Finn smiled, almost shyly.
Goll was moved by curiosity to ask, “Just why did you give that cloak to Aed?”
“Is that his name?”
“Aed son of Aebinn. I knew his father, a fine warrior.”
“I gave it to him because he was frightened of me, Goll.”
“That’s no reason to give away a king’s cloak!”
“Och, but it is. You may know a lot of things, but no one knows more about hunting than I do. An animal who is afraid of you may well turn on you and do you a mortal injury. I don’t want men like Aed, whom I must work with, to be afraid of me.”
Goll shook his head. “You’re the strangest mixture of wisdom and ignorance I’ve ever seen, Finn Mac Cool.”
Finn shrugged. “I’m what my life has made me.”
Goll looked at him in anticipation of something more, but Finn clamped his lips together.
The incident with Cruina continued to haunt him. He did everything he could to avoid her, and to avoid being reminded of it, but this was not easy in an enclosed stronghold such as Tara. If he saw her coming, he ducked behind the nearest building or pretended to be so occupied that he passed her unaware.
He was, of course, agonizingly aware of her.
He had lain with her, after a fashion. As he understood the law, a marriage had taken place. But it was no more than a seventh-degree marriage, an embarrassment to her and to him.
She must hate him.
For his part, Finn felt diminished. He was Finn Mac Cool, Rígfénnid Fíanna. He had gloried in his strength and what he expected would be his virility. His marriage should have been something more than a shameful fumbling in a deserted chamber.
In the privacy of the night, lying a little apart from the other men, Finn considered the situation. Marriages with contracts were prestigious enough for a commander but they involved property he did not yet possess. Besides, he and Cruina had made no contract. She would probably never agree to one now, not with him. Not after the way he had humiliated himself.
But what if she had a child? Was there a child, growing? How was he to know?
Ask Cruina.
But for that he must face her, and he could not face her.
Meanwhile, he was thankful for the rebuilding of Tara. His days were filled with work. Every morning found Cormac up long before dawn, striding across the hill, looking for things that needed to be done. He and Finn entered into an unspoken contest to see who could discover more possible improvements.
“I think I shall wait until spring before I send for my family,” the king decided. “I want this place to be perfect before they see it for the first time.”
“That will give us time to improve the Grianan,” Finn replied. “More windows, so the women have even better light for their sewing.”
“I’ve been thinking about the Assembly Hall myself. There isn’t enough room. I should like to be able to serve five hundred men mead there, or to at least give a banquet for a hundred.”
“We can extend it that way …” Finn pointed.
“And have wider doorways. A higher roof, too, newly thatched every year so it shines like gold and can be seen from far away,” Cormac enthused.
“Would not the brehons feel slighted if you build a new hall for your guests while they must continue to meet in their old one?”
“You’re right of course, Finn. They should have a new, nobler Fort of the Synods. Didn’t I mention that? I’d already decided on it myself.”
“And if it is to be called a fort, and the royal residence is to be called a fort, should not both have earthen banks and ditches and their own wooden palisades, to call attention to their importance?”
“Perhaps there should be two royal forts,” Cormac mused. “A ceremonial House of the King and another that will serve as my private residence and home to my family. I don’t want people coming into my private dwelling at any time of the day or night and throwing heads into my hearthfire!” he added with a laugh.
From first light to last, Tara rang with the sounds of construction. On the day Finn’s other bands of nine arrived, they were promptly given not warriors’ weapons, but adzes and mallets and stripping knives, and sledges for dragging heavy materials, and pointed toward the nearest building-in-progress … much to their astonishment.
Cormac’s brain overflowed with lavish plans. Finn interpreted them as best he could, with a growing sense of excitement. It was intoxicating, being part of an explosion of energy and optimism. He began to imagine a Tara that would stand unchallenged through all the centuries to come, a kingly centre for Erin.
And he was helping build it.
His ambitions began to expand with Tara. He had already attained what he once considered the zenith of achievement, but he was still very young. There must be more.
He would make more of Finn Mac Cool, warrior and poet and dreamer. Fionn Mac Cuhal, Rígfénnid Fíanna.
But the problem of Cruina cast a blight on his dreams and on his vision of himself. He had behaved badly with her, he had been less than he should have been. His inability to face her and resolve the situation only compounded his misery, making him accuse himself of cowardice, the worst dishonour he knew.
He longed to talk with someone older and wiser than he, but there was no one he would entrust with such secrets. Finn Mac Cool had no soul-friend. The one man with whom he had the most in common was probably Goll Mac Morna. But the last person to whom Finn would reveal any vulnerability was Goll.
He managed once to allude to his problem without indicating its specifics, or that it involved himself. “Goll,” he said very casually as they were eating their meal at the end of the day, “did you ever do anything you were sorry for afterward?”
“Every man’s done things he regretted, Finn. And every woman too, I suspect. Hand me that bowl of cheese, will you?”
Finn passed the wooden bowl brimming with soft white cheese. Goll scooped out a large portion with three fingers.
“I mean,” Finn persisted, “have you ever done anything that, uh, that you felt dishonoured you?”
Goll’s eye flashed. “What are you trying to say? Are you accusing me of something? If you are, you can forget about it. I’ve never done anything in my life that I considered to be dishonourable, nor shall I. I’ll tell you something for nothing, Finn Mac Cool. A man lives after his life, but not after his honour!”
Jumping to his feet, Goll stalked off to finish his meal elsewhere.
For several days afterward, Finn was very quiet. “What’s wrong with him?” Donn asked Blamec. “Does he have a sour belly? Perhaps I should examine the foodstuffs again.”
Brooding, Finn watched Cruina covertly. He looked for some indication of pregnancy, while avoiding coming too close to her or meeting her eyes. From the glimpses he stole, he could not decide if she was expanding or not. In winter, women wore voluminous mantles over looseflowing tunics. Only in the warmth of their houses did they undress to the gowns beneath, which were usually of linen fitted more closely to the body.
Finn, of course, was never invited into the smith’s house.
He had lived a solitary life, but he could no longer bear this alone. He must talk to someone. Cailte was his choice, after considerable thought. The thin man tended to keep to himself as Finn did; he did not talk about his fellows.
And he was the only one of the fían from whom Bran would accept food, other than Finn himself.
“I hope you’re right in your judgment,” Finn told his dog.
He approached Cailte one misty morning as the two were working together on the ditch and bank for the new structure to be known as Cormac’s House. “Cailte,” he began casually, “have you had much experience of women?”
“Some.”
Finn applied his tools in silence for a time. Then, “Did you ever, ah, fall short of your own expectations? With a woman?”
Cailte, working beside him, did not look up. “Once or twice, in the beginning. Like everything else, wom
en take practice.”
Finn put down his tools. “But you got better after a time?”
“I did of course. You will too.”
How did he know? Finn wondered.
Cailte was smiling. “It’s all right, Finn. I won’t tell. I suspect we’ve all had similar experiences.”
Finn gave a sigh of relief. “I thought something was wrong with me.”
“You were probably overeager. I was myself, the first time I had a woman under me.”
“Was there a child?”
“Not that I know of. I’ve neither son nor daughter, so far as I know. Not yet anyway.”
“Have you had many women?” Finn was beginning to suspect Cailte’s experience was more extensive than he had thought.
“Not enough. The ones I want rarely look at me. I’m built for speed and not for comfort,” he said ruefully.
Finn began to relax. This was the sort of conversation other men had about women; he had overheard them. He felt he had just entered into a new fellowship, a rite of passage.
“I haven’t had time for women until now,” he confided. “But …”
“But once you start, it’s hard to stop,” Cailte finished for him. “You keep thinking about them.”
“You do.”
“One in particular?”
“One in particular. I … did not make a very good start with her.”
Cailte smiled. His eyes were a warm grey, the expression level, easy. “Try again,” he advised. “Is this by any chance the woman you’ve been avoiding?”
“You noticed?”
“We’ve all noticed. It’s the most obvious thing about you these days, the way you duck and dodge when the smith’s youngest daughter is near.”
“What would you do, Cailte? If you’d made a bad beginning, I mean.”
“I told you, try again. If she accepted you once, she probably will a second time. Who knows? Perhaps she feels the fault was hers and would welcome a chance to make up for it.”
Finn asked eagerly, “Do you think so?”
“I don’t know. But it’s worth a try. Anything would be better than to see you skulking around Tara while at the same time trying to look like you’re running the place all by yourself.”
Finn flinched. “Am I that ridiculous?”
“Not at all. Just awkward.”
Heartened by his conversation with Cailte, Finn made one more try. When he saw Cruina emerging from the Grianan, he strode purposefully toward her, rehearsing a little speech in his head. But just before he reached her, she looked up, saw him … and turned away deliberately, twitching her lips in an expression of disgust.
Finn sagged where he stood.
He went back to Cailte. “It’s no use. She wants nothing to do with me.”
“Do you want me to speak to her?” the thin man asked.
“Would you?”
“If you think it would do any good.”
“Have you a gift for talking with women? I thought Fergus was—”
“I’m not like Fergus. But I can talk to women. They trust me.”
Looking into Cailte’s grey eyes, Finn understood. He felt that same trust. “Do what you can for me, then,” he said gratefully.
Cailte approached the smith’s daughter as she sat on a stone kerbing, combing her hair with a comb of polished yew wood. The living strands crackled with energy as the wooden teeth moved through them.
The thin man sat down beside her on the kerbing, nodded to her pleasantly, then busied himself massaging the balls of his feet.
“You’re the runner, aren’t you?” said Cruina.
“I am that.”
“And your feet bother you, do they?”
“My feet ache sometimes. The arch … right here. I’m only human. We’re all human, we fénnidi.”
“Who are you including?”
“My companions. And Finn himself, of course.”
“Oh. Him.”
“You know him?”
“Slightly,” Cruina said with a delicate lifting of her upper lip.
“He seems to feel there’s a problem between the two of you.”
“There’s nothing between us. Nothing!” Cruina stressed.
“Nothing ever?”
She hesitated. “Nothing now.”
Cailte studied his feet. “Was there a time when you wanted something to be between you?”
“What woman wouldn’t at least look at the Rígfénnid Fíanna? There was a time when I thought he was grand. And brave. But I know better now.”
“He is grand and brave.”
“He’s a craven coward!”
Cailte was taken aback by her vehemence. “What has he done to make you think so?”
“He avoids me. He all but runs from me. When I discovered he was a coward, I wanted nothing more to do with him!”
Cailte reported the conversation to Finn. “So you see, it wasn’t your, ah, performance that upset her, Finn. It was your failure to face her afterward. Whatever went wrong between you, if only you’d talked to her about it, she wouldn’t be so angry.”
Finn’s worst fears were confirmed. Cowardice was the ultimate dishonour. To have a woman think of him as a coward was agonizing. “I meant to take her as a wife in the second degree,” he said miserably. “I was going to do everything as the Rígfénnid Fíanna should. But …”
“But?”
“But I lost the run of myself entirely, Cailte. I lay with her before I got around to arranging a contract. And then I did it … badly. All we had was a soldier’s marriage, and an experience I shouldn’t think she’d be eager to repeat.”
“Och, Finn, the flowers will bloom in the spring anyway. But if this is bothering you so, go and face her. Prove she’s wrong about you. Tell her you want a contract marriage with her, she’ll be flattered. She’ll Probably say all sorts of admiring things about you after that.”
Finn’s whole being yearned to hear a woman say flattering things about him. “I’ll do it!” he vowed. “But … you’ll help me, Cailte?”
To prepare for his confrontation with Cruina, Finn dressed with extra care. Cailte plaited his hair precisely, scraped his jaw with a blade, and peered at the pale sprouting of a warrior’s moustache on Finn’s upper lip. “You’re so fair, it hardly shows,” the thin man said.
Finn tried a weak joke. “If I was a king, I’d be expected to grow a beard as well as a moustache, and that probably wouldn’t show either, so it’s just as well I’m a warrior.”
When at last he was ready, Finn hung the great checkered mantle from his broad shoulders. “How do I look?”
“Splendid,” Cailte told him, regretting the comment about the moustache.
“Will you stay nearby?”
Cailte was strangely moved. This magnificent youth, this dazzling man, needed him; needed thin, unprepossessing Cailte, a man with but one talent.
Or perhaps two.
Cailte had a gift for loyalty.
“I’ll be within shouting distance,” he promised.
Together they walked to the smith’s dwelling, which was just outside the palisade of Tara. Beside the smith’s door hung a blackthorn cudgel on a thong. Finn used the cudgel to pound on the oak door. He wanted to sound powerful, male, aggressive.
The door boomed.
It was opened at once by Lochan’s wife, a wizened woman with no chin. She peered up at her visitors. “You want the smith?” she asked, squinting.
“I want his daughter, the one called Cruina. To speak to,” Finn added hurriedly.
The woman turned back inside the house. There was a low-voiced dialogue, broken with an emphatic negative.
Finn looked over his shoulder. Cailte made shoving motions with his hands.
Finn gritted his teeth and pushed the door open, then strode into the house with grim determination.
At the far side of the dwelling, Cruina was sitting behind her mother’s loom. When Finn burst in, she jumped to her feet angrily. “You have no right here!”
“Mind yourself, girl!” the mother cried. “This is the Rígfénnid Fíanna.”
“Is that what he is? It’s an honour he doesn’t deserve, isn’t it?”
The mother gasped. Eyes wide with fright, she stared at Finn. This was a man to be feared, the slayer of monsters.
“I came to discuss a contract of marriage,” Finn blurted out. “Second-degree marriage.”
The mother gasped again. “Did you hear that, girl?”
“Am I deaf? I heard it,” Cruina responded. “I know nothing about a contract of marriage. I didn’t ask him to come here, did I?”
But she was looking at Finn with something other than contempt in her eyes. He suddenly wished he knew more about women, so he could interpret her expression. For a moment he was tempted to shout for Cailte.
But this was something he must do for himself. He must demonstrate courage.
Unconsciously, he doubled his fists into huge balls. The mother was dismayed and shrank away from him. He quickly opened his hands, but by then he had lost her. She fled from the house, abandoning her daughter to her suitor.
Cruina faced Finn across the shadowy room. “Go away,” she said. “And take your cloak with you—it’s over there.”
“A contract of marriage,” he repeated doggedly. “Between yourself and myself. I’ll ask the king to give me enough property to support you well.”
Instead of looking at him, Cruina began fiddling with the loom. “I don’t have to marry you,” she said coyly. “I’m a free person, I can marry as I choose. I have rights.”
“But we’ve already married. I just want to arrange—”
To Finn’s astonishment, she laughed. “We are not married! There’s no child coming.”
“But we lay together.”
Cruina left the loom and walked over to him with the laugh still on her lips. In a uniquely female gesture—which Finn interpreted as pity—she put the palm of her hand on his chest. “You don’t know very much, do you?” she asked, looking up at him. “Och, Finn, are you really as young as all that?”
Embarrassment washed over him like scalding water. “I’m not so young,” he grated. “And I won’t have you laughing at me.”
Finn Mac Cool Page 14
