The Sword of the Gael cma-5

by Andrew J Offutt

  Cormac turned back to them. Though his eyes were narrowed into invisibility, he was smiling. “Not at all. We wait but for the stir of the shadow across that branch yonder, and… we follow those north-bent soldiery!”

  Prince Ceann Ruadh grinned.

  They trusted to Cormac; it was he waited until the dust settled and there was surely no sign of their being seen by the men riding so speedily ahead. Also, though he had not bothered mentioning it to his companions, he satisfied himself there was not another troop riding behind the first. There was not; neither Eogan nor the commander of the little battalion had thought that their quarry-their prey?-might come onto the road behind them.

  The three did. They rode without stopping for a mile after plodding, saddle-creaking mile-and, in Cormac’s case, they were butt-breaking miles as well. Now and again when they topped a hill or came upon a long level stretch of the narrow road, they saw dust well ahead, and knew their seekers remained unsuspicious and in great haste.

  “What do we do if they stop to break bread and catch sight of us,” Samaire asked, “or if they leave the road as we did and we overtake them?”

  “An excellent question. Ceann! Heard you Samaire?”

  Ceann nodded, and his hand went across his flat belly to touch the pommel of his sword, for weapons and armour had been in the packs Cormac had brought from Cashel and its well-stocked market.

  Cormac shook his head. “No, we’ll not fight them unless we absolutely must. They were not bow-armed, which indicates they want us alive, as we might expect. It also means that they could not bring us down on the run even should they try. Next, they have been riding longer than we, and at the gallop. No, an it should out that we overtake them or are seen, we clap heels and ride!”

  Ceann wagged his head. “It’s kings that are going a-begging for good counsel without you at their sides, Cormac mac Art!”

  “Mac Cuchulain,” Samaire murmured, gazing at the big scarred man with green eyes full of regard.

  They rode, beneath a sky that was a great vacant tent of azure and white, set with the blinding jewel of thee sun. Twice they passed farm-wagons, and once a family in a field of flax. All waved merrily, as they did when they met a cart-riding family, and another time two men on foot. Cormac was sorry that they all had to eat dust, but there was no help for it.

  The sun was well into the west when a line of trees marked a waterway. Without a word Cormac swung his mount from the road.

  Soon the blowing beasts had been watered. They were given a short while to munch grass while their riders wet themselves in a lazy, rocky-bottomed stream that was broad but far from deep. Refreshed and remounted, they rode splashingly up that creek for the distance of a couple of what the Romans called after their fighting men’s pace: miles. At a ford they left the water and rode along the opposite bank for another mile.

  Night was starting to fall when they came upon the peasant lad. Ten or so years of age, he was just leaving the creek’s bank with five nice trout on his line. He stared at them, without apparent fear.

  “A good catch!” Cormac said in greeting.

  The boy beamed and hefted his fish, but said, “Three days gone I caught seven in the same space!”

  “There are good days and bad,” Cormac said,

  and it’s glad I am you are fisherman enow to make them all good! We have come far… tell me where we now find ourselves.”

  The boy stared. “Why, near the rath of my father Mogh mac Findtain!”

  Samaire chuckled; Cormac nodded without smiling. “Ah, and it’s a good man he must be to have a son who’s such a fisherman. This may sound strange to ye, mac Mogh, but-we’ve come over from Leinster, and have lost track of distance. Are we-”

  The boy smiled. “Why, ye be in Meath, pilgrims, ‘twixt Shannon and Slieve Sidhe-could ye not tell how greener the land was?”

  Ceann laughed at the boy’s chauvinism. His companions smiled; they had succeeded in escaping Munster, and avoiding both its soldiery and the land of Leinster, and were well across the border into Meath. Without incident, they had gained ground well to the northeast and in a land where surely none wished them harm. Meath-and up ahead: ancient Rath Tara, and the court of the High-king.

  They were not averse to accompanying the boy, Lugh, to his home. It was a lovely little house of good planking, built so that it backed up into a hillside which formed its rear wall.

  Short, unshaven Mogh mac Findtain and his wife and other son were told that the pilgrims were Ceann: a poet and minstrel, and his wife Samaire who also played, and that Cormac, traveling with them by chance, hoped to take service with the Ard-high in Tara.

  The farm family was happy to be entertained and forget awhile flax and cows and the vagaries of weather that ruled their lives, bringing them both joy and sadness. Their shared food was increased by the last of the bread and cheese and meat the travelers had with them, and there was foaming milk for all.

  Without doubt Mogh’s family was both surprised and well pleased on the morning of the morrow, too, when they discovered what their guests had left behind. There were gifts of gold and silver worth a year’s crop, and the note that Ceann had picked out in Ogham, in hopes someone among the family could read:

  “Say you did uncover these at your plowing, friends.”

  The prince had chosen to sign the note with the old Ogham characters surely recognized by anyone: Anu, and Grannus, and Cu Roi mac Dairi. Ancient gods of Eirrin those were, the last a habitual traveler who carried the sword in martial conquest all over the ridge of the world, but who had never reddened his blade in Eirrin.

  And the three had birthed a new legend.

  “Now we’ve gained escape from Eogan’s hospitality,” Cormac told his companions as they proceeded at a sedate walk. “And good relations have been preserved with Cashel and his good son Senchann in whose debt we all are. For we bought all we took, and left behind as much, and shed no blood in Munster or on Munstermen.”

  “It were well done, Cormac, and it’s good to know we have a friend in Munster.”

  Aye, Cormac mused, for already he was considering the future, and its possibilities. And a good friend Senchann will be when he one day sits Munster’s throne… and once we’ve set you, Ceann Ruadh, on the throne of Leinster!

  But as to that he kept his counsel. There was much to risk and still to be feared, ahead. The prospect of toppling Feredach was surely far in the future. First there was the matter of the High-king, and the Great Council, and… the reception given the exile, mac Art, and the decision he risked as to his very personal future. If the High-king and Council did nought about Samaire and Ceann-as Cormac expected, since Feredach was king by order of birth-they were still a prince and princess. In exile they’d be, aye. But safe, and well-treated on account of their births. They need not fear Feredach in Tara!

  As to Cormac of Connacht, though… he risked his life, and well he knew it. He might be slain out of hand on the old charge. Or there might be a stay, while the Council and perhaps the Druids considered and decided-and then had him put to death for breaking the King’s Peace, twelve years agone.

  He said nothing of any of this, as they rode through Meath.

  This road, they learned, led not to Tara. To their right lay a forest. Beyond it, a broad road would lead them to the capital!

  Thanking the peasant for his information and guiding their horses carefully around his laden cart, they entered the woods by a lane wide enough for but two to ride abreast. These, without discussion or decision, were Cormac and Samaire; Ceann’s horse paced contentedly along in their wake.

  The horses plodded sedately along the shadedarkened road. Trees rose rustling all about, thickly crowding the narrow lane through the forest. Within the foliage, birds trilled, whistled and cheeped, while insects maintained a steady accompaniment of hum and buzz. The shade grew deeper and deeper, for the broad forest completely obscured the lowering disk of the sun. The three travelers cared not. They were in Meath, and ahead lay the
broad road to and past Tulla Mor to Tara.

  The sun was low and the lane darker than twilight when the highwaymen accosted them.

  The first two bandits appeared simultaneously, one on either side of the lane. They stepped from the bushes at the edge of the trees, and each had arrow nocked to drawn bow.

  “Hold!” called the man with the bushy black beard, staring into Cormac’s eyes. “Hold and keep your hands where they are.”

  From just behind the halted horses of Cormac and Samaire, two more men appeared. Each held drawn dagger. One grinned, gazing hungrily at Samaire.

  Cormac’s trained eyes took stock and reported quickly to his trained warrior’s mind. All four thieves wore leggings and leather jerkins. That was their only armour; though one of the vests was embossed with steel, none wore mail. Helmets covered the two dagger-men to the brows. A sword was sheathed at the hip of each. One of the dagger-wielders also bore a shield, small and round.

  The trio of pilgrims sat unequivocally still. Samaire’s horse shifted nervously; she held a tight rein-hand. Cormac did not so much as glance back at Ceann.

  “What will ye have of us, countrymen?”

  The blackbeard smiled. “Why, three handsome horses, and whatever else ye’d care to contribute to four poor, worthy countrymen!”

  “Nothing!” Ceann’s voice lashed out, from behind Cormac.

  “Why then we’ll just have to take what we fancy from your corpses, minstrel. Whirl your mount and flee if ye dare-but when ye hear the twang of two bowstrings, ye’ll know your abandoned companions are dead!”

  Both arrows were aimed at Cormac’s chest and one of the two dagger-wielders stood three feet from his left side. The other began edging back, toward Ceann. At this distance, Cormac thought, his concealed armour was not likely to turn those arrowheads of iron or steel.

  “Naturally,” the bowman with the broken nose and bushy brown mustache said, “we’ll have to see what… trinkets, milady has hid in her clothes!”

  His comrades laughed.

  Cormac looked down at the dagger-man to his left. “Stay back,” he said, “I’m dismounting.”

  Before any could consider or demur, he drew his right leg up and over. He slid down, wincing and twisting his face when his feet struck the ground and his inner thighs objected vehemently.

  The man with the dagger grinned broadly. “Thisun’s crippled,” he called, and stepped forward with new confidence.

  Cormac’s left arm swung out to attract eye and dagger-and for balance. It was his right foot did the damage; it drove directly up into the fork of the smiling fellow’s leggings.

  The smile became a look of horror and pain, and the beginning sweep of the dagger terminated in midstab. Rather than draw steel, Cormac clutched the man’s right wrist with one clamping hand and his throat with the other. Crouching, for the man was shorter than he, Cormac swung him rightward, toward the bowmen.

  Two bowstrings twanged, almost in unison. Cormac heard one of the archers cry out in dismay, knowing he’d loosed shaft too fast. At the same time, there were two thunk sounds and the man he held jerked. His dark eyes went wide, terribly wide, and his mouth gaped in a silent scream. The highwayman went limp, with both his comrades’ arrows in his back.

  At the same time, Samaire was clapping heels sharply inward. Her horse lunged forward while Cormac held his limp human shield before him.

  The blackbearded man was too swift in his archery for his own good. In a clever attempt to down the human-shielded man who dared resist, he loosed a second arrow. It hissed between the knees of his late companion, but only snipped Cormac’s leggings as it rushed on behind him on its downward course. If more slowly drawn and nocked, that goosefeathered shaft might well have stopped Samaire’s forward rush.

  Instead, her bounding horse covered the ten feet between it and the bow-armed highwayman in little more than two blinks of an eye.

  With arrow to string but not full-drawn, the mustached man saw the sorrel bearing down on him. He yelled. In desperation he tried to dodge aside. Only partway he ducked. Then he was struck by the galloping horse and sent flying. Into the bushes he went, his arrow arcing a few feet to drop harmlessly. His bow cracked loudly against a tree. And already Samaire was hauling her mount leftward.

  Behind him, Cormac heard a shout, a scraping clink, and a cry of pain, followed by the pound of hooves. But his attention was fixed on the blackbeard, who now forewent attacking him. The man swung his drawn bow and third arrow toward the nearer danger: the woman whose horse had downed his confederate.

  Cormac mac Art bellowed with all his throat and slung the shielding corpse from him. His shield hung on his saddle; he had known he’d be feathered if he tried to loose and lift it. He rushed forward. His arms formed a streaking X across his belly and his hands filled themselves with sword and dagger. Fury, the danger to Samaire, and a flood of adrenalin drove away all thought of discomfort in the muscles of his thighs and buttocks.

  All he thought of now was the wetting of his steel.

  The black-bearded man had jerked at the ferocious yell behind him, as Cormac hoped. Nevertheless his bow twanged. The arrow rushed only a few feet-and struck between Samaire’s breasts. With a cry, she was rocked back and aside, and fell from her horse.

  “SAMAIRE!”

  Past Cormac galloped Prince Ceann Ruadh. From his gaping mouth tore a shout of horror and rage; the redness of anger was on his brain. The magnificent muscles of his white-stockinged mount bunched and rippled to hurl it forward like a juggernaut. His rider clutched the beast’s barrel sides with both legs; above his head his sword hissed in a flashing arc of silvery steel.

  All happened at once. The archer started to turn and shrieked as he saw grim death rushing down upon him; Ceann’s sword began its downward sweep; the horse plunged past the highwayman; the sword cut down through the air with a moan. When it struck, the sound was as of the splitting of a dropped melon.

  On past plunged Ceann, reeling in the saddle from the ferocity of his prodigious chop, desperately gripping with both legs. His reddened sword dripped. Cormac stared at the highwayman. Driven to his knees by the force of the sword-blow, blackbeard remained there, with his face divided into scarlet halves from crown to lips. Then he toppled forward, and his legs jerked in spasms.

  Blood of the gods, Cormac thought, the man fights like a fiend from the Norsemen’s Hel.

  Cormac turned to look back. He wanted to rush to Samaire, but there was the other dagger-man; until Cormac mac Art had himself seen a man fall and lie still but for the blood-kicks, he considered him enemy still.

  The fellow was no longer an enemy. Ceann had chopped off his dagger hand, and his horse seemed to have bowled the man over and then stepped with a hind hoof directly on his face. His head was a flattened mass of gore.

  Cormac ran to Samaire. Just as he reached her, Ceann’s horse dug in its forehooves and the prince’s feet thudded to the ground beside the other man. Both of them cried Samaire’s name.

  “Uch,” she said, remaining flat on her back. “It’s a month I’ll be bruised, and surely this pain when I draw breath will be with me for days and days!”

  The two men stared down at her. The arrow lay atop her tunic, which it had pierced in the center of her chest. There was no blood, but within the rent in the fabric there was a ruddy glint.

  Lifting a hand to her neck, she tugged at the slender chain of gold there; from within her outer tunic she lifted a disk of the same metal. It was some two inches in diameter-and its center was concave, bent inward.

  “He ruined my medallion, too!”

  Shock and awful fear abruptly broken as they realized the medallion had not only saved her life but kept her unscratched, Ceann and Cormac burst into loud laughter that threatened to go out of control.

  “You idiots wouldn’t bray so an your chests hurt with every breath!” Samaire railed, and her lower lip ran out.

  Chapter Sixteen: To the Fair!

  These in fullness were
there,

  The clans of Rudraighe

  without lasting grief-

  To be under the protection of the Fair,

  Every third year, without prohibition.

  – “The Great Fair”; tr. O’Curry

  Three highwaymen were dead. The fourth was unconscious, scratched and bruised, and his wrist sprained. Nevertheless he walked at the end of a rope after the three he’d sought to rob. And it was company he had behind their horses, for they dragged the bodies of his dead comrades.

  “We’ve eased Meath of four forest-thieves,” Cormac pointed out. “It’s welcome we’ll be, with the proof stirring the dust behind our mounts!”

  It was thus the three travelers reached Tullamor, and it was within the house of its lord they partook of a sampling of that town’s food and drink.

  The thieves’ bodies hung for all to see at the town gate-all four bodies. They were only too well known; Carbri Black-beard and his band had been at their dark work in the Wood of Brosna for over a year, and it was many travelers they’d robbed. Too, the ruthless quartet had six counts of rape and seven deaths to their debit.

  “Carry this with ye to Tara,” Tullamor’s lord Milcho told them, “and show it to the High-king, for even he knows of Carbri Black-beard and his murderers.” He handed the sealed message to Cormac, who passed it to Ceann. “But tarry here, friends and heroes three, at least until we’ve brought forth the loot they’d hid!”

  The fourth highwayman had been in a great hurry to tell precisely where he and his companions in thievery had cached their booty-once his eyeballs were threatened. He had been rewarded for that loosing of his thief’s tongue. It was the swift end of hanging he received, rather than the uglier and much slower forms of death the citizen’s of Tullamor had clamored for. Drawn mercifully up with rope about his neck, he’d messed his leggings and danced in air. Only the breeze moved his companions at the ends of their ropes, and soon they were joined by the victim of Samaire’s plunging horse, and now swift justice; he danced not long.

  “Their booty belongs to its original owners,” Ceann said. “And what remains unclaimed is for Tullamor. We’re for Tara and the Fair, Lord Milcho, and despite your kindness we’d be on the road at break of day.”