, it had not been in the least bit difficult to meet her. Joanna had smiled and held out her hands, and said, “Oh Portan, Flynn has told me so much!” And she had taken Portan in her arms, and hugged her, and they had both cried together for happiness and a little for fear of the battle.
“And perhaps,” said Portan, “for relief. For we had both known so many dangers.”
And then it had struck them both that it was slightly absurd to be crying when there was so much to be pleased about, and they had laughed, and Joanna had produced her handkerchief to mop up with, and they had talked together and liked one another very much, and it had all been easy and warm and natural. And, “I wish there was time to know you better,” Joanna had said.