Even Oisin went hunting with Finn from time to time. But he did not ride at his father’s side on such occasions, or sit next to him by the campfne. He always found someone else to talk to and be with.
He might have been a stranger rather than the son of Finn Mac Cool.
Brooding behind his eyes, Finn observed, and spoke of it in his head to Sive.
He hates me for what I did to Diarmait. But I really did nothing to him, no lasting damage. And look what he has now!
Indeed.
Look what he has now.
There were times when Finn could not help brooding over Diarmait’s success in spite of the dishonour he had committed. It seemed to negate the very concept of honour.
Early one autumn, Cuarag purchased a new pair of dogs for Finn, a sturdy, broad-shouldered, thick-chested pair that had been bred in the land of the Britons and could, it was claimed, bring down the largest boar between them.
“They aren’t as handsome as our staghounds,” Cuarag apologized to Finn, “but if they’re half as good with boar as they’re reputed to be, it would be a treat to watch them in action.”
Before Finn had a chance to try out the new boarhounds, a messenger from Tara brought word from the High King.
“Grania and Diarmait wish to put aside old enmities and make things smooth again,” the messenger reported, “and they have invited both Cormac Mac Airt and yourself to attend a great feast at their stronghold in Ceshcorran. The king sends me to inform you, and to ask you and your officers to travel there with him.”
Finn started to answer, then became aware of Oisin’s eyes on him, watching. Such large, dark eyes beneath a crop of golden curls.
“I’ll go of course. Return to Cormac and tell him we are preparing,” Finn said.
“Good,” Oisin said. It was not much, but it was a small thawing, and Finn essayed a small smile at his son. Oisin looked away at that moment, however—perhaps unintentionally.
The journey west to Ceshcorran was a long one, allowing considerable time for speculation. Finn and Cormac rode side by side. “I suspect the invitation was initiated by Grania,” Cormac said. “That’s the sort of thing women do, trying to make peace.”
Finn’s brooding eyes stared over his horse’s pricked ears, watching the road ahead. “Perhaps the idea began with Diarmait, who might be afraid I haven’t forgiven him after all. He was always clever, was Diarmait.”
Cormac shot a look at the Rígfénnid Fíanna. “Are you saying you haven’t forgiven him?”
“I’m saying he always was clever,” Finn replied calmly.
When they at last reached the fort Diarmait had named Rath Grania in honour of his wife, they learned that she indeed had been the instigator. Grania, older, plumper, ran forward eagerly to throw her arms around Cormac’s neck and shower the side of his face with kisses. Then she drew back to look at him. “But you’ve gone entirely grey!” she protested.
Then her eyes slid sideways toward Finn, who sat unmoving on his horse. The years had not changed him since last she saw him. Finn had reached an apparent age that, thanks to his bone structure, he would retain until he died. He would never look less than strong.
Diarmait, on the other hand, had grown thin with the passage of time, and fretful under the continuing yoke of exiled domesticity. They had few visitors at Rath Grania. Local chieftains were wary of incurring Finn’s anger by being too friendly with Diarmait Mac Donn.
So he was quite fulsome in his welcome to the Fíanna, and to Oisin in particular. The two linked arms and went swinging off long-strided together, talking as they had in the old days.
Grania was left to guide her father, Firm, and the other officers into the fort and make them welcome. “I did so want to see the pair of you together under my own roof,” she told them, “and to know there was no anger left among us.”
Cormac, who was already knee-deep in grandchildren, smiled fatuously. “And how could I be angry with you?” he asked Grania fondly.
“And you, Finn?” she enquired, looking toward the white-haired man who was watching her silently, his thoughts hidden behind his eyes. “Have you any anger left toward me?”
She licked her lips. She smiled. Grania could never bear to think any man could resist her.
She remembered Finn staring down at her through the hole in the roof of the hut, and she thought, with a guilty thrill of delight, he still wants me! I know he does!
“I was never angry with you,” he said.
She tried to interpret the inflection of his voice, but could not. Finn kept his words as expressionless as his face. Whatever Grania found in either, she imagined.
She had had years to perfect her imagination, years in exile with Diarmait Mac Donn, years far away from the luxury and excitement of Tara.
To entertain the king and the Rígfénnid Fíanna, she and Diarmait had made the most elaborate preparations possible. But both men had brought sizable retinues. Food for feasting ran out all too soon.
“I brought some new boarhounds with me,” Finn announced. “Who would like to go out with me tomorrow and give them a run, see if we make a kill?” He made it an invitation to all present.
There was a unanimous male shout. Cormac, whose years lay like frost in his bones by now, said nothing, but even his eyes gleamed just a little at the prospect, and he was almost tempted.
That night in their bed, however, Grania pressed against Diarmait and urged, “Don’t go hunting tomorrow with Finn.”
“Why not? It’s glad I am that he’s willing to have me. It tells me the old trouble is behind us.”
“Just don’t go.” But she could not tell him why.
Suddenly she felt guilty for having flirted, however mildly, with Finn. Diarmait had thrown away everything he had for her sake and risked his life; there was no way she could equal such a gift. She snuggled loyally against him and let her hand slide down his belly, tempting him with warm fingers. “Don’t go,” she repeated softly. “Stay here with me. Let the others hunt.”
She did not dare tell him she was afraid for him. That would have challenged his maleness and driven him to join Finn in pursuit of the boar. But she was afraid, though she could not say why.
The hunting party set off at dawn, riding out on the clarion call of Cuarag’s horn. The boarhounds were fresh and overeager. They had to be restrained with collars around their necks and leads, and they almost pulled the arms out of the sockets of Cuarag’s assistant huntsmen.
The other hounds followed, and were followed in turn by Finn, Oisin, and the other rígfénnid, on horseback.
Diarmait stood in the gateway and watched them go, then turned back toward Grania with a brave, false smile. “I don’t much care for hunting anyway,” he lied.
She saw the lie in his eyes.
He hesitated, torn, until the hunting party disappeared behind the nearest hill.
They rode for quite some time, giving the boarhounds an opportunity to cast back and forth in search of a scent. Like Grania. Finn found himself invaded by a growing gloom. The sun was bright and the wind off the sea was tangy with salt, but he was nagged by a persistent melancholy. Perhaps seeing Grania was the cause.
He tried to push her out of his mind. But the more he tried to grapple with his thoughts, the more unbidden thoughts rushed in to join the chaos.
A low bank of dark clouds materialized on the western horizon. As he rode, Finn stared at it, deaf to the sound of the hounds and the horn and the conversation of his companions.
He drew rein abruptly. Cailte, following close behind, signalled for the others to halt. The huntsmen and the hounds went on without them.
Keeping his eyes on the dark clouds, Finn began to recite.
Woman …
He paused, shook his head, began again.
Two things have overcome me. A vision of shapes appeared to me, and took my strength and vision.
Now I see other visions. A man with shorn hair will come to us and tell us of wonders, but will not harm
us.
Other foreigners will also come.
Listen to the prophecy of Finn.
He paused again, and quite unconsciously put his thumb into his mouth.
Oisin watched his father with wide eyes.
When Finn removed the thumb, he said,
Listen to the prophecy of Finn.
Grey-faced foreigners will come, and myself and the Fíanna not here to drive them out.
The foreigners’ gardens will flourish here, and many a tree of their planting.
Kings will advance and break battle, and a High King will leave the battlefield red with blood.
Men from the east and the west, the north and the south, will struggle against the foreigners.
But I shall not be here to lead them.
I am Fionn son of Cuhal, and this is my prophecy.
He fell silent, his eyes still staring into the west. His men shifted uncomfortably on their horses’ backs and looked at one another.
“That doesn’t even sound like one of Finn’s poems,” Red Ridge said.
Blamec agreed. “When I was first with him, his poems were about blackbirds and red deer and wild geese and foaming waterfalls.”
“Now,” said Fergus Honey-Tongue portentiously, “he has the prophetic gift of the druid. Remember that he carries the blood of the Sídhe.”
Oisin swung his eyes toward Fergus. He frowned, unsure of what to believe.
But before he could decide, the voice of the hounds came clearly to them. They had picked up the trail of a boar and were in hot pursuit. Even Finn was startled out of his reverie, and they all set off at a gallop.
As the horses thundered up a rocky incline, Oisin found himself riding knee to knee with his father. The younger man’s blood was running hot and high, infected with the excitement of the hunt. Without intending to, he grinned at his father.
Finn’s answering grin was so radiant Oisin could not help challenging gaily, “I’ll race you to the boar!”
“Done!” cried Finn Mac Cool.
He clamped his legs on his horse’s sides with such force the animal leaped to the front and held the advantage. Oisin did his best but could not catch up. Finn raced away from the others and soon disappeared over the crest of a hill.
Meanwhile, Diarmait Mac Donn had succumbed to temptation. Giving a half-apologetic and rather sheepish smile to Grania, accompanied by a hasty hug, he had gathered his weapons and set off after the hunt himself.
Grania stood in the gateway, watching him go.
Her stomach clenched into a hard knot.
Diarmait knew the land as the others did not. Guided by the sound of the hounds, he took a shortcut through a narrow valley that led, eventually, to the flanks of Gulban’s Mountain. There he found the boarhounds, which had outrun their keepers once the leads were slipped from them.
And there he also found Finn Mac Cool.
As Diarmait rode up, Finn warned him back with an impatient gesture. “He’s just in there,” he said, pointing toward a stand of hazel. “The hounds drove him to cover, but it’s not enough to protect him and he knows it. He’ll come charging out soon enough.”
Diarmait slid from his horse. “I’ll face him on foot,” he boasted.
“You’ll do no such thing. He’s my boar!”
Diarmait tensed, an inward clenching that reflected itself in fist and jaw. “I have the hunting of this territory,” he said.
Finn glared at the younger man, the man who had taken his wife. “It’s my boar,” lie repeated, deadly quiet. “Don’t try to take this from me.”
The hounds bayed their warning, but the boar was very fast. It broke from cover and charged toward the nearest figure with the blind rage of its kind, a murderous attack that could not be deflected.
“Behind you!” Finn roared at Diarmait. But even as Diarmait was turning around and hefting his javelin, the boar was upon him.
The hounds sprang upon the creature, trying to pierce its thick, leathery hide with their fangs, but it ignored them. It flung itself at Diarmait with a grunting squeal, seeking his body with its tusks. He tried to dance out of the way but felt the great curving, yellow tusks rip into his lower belly.
Cursing at his terrified horse, who was trying to run backward out of reach, Finn slid to the ground. His great sword in its sheath banged against his leg, almost tripping him as he sought to draw it and attack the boar. There was a moment of frenzied confusion, with a blade flashing and the animal screaming and a man screaming too, high, terrible sounds that rang through the clear air.
But it was Diarmait’s shortsword that somehow found its way into the boar’s throat, inflicting a fatal wound.
And it was the tusks of the boar that tore out Diarmait’s guts.
31
THE BOAR WAS ON THE GROUND, THE BOARHOUNDS WORRYING it while red froth bubbled from its mouth and nostrils. Finn drove the hounds back and finished killing the animal with a powerful blow from Son of the Waves. Then he dropped to his knees beside the crumpled body of Diarmait.
One glance told him the damage was mortal. The younger man’s intestines lay glistening on the bloody earth like twisted grey snakes.
Finn seized them in his two hands and tried irrationally to stuff them back into the gaping belly wound, but he stopped when Diarmait groaned in agony.
He put his face close to Diarmait’s. “What can I do for you? Tell me something I can do for you!”
The dying man opened his eyes to find the world had shrunk to a dim grey whirlpool with Finn Mac Cool’s face at its vortex, slowly receding.
“Water,” Diarmait gasped.
Finn scrambled to his feet and ran in search of water. He had nothing on him to carry it in; he did not know where it might be found, but water had become the single imperative. His breath sobbed in his throat.
He burst through a tangle of scrubby undergrowth to find Oisin sitting on his horse, staring down at him. “What happened?” his son wanted to know. “There’s blood on you!”
“Diarmait’s,” Finn replied distractedly. “Which way to water? I must find water.”
“Diarmait! Where?” Oisin leaped from his horse and grabbed Finn’s arm in iron fingers. “Where? What have you done to him?”
“I’ve done nothing, I have to get water—”
“Take me to him,” Oisin grated. He forced Finn to lead him back to where Diarmait lay.
At the sight of his friend on the ground, Oisin gave a cry of pain. “So you’ve finally done it!” he cried at his father. “You finally achieved what you failed to do years ago!”
“Not me,” Finn protested. “It was the boar—”
“Water,” came Diarmait’s hoarse gasp. They both turned to him. “Please … water …”
Oisin’s face was terrible to behold as he shouted at Finn, “Get him water, then! Bring it back to him in your two hands! You claim to be of the Tuatha Dé Danann, you claim to be magical. Well then, use your magic to heal the damage you’ve done this good man! There’s a stream not a spear’s throw from here.” He pointed the way he had come. “So bring water!”
Finn forced his legs to run once more. He came to the stream soon enough and knelt beside it, filling his cupped hands. Then he ran back. But as he ran, the water, against his will, trickled through his fingers.
By the time he reached Diarmait and knelt beside him, his hands were empty. He held only moist fingers to the dying man’s mouth. Diarmait’s lips almost touched them … then he gave a soft sigh and seemed to grow smaller.
Finn and Oisin looked at each other across his dead body.
“I did not want his death,” Finn said, willing his son to believe him.
“Did you not? But it was very convenient, wasn’t it, the two of you here alone, no witnesses—”
“Look there, there lies the boar that killed him!”
“His guts could have been torn out by any weapon,” Oisin replied. “Tusks or a blade. Who’s to know?”
“I know. I don’t lie!”
“Do you not? I’ve heard the stories you tell!”
They were shouting at each other. Then Oisin broke. He dropped down beside Diarmait and gathered the dead man’s head in his arms, cradling it against his breast and weeping.
That was how the rest of the hunting party found them.
“The boar killed him,” Finn said dully. He would not look at Diarmait and Oisin, nor at anyone else, until Cailte stood beside him. Then he turned agonized eyes on the thin man. “The boar killed him!”
“I know, Finn.”
“You believe me?”
“I do of course.”
Finn drew a deep breath. “We’ll have to take him back to … to Grania. I hope she’ll believe me.”
“Does it matter?” Cailte asked.
Finn was surprised at the question. “It does, very much. My own son somehow does not seem to believe anything I say.”
They carried Diarmait Mac Donn back to Rath Grania across the back of a horse, his legs dangling on one side and his arms on the other. It was not a noble carrying, but at least he was on a princely horse—Oisin’s own.
Oisin insisted on leading the animal himself. When the horse shied from the smell of death and excrement and would not let them put the body on it, Oisin tore a strip from his own tunic and bound it over the animal’s eyes, blinding it to make it docile.
It was a sombre party that returned to Diarmait’s fort. Grania met them at the gate as if she had been waiting for them. Her small children clustered about her, staring with wide eyes at the still body, the dangling limbs protruding from beneath a covering cloak.
“What happened?” she asked in a whisper.
“The boar killed him,” Finn said. “But he killed the boar.”
“Where is it?”
“We didn’t bring it back. We didn’t think you would want it,” Cailte told her gently.
She went to the horse and felt beneath the cloak for Diarmait’s dead face. “His skin is not yet cold,” she said, wondering. With a sudden impulse, she threw back the cloak and pressed her mouth to the dead mouth.
Finn Mac Cool Page 47
