Pride of Lions Read online

  “Guards on the palisades, no doubt,” Ronan responded. “The question is, are they our men, or theirs?”

  Donough narrowed his eyes. “It looks like they’re wearing cones on their heads.”

  Ronan swore under his breath. “You have the eyes of an eagle. Vikings wear conical iron helmets, we don’t, so those are Sitric’s men.”

  Donough gnawed on his lip. If the Ard Ri had not captured Dublin, it must mean that for the first time in years Brian Boru had been defeated in battle. “I want to join my father right away,” he told Ronan. “He needs my support.”

  For once Ronan was disinclined to argue. “He’s probably still north of the Liffey,” the veteran surmised, “supervising the gathering of the bodies and the digging of mass graves. The best place for us to cross the river would be at the Ford of the Hurdles, which is beyond spear range from the walls. That way,” he indicated with a nod.

  The company rode along the west side of Dublin in the direction of the ford. Sitric’s men watched in ominous silence from the walls.

  “Why don’t they yell at us, curse us, something?” one of the horsemen wondered aloud.

  As they approached Fair Green they found a haphazard military encampment sprawled across the meadowland. Recognizing banners, Donough gave a glad whoop. “Dalcassians!” He rode forward eagerly. “Abu Dal gCais!”

  No one returned the ancient shout of victory. It was met with a thunderous silence, and as he drew nearer Donough could see that these were men with nothing left to give, either physically or emotionally. Bloody, battered, as dispirited as the sodden banners that dripped from poles beside their officers’ leather tents, they sat or sprawled on wet earth.

  The faces they turned toward Donough as he rode up were the faces of men who had seen hell.

  Defeat then, Donough thought. Defeat confirmed. He braced himself as for a physical blow.

  A sandy-haired man with a luxurious moustache emerged from one of the tents. Over his knee-length leine was a brat of woven wool dyed a brilliant Munster blue and trimmed with wolf fur.

  “Fergal!” Donough shouted to his cousin. “Fergal Mac Anluan.”

  The son of Anluan glanced up and frowned. “Oh. It’s you.”

  Donough was taken aback. “Of course it’s me.”

  “We could have used you on Good Friday.”

  “I’m here now!” the boy bristled. “Where’s my father?”

  Fergal gazed at him thoughtfully, started to say something, changed his mind, waved his arm toward the north.

  Donough shouted over his shoulder to his men, “You lot stay here and mind the oxen. I’ll be back to you when I’ve seen the Ard Ri.” He galloped away before anyone could protest, including a second man who emerged from the tent to join Fergal.

  “Could you not stop him?” the second man asked Ronan, who was dismounting.

  “I can’t do anything with him, Cian. His head is pure rock. Is it too dangerous for him to go off alone like that? I can go after him and …”

  “I doubt if there is much danger to him right now,” replied Cian, who wore a mantle even richer than that of Fergal. “But he’ll be wanting someone with him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ronan said.

  Cian turned to Fergal. “Did you not tell them?”

  “I hadn’t the heart.”

  Ronan felt suddenly chilled. “Tell us what?”

  Donough galloped on toward the Ford of the Hurdles, following a trackway of hoof-scarred mud. A party was coming up from the river toward him; a funeral party, marching to the beat of a bodhran, the goatskin-covered war drum. There was a guard of honor, fully armed, and solemn-faced bearers who carried two litters. The first of these was draped in the personal banner of Murrough Mac Brian.

  Donough drew rein in dismay. “That can’t be Murrough!” His darkest imaginings had never included the death of one of his siblings. Men claimed, “The cubs of the Lion are as unkillable as their sire.”

  The captain of the honor guard, who wore the distinctive blue and gold of the Dal Cais, signaled the cortege to halt. “It is Prince Murrough,” he affirmed. “Slain in battle by a foreigner called Anrad.”

  Donough’s mind struggled to catch up with his eyes and ears. How could sturdy, aggressive, contentious Murrough be dead? Dead?

  “Where are you taking him?” he asked numbly.

  “To a place not far from here, called Kilmainham. We camped there before the battle, in some woods above the Liffey. Prince Murrough remarked that Kilmainham had a pleasant aspect, and said he would like to rest there again when the fighting was over. So …”—the Dalcassian paused, fighting for control—“ … and so he shall.”

  Donough rolled his eyes toward the second litter. “And who is that?”

  “Prince Murrough’s son, Turlough. He fought as bravely as his father and they shall sleep together under the same stone.”

  “But Turlough’s only a boy!” Donough protested as if that could somehow make a difference.

  “He was your age,” said the Dalcassian. “Old enough to die.”

  Donough found himself torn by conflicting emotions. First was relief; the ban shee had not wailed for Brian Boru, but for Murrough and Turlough. He also felt a guilty pleasure in the realization that Murrough’s place as Brian’s chosen successor was now vacant.

  But even as the thought crossed Donough’s mind it was swept away by genuine grief. Murrough, although separated from him by more than a generation, had been part of the familial network so important to the Gael. And though he had always been antagonistic toward Gormlaith, Murrough had seemed to like her son, to the extent of engaging in good-humored horseplay with the boy when they happened to meet at Kincora.

  Once, a number of years ago, Murrough had even given Donough a whistle carved from the wood of a thorn tree that grew on the slopes of Crag Liath.

  Donough still had that whistle someplace.

  Suddenly he wanted very much to go and find it.

  The beat of the bodhran resumed, setting the cadence of a dirge for the marchers to follow. Honor guard and litter bearers prepared to move off. Rousing himself, Donough cried, “But what of my father? Does the Ard Ri not mean to attend his son’s burial?”

  The captain of the guard paused long enough to give him a level, measuring look. “The Ard Ri is on his way to Swords,” he said in a strange voice as if the words hurt him.

  “The Sword of St. Colmcille? Why would he be going to a monastery now?”

  There was no way, the Dalcassian captain decided, to shield the boy from the blow. Best get it done. Harsh and quick and over. “Brian Boru’s corpse has been taken to Colmcille’s chapel to wait for the Bishop of Armagh to arrive and escort it north to Ulster for burial. I am sorry, lad. Sorry for us all.”

  Donough did not hear the last words.

  He could only hear the ban shee scream on a rising wind.

  Chapter Five

  Some battles are destined to be remembered. Some are best forgotten.

  It was enough to have survived Clontarf.

  Of the thousands who had fought out of anger or avarice, the majority were dead.

  Courage and cowardice had contested together, often within the same person. Memories would haunt the survivors for the rest of their lives. They had only to murmur, “Clontarf,” and it would all come back again: the leap of loyalty, the slash of swords, the hiss of spears, the grunting and screaming and sudden stench as bowels opened in death or terror, the skirting of the war pipes, the thunder of fist-beaten shields. And worst of all, the sickening unforgettable thud of the axe.

  Used by warriors on both sides, the battle axe had turned the meadows between the Tolka and the Liffey into a bloody quagmire and made a nightmare of Tomar′s Wood.

  When the battle was over a few men were so appalled by the slaughter in which they had taken part that they hurled their weapons into the sea. Most, however, kept them to pass down from father to son, encrusted with legend. Someday old men would boast, “I
was at Clontarf with Brian Boru,” and those words alone would be enough to draw an audience.

  But that was in the future. On Easter Sunday 1014 it was enough to have survived.

  What remained of the Irish combined forces waited in dazed disarray for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do next But their surviving officers were incapable of leadership. The loss of the Ard Ri had unmanned them.

  In life, Brian Boru had dominated Ireland as no man before him. He was more than the High King, an overlord claiming tribute from five provincial kings and two hundred tribal kings. He was a lover and Ireland was his grand passion. Throughout his life he had courted her with all the talents he possessed, including ferocious energy and a questing complex intellect

  Although in his youth he tried to slaughter every Viking he could, in time he had recognized the permanence of the Scandinavian presence in Ireland. After two hundred years, Viking colonists simply could not be plucked out like a sore tooth. When he accepted this truth, Brian changed his approach and set out to win the allegiance of Norse and Dane and incorporate them fully into Irish life.

  The breadth of his vision and the audacity of his ambition shocked some and infuriated others.

  He entered into political negotiations with various tribal chieftains who had long enjoyed warring upon one another, forcing peace upon them with a canny mixture of bribery and intimidation. He encouraged alliances between Viking and Gael through trade, marriage, and the fostering of orphans. Through his own children he developed a network of dynastic marriage that extended beyond the shores of Ireland to intertwine with foreign royalty. To win ecclesiastical support for his schemes he rebuilt churches and endowed monasteries. With an unprecedented grasp of military strategy—stimulated by an education in monastic schools that included studying the careers of Caesar and Charlemagne—he built a navy, trained a cavalry, and planned perimeter defenses for the island to be a deterrent to any other foreigners attracted by Ireland’s riches.

  Those defenses were not yet in place at the time of his death, however. Murrough had been entrusted with their realization … in the future.

  The influence of Brian Boru permeated every aspect of Irish life. He had overthrown traditions, reinterpreted laws, reformed society, and reshaped the people’s image of themselves. In so doing he had become the Irish Charlemagne.

  His enemies, and they were many, accused him of being an opportunist and a usurper.

  In the Book of Armagh he called himself Emperor of the Irish.

  The Ireland of 1014 was a dream Brian Boru had dreamed and brought into being. His death was beyond comprehension.

  Particularly to his son; to me.

  Chapter Six

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE HONOR GUARD GAZED UP AT DONOUGH’S PALE face, in which the freckles stood out alarmingly. The youngster was swaying on his horse.

  “Are you all right?” the Dalcassian wanted to know.

  Donough could not answer him; could not even hear him. All he heard was the wind. The ban shee wind. Cold, so cold, with himself in its vortex and nothing beyond but a vast and terrible emptiness.

  The Dalcassian stepped forward and seized Donough’s horse by the bridle. Thank God at least one of them is alive! he thought to himself.

  “This has been a shock for you,” he said aloud. “Had no one told you anything?”

  Donough stared over his head, silent.

  The Dalcassian tried again. “Have you just arrived from the south? Are there men with you, shall I take you to them? Prince Murrough will wait, he has all eternity.”

  Donough managed to say something, he would never remember what, and the Dalcassian barked orders to his men. The cold wind blew. Donough sat on his horse. After a while he was aware that it was being led somewhere.

  He rode above the pain, listening to the wind.

  Then he was back at Fair Green. Someone took him into a tent, out of the wind.

  But he could still hear it.

  Inside the tent was Cian the Owenacht, Prince of Desmond, who had married Brian Boru’s daughter, Sabia, in a union encouraged by Brian to establish an alliance between the Dalcassians and their ancient enemies, the Owenacht tribe. In his middle years, Cian was still handsome, though now he had the same exhausted look as the rest of them. He was slumped on a wooden camp stool, but at the sight of Donough he rose and pressed a cup into the youngster’s hand. “Take this, nephew. You look as if you need it.”

  Donough drained the Danish ale without tasting it. Then he let himself sink to the ground, sitting crosslegged and gazing blankly into the empty cup.

  Ronan and Fergal were also in the tent, together with the Dalcassian officer who had brought Donough. They began talking above his head. From time to time he heard his name spoken, but he could not summon the will to respond.

  “I know I was taking a lot on myself,” the Dalcassian captain was saying, “but I was doing what Prince Murrough would have wanted, I’m convinced of it. Can you see that, Prince Donnchad?”

  “Donough,” Ronan corrected him. “He wants to be know as Donough now.”

  “Eh? Er … of course, of course. Prince … Donough,” the officer amended. “Anyway, the Ard Ri’s men insisted his favorite son should be taken to Armagh and buried with him there, but those of us who had been closest to Prince Murrough knew he would want to rest in a place of his own, not his father’s. So we wrapped another body in one of his cloaks and sewed it closed with leather thongs. We gave this to the Ard Ri’s attendants, while we brought the real Murrough with us to bury at Kilmainham. Let the scribes write that he is entombed at Armagh if they want to.”

  As he listened, Donough’s lips curled into the ghost of a smile. This was the sort of trickery Brian Boru might have employed.

  The Dalcassian interpreted the smile as approval. “I may go, then? I may bury my prince at Kilmainham?”

  The deference in his voice surprised Donough. He nodded assent, then sank back into the gray void where pain was kept at a distance by the simple expedient of feeling nothing.

  The others resumed talking among themselves, but Donough no longer heard them.

  Eventually, however, he became aware that he was shivering. With physical awareness aural comprehension returned. Fergal was saying, “I know he’s too young, but he’s all we have left. I don’t think the Dalcassians would take orders from anyone else right now. We must have Brian’s son take command or they will simply sit there until Sitric recovers from his defeat and comes roaring out of Dublin. If we give him time he could destroy us, weakened as we are.”

  Cian said, with a chill in his voice, “I am married to the Ard Ri’s daughter. They should accept my command.”

  “You’re an Owenacht, not a Dalcassian,” Fergal pointed out. “They would never follow you, it’s Donough they’ll accept. And who knows? He may prove to be as much of a man as his father was at the same age.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear!” Ronan interjected.

  With an effort, Donough broke his silence. “Did you say ‘Sitric’s defeat’? I thought he won.”

  Cian snorted. “Sitric win? Not likely! The battle was hard fought and there were times it might have gone either way, I admit. Many of our leaders were slain, chieftains and princes dying left, right, and center. But all the leaders of the invading force were killed, every last man of them. At the end of the day their army was shattered like ice on a pond.”

  Fergal said, “The Ard Ri had so arranged his battle lines that his enemies were trapped no matter which way they went. When the foreigners tried to escape to the ships that had brought them, the tide had turned. The ships were far out in the bay beyond their reach. Hundreds of them drowned in the sea and we killed hundreds more on the beaches, not to mention the slaughter that took place clear across Fingal. A few may have found safety inside the walls of Dublin, but when the battle was over, only a handful of the invaders was left alive. The Ard Ri gave the Vikings the worst defeat they’ve ever suffered,” he added with ringing pride. “
It was a great victory for him.”

  “Victory?” said Donough, unable to comprehend. “But he’s dead.”

  “He is dead. But he died triumphant. What more could a warrior want?”

  The words hung on the air, defining Brian’s ultimate achievement. In silence, they considered it.

  At last Donough spoke again. “What about Sitric? You said all the enemy leaders were killed.”

  “Not Sitric,” Cian told him in contemptuous tones. “He never came out of the city. He’s still in there—with your mother.”

  “And Maelmordha, my mother’s brother?”

  “The treacherous Prince of Leinster led Sitric’s Vikings against Brian Boru and got killed for his pains,” Fergal said smugly. “I know. I killed him. He died squealing like the vermin he was.”

  “My father?” Donough made himself ask. “How did my father die?”

  “At the end of the day he was in his tent, praying. Prince Murrough had talked him out of taking part in the fighting by convincing him, not that he was too old, but that he was too valuable to risk. We were relieved, we thought he was safe. If the day went against us we would need him more than ever.

  “A bodyguard was with him, of course, but late in the fighting he sent them away. Then a Viking called Brodir, the last surviving leader of the invasion force, was running for his life through the woods when he came upon the Ard Ri’s tent. He attacked the old man he found inside and cleaved his skull with an axe.”

  Donough flinched. His face was the color of buttermilk.

  “But Brian had kept his sword with him,” Fergal continued. “Even as he was struck he sliced through Brodir’s leg. It was a mighty blow, the blow of a young man. Brodir bled to death beside the Ard Ri. We found their bodies almost touching.

  “The next day—yesterday—some prisoners that were brought to us tried to claim that Brodir survived. They were saying the Irish had caught him later and tortured him to death, but that was a lie they were hoping to spread. The Irish never resort to torture; the Vikings do it all the time. Those of us who had seen the two bodies in Brian’s tent knew the truth.”