Fergal questioned the decision. “You’re taking a chance, Donough. We’ve been fighting half the tribes of Munster recently. What if one of them sees this as the perfect opportunity to ambush us?”
“We’ll stay in Ely territory all the way to Cashel,” Donough assured him. “And if we encounter outlaws, a score of our good men can overwhelm any band of mongrels.”
“We can,” Fergal agreed, heartened as always by his cousin’s confidence.
Donough had a new horse—part of the ransom for the hostages of Ossory—which he meant to ride on the journey. A skittish brown colt with powerful hindquarters, the animal had tried to knock him off by running under a low branch the first time he rode it. The trip to Cashel would be a valuable training exercise because it was long enough to tire the colt and make it tractable.
Donough thought briefly of wearing his helmet, in case the horse tried to bash his head against another branch. Then, mindful of his determination to appear peaceful, he left the helmet behind.
As the party rode south he bantered amiably with his men. Delighted that he was more like his old self, they began to relax. Finally someone asked the question that had long been on everyone’s mind: “Will you mount a challenge for the high kingship now?”
Donough shook his head. “Malachi was very clever. He knew I would not attempt to overthrow a poet and a holy man. Both are sacred in Ireland. As long as Cuan and Corcran are able to govern, the authority is theirs.”
“But …”
“No buts. Let it be.” Donough rode on in silence for a few heartbeats, then added, “For now.”
The men with him exchanged meaningful glances and grinned.
In time Cashel rose before them from the plains of Tipperary. Donough reined in his horse. “King of Munster,” he murmured to himself.
Only Fergal heard him. Urging his horse so close that his knee pressed against Donough’s, he said, “If you are not going to be Ard Ri for now, why not be King of Munster?”
“If I will not challenge a poet and a holy man, what makes you think I would usurp my brother’s title?”
“But do you not have the desire?”
Donough turned on his horse and looked at his cousin squarely. Responding to the shift in weight, the brown colt skittered sideways. “Desire? Let me tell you about desire. There are … things … I have wanted with such a passion I thought I would be torn apart. I never got any of them. Instead I have substitutes. Compromises.”
“Half of what you have,” Fergal told him, “would make most men very happy.”
“Would it?” Donough’s voice sounded strangely faraway. “They’re welcome to it then. My cattle, my fort, my …” He paused, then gave a self-mocking laugh, “my wife. Though I suspect someone already has her.”
Giving his horse a mighty kick, he rode forward at the gallop, and the company surged after him.
While Donough and his men approached Cashel from the north, Lethgen encamped on the south side of the limestone escarpment. There he made bold plans for theft.
Once deliberate law-breaking would have been unimaginable to him. But times had changed. The Irish had taken to plundering and pillaging with the enthusiasm of Vikings now that the power and majesty of Brian Boru no longer deterred them.
Lethgen’s plan involved playing a formal visit to the King of Munster on the pretext of discussing the Munster cattle trade. Being polite to Teigue would be a necessary act of hypocrisy, for he felt Teigue had treated his friend Donough very badly. Lethgen was a man of abrupt emotions. He loved Donough. He hated Teigue.
While he kept the king occupied, his men circulated among the servants at Cashel asking questions. Lethgen, like Carroll before him, was aware that the lowly often know the most. Once he learned the location of the buried sword, Lethgen thought it should be a simple matter to dig it up by cover of night and carry the prize back to Donough.
But the theft, he discovered, would not be so simple after all. When he met his men back at the camp, the spies reported, “The king keeps the sword with him now.”
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely. We are reliably informed he has secreted the weapon in a chest of clothing in his private chamber.”
Lethgen’s eyes gleamed. “Isn’t that interesting? I do enjoy a challenge.”
After fortifying himself with a considerable amount of ale, he paid a second visit to the king’s hall. As before, he found the hall crowded with people seeking the king’s judgment or support. Lethgen loitered among the crowd. He was not eager to speak with Teigue again, he was waiting for a different opportunity.
The moment came. No one was watching; he darted unnoticed through a doorway and down a passage described to him as leading to Teigue’s private chamber.
He narrowly avoided being seen by Maeve, who, with her oldest son Turlough, a boy of some seven years, was just leaving the royal chamber. Lethgen flattened himself in an angle of the wall until they passed, then advanced on tiptoe into the room. His breathing sounded very loud in his own ears. He was filled with a sense of drunken daring.
A small fire crackled in a bronze brazier, casting enough light to reveal the carved wooden clothing chest at the foot of the king’s bed. Holding his breath for fear the lid would creak, Lethgen opened the chest and began pawing through its contents.
The sword was at the very bottom. He found it by touch rather than sight and with an effort lifted it out.
Firelight gleamed on a weapon too large for any ordinary man to wield. The length of the blade and weight of the hilt astonished Lethgen. For a moment he could only stare, awed to realize he was holding in his hands—in his own hands!—the sword of Brian Boru.
“What are you doing with that!” cried an angry voice.
Upon reaching Cashel, Donough did not go directly to see Teigue. “I don’t want to meet my brother until I’ve had time to bathe and make myself presentable,” he explained to Fergal. “You should do the same, if you mean to make a good impression on the women.”
Fergal agreed enthusiastically.
When they identified themselves, they were shown to a large guesting house at the foot of the Rock of Cashel. The top of the escarpment was too small to allow for a full complement of royal buildings. Only the great hall, the chapel, the private apartments, and an armory were there.
Everyone else must wait below, looking up.
When he was attired in fresh clothing and with his auburn hair still damp from the comb, Donough set out up the steep incline to the top of the Rock. He went on foot, with no escort and no weapon.
A massive double gate at the top of the incline barred the way to the interior, which was ringed with a wall of stone. One gate was ajar, but no sentry stood there. A roar of voices came from inside, punctuated by shouts and profanity.
Puzzled by the volume of noise, Donough stepped through the gateway. He was barely inside the walls when someone ran toward him, pursued by a crowd of shouting guards and a hail of spears.
Donough ducked instinctively.
The running man crashed into him, staggering them both.
It was Lethgen.
“What …” Donough began, but Lethgen was thrusting something at him.
“Take this, I did it for you!” the cattle lord cried. He plunged past Donough, through the gate and down the incline. His pursuers pounded after him.
Looking down, Donough discovered he was holding the sword of Brian Boru.
Chapter Fifty-six
My life ended that day. Or rather, any hope of the life I anticipated ended that day.
At first I could only gape dumbfounded at the weapon Lethgen had thrust upon me. I knew what it was, of course, though I never touched it before. Our father did not allow any of us to handle his sword, not even Murrough.
Just holding the hilt in my left hand gave me a strange feeling. For a moment the only thought in my head was astonishment to find it was not too large for me.
Then a guard grabbed me by the shoulders and sho
ok me. ″You!″ he shouted into my face. ″Did you have something to do with this?!″
″With what?″ I pulled away from him. ″Are you accusing me of something? I am Prince Donough, and I …″
He recognized me then, and a variety of emotions chased one another across his face. At last he simply said, “Come with me.″
I was led through a great hall crowded with shrill, excited people who seemed to be trying to explain the unexplainable to each other by means of half-finished sentences and wild gestures. Beyond the hall a passage led to the king’s chamber.
My brother lay on his back beside an overturned brazier.
Part of his clothing had caught fire and there was a stink of burnt cloth. Burns were not the problem, however.
A terrible wound in his chest poured blood.
I fell to my knees beside him. “Teigue! Teigue!”
He opened his eyes. Framed by their thick lashes, they were as soft and puzzled as a child’s. With an effort he focused them on me. His mouth worked but no sound came out
I heard a sob and glanced around. Maeve was leaning against the wall, holding her burned hands away from her body. It was she who had beat out the fire.
The boy Turlough shoved through a crowd at the doorway and stopped abruptly, staring at his father on the floor.
When I turned back to Teigue his lips were moving again. “You,” he said, looking straight at me. “You.”
His eyes closed and he seemed to go flat all at once.
With a pitiful cry, Maeve hurled herself past me and onto his body. Turlough ran to join her. The lad bent over his father and called his name several times, then glared at me with burning eyes. “You did this,” he accused. “I heard him. You did this!”
“I did nothing,” I protested. Tears were rolling down my face but I was hardly aware of them.
“You’re carrying a sword!” Turlough cried, pointing.
Looking down, I discovered I still held the sword of Brian Boru in my hand. But there was no blood on the blade.
Though nothing made sense yet, I was relieved my father’s weapon had not killed my brother.
Could the fatal wound have been made by a short-sword? I leaned forward to try to get a better look, to see if the blow had only penetrated or had gone all the way through. The mighty weapon I held was capable of cleaving a man in half.
But young Turlough blocked me with his own body. “Assassin!” he screamed at me.
Guards seized me then and dragged me out of the chamber, while I tried to point out to anyone who might listen that the sword I held was clean.
But no one wanted to hear me.
They threw me into a tiny chamber without a window, and I was left alone for a time I could not measure. There the full realization gradually dawned on me.
Teigue was dead. Murdered. My brother.
My last brother.
And they thought I did it
“No!” I roared with all the power in my lungs. My cry reverberated in the stone chamber, deafening me.
Eventually they came for me. I was taken back to that terrible chamber, where Teigue now lay on the bed, his face covered by a blanket Maeve sat beside him, keening. The chief brehon of Munster was in the room together with several other officials. Someone had had the sense to take Turlough away.
Questions were asked of me and I tried to answer. I must have been convincing; eventually I was allowed to ask some questions of my own.
“Lethgen of the Ely stabbed the king” I was told. “It may have been a thwarted theft When you were seen with that sword in your hand everyone assumed you were involved.”
“I was not! I knew nothing about this until I walked in the gate and he flung the sword at me!”
I honestly protested my innocence but already I was sick at heart As clearly as if I had been an eyewitness, I saw what must have happened.
And knew I was indeed responsible.
When Maeve looked at me with reddened eyes, I think she knew too.
Officially, the brehons accepted my word. I was a prince of the Dal Cais; if I said I had not ordered the assassination, I must be believed. The unfortunate Lethgen had already been caught by the king’s guards and slain on the spot without benefit of trial.
In my father’s day he would have had a trial.
Chapter Fifty-seven
“GOD HAS BESTOWED A MARTYRDOM UPON ME,” BEWAILED CATHAL Mac Maine, “by allowing me to live long enough to see this dark day. Teigue Mac Brian has been murdered amid terrible rumors that his own brother was somehow involved.”
“Shall I put that in the annals?” inquired Brother Declan.
“Certainly not! Would you disgrace the Dal Cais?”
Declan refrained from recording the rumors in the Annals of Kill Dalua, but other annalists would be less generous.
No one would accuse Donough to his face, however.
It could be imprudent to accuse the King of Munster of murder.
Donough had been more surprised than anyone when Maeve sent for him the day after Teigue’s death was shouted across Munster. The province was plunged into mourning. Masses were being said in every church and abbey. Together with his men, Donough was waiting to attend the king’s final entombment.
He dreaded facing his brother’s widow. Only his pride enabled him to meet her with his head up, though his face was bleak.
Hers was equally bleak. She had aged a decade overnight.
They gazed at each other in silence for a long moment, then with a cry Maeve flung herself into his arms.
Donough held the sobbing woman and patted her awkwardly, intensely aware of his maimed hand touching her.
“I’m sorry,” he kept murmuring.
“I know.” Her voice was muffled against his chest.
“I didn’t order him killed, Maeve.”
“I know that too. You never would have done that.”
An integrity bred in his bones compelled him to say, “Yet I do feel responsible …”
She tore herself out of his arms and gazed up at him with frightening intensity. “Never say that. Never!”
″But …″
“Whatever burdens your conscience bears it must bear in silence from now on, Donough. Don’t you understand?”
He hurt too much. He could not follow her thoughts.
Maeve bit her lip and tried again. “You are the senior prince of the Dal Cais now. My son Turlough is too young to be king, but the last thing any of the Dalcassians want is to relinquish the rule of Munster to the Owenachts again after all these years. The kingship has to stay in the clan O Brian.
“Therefore you must succeed Teigue.”
Donough flinched as if she had struck him. “I cannot! Don’t you see? People will consider it proof that I deliberately killed him for his title.”
“Since it isn’t true you have nothing to fear. This is what Teigue would have wanted, Donough, for the sake of our children and their children. The O Brian dynasty must continue.”
“Through me?” he asked bitterly.
“Through you if need be. He loved you, for all your quarrels.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
She smiled sadly. “I tell you it is true.″
Donough realized the effort this was costing her and was awed by her courage.
On the day of Teigue’s entombment the chief brehon announced Donough Mac Brian was to be the next King of Munster.
He could not stay in his stronghold in Ely territory, because that would only fuel rumors of a conspiracy. Therefore his principal residence would have to be either at Cashel—or Kincora.
“I wanted Kincora with my whole soul,” he admitted to Fergal. “And I wanted my father’s sword. Now I have both, and I find I want neither. They cost too much.”
Reluctantly, he decided to occupy Cashel. When Maeve had taken her children to their old home in the valley west of the Shannon, Donough ordered the murder chamber sealed. He had a new one built for himself a few paces beyond the to
mb of another assassinated king—his own uncle, Mahon.
Upon Mahon’s death, Brian Boru had succeeded him as King of Munster. Now the crown he had worn would be worn by Donough.
The irony was too close to the bone.
Fergal returned to Tipperary to escort Driella and the rest of Donough’s household to Cashel. The Saxon woman was heavy with child and the journey was made very slowly. Geoffrey rode in the cart beside her, holding her hand.
Others were traveling to Cashel; the roads were black with people. Some came to express their loyalty, others out of morbid curiosity, eager to smack their lips at the sight of a king who had murdered his brother to gain a kingdom.
A king who was one of the high and mighty Dal Cais.
In spite of what he had said about being too old to travel any more, Carroll also returned to Cashel. He was immediately taken to Donough, whose appearance alarmed the old historian.
“You’re as thin as a hazel wand!”
“Am I?” Donough shrugged indifferently.
“And your hair …”
“I know, it’s turning gray. People have already pointed that out to me. Gleefully, some of them, as if it’s no more than I deserve.”
“You are guilty of no crime,” Carroll said with certainty.
“Will history vindicate me then?”
“Ah.” The other man stared down at the floor. “It depends on who tells the history.”
“The Owenachts are doing everything they can to make sure their version is the one remembered. I suspect they will influence at least some of the annalists.”
“Then you must live a life,” Carroll replied, “which gives the lie to your accusers.”
“I have lived such a life,” Donough countered. “I’ve never done anything to make people think I could be guilty of fratricide. I’ve always done my best to live up to my father.”
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