Book of Kells

by R. A. MacAvoy

  A murmur of agreement from the bench.

  The Moor spoke into the ship captain’s ear, spreading his pale palms wide for emphasis. The captain nodded. “He asks, O King, whether it is not lawful to draw weapon when a man is chasing one with sword raised above his head, having stated his intention to kill.”

  The king opened his eyes very wide. They were the color of water in a pail of tin. “Is that the case? Did this poor unfortunate fellow get chased around the city of Dublin by an angry Turk? Both of them with gowns fluttering like butterflies, I suppose.” The heavy lower part of his face raised itself almost to the cheekbones with his enjoyment. “I am only sorry no one thought to call me to watch!”

  The court roared.

  “Are they calling it a duel? It wasn’t, you know,” whispered John to MacCullen, once he’d been put onto his feet again. “The lighter-skinned fellow just up and went for him.”

  MacCullen, who had suffered an infection of jollity at the picture the king had evoked, looked down at John with a face gone suddenly both sour and intent. “You saw this?”

  “Eh? Yes, of course. That’s what I’m saying. The lighter fellow took out a mucking big scimitar and went for the black. But his aim was so bad the blow would have gotten Snorri— only I didn’t know he was Snorri then—but I raised up the bowl. Then the black rolled around on the floor before he made it out the door, with that crazy chasing him. You see, eh?”

  “I see,” replied MacCullen. “As the king does not. And I curse the evil fortune that endows me with this sight! But truth is truth. Come—before he delivers an ignorant judgment.”

  The poet took John by the hand and leaped upon the hearthstones, dragging him behind. Together they jumped the burning embers and came down in the middle of the rioting law court.

  “Humorous or not, King of Dublin,” MacCullen called loudly to both Sigtryggsson and his court, “this is a history which can be verified.”

  “What was that about?” Derval whispered to Clorfíonn. “Why did they jump the fire like that? Is it a ritual?”

  The old brehan nodded. “It is Labres MacCullen’s special ritual, young Iníon Cuhain. Above men’s pride or his own claim to justice he must always defend the undefended truth.”

  It was very exciting for John, miming the sword fight for the court. He had a very good memory for certain things, oddly enough, and movement was one of them. He danced around with sword raised, after the manner of the Turk, and rolled to safety as though encumbered by a long burnoose. He was Snorri, flinching from the blow, and he was himself, raising the wooden bowl on high, and then at last he was the Moor, bursting out the door of the alehouse, with the Turk (also himself) in hot pursuit. The enthusiastic encouragement of the Norse courtiers flushed him as though with wine, but when he was done and his choreographic testimony given, he looked up into the face of Olaf Sigtryggsson and suddenly felt he’d made a great mistake. John took a step backward and ran into Labres MacCullen, who stood like a rock, awaiting the king’s pleasure with quiet eyes.

  “The Ollave of Leinster,” said Olaf, lowering his faded blond eyebrows. “I have missed you of an evening, MacCullen. I admit there is no skald of Norse extraction here with your ready wit and gift of language. Did you bring this buffoon into my session today in hopes he would entertain me?”

  MacCullen’s battle with his temper was brief and invisible. “It seems the law case did that well enough, Noble Sir. I only brought you a witness with the power to untangle it.”

  Olaf Sigtryggsson peered down at John with his eyes unfocused. His face had slackened to pear-shape. “And to steal from my purse a great forfeit, perhaps. How do I know to trust his word?”

  MacCullen made a wave of the hand which was the courtly version of a shrug. “Jan is no courtier, King of Dublin, having neither good Norse nor good Irish. But he is an honest man, and a craftsman of skill. But if he is not to your taste, Noble Sir, I believe there is an Icelandic shipwright outside who could corroborate his words. And you could certainly have the keeper of the alehouse brought to you.”

  “I am not outside but here, Olafr Konig,” Snorri spoke up loudly. “The Saxon craftsman speaks the truth, and he is no buffoon.” Snorri’s arms were folded across his chest. He looked directly up at the old monarch, respectful but without any visible fear.

  Sigtryggsson rested back in his chair and for a moment the sag of his back revealed his age. “You misunderstand, Ollave. He is to my taste, for I have been horribly bored all morning, waiting for a son-in-law who does not come, and have no mind to sit before a serious law session at all.”

  MacCullen extended his sympathies with a nod of the head. “Even a king cannot order the wind and tide, Noble Sir. But I came to this hall neither to relieve boredom nor to save the property of a Moor. I came with a very serious case. I come to sue for a murder price, and no small one. I came for redress.”

  The old king pursed his mouth. “By bloody Odin, MacCullen! What bad timing. I tell you I am not ready for such business today. Thirteen prime cattle are roasted and nearly ruined and the retinue of my household is in confusion. It is Olaf Tryggvason I expect: Prince of Norway, and the new husband of my daughter Gyda. If your kind have been in a brawl, you will have to wait for your time!”

  Sigtryggsson lifted his head only an inch, but that was enough signal to start the court’s obedient titter. The king laced his fingers in front of him. “Enough of this. Unless my counselors refute it, I accept the Saxon’s testimony.”

  The three gray men blinked at their king. The eldest nodded ponderously.

  “Good then. Release the blackamoor. I find the Turk alone guilty of assault while on the ordained earth of Dublin’s marketplace. His goods and all property within the limits of Dublin are forfeit. So be it.” Sigtryggsson clapped his hands together. The slack muscles of his forearms jiggled in response, like the long udders of a sow.

  Although she was too far from the throne to make out conversation, Derval heard the clap and the subsequent howl of the Turk as he was led through a convenient door behind the thrones. She saw the black man follow, gesturing at his enemy in a manner both obscene and triumphant, and somehow she doubted strict justice had been done here. She did not claim to care about this particular Middle-Eastern crisis, but the amount of laughter it had raised boded ill for her own cause. She let Clorfíonn Iníon Thuathal lead her and Ailesh to the foot of the high seats, before the hearthstones, where they all bowed to the queen before proceeding decorously to Olaf Sigtryggsson’s court.

  Derval glanced covertly up at Gormflaith in her chair and then looked away, and there was something oddly familiar about the queen’s face that left her feeling unsettled. Ailesh, following her, stood stock-still, staring first at the face of the queen and then at Derval herself. This wasn’t the fair Woman who had petted her eight years before. This woman was beautiful, and she looked very much like…

  The brehan took her arm and gently pulled her on. “Quite right,” she whispered in the girl’s ear. “They could be sisters. But don’t be obvious in your stares. Perhaps the Dark Woman of Sovereignty would not be flattered by the comparison with a woman in the dress of a servant.”

  “So, Labres MacCullen,” began the king, when the noise of the previous case had subsided. “Do you insist?”

  MacCullen stood a moment in silence. “Circumstances make it impossible to wait. For your honor as well as mine.”

  “My honor?” The king sat bolt upright. “Be careful, Poet of Leinster.”

  MacCullen stood silent.

  “Well, then.” Sigtryggsson scraped against the grain of his beard with one clean fingernail. “Let us have your case, though it would have made better entertainment a week from now.” Sigtryggsson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and he regarded MacCullen from between his spread knees.

  MacCullen had gone white, but there was no weakness in his voice as he said, “Noble Sir, you must not mistake the function of a poet with that of a jester.”

&nb
sp; He turned his face from left to right, and those whose eyes he met fell quiet. He let three seconds of silence build.

  “Blood and burning. Like the treacher hounds,

  Breedless dogs, disgraced, mouthing madness,

  Who tear the heifer calf, the herdsman’s hope.

  Consuming nothing. Consumed themselves by fury,

  So the human brute has had great glut.

  Hear this horror—my tale of terrible loss.

  I, Labres—poet—tell you of murder.

  Fast following, here drawing close…”

  Was this MacCullen—the smooth-spoken, the collected? What had roughened his voice like that, and lowered his speaking by an octave? Why, he was another man, declaiming in Norse. What was he saying, Derval asked herself. He surely can’t show the horror of the dead abbey in this saga meter. It was made to glorify blood.

  But the poet’s transformation had had its effect, and the hammer strokes of the meter had taken the attention of the Norse listeners by force. Even the old king’s head moved in jerking time. The minutes passed and the surges of rhythm drove Derval herself from one foot to the other, desiring action.

  “…Soft vale, home of artifice,

  Gift-giver, gold scattering on Leinster

  Sweet sister among the settlements of Eire.

  Hill of Ash Trees, you lie in pitiful ruin!

  And woe to me! Woe for the sword in my side,

  Less bitter than the sacrilege,

  Less bitter far than the death of Caeilte my clan brother!

  White my heart for grief of him, young Caeilte, whose name was sweetness.

  Honey-sweet his bright strings and the music of them,

  Never more in this hall among my friends resounding.

  Never to his mother, the only son returning…”

  Derval felt the free slide of the rhythm, and the slide of feeling accompanying it, though the words were lost to her. She made out the name of the harper amid the Norse words.

  Good, she told MacCullen silently, as she peered around. He had them. He had them. Fat Cuarán himself was intent.

  “Nor is this story ended. Worse will come.

  Carrion crows are hungry night and morning.

  Feast, however ruinous and rich

  Does not slake them. Dublin, look to the south!

  I come, storm-tossed, with words of heavy warning.”

  There was a metallic silence in the hall, through which the spit and hiss of the fire could be heard over the gray drone of the rain. The courtiers and supplicants, Gaelic and Norse, stood dumbly, their eyes on either the king or the queen. Gormflaith herself sat gripping the arms of her chair, her face turned down along the empty hall. Sigtrygg, who had crept closer and closer to MacCullen as he spoke, now ran his fingers up and down the length of his dagger blade and blinked warily at his father. Olaf Sigtryggsson had not moved since MacCullen began his poem. Five seconds stretched into ten.

  The king spoke. “Very moving, MacCullen. But it would have gone down more sweetly with music behind it. What have you done with your infant harper?”

  This question struck MacCullen just as the fire and the force engendered by his work had begun to go cold and his training took over from passion: just at the moment his eyes had focused to watch and his ears to listen for his audience’s reaction. It inserted itself like steel into the poet’s moment of weakness.

  And it killed the reaction that MacCullen’s story had been building among the court, for the king’s words cut short the beginning of a hiss and rumble of pity, inaudible except at its being suddenly cut off. Derval heard the murmur and its extinguishment, and not knowing what Sigtryggsson had said, she knew he had purposefully stepped on MacCullen’s punch line. Her anger was red and immediate, but so was her perception that the king of Dublin was very good at what he did. She heard Clorfíonn beside her, whispering too softly to be understood. Derval felt suddenly too discouraged to curse. She looked up at random and her eyes met those of the queen.

  At Gormflaith’s feet were fewer women in Norse dress, now, and more men of the Gaels. Her rose-damask face held no expression whatsoever, but her hand was tight on the sleeve of her son, who was turning the sharp blade over and over in his small hands, his fair head turned away from her. Derval, on impulse, glanced behind herself at the long, dark hall, dotted with guards.

  “Shall I tell you again, in lesser words, Noble Sir, that Caeilte is dead?” MacCullen asked Sigtryggsson.

  The king leaned farther forward. His beard and hair gleamed so golden against the aged skin that Derval guessed he had been using onion skin to dye it. “Oh yes. That’s what it was about, wasn’t it? It is so rarely I hear you orate on contemporary subjects, MacCullen. And I did warn you I wasn’t prepared for such a tale today.

  “Well. A tragedy,” he murmured. “And your kinsman as well as your harper, was he not?”

  MacCullen nodded briefly.

  “And you come here to me for his murder price? I never set young Caeilte under my protection, that I can remember, poet, but no matter of that. I have heard his harping in my hall often enough, and I will pay for him.”

  “I do not come here for gold, King of Dublin, as though a stone from your kitchen had crushed Caeilte by accident. I come with news of war and broad murder, and the blood price is that of the Abbey of Ard na Bhfuinseoge and all whom it contained!”

  Sigtryggsson stared at MacCullen and then firmly shook his head. It was a private message, for afterward he let his eyes roam vacantly over the heads of the assembly. “Ard na Bhfuinseoge?” Another five seconds.

  “Never heard of the place.”

  He glanced over to his bench of old men. “Have I heard of the place?”

  The middle gray man scratched his knees through his gown. “A…settlement of the Christians twenty miles south and inland.”

  The king’s cheeks rose visibly as he said, “Thank you. So there is such a place. I have learned enough of Gaelic to know it means ‘hill of the ash trees.’ That’s more than I could have told you five years ago, MacCullen. But as I am not a Christian, I don’t know what that is to me. I’ve sacked my share of your shrines, but the Christian kings have outdone me in that almost two to one!”

  Against the pallor of the poet’s face rose two blotches of red. He stared straight ahead of him at the long tusks of narwhal that made up the king’s chair. “Then learn this, also, King of Dublin. Since twenty years ago, this abbey has paid you for your protection in both cattle and in artifice.”

  “Is there record of that?”

  The men at the benches by the wall murmured unintelligibly.

  “There is,” replied the brehan Clorfíonn, stepping out from behind Derval’s shadow. “And if the writing of a justice is found more worthy of attention than the words of a poet, I will go into my records or your own and find it.”

  Sigtryggsson straightened abruptly and snorted. His lips drew back from his old-man’s teeth. “By Frigga sucking! It’s the Ui Neal woman again, at court after all these years, and still waiting to stir my bones with her flesh fork.” He pointed his finger at her.

  “I tell you, old woman, you have failed in your life’s work, for here I am and here I stay, King of Dublin and York! You will not live long enough to triumph at my death!”

  Clorfíonn’s eyes were of green ice. “I never triumph on the occasion of death, Child out of Ivar’s sons. It is too regular a visitor. And whether I live beyond you or you beyond me will make no difference to the code of law it is my profession to serve.” Her quiet voice filled the hall.

  “Can any of you, man of law or Norse lawyer, refute that Olaf Sigtryggsson signed a pledge of protection with the Abbey of the Hill of the Ash, which was paid for in cattle and artifice yearly?” Her weathered face smiled as she added to Sigtryggsson, “And more specifically, that that pledge had its instigation with the Buyer of the Throne of Dublin, not with the abbot.”

  The king recoiled from the title she had bestowed upon him as though fr
om a slap. “So—do the penurious think to insult the wealthy by calling them so? Well, old crone, if I have signed a contract with this unpronounceable place I will certainly fulfill its terms. Bring me an inhabitant of the place, that I may put gold into his hand. But bring him to me at my convenience.”

  “It is not yet time to talk of gold, nor yet of convenience, King of Dublin, while the enemy is feasting within your realm, and his ship’s pillars are set up where your own fief stood last week?”

  Olaf in his throne hung over MacCullen like a cat in a tree over a bird. “The enemy, you say? Which enemy? What is his name? Are you clever enough, Poet of the Munster Academy, to name my enemy for me?”

  “I believe his name to be Holvar Hjor,” replied MacCullen stolidly. “That, at least, was what a friend of mine heard said. And with him came a many score of reavers. Against him I claim a flesh wound and a bone wound for myself, and a flesh, bone, and marrow wound for my sisters son, Caeilte, who got his death by being so wounded.”

  The king used his elbows to raise himself in his chair. “Holvar Hjor—the Sword? I know the name. Norwegian. Just a moment ago this woman of the Ui Neals called me Child of Ivar. He was a man of Norway, surely, but I have no control over every Viking Norwegian.”

  MacCullen lifted his chin. “I call you King of Dublin. It was a protectorate of Dublin this marauder destroyed. Need anything more be said?”

  The king waved aside the last part of MacCullen’s response. “Do you call me King of Dublin, MacCullen? Do any of you Irish call me that, when my face of power is not before you?” He spoke this last in a contemptuous Irish, which was surprisingly good in syntax and in accent.

  “My father did!” It was Ailesh who spoke. She elbowed her way forward from between Derval and John, and she walked to the foot of the narwhal chair. “I’m the person you called for, Noble Sir. I am the survivor of Ard na Bhfuinseoge. And this high seat you’re sitting upon is the work of Goban MacDuilta, my father, which he built for the King of Dublin in the year before I was born. Often he told me about it: how it had taken him eight years to collect the sea horns, and how the crystal in the mouths of the dragon finials had been bought in Alba by his agents.