We roared back at him. “Tuathan!” we bellowed and shook our swords in his face, promising him his blood would stain this sweet grass red in a moment or so. He smiled took his sword from the ground and raised it to his lips in salute. His men did the same as they lined up in front of us, making a curved line that would loop and surround us soon enough. There would be no testing of champions today, no stories to be embellished before the fire on long winter nights. This was to be butchery, and we were the cattle.
Any man who gives you a blow by blow description of a battle he has fought is a liar. From that moment when your opponent first raises his weapon in your face to the time you stand, gazing around yourself at the dead and dying, astonished you have survived, battle is a blur of confusion and terror. It is not a man who strikes at you, but an enemy, at once both less and more than a man. He has no face or name. He is only his desire to kill you.
Swords came at us from all sides, and we struck back as the world shrank to a tiny space, fenced in by the clash of swords, the screams of men. My sword sliced into the shoulder of the man in front of me, scarlet blood spouting onto his clay patterns. I think I saw Padhraig take a cut above his eyes and another to his throat. Then I felt the fiercest pain I had ever felt, on the back of my legs, and I collapsed into a heap, the battle continuing above me, anger erupting through my agony. Some son of a whore had hamstrung me! I groped for my sword where I had dropped it, ready to ward off the killing blow, and suddenly there was only silence, broken only by the distant singing of birds.
So this was what death was like. I smiled. In a while I would hear the song of the approaching heroes.
Then I realized I was still in pain from the cuts to my legs, but from no other wound, as I was lifted and carried to one side where my leggings were cut off. Skilled hands began to dress the wound.
“Morrigan told you today was not your day to die,” Dar Elias said, squatting beside me on the grass.
“How could you know about that?” I whispered, my teeth grinding together to keep from whimpering at the very much lesser pain of my cuts being stitched.
Dar Elias looked over to where the corpses lay. I counted seven, hardly a good accounting for ourselves, but I suppose there could have been more I could not see.
“Have no fear for your sword brothers. We shall do them all the honors we shall give our own men.”
“Why have you spared me?”
“Your duty is not yet done, old man,” he said as I was lifted up and set astride Rowan. When they tied my feet together with a length of twine strung beneath Rowan’s belly, I ground my teeth together trying not to scream. I think I whined instead, an even less dignified and less manly sound. I had been cut before and I had never hurt so fiercely. To divert myself, I wondered how they could have known which horse was mine ― the one that could be guaranteed to bear me home with the minimum of guidance from me, not thinking that, of course, they had seen me ride to the battlefield upon her.
Then I saw a figure on horseback by the cairn, gazing calmly down at the scene beneath him, and the sight made me forget my own misery entirely.
It was Cu Cumundi himself.
Dar Elias led Rowan up the hill by her bridle. I could feel the king’s eyes on me every step of the way, and the chill that went through me froze the pains in my legs. I bowed as best I could when Dar Elias halted beside him. “My lord,” I said, affecting my best diplomatic manner.
The king was tall, elderly, with gray hair tied back from a face weathered and scarred by the passing of the years of his life. Despite the warmth of the day, he had a wolf skin cloak tied at the throat with a golden brooch. His blue eyes were those of a much younger man.
“She was his wife,” he said, nodding towards Dar Elias.
I bowed my head, wondering again why I was still alive and whether it would be better to be dead.
“And you had no part in it,” he went on. I looked up, about to protest he could not possibly know that, but kept silence as he shook his head to deny me. “Ask not how a king knows what happens in his kingdom.”
How could I have been so stupid as to imagine anything else? Of course he had watched us. He could have prevented Corbelathan’s idiocy at any time. That he had not done so bespoke schemes of which I knew nothing. Did he intend to provoke a war between us?
As if he had heard my thoughts, he shook his head. “Be on your way. Let us all go about the business of mourning.”
He urged his horse past me then, clapping his hand on my shoulder as he passed in what might have been a gesture of friendship had it not been so vigorous it was like to have knocked me to the ground had I not been tied to my horse. Dar Elias stepped nimbly out of his lord’s way. His men stood as he approached, greeting him at once respectfully and familiarly, as a man might greet his wife’s father, their reverence for the man obvious.
A flutter of wings by the row of corpses caught my attention, white wings, and when I looked directly at the bird I expected to see a dove. Instead, I saw a large crow on Corbelathan’s chest, a white crow. Cu Cumundi and his men moved aside as, for a moment, the bird turned in my direction. I felt it look directly into my eyes, and through them, out of the back of my skull and beyond. A question formed itself in the very farthest reaches of my mind ― since when did crows have green eyes? Once, twice the beak darted forward. Each time the head came up there was something white and bloody in her beak that she quickly tossed into the air and swallowed. Once done with the prince, she fluttered onto the chest of my sword brother next in line and executed her office on him, and then the next, and the next and then the last. All of us watched her pluck out the eyes of each of my sword brothers, before she hesitated to move to our dead enemies. She stared up at Cu Cumundi, who shook his head a little, bowing it at the same time. She went on staring up at him for what felt like a man’s lifetime, before she quickly dipped her head and then took to the air.
We all waited and watched her as she flew twice around the battlefield and then disappeared into the wood. None of us needed to ask who she was, especially not me.
Dar Elias turned to regard me with an such an intensity that I had to look away, unable to loosen my tongue from the bone dry roof of my mouth to answer his accusation, to say that going blind into the next life was a just and fitting punishment for rapists and murderers. Dar Elias had promised me my dead comrades would be treated with all due honor when the only honor they deserved was to be tossed into a communal pit, me laid atop them still breathing, and all of us covered over in lime.
As Cu Cumundi rode slowly away into the trees I saw two of his men heft Corbelathan over his horse, tying his wrists and ankles together beneath him. Then one of them led the horse up the hill and put its halter into my free hand before turning without a word to rejoin his brothers in their funerary preparations. Eventually I found my voice, or it found me.
“I am sorry,” I told Dar Elias. What else could I say? Even an ambassador understands that when all else fails, he can always speak the truth. I was sorry. I was sorry for my failure. I was sorry that there was bad blood between his king and mine that had not existed before my failure. I was sorry that men had died because of my failure. That they were warriors and had expected ― even wanted ― to die in the service of their lord, did not make the waste of their lives any the less. I was sorry for the death of his wife and her brother. The only death for which I felt no sorrow was of the man whose selfishness had caused all the others.
“She was a whore,” he said, flatly, and shrugged. “I had put her aside. Why else do you think she lived in such squalor?” There was a silence between us before he shook his head. He reached up for my hand, and I gave it to him. Dignity commands dignity in a man. We both knew that if we ever saw each other again, only one of us would walk away, but if that day was ever going to dawn, only the Morrigan knew, and she was not about to tell us mere men until it was too late for us to avoid our fate, however mightily we tried.
Rowan walked through the night and
into the next day, not that I could have dismounted even if I had desired it. We arrived in the mid-morning. Men ran out of the compound to greet us, slowing to an uncertain halt when they saw who lay over the other horse. Only when they saw I, too, was tied to Rowan did someone take the initiative, and we were both cut down. I was given a drink of water but not the opportunity to wash the dust of my journey from me before I was taken through Tuathan’s hall and into his private orchard. They put me down on a stool beside Tuathan and left me there.
“Tell me everything, old friend,” he commanded. Tuathan’s gaze could convince a man he knew exactly what was inside his head, that lying was futile. In the tree above him, a gray headed crow glared at me. My hand moved immediately to ward off evil, but the crow only squawked and settled down, still gazing at me. Eventually, I looked away and began to speak...
“...and that is the truth of it,” I said, looking him in the eye, searching there for some response to the news I had brought, although I knew it was a futile search. Tuathan would tell the gods what he felt when he was good and ready, and then only if he believed his feelings were any business of theirs.
“So, my eldest son is dead,” he said, eventually, as he might have observed that a cattle pen had been broken down during the night.
I found myself only able to nod, dreading the conflagration of his temper.
He got to his feet, came to me and lifted me to mine, slipping his right arm around me. Despite his age, he was still a strong man.
“Am I not a fortunate man, my old friend, in having another son?” he asked as he walked me towards the door that led into the hall, the one that opened as we approached and from which Denathain stepped through. Denathain was the king’s younger son, as tall and vigorous as his brother, but a man who considered his words before he spoke, a man who believed his rank conferred upon him duties more than privileges, a man who had chosen his woman with care and for love.
“I was at the southern crossing,” he said, hurrying towards us. “I came as soon as I heard!” Sweat dripped from his face, as it should from a man who had just ridden hard. He stopped still when he saw me. “You have been hurt!” he cried, rushing to take some of my weight.
We had been close, Denathain and I, when he was young, closer than I was to my own sons. I knew him well, and the look he exchanged with his father was far more eloquent than any words. It all but stopped my heart. I had thought myself a man of experience, of the world, versed in the wiles and hard choices of kings, but this understanding froze the blood inside me.
Tuathan had plotted Corbelathan’s death. Denathain had been party to his scheme.
“See to the arrangements,” Tuathan commanded his son as they helped me through the doorway, handing me on to two of his household, commanding them to see me taken care of, fed and refreshed.
“Do you have any advice for me, my trusted counselor?” Tuathan called after me. My bearers stopped, and I looked over my shoulder towards my king.
“Do not invite Cu Cumundi to the funeral,” I told him.
His gaze held mine for a long while until he laughed. The man laughed, laughed when he should have wept! Then he was gone, striding away from me, giving orders to anyone and everyone he passed. As I was helped past the fire I coughed, then coughed again and again until I hawked up a mouthful of phlegm that sizzled and skittered on the hot stones until it was gone.
I turned to my helpers. “My mouth was suddenly full of dust and ashes,” I told them, “nothing but dust and ashes.”
Now, I was empty even of them.
****
Afterword
I discovered The Phantom Queen Awakes anthology through a mutual friend, had a look at the mythology and was presented with a character and a story that would allow me to say something I wanted to say ― just to let you know, I am not a royalist ― while allowing me to explore and play with the theme of the anthology.
Unlike Professor Tolkien, I think that these islands have a wealth of mythology, mythology that reflects our damp, cold and dangerous lands, and the obdurate, pragmatic people who live(d) here. The Morrigan and her associated mythologies have been hidden beneath later accretions, thanks in no small part to the professor, and they deserve some respectful archeology.
****
Biography
Martyn has been writing SF/F stories with varying success for a long time now. He has been published, but mostly in magazines long since buried. He was published in games, when they had words. He has struggled up the foothills of Auntie Beeb with radio plays, only to be knocked back down because Auntie isn’t really interested in SF/F. He has been paid for writing TV drama documentaries, although they were never made.
After the Worldcon in Glasgow, he decided to get serious, and has several shorts going through the publication process, as well as the novels that his long suffering agent is presenting. His abiding interest is in what happens just beyond our peripheral vision, the fantasy that he chooses to regard as left-handed realism.
****
T.A. Moore
The White Heifer of Fearchair
Ulick mac Fearchair was well-known to his neighbors as a prideful man, though to a stranger he seemed to possess little that might make a man arrogant. His coffers were rarely full and his daughter languished unwed for lack of a dowry; he was no great warrior, being lame and weak of chest since childhood, and his daughter was a plain woman of no especial talent or bloodline. Nor was his hospitality storied. Ulick resented every copper that went to feed his family and a stranger at his table would dine on the moldy heels of bread that would have otherwise gone to the pigs.
No, Ulick mac Fearchair prided himself on only two things in this world.
The first was Fynnerois, his fine white cow; not only was she white from ear to tail, she was gentle as a new lamb and never calved a single bull-calf when she could calve two. Ulick doted on her as another man might his own child. Nor did he grant the gods a word of praise for his good fortune, either. Instead, he claimed all the credit for the tender care he gave his Fynnerois: the fine hay he fed in winter and the high, rich fields he led her to in summer.
The second thing that Ulick prided himself on was that he was no man’s fool. In his cups, he would boast that no man had ever taken advantage of him or walked away from a bargain the richer for it. He weighted the bottom of his oat bags with stones to make them seem fuller than they were and he made beggars pay for a glass of water.
His nephew, Ennan, an orphaned lad who lived on Ulick’s scant generosity, was a different sort altogether. He was a tall, fair youth with bright hair and a shining brow who accepted his uncle’s abuse and the hard labor that was his lot with a willing heart. Everyone liked Ennan, all but his uncle. Petty-minded and sour-natured, Ulick judged others by his own ways, and saw slyness were others saw charm and cunning where others saw a generous spirit.
There was rarely a kind word in his mouth for Ennan, certainly not on the morning of the cattle market. A cuff from the back of Ulick’s hand roused Ennan from his bed of hay in the barn and the day began.
“Work harder,” Ulick chided him as they led the stare-coated cows down to the lake.
“Work faster,” Ulick ordered him as they rubbed grease into dry coats and cracked hooves.
Fynnerois watched it all from her byre of sweet hay with big, dark eyes, occasionally twitching a white ear. She would never be so rudely treated.
Once the cows were ready Bebin, Ulick’s daughter, came from the house with their lunches bound in cloth. Ulick snatched both, Ennan would be lucky to see a crumb, and slapped a switch against a cow’s greasy flank to get them moving.
The Altnawannog cattle market was held outside of town, by the river. A fenced off field was crowded with cows, sheep and pigs, steam rising from their backs into the cold air. Crates of chickens and ducks were stacked by the fence, packed in so tightly they couldn’t move. One corner of the field was set aside for slaughter ― cows and sheep going quietly to their deaths while pi
gs squealed and fought the knife, and the blood added to the knee-deep mire of shit and piss that fouled the field. Drovers yelled and whistled, snapping their switches, and dogs barked as they darted between the stamping legs of the cows. Farmers stood back, out of the mire, and haggled with each other enthusiastically.
Ulick went to join them, uncaring, even proud of the cool welcome he saw as a tribute to his trading skills, and Ennan drove the cows to their spot. He was greeted warmly by all, but few came to look at the animals. After a lifetime of Ulick’s trickery, all knew the beasts were not worth driving home for slaughter. The lack of interest would go hard on Ennan when they got home.
The sun was high and Ennan’s mouth was parched when the woman walked into the market. All heads turned to watch her pass.
It was not that she was beautiful; her face was too bony and her body too lean to be called that, but her hair was a mass of wiry copper and her brows were two licks of flame over her quick, black eyes. She wore a glossy green silk tunic that was stiff with gold and red embroidery. A warrior’s heavy wool cloak was folded over her broad shoulders and pinned at the breast with a twisted golden feather.
She stole Ennan’s breath, but he did not desire to possess her. No one but a hero or a king would have the temerity to lay claim to this woman. She was surely one of the fair folk, though what interest one of her kin had here was a mystery. Best it remain so, too. No good had ever come from the likes of them interfering in the deeds of mortal men.
One pale hand gathered up her cloak, looping it twice over her arm, and she strode across the filthy market. The mud that clotted on her shoes and clung to the hem of her tunic gave her no pause; she did not seem to notice it. Cows moved aside to let her pass and mac Connal’s bull, although it had gored one dog already this day, bowed his head to her. On occasion she would pause and touch one of the beasts with a long-fingered hand but she didn’t linger long.
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