Many of the clan leaders were men who, like Mahon, had lost heart over the years and been willing to settle for submission to the power of the Vikings. But when they heard the King of Munster speaking in this way, they became excited. They put their hands on their sword hilts and their eyes shone.
‘Throw off the clutching hand of the Vikings,’ they said to one another, nodding agreement.
Some of them noticed the tall, silent young warrior who stood in the shadows, watching them with measuring eyes.
‘That is Brian, the one they call the Lion of Thomond,’ the whisper went around the room.
A vote was taken. The decision was war.
An army camp was set up around the base of the Rock of Cashel, and warriors were summoned from every tribe that had a duty to supply the king with fighting men. Soon the Dalcassians were joined by warriors from many other southern tribes.
Ivar, the Danish king of Limerick, was very angry when he learned of this. ‘Mahon betrays the peace he made with me!’ he cried in his huge boat-shaped hall beside the Shannon. He summoned all the Danes of Munster, as well as the Irish who were connected to them through trade or marriage. He demanded the loyalty of these Irish in the war to come. When some of them refused, he had them put to death to serve as a lesson to the rest.
The Danish army marched from Limerick towards Cashel. The Irish forces broke camp and set out to meet them. But the Irish leaders were not in agreement about the way to fight the Vikings. Brian had been explaining his ideas about battle formations to the older chieftains, and they complained to Mahon. ‘Your brother has strange ideas,’ they said. ‘He wants us to fight in ways we have never fought before. Each of us is used to leading his own men in his own way. We want no part of this new plan.’
Mahon tried to keep peace between Brian and the chieftains.
‘You must not insist on your own ideas,’ he told his brother.
‘They are not my ideas. They are battle plans that have worked for the most famous military leaders in history. If we were to use flankers, instead of meeting the Danes in one single broad line …’
‘I don’t want to hear this again,’ Mahon said wearily.
It was hard for Brian to plead, but he made himself say, ‘Please, Mahon. You are the king. If you give the order they will follow it. Order them to take the positions I suggest when they face the Danes.’
Mahon locked eyes with his younger brother. A struggle of wills heated the air between them until Brian thought it would burst into flame, but he never blinked. Finally Mahon was the one to drop his eyes. ‘I shall do as you ask,’ he said. ‘But I warn you, Brian. Though the men may take up the positions they won’t fight from them. Once they see the enemy they will each fight in the old way; they will never follow you.’
The army of Mahon met the army of Ivar at dawn, at a place called Sulcoit. Much of the land was covered with trees, making fighting difficult. The Danes advanced at sunrise across one of the few stretches of open meadowland, holding up their axes as they came, to frighten the Irish with them.
But Brian’s Dalcassians had axes, too, and he had taught them how to use them.
In spite of this, Mahon’s warriors stared fearfully at the Danes. They had not expected such an enormous number. The Irish who had joined with Ivar made his army very large indeed. Mahon’s men, in the battle formation Brian had planned, could not make themselves move forward. They could only stand and watch the sea of death flooding toward them across the meadowland.
Then one man started forward. All alone. To meet the enemy.
Fear filled Brian’s belly like a great, cold stone, but he did not let the fear show on his face. Mahon’s army was frightened enough. They must see someone who did not appear to be afraid.
He marched forward alone, with his sword in his hand, as if Ivar and the Danes meant nothing to him. He left his horse behind, choosing to fight on foot like a common warrior. Only Mahon and the tribal leaders were mounted, sitting on their horses and staring at Brian as he did this mad, reckless, incredibly brave thing.
Cold sweat ran down Brian’s back. He lifted his sword higher, so it caught the light of the rising sun. He walked on, waiting for the first Danish spear to hiss through the air and strike him down.
That would at least make Mahon’s army angry enough to throw off its fear and to attack, Brian thought. He did not want to die. But he was more afraid of losing.
No spear was hurled from Ivar’s side. His warriors were all staring at Brian too. Vikings admired courage above all else, and the red-haired young giant approaching them filled them with awe. They knew they would never again see anything like this, one man in splendid defiance against thousands.
To Brian it seemed as if everything happened very, very slowly, as if there were all the time in the world that morning. He walked on and on, expecting to die. Two armies seemed frozen, watching him. And then at last he heard behind him the first stirrings of Mahon’s army shaking off its fear and beginning to move.
Someone shouted Brian’s name. Another voice took it up and the cry swept through the Irish ranks. ‘Brian Boru!’ they chanted as they started forward, drawn by his courage.
‘Brian Boru, Boru, Boru!’ They changed in rhythm as they broke into a run, holding the pattern he had set for them.
Swords lifted. Slings whirled in the air. Spears clashed against shields making an awful din. Mahon’s army thundered across the meadowland toward the enemy, shouting a new battle cry. A cry both terrible and glorious.
‘Boru! BORU! BORU!’
No longer alone, Brian was now running too, leading the Munstermen. His fear was gone. His heart was singing inside him. He felt as if he could fly, as if no weapon could ever kill him.
The two armies came together with a crash of iron and the screams from thousands of throats. On that summer morning at Sulcoit in the Year of Our Lord 968, the warriors of Munster gave Ivar’s forces the worst defeat they had ever known.
By midday the Danes and their allies had given up the battle and were running for their lives. Some sought safety in the forest, some hid in the hedges. Others fled to Ivar’s stronghold at Limerick, twenty miles away.
Mahon intended to stop and celebrate victory, but Brian said ‘Julius Caesar won great victories for Rome because he followed a beaten enemy and destroyed them totally, so he didn’t have to fight them again a fortnight later.’
Mahon was willing to listen to Brian now. The chieftains of Munster were all willing to listen to Brian now.
They set off in pursuit of the enemy, chanting, ‘Boru!’
Brian and Mahon captured Limerick, where they found and freed hundreds of Irish children the Danes had taken as slaves. In Ivar’s storehouses they found the loot of Munster: beautifully crafted Irish jewellery and ornaments of gold and silver and bronze, bales of wool and linen, stacks of leather, tools and weapons and harnesses, cups and goblets and chalices and book boxes decorated with gold and silver and precious stones.
Looking at the wealth stolen from his people, Brian thought of his mother lying murdered in the ashes of Beal Boru. She had died so a Viking could add her trinkets to his piles of plunder.
Without asking permission of Mahon, Brian ordered the warriors to plunder and burn Limerick. Then he took the prisoners of war to a hill called Singland and there executed every man who was fit for battle, whether they were Danes or Irishmen who had fought with the Danes.
Much, much later he would admit to his brother Marcan, ‘I had my revenge, but when the killing was over and the fires of Limerick died I felt empty inside. Why is that?’
Marcan said, ‘Because revenge does not bring back the dead, Brian. It only creates more dead.’
After their defeat, Ivar and his surviving followers managed to get to Scattery Island in the Shannon and build a fort for themselves there. In time, they began raiding again. The Munstermen fought back, following Brian’s battle plans. Even the most stubborn old chieftain admitted, ‘Brian Boru knows how to win.’
Brian did know how to win. After seven defeats, Ivar the Dane fled for a time to safety in Wales. He was no longer willing to challenge the Lion of Thomond.
For six years, Mahon ruled Munster in peace, and was given tribute and warriors by the kings of the Munster tribes. But one called Molloy of Desmond, who was an Owenacht, complained that he should be King of Munster instead of Mahon. He and his friend, Donovan of Bruree, had enjoyed profitable trade with Ivar and his Danes and blamed Mahon for their loss of wealth.
Molloy and Donovan began to plot together against Mahon. They called on him at Cashel and urged him to show Christian forgiveness to Ivar, so the Dane could return to Limerick.
‘Ivar is a changed man, and will make no more trouble,’ they claimed.
‘Don’t listen to them,’ Brian urged Mahon. ‘Molloy wants Ivar back to be his ally and help him take the kingship of Munster from you. And Ivar would surely do it to have revenge against you.’
‘You are too quick to believe the worst of others,’ said Mahon. ‘We have won peace, Brian. Accept it and enjoy it. I believe Molloy and Donovan, they have sworn loyalty to me, and I ask you to trust my judgement in this. Remember,’ he added with a frown, ‘I am the king.’
Brian bit his lip and did not answer.
Since he had been with Mahon at Cashel, he had developed a curious habit. Every night before he went to sleep, Brian climbed to the top of the stone wall surrounding the king’s stronghold. From there he could look across the fertile plains of Munster to the distant mountains.
He liked to think he could smell the breeze blowing off the Shannon. He pretended that the scent of flowers in the air was really the perfume from the hair of Aval on her grey crag.
Brian was lonely. At Mahon’s urging, he had brought his family to Cashel, and Mor had sickened and died there during one of his campaigns against the Vikings. She left behind her four small children, and new shadows in Brian’s eyes. Alone in the night, when no one could see, sometimes he wept for his dead wife.
And sometimes, when the wind sang to him, he thought Aval was calling him home to Beal Boru.
Brian was teaching his oldest son, Murcha, to ride a horse when word reached Cashel of a meeting of chieftains at Donovan’s stronghold near Bruree. The King of Munster was invited.
Leaving Murcha, Brian ran to the great hall. Bursting in upon Mahon he cried, ‘Don’t go!’
The king bristled. ‘Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?’
‘I am your brother who wants to keep you safe, and I tell you, you must not go to this meeting. I do not trust the people involved.’
‘I shall request a promise of safety from the Bishop of Cork himself,’ Mahon said. ‘Will that satisfy you?’
‘Nothing would satisfy me but going with you to protect you.’
‘That I won’t do, Brian. You are too hot-blooded, you might say or do something that would cause trouble.’
‘The trouble is already there, waiting for you!’
But Mahon would not listen. ‘You may understand warfare, Brian,’ he said. ‘But I understand kingship. This is a meeting of the leaders of Munster and I must go.’
He left wearing a woollen cloak striped in the six colours of kingship, and carrying on his breast a sacred reliquary that was supposed to hold a fragment of the writings of St Finnbarr. ‘This holy object will keep me safe,’ he assured Brian.
‘Only a sword, my sword, would keep you safe,’ Brian muttered. He watched from the walls as Mahon rode away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Brian, King of Munster
A messenger sent by the Bishop of Cork brought the news: ‘Mahon mac Kennedy was taken prisoner by Donovan of Bruree. Donovan surrendered him to Molloy of Desmond, who claims to be the rightful King of Munster. Mahon was sent to Molloy’s stronghold with an escort of priests. On the way, Molloy’s men attacked them and killed Mahon. The priests with him were, of course, unarmed, and could not protect him. As he was dying, the king flung the holy relic of St Finnbarr into the bushes to keep from staining it with his blood.’
Brian let out a cry of grief and rage. This latest loss was too much to bear. It was made worse, if that were possible, by the fact that Molloy and Donovan were Irish and not Vikings.
‘Our own people,’ Brian said through gritted teeth, ‘killing their king. I’ll make them pay.’
‘I thought you told me vengeance didn’t satisfy you,’ said Marcan the priest.
‘Did I? Then I was wrong. I’m going to take great satisfaction from hunting down Mahon’s killers and killing them!’
Leaving his children, Murcha, Sive, Conor and Flan, in safekeeping at Cashel, Brian went north to the sacred mound of Magh Adhair. There he was inaugurated as Prince of Thomond, the title formerly held by Mahon. Now the Dalcassians were officially his to command, following his banner of the three red lions.
Brian had many cousins who might have tried to claim the title of Prince of Thomond, but none dared oppose him.
At the head of the Dalcassian warriors, Brian planned an attack on Ivar the Dane. ‘When that man returned from Wales my brother should have killed him at once, instead of allowing him to settle on Scattery Island again,’ Brian told his followers. ‘Ivar is our enemy, and I suspect he played some part in the murder of Mahon. When he is dead, Molloy and Donovan will have lost a powerful ally.’
Brian assembled a small fleet of boats in the Shannon as he had always wanted to do. With his Dalcassians manning this seedling navy, he attacked Ivar in his stronghold on Scattery Island. At the end of the day the place was in flames and its inhabitants, including Ivar, were slain.
Next Brian went after Donovan. He found him at Bruree. Also in hiding there was Harald, a son of Ivar of Limerick. This was proof of Brian’s suspicions – the Danes had been heavily involved in the plotting between Molloy and Donovan. Brian executed both Donovan and Harald son of Ivar, then returned to Cashel to prepare himself to meet Molloy, the Owenacht. When he attacked Molloy, he wanted to have all his weapons sharp and his most trusted warriors around him.
Brian’s son Murcha met him at the gates of Cashel.
‘Is there going to be a big battle and can I take part in it?’ the boy asked eagerly. ‘Look how tall I’ve grown!’
Brian was surprised to realise Murcha was as long as a spear handle. My son is growing up while I’m kept busy elsewhere, he thought resentfully. He said, ‘You aren’t old enough to take up arms, Murcha.’
‘But I am – almost,’ Murcha replied truthfully.
Brian folded his arms and shook his head. He had lost too many people he loved. ‘You are not going to war yet, and that’s final,’ he told his son.
‘But father …’
‘Don’t argue with me,’ Brian said, more sharply than he intended.
Murcha turned away as if he had accepted his father’s decision, but he had not.
Murcha mac Brian was his father’s son. He longed to be a warrior. From the safety of Cashel he had followed the story of Brian’s victories and dreamed of the day when at last he would be allowed to fight with the Dalcassians. He imagined himself riding on a fine horse, as a prince should, following the wind-whipped banner of the three red lions.
When Brian and his warriors left Cashel to seek Molloy of Desmond, Murcha ran beside his father’s horse as far as the first crossroads. His dark hair, so like his mother’s, was glossy in the sunlight. Brian looked down on it with love. He wanted to tousle that hair, the way Mahon used to tousle his hair. A lump rose in his throat. ‘Take care of yourself, and your sister and brothers,’ he told Murcha. Then he kicked his horse and trotted off to battle.
He did not see Murcha falling back and blending in with the other warriors, following him.
The forces of Brian and Molloy met at a place called Bealach Leachta, an ancient battlefield marked by huge stones from a forgotten time. Each side made camp. ‘This is a good place for the Owenacht to die tomorrow,’ Brian told his warriors. ‘It is better than Mo
lloy deserves, for honourable men’s bones lie in this soil. Can’t you sense them?’
His men shivered in the twilight and looked around them. That night they stayed close to their campfires. But the only spirit that walked the land was that of Brian himself, pacing the borders of the camp and gazing toward the winking red eyes of the Owenacht campfires. ‘By this time tomorrow,’ he promised Mahon, ‘the hand that killed you will be cold.’
The battle the next morning was one of the most savage Brian had ever fought. Gael against Gael, the Dalcassians and the Owenachts tried to destroy each other. Each tribe wanted to be supreme in Munster, with its prince at Cashel ruling the rich province. By the end of the day the meadow was littered with bodies. Neither side was willing to surrender.
Among all those furious fighting men, Brian searched in vain for Molloy. The Prince of Desmond was hiding in a hut beyond the edge of the battlefield. When he caught a glimpse of Brian at the start of the battle, his nerve had broken and he had run away.
Brian’s son Murcha, who was also trying to hide from his father, had seen Molloy break away from the other warriors and run into the bushes. He did not know it was Molloy, but he followed him. The battle was very loud and very confusing, not quite what he had imagined. Murcha decided it would be easier to fight just one man, at least in his very first combat. If he already had a kill to his credit when Brian found him, perhaps he would be allowed to stay.
Beneath his cloak, Murcha carried a shortsword and had an eager heart.
He followed the other man through a strip of forest, across a stream, and up a slope to a ruined herder’s hut. When the man went inside, Murcha crept closer, sword at the ready.
The nearer he got to the hut, the less sure of himself he felt. This was not the glorious battle he had often dreamed. This was two men alone in a wilderness, and the other was a grown man who would surely kill him.
Brian Boru Page 5
