‘It’s your father, I’m afraid,’ Brother Tomas said as gently as he could.
Brian tried to brace himself. ‘Is he ill? Injured?’
Instead of answering, the monk shook his head and dropped his eyes, unable to say the words.
Brian said them instead. ‘My father is dead.’
‘He is.’
Dead, Brian thought. My father. While I have been running and laughing, my father has been lying dead.
He felt as if a half forgotten nightmare had just come back to swallow him. He heard himself say, ‘How did it happen?’
Remembering that Brian was still a young boy, Brother Tomas did not tell him many of the details. But Brian heard enough. When the monk finished by saying, ‘It is the will of God,’ the boy replied angrily, ‘It was the will of the man whose sword killed him!’
He would not forget Callahan of Munster, friend of the Danes. Friend of the Vikings and no better than they were.
I will be better than all of them, he promised himself. I will defeat every one of them and make them pay.
Then he whirled around and ran off before Brother Tomas could stop him. He ran to the edge of the river and crouched down among the reeds, so no one would see him cry.
Schooling ended in his sixteenth year, when a messenger sent by his brother Mahon arrived at Clonmacnois. ‘Brian mac Kennedy is old enough to take up weapons,’ the messenger said, ‘and is needed to fight with his tribe against its enemies.’
The abbot protested. ‘The lad has a fine mind, too good to be split open with an axe.’ But in the end he had to let Brian go.
On the day before he was to leave, Brian suddenly felt unsure. Through all the years of his growing up he had dreamed of going to fight the foreigners. While other students looked first in one direction and then another, he had kept his eyes fixed on one goal. Since the day he sat on the ground beside his dead mother, he had been preparing himself to be a warrior and make certain such a thing could never happen to any other child.
It had been an exciting dream. But now the time had really come, and his mouth was dry with fear. I’m not ready, he thought. Let it happen tomorrow instead, I’m not ready yet!
In his dreams and plans he had always won, but Brian knew that the world beyond the walls of Clonmacnois was a dangerous place where dreams did not always come true. He was big for his age and strong, with a quick mind, but that might not be enough.
Beyond the walls death was waiting for him. He could smell it on the wind. He could almost hear the banshee cry.
More than anything else, he wanted to crawl into his bed and pull the covers over his head … and have Bebinn tuck him in.
But he was sixteen years old and childhood was over. There was no going back. He doubled his fists so no one would see that his hands were shaking, and went to say goodbye to his friends.
Mahon, who now led the Dalcassians, was camped near Killmallock. He had sent a small party of armed warriors to escort Brian to him, for no traveller was safe alone.
One of the escort was a man called Nessa, who was skilled in the use of the sling. ‘Will you teach me to use the sling?’ Brian asked as they made their way south.
‘The sling is not a noble weapon,’ Nessa told him. ‘You will use a sword and spear.’
‘But I want to learn to use every sort of weapon, Nessa. A sword is no good at a distance.’
‘Spears are for distance.’ ‘They are. But when you have thrown all your spears, what do you do then? With a sling, you can always pick up more stones and re-arm yourself.’
‘Princes have never fought with slings,’ Nessa said firmly.
Brian scowled. ‘“Never”’ is not a good enough reason.’
The slinger gave him a surprised look. ‘Next you will be telling me you want to use an axe like the Vikings.’
‘I do want to learn to use the axe, it’s a splendid weapon.’
‘The Gael do not use foreign axes!’ Nessa was shocked.
‘Then they should. Use the weapons the winners use. Doesn’t that make sense?’
Before Nessa could think of an answer, they saw the leather tents of Mahon’s camp in the distance. They were nearing Killmallock. Brian’s heart began to pound. At last, he thought, his real life was about to begin. He felt a pang of fear and uncertainty, but before it could weaken him he made himself run forward eagerly, calling Mahon’s name. Nessa had to hurry after him to tell the sentries to let him through.
Once Brian joined Mahon’s army of Dalcassians, there was no more time for doubts. Learning to be a warrior was very hard work and kept him busy from sunrise to sunset. The other warriors were not gentle with him. He was Mahon’s brother, but he must prove his own manhood. They laughed at his lack of a beard. They made fun of the softness of his hands. When one of them caught him alone, they beat him.
Brian did not complain to his brother. He had learned the hard lesson that pain is endured alone. He simply worked harder to be stronger and better at fighting. Then, one by one, he attacked the men who had bullied him and beat them badly.
In time even the grizzled old warriors who had fought with Kennedy were watching him with a respectful light in their eyes. ‘The young Lion of Thomond,’ they called him behind his back.
‘He has no fear in him,’ they said.
When he learned of this he whispered the name to himself in the night, as he lay rolled in his cloak, sleeping on the ground among the other warriors. ‘Lion of Thomond,’ Brian’s lips shaped the words proudly. They made him forget his aches and bruises.
He had learned to act brave no matter how he felt inside. As time passed, be began to believe it himself. If you ran forward eagerly and shouted and yelled when you were afraid, the fear went away … most of the time.
In the Year of Our Lord 955, Donal, son of Murtach, had become High King of Ireland, the Árd Rí, king of the provincial kings. Donal was not fond of fighting. He found it easier to let the foreigners have their way, and so local chieftains were left to defend themselves.
Mahon struggled to protect the land of Thomond from the Danes of Limerick, but it was not easy. The river was under the control of the Vikings for most of its length, and the longships pillaged almost at will. In addition, the Irish west of the Shannon had to pay crushing taxes.
Resisting the Vikings was expensive. Men must be supplied with weapons and food, and the Vikings were impoverishing the countryside. In desperation, Mahon at last plundered Clonmacnois for Church treasures that could be sold to pay for swords and spears and horses.
Brian was so angry over this that the two brothers had a terrible argument. ‘No matter what happens, we must not steal from our own people!’ Brian yelled at Mahon in the command tent.
Mahon sighed wearily. The years of war were showing on him. He was still a young man but he looked old. His broad shoulders had begun to droop and there was a frost of white in his coppery hair. ‘You don’t understand, Brian. This is war, us against them. We have to use every resource.’
‘And that means robbing the monasteries?’
‘If we must.’
‘NO!’ Brian shouted, slamming his fist against his open palm.
This was one of many arguments between the two. Brian had studied the campaigns of the great military leaders of the past, and when he compared these to the way Mahon and the Dalcassians waged war he thought he saw many mistakes. He could not resist pointing these out to his brother, who did not thank him for it.
‘It was a mistake to educate you,’ Mahon growled. ‘Now you think you know more than anyone else.’
‘I don’t think that. But I do know that history is full of valuable lessons and we don’t seem to be learning them.’
‘History is ashes,’ said Mahon scornfully. ‘I understand the situation today. I know how to fight here and now.’
‘If you did,’ Brian pointed out, ‘you would be winning. But you’re not winning. The Danes are stronger than ever. They take the cattle from our fields, they burn our ho
mesteads for pleasure, they do to others what they did to us at Beal Boru and you aren’t stopping them.’
Mahon’s face turned red. ‘Get out of my tent.’
Someday Brian would look back on these as the skirmish years, years of running, bent over, through the heather, either to or from a battle that was rarely won. The Dalcassians grew thin and hard but the Danes were harder, and their axes sang. Step by step, Mahon surrendered the land of Thomond his ancestors had won on the battlefield.
Deep in his heart Mahon began to think Callahan and Donal were right. It was impossible to defeat the Vikings. Let them take what they wanted. Perhaps it would be better to accept it, to bow the head and look away when the Dane passed by, in the hope that he would leave you in peace.
Mahon was growing weary.
But Brian was not tired. Though they were not welcome, he kept bringing his brother new schemes for overcoming the enemy. ‘If we had men on horseback, like the cavalry the Romans used under Caesar, we could move faster and surround the Viking line,’ he suggested.
‘Only princes ride horses and it’s hard enough to get horses for them,’ Mahon replied. ‘This is another of your wild ideas, Brian. Who ever heard of common warriors on horseback?’
‘I just told you. Caesar …’
‘Forget about Caesar!’ Mahon said angrily. ‘We don’t fight that way. Those are a child’s fancies.’ Brian’s eyes grew hard. ‘I’m not a child any more.’
‘Then stop thinking like one.’
Brian could not stop thinking, however. Though he knew his brother would not listen, he could not help suggesting another idea. ‘The Vikings use the rivers as roads. Why don’t we build boats of our own and fill them with warriors? Then we could meet the enemy on the water and turn them back before they can do any damage to people in the settlements along the river.’
‘We aren’t sailors, Brian, we are cattle lords. We know the land, not the water.’
‘We could learn.’
Mahon looked at his brother. Now almost seventeen years old, Brian had become the tallest of the Dalcassians, a head taller than Mahon himself. He was lean and rawboned, with a strong nose and a face as freckled as a blackbird’s egg. His hair was long and wild and he combed it only before going into battle.
‘Who would teach our men to handle boats, Brian?’ Mahon asked him. ‘Who has time?’
‘I could.’
‘You’ve never even been in a boat.’
‘I could learn, and teach others. I know how to learn, Mahon.’
‘Are you saying I don’t?’
‘I’m saying you won’t, and that’s a mistake. If you would let me lead just a few men, we could capture one boat and I could take it apart and put it back together to see how it was made. Then we could build our own.’
Mahon rubbed his hand across his tired eyes. ‘You’re howling into the wind, Brian. You’re wasting my time with this foolishness.’ His voice was angry.
The two glared at each other. Without thinking, Brian knotted his fists as he did when he was about to fight. When he realised what he was doing he opened his hands. ‘We are about to become enemies,’ he said to Mahon. ‘What’s happening to us?’
‘You’re trying to tell me how to lead my army and I won’t allow it! I was named King of Thomond on the sacred mound of Magh Adhair where Dalcassian kings have always been inaugurated. My words command the tribe. You will not argue with me.’
Brian knotted his fists again. ‘I shall when you’re wrong!’
The air between them became white with anger.
The final break came because of Callahan, King of the province of Munster. It was learned that Callahan was not only trading openly with the Danes, but was also letting them take young Irish boys and girls as slaves. When some Dalcassian children were seized in a raid, Brian’s temper exploded.
‘The King of Munster is betraying his own people to the Vikings!’ he roared at Mahon. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘What do you expect me to do, march on Cashel?’
‘I do expect it! March on his stronghold at Cashel and overthrow the traitor. Rule Munster in his place. Our grandfather Lorcan once claimed to be King of Munster; you have the right.’
Mahon looked doubtful. ‘That may just have been the boasting of the poets, Brian.’
‘Then make it come true. End the Owenacht control of the south. Many will support you. I’ve been talking to the warriors here and many agree with me.’
‘Others will not. Tribes who have shared in Danish plunder would turn against me, Brian. I would be making more enemies for us if I rose against Callahan. My duty is to defend Thomond, not to try to seize control of all Munster.’
‘But don’t you see? You can’t defend Thomond unless you do control Munster. The king of the province is supposed to defend the small tribal kingdoms, that’s why we pay him taxes. But Callahan isn’t defending us, we have only ourselves and that isn’t good enough. Challenge him.’
‘If my army can’t defeat a Danish raiding party, how do you expect it to defeat the army of Callahan and seize the Rock of Cashel? You’re dreaming, Brian.’
The young man nodded. ‘I am a dreamer,’ he admitted. ‘But every great deed begins with a dream. You would be surprised how many men in this camp share this one with me.’
‘So that’s it,’ Mahon said bitterly. ‘This isn’t about me challenging Callahan. This is really about you challenging me for the leadership of the Dalcassians. I see it now. You’ve been winning my men away from me behind my back. It is you who is the traitor, Brian. Get out of my sight, get out of my camp!’ Mahon shouted.
Brian stared at him in horror. He had only been trying to help. He could hardly believe Mahon had misunderstood so completely. But he was too proud to argue any further.
I have lost him, Brian thought to himself, as I have lost my mother and my father. The pain stabbed very deep. But he drew himself up to his full height and said only, ‘If that’s what you want, Mahon.’
Then he turned and walked away.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Rebels
When Brian left Mahon’s camp, he did not leave alone. A number of warriors, particularly the younger ones, were willing to follow wherever he might lead.
He did not ask them to come with him. He reminded them, ‘You are sworn to my brother, the leader of the Dalcassians.’
But they said, ‘Your words do you honour, and that makes us all the more eager to be with you. You’re a better warrior than Mahon. We win when we follow you. When we keep our eyes on his standard, we find ourselves losing too often.’
Brian was pleased at these words, but he could not let them see it. He knew it was wrong to draw warriors away from the king of the tribe, but he also knew Mahon was not leading the men in the direction they wanted to go … to victory.
‘If you are determined,’ he told them, ‘come with me, and I promise we shall do our best to defeat the Vikings.’
Mahon stood in front of his tent, with his arms folded, and watched his younger brother ride away, followed by almost sixty warriors on foot. Their spears gleamed in the sunlight.
Once they were out of sight of Killmallock, Brian made himself put Mahon out of his mind. It was not easy. He knew he was now a leader of men who would expect much of him and judge him harshly if he failed. He also knew he was very young; almost all of them were older. Yet they expected him to show them the way and tell them what to do.
He rode for a time without saying anything. Then suddenly he reined in his horse and slid to the ground. Tossing the reins to one of the spear carriers, he told the men, ‘I’ll walk with you, we’re in this together.’
They were surprised. Leaders always set themselves apart. But Brian was different.
He led them to the hills beyond the Shannon, where he knew every cave and glen and possible hiding place. There they set up a series of camps, so they could move swiftly from place to place. Brian wanted to be ready to fight the Vikings whereve
r he met them.
Half-buried in mud after a rain storm, he found a Viking battle axe. When he picked it up he saw the fearful way his men looked at the weapon. He set himself the task of learning how to use it with either hand, practising alone until he was as skilful as a Dane. Then he began searching for other axes that might have been lost in the many battles in Thomond. When he had enough, he taught his men to use them.
The next time his warriors met a Viking raiding party, the Irish attacked the Danes with their own weapons. The startled Vikings were terrified. They had never had to face the axes before. They fled, howling.
That night Brian’s men cheered him in the Thomond hills.
‘The axes did not win the battle,’ he told them. ‘We won because we surprised the enemy. We shall surprise them again.’
And so they did.
In his camp at Killmallock, Mahon began hearing of his younger brother’s successes against the Danes. ‘It is not good having this split in the Dalcassians,’ Mahon told his captains.
‘We need Brian here,’ the captains replied. ‘He and his men should be fighting with us, not off on their own somewhere. It’s your fault, Mahon, that we have lost such good warriors.’
Mahon sent messengers into the Clare hills northwest of the Shannon, which was the part of Thomond to which Brian had taken his men. ‘Tell him I order him to return to my camp at Killmallock, and we shall forget the quarrel between us,’ Mahon told the messengers.
But they returned to him without Brian. ‘We could not find him or his men anywhere,’ they reported.
‘Are they not there?’
‘They are there. But they only come out of their hiding places to kill Vikings. Otherwise your brother stays so well hidden no one can find him, and the people whose homes he is protecting will tell no one where he is. They don’t want to lose him.’
Mahon scowled, wishing he could claim such loyalty.
Brian’s outlaw band in the hills was, however, growing smaller as men were killed in battles with the Danes of Limerick. Brian knew he could not get any more men from his brother. But the tribe whose territory lay just north of Dalcassian land, on the Galway border, had plenty of strong young fighting men. Brian decided to visit them and see if he could persuade some of their warriors to join him.
Brian Boru Page 3
