Laeg went to do his bidding as slowly as might be, he who had never been heavy-hearted in that task before; and when he shook the bridles towards the horses as he always did to summon them, they started away from him, snorting and tossing their heads and flying round in wary circles, showing the whites of their eyes. And the Grey of Macha in particular would not let him come within halter’s length. ‘Truly this is an omen of ill things to come,’ said Laeg to himself, and he groaned, and went to Cuchulain. ‘If you would have the Grey of Macha into the yoke this day, you must do the thing yourself. I have never known him unwilling until now, but I swear by the Gods my people swear by, that I cannot so much as set hand on him!’
So Cuchulain strode out with the bridles; but the Grey shied away from him as from Laeg. ‘Brother,’ Cuchulain cried, ‘you have never behaved so ill to me before. If you love me, come, for we must go out against the enemies of Ulster, you and I.’
Then the Grey of Macha came at last, his head hanging; and standing there to accept the bridle he let great heavy tears of blood fall on Cuchulain’s feet.
16. The Death of Cuchulain
SO AT LAST the chariot was yoked, despite all that the others could say or do, and like a man bound in an evil dream, Cuchulain set out for Murthemney. And all the while he cursed and raved at Laeg for more speed, until they drove like a thundercloud before a gale of wind, and the trees and bushes and grasses bent back and streamed out at their passing, as before a great storm rushing by. And ever in Cuchulain’s ears was the tumult of battle, and ever before his eyes the fire and the demon war hosts and the broken body of Emer tossed out over the ramparts of her own Dūn.
Yet when he came to Dūn Dealgan among its apple trees, it was just as it had always been, and Emer came out to him with her pleated crimson mantle about her and the gold ornaments hung in her hair. And she set her hands on the chariot bow, and said, ‘Welcome home, my lord. Let you come down from your chariot now, for the evening meal is waiting.’
‘It must wait on,’ Cuchulain said. ‘I go against the war hosts of the Four Provinces—I have seen them gathering—I have seen the smoke of their fires even on the walls of Emain Macha.’
‘That was but the enchantments of the Witch Daughters of Calatin. Give them no heed, and in two more days they will be gone, and Conall of the Victories will be here to drive his war team into battle beside yours.’
‘I cannot wait for Conall of the Victories! I tell you, woman, I see them, I hear them even now-there is not one heart-beat of time to be lost!’
And Emer saw that there was no holding him, for the bonds of witchcraft had him by the soul. ‘At least you can wait while I bring you a cup of wine to slake the way-dust in your throat,’ she said, and while he waited, fretting and starting like the horses at the yoke pole, she ran and fetched Greek wine in a cup of age-darkened amber. But when she held it up to him and he stooped to take it, he started back with a cry, for between her hand and his, the cup was brimming with blood.
‘My grief! It is not wonderful that others forsake me when my own wife offers me a drink of blood!’
Then she snatched the cup from him and flung out the blood and filled it again with wine; but that time also, and yet a third time, the wine in the cup turned to blood as he stooped to take it. And the third time he flung the cup against the pillar stone of the house, so that the amber broke into shards like great golden petals and the blood splashed all down the pillar stone. ‘The fault is not yours; my Fate has turned against me and now I know indeed that this time I shall not come home to you from battle. Ach well, I took the Fate on me with my eyes open, on the day that I chose to take the weapons of manhood. I have known how it would be.’
‘Wait!’ Emer begged, her hands gripping the sides of the chariot. ‘Only wait, and your Fate will turn again!’
‘Not for all the power and the golden riches in the world!’ Cuchulain said, ‘nor for anything you can say, Emer, Falcon-of-my-Heart. Never since the day that he received his weapons has the Hound of Ulster hung back when the war horns sounded, and he’ll not change the way of it now, for they do say that a great name outlasts life.’
And he stooped and kissed her once, so that her lips were bruised, and struck her hands from the chariot rim, and cried to Laeg, ‘Drive on, my brother, for we have lingered too long by the way!’
And the horses sprang forward from the goad and the dust cloud rose between him and Emer, and they drove on south like a storm cloud before the gale.
Presently they came to the river ford, and kneeling beside the shallows was a girl with skin as white as curds and hair that hung about her yellow as broom flowers; and she was washing a pile of bloodstained garments, and keening to herself as she washed, as the women keen for their dead, and as she lifted a crimsoned tunic from the water, Cuchulain saw that it was his own.
‘Do you not see? Will you not heed this last warning and go back?’ Laeg said.
‘Whether or not I turn back, it will be all one, for my Fate is on me,’ said Cuchulain, and his voice and his eyes were his own again, as though the madness had left him. ‘And what is it to me that the woman of the Lordly Ones washes bloody clouts for me? There shall be others than myself lying in their blood ere I have finished my game of spears with the warriors of Ireland.’ And he looked round at his charioteer. ‘But let you turn aside if you have a mind to, for the call is not for you. Go back to Emer and tell her how sore my heart is to leave her, after the many times that I have come back to her in gladness out of strange places and far countries.’
‘She knows without telling of mine,’ Laeg said. ‘Your Fate has been mine too long to change the way of it now,’ and he steadied the horses down to the water, and as they crossed, the maiden flickered out as a marsh-light flickers out; and where she had been was nothing but an alder tree trailing its hair in the water.
Later they turned on to the track from Meadhon to Luachair. And beside the track they came upon three hideous ancient women, each blind of the left eye, and the horses shied across the track at sight of them. They had made a fire of sticks and were roasting the carcass of a dog over it on spits of rowan wood; and Cuchulain would have passed them by, for he knew well enough that it was not for his good that they were there. But one of them called to him, ‘Stay awhile, Cuchulain, and eat with us.’
‘I will not then, for I have no time for eating just now,’ Cuchulain called back.
‘If we had a great feast to offer, you would stay. It does not become the great and powerful to despise the small and humble folk!’
Then Cuchulain, for the sake of courtesy, bade Laeg to draw rein, and stepped down from the chariot, and took the shoulder of the dog from one of the old women and ate it, well though he knew that his geise forbade him to eat the flesh of a hound because of the hound of Cullen who had given him his name; for he thought, ‘It is all one. My Fate is on me no matter what I do or do not do.’ But he took care to take the meat with the left hand, and as he did so, that hand was stricken so that the goodness went out of it.
Then he sprang back into the chariot and bade Laeg drive on—on—on, and they thundered on down the track of Meadhon-Luachair that passes hard beneath Slieve Fuad through the Gap of the North. And it was in his mind how he had driven that way seven years before.
Now Erc Son of Cairbre had driven ahead with the scouting chariots along the wooded skirts of Slieve Fuad, and saw him coming in a great cloud of dust that was shot through with red gold like a dust cloud at sunset by the Hero light that played about his head; his spear crimson-bladed in his hand, and the great black Crow of Battles flapping above him. ‘Cuchulain is upon us!’ he shouted to the men about him, and wheeled his horse and was away back to the war host coming up behind. ‘Cuchulain comes in a cloud of fire! The magic has drawn him forth at last, but he comes like no spellbound victim to the knife! So now let us be ready to receive him worthily!’
So they formed their foot warriors into a shield-hedge with their lime-washed bucklers, and
raised the war shout; and the heads of their spears were as the leaves of a summer forest, and on either side and behind the gaps in the foot ranks the chariots were ranged.
And when Cuchulain saw the hosts of Ireland standing waiting like a weaponed forest all across the plain of Murthemney, from Slieve Fuad into the foot-slopes of Slieve Cuillen, he cried to Laeg to make the pace yet swifter; and as they drove furiously down upon them, he plied the Champion’s Thunder Feat against them until their dead were scattered thick and far as sands on the shore, as hailstones when a thunderstorm has passed, as buttercups in a summer meadow.
Then one of the bards who were with the war host sprang into the horses’ track, crying, ‘Cuchulain, Hound of Ulster, your spear to me!’ For the three Witch Daughters had foretold that Cuchulain’s great throw-spear should be the death of three kings that day, and no kings were there save those of Munster and Leinster and Connacht.
Among all men it was a point of honour to refuse nothing that a bard might demand. ‘Yet I have greater need of it myself than you can have, this day,’ Cuchulain shouted back.
‘I will put a bad name on you if you refuse me, and it shall last for ever on all men’s tongues.’
‘There was never a bad name put on me yet, for the refusing of a gift,’ Cuchulain cried. ‘Take it, then, oh Song-Maker of Lugy’s court!’ and he flung the great spear at him with such force that it passed clear through him and killed nine men beyond.
Then Lugy himself stooped and caught up the spear and hurled it back at Cuchulain. But the horses were plunging, and instead it caught Laeg the King of Charioteers, so that he fell back with a great wound under his breast-bone. ‘I am hard hit,’ Laeg said. ‘And what will you do for a charioteer, Cuchulain, my dear lord?’
‘I will be my own charioteer,’ Cuchulain said, crouching over him to draw out the spear; and Laeg helped him with his own hand, and on the bright wave of blood that came with it, the life broke out from him; and Cuchulain kissed him and laid him down on the chariot floor. Then he bound the reins round his own waist that he might have his hands free, and rushed on through the war host of Ireland.
And as he hurled along, another bard called to Cuchulain for his spear.
‘There is but my spear against the Four Provinces of Ireland,’ Cuchulain cried. ‘I have sorer need of it than you, this day!’
‘Have you forgotten that once a great king tore out his own eye because his bard asked it of him? I will put a name of reproach on all Ulster for your refusal!’
‘Ulster was never yet put to shame for me.’ And Cuchulain threw the great spear at the man with such strength that it passed through his head and through the heads of nine men behind him, and Cuchulain thundered on as before.
Then it was Erc Son of Cairbre Niafer, who caught up the reeking spear and hurled it back, but his aim was wilder even than Lugy’s, and ploughed deep into the flank of the Grey of Macha, the King of all the Horses of Ireland, dealing him a wound that must be his death before many days were out.
Cuchulain outed his dagger and slashed the reins from his waist, and sprang forward upon the yoke pole to draw out the spear and cut through the trace that held the Grey to the chariot.
‘The Gods be kind to you, my brother. May there be many mares in the plains of Tir-Nan-Og,’ he said, and the great horse wheeled and plunged off through the battle, away and away leaving his blood trail behind him, to cool his mortal hurts in the Grey Lough under Slieve Fuad.
Then with the Black Seinglend dragging the chariot askew like a wounded bird, Cuchulain plunged on once more through the war host. And a third time one of the royal bards cried out to him for his spear.
‘My honour does not bid me to bestow more than one gift in one day, and I have already given two,’ returned Cuchulain.
‘I will put a bad name upon you if you refuse me!’
‘I have paid the ransom for my name,’ Cuchulain said.
‘Then I will call down reproach upon all Ulster!’
‘I have paid my due for the honour of Ulster.’
‘Then I will call it down upon your kindred and all you love!’
And at that, Cuchulain cried out, thinking of Emer, and of the dark hard King and ancient gentle Cathbad, and of Conall of the Victories even now thundering to his aid. ‘That is another matter. No man should leave shame behind him with those he loves. Take the gift in kindness, then,’ and he flung the great spear with such force that it passed through the bard’s rib-cage and slew nine men behind him.
‘You do your kindnesses ungently, Hound of Ulster,’ said the bard as he fell.
Then Lugy got the spear again, and hurled it back, and it struck its third king; it struck Cuchulain who was King of all the Heroes of Ireland, full in the lower part of the breast, so that he knew he had got his death wound even as his bowels fell out from him upon the cushions of the chariot. And in the same instant the Black Seinglend reared up and swung half round on his haunches; the chariot heeled over with a splintering crash and the breaststrap broke. And the great midnight-coloured horse, maddened by the tumult and the smell of blood behind him and the splintered chariot at his heels, broke away with half the harness hanging about his neck, and galloped neighing and savaging as he went, through the heart of the enemy war host. And behind him his lord was left asprawl in the ruins of the chariot.
Then as the kings and chieftains crowded about him, Cuchulain forced himself up to his knees, and his voice came harsh in his throat and the darkness made webs before his eyes. ‘I am in your hands now; give me leave to go down to the loughside yonder for the wish is on me to drink.’
And the kings and princes looked at each other; and at last Erc Mac Cairbre said, ‘So be it, then. Go down to the lough shore and drink your fill, but return into our hands afterwards.’
Cuchulain laughed, and never was there laughter with less of mirth in it. ‘If I come not back, you will know where I am. I give you leave to come down and fetch what is left of me.’
Then he gathered his bowels into his breast and bound his cloak tightly about himself; and gathering the little strength that was left in him, he staggered to his feet and went down to the lough side. And there among the whispering brown-flowered rushes he drank and washed himself, and then turned back again to die. He had not strength left to drag himself back to his enemies, but he knew that they would come after him soon enough.
There was a tall pillar stone beside the lough, and he got to it, and slung his girdle over it and knotted it about his breast, that he might meet death in his standing up and not in his lying down. And his blood ran down into the lough, and an otter came up through the shallows and lapped it.
Then the war hosts of the enemy came and gathered round, all along the shores of the lough, but none of them dared go near him for the Hero light was still on his forehead, and by that they knew that there was still a spark of life in him.
Then the Grey of Macha came back at a wounded gallop to defend his lord so long as the life lingered in him, and the Grey made three charges against the men of Ireland, and he killed fifty men with his teeth that sunset time, and thirty with each hoof, so that there is a saying yet: ‘It is not sharper work than this, was done by the Grey of Macha, the time of Cuchulain’s dying.’
Then a great black gore-crow flapped down and settled upon Cuchulain’s shoulder, and by that they knew that he was dead. And Lugy Son of Curoi came and lifted Cuchulain’s long dark hair sideways from his neck and struck off his head, while all the men of Ireland shouted in heavy triumph. Now Cuchulain’s naked sword fell from his hand, and in its falling, lopped off Lugy’s right hand, so that his yell mingled with the war host’s shouting. They hacked off Cuchulain’s right hand in satisfaction, while the Hero light faded from about his severed head, leaving it pale as the ashes of a long-dead fire.
Then all the warriors of Ireland called on Maeve to bring away the head with her to Cruachan, since it was she that had gathered the war host and made her use of the Daughters of Clan Calati
n. But Maeve drew back the hem of her mantle from the blood, she who had never minded blood before, and looked down at the head with dreadful eyes. ‘I will not bring it to Cruachan, I will not have it near me! Lugy struck it off, and paid for it with a hand. Let him carry it away with him!’
And so Lugy and his men set off that same night, heading for the Life River, and they carried Cuchulain’s head and his sword hand with them.
17. The Vengeance of Conall the Victorious
BY NOW THE men of Ulster were all but healed of the Great Weakness, for this time it had fallen less heavily than usual, and maybe the magic of the Witch Daughters abroad in the land had fought with the older spell and thinned its power. And the Ulster war host was already gathering to fly at the throat of its enemies. And Conall of the Victories was out ahead of them, when he met the Grey of Macha with the lifeblood dripping from his flank.
Then Conall knew that his foster brother was dead, for the horse would never have left him else; and he swore to keep the promise that they had made each other as boys, that if either were killed before the other, the one left would avenge him. But first he must find Cuchulain’s body. That was not hard to do, for the Grey of Macha, now that he had found Conall, had no thought but to get him back to his lord. And even had that not been the way of it, there was the blood trail to follow, as easily as a paved road.
So they pressed on together, the Grey galloping beside Conall’s Dewy Red, until at last they came to the lough shore below Slieve Fuad, and saw Cuchulain’s headless body still bound to the pillar stone. Then the Grey of Macha went and laid his head on Cuchulain’s breast.
The Hound of Ulster Page 15
