Brian said nothing. He waited, watching his brother closely. To move or make a gesture was to give away part of yourself; if you remained immobile the other person would reveal his inner feelings to you without being aware of it. Mahon, for example, had begun to pick at the cuticle of his nails. He was nervous, then; the outcome of the conversation was uncertain, and he had misgivings about it.
Mahon cleared his throat. “I am aware that you have formed a close personal bond between yourself and the common soldiers,” he said carefully, “and I can see the advantage to that.”
“It was the custom of Julius Caesar,” Brian replied.
“Yes, well, I’m certain it’s a wise idea, when possible. But don’t you think it would be equally wise to form the same ties of friendship between yourself and my officers?”
Brian sat a little straighter. “I haven’t been unfriendly to them; I make the same effort to treat them with courtesy as they do to me.”
Mahon picked more diligently at his nails. They seemed to occupy his full attention; he did not look at Brian as he replied. “I am speaking of friendship, Brian.”
Brian’s gray eyes were disdainful. “Friendship is a matter of policy, brother. I won’t waste training time entertaining officers at Cashel, if that’s what you mean, or force my wife to endure the company of their gossiping wives. I give them the best effort that is in me, as I do to every man, and that should be enough.”
Mahon looked up then. With a mighty effort he brought the weight of the kingship into his voice, and noticed that Brian did not react to it at all. “I must tell you frankly, brother, that you have alienated some of the senior officers, and unless you make a serious effort to win their unquestioned support we might not be able to count on them on the battlefield.”
Brian’s lower lids tightened, narrowing his eyes to gray slits. “They want me to continue to fight by the old methods, because they themselves are afraid of change.”
“And you, Brian—are you afraid of conciliation and compromise?”
“The time for conciliation is when you have the upper hand, Mahon, not when you’re crushed beneath an invader’s heel.”
Mahon rose, the interview concluded and not to his satisfaction. “You have a long way to go before you understand the skills of the diplomat, little brother.”
“When I need them, I’ll learn them,” Brian answered. “Right now all my effort is given toward learning how to win.”
Friendship, Brian thought. Mahon always extols the soft virtues. I would rather have their respect than their friendship, and respect cannot be won by putting my arm around some grizzled captain’s shoulder and listening to his war stories.
He sat on a stool in front of his tent, patiently working tallow into a strap of new leather. A few rods across the trampled and muddy earth he could see a group of officers gathered under the trees, hunched over chessboards and drinking cups while their body servants tended to the maintenance of their equipment.
Brian refused to have a body servant for himself in camp.
Watching the men at their games he noted that even Ardan was with them, content for once to enjoy himself and leave the worrying to someone else.
Friendship, like love, led to pain and loss. Sometimes in his dreams they walked away from him, Cennedi and Fiacaid and Nessa and those comrades who lay in unmarked graves in Thomond, and he watched them recede into the distance until he was all alone.
The memory strayed across his mind of a night when he had lain beside Deirdre as she tossed in her nightmares. He had reached out to hold her, offering comfort; and in her sleep she had struck out at him with her small fist, an ineffectual blow that did not hurt his shoulder but went straight to his heart.
It is better to be alone, he thought. To know you are alone, and accept it. Mahon must always feel that he is loved, but I can live without that if I have to. If I must.
I have myself, and that will have to be enough.
He looked at the pastel plain, dotted with trees and rich with life; he saw the empurpled, distant mountains.
I have this land, if I can take and hold it.
In the booleying time, when the cattle were moved with the change of the seasons to fresh pasture, Ivar crossed into Thomond with an army intent upon exterminating the Dal Cais in their ancestral lands. He remorselessly put to death some of those very Irish chieftains who had been allied with him through threat of force or the desire for commerce, but who protested his attack on the farmers of Thomond.
Two Irish under-kings stood with him, however; Molloy of Desmond and Donovan of Hy Carbery were delighted to vent their spleen on the Dalcassians without actually having to face Mahon’s new army. They directed Ivar and his son Harold to Boruma itself, so that once more it was burned to the ground, and they sacked the monastery at Killaloe.
Excitement raced through the army camp near Cashel like a grass fire, pulling men into anxious clusters where everyone tried to talk at once, and many clenched fists were raised into the air.
“That Ivar is a treacherous hound; leave it to a Northman to slaughter women and children in a pasture. He will pay dearly for that!” Mahon vowed, his voice shaking with emotion. “The time has passed when we could be content to kill them in the tens and twenties; my brother is right, we must make war on Limerick itself, and wipe out that deadly lair from the river to the forest.”
“Yea, brother!” Brian agreed. He stood a little apart from the others, his hands knotted into fists, his jaw muscles clenched beneath the red-gold beard. “We can send to Malachi of Meath; I suspect he would like to have a part in this, or at least send some of his fighting men to add to our own.
“And you, Cullen, isn’t your wife from Dungannon and a close cousin of the Hy Neill chieftains in Ulster? Could you get support for us from the north?”
“I don’t know that we want to go that far,” Olan interjected. “If we invite the Ulstermen into the south we may never get them out again. An ally can become an enemy when his usefulness is over.”
“Better Ulstermen than Northmen,” Brian replied, and Mahon supported him. The encampment became a swarm of activity within minutes, with riders galloping off by every road and trailway to carry the message of Munster’s urgent summons to the men of Ireland.
Brian went to Deirdre to say his farewells. He found her lying on the bed, a wolfskin robe tucked under her chin, her eyelids closed in what appeared to be a peaceful sleep. The mound of her belly rose beneath the furs in a swelling promise. He stared at it thoughtfully, wishing he could leave without awakening her, but then her eyes fluttered open and she spoke his name.
“I have to go,” he told her briefly. “The whole army is marching at dawn; we intend to put an end to the devastation of the Northmen from Limerick once and for all. This is the opportunity I have waited for, to settle old scores with Ivar.”
At the sound of Ivar’s name, Deirdre’s eyes opened to their fullest width and something mad crept into them.
“You’re going to kill Ivar?” she asked tensely. “And all of them—you’ll kill all of them? Every one?” Her thin fingers began to pluck at the wolfskin robe, and her eyes cast about the room like a trapped animal’s. Then they focused on Brian with a strange and terrible intensity.
He tried to reassure her. “We’ll break Ivar’s strength so that he won’t be a threat to anyone any longer.”
“That’s not enough, you must kill him! Kill him! Kill that other one, that Northman!” She shrieked aloud, gone suddenly wild, and struggled to sit up in bed, beating the air with her fists. “Kill him! Kill him!”
Brian stared at her, heartsick, a dreadful possibility beginning to suggest itself to him. But then her servants rushed to her, crowding around her bed and pushing him bodily out of the chamber. Even so, her cries followed him, drilling into his skull. “Kill! Kill! KILL!”
With the bloodstains of the Dalcassians still on their swords and axes, Ivar’s army turned toward Cashel. Their easy victory across the Shannon had ma
de them confident, and their blood ran hot for battle. Joined by Danish mercenaries and bands of the hated Norse-Irish outlaws, they headed for the heart of Munster.
The Irish marched to meet them. Almost at the last moment before departure Mahon’s troops had been cheered by the arrival of a fully armed and unexpected detachment from Delvin More, led by a famous warrior, King Cahal, come unsolicited to swell their ranks.
According to his scouts’ reports, it appeared to Brian that the two vast armies would meet near the woods of Sulcoit, a level district almost midway between Cashel and Limerick. Mahon ordered the army to be encamped for the night, so that they might face Ivar with the rising sun at their backs.
Brian had his charts and diagrams with him, his carefully drawn battle plans spread out before him on the table in the king’s tent when the chieftains gathered to discuss the next day’s attack.
As the senior officers crowded around Mahon, each clamoring for a good position for his own forces, Brian stood up and cleared his throat. “I have a plan!” he cried in a ringing voice. “Please be silent and let me explain our battle order.”
Their reaction was what Mahon had expected and feared. Brian’s plan was to place a phalanx of foot soldiers armed with swords, axes and hammers directly behind the front line of javelins. His proud new cavalry would ride at the wings, joined to the main body by “hinges” composed of Ardan’s slingers, and followed by a flying column of both horse and infantry. If the broad line of the Northmen did not succeed in enveloping the Irish, the reserve columns, which would be at an angle, would be in position to wheel inward and reinforce any weak point in their own line. The plan seemed to please no one.
“My men have always fought together as one unit!” Cahal complained. “I cannot break them up now to put them into some unfamiliar formation with strangers!”
“We will doubtless be fighting in the woods as well as in the open,” Kernac argued. “All this emphasis on mounted men is an insult to us Celts, who have always fought on foot, and besides, they’ll be quite useless in the trees.”
“All these maneuvers have been practiced many times in camp,” Brian reasoned with them. “The men are thoroughly familiar with the formations, and those who are new to our ranks should have little difficulty in following the order if it is explained to them clearly in advance, by leaders they know. It is imperative that we work together as a unit here; we are facing all the strength Ivar can bring to bear against us, and we must make no mistakes.”
“Following this bizarre plan of yours would be our biggest mistake,” an unidentified voice snarled from the rear of the tightly packed group.
Brian’s eyes narrowed and Mahon laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Please,” the king said, “I ask you to remember that my brother has had no little success against the Northman. He knows how to make ten swords serve as a hundred, and his men love him and will fight for him to the death.”
“Then let him lead them,” another hostile voice shot back. “I came willingly enough to fight with him, but I don’t intend to die using some untried technique against five thousand angry Northmen!”
Brian held his nervous hands against his sides where they could not be seen, and forced his voice to be calm and steady. “I am not offering you an untried technique,” he replied, “but a battle plan that has proven its value many times. Alexander of Greece fought thus against the Persians at Arbela, on a piece of ground much like Sulcoit, and he defeated a vast and powerful force.”
“Who’s that he’s talking about? Who’s Alexander?” they asked one another.
The grumbling was ominous now, a discontent that swelled the walls of the large tent outward. With the reality of a major battle so close at hand every man sought the security of the familiar. It was Brian’s spirit they wanted, but not his ideas.
Mahon went from one man to another, soothing, placating, urging them to give the plan a chance. Brian left the command tent and went out into the night alone to stand under the stars—the stars that had looked down upon Alexander, and Xenephon, and Caesar.
At last the senior command officers filed from the tent, most of them refusing to look at Brian as they passed him, and then Mahon came out, slump-shouldered, to stand beside his brother.
“Must you always have it your way, Brian?” he asked.
“My way is the right way; I am sure of it.”
“I hope you are right, for the outcome of the battle tomorrow depends on it.”
“I thank you, brother, for standing behind me in this.”
“I gave you my word I would back you, and I have, Brian, but my word does not extend to such men as Cahal and the kings of the other tribes. The orders are being given now and the men are being placed for the night according to their battle formations, but there are no guarantees as to what will happen at dawn. Some of the officers may well refuse to follow you, or even me, now, and if that happens your plan will be destroyed. There is doubt and dissension in the camp tonight, and those are a soldier’s worst enemies, Brian.”
“Let me speak to them in the morning,” Brian said.
By the earliest dawn light he could see them, the ranks of men stretching away before him in their neat and unfamiliar geometry. Officers, mounted and on foot, waited with their companies; some with their arms folded across their chests and a half sneer hidden by their beards.
The Northmen were only a mile away.
There was coughing and foot shifting among the soldiers, and they rippled like pond water, leaning forward, falling back. It would be impossible for all of them to hear him, no matter how strong his voice. He rode his horse slowly to the open space in front of the line, and when he was certain most of them were watching, he drew his sword and held it over his head.
“I am Brian of Boruma!” he called to them, with all the power in his deep lungs. “I am one of you!” He slid off the horse and stood before them on foot. The horse, uncertain, drifted away and he made no effort to stop it.
There was a gasp in the ranks, and he turned to look behind him. A line of men had come up over the horizon, a dark metallic band that advanced steadily toward them across the plain, dividing to flow through woods and around obstacles and then joining again, one inexorable mass that was coming to crush the Irish forever.
Brian turned back to face his army. The sun was just up now, its first pure light touching his face and picking out the glinting copper threads in his hair.
“I am Brian of Boruma!” he cried again, filling his lungs with the sweet morning air of Ireland. “I am going to die, but I am going to die a free man! If you would be free also, come with me!”
He looked to the side and gave the signal to the right wing to follow him. No one moved. They stood transfixed, staring at the unbelievable numbers of the Northmen who had now come to a halt a half mile away and were drawing themselves into their battle formation.
He sent his face toward the enemy, lifted his chin and began to march forward. He did not look back to see if anyone followed. He heard nothing behind him.
The Vikings waited. Sunshine struck sparks from the metal on their bodies; in their hands. They watched in eerie silence as Brian advanced alone.
He heard nothing behind him.
His belly was hollowed by fear. His guts cramped, anticipating the thrust of a sword. His whole body was suddenly slippery with sweat. Salt rivulets ran down his forehead and into his eyes, stinging him. In a few minutes he would die. But he had to go forward.
He heard … something … behind him.
The waiting Northmen tensed, began to move about. Brian could see them shifting their weapons and preparing for some sort of action. A shield wall was raised, as if that were necessary to repel one lone warrior.
But Brian was no longer alone.
He heard the tramp of feet behind him, the jingle of bits and the rasp of swords being drawn, the slap of leather throwing slings against open palms, the grunt as javelins were hefted and balanced, the rustle and clatter and thunder of
an army at his back.
An army carried forward by his courage, caught up in it like a net. An army that was powerless to resist the tidal pull of his magnetism. An army, beginning to chant something.
“Brian of Boruma! Brian of Boruma!”
He felt them as a weight behind him, a wall at his back, a light shining over his shoulder. The fear still gnawed his vitals, but a pulse had begun to beat in his throat, stronger than the fear, stronger than wine or the desire for women.
“Brian Boru! Brian Boru!”
He raised his sword above his head, willing the sunlight to enter it and magnify its brilliance. He heard the men cheer. He heard the men following him.
“Brian Boru! Brian Boru!”
The flesh crawled on the back of his neck. A love pounded through him; love for the mass of them, the faceless unit and the individual man, a love so deep and total he felt it transform him as he advanced. He could not be beaten now.
Following him, they felt it. Their common fear became a common rapture, an exultation that made hearts race and eyes glitter. They were lifted beyond themselves into something greater, something that seemed, at that moment, immortal.
“Boru! Boru!”
He had them now. They were with him like the beats of his heart.
“Boru! Boru!”
One body of men—his body. One will—his will.
“Boru! Boru!”
The chant at his back, building. Their strength flooding through him, the wave of their devotion pouring over him, carrying him forward on its crest.
“Boru! Boru!”
They went forward together into the swords, into the axes, and nothing could stop them. Nothing could defeat them. They were the Irish; they were his men. They were Brian.
Lion of Ireland Page 24