As they drew near Athy, the Prince of Ossory could almost feel Dalcassian blood on his sword. An old grudge was about to be settled. Brian’s hard-won peace had died at Clontarf; the good old days, the days of battle and glory and the tribal warfare by which Gaelic chieftains defined themselves, were about to return.
Mac Gillapatrick was actually grinning when he caught his first glimpse of the Dalcasssians. Sitting on his horse, he saw them before his foot warriors could. His jaw dropped, pulling the grin out of shape.
In another moment his followers had seen what he saw. The warriors slowed to an astonished halt.
Facing them was a phalanx of timber stakes cut from nearby trees and driven deep into the earth. A wounded man was bound to each of these stakes, standing upright as the dying Ulster hero Cuchulain had bound himself upright to a standing stone, so he could meet his enemies on his feet.
A few of the men were actually already dead, bodies of the nobility being returned home for burial. But every figure had a weapon in its hand, though in some cases swords had been bound to stiffened fingers with leather thongs.
Beside the stakes stood the remaining able-bodied Dalcassians. The courage of their wounded comrades heartened them as nothing else could. Every last one of them was prepared to fight to the death, and it showed in their haggard faces.
The terrible army waited for the Ossorian attack.
Mac Gillapatrick’s men were dismayed.
“What are you waiting for!” he shouted at them when he had recovered from his own surprise. “There is our enemy; attack!”
His men did not move.
As they watched, the head of a gravely wounded Dalcassian slumped forward in death. But the sword remained in his hand.
Several Ossorians signed the Cross on their breasts. “A bad thing, this,” said one of them nervously.
The Prince of Ossory was infuriated. “Attack them!” he screamed as another Dalcassian sagged in his bonds and died.
One of Mac Gillapatrick’s officers said, “What good will it do us to attack dead men? There’s no glory in it.”
“You disobey my order?”
The officer glanced back toward his men, reading their faces. In the hierarchy of Gaelic warfare every army was composed of individual bands of men who had sworn loyalty to a leader from their own tribe. Should one of these leaders leave, his men would go with him. Their allegiance was to him, not to the prince he followed.
A second officer spoke up. “We cannot attack such desperate and resolute men,” he told Mac Gillapatrick flatly. “It would bring shame upon us.”
“But they are Dalcassians! I order you to cut them down as they stand!”
The men looked from him to Donough’s army. They had taken up arms during the reign of Brian Boru, when the proudest boast a man could utter was, “I am an Irish man.” They had been proud of themselves in those days. They would not set that pride aside now.
Leaving Mac Gillapatrick raging, they turned and marched away.
Chapter Ten
THE WALLS OF DUBLIN WERE NOT ENOUGH TO CONTAIN GORMLAITH’S passion. While remnants of Brian Boru’s army were in the area she dare not leave the city, but time and again she climbed up the ladder to the catwalk just inside the palisade and stared out across the Liffey, toward the nine hills and slightly sloping plain of Fingal. The area where Fingal met the sea was called the Meadow of the Bull because there the sea roared like a bull, as charging waves beat themselves to a froth against the sand dunes.
Clontarf. Gormlaith’s lips shaped the word silently.
Overnight her legendary beauty had faded. Her mirror, which only days before had reflected a vital, desirable creature still glowing with the fires that had captivated three kings in turn, now revealed a woman suddenly catapulted into old age.
No worthy man, she reflected bitterly, would fight for her favors now. The northern warlords who had been lured to Ireland to kill Brian Boru and claim her as their reward were all dead. Every noble chieftain who ever wanted Gormlaith was dead—except for Malachi Mor. And having possessed her once, no power on heaven or earth would induce him to take her again.
She walked alone on the walls of Dublin and shook her fists at the sky.
Eventually Sitric lost patience with her. He knew as well as she did that his mother’s value was gone.
He sent an attendant to bring her to his hall, a smoky, timbered chamber resembling an overturned longship. It was as close as Sitric Silkbeard cared to get to ships. The Viking King of Dublin was, to his chagrin, subject to uncontrollable seasickness, a weakness he was at great pains to conceal.
As he waited for his mother to join him, Sitric considered the situation. He still held Dublin, but only because his opponents lacked the strength to claim the final prize. They would probably go home, lick their wounds, and return in the spring. Brian Boru had taught the Irish tribes to unite, and against such a union Sitric had no chance.
But who would lead them now?
While he awaited Gormlaith’s appearance—she was habitually late—he was to his surprise joined by his wife: a daughter of Brian Boru.
Emer had made her loyalty plain during the recent battle, cheering for her father’s forces and disparaging the Northmen. On the night of Good Friday she refused to join her husband in the marriage bed and had avoided him since. She joined him now merely because she was hungry and expected a meal to be served in the hall.
When she entered, Sitric smiled as affably as if they were on the best of terms. It was not hard to smile at Emer; she was a pretty woman, with a round sweet face and wide-spaced eyes.
But now the sweetness was gone from her face, and her eyes were the color of winter.
“Emer, wife! I have missed you. Were you ill?” Sitric enquired solicitously.
“I am mourning my father.”
“Of course, of course. A brave man he was; it was a shock to hear of his death.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “I’m sure. Especially since you had assembled ten thousand men to try to kill him.”
“You exaggerate. We had less than half that many. The Ard Ri’s forces were twice the size of ours. That’s the only reason they won.”
“That’s your version, is it? You forget that I was there, from the walls we could see how large both armies were.”
“You misinterpreted what you saw,” he replied blandly. “How could a woman understand a battle?”
Her lips narrowed to a thin line. “You forget again—I was raised at Kincora. All my life I watched warriors train and listened to their talk. I could probably lead an army as well as you—better, for I’m no coward.”
Sitric drew back his hand to hit her but stopped himself with an effort. He must not make more of an enemy of Emer than she already was. He had plenty of enemies. What he needed now were allies. There would be few enough of those after his recent defeat.
Forcing himself to stay calm, he said, “You think I wanted to avoid the fighting? Not at all, I ached for it; my fingers itched to hold the axe. But I am King of Dublin and it was my responsibility to stay with my city and look after my people.”
“How convenient for you.” Emer studied her fingernails rather than Sitric’s face. She wondered how she could ever have agreed to marry him. She had only done so to please her father. In those early days of marriage, had she ever enjoyed looking at Sitric? she wondered idly. He was a big blond Viking with Gormlaith’s proud profile and broad hands not averse to hitting women. Ugly hands with gnarled knuckles.
Years of living with Sitric had magnified his faults in Emer’s eyes and diminished his virtues. She could tick off the former on her fingertips: he was brutal, he snored, he farted, he lied. He was petty and greedy and scheming, his toes were crooked, and he was getting a bald patch on the crown of his head.
Gormlaith swept into the hall, distracting Sitric’s attention and consigning Emer to the role of fly on the wall. Whenever she appeared she drew the focus of attention to herself and held it there. Gormlaith
took up all the air in a room.
Emer felt invisible when she was around.
Gormlaith was as tall as her son, great-limbed and great-spirited, and even at sixty she had a straight spine and an arrogant carriage. Her famous mane was still red, though a succession of servants spitefully claimed it was dyed, and her heavy-lidded eyes were still green, though not the startling emerald of her youth. In their depths something stirred lazily, like a predator swimming below the surface.
“How dare you send for me like some servant!” was her greeting to Sitric.
He was instantly defensive. “I didn’t send for you, I requested the pleasure of your company.”
Gormlaith stalked past him to the nearest cushioned bench—the only one in the hall, his—and sat down, stretching her long legs before her in a curiously masculine gesture. “As the pig requests the pleasure of the butcher,” she retorted. “What do you want, Sitric? You always want something.”
“Why is everything you say to me some sort of accusation?” He busied himself with his drinking horn, but could not resist a covert glance in her direction to assess her mood.
“Stop looking at me,” Gormlaith demanded. “He looked at me like that when he thought I wasn’t watching.” She need not identify whom she meant. There was only one be in Gormlaith’s vocabulary.
Sitric cleared his throat nervously. She was the only person who could reduce him to awkward self-consciousness. “Mother, I need to talk to you about your, ah, habits.”
“Habits? I have no habits. I do what I like when I like, and never the same twice.”
“I mean going up on the palisade and shaking your fists at the sky. It’s making my men uncomfortable.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “They are easily upset, then. But we knew that already. Look how they ran away from him on Good Friday.”
Sitric gritted his teeth. She was deliberately goading him, trying to make him lose his temper, but he was determined she would not manipulate him this time. “They did not run from Brian Boru. My men fought as Vikings should, unflinchingly and to the death.”
Gormlaith’s reply was scornful. “They ran like hares, the cowards.” She turned toward Emer, the first indication she had given of being aware of the other woman. “You saw them, too, didn’t you?”
“I did see them. When I remarked on it, your son hit me.” In spite of herself, Emer felt a flush of gratitude to Gormlaith for including her in the conversation, for acknowledging and validating her presence as if bestowing a gift. Having the uncanny ability to center attention on herself, Gormlaith occasionally enlarged her sphere to include others. They invariably felt flattered. Even those who most disliked her could not help responding. This was one of her gifts, and she used it to telling advantage.
Now she gave Emer the sympathetic look of one abused woman to another, creating a sisterhood in the presence of the tyrannical male. Then she smiled; a slow, conspiratorial smile. She turned back toward Sitric.
“You hit your wife but you won’t hit me, will you?” she asked her son in a low, deadly voice. Rising from the bench, she took a stride toward him with a fluid grace that belied her years.
Against his every intention, Sitric backed away from her.
Gormlaith laughed.
But there was no mirth in the sound. No amusement left in her. She was hollow. She would spend the rest of her life with a howling void at her center.
Until he set her aside, she had adored Brian Boru with all the excess of her flamboyant nature. She had flaunted her sex to excite his jealousy and played political games out of an ambition the equal of his own. When he divorced her, she had sought a fearsome revenge.
When it came it cracked her heart down the middle.
I am wreckage, she thought. I am alone in the world without him, who was my only equal.
I am alone.
Her huge eyes stared at Sitric out of cavernous sockets. “Hit me,” she invited. If he hit her perhaps she would feel something again.
Shaking his head, Sitric took another step backward.
“Coward.” With another shrug that dismissed the King of Dublin and all his works, Gormlaith turned to leave the hall.
“Wait!” Sitric cried.
“Why? Is there the remotest possibility you might say anything worth hearing?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I need your advice,” he admitted.
She waited where she was. Her back was eloquent.
Sitric said, “You of all people understand the politics of high kingship. You’ve been married to two of them and you know every possible claimant. Tell me who I shall have to deal with now.”
She turned halfway toward him. “Why should I?”
“Mother!” Sitric heard the pleading in his voice and knew it was a mistake, it would only make her more contemptuous.
But Gormlaith merely yawned. “Very well, I have nothing better to do anyway. And aren’t those wretched servants of yours going to bring us some food sometime or other?” Radiating boredom, she sauntered back to the cushioned bench and sat down. “Let’s look at the situation, Sitric. Malachi Mor is the most obvious claimant; he was Ard Ri before. Remember that until the rise of the Dalcassians, the High King was always a member of either the northern or the southern Ui Neill.
“But be destroyed the tradition of alternate kingship. Malachi might well attempt to reestablish it now that he’s gone.”
Sitric pointed out, “Brian Boru put an end to the alternate kingship not only so he could be Ard Ri, but also so he could establish a dynasty of his own, with one of his sons succeeding him. Of course, what he wanted no longer matters.”
“Are you so sure?” Gormlaith asked softly. “Remember—one of his sons is my own Donnchad.”
“That boy? He’s not High King material.”
Gormlaith drew in her breath with a hiss. “Who are you to judge?”
“I am also your son,” Sitric reminded her.
“You are a proven loser,” she retorted. “You had enough allies to conquer the world and you still couldn’t defeat him. To think I gave birth to you! But I would like to be proud of at least one of my sons—perhaps I will help Donnchad succeed his father as Ard Ri so he can punish you as you deserve.”
Sitric was taken aback. “You wouldn’t,” he said faintly.
“Would I not?” Her eyes glittered. Whatever had been languishing in their depths rose toward the surface, scenting an easy kill.
Chapter Eleven
THE RETURN OF THE ARMY TO KINCORA SHOULD HAVE BEEN A TRIUMPHAL progress, but an unrelenting melancholy accompanied them every step of the way. The horsemen rode at a weary walk for the most part, only stirring their animals into a trot when they had a hill to climb. Dragging the sledges carrying the wounded and dead, the foot warriors slouched along in no particular order, the discipline Brian Boru had enforced now abandoned.
A lantern-jawed man in a badly torn saffron tunic growled, “We won, but what did we win? The Ard Ri’s dead. That maggot Sitric still holds Dublin. The invaders have gone back to where they came from, but they may return next spring, or the year after.”
“They always do,” commented another, whose bloody axe was thrust uncleaned through his belt, rusting.
A third man added, “As long as we have fat cattle and yellow gold and fair women, some foreigner will try to plunder us. It’s as certain as fleas in your bedding.”
“I won’t let anyone plunder us,” Donough wanted to say. “I can defend Ireland just as my father did.”
But he kept silent, half afraid they would laugh at him.
Beltaine—May in the Christian calendar—lay sweetly across the land, fragrant with the bloom of whitethorn. After a cold, wet spring the sun shone almost every day as if trying to make up for past omissions. Mud dried, making marching easier.
But the Dalcassians remained haunted by Clontarf.
As they drew near the Shannon, however, Donough felt his spirits rise. He began sitting taller on his horse and craning
his neck as if he could glimpse Kincora through the dense woods east of the river. In his mind Kincora represented prestige and security in a world where both were hard come by. He loved the sprawling fort as his father had loved it, inordinately proud of every stone and timber.
He was, however, uncomfortably aware that Brian had left Teigue in charge. Donough had the army of Munster with him, at least its largest, Dalcassian component, but Teigue held the royal stronghold.
While the army was still some distance away, scouts observed its approach and hurried to Kincora to report to Teigue.
They found him in the great hall, which crowned a hill south of the eel weir on the Shannon that gave Kincora—Ceann Coradh, Head of the Weir—its name. The immense rectangular hall served a dual purpose. Brian Boru had used it as his audience chamber as well as his banqueting hall, calculatedly awing visitors with an ostentatious display of gold cups and bejeweled goblets on every table in the room.
The Ard Ri’s private apartments had been built of stone, but his great hall was made of wattle-and-timber paneled with fragrant cedar, its shingled roof supported by pillars made from tree trunks adzed to a uniform size, then inlaid with silver and copper. Brightly colored woolen wall hangings suspended from bronze rods deflected draughts. The hall boasted not one but two stone hearths, each a third of the way down the center, and blazed with an extravagance of beeswax candles.
The Ard Ri’s carved bench sat on a raised dais to the right of the main doorway. In his father’s absence, Teigue had not presumed to occupy the royal seat, but he did take his meals in the hall. He enjoyed watching the scurry of servants using the twin corridors leading to the kitchens, a design of Brian’s that allowed one set of servitors to carry in fresh food while others removed the emptied platters, without getting in each other’s way.
Teigue was licking roast mutton fat off his fingers when the scouts were brought to him with a message that would not wait. “The Dalcassians are only a few miles from the Shannon,” they reported breathlessly.
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