Gentler and more reasoned thoughts prevailed, for few doubted that were the Danans to attack those above, the Gaels would not stop this second time until there were no more of the de Danann on all the ridge of the world, north or south, east or west.
At last the Danans decided upon a more peaceful rule-of women, that there might be end to talk of war on those Gaels above, whom had become the Eirrish. It was an enormous step, long debated and decried by many.
Some among them continued to disagree, and could not reconcile themselves to the new way. At last they were sufficiently opposed to the gynecocracy to leave Eirrin. Here to this paradisic isle they journeyed, with a few animals and seeds and much hope. Daneira was founded at about the same time that a short dark man named Caius Julius Caesar led his hawknosed soldiers onto the shore of what to them was a new land: Britain. Here was founded the “city” of Danu of Eiru: Daneira.
As the poet recited the old story, heads in the hall of King Uaisaer came round and wide eyes exchanged looks. Excitement ran through the companions of mac Art like wind through a field of grain, stirring every head.
“Then… it’s possible there be de Danann yet, beneath fair Eirrin?” Samaire’s voice had risen in her excitement.
“Aye, o’course,” she was told, for why would there not be?
Art muttered.
“A crowned woman…”Wulfhere Skull-splitter muttered.
“Aye.”
Aye!
And Cormac told of the means by which Thulsa Doom could be lain to rest, and Cathbadh nodded agreement. The knowledge passed down from one Servant of Danu to the next confirmed the Gael’s belief. Cathbadh rose.
“Ye be friend to us, Cormac mac Art. Friend to the People of Danu. And the Tuatha de Danann, wherever they be, shall recognize ye as such by the necklace ye wear. An ye would seek out our cousins ’neath Eirrin and their queen-do so, in knowledge that welcome will be extended.”
Cormac frowned, fingering the pendant he wore on its silver chain-which tonight he wore outside the scarlet robe pressed upon him by his hosts. “But… Thulsa Doom too wears one…”
“The Moonbow on his chain is downside up, Cormac mac Art. Think ye I chose them not with care? His brands him in your control-and an enemy of humankind!”
“Blood of the gods! Then-it is possible after all. Thulsa Doom’s foul un-life must be ended-and it can be!”
“Cathbadh,” Samaire asked, quietly though with intenseness, “where be the Tuatha de Danann in Eirrin?”
“Aye,” Cathbadh said, “in Eirrin, not on. There are Doors, lady Princess of Leinster, that lead to the subterrene demesne of the people of Danu. These Doorways are disguised and invisible, no longer truly beneath the mounds called sidhe, for all do know the Danans possess powers of magic never shared with the Gaels… who, after all, drove our people from their lands, though it be long and long agone and all here be friends. One such Doorway lies within the two long, mounded hills in the southwest…”
The wizard-priest described the place, and suddenly Samaire knew whereof he spoke.
“The Breasts of Danu! I know those two hills-it’s the Breasts of Danu they be called, to this day!”
Cathbadh smiled and exchanged a look of some pride with Uaisaer; the Danans and their goddess were hardly forgot, in Eirrin that had once been theirs!
“Another of the Doors,” Cathbadh said, “is in the hill of Bri Leith-”
“Long-ford,” Cormac snapped. “The hill at Long-ford! Why-it’s but a day’s walk and less from Tara Hill that Long-ford lies! Cathbadh: how find we this… Doorway, to the land below?”
“Cormac: ye wear Her sign. Ye have my blessing. The Door will ope to ye, when ye arrive before it. More than that I cannot say with surety; we are gone long and long from Eirrin. It is nigh onto five centuries since the founding of the city of the people of Danu and Eiru-Daneira.”
Smiles flashed among the visitors, for a world that had gone dark with the presence of Thulsa Doom now brightened with the prospect of his removal. No matter what was required of him, Cormac mac Art knew that he must journey with the mage to Long-ford’s hill, and find the Door to the Tuatha de Danann. Sinshi shared his excitement and his happiness, but he hardly noted, for he was grinning at Samaire like a boy.
After a time it was thoughtful Bas who was gaining Cathbadh’s attention.
“It is little pride I swallow, Servant of Danu the Mother, to say to ye that ye possess knowledge and powers I would beg to know of.”
Cathbadh gazed upon the druid in his snowy dinner robe, a man whose hair was black and whose eyes were blue. “It is the moon goddess I serve in truth, and the sungod ye do. It has never been the way of the sun to share its daily brilliance with the moon that illumines the night, Servant of Behl and Crom… nor for the moon to share its silver with the sun’s god.”
There was silence for a time then, for Bas’s request had been rejected and the brains of Cormac and his companions churned with thoughts of Eirrin, and the land beneath and within Eirrin… and Thulsa Doom.
In his white robe purfled with yellow, King Uaisaer rose at the long table’s head, and in this wise he differed not from other monarchs. His rising signaled, the meal’s end. His people began to depart, taking their leave of king and guests. But Sinshi stayed, and Findhu, and soon there were but they, and Cathbadh and Uaisaer, and Cormac and his companions-and the maids whose names he could not remember, who hovered bright-faced about Wulfhere and Brian.
“Our hospitality is open here,” the king said, and he was looking at the young son of Eirrin and the thick-bearded Dane.
Wulfhere took his cue for behaviour from those words. Sitting back, he wrapped an arm about the young woman on either side of him and snuggled them close. Willingly they accepted such twofold embrace, and Cormac saw that the king looked pleased. The younger Brian was less demonstrative-it was just that his hands and those of the Daneiran maidens flanking him were all out of sight beneath the board.
King Uaisaer said, “We would have converse with you, Cormac mac Art na Gaedhel.”
As Cormac nodded, Sinshi pressed close, though already her hip had long warmed his. She squeezed his hand beneath the board, and leaned close to murmur for his ears alone.
“I know what words he’d have with you, Cormac. Please, please, dear Cormac… agree, agree!”
His companions were bade tarry or wend their way to the quarters assigned them, as they would. With Uaisaer and Cathbadh, Cormac adjourned privily to another and smaller room.
“Friend Cormac,” the king quietly said, “ye’ve noted how few we of Daneira are-and how alike.”
“Aye.”
“It was but two smallish tribes of the Danans left Eirrin five centuries agone. We survive today only because this is but the second ‘invasion’ of our isle.”
The king paused, glancing at Cathbadh; the wizard-priest spoke.
“I should not have slain all those Norsemen this day, Cormac. The people of Daneira are weak. We suffer no menaces, but are prey to illness and debilities that worsen as they are passed from parent to child again and again. Many die young, very young. Many women never bear. They cannot; some because the fault is in themselves, others because-we think-the answer lies in the weak seed of our men. We linger, but we do not thrive. Daneira may not survive another hundred years. All for lack of a new strain of blood and strength in us.”
Cormac nodded, thoughtfully.
“We… have great need of you, Cormac of the Gaels,” Cathbadh said most quietly indeed. “And of the handsome lad, Brian, and that gigantic friend of yours, he who is neither Gael nor Danan.”
Cormac mac Art understood. He knew now why earlier Cathbadh had not mentioned the slain man and boy, but had mourned the potential childbearers dead of the encounter with the Norse. And mayhap there had been hope as well as fear with Sinshi, on yester day out there in the forest with Thorleif fighting his way betwixt her legs. Aye, and he understood why he had been thanked by wizard-priest and then king in the s
ame manner: for having saved a nubile maid. Her parents had borne three, and she and her brothers were valuable to the future of Daneira.
Children were the lifeblood of any people.
The blood of relentlessly, helplessly endogamic Daneira was running thin.
And here among them for but a night were three strapping males from outside, of entirely different blood and even race! Aye, Cormac knew why he and Wulfhere and Brian were so welcome here… and perhaps why Sinshi was so extremely, nigh-unconscionably attentive. At that thought his ego suffered a little.
“It’s our seed ye want-and direly.”
King and priest nodded. “Aye.”
Cormac glanced at the closed door behind him. “My lords, this need not have been said. Maidens attend both Brian and Wulfhere, who are men, and long without women. The normal course of nature will see to the sowing of their seed in Daneira, and I hold hope for ye that it falls into rich and fertile soil. An we’re to be a bit… cold about it-”
“As we are,” Cathbadh said; “as we must be.”
“-a fertile plot once seeded need only lie and be tended with care, whilst the gardener moves to another part of the garden. In this wise, my lords, the gardens need only depart to be replaced in the gardener’s chamber by another fertile plot…”
The king nodded. Cathbadh smiled.
“So much for Wulfhere and the lad,” Cormac went on. “As for myself-it’s with my woman I’ve come among ye, and her a weapon-companion as well. With her this night for the first time in so long and with privacy available to us through your kindness, no desire is on me for others. Nay-let there be no argument among us, and us friends, for that is the way of it.”
Their faces had fallen, but his last words and raised hand stilled any pleas or demurrers.
“Methinks Sinshi’s heart will hardly be broke,” Cormac said, with in truth a bit of bitterness, for certainly she had turned his head, and now he knew not her motive. “But it’s a coward Art’s son is in some matters, and this is one. I’ll not be going back into the hall where she sits waiting.” He nodded to indicate a deep red curtain beyond them. “That portal I remember takes me to the sleeping rooms ye’ve offered, lord king of Daneira, and it’s through it I go now, not back to say Sinshi nay.”
And he did.
The two men stared at the drapes that had fallen together behind him, and they knew that with such a man they were unopenable.
“I must… have meeting with Sinshi Duach’s daughter,” Cathbadh said quietly and with thought upon him. “Where are the clothes of the strangers?.”
“They will be brought to you,” Uaisaer said. “But-what of the woman of Eirrin?”
“Mmm.” Cathbadh nodded. “I must have meeting with both Sinshi and Findhu!”
That meeting was swiftly held, ere the guests could act to spoil the plan of the wizard-priest. In the darkness of a most private room of that king’s house Cormac prepared for bed, while to another went Samaire, knowing he had rejected the little Daneiran and would soon come to her, and in a third such private room three people stood while only a candle burned. Above, Danu, Mother and Huntress, rode the sky in Her silver chariot. In the dim-lit room stood Her servant with his staff bearing Her sign, and with his robe of lacquered leaves on him. The candle flickered and lit fleetingly the two who stood before him, Sinshi and Findhu, entirely naked though not quite as the day they were born. And he spoke, and intoned, and muttered and made gestures, speaking to his goddess. And he did place upon them garments that fit them ill, being too large, whereupon lo! Sinshi assumed of a sudden the likeness of Samaire of Leinster and Findhu seemed to become Cormac mac Art.
“Go with the goddess,” Cathbadh said. “Danu be thy light.”
The two departed his company in likenesses other than their own.
Soon, Samaire came to Cormac, and he smiled and called her dairlin’ girl.
But at the same time Cormac went to Samaire in her room, and she smiled and held forth her arms.
On the morning of the morrow, Wulfhere made brag of how he’d had no wish to be selfish, and so had toiled in the gardens of no less than four delightful and delighted maids of Daneira, all of whom he swore fainted in bliss; Brian but grinned and was silent, except to say quietly that he had been… less industrious in the numbers of garden plots, but had plowed more than once in two several Daneiran gardens, and therein sown his seed.
Cormac and Samaire said naught, for. each supposed to have spent the night with the other. And it was many a day ere they knew privacy again, and learned that each had received the other that night though neither had gone, whereupon realization came upon them that they had been tricked to no fell purpose by a great mage and two loving Daneirans, no boy and no girl. After a while they laughed on the matter, and wished Sinshi well, for she, unlike Samaire Ceannselaigh, had surely taken no precautions against get.
Chapter Seven:
Thulsa Doom
Wulfhere ruddered Quester around the Isle of Danu with great care-and skill seldom surpassed. Aboard were two men of Daneira, filled with wonder and going constantly from port to starboard, from stem to prow, ever looking; neither had been asea before. At last the Dane spotted that which they sought: the wolf’s head ship of the Norsemen.
Ashore, the woods trailed off into a short but deep strand that sloped gently to the water. On the sparkling pale sand of that beach, the ship from Norge had been drawn up to the edge of the trees. She’d been turned partially crosswise, for there was little more than sixty feet of depth to the beach betwixt trees and surf, and the Norse vessel was little more than ten feet shorter.
Quester hove in cautiously, without sail.
Those aboard saw no sign of men who might have been left to guard the scarlet vessel; there was naught here but sea and sand and woods and the ship, left whilst those who had plied her so far went ashore-to their deaths.
Taking Quester well into the shallows until it was nudging the beach, Cormac swung off, with Wulfhere and Brian. They moved up the strand, treading wet sand. Aboard the ship from Eirrin waited Bas and Samaire and Thulsa Doom, with the two from Daneira. They watched the trio of weapon-men move warily up glittering sand to the beached vessel. The beach twinkled as if strewn with gems, in the sunlight that struck white fire from helms and mail.
“Oh-what a beautiful ship!”
Wulfhere nodded. “Aye. None build ships better than those Norse fugitives from Hel’s domain, Cormac.”
Eyesight was sufficient to confirm the beauty of the knorr; only a few moments’ examination was necessary to ensure that it was unguarded and in perfect condition, a long curving sweep of seafaring beauty with a scarlet hull the height of Cormac’s shoulders. Her name was branded along her side; Odin’s Eye. The god of the northlands had but one, for he had given up the other in trade for great wisdom. The snarling wolf-heads of Odin’s Eye were in place at bow and stern, which meant they had been reset after the beaching, for they were removed ere a ship of the cold lands came in to shore, lest the spirits of the land be alarmed by the fearsome gaping wolf-mouths and resist the landing. None had; it was well inland that these men of Norge had met their weird.
“Be it likely that all the Norsemen went inland, and left none behind to mind this beauty?” Brian asked.
Wulfhere and Cormac, their eyes as if bedazzled and ensorceled by the vessel, nodded: “Aye,” the Gael said. “Such is their way, often. See you any sign of habitation on this isle? They saw none, either. But-it’s sure we want to be that no reavers remain.”
The two who’d sailed so long together, a-reaving, looked at each other.
“We must have her,” Cormac said. “Aye.”
They shouted then, above the liquid slapping of the surf. All three men clashed the flats of their blades on their bucklers to draw any who might have been left behind by Thorleif and Snorri, and who might now have fared into the forest.
“An any come,” Brian asked, “shall we tell them of the welcoming they’ll be receiving of
those man-hungry maids of Daneira, and bid them go inland… provided they leave all arms here?-And armour as well?”
“No sensible man would agree to such a mad bargain,” Wulfhere said. “They’d show us refusal by attacking at once.” He thrust two knobby-knuckled fingers up into his beard. “I bathed not high enough! Umm… such seeming madness, I mean; I be sore tempted to remain and return to Daneira, myself.”
Cormac had shaken his head. “No, Brian. Armed or no, such wolves would soon eat the gentle lambs of Daneira, alive or dead. An any come in reply to our noise, it’s but one way there is to ensure the safety of Daneira.”
Beyond the ship, the trees rustled their tops in a breeze off the sea. Brian looked at Cormac, with his lip caught between his teeth.
“Aye, proper death-dealing,” Wulfhere rumbled, quietly for once.
“Murder,” Cormac said.
“We’d slay out of hand?”
“Oh, they’d make attack,” Cormac said. “But-aye. Daneira must be protected, and making sweet overtures to reavers is the fool’s way. Slay a few to protect a few hundred? Aye! An that goes against your feelings, Brian, lay you back. I and Wulfhere can handle any who come. And he’ll only begrudge ye those you account for, I-love-to-light.”
“Unnecessary chatter. None comes,” the Dane said.
Cormac sheathed his sword and rested a hand on Odin’s Eye by the slit that allowed an oar’s slim blade to be slid down into the round hole for its sweep. He gazed at the line of trees, from which no one emerged. The only sounds were of surf and treetops that seemed to rustle in a whisper.
“None comes,” he agreed. “Twoscore Norsemen fared here, on Odin’s Eye, and all found death here. Four by my hand, and the rest died of Cathbadh’s sorcery. As for yourself, Wulfhere, ye high-horned dreamer… remain then. It’s not a month ye’d last, in such an unexciting place.”
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