Legend of the Celtic Stone

by Michael Phillips

  “We understand that you of the north have constructed such monuments,” said Cruithne. “We hoped perhaps you would be able to enlighten us concerning your methods of hoisting giant stones into the air. As you see, we have progressed as far as the mere strength of man will allow.”

  The strangers glanced at one another for a moment.

  “Uh . . . yes,” replied one, “there have indeed been such standing pillars and slabs raised in Kildonanoid.”

  “You will help us then?” said Fidach expectantly.

  “Let us consider the task tomorrow. Shortly we feast on roast boar. Tonight we will listen to the songs that tell of your people. Tomorrow we will bend our minds to the task you have set for us.”

  The five began the return walk down Beinn Donuill toward the hill-fort. Fidach turned and glanced back at the two pillars raised high, with the nearly completed tomb of his father beside it.

  How fitting, thought Fidach to himself, that the very symbol of brotherhood should be completed with the aid of men from a neighboring tribe—related by blood, and working with us in harmony.

  With a smile of satisfaction, he turned and continued on with the others. Smoke already rose from the burning pit beside the giant broch. The aroma of roasting boar hung pleasingly in the air.

  The night was late after the feast when Fidach and Cruithne approached their stone home together. Had their father been alive, they would have been laughing. As it was, the sound of Pendalpin’s melancholy voice echoed through their brains, along with thoughts of their father. Their spirits thus remained, though quietly joyful, yet subdued in the loss of one they both had loved since earliest memory.

  In the darkness they heard the gentle breathing from where Aethilnon lay sleeping peacefully.

  The brothers clasped hands silently in brief farewell for the night, then each went to his own room. Fidach lay down near his mother and was soon lost in deep slumber. Cruithne lay down upon his skins, wondering where his own mother might be. He had not seen her around the fire earlier.

  Sleep for Taran’s younger son did not come so quickly.

  When it did arrive, it was fitful and troubled.

  Nineteen

  Cruithne half woke to dreamy, confused impressions in his sleep-dulled consciousness—images of stone and reindeer, of boars and wolves, of a great stag, and of a danger he could feel but not see. His spear was raised in readiness, but he could not find the enemy. His brother was in danger! The tip of his javelin was poised to protect Fidach from the attack. But from what direction would it come?

  Wolves! How could he, with a single spear, keep the whole pack from Fidach!

  Shivers of fear tingled through his chest. The wolves were silent. No sound betrayed their whereabouts. They crept ever closer. But try as he might, he could not detect their movements, nor their position!

  His body trembled. He turned over on the hard floor, becoming gradually more alert.

  The vague light of predawn had begun faintly to gray the sky. Dreams still swirled through his head. It was cold. The fire had burned low.

  Whispers of haste sounded somewhere close.

  Cruithne tried to open his eyes. His mother was speaking near his face, but he could scarcely make out her words, nor the features of her agitated countenance.

  “My son . . . come,” she was saying. “There is danger.” Her voice was soft but urgent.

  He shook himself into semiwakefulness.

  “You must rise and come,” she insisted.

  “Why, Mother?” he tried to respond. His voice remained full of sleep.

  “Shh . . . quiet, my son,” she replied, placing an imperative hand upon his mouth. “You must rise, I tell you, and come. I fear they will desecrate your father’s crypt!”

  In an instant Cruithne sat up, coming alert. “Who, Mother—what is this desecration you speak of?”

  “I do not know,” Eormen whispered. “Strangers . . . enemies. I see men across the plain approaching Donuill.”

  “How many?”

  “Two . . . perhaps three. It is yet dark.”

  “We will drive them off,” he said, rising to his feet. “I will awaken Fidach.”

  “No, no, my son! Let him sleep. There is no need. You are easily able for the task.”

  Still suffering from what remnants of sleep clung to his brain, Cruithne did not pause to question her words. He grabbed his iron-tipped spear as he sprang from bed and hastened outside. He ran to the wall, peered through the haze of the gray dawn across the plain to the northwest. But he could distinguish no movement in the valley or beyond it.

  Still without questioning, only fearing for his father’s remains, he ran for the gate and sprinted down the hill toward Beinn Donuill.

  Meanwhile, Eormen, too, had left the stone enclosure to follow her son. She moved with stealthy step, watching his movements, remaining behind the walls of stone that were as hard, cold, and impenetrable as her heart.

  She wanted only to see, not be seen.

  The moment Cruithne was safely out of the enclosure of the hill-fort, she hastened to the opposite end of the perimeter wall, out a narrow opening, and down the hill toward the dun where her guests of treason were waiting.

  “Come quickly!” she called as she approached. “The moment is ripe! My son is away. Strike while you can. He will return in less than ten minutes.”

  The woman’s cousin, prepared for the summons, emerged from the stone dun.

  “Come . . . come, you fool!” she urged. “Make haste! I will go, even now, to fetch your silver. You have only to—”

  She was interrupted by a scornful laugh.

  “Ha! ha! ha! What have you to give us? We will take all your silver, and everything else we want from Laoigh!”

  The other two visitors from Rossbidalich emerged into the morning air. They were followed by three more, then six. Their open chests were bare of skins and still revealed the temporary markings of friendship. But twining up upon their shoulders from behind could now be seen the hideous snakelike tattoos of the enemies of Laoigh. Suddenly the look of urgency on Eormen’s face turned ashen with the horror of betrayal.

  “What . . . ?” she stammered angrily, but with an uncertain premonition in her tone. “Who are all these?” As she spoke she backed slowly away. She did not like the leering looks on the faces all now turned upon her.

  “The plans have changed, my vile cousin,” said their leader. “Your feeble husband did not have the courtesy to wait for us to slit his throat. What did you do, decide to retain the pleasure for yourself and slip poison into his brew?”

  “What has my husband to do with today?” Eormen spat. “I brought you here on another mission.”

  “You brought us!” he rejoined with derision. “You thin-brained old crone! Do you not think us capable of coming and going where we choose?”

  “I sought counsel with you.”

  “And now, as I said, the plans have changed. You can see we have brought with us many warriors of the Roismaeatae.”

  “What need have you for warriors? There is but one I have told you to kill.”

  “You shall give us no orders! Now, begone, old hag! It may be that I will allow you to live—but only if you stay out of my sight.”

  With the fire of hatred in her eyes, Eormen spun around and ran back up the hill. As she entered the compound, she cast a hasty look behind her. Already her cousin had left the dun and was walking after her, followed by no fewer than eight of his companions. In their eyes gleamed a lust for conquest. In their hands they bore cold iron knives and murderous swords.

  Now observing the shadowy forms of a dozen or more warriors rising from their hiding places on the plain south of the broch, Eormen raced back to her dwelling, which had given such life to the settlement but would from this day forward breathe life no more. The whole tribe of the Roismaeatae was upon them!

  There was still time, she thought frantically, to succeed in her plan! She would slay the interloping fools by her own hand,
then rouse the wrath of her son against the foul invaders. He would kill them all with the might of his sword, thinking it was they who killed his brother! Then everything would be as she had dreamed!

  Blindly she stumbled into the darkened hut and squinted until her eyes caught the glint of the chief’s long sharp hunting dagger. With trembling hand she clutched it tightly, then groped her way into Aethilnon’s enclosure.

  It required but a moment to end for all time the rivalry for her husband’s affections and her own position of power. She shivered involuntarily as the blood from the neck of Taran’s first wife spurted warm onto her murderous hand, then drenched the dead woman’s sleeping robe before soaking into the dirt below. Aethilnon made scarcely a sound, only a momentary choking, then it was over.

  In feverish haste, Eormen moved toward her son’s brother and friend, her hands quivering now in demonic abandon. Fidach stirred at her approach and opened his eyes.

  As he saw the mother of his brother bending over him, Fidach’s face filled with a smile of kindness.

  “Eormen,” he said, reaching out his hand to greet her. “What is—” he began to ask.

  They were the last words to leave his lips.

  A look of such hatred as Fidach had never seen suddenly consumed the old woman’s eyes.

  “You baseborn usurper!” she spat.

  With one swift thrust of her old but still-powerful arm, she plunged the long blade deep into his chest and directly through his heart.

  Fidach’s body slumped back, the knife of his father still protruding from the gushing wound. Within seconds he was dead.

  Eormen rose, barely conscious of the blood upon her hands and arms. Shuddering with evil madness, she staggered into the cold morning air. All around her were the sounds of looting and slaughter. She made for the gate which led toward Donuill.

  Cruithne was barely halfway across the plain toward the mountain when he heard the sounds of massacre behind him. He looked behind him. In the distance he saw a figure dash out of one of the duns outside the stone wall, followed by a large man who cut the screaming woman down with his sword, then ran back up the hill in search of further victims.

  In an agony of dreadful foreboding, Cruithne now turned and raced back the way he had come, already fearing he would be too late. Screams and moans and shrieks of terror filled the air.

  Halfway up the hill, Cruithne saw his mother emerge from the gate toward him.

  “My son . . . my son!” she called. A horrible look of triumph lit her eyes. “Drive them away and you will be chief, the greatest man in all Caldohnuill!”

  “Mother, what has happened?”

  “All is well, my son!” she answered. “Swing your sword about, and they will all flee before you!”

  “But . . . but, Mother,” stuttered Cruithne, at last beginning to divine the grisly truth, “ . . . what is this . . . blood on your hands?”

  “It is the blood of conquest, my son!” she cried. “The blood of victory! We have won, do you not see the truth? You are now the chief!”

  “I seek not to be chief!”

  “But it is our destiny!”

  “I must go to Fidach,” he said, pushing his way past her. “I must fight with my people against this enemy that has come into our camp!”

  “Fidach is dead—don’t you understand!” she yelled behind him. “Now there is only you!”

  Cruithne spun around. A stricken look of chilling horror spread across his face.

  He stared for a moment at the woman who stood before him, with the sickening sound of her hideous laughter ringing in his ears. Now, in truth, she did feel the passion of the chief in his eyes as he bore down upon her. Some stab of inner cognition told her that he would never again, from this moment forth, be her son.

  “What is this evil you speak?” he said slowly. “What have you done, you cursed viper?”

  “What I have done, I did for you, my son,” she whimpered.

  “For me!” he thundered.

  But even as the words roared from his throat, with them came a mournful wail of despair. “You have destroyed the most important thing in all the world to me! You have taken my heart’s desire—to serve my brother as chief. And you would do such for me?”

  Again a pitiful shriek burst from his lips. Hot tears of bitterness gushed from his eyes.

  In vain Eormen tried to cling to him. But he shoved her away. She fell to the ground. Cruithne hastened weeping toward the encampment.

  As he attempted to enter the gate, suddenly young Domnall burst through and ran headlong into him.

  “Come, Cruithne!” he yelled. He grabbed at the older man’s arm to prevent his going farther.

  “I must find Fidach . . . Aethilnon . . . we must save our people,” mumbled Cruithne in a daze. He scarcely recognized the son of the bard.

  “No, Cruithne,” insisted Domnall. “It is too late. They are dead. The stench of treachery is among us. Death is all about! It is you and me they now seek. Come . . . we must flee!”

  “Pendalpin . . . we must go to—”

  “My father is dead! Many are dead! Our only hope is to escape ourselves, then find what others of our people have been able to flee to safety.”

  Still Cruithne stood in shock, gazing impotently about him. He listened to the sounds of his people screaming as they ran down the hill away from the plundering swords.

  “Come . . . come, I tell you!” begged Domnall, tugging at his arm. “We will go to gleann nan uaimh! There we can hide in safety—then come back another day!”

  Bewildered and stunned, Cruithne followed his young friend, whom the wicked betrayal had suddenly elevated to bard of his clan.

  As they ran down the hillside, Eormen attempted to stop them.

  “My son . . . my son!” she pleaded. “You are chief now. They will not harm you. I will give them silver! Come back . . . come back, my son!”

  Not heeding her cries, they ran down the hill and across the plain toward the river of Aethbran nan Bronait.

  They did not see, and neither did Eormen, the approach behind her of the man she had disdained to call her cousin. Slowly down the hill he came, huge knife drawn in readiness, to where she stood calling pathetically after her son.

  While the ruthless leader of the Roismaeatae completed that portion of his task he had most eagerly anticipated, the new young chief and younger bard of the Pritenae of Caldohnuill ran from immediate harm.

  They would gather what remained of their people. They would repopulate the region. And they would make of Caldohnuill both a land and a people to be remembered for all time.

  Today as they fled, however, there were no thoughts of the future.

  Cruithne only glanced back once, pausing before the eastern face of Beinn Donuill. With aching longing for the brother with whom he had dreamed of completing it, he gazed at the unfinished monument of ann an aonachd tha bràithreachas.

  An urgent tug from Domnall’s hand came to his arm. Unwillingly, and with wet stinging eyes, he who would become the father of the Caledonii turned and staggered away behind the fleeing feet of the young bard.

  8

  Leader of the Liberal Democrats

  One

  Andrew Trentham set down the great book on his lap and glanced at his watch. The hands showed a little after two-thirty. He had been sitting absorbed in the old tale for more than three hours! Duncan had gone to bed hours ago.

  It was too late now to make an attempt for home. He would do as Duncan had suggested and curl up on the couch under several of the old plaids.

  The names of the ancient tribes and clans themselves contained such unexplorable mysteries . . . Borestii, Maeatae, Pritenae, Scothui . . .

  The mere whispered sound of the old Celtic words on his lips sent a shivering tremble of filial affinity through his body.

  He opened the book again and flipped through the oversized pages to the story he had read a week ago. He remembered something . . . there it was—

  . . . nonethe
less did the Wanderer’s blood flow throughout all the branches large and small that went to make up this surging tide of human occupation.

  Now he scanned again through the story he had just read, locating another passage.

  The wild blood of Taran’s Celtic stock ran hot . . . other tribes were pushing ever closer . . . sharers of their own primal Celtic blood . . . that blood had been so intermingled as to seal the brotherhood of these peoples for all time. . . .

  Was the idea too far-reaching that these might be narratives not only of the beginnings of this northern region of Britain, but the beginnings of his own family tree as well?

  Andrew’s eyes began to grow heavy. He reached across to the couch and pulled a tartan blanket toward him. He draped it unceremoniously across shoulders and knees. As consciousness slowly faded, his visions of the old adventurer and the two brothers began to mingle with his own dreams.

  As sleep overtook him, unsettling sensations began to gather about the scene of the two ancient brothers on the overlook to their private loch and falls. But the scene was no longer a happy one.

  The faces slowly changed.

  It was he and Lindsay now, not the brothers of the story . . . they were playing, running toward their own clifflike vista . . . laughter, a summer romp over the fields. Suddenly Lindsay slipped . . . now his sister was falling, her head hitting against a stone . . . his own mouth opened wide to scream after her, but no sound came out . . . the silent splash into the lake below . . . now he was running, running, his clothes wet, tears streaming down his face, panic and fear and guilt seizing his heart . . .

  Suddenly with a jerk Andrew awoke.

  He drew in a deep sigh of relief, then another, glancing about Duncan’s silent cottage trying to collect himself, remembering where he was. He pulled the blanket more tightly around him and after some minutes began to doze again. The nightmare did not revisit him.

  Before Andrew was even well asleep again, the new image of an intrepid pilgrim came into view in the scene of his mind’s eye. While dressed in skins and carrying a long, crudely made spear as he ran across a vast moor of obviously Highland locale, this new adventurer bore a striking resemblance to one who would one day represent the north of England in the Parliament of Westminster. He sped over the ground bare of foot, eyes aflame with purpose, and suddenly was standing not on open heath, but on a concrete corner before the Houses of Parliament. All around passersby and reporters clamored toward him, taking pictures and thrusting microphones in front of him. But the only sound to emerge from his lips was in an ancient and long-forgotten tongue that none could understand.