Mannan sat up to see the eyes of the last wolf. It crouched low and growled. Mannan knew he had no time to stand so he fumbled around for his knife.
The wolf growled low, ready to pounce.
Among the mud and rock and root, Mannan touched something smooth and long. A smile broke out on his face as the last wolf lurched forward.
◆◆◆
Mannan awoke to Ote standing over him with an ax leaning against his shoulder. He was in his house, in his bed. He tried to stand but felt a thousand small scrapes and cuts all over his body. He looked down to see his left arm heavily bandaged. “What happened?”
“We found you and Riona the next morning. You were out cold. She clung to your body for warmth.” Ote looked down at Mannan’s waist. “She un-pleated your kilt and used it as a blanket to keep you both warm.” Ote left the room and came back with black furs around his arm. He tossed them to Mannan. “Fine pelts.”
Mannan recognized the skins. “Where did you find them?”
“Two of the wolves were dead around your body. The other died some two hundred yards away from you and Riona,” Ote said.
“Tanning pelts takes time. How long have I been out?” Mannan asked.
“Brother,” Ote began. “You came home with a bad fever.” He nodded towards Mannan’s left arm. “That thing oozed puss by the afternoon. You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
Mannan sat up. “How long, Ote.”
“Four days.”
“Four days?” Mannan dizzied.
“Easy, easy. You had a bad fever for three of those days. Are you hungry?”
Mannan nodded. “Where’s Riona?”
Ote smiled. “Funny thing. She was grateful for your aid. She and Deborah both took turns nursing you.”
“Jesus on the throne. They’re not friends, are they?” Mannan asked.
Ote shook his head while smiling. “Let’s call it a truce, for now.”
“Have there been any raids?”
“Minor things. Connell knows we have Riona. He won’t try anything while we have his niece,” Ote said.
Mannan tried to stand. Ote helped him up and to the hearth. He ate soup and drank beer. With every sip his strength returned.
The door opened and Riona stood in it, unbound and free. Her hair was twisted in a severe braid. Her brown hair glistened in the sunlight. When she saw Mannan, her face flushed. It took a great amount of control to hide it. “You’re up, I see.”
“So are you,” Mannan replied with a smirk.
“Someone had to do the work around here with you lazy men napping all day.” Riona walked to the hearth and fixed a bowl.
“You could have left. No one could have stopped you.” Mannan raised an eyebrow waiting for a reply.
“You have blood on your hands, Mannan Mor MacOwen. You burned my home. You are responsible for my brother’s death.” She took a deep breath while trying to control a tremble. Her face flushed. “But you did not allow your kin to despoil mine. You could have shamed me. You could have murdered me. Instead you saved my life.” She touched his bandaged hand gently. “There is too much between us. Too much blood. Too much spite and hatred.” She looked into his eyes. “But that does not mean you are not a good man. I owed you a debt.”
Mannan squeezed her hand touching his. “Then consider the debt paid.”
He got up from the hearth and went to the barn. Mannan instructed Riona to take two Micken horses and put a saddle on one of them. He handed the reins to Riona. “Go home, Riona Nic’Micken. Go home to your uncle. Tell him I still want peace. Tell him what you told me. How we have restrained ourselves. Tell him how you were treated here.”
Riona looked at Ote, who said nothing. She turned to Mannan. Her dark eyes welled with tears. There were so many things that she wanted to say. So many things that needed saying. Instead she said nothing. She walked both horses out of the barn and climbed the saddled one.
Mannan grabbed her arm. “Tell your uncle Connell I will be at the chapel in three days. I want to parlay in good faith. Do you understand?”
A single tear fell down her cheek as she nodded. Mannan let go and Riona walked both horses down the path.
“Was that wise?” Ote asked.
“I hope so, Ote. I hope so.”
Chapter 7
The highlands of Scotland were a harsh place. Cold, damp, foreboding and alien, in many regards. Here, winter seemed to never end while summer was a dream over too quickly. It was mid-August now. The winds grew crisper while the rains began to cut into a man’s skin if he wasn’t careful. Even though the days were still long, they were colder now.
Mannan sat astride Fiona with Aaron Rue and Seamus on either side. Ote came too, along with some other cousins. The wind bit more into a man’s flesh in August, so they all wore the brat—the great Irish woolen cape. Father Duncan opened the door of his small cottage adjacent to the ancient chapel. The smell of cooking meat and eggs wafted from the door. A puddle of yellow yoke danced haphazardly on the large priests beard with every step he made. “I’ll have no violence here. Not on the Lord’s ground. Is that understood?” The portly priest wiped the egg from his beard on to his cassock.
“If the peace is broken, father, it won’t be our doing,” Aaron Rue said.
“Just the same, ‘turn the other cheek,’ is what the good book says. I—” but the priest forgot his words at the sight of Connell and his pack of a dozen men as they road up to the cemetery fence that surrounded the chapel. Connell brushed his right hand through his long, dark mane of hair.
“That’s far enough,” Mannan said from the inside of the cemetery. “We can here each other just fine where we are.”
Connell placed his right hand down his left sleeve. Every set of MacOwen eyes locked on Connell and his hand as he pulled out an apple. A green apple. Plump and sweet. He bit into it as he spoke. “You have called this meeting Mannan and I thank you for it.”
Mannan scratched his head. “Why’s that?”
“It gives me the chance to express my gratitude to you. You could have murdered Riona,” he said as he looked around. “Or worse.”
“I meant that message I sent through your niece. We can still have peace. We could cultivate this land together,” Mannan said.
Connell took another bite. He chewed it slowly while the juices ran down his chin. “Don’t confuse gratefulness for naiveté. You, Mannan, have a lot to answer for.” Connell leaned forward in his saddle.
“As do you,” Mannan replied.
“You murdered my nephew. You burned down his home. You even kidnapped his sister—regardless of how you treated her. It was still kidnapping.” Connell practically stood in his saddle, leaning over to intimidate Mannan and the other MacOwens.” He practically spit these next words out. “I need recompense. For a nephew’s lost potential and a bride’s ruined dream night.”
“Your nephew’s death was an accident. Ten who were there that night can swear to it.” Mannan trotted his horse forward. “Any man that says otherwise I name him liar.” Mannan looked around. “As for the other things? You burned out a dozen of my kin before we retaliated. You even tried to ambush me. So don’t play the lamb when you are certainly the lion.”
“Goodmen,” Fr. Duncan began. “There has been enough bloodshed. Let the dead rest in peace. Think of the living. Think of the widowed mothers and the dispossessed. Come to your senses, goodmen.”
“Aye, father. You speak the truth,” Connell said. “I do think of them. What justice shall they receive? What recompense?”
Mannan clenched his jaw while his eye widened. “You act as if you are the aggrieved party. There are half a dozen families without home because of you,”
“And the Mickens have no tanist to lead them because of you,” Connell spat.
“All have suffered here. More violence will only perpetuate that. Are you both blind to the truth?” Fr. Duncan asked.
“Here is the truth of it,” Mannan began. “You and I both know you Mickens
are not prepared for the winter. You can burn our crops and we will burn yours. But we fish. We heard. We can always trade that for grain and vegetables,” Mannan said as he adjusted in his saddle. “What do you have to trade for? If this continues, what will you trade for?”
Connell sneered. “I would rather starve then give you up, Mannan Mor MacOwen. As I breathed my last I would have the satisfaction of knowing you went before me.” Connell threw the apple at the feet of Mannan’s horse, then turned around and rode away with his men behind him.
“Heaven help us, that man has condemned his soul,” Fr. Duncan said.
“That man, Father, is a redshank. He knows nothing but war, pillage and plunder. I—”
Horses reared and screamed as a flight of arrows crashed down upon Mannan and his kin. He tried to calm Fiona, but she bucked as the other Irish ponies around her. Men fell to the ground as their ponies ran to get away from the arrows.
Another flight of arrows came at them. Ote’s horse reared and threw the boy.
“OTE,” Mannan called. “Seamus, get Ote,” he hollered.
Seamus jumped off of his brown stallion to reach the boy who lay unconscious around his dancing horse. But the horse danced around in fear and he couldn’t safely pick Ote from the ground. Instead he tried to calm the horse.
Another flight of arrows fell like rain on their heads. Mannan clenched his teeth. “Enough,” he said as he pulled his sword. “ENOUGH.” He kicked Fiona in her sides with his heels and the mare was off. He crossed the road and strode atop a berm. On the other side of a field of wild flowers, behind a second berm, six archers loosed another volley of arrows. “YE-AWW!” Mannan kicked Fiona again.
The archers did not notice Mannan. They nocked another set of arrows in their short bows before realizing one of their targets was charging. Arrows flew haphazardly by Mannan’s left and right. As he closed some archers ran for their own horses some ten yards behind them while others nocked arrows again.
Mannan stood in his stirrups and pulled his long sword. In one swing took a man’s head off. His blade crashed down on the shoulder of another. He saw another run to his horse, but Mannan got to him first, hacking and slashing as he rode. He turned Fiona around and saw two of the three loose arrows at him while the last one dropped his bow and ran. Mannan urged Fiona forward and charged as the arrows flew by him. He slashed up, taking the jaw off one man. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other gain some sense and run.
Aaron Rue galloped by and skewered him with an Irish dart. The archer screamed as he stumbled to the ground.
Mannan trotted Fiona over to Aaron Rue.
“Are you well, Mannan?”
Mannan said nothing. He looked down at the archer dying in the field of wild flowers. “Mercy, Mannan Mor. Mercy,” the man gasped in between coughing blood.
Mannan jumped down from Fiona, then squatted before the wounded Micken archer. He narrowed his eyes on the dying man and cocked his head. “You left Leinster as we did. You left because of the violence. Tell me, why have you brought it here?”
The man’s breathing shortened. “M-mercy, Mannan Mor. M-mercy.”
Manna nodded. Did anything ever change? Were all men so foolish? He took the tip of his sword, placed it on the heart of the dying man. “Ask god for mercy for I have none left,” he said as he leaned forward into the blade, piercing his chest. The archer coughed, joked, and fought the blade—but he was too weak. His eyes bulged and he shuddered for a moment then died.
◆◆◆
Mannan and Seamus took the Micken horses and placed their dead archers on their backs to be placed in the cemetery with their own dead. “Jesus,” Fr. Duncan mumbled to himself as he absentmindedly made the cross.
Mannan’s kin took the dead archers down from their horses. “Father, where do you want the graves for these?” Seamus asked.
Dumbfounded, Fr. Duncan pointed to an open place.
“What do we do now?” Ote asked.
“Can you ride?” Mannan asked.
Ote nodded. “I just bumped my head. I’m fine now.”
“Mannan,” Fr. Duncan interrupted. “This has to stop. The bloodshed, the fighting. It has to stop.”
Mannan raised an eyebrow. “Aye, father. It will. Just as soon as I put Connell in the ground.”
“Connell’s immortal soul may be in peril, but you don’t have to follow him. End this. Give him what he wants.”
What madness was this priest uttering? Was he not there? Did he not here Connell with his own words? “Father, I tried.” Mannan pointed down the road. “I begged that man to end this. Did you not hear him? He would let winter come and starve him if that meant he could watch me die first. What can I do against such madness?”
“You can appease him. You can humble yourself for the sake of your people. Think of your women and children,” said Fr. Duncan.
“Like the Hebrews appeased the Egyptian king? Like David appeased the Philistines?” Mannan stepped up to the priest and grabbed him by his robes. “I AM thinking of my people.” Seamus and Ote separated the two.
Fumbling for something meaningful to say, Fr. Duncan spoke again as Ote took him away. “Jesus said to love our neighbors.”
“Love our neighbor?” Mannan fumed. “He also said to sell your cloak and buy a sword.”
“Do not blaspheme here, Mannan. Hate only begets hate.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But who ambushed us on church grounds? In a hallowed cemetery?” Mannan was screaming now. Enraged at Connell’s attack. He stopped and turned away and took a deep breath. “Father, I know you mean well. But this man means to murder me and my kin.” He pointed at Ote. “I took Connell’s side against the man who will be my brother soon. I chastised my own sister for the sake of peace. What else would the Lord have of me?”
Fr. Duncan took Mannan by the arm. “Walk with me.”
He shrugged the priest off of him. “No. I will not. If God cares about such things. If God is present. Then he will bless my arms and see to it that my people have justice. You act as if ending Connell would be murder. It’s not, Father. It’s putting down a mad dog. And if damnation is the price I pay, so be it.”
“You would commit senseless violence and endanger your soul?”
Mannan climbed on Fiona’s back. “If you take the point of view of the rabbit, the violence is senseless. For the wolf, its survival.”
Fr. Duncan shook his head. “You are no hare. You are a man. You can choose.” He took Mannan’s hands in his own. “You are the only man who can stop this, Mannan. I still believe that.”
Mannan looked down. “Then you have more faith than I do.” He laughed at the jape. “From dust thou art and from dust thou shall return.”
“You know your scripture,” Fr. Duncan said.
Mannan turned to the priest as he touched a gravestone. “My mother had aspirations that I would be a priest one day. I learned to read and write—at great expense—according to my father.”
“Then you know that the Peace of Christ is paramount.”
“Aye, it is. But what about justice, father?” Mannan asked.
“That’s what Connell asked, remember?”
Why couldn’t Fr. Duncan see? “Connell won’t stop. Not until he has driven us off our land. Not until I am dead and my family is in ruin. This isn’t about pride, Father. It’s about survival.” He turned away to calm himself. “I swear before God that if he gives me the chance, I will murder him before he hurts anyone else.”
◆◆◆
The MacOwens tended to their wounded and dead. Mannan rode Fiona around the streams and woods near the church in case another attack was coming. They spent the night at the chapel where Fr. Duncan hosted them with stew and fresh beer, but there was no levity as they all shared a solemn meal in silence. After dinner Mannan went outside and walked among the graves, new and old.
He was weary of talk. Rage only carried a man so far and Mannan was exhausted. When would this all end? More importantly,
what part could he play in ending it? He thought long and hard as the summer stars shone down on the little chapel and its cemetery.
He wondered around the grounds until sleep was too powerful to ignore. Mannan found a spot of tall grass across the road from the chapel and collapsed there. He dreamed of warm springs and summer nights dancing with Riona. He dreamed of climbing aboard The Pink Maiden and sailing to distant France.
In the morning the sun shone brightly in the churchyard. Mannan sat up, stretched and breathed deeply. All night long his dreams went back and forth. Either he would murder Connell or Connell would murder him. But as the birds sang and the wind whipped through the church yard and through Mannan, it suddenly came to him. Mannan realized he had another option. He could leave. If his presence enraged Connell so much, he would simply leave the highlands. Captain Honor had offered him work several times. Work that he desperately wanted to take. But the family was more important. Could he end all of this by simply leaving?
He walked the church yard thinking of all the possibilities. Perhaps Connell’s rage would subside, or maybe he would come after Mannan and leave the rest of the family alone. In either case, Ote would marry Deborah and take care of his mother while the violence would end and both families could live in peace.
But then the faces of dispossessed mothers and children flashed before his eyes along with the echoes of their cries of anguish. Could he abandon them? Would his kin understand? Would Connell’s rage be appeased? It was worth the attempt. As he made plans, Mannan looked at the graves in the church yard. A soft breeze swelled up and through him. On the wind he thought he heard her name and his heart ached. Riona.
The thought of leaving her hurt him the most. To never hold her, to never run his fingers through her hair. To never see what their children would look like. Mannan chuckled to himself. That door was closed when you killed Diarmuid, he thought to himself.
Mannan: A Tale of Vengeance: A Novel in the Chronicles of Philip Williams Page 8