The Sign of the Moonbow

by Andrew J Offutt

  The training of mind and body of that second Cormac, son of Art, began almost at his birth.

  It was a proud name he bore-and it was the undoing both of himself and his father. For it made even more nervous the Ard-righ or High-king who sat his throne at Tara Hill with the shakiness of fear on him, for he ruled ever fearful of being toppled and slain. And Cormac mac Art was a magic name. And so mysterious death had come upon Art of Connacht, and his son had fled lest he suffer that same fate. Too, he concealed his great name.

  Though far too young for the skill he had with arms, he was tall and strong for his age so that he could pass for one older. As “Partha mac Othna,” of Ulahd, he betook himself to Leinster. There, concealing age and name, he was employed as weapon-man in the service of the king.

  Eirrin’s High-king was no emperor. Each kingdom ruled itself. Nor was the kingdom of Leinster a friend to its northerly neighbour Meath, where rose Tara, the Seat of Kings over Kings. Partha mac Othna served well and distinguished himself, and was given command-which gained him enemies, envious men. As none knew his age, none knew of his trysts with a girl who was his first love and he hers-Samaire, daughter of the king in Leinster.

  Too well did “Partha” distinguish himself, and it was both Leinster’s monarch and High-king Lugaid did treachery on him. Was they saw that he was goaded until he slew a man at Fair-time, when the Peace of the King prevailed. Having broken that peace by doing arms-death, Partha/Cormac had no defense and no choice: he must die.

  Again Cormac fled.

  An exile from Connacht he had been; now he was exiled from all Eirrin, where among his ancestors had been rulers.

  Northward on the Plain of the Sea he made his way, to Alba, land of the Scoti and the Picts. There he found employment on a farm-until there came a Pictish attack. His weaponish skills then showed themselves to the astonishment of all-and to the consternation and death of the attackers. Having thus betrayed his skills, he was recruited into the service of the king of Dal Riada of Alba or Scot-land. Again he fared well and distinguished himself-too well. Again was treachery done on him, and again by a crowned man, his own king. Betrayed to the Picts, he languished in a cold and filthy cell, an object of hatred and mockery. Nor was he fed; he was to die, and slowly.

  He survived only because of a Pictish woman who had recently been bereft of both husband and babe; she gave him nourishment as only she could.

  Eventually, Cormac mac Art escaped.

  Alienated, hating kings and trusting none, he took up his career as a reaver or pirate of the Narrow Sea. Right well the well-born exile of Eirrin fared at piracy, with his own ship and his own crew. Yet there was that he would not do: never did he raid the shores or ships of Eirrin.

  Time came when he was captured-and this time, flung into a cell even more cold and more filthy, he had a companion. The other’s name was Wulfhere, and he was a giant even among the tall Danes. Each was the only companion available to the other, the only voice and listening ears; they became friends. To him Cormac lied about his age. Wulfhere Splitter of Skulls was older, and must not know how young was this stout weapon-man whose brain was so keen and whose counsel so wise that Wulfhere gave listen, and was guided by it. It would never have occurred to Wulfhere to keep back a bit of their meagre food, that they might use it to lure and entrap more food: the rats of that prison in which they were to die. Thus they kept up their strength, though their warders knew not.

  It was bloody their escape was, and not long after the two were again asea. Both joined the crew of a renegade Dane, a-reaving.

  Their ship streamed a wake of blood, for their captain feared nothing and raided the shores of Britain and Alba as well. Nor could he listen to counsel, and he got his death in Britain of that arrogance and stupidity. Indeed it was the skill and wiles of Cormac and Wulfhere enabled the others to escape, and all knew it. Natheless the dead captain’s second took command, and him a man of foul disposition who showed considerably less than gratitude or respect to the two best among them, the Gael and the giant Dane.

  It was Wulfhere slew that abominable man a few months later. A fair fight it was, and the dead man loved by none, and Wulfhere Hausaklulfr was captain. He was counseled by his friend from Eirrin, and his so dark and scarred and dour, a man whose life had been laid out for him by the treachery of kings and whose scars went all the way in, to the brain.

  They two achieved a measure of fame, and infamy. Their ship was everywhere and undefeatable. Years passed, with them friend to few and feared by many. Yet they achieved no wealth and saved little. It was the weather itself, the wrath of Eirrin’s seagod Manannan mac Lir, that defeated them. Thus were they swept ashore on that nameless isle whereon they found Kull’s castle, sorcerously standing intact after so many millennia, now the keep for booty-storing of a band of renegade Norsemen.

  And there was more slaying to be done.

  There too, after so many years, Cormac found Samaire and Ceann her brother. Both were victims of the treachery of a king-their own older brother. Cormac and Wulfhere, with those few of their crew who had survived the wrath of Manannan, freed the two of Leinster from their Norse captors. It was Samaire who persuaded Cormac to return to Eirrin-and that only at night, apart from the others.

  Long months later, having trekked across half of Eirrin and fought his way through Picts and highwaymen so that his exploits gave rise to legends, Cormac reached Tara in Meath.

  By dint of arms at Fair-time, he won the title Champion of Eirrin-though under a false name. It was after that series of contests that he announced his true identity, before the great triennial meeting of all the kings of Eirrin. He was Champion; he had slain the highwaymen of Brosna Wood on whose hands was the blood of many; he had saved a fisherman and his family and doubtless others from a Pictish attack, so that none survived. (And in all these adventures had Samaire wielded arms alongside him). Yet death was demanded on that old charge-by Feredach, king in Leinster, the older brother of Samaire and Ceann. Despite him, Cormac was offered a single chance to save his own life, to prove his worthiness to the god Behl. He accepted instantly.

  Under his own name at last, Cormac mac Art survived with honour the Trials for Him Who would be of the Fiann-though both a druidic mage-of Leinster-and two hired killers-of Leinster-attempted to slay him while he was unarmed and unsuspecting. And after twelve years he was Champion of Eirrin, and pronounced free and welcome both by High-king and druidic council-for the latter said that by passing the Tests of Finn he had been exonerated and welcomed by Behl of the sun, Himself.

  Cormac soon interrupted his rest and his basking in the light of fame. With Samaire and Bas and an Eirrin-born crew, he returned to the isle of Kull. They would simply pick up all that Norse booty and return to Eirrin-to finance the maneuverings of Ceann and Samaire against their ruling brother-who had got the throne by the murder of his older brother. The isle they called Samaire-heim, of Wulfhere’s gallant naming.

  It became Doom-heim, for there Thulsa Doom awaited, plotting blackest vengeance on him he knew to be Kull reborn.

  During that time, so recently past, Cormac knew horror unequalled even in his extraordinary life. And more blood flowed. And eventually they had escaped, so few now of the two ships’ crews that had fared to the awful isle of bare stone. Now he was come here, to this tiny island of green and peace, for water-and once again Cormac had reddened his sword and added more deaths to his list of deeds.

  Aye, was true; Cormac mac Art said that one should never kill save when it was necessary. And aye, it was distressingly true that in his thrice-hard life it had often been necessary that he deal death-lest it be dealt him.

  He followed the lambish siblings he had rescued. Understand them? Understand Daneirans, conceive of Daneira and those who walked without wariness and caution and without weapons? Cormac mac Art could not, and it was no happy man who followed the long black hair of Consaer and Sinshi through the forest.

  They came to Daneira.

  First th
ere was a vast sprawling field that had borne corn and flax. In a huge sickle-shape it was laid out, connecting far ahead of Cormac to a tall and steep hill. At its base lay Daneira, a sprawling town all of wood. It appeared to have grown naturally there, among trees grown up over the years or left standing long ago. The hill backed the village; to its left a stream ran, coming down and around the hill and burbling off into the woods that, apparently, otherwise covered the island. The land across the stream had been cleared but for a few spaced trees; there these people had their gardens.

  No wall or even palisade enclosed Daneira. It was open to the breeze and the sun-and to attack, Cormac mused grimly. The only enclosures were for the animals they kept, and these Sinshi told him were pastured on around the hill, which was mostly rock and scrub behind the village.

  Strange, Cormac mac Art thought; there were no dogs. Nor saw he either cats or fowls. Well inland these people had laid out their settlement, though surely some trekked to the sea to fish, and mayhap others brought down birds in the forest. And gathered birds’ eggs?

  Sinshi and Consaer had thrown him constant glances, all along the way. Now all stared at the approaching trio-at the tall man in mail.

  Daneira, Cormac saw, was beautiful. It gave pleasure just from the looking on it. The buildings were beautiful, superbly constructed with never a nail, and intricately adorned with carvings and with shells, with enamels and paints that were bright and bespoke happy people. He recognized the style and pattern of the decor, but only from relics of Eirrin’s distant past and on weathered rocks. How long had Daneira been here? Had there been no influx, no newcomers at all to bring trouble or new ideas, decorations, tools?

  He saw naught that resembled weapons.

  The people stared. They were small, no man above five and three quarters feet in height and most nearer five and a half. Black or dark brown was the hair of all, all, and brown or seemingly black their eyes, while their skin was as if deeply tanned. Aye, Consaer and Sinshi were typical. Could they be of Rome? Surely not Gaels, with their dark soft eyes. The Daneirans stared in silence at the tall man with his deepset pale eyes and his twinkling metal clothing. Aye, for there was no armour, though he saw leather aplenty; this was not armour but superbly tanned, softened hides of their goats and their sheep and their pigs. Feathers he saw, worn as decoration, and shells and crafted things, and dyed wool and flaxen linen coloured in hues drawn from sea creatures and the plants of the woods, pleated and wrinkled.

  The people of Daneira seemed healthy enough, and happy as well, though it was hard to be sure of the latter; all froze to stare at the clinking stranger whose coat and helm and burden of axes caught the sun’s light.

  Daneira was small. Less than a thousand people were here, all of one race and looking indeed as if sprung from a single family, one dusky, brown-eyed family whose hair ranged in hue from blackest night to medium brown. Oh, and aye-all were short of leg and unusually long of face.

  The houses were sizable all, not peasantish or skimped in construction or, presumably, in inner space. He saw new decor, but no new homes. How long had the population been stable or declining? He had no, idea. Of the answers to many questions concerning these people, he had no idea.

  Consaer and Sinshi led the Gael-the only Gael, as there were no Germanic peoples or fair Celts-to one of the homes. A murmurous crowd followed, staring but without clamour. A calm, complacent folk.

  A man in a long blue tunic, without leggings, came hurrying and intersected their course as they reached the house. Cormac saw swiftly that this was a physician, concerned with the wound to Consaer’s head. Dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes. He entered the house of blue and green and brown with them, onto flooring that was gleaming, finely fitted hardwood planking strewn with rugs of dyed sheepskin and one that was intricately woven of coloured woolen yarn. A warm home it was, to mind and body both, with gourd-pots and pottery pans and a lute or something similar, a set of pipes, and various other utensils of the household of a farmer who was not starving.

  Cormac mac Art saw no weapons, no armour.

  The ax within the door was long of handle-a woodsman’s tool. There were other such tools, on nicely wrought and braced shelves.

  The stranger with the odd grey eyes was welcomed by parents and the brother of Consaer and Sinshi, while the physician sat Consaer down and examined him. After congratulating Sinshi on her swift application of the proper herbs, he applied more, and a thick oil of some sort. Consaer’s younger brother Lugh helped him press together the edges of the wound and wrap his head tightly, around and around, with a cloth of undyed linen. Sinshi meanwhile vanished through a doorway into one of the house’s two other rooms.

  Duach and his wife Elathu were neither ruddy nor fat, and it occurred to Cormac that he had seen no truly fat people among all the villagers. Too, most of these people’s longish faces held an elfin or birdlike quality, with no fleshy deposits lying beneath the skin, so that it was stretched directly over the bone. No one was round of face, or square either, like some of the blond northerners.

  “You have saved my son and daughter from death and worse, Cormac mac Art,” Duach told him, a short rangy man with a beard of black-shot auburn. “Anything that is Duach Fedach’s son is yours.” His brown eyes unashamedly aglisten with tears, Duach son of Fedach of Daneira swept his arm in a gesture that included all his household.

  “I would ask naught in recompense, Duach mac Fedach,” Cormac said. “But I would beg that which ye have that I’ve tasted not in many, many days-I see milk and I smell roasted pork.”

  A hand came onto his arm then, a small hand whose skin was cooler than his, though of the same hue. Large walnut eyes looked up into his face from a pretty elfin visage in which the bone structure was unusually defined, even among the Daneirans. Already Sinshi was back from another room, having changed from her brother’s tunic into one of her own, blue linen over a pair of russet leggings of leather so soft it looked like wool. The girl was lovely, pretty as a tiny and fragile woods-flower.

  “Sit, Cormac mac Art who saved me. I will serve you milk of the freshest and pork enow for ten, and be the milk not fresh I shall go and coax more from one of the goats, for we have seven!”

  He caught the emphasis, and knew that Sinshi spoke with pride. In Eirrin, wealth had long been measured in cattle. Here, he realized, it was goats. Though seven was hardly a herd for the bragging of.

  “It’s happy I’ll be with it, Sinshi, freshest or no, for I’m long without: Duach,” he said, instantly shifting his gaze to her father and dropping his pleasant expression. “Daneira is in danger, all Daneirans. Aye, and goats and sheep and hogs. Those men who attacked yours and whom I slew-they cannot have come here alone. Your people must prepare.”

  Duach looked uncomprehending-or as if he thought Cormac did not understand. “We have seen none from outside but yourself, Cormac mac Art, not in any lifetime or in my father’s. Never have I seen such eyes, the colour of steel. We will offer these men what we have-food and drink. There is naught else, and what more can they want or ask?”

  Cormac felt desperation on him. It was as if he talked to a child-no, for even a child knew of danger… except on Daneira.

  “Duach,” he remonstrated, “these are Norsemen, my friend, and them on the viking trail!

  For a long moment Duach was silent, gazing curiously into the excited eyes oЈ the other man. At last, he spoke. “What are Norsemen?”

  Chapter Three:

  The Wizard of Daneira

  Cormac stared at the father of Consaer and Sinshi, and Duach Fedach’s son gazed mildly back into the dark, scarred face.

  “What are Nor-blood of the gods, man! I answer Daneira? Your life, Duach! Your wife and your daughter! It’s savages we talk about, man!”

  Duach gazed at him, having merely blinked. He could no more understand the concept than Cormac mac Art could understand Daneira and Daneirans. Close to hand, Sinshi bustled, with many glances from her pretty elfin face at her tall savior
, the strange, sky-eyed man in the steel coat who stared speechless at her father.

  It was then that another came to the house of Duach.

  A very old man, he was deferentially welcomed and bade to enter. Like snow was his plaited beard, and his scalp was nigh onto hairless, shiny and deeply tan. The staff he bore was capped by a moon-sign of considerable age. Cormac’s eyes widened at sight of that gold emblem, for it was like unto a bow, the old man’s moon-sign. Cormac knew it but hazily; it was the ancient symbol of a goddess few thought of in Eirrin. Dana or Danu her name, she whose people were in Eirrin long before the Celts came-for what many said was the second time, after a thousand years-the bow because in addition to her being moon-connected mother goddess, she was warrior as well, remembered among Cormac’s people only as the Morrighan. The Morrighan was believed in, and spoke of-but none worshiped her on her moon-mother identity. It was the goddess Bridgid that had supplanted her, and who was herself worshiped in Eirrin long before that silly follower of Padraigh and the Dead God, Bridget the Gentle, called “Saint.”

  Cormac marveled. As astounding were the old man’s clothes: he wore a robe of leaves of the forest, all shiningly enameled so that they made little clacking noises when he moved. Shown much deference, he accepted it with grace, in a manner clearly accustomed. After a glance about the main room of Duach’s home, he came to Cormac.

  For some time he but stood there, gazing with fascination into the Gael’s icy steel eyes. Then, the old man spoke.

  “You have come to our city from outside to save two of ours from other outsiders, tall man. Ye came here not with those who attacked Consaer and Sinshi?”

  Cormac thought: City! But his inner smile did not show when he said, “No. They are of the Norse, from a far land called Norge. Ye know them not?”