Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  They were all there, of course. All the servants, dressed in their best and looking excited; all the footmen and the chambermaids and the cooks and the scullions. The ollam in their bird-feather cloaks, carefully assembled into order by Sean; and the filid, bright-eyed and gregarious. Eochaid thought suspiciously that several of the filid were a little too bright-eyed and a little too gregarious, and supposed they had been drinking poteen down in the village. Standing smartly correct were the King’s Own Guard and the Captains and the sentinels, and close by were the ladies of the Court, cloaked and hooded, but doubtless silk-clad underneath, because everyone knew how Beltane would end. Mab stood a little apart, and Eochaid thought crossly that she was eyeing the King’s Guard, and then thought that it was probably a bit unfair of him, because it would have been truer to say that the Guard were eyeing Mab.

  The families of the Bloodline stood together, as tradition required, a little apart from the rest, and Eochaid paused and looked at them, because grouped like that, ceremoniously clad, there was a strength and an inhuman beauty about them. Conaire of the Eagles. Bolg of the Beavers. Bricriu of the Foxes, looking just the smallest bit out of breath as if he had only just arrived. And the others: a cousin of Cait Fian of the Wild Panthers, there to represent the people of Gallan; CuChulainn of the Chariot Horses; Oscar of the Deer. The twins, Midir and Etain of the White Swans. A tiny voice in Eochaid’s head said, “And Cormac of the Wolves?” He frowned, remembered about looking benevolently tolerant, and then descended the stair.

  There was the usual friendly scuffle for places, and the usual argument about the correct sequence of the procession, and which rooms should be visited in which order. The Councillors wanted to begin at the top and work down, but the servants — whom Eochaid considered were forgetting their place today — were all for starting in the sculleries and moving up to the grand bedchambers.

  Conaire, who had spent the afternoon in company with a few friends and a puncheon or two of wine, was in favour of dealing with the bedchamers before anywhere else. “Naturally,” said Bricriu sarcastically, but Sean the Storyteller, who had been so busy calming down Conaire and Bolg earlier that he had missed the midday meal, wanted to visit the sculleries before anywhere else. They might find any number of lights left irreligiously burning there, he said cunningly. To which Conaire, no respecter of a man’s stomach, retorted: rubbish, didn’t they all of them know it was the leftover venison Sean was interested in, and him as fat as seven pigs. Sean, who was not in the least fat, but who was regretting having missed the venison, scowled and said: well of course, when it came to it, it was His Majesty’s decision anyway.

  Several of the older Councillors shuffled uncomfortably and hoped that the stool rooms could be visited before they set out for the Plain because they’d been standing about for an hour as it was.

  Eventually, Eochaid, who wished people would not continually look to him to make decisions, said that he could not see that the order mattered, but they would start at the top and work downwards. To himself he thought the sooner they got it all over with the better, but the Councillors nodded and looked pleased, and told each other how good it was to see the King keeping to the old ways. To start at the top and work downwards, dousing lights as you went, was how it was always done. Nobody mentioned the never-to-be-forgotten Beltane when Cormac, Conaire and Cait Fian had paid a number of the village girls to hide in the main bedchambers, one to each room, and lie invitingly on the bed, quite naked, with lighted candles stuck in the most extraordinary parts of their anatomy for the Court to ceremonially quench. At least they might be sure that nothing like that would greet them any longer, said the older members of the Court, and did not listen when the younger ones said it was a shame.

  And so the Court walked in solemn procession through the great Palace, dousing every light that was found, chanting one of the old traditional songs. Eochaid Bres sang as well, in his deep rumbling baritone, forgetting the second verse and coming in with the chorus at the wrong time, and being shushed by people at the front who did not realise that it was the King.

  “His Majesty’s got it wrong again,” said Bolg sighing, and then turned to frown at Conaire who had started up a rival and rather rude version of the Chant, written by Sean many years ago under the influence of wine and the Wolfking. Eochaid continued quite happily with singing the wrong verse, but as he was at the back, it did not matter too much, and anyway it covered up Conaire’s rude version.

  As the last light was quenched (the little back scullery it had been, where vegetables were prepared) and Phineas closed the great West Gate with a flourish and a clanking of keys, Eochaid Bres thought that really it had all gone off quite well. Everyone had turned up, which was something to be thankful for, because you got years when people skulked off to the village to drink poteen, which was insulting, or went off to join the Druids’ procession, which was confusing for everyone else. Say what you liked, it was a bit of an insult to the High King when people did either of those things.

  But everyone was here tonight, thought Eochaid, pleased with his Court, grateful to his mother who was demurely garbed and appeared to be behaving quite well. Of course she had lured the young traveller to her bed last night. Eochaid would rather not have known about it, but it was not the sort of thing that could be kept secret at Tara, and in any case, he had heard two of the sentries talking about it earlier on. Probably she was tired after such a night; she was getting on a bit after all. And probably he was tired as well. Eochaid knew the tales they told about his mother; he did not altogether believe them, but he thought that if even half of them were true, the young man ought to be good only for lying down quietly in a darkened room somewhere. It was all that Eochaid Bres would have been good for after that sort of a night. Anyway, the traveller Flynn did not seem to be anywhere in the procession. Doubtless he was not far away.

  *

  Flynn was not precisely frightened, but he was becoming worried. Bricriu had been perfectly courteous, he had even been a little obsequious, which Flynn did not care for, but the invitation had been framed in a flattering way.

  “Some of the pre-rituals,” said Bricriu. “You will not have witnessed them before, for they are unique to Tara. But for a man of perception, they are extremely interesting. It would be a pity for you to miss them. And the Druids are a fascinating people. I have particularly requested permission to take you to their settlement before the procession sets out from Tara.” He smiled, and for a second, the unmistakable fox’s mask showed on his face. “Once penetrated,” said Bricriu, “the Druidic settlement often yields up many things.”

  Flynn’s interest was at once caught; he thought it would be churlish to refuse such a polite and pleasant invitation, and he was rather curious about the Druids and the Beltane rituals. He thought as well that once outside the Palace he might be able to find Portan; perhaps the Druids might even be able to tell him a little more about the sidh. Flynn could not believe and refused to believe that there was no escape from them. He thought that if he once accepted that Amairgen was lost for good, he would surely be in despair. It occurred to him to wonder whether he was being foolish, whether he was clinging to false hope, but he thought he could not bear to count Amairgen as lost.

  And so he went with Bricriu, just the two of them walking sedately out of Tara. Flynn was reassured; he thought, outside at last! and was ashamed of his earlier suspicions. Of course he had not been kept prisoner by these charming clever people. Of course he had been free to go at any time he chose. The guards had not turned a hair as they walked through the West Gate; the one who had explained to Flynn about it being dangerous to leave the Palace on Beltane Even, even gave them some kind of salute, which Bricriu returned.

  They made not directly for the Plain, but for some kind of village set a little apart from everything else, surrounded by a fold of hillside. “For,” said Bricriu, “the Druids greatly value their privacy.”

  It was a longer walk than Flynn had expected. “
It will take perhaps half an hour,” said Bricriu. “That will not concern you?”

  “Not in the least,” said Flynn, and Bricriu sighed and remembered that the boy had spent the night in Mab’s bed, and wished he also could contemplate the walk to the Druids’ settlement without blanching.

  It felt strange to Flynn and somehow lonely to be crossing terrain which was both familiar and alien. He knew a great feeling of recognition as they skirted the hill which led to the Plain of the Fál; he wondered whether it could really be possible that this was the place he had known as Tara’s Hill. Would the land not have altered beyond recognition? But he thought that it was in truth the Tara’s Hill he had known, and he felt a twinge of fear, for surely it was against nature to be straddling two worlds in this way? He knew an ache for the much-loved farmhouse with the latticed windows and the low ceilings and the scent of old seasoned beams and polished oak floors, and he thought with anguish that he had lost Amairgen and he had lost Portan, and he was no nearer to finding Joanna. A wave of helplessness washed over him, and he thought: what am I doing here, waiting for the commencement of some pagan ritual that was long forgotten before I was born? What am I doing on a long-dead hillside with this sly half-human creature who is looking at me from the corners of his eyes in a way that I do not trust. He remembered again Bricriu’s ancestry — Bricriu the Fox — and he remembered that foxes were artful, cunning, out for themselves. Should he brush off Bricriu’s hand, which had been laid across his arm earlier as if Bricriu needed assistance across the hillside? Assistance my boots! thought Flynn. He’s making sure I don’t run away! Shall I make a run for it? I could be free, out of his sight into the forest.

  Yes, and then what? And then nothing. It would be much better to stay, thought Flynn, although he was not entirely sure of this. But the Druids were ahead of them, and the Druids were learned men who knew the world’s secrets. They might be able to help him.

  I shall stay long enough to meet them, thought Flynn, but on another level, his mind was furiously working out plans for an escape.

  And then they crested the fold of the hillside which protected the Druids’ settlement, and at the sight that met his eyes Flynn forgot all other considerations.

  *

  It was told by later ages, that the ancient and learned Druids of Ireland were no better than eccentric poets, dilettante sorcerers, bands of men who eschewed the world for varying reasons, or elected to live apart from the rest of the community. Certainly, their activities were surrounded by a cloak of the utmost secrecy, and equally certainly, no one had ever dared offend them, although it is possible, and even probable, that they themselves offended many.

  Flynn did not know anything about them, other than odd snippets and tag-ends of conversation he had picked up during his brief sojourn inside the Bright Palace. But he had received the vague impression that they were rather scholarly, rather absent-minded people; unsocial rather than antisocial, given to studying ancient, slightly ephemeral matters. He had thought of them as visionaries of some kind, concerned with incorporeal things. This, of course, was precisely what Bricriu, his plans laid, had wished him to think.

  The Druids of Tara, under the Wolfkings and later under the first Lionking, were, in fact, very much concerned with corporeal things. They were very much concerned with Flynn.

  It was not immediately apparent. As Flynn and Bricriu crested the little ridge of hill and walked slowly down to the huddle of stone buildings, they were accorded a quiet, courteous welcome. There was no reason for Flynn to suddenly remember Phineas the Gatekeeper’s warning when he and Amairgen had first entered Tara: “Quite polite he’ll be,” Phineas had said. “The Lions are always polite before they eat you.”

  Were the Druids also polite before they ate you? This is absolutely ridiculous said Flynn to himself, but still that little core of unease persisted, and he looked about him for some means of escape.

  It was difficult to see where escape might lie. The settlement consisted of low, rather austere houses, four-square and small-windowed; entirely undecorated and unadorned, as if the Druids sought only to shelter themselves from the worst of the elements, and had no time for and no interest in making their abodes attractive. There was a central area which was clearly used for communal fire, and there was some kind of temple set a little way up the hillside, with stone pillars and archways and a great marble altar. I won’t look at the altar, thought Flynn, but he did look at it.

  With a feeling of déjà vu he remembered another night in another world, when he had been welcomed into the centre of a group of hooded and cloaked men on a dark hillside. But the Keepers of the Secret had been friendly; the Druids of Tara seemed friendly enough, but their eyes were calculating, watchful, as if they might be thinking: oh yes, this one will suit our purpose very nicely.

  Behind them, dominating the settlement, was the immense figure of the Wicker Giant. “A particularly good creation this year,” said one of them, and Flynn, his senses by now abnormally alert, fastened upon the word creation, and remembered all the stories of all the brilliant insane people down the ages who believed themselves to have created human life. Just supposing …

  And then the Druid said, rather dismissively, “Of course, the imprisoned animals give it a spurious air of life,” and Flynn relaxed. He stood for a moment, looking at the Wicker Giant, thinking that he had known what to expect — everyone at the Court had described it to him — but thinking as well that none of the descriptions had conveyed the sheer size or the menace of the Wicker Man. It had been fashioned in exquisite and loving detail; eyes, lips, nipples, fingernails, genitals. It was at least forty feet in height and Flynn, disturbed and disoriented, found it easy to think that it might at any moment lift its great feet, open its blank eyes and begin striding across the dark hillside to the Plain of the Fál, crushing the woodland creatures beneath as it went. The animals imprisoned inside it were trying to escape; Flynn could hear the scrabbling of claws and the beating of wings; there was a continual bleating and whining and fluttering. He was sickened; to humanely kill another living creature so that you might survive, was to Flynn understandable, even desirable. His world had survived by doing that. But to throw at least a dozen living, breathing creatures into the centre of a roaring fire was a thing that left him feeling nauseated. Did these people, these apparently cultivated and learned men, truly believe that burning alive animals and birds would ensure a good harvest? They are savages, thought Flynn in horror. I am alone on a dark hillside with a group of murderous savages!

  There was a movement behind him and he turned sharply. But — “It is our good friend Bricriu,” said the Druid, who had spoken earlier. “He is returning to the Palace to play his part in the procession.”

  “Then perhaps I should return with him,” said Flynn, his heart beginning to beat uncomfortably fast.

  “Oh no,” said the Druid softly. “You will play your part in your own procession, Flynn.”

  Although Flynn possessed the ancient and magical Samhailt, and although it had strengthened and grown in him since he had broken through the Time Curtain, now it was another, far older instinct that awoke in him. That extra sense that the first men of all had possessed, the sense that warns when danger is near, became fiercely alive in Flynn now: these people are going to kill me!

  “Yes,” said the Druid calmly, “Yes, we are going to kill you. You are surprised that I know your thoughts? You should not be – you have the Samhailt yourself. And it is one of the tenets of our faith. The present High King in his wisdom has outlawed it, but to forbid a thing does not unmake it. Out here we have polished and honed the Samhailt to a very fine degree indeed. You cannot conceal your thoughts from us, Flynn.” He looked at Flynn searchingly, and rather kindly, and Flynn, transfixed, thought: he quite likes me. He is going to kill me, but even so, he rather likes me. He is quite sorry about it.

  “I am afraid it is necessary,” said the Druid. “The Wicker Man must have a human sacrifice. If it can be c
ontrived, that is. And you have been —”

  “Sold to you?”

  “Let us say passed into our keeping as a suitable sacrifice,” said the Druid. “You should not mind. It is an honorable death. And I would be glad of your forgiveness first.” Flynn nearly laughed out loud and then was horrified. But he had heard the old stories of the rulers who existed long before the Letheans, who had not scrupled to execute their enemies, summarily and very publicly. And always, the executioner had asked the victim’s pardon first. Will you forgive me for cutting off your head, for strangling you on a gibbet, for tearing out your entrails? They had devised some grisly deaths, those people. Were they any worse than the one I am about to face? To be cast, alive and well, into the heart of a huge bonfire. To feel skin scorch, bones crack. To hear the sizzling of your own hair and eyes, and to smell your flesh roasting … Oh please don’t let me be sick, not in front of them all.

  He was not sick but he was unable to speak. He was certainly unable to turn and run. And even if he had, there were thirty — forty — of them to overtake him.

  There was no escape as the Druids closed in and bound him neatly and efficiently. They kept him firmly in their grasp, this stranger, this traveller, this credible fool who had walked trustingly and unsuspectingly at the Fox’s side, and who had entered, of his own volition, into their hands. A fragment of an old song which Sean had been singing at the Palace a night or two back slid into Flynn’s mind.

  “O never go walking at Beltane at dusk