Padraic cleared his throat meaningfully, glad of an opportunity to break into the rather painful tension building in Brian. “Someone is waiting, my lord, but I don’t think you could describe him as a faceless adversary. It’s the new historian you sent for to be your, ah, secretary?”
Brian’s face lightened into a pleased smile. “Secretary and Counselor to the King, Padraic; if the man is already here you must be certain you have his title right. He’s a great prize, you know. He was a brilliant scholar and an instructor at both Clonmacnoise and Glendalough, and he has traveled extensively on the continent. His education far exceeds mine, and I intend to pick his brain at every opportunity. What a pleasure it will be to welcome him and have him at my elbow!”
Padraic scowled.
“As soon as he has refreshed himself, ask our new treasure to join us in the banquet hall,” Brian ordered, not noticing the look on Padraic’s face. His gaze had traveled across the hall, to the corner where Murrough was engaged in heated conversation with his brother Conor. Murrough’s voice did not reach Brian, but the obvious anger of his expression and gesture did.
He was saying to his younger brother, “The king is giving the best commands to men with half the fighting ability I have, and ignoring the fact that I am his own blood son!”
“You might get more from him if you didn’t argue with him all the time,” Conor pointed out. “If he says the sun’s shining you rush right in to say it’s going to rain at any moment; if he likes the meat you complain that it’s rotten. You won’t leave any statement of his unchallenged. Do you expect him to love you for that?”
“I want him to respect me, Conor. As a man! I am full grown and sixteen years old, by God. How can he expect me to be just his echo, a little dog that trots at his heels and thinks he can do no wrong, the way Padraic does?”
“Well, he doesn’t do much that is wrong,” Conor replied. “The king our father makes very few mistakes; that’s what makes him what he is.”
Murrough brooded darkly over the statement. Strong and powerfully built, he was almost as tall as Brian, and his face beneath Deirdre’s tumble of dark curls was almost as beautiful. Ladies who had despaired of the king were beginning to turn their eyes toward his more accessible son.
At length he said, “Even when I know I’m wrong I catch myself arguing with him out of habit, Conor, and by the time I realize it it’s too late and we are enemies again.”
“So just don’t ever start,” Conor advised.
“Well, he isn’t always right!” Murrough flared. “I’m not an idiot, you know, I’ve had some experience—as much as he’s allowed me—and I know that sometimes my grasp of a situation is better than his.
“He makes the simplest issues hopelessly complex. Every action has to be weighed, measured, plotted in minute detail, while time creeps by. And then, more often than not, he substitutes caution for action!
“Take this matter of the tribe of the Déisi. They insist on trading with the Waterford Norse, who haven’t submitted to us; and the king has sent them a warning from Kincora but they merely ignored it. He shouldn’t waste time warning and giving second chances. He has the authority, he can just march down there and crush them right away; it would make an excellent example for everybody else. But if I try to tell him that, all he does is repeat that old saying of his about the sword making enemies, not friends.
“No other chieftain is like that! Why does it have to be my father? It maddens me to listen to him going on and on, explaining a lot of things that don’t really matter, when it’s obvious he could accomplish so much more if he would just use the power he has!”
Before Conor could frame an argument, Padraic returned to the hall from his errand and made his way to the king’s High Seat. Murrough’s eyes followed him by chance, and then found themselves locked with Brian’s. Carried high on the wave of his anger, Murrough started toward the king, crying out. “You gave the best command to Donogh! You chose that silver-headed bastard over me!”
Brian braced himself. “Donogh is no bastard,” he replied coolly, a polite and meaningless smile on his lips. “He’s a Munsterman and my son-in-fosterage, taken by me when his own parents died.”
“He looks like a damned Norseman to me!”
Brian turned an expressionless face to Padraic. “You arranged that matter, Padraic, I believe, and dealt with the brehon? What was Donogh’s parentage?”
“He was the eldest son of Connlaoch the Weaver, my lord,” Padraic replied with an equally blank face. “They lived just south of the Tipperary Road.”
“Ah … yes. I remember now. And Donogh has become a fine warrior and one of my ablest captains. He follows orders, Murrough; I can always depend on him. There are times when that is more valuable than bloodlines, either his or yours.”
Murrough trembled with the need to answer, but he felt Conor’s hand grasp his arm, squeezing hard, and for once he bit his lip and held back the hot rush of words. He merely glared at his father and then spun around and left the hall.
It was into this bruised atmosphere that Brian’s new secretary arrived. “I am Maelsuthainn O Carroll,” he said formally to the herald at the door, “but my grandsire, Carroll, is dead now, and in honor to his memory I would like to use his name for my own.” The herald nodded and announced the name of Carroll to the hall of Kincora.
The great scholar was by nature a round man, with a soft little belly that pressed outward against his belt. He wore the simple clothing of a monk, and the placid expression of a man who lived his life among books and in quiet rooms. He possessed a thickness of nose and chin as if he were storing little pockets of fat for the winter. But his blue eyes were brilliant with a lively intellect.
The herald plucked at his arm. “Come and be presented to the king, my lord.”
Brian Boru was the talk of southern Ireland, but Carroll had spent a lifetime studying myths and legends. In the old tales all mighty men were described as giants, and as beautiful as the sun. He had long ago learned to accept that as a sort of illumination, like the marvelous designs with which the monks colored their manuscripts.
Until he saw the Dalcassian.
He stared at Brian Boru in astonishment. The warrior king really was a giant, and magnificent beyond anything Carroll had imagined. Scarred from a hundred battles, his skin toughened to leather by wind and sun, his copper hair lightly threaded with silver now, he was nevertheless a sight to race the hearts of his people and freeze the marrow of his enemies. The perfect proportions of his face and form made other men seem like careless imitations.
Brian rose from his High Seat and stepped forward to give the stunned Carroll the ritual kiss of greeting, politely repeating his name—“Carroll, if you wish, at least for informal use”—then sat back down and waited. He always began by forcing the other person to establish communications.
“I … ummm … am aware of the duties expected of me, my lord, and I … ah … trust you will be satisfied with my performance of them,” Carroll offered, watching the king’s face for some clue. But there was absolutely none. Brian’s eyes were friendly enough, in a remote way, but the features behind his carefully curled beard were unreadable.
Distress widened Carroll’s eyes, and suddenly Brian took pity on him. “Do your job well and I’ll be content, historian,” he said, smiling with genuine warmth. “As Padraic will tell you, I’m pleased with any man who does more than is required of him, and I have a low opinion of a man who does no more than he must.”
Carroll beamed. “Then we’ll get along well together, my lord!” He realized that his tone was too effusive, but he could not help it. Brian awed him.
“There is one thing you can do for me right away,” Brian said, lowering his voice so that the conversation was limited to the two of them. With the politeness necessary among people who share their lives in common rooms, the other courtiers busied themselves with their own dialogues.
Brian told Carroll, “My eldest son, Prince Murrough, is a
gifted lad just coming into manhood, and it is my fervent hope that he will be able to follow me as … king … and continue to build what I begin.
“But he has no patience with scholarship. The experience of one lifetime is not enough for any man, much less a ruler of kingdoms; he must also have access to the knowledge and experience of many other lives, and for that he needs an education. Murrough resists the idea very strongly—perhaps because it comes from me—and it would mean a great deal to me if you could influence him.”
Carroll’s eyes shone. “I will do my best, my lord!”
Brian’s answering grin was warm and very engaging. “That’s all I ask of any man,” he said. “Always.”
Padraic took Carroll around the hall to introduce him to the other nobles and courtiers, and the complement of Brian’s Dalcassians who were usually within hailing distance of their chief. The banquet hall itself impressed Carroll, and at one point he ceased his forward advance altogether and turned slowly, revolving like a cock in the wind, murmuring admiration.
The interior walls of Kincora had all been plastered and they gleamed with lime, the smoke stains having been scrubbed from them each new moon. The banquet hall had not one but two great hearths with massive logs stacked upon them, the coals always glowing. There was light everywhere in spite of the cavernous size of the hall, with its carven rooftree that soared higher than six spear lengths. Rushlights and torches of bog fir burned at intervals around the room; oil lamps hung by thong and chain from the rafters; servants scurried about carrying candles. There was always enough light for a man to read by.
Beyond the banquet hall were the separate houses which served as bedchambers and guest apartments. These were let into the outer wall of the palace, and beyond that lay the flooded ditch that bespoke this as a king’s house, and the bawn, the curtain-wall of timber and stone.
“Who designed all this?” Carroll asked Padraic.
“The king did,” Padraic replied, glowing. “Brian can do anything.”
By evening Carroll was not only familiar with the precincts of Kincora; he had listened to several versions of Murrough’s latest grievance with his father over the tribe of the Déisi, and had asked Padraic a number of astute questions about the situation. At the evening banquet table he seated himself next to Brian’s oldest son. But it was not to Murrough that he addressed himself. He carried on a lively discourse with his neighbor across the table, Conaing the Beautiful Chief, about the statesmanship of bygone kings. The air was rich with tales from history of great men who had been noted for their restraint, and against his will, Murrough found himself listening with growing interest.
But in the end the Déisi revolted outright, and Brian crossed the Shannon and headed south to repair the torn fabric of his kingdom. The king of Déisi was pursued to Waterford, where he was forced to endure the taunts and jeers of the Northmen before they agreed to put him on a boat to escape Brian’s punishment. The soldiers of the Dal Cais ravaged his abandoned kingdom.
“Tell every man that if he stands against me he is my enemy,” Brian ordered, “and I will treat him accordingly. All Munster must be of one mind and one will.”
Accompanying him, Carroll dutifully recorded that the king of Munster was merciful to those who accepted his authority, and slew no rebellious Irishman without great personal sorrow.
Along the northern and eastern borders of Munster, a constant campaign of plundering and harassment continued to be waged against the men of Meath. Using the name of Magh-Adhair as their battlecry, Dalcassian warriors attacked the edge of Malachi’s home province repeatedly, disrupting trade and shaking the confidence of Meathmen in their Ard Ri’s ability to protect his own kingdom.
“Malachi Mor spends too much time visiting his noble relatives, drinking red wine, and singing in halls, and not enough time protecting us from the Dal Cais!” Meathmen grumbled to one another.
Malachi was grumbling too—to his wife. “Gormlaith, I fear you have made a bad enemy for me in the king of Munster,” he told her with some bitterness. “Your plan was to assert my authority without bloodshed, and it seemed a good idea at the time, but plenty of blood has been shed since, mostly by my own tribespeople!”
“Perhaps you should encourage some other faction with a claim to the kingship of Munster, and replace this Boru,” Gormlaith suggested.
Malachi had come to view his wife’s concepts of policy with a cynical eye. “I have neither the time nor the manpower to get involved with the internal affairs of Munster, woman. I’m already fully committed to defend my Hy Neill kinsmen in the north from the foreign assaults on their coast. And I have difficulty closer to home, in Dublin. I thought that by putting that son of Olaf’s in control I would have some security on that front, but instead I find more trouble than ever. No Irishman is safe within the city.”
She sniffed. “I told you Gluniarand was a bad choice. Nobody liked him, even his own father; the man had a disgusting disposition.”
“So disgusting that one of his own servants murdered him,” Malachi fumed. “So now I must go to Dublin myself, reassert my authority, and find someone else to rule for me there.”
“I could rule Dublin.”
Malachi stared at her. “You surely can’t think I would put you in charge of a Norse city?”
“And why not? Ireland has known many great queens!”
“We’re not talking about an Irish queen. Whoever I install in Dublin must be my ally and help stabilize a balance of power between the Irish and Norse interests from Dublin to Waterford, or we’ll be cut off from all foreign trade on our eastern coast. For the life of me, Gormlaith, I cannot imagine you as a stabilizing influence.”
“Then who will be your pawn, Ard Ri?” she asked him in a voice turned to acid.
Rather than answer her, Malachi left the chamber. Her voice rose behind him, rippling up and down the scale through all the shades of scorn. “You fool! Who can you get to hold a foothold for you in Dublin? You have no foothold anywhere, you pathetic little man! Some truly strong chief, someone like the king of Munster, will rise against you and strip you of your precious title because you lack both the strength and the imagination to hold it! I am the best asset you have, Malachi, and you are wasting me. Do you hear that? I could help you, and you are too stupid to use me!”
Shaking his head, Malachi hurried to the council chamber to call a meeting of his advisors. “I must establish my own man as ruler of Dublin,” he explained, “but he must also be someone the Norse will accept.”
“There is no such person,” his nephew Kelly told him flatly.
“There must be. Think, think; give me a name.”
“Sitric Olafson,” a wizened chieftain of the Clann Cholmáin suggested.
“Gormlaith’s son?”
“And why not? He’s a young lad, still malleable, and his father was a Norse hero. He’s Irish and Norse; what could be a better bloodline for the purpose?”
Malachi sank onto a bench and closed his eyes, pursing his lips in thought. From time to time he nodded to himself. His councilors watched him, not interrupting. At last he unlaced his fingers and looked up. “I like it; it seems to be a practical solution.”
“Will the queen agree?” Kelly asked.
Malachi closed his eyes again. “The queen rarely agrees to anything that is not her own idea,” he said in a tired voice. “But she has no say in the matter; the boy is old enough and the authority is mine.
“In fact, I suppose the hour has come to consider the entire problem of my marriage and try to resolve it in some way, since this seems to be a time for solving problems. Gormlaith has given me no sons; she is productive of nothing but trouble. I cannot take her with me to other courts because I never know in whose bed I may find her, and I cannot leave her behind when I travel—she either usurps my power or alienates my nobles.”
They started to interrupt him in protest, but he held up his hand. “Ah, yes, it’s true and I know it. No denials are needed. I know where th
e fault lies. Nothing satisfies the woman, myself included; I doubt that any man or any reasonable degree of power would be enough for her.
“She must be handled carefully or she will turn all of Leinster against me, but at least no one can force me to share a roof with her any longer. I will give her an establishment of her own to occupy her time, and we will live apart.”
“What about sending her to Dublin with Sitric?”
Malachi raised his brows in horror. “Oh, I think not! Would you put a wolf to instructing the lambs?”
“You won’t set her aside totally?” Kelly asked.
“Not yet—it would cause too many problems with her brother Maelmordha. Besides, I’m not anxious to take another wife right away. I have had enough of women for a while!”
Marcan, bishop of Killaloe, was paying a call on his brother at Kincora. With the passing of years Marcan found it harder and harder to go out of God’s peace and into the seething cauldron of the world. But Brian was directing much of Munster’s increasing wealth into the coffers of the Church, building schools and chapels, buying chalices, funding monasteries, raising monuments to God the length of Munster; and it was necessary to appear at Kincora from time to time to express gratitude.
Brian met with him in the children’s garden. Foxglove was in bloom, a glowing fire against gray walls, and the youngest of the king’s many foster children were playing contentedly with the vast collection of wooden soldiers Flann had outgrown, under Teigue’s supervisory eye. Once he tired of the chore and came over to his father and uncle, leaning confidingly against Marcan’s shoulder, breaking without shame into the conversation. “I’m going to be a priest when I’m all finished growing,” he remarked.
“Are you now? Have you the calling?” Marcan smiled at the boy. Such a pleasant lad, with his thin neck, overflowing smile, and two ears sticking out like the handles of a jug. “Has Our Heavenly Father summoned you to do His work?” the bishop asked fondly.
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