Officially, the Great Fair began on the morrow. In truth it had commenced days ago, as pilgrims began arriving afoot, on horseback and even oxback, in waggons and carts. Farmers and herders jostled fishermen and weapon-men and richly-attired nobles-who might well soon buy the needlework of some of those men’s wives, or the produce of their farms, or the delicate jewellery made of shellfish by the wives of those who took their living from river or ocean.
Three seeming maniacs sat before a noisy inn, torturing the air and the ears of many with their yowling, howling pipes.
Bright garments fluttered and jewellery of varying degrees of worth and workmanship cast scintillant flashes with the movements of the wearers, male and female alike. Hair, cut and trimmed and washed and arranged, long combed and coiffed, glossed in the golden sunlight of July’s final day. Bangles jangled and earrings tinkled. What seemed, to the youth from a Connachtish province, to be a thousand conversations were carried on all at once-some at the tops of the speakers’ voices. Girls were patted and stroked and even slapped on hip or behind, and most laughed and none took umbrage. Not at Fair-time!
To this high Hill of the Kings and the renowned field sprawled about it had come peasants who’d left their russets behind; citizens of every kingdom of the Emerald Isle, bearing fruits and vegetables, embroidery and leatherwork; poets and lyrists, pipers and tympanists from the farthest northern hamlets of Ailech and DalRiadia and the farthest southern townlet of Munster; from the land round about Loch Cuan up north and Loch Conn over in Connacht and the inlet of Cobh down in the south; from Tir Connaill they came, and Antrim and Cruachain and Killarney, Dinn Rig and ancient Muirthemne; the foothills and valleys presided over by Slieve Mis and Slieve Cuilinn, from Dundalk and Dun Laoghair and aye, even the Isles of Aran, and Cait, and of the Seven Hogs.
Full twenty acres Tara Hill covered, with smaller duns or hills rising on it, and seven walled raths, each like unto a town itself. Long and long ago in the mists of time agone had Ollam Fodla called here the kings of all the realms of Eirrin, in solemn council. Then had been born the tradition of the great council or parliament, the kings assembled in the Great Feis. Monarchs cared not to depart their lands so often as once each year; the Assembly of Kings became a triennial occurrence.
Now fully a half-score of centuries had Feis-mor been held each year on Tara Hill. And before it, in late summer, the Great Fair. The great trading and selling. The relation in verse and prose of the histories of the peoples of Eirrin, spoken aloud by respected poets and historians and story-tellers who went away able only to whisper. The Games; the races and combats to determine the new Champion of Eirrin. The hearing of plaints and the redressing of wrongs. The Tales of the Finn. Public announcements of the pledging of troths. Sword-sharp satires. And absolute law.
Thus did the poet have it:
The people of the Gaedhil did celebrate
In Tara, to be highly boasted of,
A fair without broken law or crime,
Without a deed of violence, without dishonour.
Whoever transgresses the law of the assembly
(Which of old was indelibly writ)
Cannot be spared for family connection,
But must die for his transgression.
Aye, and still that law at Fair-time prevailed. Men wore arms but used them not. He who broke the King’s Peace must die. Appeal did not exist; only so could the Fair exist.
Here, amid the crowd bordering the open square where brightly bedecked tumblers cavorted, switching their back-bound hair; where hopeful satirists tried out their creations on any who’d listen; here, Samaire had sent word, would she meet Partha. And here he was, waiting and watching, ignoring even the girl tumblers. And he was sore disappointed. The sun crept measurably across the sky, steadily westering, and there came no Samaire.
She could not escape her damned gaoler of a father, Cormac thought morosely. It had happened afore. This time was a greater disappointment, for they’d been weeks apart.
And then Ceann was there, and Cormac was both glad and sad, for he knew what message the minstrel-prince brought. And he was right: Samaire had been detained by their father. Naturally she could not tell him why she was so anxious to depart his company and shirk a princess’s duty. King Ulad merely needed her by him, or thought that he did. And Ceann in his Leinsterish plaide must be elsewhere too, and Cormac dolorously plowed through the throng in quest of a draught of soothing ale.
A hand fumbled at his, whilst he was locked in the crowd. Before he could draw away, in the press, he felt metal against his palm. He closed his fingers and raised the hand to look on what it contained. A moondisk. Instantly his body reacted. He knew that rune; Sualtim had scratched it there months agone.
Cormac turned his gaze on the message-bearer-a beggar.
“I want nothing of ye, young man. On Tara Hill rises the rath of one Murcael Uais, cousin to the High-king by marriage. Directly below Lord Murcael’s rath rises a grove of the oldest of trees. There, after the calling of the second watch of night, will be he who dares deface the back of a moondisk.”
Cormac looked again on the symbol of the night goddess, of ancient Danu. His heartbeat was rapid and his armpits prickled. Sualtim! With information at last-and just in time! Oh; he must ask weather the beggar was to return the pendant…
The man was gone. The crowd, flowing like a many-hued stream, had swallowed him up, torn brown cloak and all. And in truth that human stream eddied about Cormac, split to pass him on either side as though he was a great stone in a springtime brook, and people muttered rude crudities or curses on the big youthful weapon-man who blocked them.
Clutching the pendant, he allowed himself to be carried along by the flow.
Despite his impatience Cormac had forced himself to wait until after the second night-watch had been called. Then he had taken but a few steps when he was challenged by the handsomely got-up King’s Watch. At last, with mist swirling about his ankles like a wraithy grey phantom, he made his way to the yew-grove below the rath he had easily identified. And there he found Sualtim-and another.
At the feet of the druid lay another robed man, though his garb was not the green of nature’s life but the black of death. A priest of the Dead God. Cormac saw the splash of colour; the scarlet on the man’s forehead and left cheek, and on the ground beside that cheek. Beside him too lay a good-sized stone, bigger than Cormac’s fist, and on it was more of the priest’s blood.
Cormac stared at Sualtim Fodla.
“A druid carries no weapons,” the whitebeard said, and his voice was as though he spoke down a barrel or up from a well. “Nor is a priest supposed to do. This one did.” Sualtim nodded, and Cormac looked, and saw the dagger protruding from the priest’s fist; the blade was covered by his robe’s skirt. “Yet the earth of our Eirrin holds weapons for one attacked. I was; the stone proved effective.”
Cormac swallowed. “Sualtim-”
“Let me talk,” the druid said, his voice seeming to come from a great distance though he stood but a pace away. “This man is-was-one Milchu. Him I told ye of. A priest of Iosa Chriost… a spy for the High-king… a greedy ambitious man who desired his own ‘bishopric’ as they call it. He was also the man who bade Aengus-that is Eoin mac Gulbain, Cormac-to do that which a more honourable priest had forbidden: slay your father.”
“Sualtim-”
“Hush. Only listen. It’s little time I have. I should be… elsewhere. Was the High-king bade Milchu to go to Eoin, and bid him do death on Art of Rath Glondarth. Our noble High-king fears one of Art’s ancestry…’ and is even more fearful of a son bearing the name of that great High-king of old: Cormac mac Art. Particularly once you’d slain those first Picts, my boy, and your name and deed were becoming well-known, with comparisons to Cuchulain.”
“The… High-king! Lugaid himself!
“Aye, Lugaid himself. And now, Cormac… now does Lugaid knew that the hero of Boruma-hero in Leinster, villain in Meath-is Partha mac Othna. And he k
nows that Partha is also Cormac mac Art. Lugaid wanted ye dead aforetime; he does so doubly, now. The regaining of the Boru Tribute and your other successes in Leinster have but increased the Ard-righ’s apprehension, and hatred.”
“Gods of my father! Is there never to be a ceasing of-”
“Attend me! I have not done, and time is short. There is one who spied on you in Leinster. He knew of your-unwise, most unwise, Cormac-trysts with King Ulad’s daughter. And he told Ulad, who told the High-king and conferred with him even this night! My boy, my boy-they two kings plot to destroy you, Cormac mac-”
Sualtim’s voice had grown so weak, so seemingly distant that Cormac had bent closer, straining to hear even in the night silent but for insects. Now that voice broke off. The wise old eyes that gazed on him went vacant as though Sualtim had fled his own body. The druid made no further sound. He merely fell, crumpling like a tent bereft of its stiffening pole. As he did so, to lie face down at Cormac’s feet, the youth saw that the whole back of Sualtim’s robe was a mass of blood.
Ah gods-he was stabbed, and yet slew the stabber, and stood erect so as to tell me what he has told me! Cormac squatted. Ah, Sualtim, why do you think my unhappy life could be of more import than your-
Cormac shuddered and his nape bristled. He had put a hand to the face of his fallen mentor. What he felt was not credible, never to be believed… and undeniably, horrifyingly true. The old man’s skin was cold.
Hurriedly, though his flesh crawled and so too his stomach within him. Cormac caught up a thin, veined, old hand.
Oh ye gods and blood of the gods!
The hand was cold. And it was stiff. Like ice it was… no. Not like ice was Sualtim’s hand. Cold as that of a dead man it was; a man from whom life had long since flown.
Shuddering so that he clamped his teeth against their clicking, Cormac rose and backed from the pair of corpses. Milchu’s, too, was cold. Cormac stared down at them, and his brain spun in a maelstrom of horror, and disbelief. For he stared at the result of unhuman powers, at the incredible and unimaginable.
Sualtim had come early to meet Cormac. And so had Milchu. And Milchu had come up behind the druid, and stabbed him with his death. And then he must have gloated, sneering, flaunting his triumph over the dying druid and over the house of Art. And then, somehow, perhaps with Sualtim prostrate and dying and Milchu bending over him, the druid had smashed the stone into the priest’s face.
The slain had slain the slayer. And then, because his will and his power were so great and his mission so important, and his love for Cormac… then had Sualtim evaded Donn’s dread clutch, and spoken to Cormac-from the other side of death.
Chapter Eighteen:
Fugitive
What to do?
What wonder and sore trouble on the mind of Cormac mac Art, and sadness at Sualtim’s death complicated his attempts to think.
The High-king of all Eirrin plotted his death. King Ulad of Leinster knew of his daughter’s affair with a common weapon-man. He plotted. And now both kings plotted together.
Am I so important then, as to occupy the time of two monarchs?
No, he thought; doubtless they’d given him but a few minutes of their valuable time, and made their plan to determine his fate, and gone right on to the other matters requiring their attention.
What to do?
He still hoped to expose the Ard-righ at the Great Assembly in the fall. But-will I be allowed to live that long? Or if to live… to remain free? There was more now, so much more. Ard-righ Lugaid was ultimately responsible for the death of Art mac Cumail. And of Midhir. And of Sualtim.
And for Cormac’s fleeing Connacht, taking on another name-a name that Lugaid now knew was an alias.
And Cormac mac Art?
He had no proof!
Bewildered, feeling once again very young and very alone, he was in need of counsel. None was available. Dead, dead, dead. Art. And Sualtim and Midhir. Dead. And even Forgall, whom though he was no great brain Cormac respected and liked-and trusted. General Conan Conda? Perhaps… could a general give listen to words against the highest of kings? If he did, what then when he demanded proof? No; was worse than that, Cormac realized. He could not confide in Conan the Wolfish. That would only compromise that good soldier and good man; by now Partha/Cormac was far less than popular with the general’s king.
Tu, I need you!
Cormac frowned.
Tu? What word was that? A name? he knew no tu or Tu. What had been that sudden weird sensation, as of a great weight on his shoulders, a crown-like weight on his head? Were his senses taking leave of him; was his sanity staggering?
He had no idea. He was horribly alone.
Miserable, he took refuge in the company of others, and of exciting distractions. Cormac went with six others of his Fifty to watch the first of the martial games. They arrived just after Bress had fought, for he was Leinster’s Champion and had won. He and the youth he knew as Partha affected not to see each other. Amid the cheering crowd, Cormac watched another pair of men circling, staring, striking at each other with leather-covered swords of wood. One combat ended, embarrassingly for the loser, in two strokes. Another went long and long, and Cormac saw how closely Bress watched. One of these men he’d later face over his shield’s rim, and if he won that combat, it was another of these he’d be meeting later still, in the continuing eliminations.
“Pfah!” That from Eoghan mac Foil, on Cormac’s left. “None of these puny shield-lurkers we’re seeing could stand up to yourself, Captain!”
“A shame ye do not compete,” another of his men’ said, from beyond Eoghan. “For the next Champion of all Eirrin might then be Partha mac Othna!”
“Oho!”
That from the man who stood at Cormac’s right, a Meathish soldier. He went on, “So! this is the great Partha mac Othna of Ulster, hero of Leinster’s king! The great herder of cows.”
Most of the crowd continued to shout and wager; silence fell on Cormac’s men. They stared at the Meathmen. Cormac kept his gaze on the two contenders, a young lord of Ailech and a weapon-man who represented a noble of Cruachain in Connacht.
Loud snuffing noises arose on Cormac’s right. “I say this be no hero here beside me, but a coward… with the stench of Connachtish pigs on him!”
Eoghan gasped. Cormac tensed and his jaw clamped. He stared fixedly at the contenders.
“Aye, a base coward of the foullest kind… not a man at all, this cattle-thief who sells his blade to Leinster whilst claiming to be of Ulster!”
Cormac turned to look at the speaker. His was not a face Cormac knew. The fellow was not ill-favoured, and of perhaps a score of years, perhaps less. He was essaying to wear his brows as did Bress; it did not become him either.
“Why seek ye to provoke me?”
“Provoke ye? Whyever should ye be provoked by the hearing of truth? And how could I possibly seek such-why ’tis Fair-time, weapon-boy. Even Leinsterish cattle-thieves are welcome here in my Meath during these days!”
“It’s hardly a welcoming speech ye’re after giving me, man!”
“And why should I be doing that, Partha mac Othna? It’s disgrace ye and your plan put on a good captain of Meath!”
“Ah. Ye-be ye the captain of the Meathish tribute-guards?”
“Not I. He’s disgraced, bereft of command and respect, for allowing himself to be tricked by some graceless fugitive who fled his own homeland rather than seek out his father’s murderer.”
“Partha-”
“Easy, Eoghan,” Cormac put back a hand to Eoghan without looking at him; he kept his grey gaze on the Meathish weapon-man. How could the man know so much?
“It’s much ye affect to know, and much noises ye allow yourself to make.”
The man stared in anger. His mouth worked, drew in on itself, like a spiteful boy’s. “Noise? Affect to know? Noise? Come away for a stroll with me, Captain Cloak-name, and it’s more noises I’ll be making for ye!”
“Rather would I
see ye go for a stroll alone and let me rejoin those who watch real weapon-men.” Cormac’s voice remained quiet-with effort.
“Real! Ho-would that those two were I and yourself, swineherd turned kine-thief! Ye’d soon see what comes of facing a real weapon-man!”
“Words,” Eoghan mac Foil said, pushing up to face the Meathman. “None others may enter, the Games now, nor can Partha fight yourself, at Fair tune. What would ye have him do then, man?”
“I’d have him speak for himself, Leinsterman.”
“Eoghan,” Cormac said quietly, desperately reminding himself of his rank and responsibility. “I do believe I’ll be going along now, peradventure to taste a bit of ale.”
Eoghan’s face was dark and he was aquiver under the hand his captain laid on his shoulder. Without taking his eyes off the Meathman’s face he said, “I do believe I’ll be going with ye, Captain. The air is gone stale here.”
And they moved back through the crowd, which pressed forward to fill their space. As they stepped free of the press, that same voice rose behind them; the mouthy fool had followed! “It’s not staleness ye notice, Leinsterman, but the stench from that Connachtish pig-boy ye accompany.”
An alarum clanged in Cormac’s mind. Why was he fellow so set on trouble? How knew he so much? Why was he so-so crude and obvious? But beside Cormac Eoghan was saying “- ye!” and spinning about, hand on hilt.
The Leinsterman faced the Meathish weapon-man; the latter drew; Eoghan drew.
“Eoghan-NO!” Cormac shouted.
Eoghan paused at the cry, and thus he did not complete the movement of his blade toward the other man’s, for neither of them carried buckler. The Meathish blade swerved only a little-and took Eoghan in the sword-arm. It bit deep and blood gushed.
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