Lion of Ireland

by Morgan Llywelyn

  If the Ossorymen had expected to be ushered into the presence of Malachi Mor himself, they were mistaken. They were taken to a separate round chamber, bustling with lawyers and courtiers, but the Ard Ri was not there. In his place, not actually sitting on his High Seat but standing very close to it, rather leaning against it, was a woman.

  And such a woman!

  Gormlaith straightened and lifted her chin, so that she could look down her nose at them. “I’m told you have a message from my brother, Prince Maelmordha of Leinster?”

  They exchanged glances. The leader of the trio sputtered through several throat clearings before managing to say, “We were instructed to report directly to the Ard Ri, my lady.”

  They were embarrassed. How delicious! Gormlaith flashed her eyes at them. “In my husband’s absence, I rule here! If you have anything worth telling, tell it to me!”

  The courtiers in the chamber watched silently. Malachi had ridden to Ulster to consult with his Hy Neill kinsmen, and they had had ample opportunity to learn not to interfere with Gormlaith in his absence. But when he returned … !

  Looking around the room at their watchful, amused faces, the Ossorymen saw no help forthcoming. Reluctantly, they recited their recent history to Gormlaith.

  They were surprised by the quickness of her perception, the probing questions that went right to the mark. “How many fighting men were with the king of Munster? Was the attack genuinely unprovoked, or was there a reason for it you are not telling me? Are the roads muddy between Meath and Kilkenny? Would it be possible for us to get warriors there in time to do any good?”

  As the story unfolded it became obvious there was no immediate remedy to be offered Gillapatrick; Boru and his hostages would be safely home in Munster by now, no doubt encouraged to make further raids on his peaceful and lawabiding neighbors.

  “That savage will not despoil lands under the protection of Malachi Mor!” Gormlaith cried, enjoying the sound of her ringing words. “How dare that upstart venture beyond his own borders! Be thankful that you have an Ard Ri who will soon show him his proper place!”

  She was working herself into a fine froth. It happened at least once a day, sometimes more often, and nods and winks were passed around the chamber. Gormlaith in full sail was a sight to see.

  The messengers from Ossory were given food and bedding in the hall known as the House of the Hostages, and riders were sped southward to assure Maelmordha of the Ard Ri’s support; a reassurance carefully couched in the most ambiguous of terms. Gormlaith retired to the grianan to reflect on the pleasures of power.

  Her maidservant hurried to bring her fruit and a goblet of mead. The girl was the latest in the long succession of women chosen to wait on Gormlaith; a fair young woman from the Hebrides, blessed with silky hair and nimble fingers. Unique among women, Gormlaith could afford to have comely women surround her. When she first came from Malachi’s permanent residence at Dun na Sciath to the convening of court at Tara, she had sought out and befriended the most beautiful among the wives of Malachi’s nobles. She deliberately kept the lady at her side in every light and situation, until it became obvious to all that the young woman’s beauty paled in comparison to Gormlaith’s. The lady herself, horrified at finding herself devalued, sought other companionship, to her husband’s displeasure and Gormlaith’s amusement. But now Gormlaith had only her maids for company.

  “The Ard Ri will be surprised when he learns how well I am handling his affairs,” Gormlaith mused as she sipped her mead.

  “I’m certain he will, my lady,” the servant replied, removing the gilt slippers and gently propping her queen’s feet on a silk cushion. Gormlaith ran her bare heel over the fabric, testing the texture of both, seeking flaws.

  “Men have small vision, Ninianne,” she continued, tilting her head so that the girl could begin removing combs from the wealth of her hair. “They only see the immediate problem, whereas women, being so much more involved with the inner workings of life, are able to enjoy a better perspective. We can think in terms other than bed, battle and belly.

  “If I had not taken charge here, some little band of fighting men would have been sent south immediately, to placate my brother and go on chasing after the king of Munster in hope of winning a battle long since lost. Ridiculous. All those little skirmishes that seem to delight men prove nothing; they have no grandeur about them. The outcome is forgotten in a fortnight.”

  The last comb removed, Ninianne began patiently untwisting the strands of hair which held Gormlaith’s collection of tiny gold balls. In spite of her most careful efforts, something pulled, and Gormlaith spun around to deliver a backhanded slap that sent the girl reeling. Without pausing to acknowledge her act or see its outcome Gormlaith continued talking, leaving the maid to pick herself and her combs from the floor and painfully resume her work.

  “What is obviously required here is some grand gesture to show all Ireland that Malachi Mor is its ruler and no man may defy him with impunity. One sweeping blow that will linger in men’s memories. Less fun, perhaps, than a simple battle, but with more lasting effect.

  “This Brian Boru must be humiliated in some way; humiliation is the best of punishments for a proud man. Surely I can think of something appropriate, some crippling insult to be dealt him, so that the plan will already be laid and awaiting only Malachi’s approval. Let me think … what would cut the legs from under that Dalcassian?”

  Malachi returned to Tara in a fine humor. In spite of recent depredations by Norse pirates based in the Orkneys, the kingdoms in Ulster had sworn to pay a good tribute this year. After the lax years of Donall’s old age, a new and vital spirit occupied Tara; things would be accomplished now—battles won, roads built, trade expanded.

  And his new wife was waiting for him, as exciting as the promise of the future itself.

  He was pleasantly surprised that Gormlaith was so eager to be with him that she could not wait for him to discuss his trip with the council of state, but insisted on welcoming him immediately in his own bedchamber. Malachi had been entertained lavishly in Oriel and Ulidia, but there was no such woman in all Ulster as Gormlaith.

  Gormlaith was equally pleased that he came so readily to her arms and bed. Best to tell him her ideas before those mossy old graybeards in the council chamber had a chance to get at him. While he lay dazed and sweatdrenched on her bosom, she told him of the attack on Gillapatrick. With her hot hands stroking him, cupping him, molding themselves to the shape of his muscles, she urged him to retaliate on Leinster’s behalf.

  Malachi tried to collect his thoughts. “Why doesn’t your brother Maelmordha settle this thing himself? It’s more his concern than mine.”

  She pulled out of his arms and sat up, her hair a glorious tumble about her naked shoulders, her full underlip thrust forward in a pretty pout. “Maelmordha has periods when the chirping of a bird too close in his chamber will send him to a killing rage, and at other times he is as slow and careful as an old woman with brittle bones. This must be one of the latter, so I suppose the upstart king of Munster has gotten away with his vicious attack. Of course, it will mean a mark against the honor of the Ard Ri if you refuse to make some gesture on behalf of your wife’s brother.”

  The faintest of smiles touched her lips, faded, and came back again. “You know,” she purred, leaning toward Malachi, “there are ways to punish a man other than meeting him on the battlefield. It occurred to me that the king of Munster could be reprimanded as he deserves, by very few men and with almost no danger at all …” She fitted herself back into the circle of his arms, pressing her body against his until flesh clung wetly to flesh. Her husky voice became velvet, became samite, turned into an artist’s brush painting his imagination with brilliantly colored pictures.

  “You have an extraordinary sense of the dramatic, Gormlaith,” Malachi commented when she finished explaining her idea.

  “I’m Irish!” she offered as a comprehensive defense. “When I am well I feel better than anyone
, when I am in pain I yell at the top of my lungs, and when I am dead I shall be deader than anybody.

  “Now—how do you like my plan? Don’t you think it’s an idea worthy of a clever king?” She was pressed against him from shoulder to feet, and her rich chuckle shook them both.

  On the summer-scented plain, the grass waved in green patterns beneath the shifting clouds. The tree had stood alone, unchallenged for centuries, in the center of its broad meadow. At its feet was the holy mound, the tomb of the founder of the tribe Dal Cais. The tree was known as Magh-Adhair, the sacred oak of veneration, most precious symbol of Dalcassian nobility. Beneath its gnarled branches generations of tribal kings had sworn the Oath and received the bent knee of their people.

  Like hungry fingers, the roots of Magh-Adhair dug deep into the soil of Thomond, drawing nourishment for the mighty tree. In their blind search the roots found little pockets of woody decay which had once been other root systems, supporting older trees on the same site. Magh-Adhair was but the latest in the line of royal oaks, a lineage as old as that of the Dalcassians themselves. Wicker baskets in the shape of animals had been burned beneath the spreading branches of its predecessors, while the cries of the sacrifices within those baskets mingled with the groaning and creaking of the oak tree in the wind—nature’s voices, beseeching nature’s gods.

  In later ages, Christian princes had received tribal kingship on the Plain of Adoration. Lorcan, Cennedi, Mahon, Brian—each in turn had come, bareheaded and awed by history, to kneel in humility beneath Magh-Adhair and rise as kings.

  Magh-Adhair waited, aswirl with leafy recollections, fearing nothing, as the band of Meathmen dressed in country clothes came marching down the road, leading an oxcart. They might have been any group of folk on their way to market.

  When the oxcart reached the edge of the road opposite the tree, the men threw back their rough bratts, revealing the saffron tunics and serious weapons of warriors. Several of them gathered around the cart, lifted out the axes that lay within it and passed them to their comrades.

  The leaves of Magh-Adhair shivered. It might have been the result of a passing breeze.

  Hard, brutal blows rang across the Plain of Adoration.

  When the great tree fell it cried aloud with a voice not human; unbearably forlorn. Even the Meathmen felt a sense of loss as they looked across the broad—now treeless—expanse of meadowland, its focus gone, its skyline empty. They threw their axes into the cart and hurried away, anxious to reach the friendly borders of Meath.

  Murdered, Magh-Adhair lay on the tender earth and felt the first small mortalities as rootlets died and the tenderest leaves shriveled. A curious badger emerged from his den, blinking, and peered with dim eyes at the vacant sky where the Great Shade had been.

  The first passers-by to see the fallen monument were a family of stonecutters from Ennis. Horrified, they spread the news across the countryside, and soon messengers were racing to Kincora to stammer out the tragic story in Brian’s hall. “The sacred oak has been cut down! Magh-Adhair is destroyed!”

  Cries of horror rose from all sides. It was a sacrilege beyond imagining. Even the Northmen, out of veneration for their own mythical tree, Yggdrasil, had never profaned the holy symbol of Dalcassian kingship.

  Brian’s eyes narrowed to slits as he questioned the news-bringers. “Are you certain the tree was cut down deliberately? Might it not have been toppled in a storm, or succumbed to some disease?”

  “Oh, no, my lord, it was chopped right in two, and its poor pitiful stump is still oozing sap. And there is worse yet to tell.”

  “What is it?”

  “The banner of the Ard Ri is nailed to the fallen trunk!”

  The sibilant in-hiss of breath was the only sound in the hall. Men’s faces grew white. There could be no mistaking the deadly insult.

  Brian reached out with his mind, trying to find a current of thought, an intuition; straining across the distance that separated him from Malachi in an effort to read the man’s intentions.

  “It seems plain enough to me,” cried an Owenacht prince from the tribe Fer Maige. “Malachi fears your power and, never having met face to face with you, is using this way to test you.”

  “If that were what he wanted, he could have done it in a more forthright way than this,” Brian said thoughtfully. “Malachi Mor has no reputation as a vandal. There is something more to this than we see on the surface, something else is involved here …”

  But there was a buzz in the hall, an angry sound that swelled in volumes as each man turned to his neighbor to express his outrage. It rippled outward, carrying princes and warriors with it, heating their blood, edging them toward the massive doorway that led from the banquet hall into the forecourt of the palace.

  Brian felt them pulling away from him, leaning toward war. Beyond Kincora were armed soldiers capable of swift retaliation; men who had begun to fret with inactivity and were ripe for fresh skirmishing. He could understand the anger. On a purely irrational level of his consciousness he knew the desire to go howling along the road to Meath, screaming for vengeance. The death of Magh-Adhair was the wanton murder of a part of his heritage, an irreplaceable loss, as well as an insult of the most provocative nature. How blissful it would be to surrender to the voluptuous flood of rage!

  If only I were not king, he thought, remembering the pure sweet fighting fury of his youth, undeterred by the responsibilities of consequence.

  He stood abruptly, raising his arms for their attention. The young herald, whose mind had been wandering elsewhere, blew a startled and discordant toot on his horn and someone laughed, easing the tension in the hall by the smallest degree.

  “I know your hearts!” Brian cried aloud. “We must retaliate, we cannot swallow this meekly or it will sit in our throats and choke us. I feel as you do!

  “But this deed was done by the Ard Ri, or his agents, and I think it was meant as a gesture, not an outright act of war. If we attack the Ard Ri, ours would be an act of open rebellion against the highest temporal power in Ireland. It cannot be undertaken lightly.”

  “He desecrated our holiest place!” Murrough cried.

  Brian nodded. “So it seems. But by destroying Magh-Adhair, the Ard Ri has acted specifically against the Dal Cais, not against all of Munster. For that reason I cannot send the army of the entire province against him.”

  “We will gladly fight to avenge your sacred relic!” Olchobar the Owenacht cried.

  “You will gladly fight, yes. That’s one of our problems. We have a long history of invasion by foreigners, and yet we are our own worst enemies, always ready to go at one another’s throats. Until we can turn our passions to better use than bloodletting we will always be a helpless, divided people,” Brian told them. But they were not listening.

  I can see it so clearly, he thought. But how can I make them see? It is not possible now, they are already too preoccupied with the promise of battle. Later, though—later there will be time to bring all Irishmen together. But it will take warfare to make them accept it. He sighed.

  “Magh-Adhair! Magh-Adhair!” a warrior chanted, lifting his sword above his head.

  “Yes,” Brian said reluctantly. “Magh-Adhair. Go, then, and take your revenge, but I command you this: only Dalcassians are to fight, and you may attack only those Meathmen you find in Munster or along our borders. You will not attack any member of the Ard Ri’s personal guard, nor any woman or child. That is an order.”

  They swept out of the hall, chanting the name of the sacred oak, and Brian stood before his High Seat and watched them go. A picture of the tree flashed across his mind as he had seen it last, the day he stood beneath it cradling the hazelwood wand of kingship. How huge and benevolent it had been, towering over them all, its wide-spread arms welcoming the Dal Cais, its rustling leaves whispering old secrets.

  Fiona would have understood.

  Fiona! Her name and face moved before his eyes. How many nights and months had it been since he thought of her
? The image of the tree had summoned her. How she would grieve for that fallen patriarch; how she would suffer for every blow of the ax.

  He stood lost in reverie. Strange to think of her now. She was removed from him by years and miles, perhaps not even living, and yet her face was more vivid in his memory than Deirdre’s, or all those eager women who had, somehow, never been enough for him.

  Fiona.

  Watching him, Reardon grinned in his beard and jabbed Core with his elbow. “The king’s planning his own private revenge,” he chortled. “You wait—Malachi Mor will regret the day he insulted Brian Boru!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Men entered the halls of Kincora with their belts strapped firmly about their waists, their weapons honed, fever in their eyes. Food somehow tasted better; life was felt more keenly. The harpers played martial music with firmly strumming fingers.

  Brian mused to Padraic, “There is never such a thing as an isolated battle, is there? One action always leads to another, and another … The slightest disturbance on the surface of water causes ripples that spread outward farther than the eye can see, and eventually touch shores we may not even dream.

  “I feel things out there, Padraic, moving and shifting, growing and changing. Magh-Adhair was part of something bigger … something …” He waved his hand in a vague half-circle, but ended the gesture with a closed fist.

  “It’s like having an adversary whose face I’ve never seen,” he said. “I’m not even sure it’s Malachi. I only feel a presence out there, waiting for me, influencing all our lives …”