Pride of Lions

by Morgan Llywelyn

  When Donough arrived to await Driella’s ship, he went straight to the king of the Dublin Danes.

  “You don’t want to see her,” Sitric assured him. “She won’t recognize you; she doesn’t know anyone any more.”

  “I’ve come to tell her I’ve kept my promise. She’ll understand.”

  “She won’t. But go ahead if you insist. I’ll have someone show you where she is.”

  Gormlaith was being kept in a stone chamber at some distance from Sitric’s hall. There was one heavy oak door with a bar on the outside, and a pair of opposed windows too small for anyone to squeeze through. Relieved to find her Scottish attendant still with her, Donough gave the man a leather pouch full of coins stamped with the image of Sitric Silkbeard—valuable in Dublin if not in the rest of Ireland, where cattle or bondwomen still comprised the medium of exchange.

  Then he turned his attention to Gormlaith.

  Seeing her, he wished he had followed Sitric’s advice. He did not want to remember her as she was now, shrunken and wizened and gray. She was wrapped in warm robes and the Scot kept her clean and fed, but she seemed no more than an empty husk. When he addressed her as Mother, Gormlaith did not respond at all.

  Donough sat down beside her and took her right hand in his left while he told her of his betrothal. She gave no indication of awareness. “Are you not pleased?” he asked earnestly. “Is this not what you wanted for me?”

  With her head sunk on her breast, she picked idly at a thread on her sleeve.

  In frustration he burst out, “Does she even know I’m here?”

  “I cannot say,” the Scot answered. “But if I ask her to stand up or sit down she does, so there is something left in her poor old head.”

  Eventually Donough joined Sitric in the Viking hall, where he drank four horns of ale in swift succession.

  “Well?” said the Viking. “Did she recognize you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you say what you came to say to her?”

  “I did.”

  “Any reaction?”

  “No. I’ll be going now, Sitric. Thank you for your goodness to her.”

  His half-brother hesitated. “You can … you can stay here if you’re going to be in Dublin for a while.”

  Donough gave him a measured smile, warm enough to be polite, cool enough to discourage intimacy. “I think not. It would not look good for either of us. You’re still pillaging my people whenever you can get away with it.”

  “Your people?” Sitric stroked his beard. “So that’s the way the wind is blowing?”

  “You will have to meet me someday as we agreed, to negotiate,” replied Donough. “Until that time, it is best if we develop no personal friendship.”

  Sitric threw back his head and laughed. “Friendship! With you? There was never any danger of that!”

  In her chamber, Gormlaith repeatedly ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. The Scot left her to fetch a pitcher of fresh water. When he had gone she lifted her head and regarded the closed door.

  “A marriage,” she muttered, frowning, trying to think clearly. But her head was full of shapes and memories that flowed into one another uncontrollably. “Marrying …” She could not hold the thought. It slipped through her mental fingers like drops of water and was gone. Overwhelmed by the tides of time, Gormlaith was swept back to a wedding day of her own and saw herself at Kincora beside a copperhaired giant. They might have been of another race, ageless and more beautiful than mere mortals.

  Donough and his men pitched tents outside the walls of Dublin, not far from his first sight of the city almost a decade earlier. Leaving the others behind, he went alone to Kilmainham and stood a long time before a rough gray standing stone carved with a Celtic sword.

  “Murrough,” he called in a low voice to the brother who lay beneath the stone.

  “I am living the life that was meant for you. You were to follow our father as Ard Ri. How unexpected are the events that actually shape our lives! It is never the thing we plan for; always something else. Fate … or God? Or random chance? How much of it is in our own hands? Anything?”

  Donough realized he was afraid of the answer.

  A runner brought news of a Saxon ship in the bay. Dressed in princely style with his gold torc prominently displayed, Donough went into Dublin to meet his bride.

  Accompanied by Fergal and Cumara, he waited impatiently at quayside while the wide-bellied, square-sailed Saxon vessel was maneuvered into position. As he scanned the faces waiting at the rail he saw no one who might be the daughter of Earl Godwine.

  “Perhaps,” said Fergal jocularly, “she changed her mind and didn’t come.”

  Donough replied through gritted teeth. “She couldn’t change her mind. Their laws are different from ours; Saxon women are property. Her father would make her come.”

  “There she is!” Cumara cried, pointing.

  A chubby girl with corn-colored braids looped around her ears had appeared at the railing. Her face was broad, bland, and wind-chapped, and she was chewing on her thumb. She could not have been older than fourteen.

  Donough strode forward as she disembarked with a small escort. Earl Godwine had sent four Saxon housecarles with his daughter, sturdy men-at-arms who cast suspicious eyes on everything they saw. There was also, to Donough’s surprise, a Saxon priest.

  Language was a problem. Driella spoke no Irish, and when her intended husband tried to welcome her in Latin she stared at him blankly. Then her eyes dropped to the mutilated hand he made no effort to hide. She turned to the dark-visaged young man in clerical garb beside her and jabbered away in her own tongue.

  The priest suppressed a smile. To Donough he said, in polished Latin, “I am called Geoffrey of the Fens. I am sent by the Earl Godwine to guard his daughter’s virtue and see that she is married properly.”

  “What did she just say to you?” Donough demanded to know.

  “She remarked that you are a comely man,” Geoffrey replied smoothly.

  Donough did not believe him.

  Deep down, he was angry. Did the Saxons think the Irish were such heathen they had to send one of their own priests?

  They shepherded the Saxons through Dublin, down narrow alleys where the local Vikings stared at them and stray dogs barked at them. The brightly painted wicker cart Donough had provided for Driella was waiting just outside the eastern gateway. A company of his men were guarding the cart and holding horses for himself, Fergal, and Cumara, but there were none for the Saxon soldiers or the priest.

  Geoffrey of the Fens promptly climbed into the car beside his young charge.

  All communications with Driella subsequently took place through Geoffrey, a fact that amused Donough’s men not a little.

  “I wonder if he’ll stand beside the marriage bed and give her instructions,” Fergal muttered to Cumara.

  The other guffawed.

  During the long journey to Tipperary, Donough had ample opportunity to study his intended bride. “She could be worse,” he finally said to Fergal.

  “She could be,” his cousin assured him. “She has two expressions: stupid, and scared. It would be worse if she had only one. And at least she possesses good wide hips, she’ll give you sons.”

  Wide hips and a noble family constituted most of Driella’s assets. She had brought the requisite dowry, Saxon coin and Flemish cloth, but she seemed woefully deficient in personality. Nor was she interested in much beside the priest, to whom she clung like a child afraid of strangers. For much of the journey he kept one arm around her to cushion her from the jolting of the cart.

  When at last they reached Donough’s fort she clapped her hands together and made some remark to Geoffrey.

  “She says you have a magnificent palace,” the priest translated to Donough.

  Fergal sniggered. “If she thinks this fort is a palace, what sort of place do you suppose a Saxon earl inhabits?”

  Donough’s plan was to marry Driella in Saint Flannan’s Chapel, with C
athal Mac Maine officiating as before. He took great pleasure in sending a message to Teigue, formally requesting the use of Kincora for the wedding. “My marriage to a niece of the King of England,” was the way he put it.

  “That is not strictly true,” Carroll pointed out. “Her uncle is married to the king’s sister, which makes your Driella …”

  “Whatever I say she is,” Donough snapped.

  Whatever the niceties of the connection, Teigue was thunderstruck by the news, as Donough had intended he should be. He saw the ramifications at once.

  “I suppose I must let him use Kincora—temporarily. But we will not go to that wedding,” he told his wife.

  Maeve put a gentle hand on his arm. “But we must, and not just because he’s your brother. How would such an open split among the Dalcassians look to outsiders?”

  “There is already a split; everyone knows it.”

  “But why make it wider? Let’s go to Donough’s wedding and perhaps use the opportunity to mend things between you.”

  The wedding was ruffling other feathers, however.

  Cathal Mac Maine was irritated by the proposed presence of Geoffrey of the Fens, and when he learned Geoffrey intended to say “some sort of Saxon rite” over the couple, his temper exploded.

  Donough sent Carroll to placate him. “The occasion will mark a most signal honor for the Dal Cais,” the historian pointed out, “and for Saint Flannan’s. Prince Donough is not marrying just anyone, but a niece of the King of England.” The phrase did not stick in his throat. “Your joint participation with the Saxon priest will set a new tradition. No doubt there will be pleasure in Rome when the Church learns of this.”

  As ever, Carroll was persuasive. Cathal agreed and the date for the wedding was set.

  Donough invited almost every free person in Thomond. He went to his father’s fortress in order to supervise the arrangements himself. For weeks in advance, supplies were carted into Kincora to feed the expected horde.

  When Teigue and Maeve arrived they were astonished at the lavishness of the hospitality being provided. “My brother cannot pay for all this himself,” Teigue told his wife. “And I will not!”

  But Donough asked nothing of Teigue. Every action of his emphasized his independence from his brother.

  When a group of young people gathered at the river, the bellowsboy who worked in the forge of Odar the smith remarked to a comely bondwoman who worked in the kitchens, “If Prince Donough is marrying the King of England’s daughter, does that mean an army from England will be coming here?”

  The girl scratched her head. It was a bad year for lice. “I hope not. We have all we can do now, preparing food for the marriage feast. If another army is coming I don’t know how they will be fed. I don’t even know where all this food is coming from.”

  A porter who brought supplies to the kitchens joined the conversation. “The O Carrolls of Ely are furnishing most of it themselves. This morning six carts piled high with slaughtered boars forded the Shannon, followed by twelve carts loaded with casks of ale and wine. Brian Boru’s old wine cellar is so full we’re having to open a new one.”

  “Why are the Ely being so generous?” wondered the girl. But her companions could not explain the abstractions of politics.

  Teigue, however, thought he understood very well. “Donough has made allies of the Ely in order to outnumber the Dalcassians who are loyal to me,” he told Maeve. “He intends to use this wedding to show everyone he has more supporters than I have. I don’t have to stay here and suffer this, I’m going back to Cashel and taking my men with me, so no one can count them and make comparisons.”

  “But the wedding …”

  “You stay if you want. Women love weddings.”

  The departure of the King of Munster was observed by everyone and commented upon by most, but Donough was not displeased. “In addition to his other failings, now my brother reveals himself as petty and mean-spirited,” he remarked.

  The wedding proved to be the spectacular event he had planned, with the four ranks of Irish kingship represented. The Ard Ri did not attend personally but he sent gifts. The eldest sons of two of the provincial kings, those of Leinster and of Connacht, did arrive, duly impressed to find Donough in apparent possession of Kincora. Several tribal kings such as the king of the Ely were among the guests, and a number of clan chieftains.

  Padraic of Ennis and his family did not attend.

  When Donough and Driella emerged from the chapel he found himself half-hoping, half-fearing to see Cera there. For one wild moment he imagined leaving the dumpy girl by his side and running to the druid. Sweeping her up in his arms, carrying her out of Kincora forever, taking her into the wild hills of Thomond and …

  “Hoos-band,” said Driella, giving his left arm a proprietary squeeze.

  Then she laughed. It was the first time Donough had heard her laugh; the sound was like the breaking of eggs.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  DEEP IN HIS BONES, MALACHI MOR SENSED THE APPROACH OF DEATH. The rats of mortality gnawed with sharp teeth. He awoke in the night gasping for breath, listening to the increasingly irregular thudding of his heart.

  As he told his confessor, “I am not afraid to die; every warrior has faced death so many times the fear is replaced with familiarity.”

  He had another reason for lack of fear, however; an overriding emotion. In death Malachi meant to triumph at last over his greatest rival. He would thwart forever the dreams of Brian Boru.

  Malachi’s sons had died in battle and fallen to disease, even the youngest of them, but he was expected to name a tanist. Under the very rule of succession that Brian had established to benefit his own son Murrough, Malachi’s tanist would succeed him as High King.

  “Donough Mac Brian has worked very hard to win my trust and support,” he told the clan chieftains of Meath when he entertained them in the hall of Dun na Sciath. “He hopes I will go outside my tribe and name him to succeed me. It is the sort of break with tradition his father espoused.”

  “No!” the chieftains thundered, pounding their fists on the table.

  Smiling serenely, Malachi continued. “Donough has built himself a formidable power base in Munster. I know why; he means to wrest Cashel from his brother. As King of Munster he would be following in his father’s footsteps on his way to Tara.

  “Do not scowl at me, good friends. The high kingship is not to be taken away from our tribe and our blood, I swear this to you on the sacred wounds of Christ. There are several moves by which I shall forestall the ambitions of the clan O Brian. The first concerns Tara, and for this I need your support.”

  Tara was the ultimate symbol of high kingship. Malachi now proposed to abandon the ancient royal site altogether. By this official act he meant to deny its possession to whoever succeeded him.

  He vowed that no son of Brian Boru would ever hold court in the banqueting hall with the fourteen doorways.

  With some reluctance, the chieftains agreed to his plan. Ending the supremacy of Tara would be a blow to Meath prestige, but they would rather see it fall into final decay than revert into the hands of Munstermen.

  With a weariness he would admit to no one, Malachi visited Tara one last time. He rode in an old-fashioned chariot bedecked with plumes and gaudy with colors, and he took as escort the battle-champions of Meath.

  In the end, however, he paid his final visit alone.

  “Wait for me,” he instructed his driver. Stepping down from the chariot, he entered through the great northern gateway and proceeded up the ceremonial avenue on foot.

  A cold wind was blowing. The rats chewing Malachi’s old bones bit deeper.

  For eight hundred years this had been Tara of the Kings, and before that the stronghold of the Tuatha De Danann. But whatever sorcery might still linger could not prevail against the power of time. Earthwork embankments that once stood taller than six men were gradually sinking, victims of centuries of human wear and elemental erosion. The timber palisades t
hat encircled the site, mile upon mile of them, were rotting. An attacking force could breach them with little effort.

  But no one would attempt Tara now; its symbolic value was ended. The Ard Ri had so decreed.

  Malachi shivered. Suddenly he wanted very much to be gone from here. Tara had never been his, not since Brian Boru stood on the Stone of Fal and it screamed aloud for him.

  The Stone had never screamed for Malachi.

  When he realized the sun was beginning to set he trudged back down the ceremonial avenue. The farewell tour was over, the silent good-byes said. His chariot was waiting just beyond the gateway; a brisk drive would take him back to Dun na Sciath, to hearth fires and ale and the forgetfulness of old men.

  At the gate he paused without meaning to and looked back. The westering sun gilded Tara. Decaying thatch blazed gold.

  Atop the Mound of the Hostages, the recumbent Stone of Fal was struck by a slanting sunbeam.

  Malachi gasped.

  For just one moment he thought a man stood there, his coppery hair aflame in the setting sun.

  A giant.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  CUMARA WAS WORRIED. ANXIETY CAME NATURALLY TO HIM; THE PERMANENT frown on his forehead had been stitched there when he was still a young boy. It was his lifelong habit to awaken each morning asking himself what might go wrong in the day ahead.

  But now he did not have to ask. He knew.

  The stronghold was no longer a comfortable place for a man to be. Since his marriage to Driella, Donough was more short-tempered than ever. Even Fergal had begun guarding his tongue; his sarcasm no longer amused Donough but made him angry.

  Almost anything could make Donough angry.

  No one knew when they might receive the sharp edge of his tongue. He took the most casual comment the wrong way, seeing insult where none was intended. For the first time, he began wearing sleeves so long they concealed his mutilated arm. If he thought anyone was looking at it he glared at them savagely.