But Emer did not cry.
Murcha was so weary he could hardly lift his arms to strike another blow, but he could not stop fighting until the last of the enemy surrendered or was dead. He saw yet another foreign banner in the distance and hurried towards it, sword in hand.
In the tent in Tomar’s Wood, Brian had waited through the long day for each bit of news from the battle. Again and again he sent Laiten to observe and report. ‘Can you still see my son’s standard?’ the High King would ask eagerly.
‘I can,’ came the answer.
‘Then all is well.’
But soon Brian would ask again, ‘Can you still see my son’s standard?’
‘I can. The fighting is so heavy it sounds as if a huge crowd is cutting down the forest with axes. But there is the banner of Murcha mac Brian, and it is moving forwards.’
Brian managed a faint smile.
The third time he asked the question was late in the day. Twilight, blue and shadowed, was creeping through Tomar’s Wood. The sounds of battle had grown fainter, for fewer men were alive to fight. The High King’s forces were driving the enemy ahead of them into the sea.
The tide, which had been full at sunrise, was full again at sunset. The foreigners were drowning in the water that had carried them to Ireland.
‘Where is Murcha’s banner now?’ Brian called to Laiten, who had climbed a tree to have a better view.
‘I see it … there … I … it is fallen.’
Brian stopped breathing. ‘Fallen?’
‘The Prince Murcha has fallen also,’ Laiten said sorrowfully. ‘He does not rise.’
Brian stood at the entrance to his tent, listening to the fading sounds of battle. The last battle sounds I shall ever hear, he thought. And the enemy is defeated.
‘Is my son dead?’ he forced himself to ask Laiten. ‘Go and see.’ But he did not have to wait for the answer. He knew it in his heart. Aval had told him.
Brian Boru had taken many blows in his long life. He took this as he had taken the others, standing.
His enemies were crushed. They had swum against the tide, they had attacked a mighty oak with their puny fists. They had flung themselves against a will stronger than their own, and had been broken. Now they lay bloody and uncaring on the battlefield, or floated on the swelling tide, their dreams of plunder forgotten.
But they had not died alone. Though every foreign leader, except Brodir of Man, had been killed in the day’s fighting, many Irish princes were also dead. In slaying Maelmora of Leinster, Conaing the Dalcassian had lost his life.
Murcha, son and Tanist of Brian Boru, the man trained to preserve Brian’s vision of kingship, had died at the very close of battle.
And in the bloody waters of the Weir of Clontarf, with his fingers still tangled in the yellow hair of the Viking he had killed there, young Turlough mac Murcha floated with his dead face turned towards the sky.
A kind fate spared Brian this final heartbreak.
As he stood in the twilight, Brodir of Man was running wildly through Tomar’s Wood, trying to hide from pursuing Dalcassians. He was the last invading warlord left alive.
Soon Brodir, mad with fear, would stumble across a leather tent and a tall, white-haired old man who still had his sword.
Neither would live to see the first star.
But Brian did not know this as he stood listening to the last sounds of battle. He knew only that Murcha was dead, and that his army had won a mighty victory. Never again would the Vikings try to take Ireland by force. The plunderers were dead. The survivors would become ‘the Irish’.
Already, Brian could hear his men beginning to celebrate. Down by the shore, the army of the High King was chanting its victory cry. The voices of the Gael mingled with those of Brian’s loyal Danes, rising to make one voice, one clear cry of triumph.
‘Boru! BORU! BORU!’
Listening, Brian Boru smiled through his tears.
About the Author
MORGAN LLYWELYN
For Brian Boru
and
the children of Ireland
Copyright
This eBook edition first published 2012 by The O’Brien Press Ltd,
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First published 1990
eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–469–7
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Llywelyn, Morgan
Brian Boru
1. Ireland. Boru, Brian ca 941-1014
I. Title
941.501092
The O’Brien Press receives assistance from
Editing, typesetting, layout, design: The O’Brien Press Ltd
Brian Boru Page 15