by Tom O'Neill
The stranger opened his palm and the King’s eyes lit up at what he saw. Two crimson stones sparkled mesmerisingly in the meagre moonlight.
‘I’ve never seen anything like those,’ said the King quietly. ‘I have seen much smaller versions, highly valued by foreign kings.’
Matha certainly hadn’t seen the like.
‘Blood emeralds most rare and precious,’ said the little man through his nose. ‘These were mined by my people in a land far, far away. Are you interested?’
‘Blood emeralds!’ exclaimed the King in hushed awe. ‘I’ve heard whispers of them. I truly thought they only existed in legend.’
‘Are you interested?’ repeated the man.
‘I am,’ said the King, reaching out his hand. ‘I will have these set in a new sword handle for myself as they must be the most beautiful stones in the world.’
‘Well, you certainly deserve a new sword. That’s the least of the luxuries you merit, your godliness,’ snivelled the stranger. ‘But there are more where these come from. More that can be yours. And when you have them, you will have everything. Everything you ever wanted.’
The King rose from his bed of boards, with his eyes widely fixed on the ugly little creature.
‘Yes, because people in other places think so much of these kinds of stones,’ continued the visitor, ‘you’ll be able to trade them for any lands, any steed, any wife you want, in all corners of the world.’
‘Well, I have one wife and one woman from the fairy world, and that’ll do me,’ said the King, wincing at the thought of adding to his complicated arrangements. He sat quietly, his face glowing. Then he said, ‘But still, they are very interesting things. I am very interested in them. I never thought of it before. But now I see it. Why should I not possess faraway lands with exotic fruit and colourful birds? And pleasant weather.’
‘Yes. Very smart,’ encouraged the wily little gent. ‘A wise precaution to have another place where you are welcome in case some terrible hooligans displace you here ... er ... unexpectedly. With a few of these big boys in the lining of your tunic you would be able to buy yourself a fine lifestyle wherever you fled to.’
‘And of course I am only interested because it would come at no cost to my own people,’ mused Cormac, who in fairness to him had never developed the common royal habit of robbing his people. After a while of staring into space, feeling the two cold gems in his hands, and dreaming of what these beautiful stones could do for him, the King remembered the little presence.
‘Anyway, my friend, what is it that I can do for you, so that you will bring me maybe just a few more of these beauties?’
‘Ach, nothing really,’ said the little maneen, pretending to be bashful. ‘Nothing very much. I’m nearly embarrassed to trouble you with it.’
‘What?’ said the King.
‘Well there is a small group of my people who have set up a village here in your beautiful country, and we would now like to be allowed to do a little dealing and trading, just to keep our families fed.’
The King snapped out of his dreaming and although he seemed ready to agree to anything just so as not to have to release the stones from his palm, he played it calmly. His better senses may still have been whispering cautions to him. ‘But what kind of people are you exactly?’
‘We’re the descendants of a nobleman called Gí Ó Blinn.’
‘Goblins!’ shouted the King nearly jumping on top of the man. ‘I’ve heard about your lot, and all the mischief you make across the water in Cornobhí. We certainly don’t want your business here in our land, thank you very much. May I politely suggest you take your jewels and go.’
‘I understand your fears, your Amazingness,’ said the goblin, who didn’t seem very worried. ‘I meet this reaction wherever I go. It’s just that those Cornobhachs have spread such malicious stories about us. My people are actually hard-working peace lovers and we do wrong to nobody. Please just do me the one small favour of keeping the gems. They are a genuine gift. And if you think better of my proposition, you can send a messenger to Tuileach. If not, no offence taken.’
The King innocently took the gems back. And once they were in his hand again, he again became entranced by the comfortable feel of them. He did not even see the goblin backing out the door, bowing so low that his cap touched the floor and grinning to himself all the while. After watching the goblin march out unnoticed via a burrow he had dug under the deep-layered palisades, Matha went back to his hut.
Very early in the morning, long before first light, Mac Cumhaill and Matha had to give up the idea of any further sleep as the entire camp became full of industrious sounds. Iron was clanging. Corn was being ground. Pigs and hens were being fed. Soldiers were already drilling in the yards. Tíreach’s voice was everywhere barking instructions and reprimands.
‘So he has completely ignored you,’ said Matha, alarmed now. ‘He is getting ready for war this very morning even as you and Cormac sleep in his camp.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Mac Cumhaill, yawning like an old horse. ‘This is the routine in Tíreach’s world every day of the year.’
Matha didn’t respond.
‘You look worried,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘I know you well enough now to fear that look. What else? Out with it, boy!’
Matha was worried because he was not sure it was right for him to have spied on the business of the High King. But it was done now and he found he was not able to contain what he had learned through the spying. He told Mac Cumhaill what he had heard and seen.
Mac Cumhaill pulled himself reluctantly out of the straw and went to wake Cormac. Very unusually, Cormac was already up and coming out the door of his cabin.
‘What went on last night?’ Mac Cumhaill asked him bluntly.
‘What are you on about, big man?’ responded the King. ‘Where is the chariot?’
‘Goblins, Cormac?’
‘What do you know about that? That is my business.’
‘I know because there is nothing I do not hear,’ said Mac Cumhaill, to Matha’s relief.
Cormac scrutinised him disbelievingly and then shrugged. ‘What matter,’ he said. ‘Get them to bring the chariot. I can’t stand another hour in this harsh place.’
‘Our work here is not done,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘We cannot leave until Tíreach has been placated enough to ensure peace for another year.’
Cormac was not listening. Mac Cumhaill saw the same look that he thought Matha had been exaggerating.
Tíreach spotted Cormac and came over to him.
‘Well, Cormac,’ said Tíreach, ‘do you want to take that ride out on the horses that we talked about? I’ll see if my dogs can raise some boar for you. And as we go, I’ll tell you all of the facts of this situation. Then you’ll see that I am a peace-loving man who has had every avenue but war blocked in front of my eyes ...’
‘That’s the finest,’ said Cormac, not listening to the man at all. ‘Oh well, I’d better be making the road short.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well we can discuss, er ... That thing we were talking about ... That other thing ... Whatever it was ... The next time you come down to Tara.’
‘Cormac, as High King it would be very important for that crowd in Connacht to find out your views on this immediately.’
‘Ah yes, the Connacht people. A lovely lot. That’s the grandest then,’ said Cormac. ‘And when you do call into Tara, bring your lovely wife with you and we’ll all have a fine feast, the best of music, the best of drink, and a right bit of craic laid on for you.’
The tight faced northern man was biting his moustache with anger. Cormac had forgotten that he was strictly averse to feast and drink and hadn’t even noticed that he lacked a wife.
But when Cormac got like this, he was oblivious. He was gone within minutes, waving a fond farewell to his host and shouting, ‘Daghda be with you,’ as though they were parting on hearty terms.
‘Not to worry,’ said Mac Cumhaill, who stayed
behind to try to complete the job that Cormac’s departure had made much harder. ‘He gets distracted sometimes. He told me to tell you that he would be sending a stern warning to the people across in the west.’
‘Are you trying to make a laugh of me now too?’ said Tíreach, always looking out for any slight to take offence at. ‘My High King rambles off ignoring everything I say to him, and his henchman joins with the Connacht people to try to make a fool of me! You’re saying I should let them away with it and the next thing they’ll be taking over my whole kingdom. You don’t know what that westerly race is like.’
‘Rest easy, Tíreach, I have nothing but the highest respect for you. And don’t mind Cormac, he always talks very highly of you,’ said Mac Cumhaill. In truth, they always joked about Tíreach behind his back.
Tíreach just harrumphed. He didn’t much care how he was talked of by Cormac.
‘What about this plan, then?’ continued Mac Cumhaill. ‘What if you send Connacht a message saying you note that some of their beasts have strayed in to northern Murtagh ground. You are sure it is by accident. But in the spirit of reaching out in friendship you want to warn them that the reason Murtagh hasn’t grazed it for years is that there’s a poisonous weed growing there and it killed half of his sheep and goats one year.’
‘Aye,’ said Tíreach, some light of reason seeming to come into his eye. ‘Aye, yes, yes, that’ll get their beasts off in quick step.’
‘You see now,’ said Mac Cumhaill, ‘the hard way is not always the only way.’
‘Yes,’ continued Tíreach, ‘and I’ll add at the end of the message, that if they don’t get them goats out in the next two days, I’ll come and slaughter the lot of them and the lads minding them too.’
‘No,’ said Mac Cumhaill, ‘I would recommend leaving that part out. And then when they take the goats away you’ll have satisfied Murtagh and codded the Connacht lads into being grateful to you for the friendly advice. And at the back of it all, you’ll be able to laugh privately at the expense of both parties.’
Tíreach seemed to be trapped by this logic and his shoulders slumped in disappointment as his mind reluctantly demobilised.
Before leaving, Matha wanted to ask Tíreach what he had meant about the Choill Rúa valley. What was the peculiar thing that he knew? Matha was nervous about approaching such a warlike king. Mac Cumhaill reassured him. ‘Tíreach might have his faults, but he is a decent person behind them, and lacking any airs.’
‘Yes, young man ...’ Tíreach indeed did answer Matha not with airs but with genuine concern. ‘I know your valley and I’m sorry to hear of your plight. You show fine steel in pursuing it. You must never let go of what you know to be true even if people look at you like you are mad.’
Matha saw Mac Cumhaill raise his eyebrows.
‘The peculiar thing?’ Tíreach continued. ‘Over a year ago my estimates for the total amount of barley in the country were wrong. I am never wrong in these things and when I made detailed enquiries I discovered that the produce from your valley was no longer being counted. The explanation I got from an elderly man who has spent a few lifetimes going the roads, a very unreliable gentleman, was that there is a fold in those hills. By some unknown hand, it has in distant history been known to cover over one of the valleys. The valley stays in another world for seven years and seven days’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Matha. At least it was an explanation, if not the one he wanted. ‘But there must be something I can do so that I don’t have to wait for five more years and seven days?’
‘You are welcome, young man. I don’t know about the seven days. The old road man probably just added that bit for drama. And there may be a way. That would be a matter for men who sit around being wise and holy. I don’t understand or consort with such indolent artistic types. However, if you ever want to learn a useful trade in the five years you have in front of you, you are welcome to come and get training as a proper soldier with my men rather than hanging around with messers like Mac Cumhaill here.’ That was as close as Tíreach ever came to humour.
‘Come on with me,’ said Mac Cumhaill to Matha, laughing too in relief at the further easing of Tíreach’s tension. ‘Come with me till you find something better to do. I have been known to associate with some indolent types in my time, so you’d never know what information might luckily cross your path.’
That was the accidental conversation by which Matha fell in with the Fianna for a period.
Tíreach, fretting about the few minutes wasted in talk, walked off giving orders to his men. Without any parting ceremony Mac Cumhaill and Matha headed away on foot with no offer of a loan of horse or chariot from Tíreach. Loaning caused him too much fear that a thing he had counted and minded would not come back in perfect order.
They walked quickly. Mac Cumhaill’s experience was that when Cormac was distracted by a great new idea it was usually a good time for worry.
It wasn’t long before his return to the Fianna training grounds in Brega when his fears began to be borne out. He heard that Cormac had called in several chieftains from Corco Roíde and offered them news they did not want to take.
Cormac was a great sweet talker. He would disarm everyone with self-effacing jokes. He would have his guests relaxed and merry before he came around to slipping them some bad news.
But no amount of sweet talking could render the request he had made of the Corco Roíde chieftains any easier to swallow. The taste in their mouths was sour indeed when they were leaving Tara. They complained to anyone who would listen that the King had just requested them each to give up the grazing of a hundred cattle from their clan grounds. Their people were to make way for visitors, unnamed cattle-farming friends of the King.
The land being requested was the finest flattest sweetest ground in the entire country. By way of consoling them, Cormac had said, ‘Don’t worry, lads, I’ll be asking others for more.’
Mac Cumhaill immediately left for Tara. Trouble was certain. Most chieftains gave due respect to every king, low or high. Even when a king made rulings they didn’t necessarily agree with, they would shrug their shoulders and just get on with life and wait for wisdom to re-assert itself. But there were some areas of a chieftain’s responsibilities more sacred than respect for any king.
There were no chiefs who would willingly part with clan lands. Every good chief understood it wasn’t his or hers to give. A living chief was only an interpreter of the will of the older ancestors who still overlooked the affairs of the clan from the other world. One of a chief’s primary duties was to preserve the lands of the clan. These lands had been marked out in agreements and sometimes battles with other clans, by a thousand predecessors. It contained the places of birth, places of life, and burial places of uncountable generations. It was the property of the entire clan living and dead. The chief was only the custodian. Any king who told such a man to give over an inch of it, let alone the grazing of a hundred cattle, had either lost his mind or his desire to remain king.
Cormac grew up understanding such things. In normal times, as a good king, he wouldn’t have dreamt of trying to twist his chiefs into this. The fact that he had made such a mistake confirmed everything that Matha had said – that the man was under some kind of spell.
In no time, Mac Cumhaill was standing at the end of the heavy oak table in Cormac’s dining hall. He had Diarmuid, Dreoilín, and a sensible brehon with him. Cormac was sitting at the other end, making a big meal of a small corner of bread and an egg.
‘What?’ he said, looking up. ‘What has you looking so surly on a fine morning like this?’
‘May I ask, what are you after telling those Roíde chiefs?’ said Dreoilín.
Cormac stopped eating and looked around him. ‘Aoibhín, will you ask someone to bring these men a bite of food,’ he commanded, ‘and don’t have them looking out of their mouths at a man while he is trying to put a bit of food in his belly.’
‘What did you tell them, Cormac?’ Mac Cumhaill repea
ted.
‘Will you all sit down there, and don’t be looking at me like the cat ran off with your manners,’ said Cormac.
‘We will gladly sit, and thank you for the hospitality,’ said Diarmuid, who Mac Cumhaill had brought because he was nearly as good at honeyed words as Cormac.
‘Look at Fionn there, with the big sour mug on him,’ Cormac said, laughing as he turned to Diarmuid. ‘Daghda love him, we couldn’t do without him but I often think Oonagh, blessings on the good woman, must be putting buliáns in his porridge the way he gets himself so bound up over a small thing.’
Diarmuid laughed politely. Mac Cumhaill didn’t smile. Cormac looked away.
There was silence as a large basket of eggs was brought and a wicker with three loaves of bread set down beside it. ‘Thanks be to Daghda and your good self for such great hospitality,’ said Diarmuid.
The other three guests started eating in silence. Mac Cumhaill kept staring at Cormac.
‘Good enough. I am not a fool,’ said Cormac after the sound of munching got too much. ‘It can be unwise to give away what you have. I know this. But it can sometimes be unwise also to be so immovable that you will not yield an inch, not even if it might gain you a mile.’ The glazed look had returned to his eyes. His hand was in his purse, fiddling.
‘And what,’ said Mac Cumhaill, ‘may I ask, aside from rebellion, do you expect to gain from your decree to the chiefs?’
‘Don’t worry, those boys have the finest land in the country. They will hardly even miss the few fields I’m getting each of them to give.’
‘With all respect, Your Majesty,’ the brehon spoke up, ‘if I may say, this is against our laws, your own laws. There is no provision for any king to give away clan lands.’
‘My fine man, your advice is well received,’ said Cormac, looking cornered. ‘It is indeed your duty to give your opinion. So I take no offence. The brehon’s role is to parrot the existing rules and make sure the citizenry understand and obey. The king’s job, however, is to make those rules. And to break them when it will be better for people that this is done.’
