Finn Mac Cool

by Morgan Llywelyn

  Oisin and Diarmait were aglow with excitement. “This will be our first really big battle!” they told each other repeatedly as they trotted among the other fénnidi, spears in hand. The time had come to kill and be killed; to live and know that you were alive, because you could so quickly die.

  The two young men tingled with the knowledge, like wine coursing in their blood.

  In an unprecedented move, Finn kept his warriors traveling through the night. They reached Tara in time to be guided by the glow of Ulidian campfires ringing the ridge and its stronghold.

  The very sight brought back Finn’s youth in a flood. All the old dreams of triumph and glory, the old joy of being responsible for the king’s safety. He forgot his quarrel with Cormac as if it had never been. Compared to the sight of hostile campfires, it seemed no more than the squabbling of two birds over one nest.

  The war drums were silenced by Finn’s order; he wanted to surprise the enemy. But he could feel the drumbeat anyway, coming up his spine from his groin, into his heart, into his brain.

  He reined in his horse and gave her to a horseboy to hold. “Don’t let her whinny,” he cautioned. “Pinch her nostrils … like this.” He started forward on foot.

  The Fíanna followed.

  By Finn’s order, they separated into different streams that snaked across the plain of Míd, seeking to encircle the Ulaid. “Are we going to attack them in the dark, do you think?” Diarmait whispered excitedly to Oisin.

  “I’d say not. There’s no style in that, it wouldn’t be fair to them. They have to have a chance to fight back or when we win, it will be a pitiful victory at best.”

  Diarmait nodded, understanding. He was about to become part of the legend; everything must be done right.

  Because Finn had summoned them to attend the funeral games and do honour to his wives, the majority of the Fíanna had been encamped beyond the Hill of Almhain when Cormac was attacked. Ordinarily, Finn might have had to summon them from the four corners of Erin, but the timing was fortuitous—for him, not for the enemy. He was bringing a total of more than three thousand warriors to hurl against the northern insurrection.

  “I suspect,” Finn had remarked to Cailte, “that the Ulidian princes heard through their spies that Cormac and I were, ah, not as close as we once were and thought it an ideal time to try to regain Tara.” He smiled thinly. “Their spies did them a disservice.”

  The might of the Fíanna silently surrounded the encamped Ulidian forces during the night, careful that no twig snapped under any Fénian foot to give them away. Then they waited.

  Battle broke with the dawn. The first Ulidian sentry to realize he was looking not at a forest of trees but a forest of men gave an alarmed shriek, but it was too late. The Fíanna were upon them.

  The war cries could be heard at the gates of Tara.

  Diarmait and Oisin were in the front rank of the warriors. Holding their shields in front of their bodies, they raced forward screaming. Everyone was screaming. Battle was cacophony. Cries of rage drowned howls of pain—at first.

  Finn’s choice of weapon was no longer the shortsword, but the latest in a series of greatswords first forged by Lochan the smith. Finn’s own smith at Almhain made them now. Son of the Waves had been precisely shaped to Lochan’s original model, however.

  With two hands firmly grasping its massive hilt, Finn began hacking his way through the ranks of the Ulaid. A shieldbearer ran beside him, holding up the Storm Shield to protect Finn as much as possible, for a man wielding a two-handed sword could hardly manipulate a shield as well.

  Only Finn’s original companions carried greatswords, a symbol of status. Everyone else, including Oisin and Diarmait, used the shorter blade, and privately they assured each other that it was a much more modern design.

  “You!” Oisin was now screaming at every man he attacked with his sword. “You! You! You!”

  He had been well trained. His blade flashed in the light of the rising sun until it was too bloody to reflect light at all. The Ulidians carried yew-wood shields bound in bronze, hard to damage, but Finn’s warriors had been taught numerous ways of going over or around such shields—and under them when all else failed, attacking the genitals, though that was not considered good style.

  Afire with youth, Oisin felt as if his sword were wielding him rather than the other way around. He had no sense of time passing He fought. Men fell. It was glorious. Diarmait fought with equal brilliance, clearing a space around himself, as Finn Mac Cool was doing elsewhere.

  Finn was seeking the commander of the Ulaid. He would he recognizable by his face-paint. The Ulidian had never abandoned the old wild custom, or begun identifying themselves in the Milesian style, with banners. Only their commander would wear the sun’s colour on his face, however.

  The Rigfennid Fíanna had a sun-gold banner.

  Gold met gold as the sun gleamed golden on the thatched roofs of Tara.

  The Ulidian commander had a name Finn knew but chose not to remember. He had a face Finn had seen gilded by firelight at friendly feasts, and hands that had shared meat and fruit in the Banquetting Hall at Tara. Now he was simply The Enemy. He could not be considered in any other way.

  Finn looked at the face-paint and not at the man behind it, and with one terrible, angled downstroke of his two-handed greatsword, tore open the man’s body from heart to groin.

  Blood geysered. Intestines erupted from the body cavity like huge glistening worms.

  The Ulidian gave a frightful groan and clutched at his belly. He staggered forward. Finn stepped back to give him room to fall, which he did, when the combination of pain and shock reached his brain. He was cut almost in half.

  It had been an awesome blow, forcing the already battle-blunted iron sword blade through highly resistant skin and tough muscle fibers to grate, ultimately, on bone. It was the sort of blow a man might manage once in a battle without doing his own shoulders and back muscles damage.

  Finn had been known to do it four times in one day, but that day was far in the past. As the Ulidians fell, spasming in his death throes, agony flamed through his killer’s body.

  Finn gasped for breath and almost dropped the sword. His shieldbearer reached out to steady him, but he brushed the man aside. Shaking his head defiantly, he blinked back pain. Something was torn somewhere, back near his shoulder blades. He could feel his fingers going cold.

  “Gutting this one’s ruined my blade,” he croaked to his shieldbearer. “Needs a new edge.” He managed to give the man the sword just before he lost the ability to grasp anything with his rapidly numbing hands.

  “I’ll see to it and get you another.”

  “Don’t think I’ll need another,” Finn replied thankfully.

  As was customary with battles in Erin, when a leader fell, his men were swiftly disheartened. Ulidians who saw their commander receive his fatal wound shouted the news over their shoulders so it spread rapidly to the outer fringe of the fighting. The northerners either surrendered on the spot or turned and ran.

  The battle was over before the Ulidian leader’s dying organs had finished gurgling.

  Goll Mac Morna joined Finn to stand looking down at the ruin of a man. “You’re as fast as ever, I see. Well done, this. The blow would have cut the side off a wild boar.”

  “Enough style for you?” Finn asked through gritted teeth. He was determined that Goll should not know what it had cost him.

  “Brilliant. I used to do it myself.”

  “But you can’t now.”

  Goll’s lips tightened. “I can’t now.”

  Something of the old merry spirit leaped in Finn’s eyes. He took a step closer to his longtime rival. “I’ll tell you something,” he said in a voice pitched for Goll’s ears alone. “Neither can I. This is my last one.”

  Before he could stop himself, Goll gave Finn a look of comradely understanding

  Runners were dispatched to search the area and bring Finn the names of the slain. The Fíanna had come so qui
ckly there had been no time to bring women for tending the wounded, so anyone not able to walk would have to be carried back to Tara on a litter by his uninjured companions. Finn, hiding the fact of his own injury, walked around the battlefield assessing the damage done to his men. His hands hung at his sides, but no one noticed.

  He was relieved to hear that Oisin was uninjured, though he tried to keep his face impassive. “Donn’s son Diarmait has received a blow to the head, however,” the runner reported.

  Finn went personally to check on young Diarmait’s wound, since Donn was off somewhere on the far side of the battlefield and did not yet know of it. He found Diarmait and Oisin together beside a small stream. Blood from a dead warrior was staining the water farther down, but Oisin knelt on the bank above it and tore a strip of his princely linen tunic to use for bathing his friend’s wound.

  Diarmait had taken a nasty cut to his cheek, close to his mouth, rather than the head injury Finn had feared.

  “There’s your beauty spoiled,” Oisin was telling him laughingly as he wiped away the blood.

  Finn crouched on his heels to inspect the injury, being careful not to bend his back. “Perhaps not,” he told Diarmait. “It isn’t deep.”

  “There’ll be a scar.”

  “Och, there are always scars,” Finn assured the youngsters. “Scars are a warrior’s beauty marks.”

  True to Finn’s words, when the scar healed, it drew up one corner of Diarmait’s mouth in the faintest hint of a mysterious smile. Women ever after would find it irresistible.

  26

  THE VICTORIOUS FÍANNA RAN ROARING TOWARD TARA, waving their weapons aloft and shouting Cormac’s name.

  He met them in the open gateway.

  The Ard Rig, now—and for a white—undisputed High King of the kings of Erin, was splendidly attired and gleaming with gold ornaments. At his shoulder stood his eldest son, a youngster just entering manhood, who rejoiced in the name of Cairbre Mac Cormac. The boy wore almost as much gold as his father and stood as tall, as handsome.

  He had, however, his mother’s eyes. Like Ethni the Proud, he disliked seeing honours go elsewhere. He watched with unspoken jealousy as men and women swarmed forward to praise Finn Mac Cool.

  “Cormac sometimes treats Finn like his own son,” Ethni had said more than once to Cairbre as the boy was growing up. “Watch that he doesn’t get what should be yours.”

  Cairbre was watching now, through narrowed eyes.

  In the light of Finn’s impressive victory, Cormac could hardly be less than gracious, even effusive. Whatever rancour had lain between them must be forgotten. Finn had never betrayed him, he had to admit honestly to himself. Indeed, Finn had come to him and fought for him when he could just as easily have kept the Fíanna at Almhain. and let the Ulaid seize Tara, then sold his services to them. He had made the Fíanna strong enough to be an independent force. And whoever had the Fíanna, had Tara.

  Cairbre watched as Finn was shown to the place of honour second only to the king’s in the hall. Finn sat down carefully, refusing to wince in spite of the pain of torn back muscles. Later he would have the king’s physician, Eogan, look at them. For now, he just wanted to enjoy his triumph. He did not notice the hard stare the king’s oldest son was giving him.

  But Goll did. With only one eye, Goll Mac Morna saw more than many men with two. He edged closer to the young man to take a good look at him, measuring him as he would measure an opponent over his shield. Cairbre had his father’s sharply moulded, aristocratic features and deep-set eyes. There was something a little weak in the shape of his mouth, however; something a little petulant in the jut of his chin.

  Goll concluded Cairbre might be more easily manipulated than Cormac Mac Airt. “It’s a grand victory,” he said aloud in a conversational tone. “It’s a pity Finn claims all the glory for himself, though.”

  Cairbre turned to look at him. “What does that mean?”

  “Och, nothing. He’s always been like that. He’s of Clan Baiscne, you know, and they’re a greedy lot. It Finn has his way, this won’t be remembered as a victory for Cormac at all, but for Finn and his Fíanna. The High King will be lucky if his name is mentioned by the poets.”

  “But the Fíanna is my father’s army!” Cairbre protested.

  Goll allowed himself the slightest sneer, an expression made sinister by his scars. “It’s Finn’s army. Ask your father, he knows. When Clan Morna led the Fíanna, things were different, of course. My men and I always gave our total loyalty to the kingship.

  “If you ever succeed your father as High King, young Cairbre, you might want to keep that in mind. You’d be better served with officers of Clan Morna.”

  Then, before Cairbre could do too much thinking or ask too many questions, Goll changed the subject. The youth could brood on this in private. The seed had been sown. Smiling at Cairbre, Goll enquired, “Are you a good games-player, by the way? I happen to possess the Gold and Silver Chess Set—I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Now that we’re in for a season of peace, apparently, I would enjoy a game or two with you.”

  Cairbre was startled, and then flattered that a man of Goll’s generation was making such an offer. “I would like that myself,” he said.

  Finn Mac Cool had never paid much attention to Cairbre.

  Finn was, even now, smiling at his son Oisin, and Cormac Mac Airt was positively beaming on both of them.

  Cairbre observed this, then stared into his cup. My father is too impressed with Finn, he thought.

  It was only much later, as he lay in his bed too tired to fall asleep, that Goll Mac Morna thought over his conversation with the king’s son and asked himself a question: why did I do that?

  Does the habit of playing games for the sake of playing games never die?

  The celebration lasted for days. Finn graciously accepted the accolades heaped upon him, not once mentioning the recent coolness between himself and Cormac. But there was one thing he never forgot. “You aren’t husband to the High King’s daughter anymore,” Goll had told him.

  The terrible drive to achieve that had characterized Finn’s earlier career had abated with the loss of Sive and the establishment of the Fíanna in its final form. He could have accepted the diminished status implied in Goll’s remark—had it not been for Oisin.

  For Oisin’s sake, Finn wanted everything.

  For Sive’s son.

  There must be no loss of prestige.

  He waited until he knew Cormac had reached the maximum mellowness of mood, with just enough mead in his belly and just enough rich food slowing his thought processes. Then, on the third night of the celebratory feasting, Finn leaned across to the king and said quietly, “Both my contract wives are dead, you know.”

  Cormac frowned. Is he going to start in on me about not attending the funeral games?

  But instead, Finn said, “Such a loss has been terrible for me, of course. I need a new wife, would you not agree?”

  With a sense of relief, Cormac nodded. “I would of course.”

  “An appropriate wife. Someone you would approve of, to enhance the position of your Rígfénnid Fíanna.”

  “Indeed.” Cormac took another drink from his cup and held it up for refilling. “Indeed.”

  “Then I ask for another of your daughters, since we are agreed,” replied Finn Mac Cool with a radiant smile.

  Cormac almost dropped his cup.

  His gesture was so unexpected that the servant pouring the mead poured it down his arm instead.

  Cormac jumped to his feet, shaking his sodden sleeve. Finn continued to sit smiling on his bench. There was a flurry of excitement as servants ran in every direction, finding cloths to mop the king with, bringing more mead. Cormac resumed his seat, but not his serenity.

  “Are you serious?” he demanded of Finn.

  “I am of course. Would I joke about women? Cael Hundred-Killer was our prankster,” Finn added with a touch of sadness in his voice that disconcerted Cormac, recalling yet another lo
ss the commander had suffered. “I do think,” Finn went on, “that since I was married once to the High King’s daughter, I can hardly marry a woman of lower rank now. How would it look? And you do have so many daughters,” he added truthfully.

  Cormac Mac Airt had a well-earned and cherished reputation for wisdom. It was only in combat with Finn Mac Cool that he doubted himself. Finn was surely not as intelligent as a prince of the Milesian race—yet somehow he won. He always won.

  Cormac shook his head, trying to clear it of the golden lustre produced by too much mead. He wanted to think sharply and clearly. But there had been three long days and longer nights of celebrating, celebrations that included the captured officers of the Ulaid, as was traditional. Everyone had drunk and eaten and sung too much, and shouted too much, and enjoyed too much. Thoughts were no longer clear and sharp. Wise arguments and clever rebuttals did not leap to the tongue.

  Cormac found himself trying to remember if Finn had refilled his cup as often as the rest of them.

  “My men have claimed the Ulidian weapons abandoned on the battlefield,” Finn reminded the king in a calm, relentless voice, “but I have asked for no reward for myself. Nothing at all.” The thought lay unspoken on the air between them—I did not have to come and fight for you this time.

  Honour compelled Cormac’s reply. “I shall give you whatever you think appropriate as a reward.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I take it, that means my daughter.”

  “If you have a daughter who is willing to marry me.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  Finn’s smile was as guileless as a child’s. “Surely you have some influence with your daughters, Cormac?”

  How does he do this to me? wondered Cormac Mac Airt.

  By the light of the following day, the king surveyed his unwed daughters. They were a comely lot. Ethni had borne many girl children, but the loveliest of all was Carnait’s daughter, the one called Grania.

  Cormac looked at her, went on, came back to her. She had her mother’s slightly exotic cast of feature, with tilted eyes and a creamy, poreless skin. Carnait had made Cormac happy. Perhaps her daughter would do the same for Finn.