Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  ‘A man killed in combat is not murdered,’ said Skellig. ‘I’m an army commander. That’s what I’m trained to do.’

  ‘To kill your own? I must have missed that part of the training,’ said Fiachra, his face boiling with anger.

  ‘Shut your gob, you,’ said Skellig. ‘This is between the old man and me now.’

  The other six men with Skellig took this as their cue, dropped their weapons and ran back away from Skellig, to circle out on the beach and re-emerge behind Conán.

  ‘We made a terrible mistake. He only told us this morning that he had hit the king,’ said one of them.

  ‘Whisht now, the lot of you,’ said Conán. ‘Go and lie on the sand and don’t stir until we come to talk to you.’

  ‘You had your chance, son of Cumhaill. Now it’s your time to go,’ said Skellig, stepping forward, his entire face contorted.

  He drew back his arm with another spear in it. To give him credit, the man had enormous power. The spear came fast and true, not lobbed, but straight, speeding its way through the air destined for Mac Cumhaill’s chest. But it was fired with rage rather than stealth and Mac Cumhaill only had to angle his battered bronze shield to its approach. The spear glanced off and broke its head on the rock.

  Skellig then raced forward with his sword drawn. It was a very long blade with fancy scrolling on it. Mac Cumhaill hadn’t seen it before and guessed the man had had it made for himself at the time he started getting notions about being the greatest warrior in the land. Mac Cumhaill was still contemplating this as the weapon was swinging with enormous force towards his neck. He ducked at the last moment and felt hairs being cut from his head. His timing was so good. He really was feeling good this day. He grabbed the retreating hand that held the sword and followed it, dragging Skellig with his own momentum to the ground. Skellig had a big hand, but Mac Cumhaill’s completely locked it and, as Skellig fell, there was an unpleasant sound of bones crushing. The fancy sword fell harmlessly to the ground.

  ‘Is he two-handed or just a ciotóg?’ Mac Cumhaill shouted down to the men, lying on their faces on the beach.

  ‘Only the left is all he can use,’ said one.

  ‘Well, you’re lucky then,’ said Mac Cumhaill, looking back down to Skellig, ‘because it means I can leave you an unbroken hand for picking your nose.’

  ‘No, it’s you who got lucky and caught me off balance,’ said Skellig, grunting with the pain. ‘You tricked me.’

  Mac Cumhaill said, ‘Are you starting to understand yet that you will never be a soldier?’

  ‘What is to be my fate? Are you going to slay the best prospect of a successor who could do better than you? Are you going to rob your own children of a worthy defender?’

  ‘Conán, can you check the state of that lad lying over there with the hazel sticking out of him?’

  Conán looked at the wound, listened to the man’s breathing, and immediately pronounced, ‘I think he’ll be alright; our great new leader can’t even succeed at spearing a man in the back.’

  Mac Cumhaill looked back down at Skellig.

  ‘Maybe your luck is turning. I’m not going to squash you just yet.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to me, then?’

  ‘I have just the job for a majestic fellow like you,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  Skellig was then tied up and brought to a cave.

  The men lying in the sand were called over and questioned. In the end, Mac Cumhaill chose to believe their story, that they had been told by Skellig that he had been appointed the new head of the Fianna, and so they obeyed when he commanded them to travel with him. They were all young, and Mac Cumhaill allowed that Skellig might have seemed a very impressive character to them, with his strength and his boasts. He said he would give them a chance to prove themselves, and, if they came through it, there would never be another word spoken of this mistake.

  The first of them was set to guard Skellig, keeping him fed and watered in the cave and keeping him quiet whatever way he saw fit.

  The second was sent to the local people to find a handy woman who might be able to attend to the wounds of the injured man.

  The other four had a more curious job. Mac Cumhaill explained to them, ‘You are to leave all your weapons here. Go down to the village there and find anyone who is prepared to swap your fine tunics for the old shawls and goatskin wraps of herd boys. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Mac Cumhaill, testily.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then, when you have that done, you are to spread out, up along the coast from here. I am giving each of you something you can trade with and each of you a message to pass on. Here.’

  They held out their hands dutifully. Mac Cumhaill reached into his pouch. To the first lad he gave a cluster of river pearls, brownish but pretty. To the second, he gave five nuggets of gold. The third got ten white, blotchy eggs, the work of golden eagles. The fourth got a miniature harp that could play a fine melody at the slightest touch of the most tuneless hand.

  Mac Cumhaill’s information was that there had been greater merchant activity in this corner of the country over the past months than any other part of the eastern coastline. Strange indeed for a part of the country with little to offer a trader other than rotten cheese and hairy wool. Since some of this new wave of merchants were apparently interested in enquiring about more than the weather, he intended to arrange for them to be told about more than the weather.

  The first man, who was to wait in a cove three hours up the coast, was to look for someone who would trade his mother’s precious pearls for a new bronze adze. Nothing else would do. And it didn’t really matter whether he ever got one. But he was to approach every man with a boat that came in there looking to make this trade.

  ‘And what do I say when they ask what I need the adze for?’ said the first man.

  ‘You want to carve yourself a canoe so you can take part in a great war at sea.’

  ‘What war?’

  ‘You don’t know, but tell them that anyone who can carve a canoe from the trunk of a black cherry, the magical type that can become invisible in the murky waters and move silently and undetected at night, has the choice of training for that instead of for the war on land. You have been told that the seas will be crawling with men ready to give their lives, silently working from the dark water underneath, opening the bottoms of ships and seeing how elegantly they stand when the sea is inside them. And then when the war to defend Éire is won, that will be only the beginning. There will be a hundred thousand men in small canoes like yours silently crossing to make land in every little cove and beach, and moving swiftly so as to finish the war in the enemy’s own territory.’

  The second man was going to a bay just a short walk north, to wait in the sand dunes for traders. His story was to be that the last of his chief ’s gold was to be traded for shackles as he wanted to be able to get a few teams of the prisoners that would be working his land after they were trapped here in the war.

  ‘What war, will I say?’

  ‘You will say that all you know is that it is the Fianna’s war. The Fianna are luring a foreign army in here. Out of respect to those massacred in Halban, there can be no foreign soldiers left alive, but those slaves that survive the sinking of the boats will need to work one year here to earn their freedom and to make up for the fact that every able hand in this country is holding a sword in a neighbouring land instead of steering a plough in his own this year.’

  The third man was stationed to the southwest. He was to trade the ten eagle eggs for whatever charms the Crúcas use to appease their water lord.

  ‘Why will I say I want that?’

  ‘You will report that it is because that unsavoury gentleman has followed the Crúca war boats into our sea. We don’t want him here at all. They can keep him. He is a scourge to our fishermen, farting and spluttering and throwing up storms without notice. Fionn Mac Cumhaill says that if we bribe him to leave the
waters quiet for a few days, we’ll get rid of every single one of the ships that brought him here.’

  The fourth man was to stay here at this bay, waiting, and then approaching any strangers who came. He was to ask them what they could offer him to persuade him to part with the beautiful little harp.

  ‘But you are not actually to give it to anyone,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Why?’ said the soldier. ‘Is there some magic secret to it?’

  ‘The only secret to it is that I happen to like it and want it back, if that’s alright with you,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘And what story should I tell them?’

  ‘You are a half-witted bard who has lost his verse, but are full of lament. You are a musician who has lost his tune, but are full of wailing. You want to find something that will bring light back into your life.’

  ‘Why should I say that to them?’

  ‘You have a long, dreary explanation to give them. You tell them you are so despondent that the music has left the country. There is only the silent sound of people waiting, metal sharpening, the sound of looming slaughter now, in the hills that once rang of a thousand welcomes. Sure enough, you’ll say, the coast looks normal. But it’s only a deception. Once you go inland from the coast, the entire country is converted into a warren of traps. That there is no man in the country who has not received years of training in how to ambush and attack Crúca platoons from the flank or the rear and how to scatter them and run them into traps. Everyone has been schooled in the methods and weapons of the Crúca. There have never been so many blades and spears stashed away in secret places. There have never been so many hide-outs and hill retreats prepared. The druids too have spoken and lent their unholy blessing to the mayhem that is to follow and nobody is afraid to die. In fact, they would welcome a glorious death. There is no man over twelve in the country and very few women who have not trained and sworn to avenge their friends across the water and sworn not to let their fate be ours. The only music now is fighting songs. They infest the place. The invader is not even to be allowed to return to his boats. His boats won’t exist,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘Are you with me? And you can moan on about the fact that this is not a country for poets anymore, and such. This country is now no more than an open grave waiting for fifty thousand men to fall into it. And after that there will be no wall to stop the Éireannach s going across to take back the defenceless lands from Móna onwards and to meet the Halbanachs coming downward. And then ask the trader can he not show you something that might lift your spirits in such a dark time. Keep on and on like that at them until you have sowed your droning despair in their unfortunate hearts.’

  Mac Cumhaill and Conán departed, leaving Fiachra to supervise these men in their work. They would all have to meet Fiachra every evening to report on whether they’d met any trading boats that day and how well they’d swallowed the stories.

  Mac Cumhaill headed west. He got to Corca Dhuibhne where he knew the finest currach oarsmen lived. There he recruited twelve young men, willing to go on a dangerous adventure. He also got the loan of two horses and made sleds that two fine currach s were dragged across the country on. When they got back to Fotharta he tested the oarsmen again. He told them more about this mission and how dangerous it was and that some of them might not come back.

  ‘There’s nothing on this quiet little sea to scare us,’ said one of them. ‘Don’t we know from when we were small that any day we come back from the sea alive is a day to be merciful for.’

  They stopped a couple of days in the port, resting up and gathering things for the next journey. Mac Cumhaill wanted to allow some time for the information carried by the traders to filter through the enemy ranks to soften the hearts of the paid soldiers and to throw sand in the eyes of the already reluctant commanders. The leaders would be unsure of whether the information was good. Even if they suspected bluster they would know that the surprise was gone and that the Éireannach s were warning them that their mission would not meet with hospitality. The Crúca were the ones having to do the guessing now. And that would make them nervous. He knew only too well how these things went.

  In the meantime, he set the young fishermen in the water again to see which was able to use the sticks most quietly and with the greatest agility. There was little between them but he picked six. The others were to wait there in Fotharta in case he needed to come back for a second team. That instruction made those selected less exuberant.

  Then at midday on the appointed day, he went down to the water’s edge to prepare for the job that he truly thought might be his last. Conán was to have arranged a bigger boat to carry the whole lot of them to their place of work. Fionn couldn’t see any boat there, at first. He shouted for Conán, with a strong note of anger in his voice. It wasn’t like Conán to let him down.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said Conán, appearing from behind a sand dune where he had been sheltering. He was with another man, a very weather-beaten fellow with a white beard and a bald head.

  ‘Where’s the boat and who is this you have with you?’ said Fionn.

  ‘The boat is around on the other side of the headland, ready and waiting for you these past twelve hours. And the man I have with me would be the owner of the same boat and a man you should recognise.’

  Fionn took another look, and said with no small surprise in his voice, ‘Crothán? Is it you?’

  ‘None other,’ said the old man, laughing.

  ‘The last time I saw you, I had you up with Cormac on rather serious matters. I didn’t think I’d be seeing your barnacled mug for a while again,’ said Fionn.

  ‘No more than I hoped I’d ever see your own stinking mountain of self-righteousness again,’ said the old man, still laughing. ‘Bad luck to you for bringing an end to my good fortunes.’

  ‘Good fortunes got by raiding the boats of harmless traders leaving these shores, as I remember,’ said Fionn. ‘And who do you think would have had to face the consequences if the countries that these trading boats came from were to come looking for revenge?’

  Fionn turned to Conán.

  ‘I thought I asked you to bring me a reliable seaman and his boat.’

  ‘With respect, Fionn, you asked me to bring the best man that ever put foot in a boat. This is he. This old sea dog might be a little bit of a rogue, but there is no better man to follow a boat through the roughest of seas. He is famed and feared for this very reason. And, you may as well know, despite his slight weakness for theft, he is a close and old friend of my own, and as reliable when he gives his word as any man or woman who ever stood on hind legs.’

  Fionn didn’t know much about Crothán, but if Conán was ready to vouch for him in this way, that was a fair start.

  ‘Good enough,’ he said, spitting in his hand and extending it for Crothán to shake.

  Crothán responded with firmness.

  Crothán’s boat wasn’t pretty. She had more scars on her leather pelt than an old tom-cat. The main mast was a roughly-cut ash bough and the second one was slightly askew. The lattice of ash boards inside her were blackened from weather. But she was a fine, sturdy lady and looked like she had already ably survived a good deal of wrestling with wild seas. Fionn immediately felt a pang of old Crothán’s love for her.

  The currach s were then tied onto her, to trail like two big children. Other peculiar cargo was also ordered by Mac Cumhaill. There was a three-pronged iron fork that he had asked Eibhlín Rua make up for him. Typical of Eibhlín, it was more ornate and sharply barbed than was ordered, but it would do the job. She had also supplied four large augers made in shiny hardened iron. Then there was a very large sack of rotting bladderwrack seaweed that had a smell you could trot a donkey on. Possibly smelling even worse was the next item that was loaded. It took four men to load it. It was wrapped in cloth, tied in ropes, and seemed to be moving on the deck.

  They set off at dusk. But before they were long out, one of the young fishermen started to panic.

  ‘Where’s the wat
er from Brigid’s well? We can’t go!’

  ‘There’s none on this boat,’ said the old man, ‘and I’ve survived a lot of adventures without it.’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t necessarily want to be drawing the attention of the superiors onto the kind of work this boat is usually involved in,’ said Conán.

  ‘We have to turn back,’ said the young man. ‘Without the good will of Brigid, our work is doomed!’

  Fionn had no intention whatsoever of turning back.

  Conán pulled the lad over to him and said to him very sternly, ‘In this life, boy, there are times when you can wait for some god to help you. But most times in life you have the responsibility for your fate in no hands other than your own and you can let the gods take the credit afterwards.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of you. Threats don’t work,’ said the young man, getting very agitated.

  Conán looked at him with a wicked smile and said ‘The funny thing is, people often say that about threats. But luckily, in most cases, they do work when they are justified and sincerely intended. For example, in this situation you are in, if you don’t settle yourself down, you’ll be on your own too, out in the watery waves without the comfort of any boat under you.’

  Then one of the other fishermen intervened.

  ‘Isn’t there plenty of charmed water in the currach s alongside us?’ he said. Surely that would protect us well enough.’

  That was the end of that.

  The old man was very experienced in this sea. It was where he had done most of his pirating – which, of course, he swore was all in the distant past. Even though the seas weren’t high yet, it was tough going because the help wasn’t of a high standard. There was no room for the old man’s usual crewman. The boat was just too small. Conán had claimed he’d be able to do all that needed doing as he’d been out with the old man many times before. However, it turned out all he had was strength and curses, but no idea at all of how to follow the old man’s shouted instructions in regard to the sails or the tiller. The currach boys tried their best to help but they had never been on a boat like this before and just kept tripping over each other. In the first part of the journey it looked on several occasions as if they might all get tipped into the sea without a single wave, a sea monster or any other enemy to blame.