But secretly he was delighted. The horses would be useful for the rest of their journey to the coast, where they could be exchanged for passage to Alba. The cloaks would be handsome gifts for the court of Malcolm the Second.
As for the ring …
He took it to Cumara. “Have you seen this before?” he asked Mac Liag’s son.
“I have. The last time I saw it, it was on the hand of the Ard Ri … the former Ard Ri, that is.”
Donough nodded. “I thought so. How did Malachi get it?”
“He is an honorable man, whatever his faults,” Cumara replied. “If you’re thinking he may have stolen it from Brian’s dead hand I’d say you are mistaken. Your father probably gave it to him before the battle at Clontarf. Perhaps they exchanged rings as a pledge of alliance.”
“And now he has sent it to me. What am I to read into this, Cumara?”
“Whatever you wish, I suppose. My mind is not the sort that interprets the games chieftains play.”
Donough smiled thinly. “Mine is.”
He slipped the ring on the forefinger of his left hand, leaving the right hand unencumbered for the sword. It fitted perfectly.
After the Meathmen had departed with the hostages, Donough held a little celebration in the camp beyond Ros Cre. His men threw more sticks on the fire than necessary and one played a pipe, while another drummed the bodhran.
Donough sat with his back against an oak tree, listening. His seat was a pile of autumn leaves; his cup held clear water from a nearby spring. No poet entertained him, no servants shuttled to and fro carrying heaped platters, but he was content. Almost content …
Cera …
Resolutely, he pushed the thought of her from his mind. Yet like the smell of woodsmoke she lingered at the edge of his consciousness, sweet, haunting …
No!
Standing up abruptly, Donough brushed himself off like a man ridding himself of cobwebs. He caught his mother watching him.
“What’s that ring on your finger?”
“Just a ring.”
“Let me see,” she demanded imperiously.
He held out his hand for her perusal. Gormlaith’s eyes glittered. “This was your father’s.”
“It was.”
“How did you come by it?”
His reply was studiedly careless. “He wanted me to have it. It’s part of my inheritance.”
Gormlaith raised her eyebrows.
When they were preparing to break camp and move on toward the coast and Alba, Cumara came to Donough’s tent. His serious face was more serious than usual.
“Since you have your father’s ring, I think you should have this too,” he said, holding out a leather bag. “I brought it away with me from home, I did not think it wise to leave it there unattended.”
For a moment Donough’s heart leaped into his throat. The sword! The sword after all!
Then he realized the bag was the wrong size and shape. Strangely, however, his hands trembled as he reached for it.
“Your father left it with mine,” explained Cumara, “before he marched away toward Dublin. My father believed he knew what fate would befall him, and was making his preparations. Like telling you of your inheritance.”
Slowly, reverently, Donough reached into the bag and drew out a small bardic harp.
The instrument possessed a curved forepillar with a T-formation thickening, a relatively shallow soundbox, and an elegantly curved neck. Abstract Celtic and zoomorphic Scandinavian motifs were carved together into the polished willow wood. A ribbon of finest gold wire traced the curve of the neck, the pins were of silver, and the nine brass strings, though slightly tarnished, were sound.
The two men gazed at the harp in admiration. At last Cumara said, “Many’s the time I’ve seen your father sitting in our house with this on his lap. He preferred the slow airs to the sprightly ones, and kept his eyes closed when he played; it was as if no one else was there, only himself and the harp. I thought it a strange thing for a warrior to do.”
Donough said nothing. But that night, their last night before setting out once more, he lay wrapped in his cloak with the ring on his hand and the harp beside him. From time to time he reached out and gently stroked the strings. Although he lacked the long fingernails necessary for playing the harp properly, it rewarded him with a ripple of sweet, clear sound that was almost bell-like.
“How long would it take to learn to play you?” he whispered.
As they rode eastward the next morning, he moved his horse close to Fergal’s. “Who do you suppose has my father’s sword?”
“I have no idea.”
“My mother has a theory; she doesn’t believe it was put in his tomb in Armagh.”
Fergal squinted between the pricked ears of his horse, assessing the road ahead. “She’s probably right. King Brian’s famous sword that knew how to win wars would be too much of a temptation.”
“Who would take it? Can you guess?”
“I cannot, but I would say any of the warriors might have done it. Or even Malachi Mor himself. There was magic in that sword.”
“Magic.” Donough’s eyes were briefly dreamy.
As he rode, he imagined the great sword in its scabbard, belted around his waist. He could almost feel its weight against his thigh. The blade was so long only a very tall man could wield it, and the heavy, counterbalancing hilt was designed for huge hands.
Huge hands. Donough looked at his own.
They were big enough.
The weather grew cold and bitter, and Donough began forcing the pace. Once winter set in it would be hard to persuade a shipowner to transport his retinue across the Irish Sea. Even the Vikings abandoned the northern seas during the season of storms.
Twice more they were attacked by outlaws, but in both instances, and with increasing anger, Donough repelled them.
When they neared Dublin they swung north, made a wide circle around Sitric’s stronghold, and angled toward the coast. Their route took them past a tiny chapel dedicated to Saint Mobhi, where they stopped long enough to drink from the saint’s holy well. The water was curiously bitter, yet left a sweet aftertaste on the tongue.
For some reason, that taste reminded Donough of Cera.
They reached the tiny fishing village of Skerries shortly before sunset on an evening when sky and sea and air were all a cold, stony blue. Beyond the curving arm of a sandy beach, several islands were visible, the nearest only a short distance away. A collection of currachs and coracles was beached on the strand, upended so they resembled the black carapaces of giant beetles entangled in a web of drying fishing-nets.
“We shall make camp outside the village,” Donough decided, “and in the morning we’ll inquire about passage to Alba. I want to take Fergal and Cumara with me, and you, Ronan, with four of your best men. And my mother, of course,” he added unenthusiastically. “The rest of you can return to Thomond with my thanks.”
His mother had surprisingly little to say. She stood in her cart staring at the expanse of open water with an unreadable expression.
Arranging transportation to Alba took several days, for none of the little fishing boats was capable of carrying a large party such a distance, even if their owners had been willing to undertake the journey with winter coming on. But at last a local man whose wife’s brother had married the daughter of a Hiberno-Dane undertook a complicated negotiation on Donough’s behalf, and succeeded in hiring a battered Viking longship, replete with dragon-headed mast.
The vessel would be crewed by Danes and captained by the owner, a Dane called Ragnald, whose ship would otherwise be idle in the offseason. He considered a dozen horses an unexpected windfall and accepted them gladly to pay the fare, though when he realized his passengers would include a red-haired woman he upped the price.
“Red-haired women at sea are terrible bad luck,” the Dane insisted.
When the time came for boarding, Donough’s escort, none of whom had ever made a sea voyage before, stood aside to
a man.
“You first,” Fergal told him cheerfully.
Are you with me? Donough silently asked the unseen presence that had impelled him this far.
No discernible response.
When he stepped into the boat, the others followed.
Donough was surprised by the feel of the boat. The wooden planking beneath his feet seemed unexpectedly thin, so that he was aware of the sea below as if it were a living creature. The water moved, heaved, had a mind of its own, and he was about to ride on its back with only a timber shell to protect him from its whims and vagaries; its savagery.
But this is more than my father ever did, he reminded himself. Then, to that unseen presence, he added, We take a great leap now.
Chapter Thirty-seven
WRITING IN THE ANNALS OF KILL DALUA AT THE END OF THE YEAR, Declan recorded, “The Age of Christ, 1017. The third year of the second reign of Malachi Mor. In this year died a number of abbots, and a number of princes were slain, often by their own kinsmen. The son of the King of Leinster was blinded through treachery by Sitric of Dublin, and his brother likewise murdered. Malachi undertook predatory excursions into various kingdoms and many men were killed, including his son Congalach and his chief brehon. Teigue, King of Munster, undertook the rebuilding of Kill Dalua, but a great wind arose off the lake and three times stripped the roof from the chapel.”
To supervise the reconstruction, Cathal Mac Maine left Holy Island and, with half a dozen monks, resettled himself rather uncomfortably in the damaged monastery. He quickly grew suspicious that Teigue’s men were retaining the best building materials for Kincora while providing flawed stone and green timber for repairs to Kill Dalua. Swathed in righteous indignation, he set off to the fort to complain. None of his monks were asked to accompany him; he did not want them to witness their abbot in a display of temper.
As he approached the main gateway, Cathal met a party of four headed in the same direction, three young men and a barefoot woman who was swathed in a hooded cloak. The leader was a freckled, angular man with red hair and a strangely familiar face, but Cathal could not identify him until he noticed the ornament the man wore on a chain around his neck. It was a bronze pendant of great antiquity and vaguely Gaulish style; a triskele, emblem of druidry.
“What are you doing here!” the abbot challenged, extending his blackthorn walking stick to bar their way.
“Our father sent us to help repair Kincora,” Padraic’s eldest son replied. “He is of the Dal Cais; it is our responsibility.”
“We don’t need your help. We have plenty of Christians to do the work, God-fearing men who will not leave pagan charms hidden under lintels.”
Torccan’s eyes flashed but he said evenly, “We merely seek to be useful. My brothers and I are able carpenters, and our sister can mix limewash and trim thatch. We do all the work on our father’s holding; we can turn our hands to anything.”
“Be that as it may, we have no need of you! Go back where you came from or … or …” Cathal choked on outrage. To regain his composure he lowered the walking stick and reached for the cross he always wore.
The moment his fingers closed on the holy symbol, words seemed to flow into his mouth. “ … Unless you are willing to renounce your idolatry of sun and tree and embrace the true faith?”
No sooner did he utter the words than the abbot was suffused with a warm glow. His imagination leaped ahead to the spiritual rapture of conversion: impassioned prayer, patriarchal instruction, the opportunity to emulate sainted Patrick and bring the light of Christ’s message to the benighted. God worked in mysterious ways. Perhaps the destruction wrought upon Kill Dalua and Kincora had been for the express purpose of drawing Thomond’s remaining pagans out of the hills and delivering them to Cathal’s ministry.
But Torccan was shaking his head. “We are not interested. You have your beliefs; we have ours. They have nothing to do with rebuilding Kincora.”
I must keep my patience with these people, Cathal warned himself. An injudicious remark now might destroy a God-sent opportunity. “I remember your father as a Christian. Surely he would not deny his children the benefits of faith?”
Onchu, who had fierce blue eyes and a wedge-shaped jaw, spoke up. “We have faith, the Old Faith,” he informed the abbot. “And we have knowledge, the true knowledge that comes from earth and sky and not from the minds of men no better than ourselves.”
Druid rantings! thought Cathal, refusing to be insulted. He kept a firm hold on his cross. But at that moment he heard the wind moan on the slope of Crag Liath, and in spite of himself cast a superstitious glance in the direction of the mountain.
Following his glance, the youngest brother spoke. “You hear the voice of the gods,” said Daman. “The old gods speak to us through the elements in language we understand; we need no Church to translate for us.”
Daman was shorter than his brothers, thickset and stolid in appearance, but his face was stamped with an indestructible innocence. Be gentle with this one, Cathal cautioned himself. Be persuasive. Find common ground upon which to build, as the saints did in their first contacts with the pagans of Ireland.
“In the words of the blessed Patrick for whom your own father was named,” Cathal said in his kindest tones, “our God is the God of all the people and also of the sun and the moon and the stars, of the high mountains and the deep valleys.”
Daman blinked like a sleepy ox. “Then you and I worship the same gods already.”
Cathal inhaled sharply. “Not gods. God. One God! He has one Son who is coeternal with Him, and together with the Holy Spirit they …”
“I thought you said one god,” remarked Torccan, shifting weight from one hip to the other and folding his arms. “Now you’re talking about three.”
“Three in One, the Trinity. It is a great mystery that will be clarified when …”
“Mysteries are not meant to be clarified,” a smiling Torccan said as if he was instructing a child. “Mysteries are necessary to remind us that there are things beyond our understanding and to keep us from being arrogant; they encourage the ecstasy of worship. We worship life. We enjoy everything it brings us, from the warmth of the sun to the refreshment of the rain. We do not know the source of either, but we hold them both holy and are enraptured by them.
“You Christ-men gain power by channeling man’s inborn need to worship through yourselves as sole interpreters of the spirits. You erect buildings and claim they house your god—as if a god could be contained in a building. But are you not discouraging people from learning to hear the voices of the Otherworld for themselves? And I wonder—do they find as much joy in your roofed rituals as we do in the singing of the grass?”
Cathal started to voice a protest, but Torccan went on relentlessly. “I must tell you, we find your custom of celebrating the torture of your god and then eating him repellent. But if such practices make you feel better, that is your business—provided you do not try to force them on others. As for us, we neither need nor want your services. We only want to offer assistance to Prince Teigue.”
The words of the despised pagan demonstrated such misguided intelligence and reasoning ability that Cathal was severely tempted to abandon his Christian forbearance and hit Torccan in the mouth.
But at that moment the woman in the cloak stepped forward. Pushing back her hood to reveal her face, Cera inquired sweetly, “Please, can you tell me if Prince Donough postponed his trip to Alba to help rebuild Kincora?”
Cathal was disconcerted. “What business is that of yours? What possible … ah … did I not see you at his wedding?”
When Cera lowered her eyes her thick lashes swept her cheeks. “We were outside. We were not allowed in.”
A horrified Cathal was hastily fitting pieces together in his mind. “And his young wife died not long thereafter. You were angry at being excluded, so you put a curse on her. A pagan curse!” His face suffused with blood. “I demand you leave this place now and never return!”
; Onchu said in a good-natured drawl, “I thought you wanted us to convert to Christianity.”
Suddenly Cathal understood everything. These were demons sent to torment him. There had never been any hope of conversion; indeed, they were probably responsible for the wind that kept tearing the new roof off the chapel. They outnumbered him but he was not afraid. He would not let himself be afraid. He was Dal Cais, born to be a warrior. And God was with him.
They might tear and rend his body but they could not harm his Christian soul!
Shouting, “Begone, demons!” the Abbot of Kill Dalua brandished his walking stick like a spear and crouched in anticipation of their attack.
The four stared at him but made no move.
When the tension became unbearable, Cathal dropped to his knees and bent his head in prayer, beseeching God to be with him.
Torccan exchanged glances with the others, then with no word passing between them, the four edged away from the man who knelt like Saul on the road to Damascus.
Cathal did not hear them go, for his heart was pounding too loudly in his breast. To the best of his knowledge no Christian had yet died at druid hands in Ireland; perhaps this was a special honor God had reserved for him. He waited, alternately cold with terror and hot with exultation. Time passed. A great wind soughed along the roadway, ruffling the trees on either side and lifting the hair at the edge of Cathal’s tonsure.
He opened his eyes.
He was alone.
They followed the winding pathway up the shoulder of Crag Liath. Torccan led the way. As he shouldered through holly and hazel and hawthorn he could feel the summer-life draining from them, flowing back into the earth which would keep it safe until the next leaf-spring. There was peace on the mountain, the peace of time measured in seasons.
Over his shoulder he said, “It would be a mistake for us to go to Kincora now; it would only cause trouble.”
“It would,” Onchu agreed. “The abbot hates us.”
Daman chuckled. “We did nothing to encourage him to like us.” In a more sober voice he added, “We don’t try to convert Christians, so why does the abbot want to convert us?”
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