Carroll said softly, “Perhaps that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have taken too much on yourself. It was incredibly difficult for him. You started halfway up a ladder of which he had built every rung, then climbed from the bottom. Other people’s expectations of Brian were never as demanding as his own.”
“But he could do anything!”
Carroll laughed. “No, he couldn’t. He was simply clever at making others think he could. He held us all spellbound and I suspect you’ve fallen victim to the same enchantment. I admired him as much as any man, but over the years I learned he was only human.”
“He was more than human,” Donough insisted doggedly.
The other man only shook his head. “You lack a historian’s perspective. I tell you this frankly—I who loved him—Brian Boru has blighted the lives of his sons.”
Donough did not want to hear.
On the day he was inaugurated King of Munster he made himself carry his father’s sword.
All eyes were on him—and on that shining blade. He stood before his people with his head high and his face set in dauntless lines the oldest of them well remembered, and they cheered him. Even his enemies cheered him that day.
He received messages of congratulations from Malcolm of Scotland and Godwine of Wessex, and both sent gifts appropriate to a king. Malcolm wrote, “I trust you now have a considerable army at your disposal. Our struggles against various foes continue, and we would not take amiss the loan of some men-at-arms.”
Donough promptly dispatched a contingent of Munstermen to Alba.
Earl Godwine’s letter to his son-in-law was slightly different. “The death of Llywelyn, King of Wales, coincides with your own accession to kingship, thus reminding us that change is a law of nature. Canute retains the throne of England and is in full vigor, but I now have my first son, a big lusty boy whom we christened Harold Godwinesson. He is a splendid fellow, the image of me. My fond hope is to see him follow Canute on the throne. Should that opportunity present itself, I trust we may rely upon the support of a powerful ally in Ireland.”
Powerful. Donough read the letter alone in his chamber, put it aside, took it up and read it again.
My power is only Earl Godwine’s perception, he thought. Unless someone tells him, be has no way of knowing what unstable footing I stand upon. What was it that Carroll said of my father? Ah yes—‘Brian Boru was simply clever at making others think he could do anything.’
Donough summoned a scribe and wrote back to the earl, “At such time as you may require them, the full resources of my kingdom are at your disposal.” He did not mention that he ruled over a divided Munster where fully half of the people, openly or secretly, thought him a fratricide. Nor did he mention that he had lost all hope of ever becoming Ard Ri … unless he acquired an exceptionally powerful ally himself by the time Cuan and Corcran were no longer able to rule.
He was still a young man, however. And there was always a chance Harold Godwinesson might someday gain the English throne. Godwine was an able player of the games of politics and power.
When the company of warriors from Munster arrived in Alba, Malcolm put them to good use in his renewed battle with the Northumbrians. He also heard a most interesting version of Donough’s accession to the kingship.
“Blanaid,” he remarked to his wife with considerable satisfaction, “the King of Munster is as canny as a Scot. He has wisely followed my example in eliminating obstacles.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your brother Donough had your brother Teigue killed for his kingship.”
Blanaid gazed at her husband in horror.
Sitric Silkbeard believed the story, too, but he was not horrified. If anything he was admiring. He had learned a degree of caution when dealing with women, however, so did not suggest to his wife Emer that one of her brothers had murdered the other.
There was no point in telling Gormlaith, either. She no longer understood anything that was said to her.
She sat or lay mute in her chamber, trapped in a body too strong to die. The spirit her flesh imprisoned was like an extinguished flame.
Alone with her in the twilight, her big strong Scottish attendant sometimes held her hand.
The next year Cuan O Lochlan died unexpectedly, but the governorship of Ireland did not revert to high kingship. By the time anyone knew of the Cuan’s death Corcran had appointed a new poet to serve in his place.
Tara remained deserted. Spiders spun cobwebs within its halls.
One battle season after another passed, gave way to winter, was renewed with the spring. Sitric’s Dublin Danes sallied forth to plunder and pillage, but their enthusiasm for the sport was gradually diminishing. There was too much competition.
The joint governors of the Irish, poet and priest, were totally lacking in military experience and made little effort to enforce any degree of peace.
Donough Mac Brian, King of Munster, fought the wars that were necessary to a king, proving his right to rule by keeping his enemies intimidated.
At Cashel, Driella bore a third son to join Murchad and his brother Lorcan. The new child was small and wizened; dark-visaged. Dublin took one look at him and turned away.
Driella was watching him as she lay on the bed. Something like fear touched her plump, sweaty face. By now she had, inadvertently, acquired enough Irish to be able to ask, “What name for your son?”
Donough would not look at the infant again. “Call him anything you like,” he said.
As he left the chamber he met Geoffrey of the Fens in the passageway. The two men locked eyes, a rare occurrence. The expression on the priest’s face was guarded; anxious. Donough’s left hand slipped to the hilt of the knife he wore at his belt.
What would my father do if this man had sired a child on his wife?
Kill him, surely. Then send the body back to England in a box.
But the thought of England unexpectedly reminded Donough of Earl Godwine. As if someone were whispering them in his ear, he recalled the words Godwine had written about his own son Harold; words written with such glowing pride.
Sons, he found himself thinking. Fathers.
Donough drew a deep breath and extended his right hand. With infinite gentleness he rested the mutilated hand on the priest’s shoulder. When he spoke his voice was kind.
“You have a son,” he said.
Chapter Fifty-eight
THE YOUNG APPRENTICE SCRIBE SAT PERCHED LIKE A BONY HERON ON his three-legged stool, quivering with the effort to look both humble and attentive. Brother Declan was explaining to him, “The keeping of the annals is a sacred duty. These records invoke the past for the sake of the future, that those who read them may avoid our sins and be inspired by our sacrifices.”
It was the same speech Cathal had made to Declan many years before.
While the apprentice watched, trying not to squirm, Declan dipped his quill in his ink pot and carefully scribed, “The Age of Christ, 1027. Richard the Good, King of France, Duke of Normandy, and son of Richard the Fearless, died. After sweeping through Connacht and taking many hostages, Donough Mac Brian led the army of Munster into the tribeland of Ossory. There the Munstermen suffered a great slaughter. Among those who fell was Fergal, a noble son of Anluan, son of Kennedy. Great was the grief of the Dalcassians.”
But no words on parchment could convey the full extent of Donough’s loss when Fergal died.
Carroll had died two years previously, finally succumbing without complaint to a combination of old men’s ills. Donough had mourned him, but the death was expected.
Fergal’s was not. One minute they were fighting together, with Fergal as usual slightly behind his cousin, guarding his back. Then there was a sound like a thunk, hardly audible among the other sounds of battle. A weight crashed into Donough from behind.
He turned in time to catch his dying cousin in his arms. A spear protruded from Fergal’s back, the shaft still quivering.
“You can’t die!” protested Donough, who had seen countless men die in the same way and knew the wound was mortal.
Fergal squinted up at him. “I don’t always have to follow your orders,” he said hoarsely. “I’m a prince too.” He tried to grin but coughed instead. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and his bowels opened.
He was dead by the time Donough lowered him gently to the ground.
Fergal’s sacrifice brought Donough no inspiration.
It was for nothing, he told himself as he accompanied the body back to Cashel. I was trying to prove myself the warrior my father was, and what have I accomplished? Another skirmish, another battle, and none of them truly important, none of them worth a good man’s life. Kill or be killed, and where’s the glory in it? You die in your own stink. He paused, struck by a disturbing sense of having heard those words before. But when? Who said them?
He could not recall.
The season was summer and every bush was vibrant with birdsong. The air was sweet, the earth was fertile, life was brimming all around them, precious and irreplaceable.
“Nothing is worth a life,” Donough abruptly said aloud.
His men stared at him.
But the fighting did not end. Donough took hostages from Leinster and Meath and they harried his borders in retaliation. Meanwhile a disaffected Munster tribe refused to pay tribute to Cashel, Munster clans raided the cattle of other Munster clans, and the king was expected to act on behalf of countless petitioners. Act, or admit he was not strong enough to be king.
So Donough rode out from Cashel again and again. Sometimes he lost, sometimes he won. The battles all had a sameness, but they were a way of passing the days, a way of escaping from those things he did not wish to think about.
Driella called the baby Donalbane.
“That’s no Irish name,” Donough’s courtiers grumbled. He refused to respond.
Since the child’s birth he had not bedded his wife. He slept in another chamber, when he could sleep. There were many nights he passed stalking through the passageways of Cashel, a tall, grave man with hungry eyes.
His body still lusted, like some animal he could not tame. But he would never touch Driella again. His restraint was not born out of anger at her betrayal; rather, he felt he had bequeathed her to Geoffrey the day Donalbane was born.
Bedding her now would be the betrayal.
He was almost glad he had no living confidantes. He could not have explained his decision in a way that would make sense to anyone else. He only knew he was living up to some inner standard of his own—even if it did not correspond to his image of his father.
There were other women. Donough was a virile man and there were always women who sought the honor of a king’s embraces.
He did not feel anything for them, for which he was thankful. He was convinced they felt nothing for him either, imperfect, disfigured, as he was. Better that no emotions were involved, so sex became a straightforward transaction with each knowing the other’s price.
But he hated the desolate melancholy that descended upon him afterward.
Sometimes when he could stand it no longer he sought distraction by riding north to inspect the garrison at Kincora. At the first sight of those timbered palisades, for just one moment he could be a boy again.
By chance he was there in 1028 when Cathal Mac Maine died.
Donough paid his final respects to the old abbot and attended his entombment within the walls of Kill Dalua. He was pleased to learn his friend, Brother Senan, was to succeed Cathal. They sat together in the abbot’s chamber, reminiscing about its former occupant over cups of mead.
“Mind you,” Senan remarked, “he was a dedicated Christian with a strong sense of purpose, even if I did not always agree with him.”
Donough raised an eyebrow. “I was never aware the two of you quarreled.”
“We did not quarrel; he was the abbot and I a mere brother. But he knew I disapproved of his actions in the matter of the druid girl, for example.”
Donough tensed. “What druid girl?”
“The one you sent for, the one he sent away.”
Very carefully, Donough set down his cup. “Do you mean she came to me after all?”
“She did. The late abbot told her you refused to see her. He could not sanction your association with a pagan, you see, and therefore …”
Donough leaped to his feet. “She did not reject me because of this?” he roared, waving his right hand in the air.
The shocked monk stared up at him, appalled to realize just how big he was, how powerfully built; how furious. “You were misled,” Senan whispered, half expecting from the look on his face that Donough would hit him.
He was weak with relief when the king ran from the chamber. With an unsteady hand, he took up Donough’s abandoned cup and drained it.
At the same time, Sitric Silkbeard decided he had had enough. Since Clontarf his pleasure in life had been steadily eroded. He could not even look forward to Valhalla, because the chances of his dying in battle were very slim. He did not have enough warriors left to venture outside the walls of Dublin. The previous summer his Danes had been virtually destroyed by an army of Meathmen, and this spring his oldest son had been taken hostage by a prince of Brega who demanded as ransom twelve hundred cows, seven score British horses, and sixty ounces of white silver.
The plunderers were being plundered.
Now Sitric’s wife Emer was in a terrible temper. Gormlaith had begun screaming at night and Emer demanded he get rid of her.
“What am I to do, set her adrift in the bay?”
“Or set her alight with a blazing torch, I don’t care.”
“I will do neither; she is my mother.”
“Then send her to Donough,” snarled Emer, “before I set fire to her myself.”
When they were first married all those years ago, Sitric had been amused by the Irish temper of Brian Boru’s daughter. He had laughingly referred to her as “my little lioness.” The charm had soon worn thin, and ended forever on the day of Clontarf, when she had taunted him about his defeat and he struck her.
His face set in stubborn lines. “With every hand raised against me except Donough’s, I cannot afford to break trust with him. I agreed to keep her here and keep her I shall. And if any harm comes to her through you, the same will be visited on you.”
“But you have to do something!” Emer shrieked at him.
Sitric did something. He converted to Christianity. “If I cannot get into Valhalla,” he explained to the bishop who baptized him, “I can at least lay siege to Heaven.”
The bishop was dubious about the aging Viking’s chances of entering Heaven, but wisely refrained from saying so. The conversion of Sitric Silkbeard was much to his credit.
After his baptism Sitric promptly departed on a pilgrimage to Rome, leaving his troubles far behind.
Donough had made a much shorter journey. From Kill Dalua he had ridden at breakneck speed, almost killing a horse under him, to Drumcullaun Lough. There it was a simple matter to locate the druid cabin among the oaks.
But once he drew rein and spancelled his horse so it would not wander off, he felt lost. What could he say to her after so long?
A worse thought struck him. What if she had another man?
He almost turned around and got back on his horse.
But he had never run from anything; he would not run now. With firm stride he walked to the closed door and banged on it with his one good fist.
In the silence that followed he could hear the hammering of his heart.
Someone moved inside; the door creaked on its hinges.
Cumara looked out at him in disbelief.
A few moments later Donough was inside, warming his hands by the fire. “My father’s old friend Padraic gave me a home with his family,” Cumara was explaining. “I’ve been here ever since, occupying myself with copying my father’s biography of your father. But my health is poor, I think only their ancient wisdom kee
ps me alive.”
“Where are the others—Padraic and his family?”
“Och, he himself died two winters ago, and his older daughter and two of his sons are married and gone. There’s only Daman and Cera living here now with me.”
“Cera.” Donough braced himself. “Your wife?” he asked politely.
With a hollow laugh Cumara replied, “Not for lack of trying, but she won’t have me. A wild one, our Cera. She won’t have any man, she belongs only to herself.”
Cumara was beginning to recover from his surprise. Squinting at Donough in the dim light, he thought he detected an expression of intense relief. Was the other so glad to find him, then? How gratifying! “Where are the rest of your men, my friend?” he asked aloud.
“I came alone.”
“You couldn’t! We heard you were made King of Munster; surely you go everywhere with an army now.”
“I left them at Kincora,” said Donough. “I allowed no one to come with me.”
“Why not? You came to see me and wanted no one with you?”
“I did not even know you were here.”
Cumara was taken aback. “Then I don’t understand what … why …”
The door creaked open and daylight fell across Donough’s face, giving Cumara a good look at his expression as Cera entered the cabin. Suddenly all the questions were answered.
She gazed at Donough in wonder. But when she started to speak, he sprang to his feet and crushed her so tightly against him Cera could say nothing at all.
“Ssshhh,” he whispered into her hair. “Ssshhh.”
He simply held her; a tall man enveloping a small woman in his embrace, letting their bodies speak for them with sensations more eloquent than words.
With a sad and wistful smile, Cumara arose and left the cabin.
Sometime later—much later—they spoke of that day at Kill Dalua when she had tried and failed to see him. “I thought you would not come to me because I was mutilated,” Donough told her.
By way of answer she caught hold of his right arm and turned back the sleeve, exposing the discolored thumb and scarred, denuded palm. She held the ruined hand in the firelight so she could see it clearly, then bent her head and covered it with kisses.
Pride of Lions Page 35
