“I meet the honoured weapon man of the King of Leinster now, for the championship of Eirrin, my lord and ladies. A token?”
“YE WEAR MY BOAR!” Cumal shouted, with boyish gladsomeness.
Aine’s hand went to a brooch she wore purely for the beauty of it and no good cause, but she remembered to glance questioningly at her husband.
“Carry this against Bress of the Long Hand,” Samaire said, “and would it were Dark Feredach himself, and your sword of good steel rather than mere oak!” And she bent forward to hand Cormac a linen glove. It was of blue, the primrose of her, father’s house and of Feredach’s.
“Were it in my power, I’d make thee lord of lands!” Cumal cried without restraint or dignity, as his “Ceann” held high Samaire’s glove, to show all that he carried Leinster blue against Leinster itself.
“Mayhap it is within my power to make yourself lord of a champion,” Cormac said.
“Mind ye keep your roving eyes on your opponent,” Samaire snapped from behind her green veil, “and off those eager tid-bits I see crowding you, hulking barbarian!”
Cormac smiled, and looked about overhead. “Methinks I hear the Morrigu, and her gone all green of eye,” he said. As he turned away he added, “But a dairlin girl, for all that.”
The Lady Aine turned to give her veiled cousin a long look. Gazing after Cormac, Samaire either affected not to notice, or did not.
Bress basked and Cormac chafed in the adulation of their admirers and well-wishers, and shot each other occasional glances. The clowning pair of “weapon men” in the combat area was called back. A trumpet rose to lips and set a note atrembling on the air. The chief judge rose. Cheers greeted his announcing the name of Bress mac Keth of Carman in Leinster, champion of every fair and twice in Tara of the Kings.
Even on those loyal supporters Bress turned a smile that was open contempt, for he was a superior man and well knew it.
Then was called the name of Ceann mac Cor, of Tara in Meath, and others shouted and cheered. Earrings landed, at his feet and about him, and a steward hurried to clear the ground of those possible obstacles, that might roll beneath the feet of contending men. Cormac looked not from the ruddy, not unhandsome face of his opponent in this final passage of arms.
It was time.
Bress walked away to the opposite side of the large circle, rather than to its center. He turned to stare at Cormac, and the Leinsterman held sword and round blue buckler contemptuously at rest.
Cormac walked forward three paces.
“MEATH ADVANCES ON LEINSTER!” That call rose above the many others, and there were grins-and dark frowns from the nobles on the platform. The shout was repeated by many.
As though ambling on a summer stroll, Bress moved forward three paces.
“LEINSTER COMES TO TARA!”
It’s come to that then, Cormac mac Art thought. First I was of Connacht, and then of Leinster, and then of Dalriada in Alba, and then I strove for none but myself. Now it’s all Tara and Meath I stand for, and the ancient bad feelings over the Boru Tribute that Leinster hates.
He watched Bress, who stood still, arms down.
So he does what I do, then, Cormac mused, and raises not sword or shield-a fine sense of drama the man has! He glanced back. A little farther from the people, Bress dairlin, and then we’ll see.
Cormac paced forward two paces more, and halted, and mocking Bress moved the same.
Cormac pointed, and laughter arose at the one word he called forth.
“Stay!” he ordered, as though to a sheepherding dog, and he turned and walked back toward the spectators.
A pace away from staring, wondering faces-a dark female eye winked-Cormac wheeled, again voiced that awful savage’s shout, and charged at the run.
Bress, like Cormac, was a warrior. A professional studied others, and Bress had done. He’d seen this charging tactic worked on Oisin, and to good purpose. Naturally he was prepared-as Cormac knew he would be. The Leinsterman stood his ground as the other man bore down upon him. At the last moment he pounced aside and swung a mighty chop calculated to strike hard on the back of the Meathish champion as he raced past.
Unlike fighting with steel against strangers, this sort of staged combat, with opportunity for the combatants to study one another’s ways, was like a war between great generals known each to the other. B knew L’s ways, and assumed that L would in all likelihood think first of tactic N. For that, B could prepare. But L knew that B knew and expected, and so he considered other tactics. Still, this B would realize, and try to prepare for a surprise, except that L knew that B knew that L knew, and…
Bress erred early in the sequence of secondguessing. He assumed that the man he knew as Ceann mac Cor was launching upon him the same attack employed so successfully against Oisin. Cormac did not; he did not consider Bress an idiot, but an expert.
The passing back at which Bress struck was not there. Its owner had swerved quite differently, and turned, perhaps as much as a full second before the movement of the supercilious Leinsterman.
The sword of Bress of the Long Hand clove empty air; his shield was not at all in line; the other man’s unpointed sword-end drove forward low to thud against a hard-muscled belly.
Bress looked at once much surprised and much in need of breath.
The crowd went still.
That quiet was shattered by the clarion note of the trumpet, as the air was disturbed by the white cloths dropped by judges. As surprised as Bress, they nevertheless agreed to a man that the Champion of Eirrin had just been stabbed in the entrails.
Withdrawing from that swift hard lunge, Cormac heard the long horn. His peripheral vision caught the white flutter of the judging-cloths. He straightened, triumphant-and Bress’ wooden sword, hard swung in a sideward sweep, crashed into his side.
The crowd muttered and roared. The judges stared. One remembered to signal the trumpeter, who blasted forth another mighty note. By that time Cormac’s grunt of pain had risen and he’d backstepped two full paces, gritting his teeth. His dark slits of eyes were fixed on the man who had struck after the combat was over.
Again Bress struck, his face twisted in rage. Command of his brain was lost to him.
Angered, Cormac knew he was expected to endure or flee until men of the High-king interfered. None had lost aught but Bress; gone was his hold on the championship; gone now too were honour and good name and high esteem. But Cormac mac Art was no civilized player at the game of swords, whether he held steel or bronze or wood. He too ignored the rules.
The second hard-swung swordcut of Bress he met with a sweep of his own hardwood brand, with all his strength. At the same time he struck with his shield-and drove his foot up like any sensible man of his time or any other, to whom fighting was no game to be played at, bounded about with limits and rules.
Bress was hard jolted, three ways at once. He was commencing to double over even as he fell back. When his elbow struck the ground, his sword flew from his grasp. A spectator cried out, struck in the leg.
Almost instantly, Cormac tossed away his own wooden brand, and with expressionless face he turned to the judges. Handsomely uniformed men were rushing onto the field; Cormac let them pass, and in his face and manner was such that none touched him.
They went instead to Bress, who had broken the King’s Peace.
Then the great roar swelled up, for Eirrin had a new champion, and Leinster had suffered black defeat at the hands of a man wearing her king’s own colours.
Chapter Nineteen: Cormac mac Art!
He is brave, O gods above us!
He is a noble soldier above all;
Until the wave of death sweep over him,
Och! He is magnificent, and beloved.
– from “Cormac the Gael” by Ceann Ruadh
Once the nervous man in the false mustache and helmet-attached braids was away from the beaming judges and the congratulations of Eirrin’s High-king, he had to cope with the delighted, cheering, and oft-fawning
crowd. There were womanly offers, both spoken and silently obvious, even pleas.
Then it was the great hog of an overjoyed Cumal Uais and his loud voice Cormac had to brace. Discretion forbade the more welcome embrace of Samaire.
At last they were away, escorted by handsomely accoutred weapon men of the High-king and of Cumal-the latter hard put to maintain expressions properly stern. To the rath of Cumal they adjourned. There Cormac mac Art told the others he must visit a friend, and him disabled.
Tigernach son of Roig sprang up from his sickbed the moment the new champion entered. Grinning so that his face was like unto the sun of noonday, Tigernach embraced the other man.
“Hail the Champion of all Eirrin!”
Taken much by surprise, Cormac accepted the warrior’s embrace, returned it with but little pressure, and edged back. With his hands high on Tigernach’s upper arms, Cormac looked into his dark eyes.
“Ye recover swiftly, Tigernach mac Roig.”
Tigernach’s grin strove to stretch his smiling mouth even more. “Suspicion was never on ye, was it?”
“Suspicion?”
Tigernach took his hands from his fellow warrior and swung away, laughing. He turned back to say, “I’ve not been ill, Cormac mac Othna. Not at all. I merely saw to it that Bress was met by the best weapon-man in Eirrin, rather than the third, after him and yourself. For I knew what ye’d do to him.”
Cormac stared at this most noble of men, and him no noble. For a passing long while his gaze rested on Tigernach, whilst he pondered with wonder what the man had done. At last he heaved a great sigh, and not without exasperation.
“In the name of the gods my father’s people swore by, Tigernach! There be none other like yourself on all the ridge of the world!”
Tigernach sobered, though his eyes remained merry.
“Though,” Cormac went on thoughtfully, “there is one other I love, and a war-man he, who has put on me this same feeling. Wulfhere the Dane he is, and Skull-splitter he be called, and it’s both his legs I’ve oft felt like breaking, too!”
Tigernach spread his hands and bowed his head. “I’d not take up weapons, Champion of Eirrin. Better to have both legs broke than to defend myself against you and gain red death instead!”
Again there was silence between the two men. Cormac at last snapped, “Bastard!”
Tigernach chuckled. “Och! My secret’s out!”
Then they both laughed, and laughing, they left Tigernach’s sickroom. With their arms each over the other’s shoulders, the two weapon men went to share drink with the boisterous Lord Cumal.
They found him calculating his wager gains.
It was in glittering company and amid fine robes of costly fabrics Cormac supped that evening, and him with his braid-pendent helmet and mustache upon him.
All round about were lords and ladies, poets and judges and historians, aye and both Druids and priests of the new faith-well separated, those robed rivals. The new champion was in company of all those who stood the highest in Tara and thus, so they at least thought, in all Eirrin.
None had any notion that their honored guest would do what he did, not even he himself. It did not come upon him until late in the meal, when there was nought left but the quaffing of ale and wine. The High-king himself raised his voice and his jeweled goblet. All others fell silent and turned expectant gazes on Erca Tireach, King of Meath and High-king of Eirrin.
“Ceann mac Cor,” the king over kings called, “CHAMPION OF EIRRIN!”
On the instant there was great noise of cheering. The stamping of feet and thumping of eating utensils and fine goblets on the thick tabletops thundered in the hall.
Cormac rose, and at that moment he decided.
Up went his hand to doff his helmet with the false braids of dark red, and that hand lowered only far enough to strip away the matching mustache. He hurled both to the inlaid floor. The helmet made a great clatter, rolling and skittering.
Into the silence, gazing directly into the startled eyes of the High-king, the champion called out his revelation.
“No, lord king! Long enough have I worn this demeaning disguise! Long enough have I crept about my homeland with my name and that of my father in a hooded cloak!”
Only gasps disturbed the silence. Every eye fixed its gaze on the new hero of the Fair of Tara.
“It’s Cormac I am, son of Art of Connacht, and it’s the exile’s life I’ve led, these twelve years!”
The magic name of the king two centuries in the ground went round and round the hall: “Cormac! Cormac mac Art!” His neighbors saw that Cumal Uais was no less surprised than they.
Once he’d recovered, even the High-king found it no swift or simple matter to quell the uproar in his banqueting hall. He prevailed at last, by standing and stretching out both robed arms, at right angles to his body.
Cormac had never taken his eyes from the Ard-righ, and he gazed upon him now: a king of kings who was the descendant of kings descended from kings and heroes of Eirrin.
A fine burly figure of a man was Erca Tireach, first among the Eirrin-born. Russet was his hair and scarlet his sleeved cloak of lustrous silk, and besprent with gold, as though it had been sown wet upon the garment of a farmer’s hand. The front-and-back Irish cloak was girt low with a buckle of jewel-flashing gold, nor was there much belly go gird it. Most of his chest, even his upper belly, were covered by his brooch-which was in truth a carcanet bright and atwinkle, fierily aflash with gems and lesser stones of several colours. Four rings circled the fingers of his left hand. On his right arm King Erca wore the plain leather bracer of a weapon man, his constant reminder to all that he was war commander and keeper of the peace, and ever prepared. Like his lady near, Ard-righ Erca Mac Lugaid wore a tunic of white satin, broidered with thick gold thread.
The High-king’s eyes, men had said, were like sapphires, though seldom of such hardness.
And now, with him standing tall and his wine-red sleeves hanging down from arms widespread for silence, all voices fell quiet and all eyes gave him their attention.
“Cormac Mac Art. It is a name not unknown to me,” Erca Tireach said.
Some laughed, thinking he was joking, referring to King Cormac of old. Others were grim; some showed excitement and perhaps apprehension. For many there were who remembered this king’s father, wary of Art of Connacht and his daring though unwise naming of his son-and they remembered. Art’s fate, and his son’s disappearance.
This scarred, rather sinister-visaged weapon man who had won the high championship… Cormac Mac Art?!
Beside Erca then stood his chief poet and adviser, Cethern of the magnificent larynx and pharynx. He thundered so that other voices were as whispers. He bade them be silent, and looked about, and bowed to his king. Then, drawing up his poet’s mantle, he resumed his seat.
Erca Tireach looked at Cormac mac Art.
Cormac spoke.
“I have worn other names, lord King. When I took service in Leinster after my father’s death,” he said, his brief pause bringing a change of expression to many faces and nervous glances toward the king, “it was as Partha mac Othna. It was whilst bearing that name that I brought dishonour on myself, and upon Ulahd, for there I falsely claimed to be from-and upon Connacht, for there was I born and I broke the King’s Peace at Fair-time.”
“And upon Leinster, whose king’s colours you wore?” someone asked boldly, but Cormac saw not who it was, for he kept his dark gaze on the Ard-righ.
“Would you make reply?” King Erca asked.
“Lord King, I would reply thus: No. I brought no dishonour on Leinster, for that was done when a poor young fool was paid to provoke another-myself-into drawing steel… by the King of Leinster himself!”
There was a new outburst, girt with anger. The younger of those present bent their heads to hear hurried explanations from the older, who l remembered.
When silence had been gained, it was Erca son of Lugaid who spoke, and his words brought new surprise.
The voice that spoke up then Cormac recognized as the same he had heard before, challengingly demanding whether he had dishonoured Leinster. Now:
“He broke the High-king’s Peace at Fair-Time! With a red sword, and thus it was barbarism, and the punishment death! No exile this-he fled justice!”
Erca’s brows remained smooth. He stood blinking for a time, looking calm and. yet stern, and the swell of voices soon ran out like the coastal tide at the time of the quarter-moon.
Erca said, “It were not seemly my lord, surely, that one of Leinster should raise a voice of accusation and prosecution!”
That was answered by gasps and murmurs, and Erca waved a hand impatiently.
“Cormac mac Art, this be no court and ye may answer or no. Did ye flee justice, twelve years past?”
“I answer you and your office, lord King, and no Leinsterish challenger. I fled, aye. As to what I fled-it ‘was death, not justice. No justice was available then.”
“SILENCE!” the king’s poet thundered at the murmurers-and the louder voices.
“Methinks it may be available to me now,” Cormac said, as though he had not noticed the interruption. “But I came not back to Eirrin as a supplicant-nor seeking death, for there’s been no guilt upon me these twelve years.”
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