The Sword of the Gael cma-5

by Andrew J Offutt

  Into the royal squabble spoke its subject. “Were there justice in Leinster, its king’s name would be LIAGH! And there’d be no crimson on my lord Feredach’s hands… see it there!”

  Cormac pointed, and his extended finger seemed to draw gazes, to make heads to turn and necks to crane. Feredach’s face went rowanberry red. A staff thumped the floor and a man of many years growled “Unseemly!” Even Cormac agreed, though his little trickery had worked.

  “Leave to say that which is seemly,” Cormac said, “with apology for that which was not.” He received that leave. “I am of Connacht, and my father before me, and his. Were I to submit to territorial judgment, it would be to that king’s.” And he bowed to the lord of Connacht-and went on quickly. “But it was the Fair-time Peace I broke, my lords, the High-king’s Peace. It be he had summoned me before this assembly, that all Eirrin may judge.”

  There was no warrant from the former king his father, Erca announced, nor from Meath at all, for Cormac mac Art-or Partha mac Othna. And there were cheers.

  “An it were a matter for my deliberation,” the king of Uladh said suddenly, “I’d not debate about it all the day. I would say that tricked or no, a young man made an error, and has paid for it-slay me, my lords, rather than send me from these duns and fens for twelve years! Mac Art has made expiation for his act of long ago, thrice over.”

  Amid the assenting shouts, Connacht nodded. And then Munster. And the High-king. And all looked at Feredach. He was indeed the Dark now, his face filled with the hot blood of anger and humiliation and frustration.

  When there was at last silence, a silence heavy and thick with the awaiting of every eye for Feredach’s nod, of every ear for his words, he made as if to stand. But another man rose up before him.

  Feredach looked up, his eyes narrowing. The man on his feet, his poet’s mantle falling gracefully away from his shoulders and arms, was Cethern, chief poet; adviser and judge in the court of the High-king-and thus of Eirrin.

  “My lord, I beg leave,” Cethern said.

  Feredach made a jerky gesture and stared.

  “When poets speak,” Erca said, “crowned heads listen.”

  Cethern of the balding head and golden tongue looked about, and raised his voice. “The kings have spoken. In his demesne my lord Feredach reigns supreme; here he is but one man of many.”

  The roar of assent and accolade had to be quelled by the rapping of more than one staff against the floor, and one of the staffs was that of Cethern himself. It had been said that he was more respected even than the High-king, for none denied that Erca Tireach respected Cethern the Poet.

  “I would remind though that the precedent were dangerous,” Cethern told them. “Let me pose a question. Had that Cormac mac Art of twelve years agone been put to death in accord with the Law, would we twelve years later speak of the possible apprehension of kings, even the High-king, and or royal chicanery, and consider it injustice? Ah-ye looked shocked that I dare. What for me that I dare speak words, then: death, or exile, for me who has not slain?”

  A new silence fell, and men looked at one another.

  “This man has slain, and fled our land. Now it’s returned and as a hero he is, and we are ready to welcome him back. I state that for twelve years he has not been a son of Eirrin at all, and that before he again enjoys that most noble of estates, he learn what it means to be a weapon man of Eirrin!” Cethern shouted the last word, ringingly. It echoed round about the vast hall: Eirrinnnnn, Eirrinnnnn, innnnn, nnnn…

  Cethern was gazing upon Cormac, the man of letters at the man of arms.

  “A son of Eirrin could not object to such, nor debate the foremost poet of Eirrin,” Cormac said. “Name the test.”

  “It would be a test harking back to a time not so long gone, but already a matter for poets and legend,” Cethern said, to them all. He lifted both arms high. “The Martial Tests for Him Who would be of the Fian!”

  Erca’ss decision was swiftly reached. Weapon men and kings were necessary in all lands. In Eirrin, one stood ever above them, and had for centuries and would for centuries to come: the creator; the writer; the poet. High-king Erca nodded. And so did the other kings. And so did Cormac mac Art. He would submit to the martial portion of the tests of the followers of Finn, back when Eirrin had possessed a sort of national militia: the Fian.

  And then a skeletal Druid arose from among the Leinsterish ranks. It was a robed arm he stretched forth with a rustle, and a bony finger that pointed at Cormac mac Art. Old that Druid was, but his voice had lost none of its power.

  “CROM DEMANDS TRIAL IN THE MANNER BEHLTAINE!”

  All men sat still and silent, shocked. Trial in the manner of Behltaine! A thousand years old, probably more, was that method of the old gods’ deliberation, and never had there been appeal. Who dared deny judgment to Behl and Crom, the gods themselves?

  A man tried. Direct from his see in Armagh, the fat Bishop of the new god arose. Scandalized he avowed to be, and he was noisy about it. Nor was he interrupted. Surely it was not Cormac he was interested in, but the power of the new priesthood against that of the old. That the life of the exile was involved surely did not concern this man with his crooked staff after the manner of Padraigh and Rome. But since Cormac’s life was involved, all were happy to let this successor to Padraigh and Benin-Patricius and Benignus-try.

  The old gods won, with the unexpected aid of an adherent.

  Once the Bishop of Christ had finished his harangue, Cormac mac Art lifted his voice.

  “As I am a son of Eirrin, I welcome the old Fenian trials. As I am a son of Crom, and no follower of the hanged god of this man, a follower of Behl of the sun over our heads, not the son buried in the ground somewhere over in the eastlands, I submit myself to the Holy Druids of my ancestors.”

  Many eyes stared at Cormac mac Art, and none with more surprise than the old Druid.

  So it was written. First Cormac would endeavor to withstand the weapon man’s trials undergone by the followers of Finn: the band of iron heroes wiped out in a civil war two centuries agone-a war between Breasil, King of Leinster, and King Cairbre mac Cormac.

  And then Cormac mac Art would be submitted to the far more ancient test, amid the roaring fires of Behltain. Many and many were those who’d got their deaths thereby.

  Chapter Twenty-one: The Tests For Him Who Would Be of The Fian

  “In a trench the depth of his knees, the candidate shall, with shield and hazel stave alone, defend himself against nine weapon men who shall cast spears at him;

  “In a thick wood, with the start of a single tree, he shall escape without scathe from fleet footed pursuers;

  “So skillful and agile must he be in this that in the flight no single braid of his hair shall be loosed by a tree-branch;

  “So must his step be so light that underfoot he breaks no fallen or withered branch;

  “In his course he shall leap branches the height of his forehead, while stooping under those the height of his knee, without undue delay-or leaving behind a branch atremble;

  “He must, without pausing in his course, pick from his foot whatsoever thorn it takes up;

  “Even though he faces the greatest of odds, his weapon shall not quiver in his hand;

  “He shall stand to fight all odds, even as great as nine to one. “

  No branch caught Cormac’s hair, nor did his foot pick up a thorn as he raced through the wood. No man could leap branches forehead high, and he swerved to avoid them, knowing that none among his pursuers could jump so high either. The other nigh-impossibility, that of stooping-while at the run-under a knee-high branch, had been ruled unnecessary.

  He did bound one thick yew branch, which was half fallen and both the height and thickness of his waist; he was able to continue running without falling. His pursuers were four; he lost two of them then, for one tried to roll beneath that same obstacle and was caught by a wrist-thick branch thrusting downward from the main one. Another man jumped not well and fell to
lie moaning and whimpering, clutching his genitals.

  Cormac mac Art ran on. Behind him, two of the appointed pursuers followed.

  They wore soft-soled buskins, all of them, for it had been decided that to race thus through dense woods without some sort of footgear was unnecessarily dangerous. Cormac limped several steps after coming down, on the arch of his foot, on a twig thick as his thumb and hard as lead. But he gritted his teeth and fled on, reminding himself that this was after all far better than riding a horse…

  He did not look back at another cry from behind, just after he had leapt a little stream as wide as his height. No backward glance was necessary; the shout was followed by a mighty splash and a wet thrashing about.

  Cormac grinned wolfishly. Racing on without pause, he grunted when a branch gouged up his forearm as he passed it too close. Since he felt only the stinging, not the ooze of blood, he did not look down or raise his arm. To do so would have been to jeopardize himself in his running, for he needed his full attention and the constant full use of his eyes to avoid falling or slamming into a tree. He assumed an inch or so of the outer skin had merely been rolled back; such was not worth glancing at.

  He bounded a fallen, half rotted bole, and came down on fat-stalked plant. His foot skidded on the moist green stalk. He fell, rolled, thrashed, hurled himself up by main force of will, and plunged on.

  Around an oak with a bole thick enough for the building of two houses Cormac swerved. Thence he ran along’ a thick, waist-high growth of some weed he knew not, and dived into it when he sensed, as much as saw, a little opening within the bushes.

  While his heart pounded in him and his breath came cold in his chest, the exile went absolutely still.

  His pursuer raced noisily past, breathing hard.

  After crawling out the other side of the little natural hedge, Cormac went running back the way he had come. And on, and on. Too soon he heard the noises behind him-well back, now-and he knew his last pursuer had discovered the strategic deception and was once again like a hound on the scent.

  Cormac mac Art ran.

  And ran. Across the stream he leapt again, with a grim smile for the bedraggled man lying on the bank, panting. He cursed as Cormac rushed by-and grinned. A tree seemed to arrange itself in the racing quarry’s path, and in dodging it he slipped and fell.

  Thus was his life saved. He heard the wicked little bee-song of the arrow that wizzed through the space where he should have been, and then he heard too the cry of shock and pain, from behind.

  Floundering about, taking cover, crawling through thick weeds and shaking down a cloud of the pollen of some late-blooming wildflower, Cormac ascertained that he no longer had any pursuit at, all. The fourth man rolled on the ground, with an arrow very high in his left thigh.

  An arrow aimed for my heart, then, Cormac thought, and so well calculated that it ranged down enough, fifteen or twenty feet behind me, to take him just below the hip!

  Cormac had no pursuit behind. But now there was an enemy ahead, and him bow-armed, and skillful at the aiming of his shafts! As for, Cormac-like his pursuers, he was totally unarmed.

  With great rapidity and far more noise than he’d have preferred, he crawled back on a ragged course that paralleled his twice-run path. Then he was staring into the wide eyes of the man who had fallen into the stream; he squatted beside his fallen comrade.

  “Over here, and quickly,” Cormac bade, in a ‘loud whisper. “That arrow was meant for my heart. An he wants me dead badly enough, he’ll not hesitate to slay the both of you as well,”

  “My Jesus mercy,” the wet man said, looking forward. “Who?”

  “I have no idea. But get over here. And pull him-if he faints from pain, it’s better off he’ll be!”

  The other man came unfrozen to obey with sudden alacrity.

  It was long the three of them waited, in what cover they could manage. But they heard no sound, nor came other feathered wands seeking their life’s blood. The phantom archer had melted away in the thick wood.

  At last, not running, Cormac and the wet man made their way through the woods, and out. Presided over by a marshal appointed by the High-king, a crowd of people heaved a cry. Then they went silent, for pursued and pursuer came together, and grim-faced.

  Soon another sort of cry was rising, and angry voices muttered and stormed, for the two men had told of the treachery and of the fallen man who awaited succor, back within the wood. The two pursuers who had first been forced to give up the fight went in quest of him, along with the wet man, for all his being winded.

  Much apology was made to Cormac mac Art, who stared impassively through it all. Dark was his tunic with sweat; more ran shining down his body. When the Ard-righ’s picked marshal had ceased his apology and assurances, Cormac spoke, with his teeth nigh together.

  “My hair was uncaught. I avoided stepping on a thorn, though I fell more than once, bounded trees, and a brook. I broke no branch I stepped upon, and I have eluded four fleet pursuers-and an assassin. Be this over?”

  “Uh, aye, aye,” the presiding noble said, nodding nervously. “I-” He raised his voice. “I proclaim this test at an end, and the candidate having passed.”

  Cormac paid no attention to those who cheered or called out jeers. “Then show me those who will cast spears at me, and show me too the shield and stave I will bear,” he said in that same tight-lipped way, “that I might inspect all, to see if I am to be murdered in the second of your damned tests!”

  “Son of Art, I assure you-”

  “I know man, I know, but expect me not to be less than surly-and more than apprehensive.” He stepped past the man. “Now it’s water other than sweat I’m wanting on me, and ale within me. Save assurances for when I have passed all-if I am allowed to survive!”

  Even though it was Tigernach who gave him the quarterstaff, and his own at that, Cormac tested it well. The shield was a gift upon him from Cumal Uais, and a handsome one at that-but Cormac strove to break it over his knee. Bronze-bound, steel-studded wood hardened by fire and painted and enameled the shield was, and it broke not. His tools of defense, at least, were reliable.

  The nine men who were to cast untipped spears at him Cormac insisted on meeting, one by one. He looked darkly into their eyes-and examined their spears. Every man, following the lead of the first, wished him well.

  “Make your best cast,” Cormac bade in return, and examined the weapons he must face. None was of anything other than rocky-hard wood, well tapered so that the untipped head would fly true as the aim and skill of him who made the cast.

  “I am satisfied,” Cormac said.

  “I am not,” the High-king’s marshal said. Bedecked in scarlet and fawn, he introduced two weapon men, and them with sheathed swords, bucklers, and armour as well. These would flank the line of spear-casters. “Beware,” he said to the spearmen. “One already has sought this man’s life, and it’s forfeit will be the life of him who might attempt it again!”

  The spearmen looked insulted, but the two weapon men stayed.

  A few feet away, also helmeted and armoured and under arms, stood Tigernach mac Roig of Rath Cumal. Nor did he look kindly upon any of the eleven-or the marshal either, for the matter of that.

  The priest who passed along the line of spearmen. pointedly ignored the man who was to be their target. But to him came a servant of Behl and perhaps Crom, a Druid in loose-girt white robe who leaned on his straight staff. He braced Cormac, and gazed into his grey eyes from pale blue ones, and he nodded.

  “Even in the teeth of the others with their Roman-hanged godling, son of Art, ye avowed yourself for Crom, watcher over Celts for more thousands of years than men have trod Eirrin’s sod. Be well, and beware.” The man’s voice was quiet, and steady, and his eyes steady. “Beware the dark that hovers about ye, descendant of Celts, when the trumpet sounds.”

  Cormac felt a shiver run through him, and gave his head a shake. Then he lowered both lids in a long blink…

  “M
y thanks, Druid. Be ye of Meath, or Connacht?”

  The quiet, droning voice came back, and the eyes seemed to drill: “Well ye know that Druids have no such earthly allegiances, son of Art. Beware the dark that hovers about ye, son of Celts, when the trumpet sounds.”

  Nervous in spite of himself, Cormac showed the man a brief nod, and turned away. He jerked his head and blinked several times as he walked across meadowland to the trench prepared for him. Behind him, the Druid went to talk to each, of the spearmen. The servant of Behl and Crom walked tall, and very stiffly indeed, a spear-straight line with his robe falling about him. Nor did he lean upon his sturdy staff.

  Cormac stepped down into the trench. It was not designed to aid his maneuvering, but it was, the wise men said, as had been those of the candidates for the Fian. Not so long as Cormac’s height, it was perhaps three feet wide. He stood in it to the knees-and not without having examined the ground beneath his feet. It was well packed; no treachery here. All seemed well, but he knew no shame for his caution.

  Cormac looked about him. The meadow was long, and broad. Many people were gathered about, hundreds perhaps, to witness this very old and much talked-of rite. Behind them, tall trees brooded over the testing ground like solemn guards. The spearmen were not so close that he could not see their staffs a-coming, nor so far removed that good men should not make good casts.

  Beware the dark that hovers about ye, son of Celts.

  Again Cormac looked about himself. He saw no dark. Behl’s disk was bright overhead, and brightly dressed were the men and women of Eirrin who looked on, waiting. Wagering, he thought, without rancor.

  Wager on Cormac, he bade them mentally.

  The marshal’s voice rose, loudly, and across the meadow another, chosen for his great voice, repeated each sentence for all to hear. The spearmen were to make their casts as they saw fit, once the signal was given. By his agility and skill in using his stout staff of hazel and his shield the examinee was to defend himself, and without being struck full on. Nor was he to retreat from the trench.