“It is,” Donough agreed somberly. “But it’s over. No one can bring back the dead, on your side or mine. Here’s what I propose, Sitric: Give Gormlaith a home for the rest of her life, and in return, I shall never take up arms against you or your people without first meeting you and making every effort to resolve our differences.”
“You’re as mad as she is. That isn’t the way things are done.”
“That’s how my father did them.”
A muscle jumped in Sitric’s jaw. “Your father. Yes. But he was …”
“Whatever he was, I mean to be. Have we an agreement or not?”
Sitric eyed Donough with a grudging respect. “You really think you’re going to be Ard Ri?”
“Answer my question.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me. Any time spent under the same roof with Emer and Gormlaith together is enough to make a man tear out his hair with both hands. You are requiring a great sacrifice on my part—in return for what?”
“In return for my solemn pledge that, when I am Ard Ri, you shall be undisputed king of the Dublin Danes, and the penalties exacted against you since Clontarf shall be rescinded.”
“What about Malachi Mor?”
“I cannot speak for Malachi Mor. As long as he is Ard Ri …” Donough deliberately left the sentence unfinished.
Sitric took another drink of ale. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. “You’re good! I give you that, you’re very good. I might almost hear your father talking. I suppose this means you will expect my support when you undertake to claim the high kingship?”
“It would be to your advantage,” Donough told him. “But it won’t make any substantial difference. I told you, I have Malcolm of Alba. And for that matter,” he added casually, “an alliance with the King of England.”
Sitric’s jaw dropped. “You what?”
At Kill Dalua, Brother Declan was continuing to record the litany of carnage and pillage sweeping the country. No longer was he concentrating on Viking depredations; he wrote of Irish princes renewing old battles for supremacy.
“Malachi Mor endeavors to control the violence with greater violence,” he entered in the annals, “but he is not successful. Flaherty, grandson of Eochaid, King of Ulster, has been blinded by Niall, son of Eochaid. The men of Brega have slain a chieftain of Mugorn. The Tanist of Delbhna was brutally murdered in his own home. Ruadri of the Nechach has been killed by a rival from Fernmai.”
“No one is safe in Ireland these days,” complained Cathal Mac Maine grimly. “The land is cursed.”
He knew the source of the curse. He reviewed his epistolary bombardment of his superiors, demanding extirpation of the druids.
Once Donough had come to an agreement with Sitric, he had a long and unpleasant conversation with Emer. He could not offer his half-sister the same inducements. Nothing would make her accept Gormlaith gladly. “And if my husband does, or says he does, you should not trust him,” she warned Donough.
“Och, I don’t trust him. But I understand him; he only respects strength. As long as I have sufficient strength, he will keep his word to me.”
“He didn’t keep the truce he made with our father,” Emer reminded her half-brother.
“He had Gormlaith at his shoulder, urging him on. It would take a stronger man than Sitric Silkbeard to resist Gormlaith at the height of her powers. But those powers are gone now, and it is my duty to do what I can to care for her. I ask you to do the same, in the name of our kinship. Father would want that,” he added.
Tears shimmered in Emer’s eyes. “You cannot speak for him, and you have no right to invoke his name that way. It isn’t fair.”
“I can speak for him,” said Donough Mac Brian.
He paid his mother one last visit before leaving her in Dublin. He did not think she would recognize him, but when he entered her chamber her Scottish attendant said, “She’s having a good day.”
Donough looked at the empty-faced woman slumped on a bench. “How can you tell?”
“I’m used to her ways now.”
“That’s why I want you to stay with her. Sitric will give her shelter and food, but the only way I can guarantee she will be properly cared for is if her attendant is answerable to me. I shall reward you handsomely, and when … when you are no longer needed, you may either return to Alba or I shall give you land here; good land, fertile soil.”
The Scot did not hesitate. “I’m your man,” he said. “I won’t go back. It’s cold in Alba.”
Donough sat down beside his mother. He wanted to take her hand, but such gestures had never been employed between them and would seem unnatural now. Not knowing what else to do, he spoke of his plans to her for a while, then, when she was unresponsive, he stood up with a sigh. “I’d best be going,” he told the Scot. “Be good to her.”
He was almost out the door when he heard her voice, as thin and insubstantial as that of a ghost.
“Remember your promise to me,” said Gormlaith.
Donough whirled around.
Her faded eyes met his. “You made me a promise. The last thing I shall ever ask of you.”
“I won’t forget,” he said hoarsely. “I will keep my vow to you … Mother.”
After he had gone, Gormlaith stared at the empty doorway for a long time. Then her dry, cracked lips shaped a name.
Chapter Forty-seven
MALACHI MOR FELT STRETCHED VERY THIN. HE HAD NEVER FULLY recovered from the deaths of his sons, but as long as he kept busy he could avoid thinking about them. His years were against him, however. Each day he felt wearier, more despondent; each day he fought back with all the fury he could muster.
But he had to admit to himself it was not enough.
Learning that Donough Mac Brian had returned to Ireland and gone straight to Sitric Silkbeard did not improve his humor. “He’s a schemer like his father,” Malachi told his courtiers. “No doubt he’s plotting some evil with the Dublin Danes.”
So he was astonished when Donough arrived at Dun na Sciath and offered to put himself and his followers at Malachi’s service.
It was the first time the two had met face to face. The Ard Ri expected an impudent youth; he found himself facing a disturbingly familiar man.
“Why would you want to help me?” Malachi asked suspiciously. “What benefit do you seek?”
Donough replied with a disarming smile, “You have lost sons who should be fighting beside you. I have lost a father.”
“I can’t replace your father.”
“Nor can I replace your sons,” Donough replied, aware of the irony in the Ard Ri’s words even if Malachi was not. “But I have a number of supporters in Thomond, good fighting men all of them. I think an alliance would be to the advantage of both of us.”
At Cashel, Carroll could hardly contain himself. Messengers from the northeast had begun reporting a succession of victories on the part of the Ard Ri, and the name of Donough Mac Brian was always prominently mentioned.
“He is acquitting himself in a way that would make his father proud,” the historian said. “Prince Donough is helping the Ard Ri to restore, at last, a modicum of order.”
“Why is my brother fighting for the High King?” Teigue asked peevishly. “Is not his place here in Munster?”
Maeve felt compelled to be fair. “You denied him a place in Munster,” she reminded her husband.
“I did no such thing. I just refused to allow him to take over Kincora.”
“Yet you no longer live there yourself.”
“I shall when it is fully rebuilt.”
“All the work is done, they say.”
“Are you so anxious to go back there?”
Maeve sighed. “I would really like to go back to our home in the valley west of Kincora,” she said wistfully. “But I suppose …”
“No,” Teigue said. “I am King of Munster now.”
In the cabin among the oaks, Cera waited. She knew Donough was in Ireland; she could feel him. But he was a gre
at distance from her and she could not draw him closer.
Sometimes she felt that he was in great danger. Then she employed all she knew of druidry to keep him safe.
The Ui Caisin had long been an exceptionally contentious tribe. Their neighbors feared and hated them, and their incessant cattle raiding had sparked a hundred bitter feuds. So many had complained to the Ard Ri that at last Malachi, with Donough beside him, led a small army south and west from Kildare to the territory of the Ui Caisin.
The season was high summer. Hedgerows hummed with insect life, and as he sat at ease on his lightly sweating horse, Donough could smell the fragrance of sun-warmed earth. He rode at the head of the warrior band, allowing only Malachi to precede him. Having learned a lesson from the head wound at Annacotty, he now never went on such expeditions without wearing a padded iron helmet and a shirt of iron links in the Viking style. He did not include a Viking axe among his weaponry, however.
Donough preferred the sword.
In the bright sunshine, his helmet was too hot. He debated with himself about removing it, then decided to keep it on. He would not let the men see him giving in to discomfort. He was stronger than the Ard Ri.
Malachi was finding such campaigns increasingly difficult. In recent years he had been plagued with hemorrhoids, which made riding an agony, but he was too old to walk. Face white with pain, he rode on a saddle thickly padded with fur cushions, and insisted that his mounts either walk or canter, but never trot.
Donough was contemptuous. “That pathetic old man,” he said privately to Fergal and Ronan. He did not say it in Cumara’s presence, however. Cumara had spent years taking care of an old man, and his sympathies were with Malachi.
As they neared the land of the Ui Caisin, the Ard Ri seemed to shrink in upon himself. He was gathering his energies as best he could for another of those battles he had come to dread.
But he was not prepared for the Ui Caisin when they came exploding out of the undergrowth.
Even Donough was caught by surprise. Almost before he knew what was happening, a warrior had grabbed the bridle of his horse and was wrenching the animal’s head around, trying to make it fall and pin its rider.
“Maggot!” screamed Donough. He tore his sword from its sheath and hacked furiously at the man on the ground, driving him back. Meanwhile another of the enemy vaulted onto his horse from behind and tried to strangle him, but Donough twisted around and knocked his attacker off the horse, then slid to the ground himself, ready to fight.
By now Donough was very familiar with battle. It had a rhythm: lunge forward, slash and thrust, fall back, adjust your balance, attack again. A good sword could weave a shield of metal in the air around you. And there was always a man guarding his back; usually Fergal.
He was young and it was summer, and he thought himself invulnerable.
Catharnach, son of Aedh, chieftain of the Ui Caisin, did not know the identities of any of the warriors who had invaded his homeland under the banner of the Ard Ri. As far as he was concerned they were all The Enemy. But he did want credit for bringing down the most able of them, the champion. And from the way he was fighting, dancing on the balls of his feet, the champion appeared to be the very tall man with the flowing auburn moustache.
Brandishing an axe, Catharnach ran toward Donough.
Cera was kneeling beside a stream, washing her hair, when a cold white lightning burst over her. She sat up abruptly, slinging back her hair. Water cascaded from her head and ran down inside her clothes, but she did not notice.
The lightning vanished, and the light with it. Yet the sun was still visible. A strange murky grayness had descended, however, and a chilling cold.
She could taste blood in her mouth.
She leaped to her feet and ran toward the rowan trees.
Donough was jarred by the impact as his sword grated against bone. The man whose ribs he had just laid bare shrieked in pain and spun away from him, staggered, fell. Donough temporarily switched the sword to his left hand and gave his right arm a vigorous shake to relieve the shock. At that moment a florid young man with a button nose and sweat-drenched yellow curls flung himself forward, screaming a battle cry. He swung a mighty sideways axe blow at Donough’s neck, meaning to decapitate him.
The attack caught Donough off-balance. He flung up his right hand instinctively, deflecting the blow, and heard the axe boom against his iron helmet.
For a measureless moment there was no pain, only a blinding white light. Donough rocked on his feet. In his left hand his sword seemed incredibly heavy; he could hardly lift it. When he tried to launch a counterblow dizziness washed over him and his effort was weak, badly aimed. The man leaped nimbly out of range then came toward him again, grinning in anticipation of an easy kill.
Fergal cut him down from behind. Catharnach fell without ever knowing what hit him.
Fergal caught Donough before he collapsed. “Over here … this way …” He half-carried his cousin away from the fighting toward the shelter of a copse of trees.
Donough still had not realized that he was injured. He could not understand why the countryside seemed to be spinning around him. In his ears a roaring rose and fell like the voice of the sea; he was very nauseated.
Looking up, he tried to focus on his rescuer’s face. “I’m not seasick,” he mumbled. “I don’t get seasick anymore, Fergal.”
The other laughed without humor. “We’re a long way from the sea. You’re axe-sick, you are. And it looks like you’ve lost a hand.”
Chapter Forty-eight
CERA WAS FRANTIC WITH ANXIETY. HE WAS BADLY HURT AND SHE DID not know where he was, nor was there time to find him.
She had tasted his blood in her mouth.
Until long after moonrise she was scouring the fields and forests for every form of medicament that might be of use. Gathering them with the appropriate signs and spells, she carried them to the bank of the stream. There she built a large fire. When the heat was enough to warm the sap in the nearest trees and thick smoke was billowing out over the swift-flowing water, she consigned her collection to the flames.
For the second time in his life Donough had lost consciousness as the result of a battle injury, but this time he did not wake up with his head in someone’s lap. Nor was his awakening painless.
“Sweet Jesus,” he groaned as he became aware of an agonizing throbbing all along the right side of his body. His arm felt as if it were being crushed between giant jaws.
With an effort of concentration, he recalled the battle. He had a dim memory of an axe flashing in the sun; then nothing. He groaned again. Footsteps approached and he heard Fergal’s voice as if from a great distance. “You’re awake then? God be praised; we thought we’d lost you.”
“Fergal?” Donough’s tongue seemed to fill his mouth, making it hard to speak clearly.
His cousin squatted beside him, saying, “Don’t try to talk, save your strength. If you really are going to live, we’ll make a litter for carrying you.”
“Malachi …”
“Celebrating victory. He’ll start for Dun na Sciath tomorrow.”
“I can’t …”
“Of course you can’t, it’s too far. We’ll take you on to Thomond, it’s much nearer and you’ll be safe there. Drink this, then rest.”
Fergal held a cup of water to his lips and Donough sipped obediently, though even that effort made his arm throb.
He slid away into a buzzing darkness.
By dawnlight he learned the extent of his injury. When he awoke, in spite of the pain he made himself unwrap the bloodstained cloth someone had bound around his right arm. The fingers of his left hand were stiff and clumsy as if shrinking from their task. Before he had finished a clammy sweat formed on his forehead.
Then the arm lay revealed.
It was so purple and swollen at first he could not tell its true condition, only that the contours were wrong.
He peered closer. Nausea swept over him again.
Most of h
is hand was missing.
The axe had sheared off his fingers at an angle from between thumb and forefinger to just above the knob of wristbone. Only the thumb itself remained. Stubs of splintered bone and severed tendon fibers protruded from a crust of dried blood.
Donough could only stare.
Fergal bent over him. “Nasty,” he commented. “Ronan said you would probably die.”
Donough gritted his teeth. “Tell him I appreciate his faith in me.”
With a laugh, Fergal straightened. “Och, you’re better. You shouldn’t be, but you are. Cumara!” he shouted. “Come here and take a look at this.”
Cumara joined them, looking, as always, worried. He examined the exposed injury, then shook his head. “Ronan told us the hand would fester and we would have to cut off the whole arm.”
Donough’s toes curled in anguished anticipation. “Not my arm, you don’t! It isn’t festering, see?”
“It doesn’t appear to be,” Cumara reluctantly agreed. “But it should. We had nothing with which to treat the wound, all we did was wash away the worst of the blood with water from a stream. I cannot understand why …”
“I am healing to spite Ronan,” Donough interrupted. “Where is he?”
Fergal’s scowl of disapproval told the story. “He’s gone with Malachi. Said he was a warrior and you would not be fighting any more battles, so …”
“So.” The pain in Donough’s arm was excruciating, but no less than his sense of betrayal. He was determined to let neither show. Keeping his face stony, he said, “The next time we go to war we will be better off without him.”
“The next time?” Fergal looked quizzical.
“There will be a next time,” Donough promised. “I’ve only lost part of a hand. I’m a long way from dead, no matter what Ronan thinks.” He looked at Cumara. “I shall need some place to rest and heal. Can we go to your house on Lough Derg?”
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