“What gives you the right to offer your masters a plan of your own making,” he croaked, having no doubt decided that Morgan was more of an enemy to him than the Mercians. Perhaps he was. Morgan had already stolen his promised bride and had destroyed his long-time adviser and lover, Glivas. Perhaps the nobleman was not certain of those facts with the conscious part of his mind, but Morgan guessed that a nagging inner voice was trying to inform him.
Morgan kept quiet, knowing that he could now say nothing that would halt the tirade. He was careful to keep his face expressionless, allowing nothing of his feelings to show on the surface. Finally Cunneda sputtered to a stop and turned in exasperation to Connach.
“We shall attack the wall at its lowest point and rush the boat in force.” With a sweep of his hand, he committed the small force of guerrillas to their certain deaths and failure.
“There will be many casualties, of course, but I think we should get close enough for that Cairenn woman to drop a grenade or two into the boat. Those of us who survive….”
Morgan thought that the prince surely considered himself in the survivor category.
“...Might be able to find our way back out.” A satisfied smile settled upon face as he glanced directly at Morgan.
“Martin!” Connach’s voice was sharp and held more than an edge of contempt. “How much battle experience have you had before today? How much have I had? We will both listen to Morgan’s idea.”
“I will not....”
“Martin, shut up!” Connach’s words cracked like a pistol shot, and Cunneda turned his head as if stunned. When he turned again to face Morgan, his face held a dark promise in the cold set of his eyes, but he remarkably held his tongue.
Before he spoke, Morgan looked behind him, down the hill where Aiofe/Brigid and the others waited. For a brief moment, the possessed Brigid smiled at him and waved. He wondered if his feelings for her had altered his capacity to fight or to plan the destruction of their common enemies. No, he reasoned. If she stood for anything it was as a symbol of the worth of all free people. That could not weaken his ability to fight; it could only strengthen his resolve. He would not allow the Mercian maggots to further defile the body of the shrunken Celtic Empire while she remained to inspire him. He turned to the noblemen. Connach was leaning toward him, Cunneda, away. So be it, Morgan decided.
He picked up a twig and squatted. Then he traced rapidly on the ground, burrowing the earth, placing leaves, rocks and bits of wood about in a purposeful manner. When he was finished, he stood up. “This is going to be a two-pronged attack. One will be a feint, really, but a heavy one. To make it work, we’ll need one piece of equipment that we don’t yet have on hand.”
“Let us summon the butcher and tell him what we require,” Cunneda said when Morgan had finished. The nobleman had offered nothing during the unfolding of Morgan’s plan, and made no indication whether or not he approved.
For his part, Morgan was relieved, although he would have preferred open hatred to Cunneda’s occasional bursts of enigmatic rationality. Instead of becoming easier to understand, the prince was becoming more difficult.
Morgan signaled MacCumail.
“That’s a grand plan, the butcher said, beaming when he heard what Morgan outlined to him. “We’ll show them Vik bastards what war is about, my Lords! As for the item you requested, that’ll be easy. The road from the base has to go right through this section of the city. We’ll set up two ambush points: one just this side of that blind curve,” he pointed to a section of road, “and the other about twenty-five paces from that far bend and had where they’ll have to slow down for the curve. That should take care of anybody who might be foolish enough to head for the base.”
The stocky merchant again amazed Morgan with his apparent instincts for warfare. The ambush points were located precisely where he would have placed them. MacCumail, anxious to start blowing up his stationary targets, not to mention Mercian soldiers, hurried down slope to attend to details. He had just deployed his fighters when a high-sided steam car coughed its way toward their position from the direction of the air base. Three men rode in it, and behind, it towed an onager of medium-size. The driver was evidently in a hurry to reach the safety of the naval base, for the vehicle careened around one corner on three wheels, slewing the catapult onto the curbstones, nearly overturning it. The driver recovered clumsily and lost power for the climb up the steep, curving portion of road that lay ahead of him.
The man in the rear seat fell first. Morgan heard no shot, so he supposed that the young archer from Caerwent had exercised his considerable talent. Two simultaneous bursts from automatic weapons shattered the silence of the attack and dispatched the driver and front seat passenger before they had time to react to their companion’s death. The driverless car continued to grind slowly up the hill with a dead hand still clenched around the joystick control. One of the guerrillas raced alongside, pulled himself over the side, and brought the armored hearse to a jerking halt.
The Suevian driver was pushed over onto his companion’s body and the inexperienced replacement driver coaxed the machine behind a screening copse of trees.
There, the bodies were stripped of their uniforms. As usual, the ceremony of trophy taking proceeded. Morgan found that he could not watch. Although he was able to deal with death in combat, he could not stomach the mutilation of corpses, enemy or not. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“This is what any Celt dreams of, those who aspire to be warriors at least.” It was Connach. He was not smiling, but Morgan could see the light of excitement in his eyes as he watched the marksmen take their grisly prizes.
“It’s a funny thing, Kerry. All the time the priests kept our fighting instincts suppressed, you would never have suspected our true nature. But look at them. The blood lust is upon them, and it will be difficult to put back to rest. Perhaps the priests were right. Perhaps we are too vicious for our own good.
“But it is that viciousness we need now, Kerry, and I would not weaken it by denying them the honor of taking trophies for their hearths. The ones who have not earned trophies yet will fight all the harder to bring one home.”
Morgan swallowed hard. He understood Connach’s logic, but he could not halt the bizarre scenes that ran vividly in his mind.
Setting: the living quarters over a small Caerwent butcher shop. The large, all-purpose room is bright and airy-looking, due to the tasteful decorating talents of Mrs. Butcher.
The couches, chairs and dining table are Celtic Modern, while the large bed and accent pieces are chic Algonquin originals. Two bleeding beef carcasses are suspended from meat hooks behind the tartan-print sofa upon which Mrs. Butcher sits, cheating at Taro.
The doorbell rings. It plays “A-Hunting We Will Go.” Mrs. Butcher (rising): “Coming.” She flounces to the door, which is situated stage right. She opens the door, revealing Mr. Butcher, dressed in a tartan print set of fatigues, over which a blood-streaked apron is tied. He is draped with weapons and ammunition belts. He holds a dripping bag in his hand. It looks like an ordinary bowling bag. In fact, the shape of the ball can be plainly seen.
Mrs. Butcher: “You’re home early from the war tonight, Darling, aren’t you?
Mr. Butcher (grinning): “We run outta Mercians early this afternoon and gotta wait for a new shipment, tomorrow. (He places one arm around Mrs. Butcher’s waist and offers her the bag he holds in his other hand.)
Mr. Butcher: “I brung you something for the house.”
Mrs. Butcher: (clapping her hands together in glee, reaches out and pecks her husband on the cheek): “Oh, what is it this time? I always love it when you surprise me!” (She takes the bowling bag from Mr. Butcher and opens it, looking inside. Her face registers delight.)
Mr. Butcher: “Like it?”
Mrs. Butcher: “I looove it!” (She tips the bag upside down over the dining table. A severed head falls out of the bag and rolls until it comes to a rest on the neck stump. It has the face of Coel Chulainn.)
Mrs. Butcher: (taking up the head by the ears, turns to her husband): “Isn’t it darling? This will look wonderful in the niche behind the couch!” (As she speaks, she swings the head by the ears, spraying blood, which pours from the stump in great quantities.)
The Head (grinning and winking): “Put more swing into it! More swing!”
Mr. Butcher: “Listen to that, now, will you? Lord...Lord.”
“Lord? Lord?”
The butcher stood before Morgan. He was smiling broadly, swinging a darkly moist bag with his right hand. “What do you wish us to do now, Lord? We be finished with them Viks.”
“I can tell,” Morgan responded. For a moment he had difficulty in separating MacCumail from the butcher in his waking dream, but the moment passed swiftly. “Take some of your people and unhitch the onager. Hide it well then report back here.”
MacCumail looked from Morgan to the towed weapon and back. Disappointment was plain upon his face. “Why do you wish the catapult taken off, my Lord?” There was so much heavy dejection in his voice and face that Morgan had to fight to suppress a smile.
“We can’t use the damn thing, and it might turn over on us if we leave it hitched to the Vik machine.” Then he did allow a smile to form. “And it’s too big to fit inside your trophy sack, Sub-Leader.”
MacCumail smiled back then his eyes narrowed into piggish slits. “How many men would it take to operate this?” He edged over to the device and rubbed a hand on the polished wood base in a sensual manner.
Morgan remembered a platoon sergeant that had always stroked the stock of his M-16 like that before going on patrol. A weapon of that nature, any weapon of any nature is a powerful phallic symbol to some. The bigger the weapon, the more surrogate sexual potency it holds. And no men that he knew were more attracted to big weapons than the Islamic terrorists he had fought in another place and time. For Morgan, a weapon was only a tool to get a particular job accomplished, no more. MacCumail was of the other sort.
Morgan studied the ancient weapon for a moment before speaking. The onager processed an elevation wheel on the right-hand side. Traverse was handled by moving the tongue laterally. The catapult lever was lowered and tensioned by a simple ratcheted capstan.
“One warrior could handle that if there was no rush.” He narrowed his eyes. “What do you have in mind?” It was obvious that the butcher coveted the machine. Morgan’s eyes strayed to the trophy sack in the man’s hand and let his thoughts touch briefly on Coel Chulainn, wondering how many round trophies the giant Lothian had collected by now.
“My young archer would be almost worthless on a raid such as you propose, just armed as he is with the short bow. He tells me that he has not the strength for the Mercian crossbow, and he fears the Shadow-World weapons. Why could he not be left here, lord with this fine weapon? He just might add to the confusion inside the enemy stronghold, eh? That way he could do some good.” The butcher continued to caress the onager, and Morgan had to wonder whether MacCumail was getting aroused.
He had to admit the logic of MacCumail’s argument, however the boy might only succeed in getting himself killed if he took part in the diversion Morgan had planned and might end up being an actual hindrance in doing so. This might be an answer.
“Unhitch the catapult and have Arthur report to me. “
The butcher bobbed his head in delight. “Aye, Lord, right away!” He left Morgan at a near run, calling for the young Arthur.
“Looks as if you made a man very happy today,” Connach said, snorting with mirth.
“I wish the rest was going to be that easy, Ian.” He swung himself up into the bed of the Mercian vehicle. “Since I committed myself, I’d better see what kind of nice things the Viks feed onagers. Care to give me a hand?”
Wordlessly, Connach hoisted himself into the armored car and approached one of the two rope-banded chests that lay there.
“You committed us,” Connach corrected and quickly sliced through the ropes that banded one chest then prized the lid open with a squealing of tortured nails. “Jackpot, Kerry!”
Morgan whistled. Resting in wood shavings lay the smooth globular eggs that were designed to nest in the onager’s basket, familiar to both Morgan and Connach as the bombs dropped on Verulamium by Vik airships. The chest contained twenty-five of the deadly balls. The second held an identical cargo.
“This gives Mac’s boy some muscle,” Morgan said to Connach as he jumped to the ground. “Do you think he can deal with all that destructive power?”
“He’s a Celt,” the prince answered. “He’ll cope with it.”
The sun was high overhead before the butcher lined up his rag-tag band in a rough semblance of military order and prepared to take his leave of the highborn commandos.
“The Old Town Unaills be ready for action, your Lordships.” MacCumail made a surprisingly snappy Imperial salute, and then eased himself into a state that only vaguely resembled attention.
They were civilians to their cores, but Morgan was impressed with them, despite their unmilitary bearing. The square butcher, the big-boned Cairenn, Her broad-shouldered husband, the others, each member of MacCumail’s little army stood naked but for their weapons, boots and web gear. The man had bound their loins, the women, their breasts, from practicality and not from modesty. Before, Morgan had regarded them as a motley collection of hastily armed, scarcely trained innocents. Naked, they became unified by the battlefield dress of the ancient Gaels and under the protection of Taranis for whom nakedness was both armor and shield.
Then Brigid/Aiofe step from her position slightly behind Connach and approached the butcher, pressing her right palm against his. “I salute you, Sub-Leader of the Unialls and those who will follow you to do battle as our ancestors did.” She spoke in the voice and manner that Morgan recognized as belonging to Aiofe. “The gods will approve of your actions this day.”
Morgan knew that she spoke from a base of certain knowledge not usually available to most of the righteous, his own father included. What she did next, though, caught him off his guard.
“I too would fight as you,” she said as if discussing a menu she would like to try, and she proceeded to shrug out of her borrowed clothing and field gear. Then she refastened her crossed ammunition belts, leaving her proud breasts unbound in any other fashion.
The spirit that shared Brigid’s body had completed the healing of her physical self. Morgan could not discern a mark upon that body which only hours before, had been cruelly marked by Thorkell’s hired sadist. The memory made him take a harsh breath.
As if she had heard, the possessed girl turned and held Morgan with her dark, compelling eyes. She was such a contrast in hardness and softness that he ached inside.
“Ah, Lady Brigid, that was well done.” Cunneda had joined her, but Morgan noticed that he looked at her merely with approval and not with desire. “Ian, the Optio Patrick and I would join you, but we must, unfortunately, play the Mercian soon.”
The area in front of MacCumail’s band was getting crowded. Connach had moved forward, saluted the butcher and embraced Brigid in a brotherly fashion. “Lord Cunneda is right, little sister,” he boomed, hugging her.
Morgan wondered how no one could see the change in her except him. It was obvious that Brigid had more than been healed; she had been perfected, a fitting vessel to house a goddess or spirit, whichever she was. He knew Aiofe’s extra touch from first-hand experience. He, too, had been more than merely healed when she had noticed his wound. The aches and weariness that had threatened to overwhelm him had disappeared. No, it had much more than disappeared. It was as if he had grown younger, as if his cellular clock had been reset.
He examined the back of one hand and made a fist. The tiny lines that had once been etched upon the skin there, the first small signs of diminishing elasticity were gone. If he touched the space at the corners of his eyes, he might find that the “crow’s feet” carved by time and sun had softened into the “smile lines” of his yout
h. He did not touch them. He did not have to.
He knew he might look thirty now; but he felt twenty. He wondered what price Aiofe would demand.
Connach then turned “Brigid” so that they both faced MacCumail’s soldiers.
“To make this communion with our ancestors more perfect, you would need to dye your bodies blue and put some stiffening into your hair with horse dung and lime,” he said, laughing irreverently. “Taranis and our ancestors really loved lime and horseshit. It would certainly improve Sub-Leader MacCumail’s looks,” he said, winking at the butcher, getting a rumble of laughter from his troops.
Morgan looked at Brigid/Aiofe and felt his ring. Neither gave any reaction to Connach’s jibes. Perhaps the Celtic gods enjoyed a good joke now and then. He felt that his own Methodist one might not. He was still looking at her when she turned to face him.
“And you, Kerry?” She asked innocently. “Will you fight as did your own ancestors, shielded by Taranis and by the special grace of the Winged One?” She laid a particular emphasis upon the second deity.
It was not a question asked of one soldier by another. The sexual connotation was plain to Morgan. He did not wish to, but he was forced, to answer, color rushing to his cheeks. “I’m no Druid, my Lady,” he managed. “I’m just a lapsed Methodist, and we lapsed Methodists have a strong belief in the protection afforded by this thin tunic.” He smiled lamely, ashamed at demonstrating his prudery in front of the guerrillas.
“Ah,” she said in her altered voice. “But that armor has already been pierced.” She ran a cool finger through an arrow hole, lifting a portion of material away from his flesh. In that simple touch, he could feel an enormous power coursing through her body.
The Celtic Mirror Page 38