“I’m preparing for our trip, of course,” she told him over her shoulder as she pushed a servant aside and rescued a bauble being mispacked.
This was a confrontation Brian had dreaded. “No, Gormlaith,” he said as gently as he could.
Her eyes blazed with green fire. “What do you mean? Certainly I’m going to Tara with you—you will be the Ard Ri and I will be your queen; do you think I would miss that?”
“I’m afraid you will have to,” he told her, bracing himself for the storm. “Malachi has been most gracious about all this, and I count on his support in the future. It would be extremely insulting for me to appear at Tara with you, flaunting you in his beard even as I take his kingship from him. I will not do that to the man.”
She replied with an inarticulate syllable of outrage that sent her servants scurrying from the room as if by prearranged signal. “Damn Malachi and his precious feelings! Curse his eyes and his beard and his whole worthless being! Don’t you understand, I want him to see me as your queen; I want him to be humiliated by my presence and your triumph. It means everything to me!”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is, Gormlaith,” he advised her, keeping his voice carefully calm. Gormlaith’s temper was not like Deirdre’s madness; no matter how violent she became, her rational mind continued to work and could be reached. “The time has come to put personal considerations aside and work for something larger, and as my wife I expect you to support me in this.”
“People will think you are ashamed of me!”
He shook his head. “You are fresh from childbed and no longer a young woman; you have an obvious reason for staying here in comfort. Kincora is a true residence while Tara is actually only a ceremonial place—you know that.”
“I don’t care about my comfort!” she spat at him. “And why are you mentioning my age now—do I seem suddenly too old for you, Boru, is that it? Do you want some green twig who will flatter your vanity? I know better than most what sorts of diversions are available to a High King.” The cords stood out in her white neck as she cried out, genuine fear in her eyes, “Do not leave me, Brian! Take me with you! Show me to the world as your queen!”
You cannot start giving in, for there is never an end to it, he reminded himself. “There will be time in the future, when the old resentments have faded, for you to appear openly at my side. But for now the matter is closed, Gormlaith.”
Feeling degraded and vulnerable, she nevertheless took his hand in hers and put her soul in her eyes for him. “Please,” she said more softly, “take me with you.”
The temptation pulled at him like an undertow, and he fought it. “I rarely ask help from anyone, Gormlaith,” he told her, “but now I am asking for yours. Only you can do this for me, only you can be a true queen and make a noble gesture worthy of the mate of the Ard Ri.” He felt her softening and pulled her body against his. “Work with me, Gormlaith,” he murmured into her hair.
She went to the gates of Kincora to see them leave, carrying the infant Donnchad in her arms. Brian was splendid, riding in his royal chariot, and the vast train accompanying him was worthy of a High King. As he rode past Gormlaith he bowed in salute to her and she freed one hand from the baby and touched two fingers to her lips in reply.
The wind blew up from the river. It swirled fitfully around Gormlaith and her child and then fled with a rising wail into the distant stand of ash and oak. It sang to the trees of the woman and the boy she carried, and the trees shivered and sighed.
There was a promise of pain on the wind.
Brian arrived at Tara. Malachi met him formally, so that all might see the amicable relations between the two kings, and then returned to Dun na Sciath. Brian’s courtiers took over the House of Hostages, and the House of a Thousand Soldiers, and he set up his personal headquarters in the Miodhchuarta. Dalcassians replaced Meathmen as guards of the fourteen doorways. The banner of the three lions floated from the flagstaff.
In the seven ring-forts which dotted the great hill of Tara were many buildings. Halls stood awaiting the arrival of each of the provincial kings. The Star of Bards, though very ancient and weatherworn, was still the meeting house for the historians and poets, the physicians and senior judges, and the wisdom soaked into its walls permeated the very air. For centuries the brehons had debated their most complicated cases in this hall, with the Senchus Mor and the Book of Acaill open before them. Judges were themselves liable to damages if they delivered a false or unjust judgment, and the scrupulous care they took in forming the civil and criminal laws was held in reverence by all who came after them.
The ancient culture of Ireland was still palpable at Tara.
Brian walked with Carroll along the swelling ridge which formed the sacred hill, and they pointed out the sights to one another in friendly rivalry. The Fort of Conchobar, king of Ulster, had sunk into the soil in the thousand years since its building, and little remained of it but a low circle of earth enclosing a grassy mound. Carroll recited its history while the king listened, nodding with impatience, anxious to make his own entry into the competition.
“The grianan, now, that was the palace of the daughter of Cormac,” Brian said as they approached the graceful oval building. “And that triple mound at the north end of the Banquet Hall was the Mound of Naisi.”
“True, my lord, but can you tell me where the Palace of Mairisiu stood?” Carroll asked.
Brian squinted and looked along the rise of the land, past the wide banked ditch and wooden palisade that encircled the royal enclosure containing Cormac’s Fort and the House of the Kings. “It’s out of our sight from here, beyond the Fort of Loiguire mac Neill. It stands within the dun containing the Nemnach Well.”
Carroll bowed to his king. “You are well acquainted with Tara, my lord.”
“I know it as I knew Kincora,” Brian said softly. “From my dreams.”
“You love it.”
“Imagine the history it encompasses, Carroll—that’s what I love! Tara is a link in the chain stretching back into the centuries before Christ was born, the relict of a high civilization and a glorious past which I feel slipping away from us now.” His eyes were alight with visions. “Pagan or Christian, Tara has always been and will always be holy.
“In Connacht, Rath-Cruachain is a deserted hill, crowned with ruins and peopled by ghosts. Cathal mac Conor rules from a fine new hall some distance away, with a deep ditch around it and no ancient memories. The winds of change have blown across Ireland, Carroll. Perhaps they came in the sails of the Northmen, but for whatever reason, all that was great is being forgotten in a rush to embrace the new. New clothing, new customs, new ways of doing things. The past is being abandoned.
“Emhain Macha is still the residence of the kings of Ulidia, but it has grown shabby and cattle repeatedly break down the earthen dun and trample the burial grounds of princes. Even here at Tara we can see the mounds which once held the houses of heroes, now smooth as a baby’s bottom and sinking back into the earth.
“I’m criticized for breaking with tradition, but I do so in order that the best of traditions may be protected and saved for the future, Carroll. Everything is for the future. It’s all we have, and we can lose it so easily.”
They entered the gates of the huge central enclosure and found themselves facing the Fortress of Cormac and, adjacent to it, the House of the Kings, each splendid and secure on its own mound, each enclosed with its own banks and ditches. The guards of the army of Leth Mogh were everywhere, and they dipped their weapons to Brian as he passed.
He and Carroll walked in a companionable silence around the inner perimeter of the royal enclosure, pausing to stand in reverence at the Tomb of Teamhair, foundress of Tara, and then continuing their stroll across the smooth grass. His authority not yet sanctified by the rites of inauguration, Brian did not approach the House of the Kings. He went past it until his feet stopped of their own accord at the heart of Tara itself, a timeworn gray stone atop a grassy mound.
“The St
one of Fal,” Carroll said in hushed voice. Dalcassian warriors stood on either side of it, swords at their hips, their spears crossed in front of the sacred relic.
“Tomorrow,” Brian said. “Tomorrow.”
The trumpets sounded at dawn and the kings and priests assembled. Brian had spent the night in prayer. Now he came forward, freshly bathed and perfumed, his hair and beard carefully combed, his nails shining from the buffing his body servant had given them. He wore a single robe of white linen, pure and new, bound at his waist with a girdle of gold. His head and feet were bare. For the first time in many years he wore no sword belt and carried no weapon.
His guard of honor paced solemnly behind him at a distance of seven spear lengths; Conaing, Corc, Kian the Dalcassian, Duvlann, Murrough, Conor mac Brian, and Flann. They were followed by Cian the Owenacht, carrying the sacred symbols of the kingship of Cashel. They walked with measured tread past the Fort of the Synods, and the assembled ranks of dignitaries bowed in respect. The leading ecclesiastics, the bishops and abbots of Kells and Clonard and Durrow, Finglas, Duleek and Tallaght, all were there, representing God.
Indifferent to them, older than their religion, at the holy place of inauguration the Stone of Fal represented Ireland.
The time had come for the wedding of Brian to his land.
He came at last to the Stone and bowed low before it. The nobles who had accompanied him stood at a distance, denied the hallowed precincts, as MacLiag came forward to recite the history of the tribe of the Dal Cais and sing a poem in praise of Brian’s virtues. Then the officer of ordination brought the sacred rod of the Ard Ri and handed it to MacLiag who, as ollamh poet of the king, was the only man entitled to bestow it upon him.
As Brian knelt before the Stone, Carroll stepped forward and read in a clear voice all those laws that regulated the conduct of the Ard Ri, and Brian bowed to the earth of Ireland and swore to abide by them. Then he rose and faced the assembled crowd, so that all might hear him promise to maintain the ancient customs and rule his people with strict justice. Even to his own ears, the voice with which he spoke sounded unfamiliar.
The dignitaries knelt on the damp earth and the first of the long prayers for the Ard Ri was chanted. A trumpet sounded one clear note, and Brian turned to face the Stone. On its surface was a peculiar depression, twin hollows worn in a time beyond the reach of memory. As MacLiag handed Brian the Ard Ri’s wand of polished hazelwood, the new High King of Ireland swallowed hard and mounted the Stone of Fal.
The eerie, unnatural sound ripped shockingly through the charged atmosphere. It began as a moan, a sigh in the mind, then swelled into a stormvoice, a windwail, the cry of a soul at the entrance to the underworld. It vibrated upward into a shriek of wild elation that could have come from no mortal throat, and then it faded away, to be lost in the soughing of the dawn breeze and the echoes of the trumpet.
Brian shuddered violently, struggling to keep his face impassive as the flesh writhed along his spine. His eyes met Carroll’s; the historian was white-faced with shock, his mouth hanging ajar. Beyond him, both Murrough and Kian had drawn their swords and were looking wildly about. The abbot of Armagh, the saintly Muirecán, was praying aloud in a voice rendered incoherent by a power not recognized in his catechisms.
“The Stone! The Stone!” the watchers gasped to one another. Those in the front row drew back from it in superstitious terror, while those behind them craned forward for a better look. If the clergy had not been there, they might all have fallen to their knees and done worship.
At the very edge of the crowd, safe from the pushing and shoving, Padraic stood with his hand on the shoulder of Brian’s chief steward. The two men had come together in Thomaus’s cart, and neither had slept the night before; they had spent most of the long hours recounting to one another, over many cups of wine, the glories of the long years that had led to this time and place.
When the Stone of Fal cried aloud both men started, and Padraic’s face lit up as if a candle had been placed within. “He is the Ard Ri,” he said in a voice choked with emotion. “Brian is the true king.”
Thomaus, who also found speaking difficult just then, nodded, but then he remembered that Padraic could not see him and mumbled an affirmation. A few moments later Core came trotting up to them, with a flushed face and a wide grin. “Did you hear it?” he asked eagerly. “Wasn’t it splendid?”
“I have waited all my life to hear it,” Padraic told him. He turned toward Thomaus. “Would you walk me back to our quarters now? I feel a little tired, and there is nothing left we can do for Brian. Ireland is his.”
It was not—not entirely. From Ulster he received only grudging submission, and there would be several times during the succeeding years when the army of the Ard Ri would take to the field against various rebellious tribes from Ulidia and Oriel. But in the Year of Our Lord 1002, Ireland was closer to unity than she had ever been, beneath the banner of the three lions, the Strong Hand Uppermost. The peace that Brian had dreamed for her was beginning to settle over the green hills.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The day came when the tribes of Ulidia took up weapons to attack their traditional enemies, the tribe of the Cenél Eógain, of the territory of Aileach. Or, if one believed the messages sent from the king of Ulidia, seeking the aid of the Ard Ri, the villainous Cenél Eógain had first swarmed across the river Bann, intent on murdering the Ulidians in their beds and seizing their cattle and women.
In either case, as Brian pointed out to the council of state that he convened at Tara, it was no way for one part of a unified land to behave toward another region, tradition notwithstanding. Some sort of intervention was necessary. But by the time his Munstermen, combined with the forces of Meath, Leinster, Connacht, and the Dublin Norse, had marched as far as Dundalk, the king of Ulidia had changed his mind and made up his quarrel with his neighbors. Their combined forces met the armies of the Ard Ri, and rather than stage a civil war, Brian withdrew.
It was the occasion of yet another confrontation between Murrough and his father, as bitter as any that had gone before.
“It was a thorough waste of time to support you for the High Kingship when you refuse to use your power to crush your opposition!” Murrough stormed.
Brian was not in a mood for the discussion. “Are you going to threaten me again by mentioning all that ‘great number’ of men who agree with you?” he asked sourly. “Because I warn you, Murrough, if it’s your intention to lead a revolt against my authority I want it honestly laid on the table right now, face to face and man to man, not whispered over cups in midnight halls!”
Murrough scowled at his father. “You think no better of me than that? You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
Brian’s jaw muscles knotted beneath his beard. “I have to think of Ireland first.”
“Well, you think of your kingdom, and I will go back across the Shannon to mine. I won’t come running the next time you summon me for one of these exercises in futility!”
Murrough and his company departed, but in a year, when new troubles broke out in Ulster and Brian and Malachi marched north once more, Murrough was with them, grumbling and criticizing. This time they reached Ballysodare in Sligo, only to find their way blocked by a large force of the Cenél Eógain. These Ulstermen appeared ready to die rather than submit to the authority of the Ard Ri and end their intertribal warfare, and once more Brian withdrew.
Murrough was livid with anger. “I will never go through this again!” he swore. “All you will see of me for the rest of my life is the back of my head!”
There never seemed to be enough time or providential circumstances to convince Murrough of the wisdom of his father’s policies. Brian was constantly required to ride circuit on his kingdom, holding court, conferring with judges, praying in the churches of his former enemies, and encouraging his people to obey the laws of God and Ireland. Bridges, causeways, and schools were being built throughout the land, each one a project of the Ard Ri, each cons
truction financed by tribute from the Norse trading cities.
Free of the threat of Norse invasion, the monasteries began to regain the prosperity that had been theirs before the first dragonships appeared on the horizon, and the Irish themselves, in the expanding wealth of their economy, no longer looted their own holy communities in times of desperation.
“Carroll,” Brian commented to his secretary, “I think the time has come when we may safely send agents to the continent to buy back those precious manuscripts and holy relics that were sent out of the country to save them from the Norseman. I will pay for it, whatever the cost. Bring Ireland’s heritage home.”
The problem of Ulster dragged at Brian. At last, he resolved to enlist the aid of the bishop of Armagh himself, if possible, in hopes of pressuring the Ulstermen through God where swords had failed.
Carroll approved of the concept, but had some doubts that it might work. “Armagh is the soul of Ulster, my lord, but the bishop is a saintly man who is extremely jealous of God’s honors. He has always been in the forefront of those who argue that kings should be installed only by the Church, and that our inaugural customs are more pagan than Christian.”
“That’s because they predate Christianity,” Brian answered. “But yes, I know that Muirecán was upset at Tara; that business with the Stone of Fal seemed to distress him greatly, and all the Christian prayers and ceremonies that followed did not ease him.”
“He also feels that Armagh has not fully received the recognition it deserves as the primary ecclesiastical city in Ireland,” Carroll pointed out.
Politics, Brian thought. Ah, that is a game I know. He leaned back on his High Seat and smiled. “I think the time has come for me to make a pilgrimage to Armagh.”
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