Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  ‘Yes. That’s what I do,’ she continued. ‘I make special weapons and defences and sell them to, eh, noble warriors and kings.’

  ‘Show us what you have.’

  Before she could even respond, he was wedging open her caskets by driving a flint axe head into the locks, grunting, sweating, and cursing as he did so.

  Eventually, with all the caskets broken, sacks cut and things thrown everywhere in the sand, he stood up in a rage and said, ‘What is all this rubbish? Are you trying to make a fool of me?’

  Eibhlín was feeling weak. She picked up her lightweight helmet for the chariot horse – the one that Mac Cumhaill and Cormac had so offended her by not taking.

  ‘This, you see, is much lighter and yet harder than the older class of a cap that horses wear into battle. It lessens their load slightly so they can go faster, yet protects them better.’

  ‘What?’ He grabbed the helmet from her. ‘A nice little cap to protect the poor little horsies. Is that it? Is that it?’ He flung the thing against a wooden pole. ‘In this country, you pale fool, I am more concerned with keeping myself alive than keeping stupid horses alive. That’s why I’ve been king for nineteen years. That’s why a horse is not king. Fool.’

  Eibhlín’s heart sank. She went through several of her inventions. Each was greeted with the same ridicule. Eventually, she took out a cloth-covered object. She tenderly unwrapped it. It was a special hooked spear that her father had designed. Because it was from the man she worshipped, she had sworn to herself that she would never show this to anyone other than the most noble. But she was desperate. And when Glic took this and also flung it in the fire place, she suddenly felt another emotion. Anger. She had nothing to lose, as she could not see herself coming out of this place alive. So she walked slowly over to the fireplace and picked her father’s spear out of the ash.

  Silence fell on the place, as everyone could see the madness in her eyes. The demented bard had drawn his sword but was standing a safe distance from the spear. The king, of course, had no sword to draw, but pulled out his whip.

  She had the stump of the whip caught with the spear hook before he could even swing. She pulled it out of his hand like he was a child. He started snivelling.

  ‘A test,’ he suddenly laughed, as the point of the spear touched his belly, still sore from his last encounter with the demon queen.

  ‘A test?’ said Eibhlín.

  ‘Yes, of course, my dear, I have only been testing you to see what metal you yourself are made of. That will tell me much more than the metals in your weapons.’

  ‘Really?’ said Eibhlín, relaxing a little.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he smiled sweetly. ‘Put down that fearsome weapon. We are all friends here.’

  She put it down. Glic’s assistant cautiously removed it.

  ‘I see now,’ said the king, still grinning.

  ‘What do you see?’ said Eibhlín.

  ‘It wasn’t a pile of fancy metal that was sent to me by the gods, it was the woman to carry the weapons.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Eibhlín, alarmed.

  ‘You know. Your mission here. You have come to solve my problem. I should have known.’

  ‘Only weapons. That’s the only problem I solve.’

  ‘Of course, you can take any of your weapons with you. Whatever you like. Most of my men have no use for anything more fancy than a hatchet and a club. Just as long as you do the job.’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  Glic nodded at the other man, who removed the sticks from the doorway and left the hut castle, followed by the two women, and then blocked the door again.

  ‘No. I really don’t have any idea what you are talking about.’

  Eibhlín looked all around and could see several spots in the rough mud wall where she might be able to get through if she made a dash for it. But there was nowhere to go once she got out. The boat had left as soon as it had deposited her and the other Angledaneland passenger. ‘Going to do some trading with less hungry people up the coast,’ they had said. If only she’d asked them why they said that.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ he said, reaching out to touch her hand. She pulled her arm away as the soft, sweaty palm descended. He bit his anger back and drew a deep breath.

  ‘That’s alright, my dear. You can be like that. I don’t care. You can be as rude as you want. Just as long as you do the job.’

  ‘What job are you talking about?’ asked Eibhlín angrily. ‘I’ll do work for you if you promise to allow me to get on the next ship out of here, no matter where it’s going. What job is it that you want me to do? I could make an iron brace that will hold the roof on this ramshackle castle of yours next time there’s a storm. Or I could fix your sword. I assume it’s broken, since I see you’re not wearing one. Just say what it is you want.’

  ‘You are fiery. Just like her. I see it now. That’s why you were sent,’ said the king, increasingly pleased with himself.

  ‘Just like who?’

  ‘Don’t you know? There’s a very nice woman up there in the hills behind us. The only job you have to do for me is to separate her head from her body. It’ll be very easy for a temperamental woman like you. You can use any of the weapons you like.’

  He kicked the pile of Eibhlín’s inventions and scattered them on the floor, then turned away laughing.

  ‘I’m not a soldier. I don’t know how to kill. And besides... turn and look at me, you little pig man!’ she suddenly shouted.

  He turned, still laughing. ‘You know the strange thing? Those are the exact words she offen calls me. You are her perfect match. You can go and do it now, or wait till tomorrow. It’s all the same to me.’

  ‘And besides,’ Eibhlín continued more quietly, ‘I’m just not going to kill some poor, defenceless woman just because you don’t like her.’

  ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong to think she is defenceless. She is not quite that, shall we say.’ He sniggered at his joke. ‘Also wrong to say that I don’t like her. I actually like her quite a bit more than I like you. I may even have my slaves erect a nice stone circle tomb to put her head in when you bring it to me. I don’t want it to be said that I don’t treat my women well. And most wrong of all to say that you are not going to kill her. In fact, that is exactly what you are going to do. Unless you want to live here becoming wife and footwasher to your little “pig man” king for the rest of your days.’

  He went back and flopped down on his straw. He waved his hand vaguely as if he was telling her where there might be a good patch of blackberries.

  ‘She lives up in the hills somewhere. Wander up there and you’ll find her soon enough. If you bump into the beast, as they call him here, an ugly lump of a boy, don’t bother with him. He couldn’t harm a fly. But when you are in the vicinity, she’ll know. And she will show herself to you when she chooses to. Then, you know what to do.’

  ‘Even if I was going to try to do this, how would I know her?’

  ‘You’ll know her. There are not exactly hundreds of beautiful women with twenty-foot tails wandering around the place you know.’

  ‘A tail? What kind of woman is this exactly?’

  ‘Ah, what a woman! My naughty queen. She is going to regret trying to cast me aside,’ he said, almost daydreaming.

  Eibhlín was filled with revulsion at the sight. She picked up the spear again and prodded him out of his dreaming.

  ‘There’s really no point in threatening me with that,’ he said, less alarmed than before. ‘If you even scratch me, there’s no way out for you. The only way out is to do the one simple little job I am asking. Just remove her cap. Then we’re both happy and off you go.’

  Eibhlín sat down for a minute in the sand again to think about her situation. She was determined not to have anything to do with any of this. She had several reasons. One was that she could not take the word of a rotten creature like Glic. For all she knew, this queen might be entirely good. Another was t
hat she genuinely had never used a weapon against another person. She had no training at all, though she fancied she might be able to wield one of her well-balanced swords as well as most men. The biggest reason of all was that, even assuming that this queen was bad enough to be killed, she really didn’t like the sound of the tail or the way Glic chuckled. She had a sneaking feeling this was not any ordinary adversary and that this would not be a match she could win, no matter how good her weapons or skills.

  Eibhlín picked out two swords, a snare, and her father’s spear. She carefully tied them together with a strip she tore from her clothing. She headed for the doorway.

  Glic sat up again and said, ‘There you go, my darling girl. I knew you’d see sense. This is a good deal for all of us.’

  He shouted for someone to remove the barriers from the doors to let Eibhlín out and told them not to bother her or follow her.

  Outside the castle, everywhere was dusty and she was finally seeing the reality. The desperately hungry-looking people she met seemed drained of energy by the warm sun. The castle guards were sitting in the shade of a small tree and sipping something from seashells. She, too, was very hungry and very confused. Nobody seemed bothered by what she did or where she went.

  It seemed there was nothing else for her to do except go to the hills to see for herself what this woman was really like and just how impossible it was going to be for her ever to win her way back home. Besides, there was no point in hanging around down here anyway, as she would die of thirst and hunger without anyone even noticing her. The place had been scoured for food by these hungry people. There wasn’t a fruit or nut anywhere, or even a root that might have been edible. No birds that she might net and roast. She had seen one young man eating insects, but even those looked like a hard catch. The people here spent most of the time staring at the ground.

  She tied her bundle of weapons around her shoulder and headed towards the hills. It was the first time she’d seen any reaction from the people. When she looked back, everyone had stopped what they were doing. They were all looking up at her, horrified. Nobody went where she was going. Into the domain of their beast. But none of them tried to call her back. Nobody cared to save her. They just stood there with their hands over their mouths. She started thinking, maybe the people of this land deserved nothing better than the likes of Glic as their heroic leader.

  The hills weren’t very high. She was soon walking in a section where the stone was loose and broken. Given her own trade, she knew well the signs of trades from previous eras. She was walking through what had been a very busy place not that long ago. There was a warren of hollows in the hills where people had knocked out shards of stone to chip into the shapes of tools and weapons. Not having any idea of the danger that lurked in these caverns, she sat into one recess to get some shade and gather her thoughts.

  As she sat there, it suddenly dawned on her that this was completely different than the village below. Because the people were afraid to come up here, the place was undisturbed. There were several apple and pear trees, probably seeded here in the times that the stone workers spent their days here. And they were laden down with nearly ripe fruit. There was a clump of briars a short distance further up that looked like it had berries dropping off it. There were animals that had never seen a human and didn’t know how dangerous they are. She would be able to snare a rabbit or net a bird with very little effort. For the first time since landing in Angledaneland she started to feel alright. Even better, when she investigated a trickling sound nearby she found a mountain spring with water so sweet she felt bloated by the time she was finished scooping it into her mouth.

  She set a snare. She ate three pears. She brushed aside some stone chippings, laid her shawl down, laid herself down, and sank into the best sleep she’d had since she’d left her father’s hut in the Fógartaigh rath, what seemed like an age ago.

  The next morning, she was awoken by the sunshine warming her legs. She quickly gathered her things, preparing to dutifully carry on journeying up the hill. But she realised she didn’t know where she was going or what she was really looking for. She also realised she was more comfortable here than she’d been anywhere for a long time. Plenty to eat. Plenty of heat. No furnace or mouldings to struggle with. And best of all for someone who didn’t really like people much, no other people anywhere near. Absolute peace.

  She went to check her snares and found a fine, fat rabbit that would nicely supplement her meals for a few days. So she decided to stay right here for a day or two. Or maybe more.

  As Eibhlín spent the coming days trying to decide which corners of the caves would be the driest and most sheltered no matter what direction the winds came from, gathering twigs, grasses and mosses to make her nest, other things were happening around. Things were happening far away at home, below in Glic’s castle, and nearer still, in the inner caverns of the hill in which she was making her new home.

  Back in Éire, the chief of the Fógartaighs had gone to Tara with Eibhlín’s father, appealing that someone be sent to rescue her. The Fógartaigh was a kind and gentle friend of Cormac’s and this made the king well disposed to the pleadings. He shared the Fógartaigh’s sympathy with the woman’s father, cold and hard as the man was. As the Fógartaigh pointed out, no one would want to be in that man’s position. Even if your child was strong-headed and often got in trouble. Every parent wants to protect their child from harm. Mac Cumhaill was called for.

  ‘Will you go and bring this unfortunate girl back from Angledaneland?’ asked Cormac.

  Mac Cumhaill took one look at the big, tearful eyes of the Fógartaigh, a chief who always took the welfare of every one of his people to heart, and he knew there was no point at all in arguing.

  The only thing he asked was a simple question, but to him a very important one. ‘What am I to do if she doesn’t want to come back?’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘You are surely entitled to ask that,’ said Cormac, ‘but isn’t it a nonsensical question? We both know that that Glic and the ravaged lands of Angledaneland have no welcome for any passing soul.’

  ‘And we both know that Eibhlín is a…’ Mac Cumhaill looked over at the worried father. ‘Well, can we say that she is very attached to her own point of view?’

  Down in the ramshackle castle, Glic was getting curious as to how things had gone. He was preparing to venture up the hill. He was bringing a bundle of plundered gold so that he could pretend it was just a routine visit to bring her a gift, in case he met the demon queen still with her head on her shoulders. But he was hoping against hope that he would meet only Eibhlín. His intention, of course, was not to let her go but to inveigle her back down to the castle and to keep her there until she agreed to become another wife or servant, for his amusement.

  But only twenty paces from where Eibhlín had made her bed, twenty paces further in towards the centre of the hill, stood a far greater danger. The demon queen herself knew of every movement in those lands. She knew of Eibhlín from the minute she splashed into the knee-high water as she came ashore from the currach. Normally, any rare person crazy enough to climb the hills, anyone other than her puppet king, would have been killed instantly. But here was Eibhlín living like a happy child who had just found the most wonderful hideout, eating the queen’s pears and rabbits.

  The reason for Eibhlín’s continued existence on this earth was that the queen had been transfixed by curiosity as to what this tall young woman, who seemed to travel alone, wanted in her lands. The reason for her curiosity was that there were very few visitors to this land, other than the chancers and vagabonds who came to try to be the next king. There were no traders, as there was nothing to trade – most of Glic’s pillaged wealth was brought straight to the queen. There were no marauders, as there was no one to enslave, with the people so weak and lethargic from just having barely enough food. Mostly, foreigners just left the Angledanes alone to live with their sorry secrets.

  There had certainly never before been a visitor of this
kind. And what had she brought in the caskets and bags? the queen wondered. She expected that Glic would be up immediately to report on these goings-on, but no. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since this woman had arrived.

  ‘Stupid little pig doesn’t even realise I know about the visitor, that I see everything,’ she grumbled to herself. But mostly, she was just curious.

  For a clever woman, Eibhlín was surprisingly oblivious. Most people would know if they were being watched. She had no idea. Yet, everything she did and every time she sat or lay doing nothing at all, there were two pairs of eyes observing curiously. She was watched as the first beams of sunlight stirred her in the mornings. She was watched as she danced a funny dance, washing in the cold mountain pool. She was watched as she set her perfect nets and traps. She was watched as she lovingly drew a small sharpening stone along the elegant blade of her unusual hooked spear. She was watched right through to the time for lighting a neat, well-sized fire, to cook her food. Then, four ears listened to her humming herself to sleep, seeming to have no sense at all of the danger she was in.

  She had forgotten, or dismissed as nonsense, Glic’s story about a woman in the hills that she was to kill. She didn’t even want to sully the pure good humour she was in with trying to imagine what the sordid little man might have been on about.

  This situation continued for weeks. The queen had become quite fond of the young woman, in as far as she ever became fond of anyone.

  That was until the much larger boat arrived. It arrived in the early hours of the morning, before orange sunlight cracked the forsaken horizon. The queen saw it anchor in the bay and she saw two smaller boats row ashore from it. Four people got out of the boats. These were not women: they were too ugly. They were not fishermen: they had too much meat on them. They were not Angledanes: they were too sturdy. They were not traders: they were too stealthy, as they headed straight for cover. And she was quite sure they were not potential suitors: they looked like actual warriors rather than renegades or thieves.