The Sword of the Gael cma-5

by Andrew J Offutt

  He had indeed. In a scurrilous bargain with the Norsemen just slain, Feredach had his younger brother and sister carried off, that there might be no claim on this throne but his own.

  “And it’s well paid his hirelings are after being,” Cormac said snarling, in a castle peopled by ghosts and the crimsoned corpses of slain kidnapers.

  None of them knew aught of this place and Cormac assured them it was of Atlantean origin-Wulfhere looking nervous, lest his companion go away into his strange remembering. Ceann and Samaire in turn assured their countryman that Cutha Atheldane had been a sorcerer of considerable skills.

  After a time Cormac began to realize what they were assuming, and deliberately he mentioned the ship, and their need of gaining new crew for her. The booty they’d taken away from this ancient keep would see to that.

  Samaire looked stricken. She and her brother made clear that they assumed Cormac would return with them to Eirrin, there to aid them in wresting the throne away from the man already surnamed “the Dark”: an-Dubh. Cormac mac Art shook his head.

  “I fled under sentence of death,” he said, “and dare not return.” He gave his dark head a jerk. “Besides, Eirrin is no longer my land.”

  Samaire and Ceann stared at him. It was she, at last, who spoke.

  “There are no former sons of Eirrin, Cormac of Connacht! It’s a spell there is on the fens and the bogs, and the cairn-topped hills of green Eirrin called Inisfail, and it envelops us all at birth like a cloak about the mind. We are forever under it-even those who so long and long ago moved across Magh Rian to Dalriada in Alba. Eirrin-born is Eirrin-bound, as if by stout cords and golden chains.”

  With his belly sloshing, Wulfhere sat silent. He stared at the fine cloth covering the floor between bloodstained leggings, and mayhap he thought of the land of the Danes.

  “I have not felt such chains, and me twelve years gone,” Cormac said quietly. “I am an exile, a man without a homeland, a Scoti; a raider.”

  The moment Ceann began to speak, Cormac remembered that the prince, third in line to his father’s throne and no plotter he, had oft amused himself and others in the minstrel’s way.

  “He is the raven that has no home,

  The boat flung from wave to wave;

  He is the ship that’s lost its rudder,

  He be the apple that’s left on the tree:

  This the Exile, a man alone, unfree.

  And it’s dark grief and sorrow

  Are e’er his boon companions.”

  Though he was sagging and nigh asleep, Wulfhere wagged his great shaggy head. “Aye,” he said morosely, and began the difficult task of getting his alesack again to his lips.

  “I want no homeland,” Cormac said without grace, “and it’s time for bed.”

  He rose, catching up a cloak and half a bale of cloth. “Wulfhere will never leave this room until he next awakens. The next chamber is as well appointed for sleeping; as for me, I shall go out under the sky as I have thousands of times.”

  “Cormac-” Samaire began. But he left them.

  Behind him he heard Ceann, gently singing:

  “Seagirt it lies, where giants dwelt “of old;

  This Eirrin Isle sacred to all our fathers…”

  Grinding his teeth, Cormac hurried along the corridor and down the steps. Outside, he relieved his ale-filled bladder in the moonlight. A little way from the palace, and shielded from view of the entry from the sea on the very off chance that men might come, he spread his bedding and lay down.

  The stars gazed down, and twinkled, and they seemed green like Eirrin. With a snarl, Cormac turned onto his side.

  But in the morning Ceann found his sister gone, and was much fearful until she came in from outside, with Cormac, and they announced that it was to Eirrin Cormac mac Art would be going.

  Wulfhere added nothing to the discussion as the others talked of Eirrin, and their returning; the Dane suffered from the presence inside his head of Thor and his hammer of thunder.

  This was the year of the greal triennial gathering, Cormac was told, the Feis of Tara at Samain. High summer smiled on Eirrin now, and Samain-the New Year of the old faith: November first-was not long off. Once every three years to Tara hill in Meath came all the kings. Came too the historians and poets and judges, the druids-and bishops, now-and doctors of law, for the reading of the old laws, and discussion of the state of the land, and hearing and redress of wrongs, and the great ceremony that was the meeting of all the kings of Eirrin with the Ard-righ or High-king.

  “There, Samaire said, her eyes fixed on Cormac’s, “Ceann and I can gain safety, and make our accusation and claim!”

  Cormac only nodded. He said it not, but knew they had no claim: Feredach an-Dubh was older. The throne was legally his. So long, Cormac thought automatically, as he lives.

  They spent much time amid the booty crowding one room and strewing the throne-hall as well. With some judicious cutting and pins and. brooches, the making of new clothing to replace ruined was little difficulty, though Cormac thoughtfully counseled against the finest fabrics. They chose to carry off not only the most valuable of the Viking-stolen goods that was now theirs by the ancient right of conquest, but the lightest and most easily concealed, as well. Into Wulfhere’s sword-scabbard went the pearls he had coveted. Both Ceann and Samaire armed themselves well. Cormac found a buckler he pronounced better than his old one, and more handsome besides. A jewel-set belt he buckled on under his clothing. Huge enveloping cloaks they created from this bolt of fabric and that, and Samaire cleverly sewed squares of fabric inside, open at the top, for the secreting of valuable treasures.

  A torc of solid gold Cormac presented with ceremony to his sword-companion. Wulfhere dutifully thanked him and then brought laughter on them all by showing that the twisted circlet would barely encompass his wrist, much less his bull neck. With a gentleness and gallantry that made Cormac’s eyes pop before he turned away to hide his smile-the Dane presented the gift to Samaire.

  Cormac bade her wrap it in leather cut from a Norse boot ere she wore it around her neck, for they must not look too rich.

  Finding a pair of strange high boots of soft doeskin, Samaire coveted them for her own. She contrived to equip their tops with holes, through which she threaded strips of hide. These she fastened in turn to her belt, which was broad as her waist and fastened with a buckle nigh as big as her hand. The buckle they hoped all would assume was brass, for who would believe it for what it was: many coins’ weight of solid gold! The boots came halfway up her thighs, to where her scarlet tunic fell.

  One trek they made from palace to the Viking ship, which waited safe and dry on the beach where they’d hidden it. All were laden with food and ale, for they’d found no fresh water. And back they went, and returned to the ship again, groaning and staggering under the weight of booty: gold and silver and gems and fine leather. A third journey through that narrow defile from shore to palace brought forth more booty, and many weapons-and Ceann’s prize, a small harp. He strummed it, and pronounced it a fine instrument.

  “Never,” Wulfhere rumbled, “have I had thought of sailing the sea with a prince as minstrel!”

  “Nor ever have I had thought of sailing the ship playing the lute for a Dane as big as a tree!” Ceann retorted, and the two men laughed together.

  Chapter Seven: “The sea is angry!”

  Their ocean-god was Mannanan Mac Lir,

  Whose angry lips,

  In their white foam, full often would inter

  Whole fleets of ships…

  – D’Arcy McGee: The Celts

  Built in the clinker way of the Scandinavians, the ship was small and light, no more than sixty feet long. Her crew of four left her light in the water, despite their having heavy-laden her with food and ale and the Vikings’ booty.

  The quartet would be able to handle her well enough, with her one sail, and with Cormac’s and Wulfhere’s experience. They’d need it, as well as their strength, if heavy winds rose
. True, they needed near-perfect sailing conditions; there’d be little the four of them could do with fourteen sets of oars.

  South of Britain as they were, they could not sail directly to Eirrin. A direct northeasterly bearing would carry them into the realm of the Wind Among the Isles that had hurled them here-and the whirlpool off the island called Ire of Manannan. They must head westward before bringing about on a northerly bearing, and then at last swing northeast to seagirt Eirrin.

  With a nice little breeze rippling the sea and blowing their hair, they raised and braced the mast and made ready to hoist sail. Cormac already thought of this island as Serpent’s Lair, since it was that deep-laired reptile that had nigh got him his death. But he said nothing when, as they prepared to depart, Wulfhere called it otherwise.

  “Farewell, Samaire-heim,” he said and received a smile and a thanks for the inspiration for that Irish-Danish name.

  Away and out from Samaire-heim they slid, and with ease. Skirting the rocks and bearing away from the islands, Cormac and the Dane did their best to impart to their Leinsterish companions the mysterious lore of seamanship. Soon they were clear, and stood forth to open sea. With smooth sailing, Ceann began testing his new smallharp, plucking and strumming. After a time he raised his excellent tenor in song.

  “I sing of rescue, and a giant from the land of the Danes,” the slender redhead said, and Wulfhere blinked and strove not to swell his chest.

  “His beard is a bush of flame,

  His ax a stout tree of steel;

  His legs the sturdiest of oaks,

  His wrath like a forest afire.

  He splits the Norsemen’s shields

  On the edge of his great red ax;

  He vents the armour, of them all,

  He breaks the bones of the Vikings!”

  Grinning broadly, Wulfhere struck a pose at the prow, his chest like a great iron bound barrel and his fiery beard jutting. Fighting a smile, Cormac turned away.

  “How fares Eirrin?” he asked, of her who had persuaded him to return.

  It was Ceann made reply:

  “Summery Eirrin! Delightful time!

  How beautiful the colour;

  The blackbirds trill the full day;

  The cuckoos sing in constant strains.

  Now welcome is the twice-noble

  Brilliance of the sun’s seasons!

  On the marge of the branchy woods

  Summer swallows skim the streams,

  The swift horses seek the pool.

  The heather spreads her long hair;

  High grows the fair bog-down-

  Flowers cover the earth of Eirrin!”

  Smiling, Cormac continued to look on Samaire’s face.

  “How fares Eirrin? Fair and beautiful, son of Art. Flax and corn crowding the very foothills of Mount Leinster. Silver and gold still pushing up out of the ground without digging of it, and singing peasants wear carbuncles while stout branches break from the weight of their fruit.”

  “Another poet!” Wulfhere cried grinning, while Cormac bellied up a short laugh.

  “How fares Eirrin?” he repeated.

  “Leinstermen still resist the Boru Tribute,” Samaire said. “But he is a good High-king, is Erca Tireach. The land basks in his wisdom and his peace, and the sons and daughters of Eirrin see to the business of Eirrin whilst the rest of the world wars like rival ants.”

  “His peace!” Cormac burst out. “The business of Eirrin…” He shook his head. “Gaels of Eirrin should be carving out fine haunch and tenderloin of Britain as from a roast at fair-time! It’s these eighty years since Alaric and his Goths carried the sword into the streets of Rome, and the legions and administrators torn out of Britain after five centuries and more, like the legs from an old table. Now it’s Saxons and Jutes and Angles are creating what they call kingdoms of Britain. Kingdoms! Kings without the price of fivescore sheep, and with three hundred subjects-even less! Britain’s ripe for the taking, and it’s being taken! Where be the sons of Niall when there lies a land next door, like a jewel-coffer with the lid open?”

  “Tamed,” Ceann said.

  Cormac stared at him. “Tamed! Eirrin? Gaels? Why man it was in Gaul over the wide seas that Niall got his death, and him chasing the Romans all the way from Londinium in Britain! Can the descendants of such a warrior be tamed?”

  “Not all,” Samaire said quietly, gazing upon the son of Art. She had clamped her teeth at the mention of the death of Niall of the Nine Hostages. For it was a king’s son of her Leinster had slain the great conqueror-king whose descendants still reigned, and that skulking from ambush.

  Ceann only shook his head. “That,” he said, “was before Padraigh came to Eirrin.”

  “Padraigh!” The name tore from Cormac’s lips like a curse. “And him mealymouthing about peace and love your neighbour! Why, by neighbour that maniac meant Vikings, and Jutes and Picts, and those that have yet to crawl from beneath their slime-bottomed rocks! Would that Padraigh were alive that I might aid him along in his blitheful journey to the afterworld of his weakling’s god! Tell me-is’t true what I heard tell in Britain, that his strange faith has stolen even our New Year’s and the Vigil of it?”

  Samaire sighed. “Aye, and the mistletoe of the Druids as well, and the Behlfire of Midsummer’s. As to the ancient New Year-aye, the Christians have… borrowed it. Samain they claim is dedicated to all the souls of Christendom, and its vigil they call the Hallowed Eve of All Saints. As to the festival-time of winter, that has been such for Celts these thousands of years-it’s then Bishop Patricius-Padraigh-says the son of the Christian god was born, and that we celebrated it in honour of this Eastern man-god.”

  “Why, he was born but a few centuries ago,” Wulfhere rumbled from the prow. “Compared with our Odin and your Crom, losa is a mewling child!”

  Samaire shrugged. “It’s said we anticipated the coming of losa Chriost,” she said. “And all our festivals were merely warnings and anticipations of his arrival to rule the world, through bishops rather than Druids, through the Son rather than the Sun.”

  After staring in horror and anger at her for a time, trying to digest that this one man, this Patrick, had begun the taming of his people, Cormac swung his head alee. There he showed his love of Patricius/Padraigh/Patrick and his selfish and thieving religion: he spat.

  “And… Leinster?” he asked at last.

  “Like all Eirrin, Leinster is home now to many Christians, Cormac mac Art.”

  “And… her royal house?”

  “You know that King Enda drove off the crossworshipers, but that his son Crimthann gave them a church-plot, a ‘see’ as they term it, over in Aghade. As for our father, it’s lip service he gave them, because it was politick. But… no, Cormac, we are none of us of the new faith.”

  “Good,” Cormac nodded. “I’d hate to be throwing ye into the sea, dairlin girl, and after delivering ye of the Vikings and their sorcerous Druid.”

  She looked at him whimsically, eyebrows up. He read a challenge there, and thought again that this woman he called girl was of stout stuff indeed. She’d issue challenge to the Dark Ones themselves-and there’d likely be wagers on both sides at that!

  “Behlfires yet burn on all the hills of Eirrin,” Ceann said. He plucked idly, but did not sing.

  The ship scudded along with taut sail and silent crew. They were thinking of the new faith, and what it might bode for Eirrin in future. It was not a tolerant cult, and already there were stories of murder and awful death visited on non-adherents in lands where it was strong. Though the man losa was a Jew, Christians were now treating Jews as filth, supposedly for having brought about his death-when they knew he had been executed by some Roman governor for speaking sedition and rousing the people. Too, surely it was a spear from a Christian hand that had slain the Emperor Julian, he who tried to curb the growing power of the new faith and restore some of the old. A soldier, Julian had most likely been a devotee of Mithras. That old soldier’s god had been born in
a cave or stable under a bright star, attended only by animals and some wise men who came from afar to pay their respects.

  As he had hurled down Crom Cruach’s statue on Magh Slecht in a symbolic slaying of the old god of Eirrin, so had Patrick set in motion the forces to destroy Crom in truth, with the others of the old pantheon. As for mewling Brigit, who gave away all hers and her father’s holdings so that none would accept her even as a servant in the household… surely quite mad was that follower of Padraigh and his Eastern god!

  “Remember our need of fresh water,” Wulfhere at last rumbled, “and turn those moping eyes seaward. Be those trees I’m seeing?”

  They looked. Samaire smiled. It was indeed trees the Dane saw, and the sun was but a little past its zenith when they were easing into a lovely little harbour. Trees rose above from the high stony banks, and birds sang their joy. Crystal water came tumbling down from steep rocks to add to the ocean’s gallonage. Splashily, they made fast their long, long canoe.

  Wulfhere groaned when good ale must be poured out to empty leathern bags for sweet water. Warning that such a lovely isle surely would not be unpeopled, Cormac kept a keen watch while the others cleansed themselves. It was much in love with cleanliness, his people were. He took his turn in the water after, while Wulfhere scanned inland. No one else came.

  Bathed and with water taken on, they put to sea again without incident.

  The wind was good. The ship cut her way through the water with a long white trail of foam seething in her wake. For a long while on the nearly flat plain that was the sea they were as alone as travelers can be, surrounded on five sides by water and roofed over with a summery sky that was almost the same colour.

  The sun was low when Wulfhere spoke Cormac’s name quietly.

  The Gael joined the giant at the prow. They were coming up on an island off to starboard, a small chunk of cone-shaped rock like a Pictish granary of stone. A wispy tendril of smoke curled up from it.

  “See you that piece of rock?”

  “Of course,” Cormac said.