by Sarah Rayne
“I suppose you’d have broken the enchantments and been bounding out in the first week,” said Midir.
“Yes,” said Etain. “I would. Easily.”
“He’d have had to find a purebred human to do so,” put in Oscar, and at once something sprang to attention inside Flynn. But then Oscar said thoughtfully, “Although of course, there are any number of those.”
“And we all know Cormac’s way with people,” added Conaire.
“Oh, he’ll be out of Scáthach long since,” said Etain. “You see if I’m not right.”
“I always said it was a mistake to put him there in the first place,” remarked Sean. “I told Eochaid Bres at the time; you’ll regret this, I said. Cormac’s clever; he’ll find a way to dissolve the enchantment, because it never was a very strong one, you know. Or so I was told. You’re making a mistake, Sire, I said to Eochaid. But of course he didn’t listen to me.”
“No one ever does,” said the twins in unison, and went off into peals of giggles, so that Sean glared.
“You’ll pardon the riff-raff we’ve brought,” said Conaire to the three travellers.
“Brought us!” squealed the twins indignantly. “Didn’t we come of our own accord! And you’ll be very glad of the swans when the battle begins!”
“Behave yourselves,” said Conaire, and the twins grinned, and relapsed into silence.
“We ought to go first to Scáthach in any case,” said Conaire, “Flynn, don’t you agree? Because even if Cormac has broken the enchantment that the sorcerers wove to keep him in exile, we might pick up some clues as to where he is.”
Sean said solemnly that you could not, anyway, liberate someone without first finding them. “Of course, he might be halfway to anywhere by now,” he observed, which, as Oscar pointed out, was not being very helpful.
Conaire said loudly, “We’ll go to Scáthach, providing no one has any sensible objections?” And looked very hard at Sean, who said hastily, “Oh, not the merest smidgeon of one,” and fell to contemplating the forest floor.
“And then we’ll go to Gallan,” said Conaire. “And if you two gentlemen and the lady — forgive me, but we’ve not been properly introduced —”
“Forgive me” said Flynn, horrified that he had not included Portan in any of this. “This is Portan.” And he carefully named each of the Bloodline, and saw that Portan had blushed, but that she was taking the hands that were held out to her, and he noticed that the newcomers were greeting her politely and interestedly, and was thankful, but not surprised.
Portan, smiling and trying to remember the names of all these strange, friendly people, saw, and was astonished to see, that not one of the Bloodline seemed to find her odd or deformed. And then, with a burst of joy, she realised that to them she was neither. In fact, Oscar, with his gentle, clever smile, came to sit beside her, and asked about her emblem, and how long it had been since it was conferred, and how far back the Ritual had been.
Portan had only the dimmest idea of what he meant, but she had listened to Amairgen and Flynn last night, talking of Tara, and she had grasped a little of the concept of the Bloodline families. She said cautiously, “I am not sure. My — my family and I have never been close.”
And Oscar, who understood about quarrels and divided dynasties, said at once, “Ah. It is always a great pity when that happens. But clearly you are a member of a distinctive family, and that is always something to be proud of.”
“Yes,” said Portan, and Oscar, who liked history and legends and ancestries, and who found nearly everybody interesting, stayed where he was, talking to Portan of the Six Ancient Houses of Ireland, and of the Families of the Lesser Nobility.
Conaire and CuChulainn were explaining to Flynn and Amairgen about the journey.
“First to Scáthach to free the Wolfking,” said Cormac. “A night’s journey,” said CuChulainn.
“More like two,” put in Sean, who was listening.
“Well it depends how fast you go.”
“And once we have Cormac with us, we shall invoke the Mindsong and the creatures of the Bloodlines will answer.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Flynn, “but will they? I mean, do they have to?”
They stared at him.
“Yes, of course,” said Conaire at length.
“They cannot help it,” said Midir.
“They are bound by the Ritual,” said CuChulainn. “And it is an extremely strong enchantment.”
“It had to be,” said Conaire, and the others nodded.
“I see,” said Flynn.
“They will all obey,” said CuChulainn. “Conaire’s Eagles, and my Chariot Horses, and Oscar’s Deer —”
“The twins’ White Swans,” said Oscar.
“And Cormac’s Wolves,” said Conaire. “Don’t forget them.”
“Oh yes, the Wolves will come. I thought that went without saying,” said CuChulainn.
“They’re probably with him in any case,” said Conaire. “Cormac never moves without at least a dozen or so of the creatures,” he added, and Flynn thought: oh dear.
“But they’ll be more or less tame,” said Conaire, picking this up without any difficulty, “Cormac knows how to control them.” I hope he does, Flynn thought.
“And then we’ll be off to Gallan and Cait Fian’s people,” said Conaire.
“And then we shall join battle with the usurper,” added CuChulainn contentedly.
“The Wolfking will reign again.”
“And won’t the fur fly,” said Sean.
“It’s a long journey of course,” said Conaire.
“But we know the roads,” said Etain.
“We’ve brought food,” said Oscar.
“But not very much,” said Sean.
“No, but we can shoot things as we go.”
“And build fires to cook.”
“Find streams.”
“Scáthach and then Gallan!” cried CuChulainn.
“Scáthach and then Gallan!” cried the others, and Flynn and Amairgen both felt as if it was a living thing, the delight and the excitement that surged through the forest.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eochaid Bres was in the nearest thing to a bad temper he ever got. He was quite well known for his placidity; he thought that if you had to say anything about him, you would say he was placid. Even-tempered. Tranquil. Yes, that was a good word. He was tranquil. He dared say it was a restful change for the Court to have a placid and even-tempered and tranquil High King … particularly after Cormac. The last thing Cormac had been was placid, but Eochaid Bres thought it was a useful thing to be if you were a High King.
He was not at all placid now. He was angry, and he thought he might deal out a few punishments — not the Miller’s cages, of course, he did not want to be thought barbaric, and anyway, it would give him nightmares or indigestion or both — but punishments of a kind.
He was certainly not going to be made to look silly by those wicked sly Druids who had quite obviously tried to smuggle in a human sacrifice for the Beltane Fire. The smuggling had been quite skilfully done as well, you had to admit that. Eochaid Bres did admit it. What he did not admit was that it had been the right thing to do, because human sacrifice had been forbidden at Tara for as long as anyone could remember. It was archaic and messy. It was also unnecessary, not that that came into it, but everyone knew these days that human sacrifice made absolutely no difference at all to the yield of the land. Animal sacrifice did not make any difference either, but you could not abolish all of the old traditions in one go, and anyway, everyone knew that the animals did not suffer very much. Also, they provided a rather appetising scent as they burned, and if you were watchful, you could sometimes extricate a nice leg bone of lamb, or those thin, rather juicy rib chops of young pigs. Eochaid Bres was very fond of roast pig, although it did not do to admit to the raff and skaff of the Court that the High King went about prodding the embers of the Beltane Fire, just to gorge himself on the remains of the Druids’ sacrifices! He could
imagine the comments! But, still, there was no denying that meat roasted at the heart of a Sacred Fire on a crisp early spring night tasted very good indeed. Eochaid had not, naturally, dwelled very long on the kind of pickings that might have been gleaned had Flynn not escaped so timely from the Wicker Man, because he did not believe in dwelling on unpleasantness. But he was very glad indeed that he had not been faced with the ignominy of discovering that he had not eaten roast pig or roast lamb at all, but rather roast human. It would have given him a few sleepless nights. It would most certainly have given him indigestion.
He had not, in the beginning, quite understood what had happened when the ritual question about the sacrifice had been put.
Do you have the Sacrifice? They had all chanted, just as they had done every year, and the Druids had to say, Yes, we have the Sacrifice. It was what always happened. Eochaid did not properly understand the words, of course — well he dared say that nobody understood them any longer — but he knew that was what was being said.
Do you have the Sacrifice?
Yes, we have the Sacrifice.
Three times it had to be said, because the Druids said that to say a thing three times gave it immense power. The Chief Druid had explained this to Eochaid very solemnly on the day of his coronation, and Eochaid, just jokingly, had said he hoped that if he asked for his dinner three times it would give him a powerful good dinner, but the Chief Druid had not seen the joke, and nobody had laughed, and Eochaid had felt silly. Of course, Druids never had any sense of humour, everybody knew that.
Do you have the Sacrifice? There it had been, the third time, and everyone, Eochaid Bres as well, had drawn breath to give the reply.
Only the reply had never been given. They had been forestalled. Before anyone could speak, a voice had come ringing from within the Wicker Man, speaking in the Ancient Tongue, and the next minute, the Plain of the Fál had been thrown into utter chaos, as the Wicker Man seemed to fall apart where he stood, and all of the caged animals came tumbling and scurrying out and down, and ran into the forest, tripping people up, barking and bleating and clucking and flapping their wings, and making the night quite hideous.
Eochaid had not, at first, known where the voice had come from. He had been, truth to tell, rather overawed, because he had thought it might have been the voice of Dagda himself, the father-god of all the gods, and he had wondered how he ought best to reply, because as far as he knew, there was no recorded instance of Dagda having spoken to a High King for centuries upon centuries. He had been very much flattered and had thought he would go down in Tara’s history as the King who had called to earth the mighty father-god.
But then Mother and Bricriu had explained that it was not Dagda who had spoken, only a wicked spy who had somehow been concealed inside the Wicker Man, and who had known the Druids’ Ancient Tongue, and had known how to break the spell of the Wicker Man.
Of course, Eochaid had said at once that he had seen through the trick; he had not really believed the voice to come from Dagda at all. He had asked how the spy could have got into the Wicker Man, and Bricriu had said sadly, “Well, Your Majesty, I am afraid he must have been put there,” and Eochaid had said, “As a sacrifice?” rather sharply, and Bricriu had said that after all, Sire, it was the punishment for spies.
This was extremely worrying, because Eochaid had not known they had had a spy in their midst. He hoped he had not said anything amiss in the spy’s presence.
“I am sure you could not have done, Sire,” said Bricriu soothingly.
Even so, it was disconcerting to find that spies were being uncovered at Court and sent to justice willy nilly without the King being aware of it. Eochaid thought it ill became his dignity to be treated in such a way; he thought he should have been consulted. He certainly thought he should have been told.
He sent Bricriu off to summon the Councillors to an Extraordinary Meeting in the Star of the Poets, and once assembled, demanded a full explanation of them.
“But Your Majesty, none of us knew anything about it,” said Bolg, huffing and puffing a bit, because he had just been coming from the stool room on the upper floors when the King issued the summons, and he had arrived at a fast trot, a bit out of breath, a bit dishevelled, his thoughts as disordered as his dress.
Several heads nodded in agreement; nobody, it seemed, had known anything about the spy.
“And if we had known,” said Bolg, beginning to recover his wind, “we would have put a stop to it. We certainly don’t want human sacrifice at Tara again.” He shuddered, and the Councillors all shuddered with him and looked shocked, and said indeed they did not, to be sure it was the very last thing they wanted. Eochaid Bres stormed out of the Star of the Poets, which was an insult to the Ancestral Chamber of all the High Kings, but which was comforting to Eochaid Bres’s injured dignity, and told Bricriu that if there was one thing he could not bear, it was a pack of sybarites telling him lies.
“I think Your Majesty means sycophants,” said Bricriu, and Eochaid lost his temper in earnest then, and stamped his foot and threw his best official gold chain on to the floor, and said they none of them treated him with the respect he deserved, and things would have to change.
The Court seemed somewhat depleted when they gathered in the Sun Chamber that evening — “Sleeping off the excesses of Beltane, Your Majesty,” said Bricriu soothingly.
It was a fairly safe guess that one or two of the Court had found excesses somewhere. Conaire of the Eagles would be sure to; Eochaid was not surprised to see Conaire’s chair empty tonight. He was not particularly surprised to see that CuChulainn was not here either, because CuChulainn was inclined to be a bit wild as well. Eochaid had never quite trusted that family. Too fond of making war, Bricriu had once said, but Eochaid thought that CuChulainn’s family were quite fond of winning wars as well, and they had a disconcerting habit of throwing in their lot with the side most likely to ride to victory. He hoped that Conaire and CuChulainn had not gone off to start up a silly rebellion somewhere.
The twins, Midir and Etain were missing tonight as well, which was probably the gods’ mercy, because they were apt to get a bit out of hand. Etain was fond of teasing the young men (well, the old men as well — there had once been a most unpleasant incident with Bricriu) and it sometimes caused unpleasantness with Mother.
“Jealousy,” said the Court, and told each other how Etain’s mother, Fuamnach, had once challenged Mab as the greatest beauty at Tara. “Plain jealousy,” they said, but Eochaid thought that Mother had no need to be jealous of anyone, and certainly had no need to be jealous of a pale pointy-faced creature like Etain. A few of the men held that Etain was unusually beautiful and possessed of a certain, rather wayward charm — Cait Fian was believed to have had his eye on her for a year or more — but Eochaid had never been able to see anything in her.
He was not especially unhappy to see the twins absent tonight, but he was very sorry not to see Oscar of the Wild Deer. Oscar would certainly not be sleeping off any excesses, because so far as anyone knew, Oscar never indulged in any. Also, he could be relied upon to soothe over any awkwardnesses that might occur in the course of an evening, not that Eochaid classed this business of sacrificing a spy on the Beltane Fire as awkward precisely, but there would be bound to be talk, and Oscar would have been tactful and discreet. Eochaid was very sorry not to see him in his usual place; he was even sorrier not to see Sean the Storyteller.
“Overeaten himself again no doubt.” said Bricriu when Eochaid asked where Sean might be. “Disgraceful in a man of his standing,” said Bricriu. “And at his time of life.” Eochaid, who had also overeaten himself, but did not see what age or standing had to do with it, grunted and reached for a dish of spiced woodcock, and felt abandoned by his friends, and beleaguered by his enemies, and wondered, not for the first time, whether the game was worth the candle.
*
Bricriu wondered so as well. It was all very well when the King did as he was told, but of late, he had not
done at all as he was told; he had developed a habit of asking the wrong questions, and it would not do. You could not have Kings thinking they could rule, otherwise you ended up with a despot which was bad for the people. You could not have the people ruling either, because then you ended up with chaos which was bad for everybody. Ideally the Councillors ruled, but absolutely ideally Bricriu ruled the Councillors. With a little — a very little — help from Mab. She thought she ruled completely, of course, and Bricriu was not going to disillusion her. She knew too much about Bricriu himself for any chances to be taken.
Bricriu had known at once that it had been Flynn who had broken the Druids’ enchantment, and he had been stunned, because nobody, not even the High King, knew the Druids’ Ancient Tongue these days. Everyone knew the words of the Ritual, of course; the question and answer part of the ceremonies, but nobody really knew what the words meant any more, because the Druids were extremely jealous of their traditions.
But Flynn had known. Flynn had known the Ancient Tongue sufficiently well to use the Ritual Denial, and that was something whose origin was so old, that Bricriu thought even the Druids did not fully understand it. Flynn had understood it though. He had broken the Wicker Man’s spell and set himself free. The Druids had been angry, but Bricriu had been angrier still. He had been very nearly beside himself when he had realised that not only had Flynn slipped from his grasp, he had taken half the Bloodline with him.
A rebellion! A new assault on Tara, only this time it would be Bricriu who was under attack. It was one thing to ride against the Bright Palace from outside, with the armies streaming out behind you and the Lion pennants fluttering in the breeze; it was quite another to be the one who was within besieged Tara. Bricriu had a sudden, highly disturbing vision of himself (and the others, of course) trapped inside Tara, fighting off Eochaid Bres’s ill-wishers, besieged and starving and beaten. It was something that could not be allowed to happen on any count. He took another look at the vision, and thought he saw, very clearly, the Wolf emblem on those pennants.
