‘You bring me some word from the Princess Aifa?’ she said.
‘The Princess sends you, through my mouth, these words: “Skatha, chieftainess of many spears and my enemy, both our war hosts are weary and their wounds are deep. If we fight again today as we fought yesterday, and maybe the next day, and the next after that, what shall it avail us which triumphs in the end, when we are so weakened that any hungry chieftain may step into our land, and we lying up to lick our wounds? Therefore, let us fight the thing out in single combat, in the open between our war hosts an hour after sun-up, and the war hosts shall play no part in it save that men of mine and men of yours together shall fix the battle ground.”’
When he had finished speaking, there was a long silence, and then Skatha said, ‘I have listened to the words of the Princess Aifa, but I must have time to look into my heart and make sure whether they are good or bad. Therefore, do you go and drink a cup of mead beside the lower fire, and come back in the half of an hour, and you shall have my answer to carry back to the Princess.’
‘The Princess Aifa likes not to be kept waiting,’ the herald said. But Skatha pointed towards the fire with her left hand, and her face was bright with angry scorn. ‘Nor does the Chieftainess Skatha like to be prodded along like a dawdling sow on the way to market!’
But when he was gone, she looked about her at her warriors, and said, ‘What am I to do? What can I do? I cannot use my sword arm, and if the war host fights again, even though we gain the victory, it is as she says, and we may lose all beside.’
Then before anyone else could speak, Cuchulain said, ‘Skatha, my master-in-arms, let me give proof now, whether you have taught me well.’
Skatha looked at him with pain-darkened eyes. ‘If you mean what I think you mean, I tell you no. I do not need unbearded boys to fight my combats for me.’
‘Will you fight your own, then, with a sword arm that you can scarcely lift from your side?’ Cuchulain said.
And there was a blur of voices as the warriors came closer in, and man after man thrust forward, claiming his own right to take her place in combat against the Princess Aifa.
But Cuchulain said, ‘Do not listen to them, Skatha; ’twas I spoke first, and to me is the right to take your place against this fighting princess.’ And then leaning towards her as he half knelt at her side, he said, ‘Skatha, you owe me that, for the trick with the winecup!’
And Skatha thought, and said at last, ‘Surely, I owe you that. So be it, then, but do not cry to me from beyond the sunset!’
‘Tell me one thing, then, if you can, and I will not,’ Cuchulain said. ‘What is it that Aifa loves most in all her heart?’
‘What Aifa loves best in all her heart,’ Skatha said, ‘are her horses and her chariot and her charioteer.’
And Cuchulain laughed, and went to see his weapons.
And by and by the herald went back to his own chieftainess with Skatha’s word. ‘I, Skatha of the Land of Shadows, greet you the Princess Aifa, and sorrow it is to me that I cannot meet you sword to sword, for I am something hurt in the sword arm. But in my place I send you Cuchulain of Ulster, to be my champion; therefore, let you choose a champion in your turn, or come yourself against the champion I send, as you would if it were I . . .’
An hour after sunrise Cuchulain dropped from Skatha’s own chariot at the place of combat that had been chosen by the captains on both sides, and turned to look up at Ferdia who had come with him as his charioteer and weapon-holder, saying, ‘Keep the horses well back.’ Then he swung his shield round from his shoulder, and walked forward with his throw-spears ready in his hand to meet the shining figure that came towards him through the heather and bilberry scrub. The chosen place was a piece of level ground that ran out from the black-bloomed mountainside into clear view of both war hosts; and beyond it, suddenly the whole glen fell away into a deep gorge, and a honey-brown hill burn plunged downward with it, arched and white as a stallion’s mane.
The enemy champion had left chariot and driver on the far side of the level place, and the rays of the rising sun made a rim of fire round chariot and charioteer and fidgeting team, with nothing beyond them but the darkness of the mountain slopes across the glen. But Cuchulain was watching the figure as it drew towards him, trying to guess at the mettle of the warrior he must meet. And as the figure drew nearer, he saw that it was Aifa herself had come out against him, just as he had hoped.
She too had her rim of sun-fire round her, and the hair that spilled from under her war cap seemed a yellow cloud, as it would be the pollen-cloud that shakes from a hazel tree in March when the wind blows by; and the plates of bronze that covered her war-tunic rang together as she moved, and for all its weight and the weight of the great round buckler and the two spears she carried, she walked as lightly as a red hind along the hillside.
Cuchulain heard the roar of the watching war hosts like a storm in his ears as he began to run, and the Princess Aifa also began to run, and they came together in the midst of the level place, and saluted each other with their spear tips. And the salute done, they fell to the fight, circling about each other, each seeking to get the sun at his own back and in the other’s eyes, while the war hosts were silent, remembering what hung upon their spear points. First they drew off, and each threw their javelins, but each took the light throw-spears on their shields with no harm done; and then they closed in with the broad in-fighting spears, and when the spears were blunted and bent on their shields, they cast them aside as by common consent, and drew their swords. Long and long they fought, circling and crouching in the heather, trying on each other every thrust and parry and champion’s trick that they knew, yet neither able to gain the advantage though both were bleeding from more wounds than one. And then at last Cuchulain caught his foot in a heather snarl, and in the instant that he wavered off the balance, Aifa leapt upon him like a wild beast, their swords rang together, and Cuchulain’s sword that had been the battle-sword of Conor Mac Nessa himself flew into a hundred shining fragments.
Cuchulain sprang back, with the useless hilt still in his hand, and in the instant before she could spring after him, he shouted, glaring wildly past her, ‘The horses! Name of Light! The horses! They’re over the edge and the chariot with them!’
And as Aifa cried out and snatched one frantic glance behind her, he flung his shield one way and the sword hilt the other and sprang. His arms were round her waist, crushing the breath out of her against the bronze scales of his own armour. With a scream of rage she flung aside her own sword that she could not use at so short a range, and he was just in time to grasp her wrist as she went for the dagger in her belt, and wrench it behind her. She fought like a mountain cat, not hitting man-wise, now that she was captive, but clawing at his face with her free hand, and struggling to get her head down to bite his neck where it rose from the band of his war tunic. And Cuchulain laughed and crushed her harder and harder against him until the breath was all driven from her and she could fight no more. And then he flung her across his shoulder, and turned back to his own chariot.
Ferdia brought it to meet him, laughing as he leaned back on the reins. ‘What have you there?’
‘A wild cat, and its claws are sharp!’ Cuchulain scrambled in and the horses sprang away, wheeling and breaking into full gallop, back towards the camp of Skatha, while Aifa’s own charioteer, swinging his team half-circle, came thundering after them, and the roaring of the war hosts rose even above the drumming of hooves and the clangour and screeching of the chariot wheels.
They reached the fringe of their own host, and the warriors closed in behind them to cut the pursuit, and in the clear space before the branch shelter that had been woven for Skatha Ferdia brought the team to a trampling halt, and Cuchulain sprang down with his captive still powerless across his shoulder, flung her on the ground, and next instant was kneeling over her with her own knife at her throat. In all the camp of the war host it seemed that no one moved, not a horse in the picket lines nor the younges
t armour-bearer, nor Skatha herself, standing hollow-eyed in the entrance to her shelter and looking down at her foe.
The Princess Aifa looked up past Cuchulain into Skatha’s face, and said, ‘Chieftainess, if ever you loved the swiftness of a horse under you or the balance of a spear in your hand, grant me my life that I may know them again. It is one thing to die in battle, but this is another thing.’
‘Ask that of Cuchulain of Ulster,’ said Skatha. ‘Your life is his, not mine.’
And so suddenly Cuchulain found her looking up into his face, and he saw for the first time that she was beautiful, with the beauty of a tempered sword blade or an arrow’s flight that is dear to the heart of a fighting man. ‘If my life is yours,’ she said, ‘be as open handed as you are strong and give it back to me. It is well that those who are renowned as warriors should be renowned as gift-bestowers also.’
‘I will give you back your life,’ said Cuchulain, ‘if you will swear on the Great Stone of Tara that you will never again threaten war against the Chieftainess Skatha, nor come trampling across her borders to drive off her cattle and horse herds, but keep the peace between your lands and hers.’
‘On the Great Stone of Tara, I swear,’ Aifa said, with the dagger still at her throat.
And Cuchulain withdrew the dagger and sent it spinning towards the feet of Skatha the Chieftainess, where she still stood in the opening of her shelter. ‘There is one thing more. We have dead men to be buried, and wounded among us too sick for the jolting of the chariots. Therefore, we make the Death Fires here for those that have gone beyond the sunset, and bide on in this place until our wounded may be moved; and that we may sleep easy in our minds at nights, you shall send home your warriors, but you shall remain here in our midst, until the time comes that we go home to our own hunting runs.’
‘I understand,’ said Aifa. ‘Only let me go to the edge of my own camp to tell this thing to my warriors—you shall send men with me to be sure that I do not break faith—and I will bide as hostage for my war host while you remain in this glen.’
And so when the sun went down that night and they kindled the Death Fires, a second shelter woven of green branches stood not far from Skatha’s; and the Princess Aifa slept there, on Cuchulain’s crimson cloak that he had spread for her.
5. Cuchulain’s First Foray
FOR MANY DAYS Skatha’s war host remained encamped on one side of the glen, while on the other the few who yet lived of Aifa’s bodyguard remained also, after the rest of her war bands had departed. And for many days the Princess Aifa remained among her foes as a hostage. But to Cuchulain she was more than a hostage, and in those days while the bell-heather passed its glory and began to die, and the burn ran yellow with the first fallen birch leaves, he forgot Emer working at her embroidery under the apple trees of Dūn Forgall, and loved the Princess Aifa in her stead.
At last the time came when the sorest wounded might be moved, and they harnessed the horses and turned back towards the borders of the Land of Shadows. And the Princess Aifa went with them in the dust cloud behind the chariots, marching with Cuchulain in the ranks of the Warrior School, while always her own bodyguard kept faithful pace with them, a spear-throw to one side. At noon they came to the stream that was the border between the two lands, and there they halted. And there with the eyes of the whole war host upon them, Cuchulain and Aifa took hands and walked together a little way downstream.
They halted in the shelter of a thicket of blackthorn that would be fleeced with grey-white blossom in the springtime, and Cuchulain pulled a gold ring from his finger and gave it to Aifa. ‘When running water is between us, we shall not meet again,’ he said, ‘but if you should bear me a son, Aifa flower-of-my-heart, send him to me in Ulster when the time comes that his hand is big enough for that ring.’
And Aifa said, ‘Have you any other bidding for me, Hound of Ulster?’ not as a warrior speaks, and not as a chieftain, but as a woman accepting the thing that must be.
‘Let you call him Connla,’ Cuchulain replied. ‘And when the time comes that you send him to me, put him under this geise, that he shall not tell his name to any who ask it on his way; that he shall not turn out of his way for any man’s bidding; that he shall never refuse a combat, for the sake of the combat that was between you and me.’
‘I will remember,’ the Princess Aifa said, and she set her hands for an instant on either side of his face, over the bronze cheek-flanges of his war-cap, and looked deep into his eyes. ‘Do you remember also, when that time comes!’
And she dropped her hands and turned and walked away with never a backward glance, towards where her waiting bodyguard stood leaning on their spears. And Cuchulain rounded on his heel and strode off to rejoin the war host of Skatha that was already splashing through the ford.
The year and a day were almost up, and Cuchulain had mastered all the skills and all the warrior feats that Skatha had it in her power to teach him, even to the Hero’s Salmon Leap and the manner of using the Gae Bolg, which when it struck into the belly of any enemy, filled all his body with its deadly barbs. And for a parting gift she had given him a sword of her own in place of the sword he lost in fighting the Princess Aifa and the Gae Bolg itself which she had never thought any other champion worthy of, not even Ferdia Mac Daman.
And so it was time for Cuchulain to take leave of the Land of Shadows, and his fellows of the Warrior School. Time that he must be taking his leave of Ferdia, who had been his fiercest rival in all that time, and was nearer to him even than Laeg or Conall his foster brother. And until it was upon him, he had not known how sore that leave-taking would be.
‘Why could you not be a man of Connacht?’ Ferdia demanded with his heavy arm across Cuchulain’s shoulders.
‘And why could not you be a man of Ulster?’
They swore the Blood Brotherhood together on the last night of all, and they swore to keep faith each with the other so long as the life was in them. And they went their separate ways, and little they knew how they should meet again.
So Cuchulain came back to Ulster, to Emain Macha once more—and found Conall his foster brother lying beside the fire in the Red Branch Hall, nursing a score of half-healed wounds and a sword arm all but hacked from his body, and heard from him how Conary Mōr the High King of Ireland was dead. How he and almost all his bodyguard had been slain at the great Inn of Da Derga, where he had been passing the night, slain by pirates out of Britain, and among them his own foster brothers that he had outlawed one time for robbery and cattle rieving.
‘And what would you be doing among the High King’s bodyguard?’ Cuchulain asked.
And Conall shrugged. ‘I had a little falling-out with Celthair Mac Uthica. Only a little falling-out, but King Conor bade me go and offer my services to Conory Mōr while Ulster cooled behind me.’
‘And it seems your services were greatly worth the having! With the Inn burned down and the High King dead, how does it happen that you are here by the Red Branch fire, alive though somewhat scathed?’
‘Ask the same question of two others of his guard. When the King was dead we three that were left fought our way out and came away,’ Conall said, beginning to be angry.
Cuchulain was angry then, because he had not been at Da Derga’s Inn. ‘By the light of the sun, if I had been with the High King, they would not have slain him so easily!’
‘There were some among us who did not lie down for them to swarm across our necks,’ said Conall between his teeth, nursing his arm to ease the ache of it. ‘A few blows we struck against the pirates, even though we had not the Hound of Ulster in our midst.’
But Cuchulain flung from the Hall, nursing his anger for the blaze of it within him that warmed the place still cold for the parting from Ferdia.
Yet when the anger sank at last, and he had made his peace with Conall, the soreness and the cold was in his heart again. Then old wise Fergus Mac Roy saw that there was some grief in him, and knowing the best cure for such as Cuchulain, said to him
on the third day after his return, ‘Now it may be that you are the best fighting man in all Ulster, yet still you have to prove it. Would you think well of a foray along the marches of Connacht?’ For between Connacht and Ulster there was always a fitful surf of skirmishes and cattle-raiding along the borders.
And Cuchulain said, ‘Surely that is as good a way as any other to pass the autumn days.’ And he laughed, and bade Laeg to yoke his horses and make ready the chariot, saying, ‘We are away to burn off Connacht’s gorse for them. They will be grateful to us!’ and so set out on his foray.
‘To the white cairn on Slieve Mourne, king of all the mountains of Ulster. From that eagle’s eyrie a man can see far.’
And when they came there, he bade Laeg to pull up the horses, and turning about in the chariot he stood looking out over the hills and glens and the wide bogs and the ruffled lakes of Ulster, with the last flame of autumn on the bracken, and the heather black now as storm clouds upon the mountains, and the white gleam of the King’s Dūn at Emain Macha, and the rolling country of Murthemney south and westward, with Slieve Cuillen and Slieve Fuad standing like warrior brothers to hold the Gap of the North that was the chief way from Ireland into Ulster. ‘There I will build my own hall within the ring-ramparts of my own Dūn when I am Champion of all Ireland and have Emer to sit beside my hearth,’ he said.
And then he turned full southward and looked out beyond, over the wide green plains of Bregia. ‘Tell me the names of all the places that we can see.’
And Laeg pointed out to him Tara that was empty now of the High Kings, and Teltin, and Brugh-Na-Boyna, and the great Dūn of the Sons of Nechtan.
The Hound of Ulster Page 4
