Cormac thought a moment. Why, the boy actually-he dared-hmm! Well, Cormac told himself, he’s old enough, for all that! Best not give him opportunity to undertake some ridiculous wooing of the handsomest woman he’d ever seen, then.
“Aye,” Cormac said.
“Oh,” Dondal said, downcast, and then, “I thought so,” even more morosely. Then, after a few steps, he added hurriedly, “And it’s a fine handsome woman ye’ve made your own, Cormac mac Othna, and her a fighting companion too!”
Cormac nodded, walking blindly now, heedless of the dusty road, the pretty blue and yellow summerflowers, the trees that became more and, more numerous, the bilberry and heath that paralleled their path, beneath a bright smiling July sun.
My woman, he mused, nor was he any the happier about it than the tallish youth walking proudly beside him. Samaire, daughter of a king, sister of a king, widow of a prince. No, Cormac, exile and riever of the coasts, it’s not your woman that royal beauty is, and she’ll never be. Have a care, landless exile, for ye be too old to be so foolish as this poor silly youth, with his head all swollen full of himself!
And ye want this woman, he told himself, it were better ye laid hands on her now, and backward ran with all your might, to put to sea with her in that Pictish boat. For chances of keeping her, and happily were better in that wise than this. If I clear myself, and aid them to confront their dark brother and mayhap gain for Ceann the crown of Leinster… well, it might well be as general of Leinster’s armies I wear my sword. But not as the husband of a princess, no matter how fine a friend her royal brother is!
In silence they walked, each in communion with the interior of his own head and their separate and common future. Afoot in southern Munster of Eirrin, a strange procession indeed: The fisherman’s son Dondal in his Pictish armour, and the exiled winner of a hundred battles with his scarred face and his narrow eyes, and the royal heirs of Leinster’s high throne!
Chapter Twelve: The Prince of Munster
Crom was their day-god,
and their thunderer,
Made morning and eclipse;
Brigit was their queen of song,
and unto her
They prayed with fire-touched lips.
– D’Arcy McGee: The Celts
Munster was rolling country, and the four pilgrims had well known it to this day. To their west had reared Galti Mor, pushing upward three thousand feet. Eastward was the lesser Comeragh range of hogbacks, while the travelers had made their way between, along the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains. They had seen few other travelers; this was a hard-working season for farmers, with both birds and bugs as anxious for their crops as they.
Little Kilsheed of Munster boasted perhaps a hundred houses that had grown out of four or five raths in times gone by. The village lay, sleepy in the sun, on the banks of the Suir. Northward of Kilsheed on this same river rose Cashel, the first destination on their journey north and then east to Tara.
In addition to its multicoloured homes and sprawling markets both open and closed and the tiniest of military garrisons, Kilsheed held precisely one inn. It was into its smoky, grease-walled interior the four repaired, under the broken sign of the Moondisk. A family of locals, doubtless celebrating something or other, left as they entered, and Cormac led the way to the vacated table. They gained attention: they were travelers. People smiled when they looked upon Ceann with his smallharp, and his dark red hair; men looked well and long at Samaire, with her exotic boots. They vanished enticingly up under an overlarge tunic that still did not disguise her slender and entirely womanly figure.
There were no smiles for Cormac-save that of a slatternly wench with overpainted face and nails like drops of blood tipping her long snowy fingers. The smiles occasioned by Dondal were of an entirely different sort. People nudged each other, and muttered. The young did not notice. Cormac felt that even if Dondal had, he’d have thought the people awed and commenting on his handsome build and martial appearance.
They were served fair ale, excellent bread, and greasy pork, ambushed in more grease lumpy with leeks striving to smother the meat. A happy-faced man, fat and ruddy, came bustling from the kitchen to welcome them. He advised that it was his own tender daughter serving them and he responsible for her and them, and to tell them he had fine accommodations for their over-nighting.
Beneath smoke- and grease-darkened rafters, Cormac looked about himself.
The fellow alone in the corner was a priest of the new faith, and though he nodded and almost smiled, Cormac vouchsafed him none but a sour look, and that quickly passing. Against the wall a dour man sat, the hood of his cloak drawn up to forbid interruption while he brooded over his ale. A smallharp stood against the wall beside him, but he made no move to pick it up and play, nor did he more than glance their way; he was manifestly interested in nothing and no one, including his fellow minstrel just arrived. Nearby three soldiers lounged, swaggering and noisy. The leg of one was stretched arrogantly out so that the landlord’s daughter must be aware of it with each of her journeys to the kitchen and back.
There were no other patrons. And the biggest of the three soldiers, a man perhaps just at the age of thirty, kept his pale eyes fixed rudely on Samaire. Cormac looked at her, to see what the fellow was staring at.
A woman with the highness of pride in eyes and bearing, Cormac told himself. And those eyes blue as any flower of Eirrin’s fair summer. Lips, he thought in the poetic manner of his ancestors, red as the berries of the rowan-tree, and her hair like a king’s cloak of new gold or the sun just before it sets. And a face and form to cause a man’s body to twitch.
The soldier’s body, Cormac mac Art decided, was atwitch. He continued staring. Samaire had noticed. Obviously uncomfortable, she was keeping her eyes on her food. Ale-jack in hand, Cormac twisted half about to return the soldier’s stare. It was many long seconds before the man noticed or deigned swerve his gaze from Samaire to the dark-haired man with the scarred face and eyes invisible in their slits.
For a time the two men traded looks, the soldier’s insolent and Cormac’s dark and warning. Then, without swerving his gaze, the man spoke to his companions. As he did, he nodded their way-or rather Samaire’s. The other soldiers laughed.
Nodding, one said, “And scratch like a cat in heat once she’s on her back too, I’d be saying!” The others laughed and nodded. When they fell silent, it was Cormac who spoke, from a distance of eight or so feet.
“But it’s nothing ye’d be best advised to be saying little man. Cats abound; find one and get scratched.”
All three weapon-men blinked. The dark speaker had not raised his voice, and his tone was matter-of-fact. His ale was still held carelessly in his big hand, which bore a small poultice to draw or ward off some infection endangering him.
With the merest hint of the ghost of a smile’s shadow, Cormac turned back to his companions. He lifted his alejack. Ceann looked at him; Samaire at her trencher; Dondal past Cormac, at the trio of king’s men. They were muttering, but Cormac recognized the way of men who intend to be overheard.
“-and none among the three of them man enough for her!”
“I know three more who’d rise to the occasion!” Laughter.
“Cormac-” Dondal began quietly, looking very nervous indeed.
“Eat, Dondal. Drink. They launch words to provoke. I’ve heard crows before-and the braying of asses.” Cormac’s voice was loud as the soldiers’.
Behind him silence, then a long, sucked in “Eeeeeeeeh,” followed by a pause and an aspirated “Ha-awwwwwwwwn!” A passing good imitation of the animal mentioned.
Samaire anxiously lifted her eyes, keeping her head down, to Cormac’s face. He smiled. She returned to pushing her food around, desperately keeping her attention thereon.
“I suggest either a walk or that we repair to whatever rooms he has for us,” Cormac said quietly. “We needn’t stay here, and I’m not anxious to fall afoul of a weapon-man of Munster’s king!” He turned
in his little chair, away from the insolent trio. The innkeeper’s daughter was standing near the kitchen, watching, and she started his way before Cormac could speak.
Against the wall, the hooded minstrel brought forth several soft, lingering notes.
“We’d be leaving ye now,” Cormac said, “with thanks. And would you ask your father to-ah.” The father was coming out of the kitchen that quickly, with anxious glances in the direction of the soldiers.
The girl’s head jerked up and her eyes widened; a sneering voice spoke from Cormac’s other side, and just behind him.
“Surely one who has lived here nigh onto a year, and a military man besides who’s capable of protecting you, would be a better companion in the night outside, prettygirl.”
Cormac transferred his alejack from his right to his left hand. Samaire continued to lavish her attention on the remains of her dinner awhile, then looked up. Her face was open, her eyes clear and the brows above them innocently arched; her tone was infinitely equable.
“I had not noted that it had grown dark,” she said. “Nor have I need of protection, surely, with such fine soldiers about.”
Silence followed. Under the table, Cormac very slowly moved his feet, bracing for a sideward lunge. He did not smile, but silently saluted “his woman”; her words might well cook the fellow’s arrogance and ardour and return him like a chastised sheepdog to this table.
“And a good thing it is,” the soldier at last said, “and you in the company of this moon-dark scarface and that hound-eared boy in his funny clothes!”
“Fish-mouthed ass!” Dondal snapped, more picturesquely than with attention to likelihood. He stood with dramatic suddenness that toppled his chair behind him-and raised one edge of his trencher high enough to spill grease and a gnawed bone onto the table.
“Dondal!”
It was Cormac’s voice rapped out, but the boy in his undersize armour was already around the table, moving with more speed than grace for the soldier. Backing his chair around, for the daughter of his host was in the way, Cormac looked up in time to see the briefest of encounters.
Almost negligently, the corner of his upper lip lifted in a despising sneer, the big soldier swept a hand out. Dondal was shoved, and staggered, and first his feet and then a table got in his way. He fell over it with, a crash and a bang, his head struck the floor good and hard, and he lay still. Cormac gave him only a glance to note that the boy’s eyes were closed, not open; he was alive then, and unconscious. Then Cormac was on his feet.
“You are a loudmouthed braying jackass who disgraces womanhood and the service of your king,” he advised quietly. “And,” he added smoothly as the man flushed and reached for his sword, “so unconcerned with the property of this good man our host as to fight here and endanger his property. Now it’s outside I go. You are welcome to seek my company.”
Cormac turned his back on the man, whose sword was half out of its handsomely enameled sheath. Cormac walked to the inn’s door, and went out onto a twilit street darkened at intervals by the shadows of houses.
He turned to find the king’s weapon-man rushing from the doorway with long sword in hand. It was too late for Cormac to meet him with his own blade.
Hand to hilt, Cormac awaited that charge, and at the last moment moved with hurricane swiftness. Sideward he stepped, listening to the whistle of the blade meant for his head, and he left his foot behind. The charging soldier tripped and stretched his great hulk on the ground with a crash. He grunted loudly, was still a moment while he gathered his wits, and then rolled swiftly to avoid an attack. None was in progress. He stared up at the other man, who stood gazing coolly at him, sword in sheath.
“Unless his head be broke, in which case yours shall be, we are at quits,” Cormac said. “You had no trouble measuring the boy’s length; I had no more with yours.” That should have been enough, but Cormac was not the pacifist he was trying so hard to be. He could not help adding, “It’s boys and women you’re more suited for troubling-though the woman’s words would have sent slinking a man who knew his father well enough to have been properly reared.”
For a number of dragging seconds the fallen man stared at him in astonishment. His face changed as his anger rose. Then he was narrowing his eyes, gaining a firmer grip on his sword, and rising.
“I have been called Cuchulain this very day,” Cormac told him, “and ye’ve not the appearance of a man to cross swords with such.”
“There’ll be no crossing of swords, arrogant pig from a peasant’s muddy wallow! Mine wants only a sheathing-in your insolent belly!” And the weapon-man charged again.
The blade of mac Art scraped from its sheath and rushed in the air. It caught the other’s sword on it, and pushed, so that steel scraped on steel rather than slammed down upon it; Cormac had had swords broken in his hand afore. Shieldless as was his antagonist, he lunged then to strike the bigger man in the chest with a shoulder. The soldier was staggered both mentally and physically. It was backward his uncertain steps carried him, and it was behind his ankle Cormac’s foot sped.
The big man crashed to earth a second time.
Instantly Cormac glanced back at the inn; where were this man’s companions, that they came not to his aid? Ceann and Samaire were boiling forth-and damnation on the luck, men were running down the street, and with a most martial clanking!
It’s trouble I’ve purchased with this sour coin, Cormac mac Art thought-but his regret was only that he had no shield, for he had cavalierly left it within the inn.
Back came his opponent, at the rush. With a sigh and a gritting of his teeth Cormac decided that if more foes were coming, it were better for him to lessen the odds now. The soldier struck a blow that should have sheared through corselet and flesh to the bone-had not its target dropped into a squat and stabbed him through the thigh.
The Munsterman fell for the third time. Nor did he rise, but remained prostrate, writhing in pain. Cormac turned to face the naked swords of five helmeted, shield-bearing soldiers of the king. They were now no more than fifteen feet away, and running.
“HO-O-OLLLLLLD!” a voice bawled from the inn.
They held, Cormac and the king’s men, and all looked at the inn door. There, flanked by Ceann and Samaire and with the other two soldiers, behind him, stood the hooded minstrel. With a swift gesture he put back that hood, to reveal himself a slim young man, dark-haired, wearing a mustache and a slender silver fillet about his head at mid-forehead.
“Let those who do not recognize me, ask.”
The body of soldiers who had been charging Cormac did obeisance to the long-cloaked man, while Cormac frowned. The leader of the military contingent soon solved for him the problem of the minstrel’s identity:
“We know you, Prince Senchann Eoghanachta mac Eogain!”
Senchann of Munster pointed at Cormac. “That man is a man, and worthy of my father’s service. Him in the dust at his feet, where he best belongs, is not worthy of that service, or of Munster or indeed Eirrin. Ye all know well it is my wont to wander hither and thither in disguise, to hear the words and will of the people of our land. This night I heard and saw how that arrogant and insolent man-with the backing of these two behind me, who want disciplining-insulted a woman in this inn, and her gentle, and deliberately sought war with her companions. It is god’s will that he found a man better at arms than himself, and now wallows in the dust like the base pig that he is.”
There was silence. Cormac withheld his smile, but let it warm him inwardly. The little company of weapon-men in the street stood stiffly, awaiting the pleasure of their king’s son. The two behind him stood just as stiffly-and the inn’s lights showed them to be pale and apprehensive.
“Your commander will remain here with me,” Prince Senchann said. “You others will carry-or drag, it makes little difference-back to your barrack… that.” He indicated the man writhing near Cormac with a jerk of his hand, which was without jewelry. “With you also go these two, as miscreants.” He turned
.
Ceann and Samaire stepped aside, and the cloaked minstrel-prince faced the two ashy-faced soldiers directly. “Your swords,” he said, and he received them, one by one, hilt-first. Back he turned, in an attitude of waiting, and the soldiers who had been bearing down on Cormac came alive.
They only glanced at him as they picked up their comrade with the bloody thigh. The two men came sheepishly out of the inn to join them. The whole company moved silently off up the street, save for the man who had called out the Munsterish prince’s name. Long silent seconds passed before Cormac realized that the fellow was waiting for him to precede, into the inn.
Sword in hand, Cormac walked those few paces. At the base of the inn’s three steps, he solemnly reversed his sword and offered it to Senchann, hilt foremost.
“A good hilt, well shaped and enhanced,” Senchann observed. “And a good hand, bandage and all. And a good man as well. Sheathe your weapon, warrior, and tell me your name.”
Cormac’s sword scraped and settled into his scabbard with a final thunk. “I am Cormac mac Othna, on my way with my companions to Cashel and then Tara, Lord Prince.”
“Well warrior Cormac, Munster could do worse than to have yourself tarrying long and long in Cashel in our service! Come in.” He looked past Cormac. “Fiacc mac Cumal, is it not?”
There was surprise in the soldier’s voice. “Aye, my lord!”
“Well, be not surprised, Captain Fiacc. I know what’s about in this kingdom, and I assure you that my father does, as well.”
Samaire and Ceann moved aside and Senchann re-entered the inn of the Moon-disk. Cormac followed, also passing between his companions; after him came Captain Fiacc.
“Lord Prince-” the innkeeper began.
Senchann waved a hand, his long brown cloak rippling. “It is a good house ye keep, Master Tuachel. We’ll have ale.”
“Lord Prince, had I but known… lord, I have-”
“Ale.”
“Yes, Lord Prince. At once. Boann!” The landlord whirled, and his wide-eyed daughter came much alive at his call. Soon ale was on its way, and good mugs. Senchann, meanwhile, had bent over Dondal.
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