Finn Mac Cool

by Morgan Llywelyn

  He began to suspect that his own men were conspiring against him on Diarmait’s behalf. His fury flared to singe everyone around him. Only toward Oisin did he temper his anger, with an effort.

  His men avoided speaking to him. They proceeded according to his orders, but there was no light in their eyes.

  All along their way, people gave aid to Diarmait and Grania. The poetry of their plight ran ahead of them, winning support in unexpected places. More than once some chieftain’s women so berated him that he at last took horses and went to bring the pair to his own fort to rest for a night or two, until the runaways learned the Fíanna were approaching and would not stay longer lest they put their host in danger.

  That summer, which should have been a battle summer, faded into the russet and gold of autumn, and still the Fíanna had fought no wars in the name of Cormac Mac Airt. They had done nothing but pursue a harried man and woman back and forth across Erin.

  “My father has gone mad,” Oisin said bitterly to Cailte one long, weary day when the wind from the north had begun ripening the last of the sloes.

  “He has.”

  “Will he recover and be himself again?”

  Cailte said sadly, “I cannot tell you. It’s happened to him before, and each time he becomes harder to reach. I suspect he will continue as he is until this dreadful matter of Diarmait and Grania is resolved. Be patient with him, Oisin.”

  But the dreadful matter had not yet run its course. The next day a team of trackers reported to Finn, “In the forest beyond the next ridge is something that looks very like a Fénian hunting booth, the sort of wickerwork shelter we’ve always built for ourselves when needed. There is a wicker palisade around it too, a flimsy thing that would only reassure a woman, never a man.”

  “Diarmait and Grania?”

  “It could be indeed. The scent blowing from the place excites the hounds.”

  Finn Mac Cool bared his teeth in what was once a smile.

  As for a battle, he divided his men with orders to surround the forest. It was one of those dull, dark days that makes light flat and perspective deceptive. As they approached the trees, the rígfénnidi ordered their men to advance soft-footed, breaking no twig. Only the birds were aware of them. Sensing menace, they sat silent and hunched on their branches.

  An eerie quiet descended on the forest.

  By the time the fíans were deployed, it was late in the day. Finn sent his orders around by silent, swift runners: surround the area of the hut and wait until morning.

  Like trees, the men of the Fíanna waited in the forest, each thinking his own thoughts. It was not an easy time.

  Diarmait awoke before dawn. As he did each morning, he turned first to look at Grania, asleep beside him on their bed of moss and leaves. Her face was a pale, featureless oval in the grainy grey light seeping through the cracks of the hut, but he saw it clearly in his mind. She had grown very dear to him.

  He lay listening. Something was wrong. There was dawn rising, but he heard no birds.

  He slipped from the bed and began gathering his weapons, taking care not to awaken the sleeping woman.

  A tiny creak of wickerwork warned him. He went quickly to the doorway and saw the narrow gate in the fence opening. Diarmait had reached it, sword in hand, by the time a lone figure entered.

  The man threw back the hood of his cloak just in time to save his life. “Angus!” Diarmait exclaimed, almost dropping the sword in astonishment.

  His foster father nodded. “I’ve come to help you. Are you aware Finn’s men have you surrounded?”

  A flash of terror shot through Diarmait. He was young and very tired; it was hard to summon courage in the cold grey light of dawn. “Are you certain?”

  “I am certain. I was barely able to slip through their line myself without being seen.”

  “But why did you come here? How did you know?”

  “And did I not oversee the raising of you? Are you not dearer to me than the children of my siring? I felt danger closing in on you and I came, that is all I can tell you.”

  Against his will, tears burned into Diarmait’s eyes. They made him feel even younger and more tired. He brushed them away with an impatient hand, but Angus saw, and it tore his heart.

  “Come away with me now,” he urged. “I think I can get you out of here by the way I got in. There is one place Finn’s men haven’t covered, and—”

  “I won’t run from him,” said Diarmait Mac Donn.

  In that moment the youth was wiped from his face. For the first time, Angus noticed the threads of premature grey in his hair, and lines of strain around mouth and eyes.

  “You must come,” he urged. “Finn means to kill you. That’s what everyone believes.”

  “I won’t run from him any longer. I’ll fight him man to man, and if we escape, I’ll find a place even more isolated than this and build another shelter for us, and wait. Winter is coming. Soon the Fíanna will have to return to Tara for the Samhain Assembly, then go into winter quarters. It’s a rule never broken. Once that happens, we’ll be safe for the winter at least, and perhaps by spring we can have made a more permanent escape.”

  “You cannot possibly defeat him,” Angus said sorrowfully. “He has a large force with him, you have no chance, good as you are. I do not think he’ll fight you man to man, I think he’ll attack you with every warrior he has. You’ll be hacked to bits in front of your woman. Is that what you want?”

  Diarmait gulped. “He wouldn’t.”

  “I think he would,” Angus replied.

  “Then …” The young man hesitated. “Then take Grania away with you now, so she won’t see.”

  “Never!” exclaimed a voice from the doorway.

  Grania stood there, dishevelled from sleep. Her face was puffy and her eyes swollen, but by now she was always lovely to Diarmait. “I won’t leave you,” she told him, hurrying into the protection of his arms.

  “You must.” He bowed his head to touch his lips to her hair. But he kept his eyes locked with the eyes of Angus. Then, silently, he mouthed, “Take her.”

  Suddenly he shoved her away from him with all his strength. Angus caught her and enveloped her in his cloak before she had time to struggle. He thrust a wad of fabric into her mouth and dragged her bodily through the gateway.

  She kicked and tried to scream, but even in his middle years, Angus of the Boyne was a powerful man. He held her while Diarmait took thongs from his neck bag, and the two of them trussed the struggling woman like a deer in the thick cloak. Then Angus slung her over his shoulder with a grunt, cast sad eyes on his foster son one last time, and set off, back the way he had come.

  He knew it was all he could do for Diarmait.

  He took his captive, who fought him all the way, to a little valley beyond the forest. There he waited with a heavy heart, knowing the wind would bring him the sounds of battle. He would not go any farther until he knew if Diarmait had, somehow, survived.

  At the same time, Finn and his men were closing in on the hut in the forest.

  “I want my most trusted rígfénnidi with me,” he decided. “Cailte, you. And you, Goll. Oisin. Gonna of Clan Navin. Madan Bent-Neck. And myself. We six will stand at six points around the hut, so no matter which way he tries to run, one of us can strike him.”

  Oisin demurred. “You can’t ask this of me, Fathel. He’s my best friend.”

  Finn’s eyes were like chips of flint. “I’m Rígfénnid Fíanna. Prove your loyalty now. Do you understand what’s brought Diarmait to this? Lack of loyalty to his commander. Now, prove yours.” His face was as implacable as his voice.

  Oisin glanced toward Cailte. “You’d better do as he orders,” the thin man said quietly.

  They took their place. At a signal from Finn, his men laid hands on the flimsy wicker palisade and ripped it away, leaving the similarly constructed hut unprotected.

  From inside, the sound was like ripping skin. Diarmait braced himself, shortsword in one hand, shield on arm. “
Who’s there?” he called, forcing his voice to remain steady.

  Before Finn could answer, Oisin spoke up. “Oisin Mac Finn of Clan Baiscne. Come out under my protection. Even my own father will not hurt you then.”

  Finn cast a furious glance at his son.

  But Diarmait called, “I dare not. Who else is there?”

  To Finn’s great anger, Cailte spoke next. “Cailte Mac Ronan. I add my protection to that of Oisin.”

  Oisin and Cailte. Diarmait began thinking there was just a ray of hope. “Who else?”

  “Goll Mac Morna,” came the answer in a husky voice.

  “Madan Bent-Neck.”

  “Gonna of Clan Navin.”

  “Clan Navin have never been friends of mine,” Diarmait replied. “Who else is there?”

  “The Rígfénnid Fíanna,” said a voice.

  Diarmait closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed hard. Four who might not be quick to strike the fatal blow, and two who would. One of them Finn Mac Cool.

  His fear was so total, so terrible, he knew only one defense against it. Giving a cry of mortal terror, he burst through the wall, rather than the doorway, of the wickerwork hut, attacking the nearest man with all his strength.

  The nearest man was Oisin, who fell back before he could stop himself.

  There was a wild flurry of flashing sword. Finn had been on the other side of the hut. By the time he ran around it, Diarmait Mac Donn was gone.

  Finn’s bellow of fury brought the rest of his men flooding in, almost stumbling over one another, but too late. Their prey eluded them, following the route Angus had taken.

  Finn unleashed his rage on everyone … but Oisin. When he sought to club Oisin with a mad fist, the young man looked fearlessly back at him out of Sive’s face, and Finn’s arm dropped to his side. A great sob was wrenched from him and he ran from them. going deep into the woods while the rest of his men hunted, desultorily, for the vanished Diarmait.

  Finn raged through the forest like a wild beast. In his mind—in the clouded, howling, aching emptiness that filled his mind—he was dimly aware of the goads that drove him.

  Duty. Obligation. Both willingly accepted at one time. Both burdens beyond bearing now.

  His duty to the Fíanna to punish members who broke the law.

  His obligation to his father to at last take revenge for his murder.

  In organizing the army to his pattern, it had been Finn himself who appointed the Rígfénnid Fíanna as the ultimate disciplinarian. And it had been Finn who, sometime over the long years, had unconsciously accepted the fact that the matter of Cuhal’s killing must not go unresolved.

  Goll had been one of those who let Diarmait escape.

  Goll, Goll, Goll!

  Meanwhile, Diarmait, running for his life in spite of all his courageous intentions, eventually caught up with Angus and Grania. Their relief knew no bounds. But they had no time to celebrate. Driven by the sure knowledge that Finn would be after them again, they provisioned themselves as best they could and set off once more, seeking an even more secluded hideaway where the pair could subsist through the coming winter. Angus did not urge them to return home with him. “Finn sends men to my stronghold every so often, just to make certain you aren’t there,” he said. “It would be the least safe place for you now.”

  Finn ordered his men on a great sweep of the region, but Erin was a land of hidden glens and wild mountains and deep forests, and even the full force of the Fíanna would not have been enough to search all of them.

  But Finn did not have the full force of the Fíanna

  After the incident at the hut, he did not speak to Goll Mac Morna, nor to Madan Bent-Neck. He stared through them as if they did not exist and no orders were issued to them. Their fíans were not included in any arrangements he made.

  At last Madan apologized to him. But Goll did not. Goll treated Finn in kind, keeping his men with the body of the Fíanna only out of his older loyalty to the army and the kingship, but disregarding the commander.

  It was a situation that could not last, and both Finn and Goll knew it.

  It was different with Cailte. Somehow Finn could not quite bring himself to ostracize the thin man, though they stayed warily out of reach of one another.

  Oisin was another matter again. “My father treats me as he did before,” he said to Cailte. “He pretends nothing happened. Yet he’s furious with the rest of you, though it was I who let Diarmait slip away. Why should I be the only one forgiven?”

  “You aren’t forgiven,” Cailte told him. “It’s just the fact that you have your mother’s face, I think. Finn can’t take out his anger on you, so he takes it out on the rest of us.”

  But Goll Mac Morna was the principal target. Unfinished business. After Diarmait, Finn silently vowed, Goll.

  They ran out of time that autumn. Even Finn in his madness would not disregard the imperative to return to Tara for the Samhain Assembly.

  There he reported to Cormac, “We’ve spent the summer seeking your daughter and the man who stole her. Once we almost had them, but at the last moment they got away. Next summer, however …”

  Cormac gave his Rígfénnid Fíanna a hard and searching look. Finn seemed to have aged decades that summer. His face was deeply seamed, his eyes sunken in his head.

  “Let them go, Finn,” Cormac said gently.

  “I cannot.”

  “I have other daughters.”

  “I took her as wife. She betrayed me. And Donn’s son betrayed his oath to me. There is nothing more sacred than an oath, nothing!”

  The years had taught Cormac Mac Airt a great deal about compassion. “Did you never break an oath, Finn?” he enquired. “Are you not as human as the rest of us?”

  Finn stared at him blankly. “I am of the Tuatha Dé Danann,” he said.

  “If I accept that, I must at least remind you your father was human, a Fir Bolg.”

  “I am obligated to be better than my father,” Finn replied.

  There was no talking to him. Cormac was greatly pained by the change in Finn, but the king’s son Cairbre, who had never liked Finn, had less mercy. He began openly criticizing the commander of the Fíanna and saying to his friends, when he had drunk too much, that once he was Ard Ríg, he would have a different leader for his army.

  Someone from Clean Morna, perhaps.

  Inevitably, someone told Finn what young Cairbre was saying.

  Because he had no one else, Finn spoke of the matter to Cailte. “Goll Mac Morna never stops. He’s been whispering and promising, and he’s convinced Cairbre that Clan Baiscne is no good and Clan Morna deserves command of the Fíanna. He wants my position for himself again.”

  “He doesn’t Finn. Even Goll must how to the years. He’s far too old and he knows it.”

  “For his kinsmen, then. For the line that murdered my father. It never stops, does it? It goes on and on.”

  “You stopped it when you swore us all not to seek personal revenge.” Cailte reminded him.

  “Did I? Then that was a mistake,” Finn said flatly.

  Cailte tried to reach him with calm and reasonable words, but Finn went deeper and deeper inside himself to a place no one seemed able to reach, that clouded and howling place where he dwelt alone now, living only for vengeance.

  On the first day of summer the next year, the hunt for Diarmait and Grania was resumed.

  All winter the bards had told their tale in the great halls, and story-spinners had repeated their own versions in humble dwellings. The sympathies of most of Erin were with the fugitives by now. Wherever they fled, there was always someone to warn them and hide them or help them on their way.

  Wherever they went, Finn Mac Cool followed.

  Fewer of the Fíanna were with him. The number whom he felt he could trust in the situation had dwindled drastically. He tried to take only. those from outlying territories who had not known Diarmait personally, leaving Goll and Madan and Cailte, and even Oisin, to conduct the usual battle summer whi
le he pursued Diarmait with a handful of fíans.

  Late in bilberry season, he caught up with them again.

  There had been many days of unrelenting rain, making tracking difficult. Almost by accident, Finn and his men stumbles across a small hut of wattle and daub, once long abandoned, but now reoccupied. Someone spotted a woman who fit Grania’s description trying in vain to dry clothing in front of a fire beside the hut.

  “We have them now,” Finn said.

  Again he ordered his men to surround the area. Rut this time he went forward alone. He would not make the mistake of taking someone who might betray him at a critical moment.

  I will do what has to be done myself, he vowed.

  His met let him go gladly. None of them, even the most demoted, wanted to be remembered by the poets as the claver of Diarmait Mac Donn

  Finn approached the hut through a driving rain, lances of silver water beating against his uncovered head. He did not feel them. He felt nothing. He put one foot after the other and went forward, numb to all but his impending victor.

  Drawing near the hut, he found that it stood alone at the edge of a strip of trees. It was otherwise surrounded by meadowland. There was no easy way to approach it without being seen and warning Diarmait. if he was standing watch.

  But there were the few trees …

  Finn had spent a childhood in the wild places. Tree climbing was a skill never forgotten. Selecting a likely specimen that stood tall enough to give a view down onto the hut, he spat on his hands, jumped up to catch the lowest branch, and began climbing.

  How strange that something once so easy should be so hard! He had to try several times before he was able to drag himself onto the limb he had chosen and look down. His heart was hammering violently …

  … as he peered through a broken patch of roof directly into the chamber of Diarmait and Grania.

  Ignoring the rain, or perhaps to distract themselves from it, they had made a soft bed against the far wall opposite the hole in the roof, and were locked in each other’s arms.

  Finn stared.

  “Diarmait,” Grania murmured, running her hands through his hair. It was heavily streaked with grey now, as if denying his youth. She did not feel young herself, not anymore. Youth had been left behind on some mountaintop or in some windswept pass or at a lovely ford.