Pride of Lions Read online

  Donough clung to what seemed to him to be the most important fact. “My father died fighting.”

  “He died winning,” Fergal stressed.

  Though his knees threatened to buckle under him, Donough struggled to his feet. “Have someone bring my horse. I must go to him. I must go to Swords.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere just yet,” Ronan said sternly. He put one big hand on Donough’s breastbone and pushed him back down into a sitting position.

  “We need you here now,” Cian explained, and Fergal added, “This is where your father would want you to be, taking care of his Dalcassians for him. We need his son to take up where he left off.”

  “Then get Flann. Or Conor.”

  “They both died in the battle. And Teigue was left behind to guard Kincora, you will recall. Of all the sons, only you are alive and here.”

  Donough felt a great weight about to descend on him. He opened his eyes very wide, looking more than ever like a frightened boy. “But …”

  “You’ve been crowing about being ready for command,” Ronan said mercilessly. “Now’s your chance to prove it. Take command of the Dalcassians. Or are you not able for it? Are you all mouth and no muscle?”

  Donough squirmed inwardly, forced to confront a truth about himself. He saw now that he had merely been playing; playing at being a warrior. He could pretend to command a small company of cavalry because the grownups, Ronan and the other veterans assigned to him, were there to keep him from getting into too much trouble. They were a net held beneath him while he tried his wings.

  But suddenly everything had changed. He was being asked to take charge of the Dalcassians, the personal army that had served his father so devotedly and which comprised the largest part of the army of the province of Munster.

  It was a massive responsibility with no one to protect him from the consequences of his mistakes.

  The mantle he had childishly coveted was his without warning or preparation. The only man who could have prepared him had trained Murrough instead, and now they were both dead.

  Donough began shivering again, uncontrollably. I don’t want this! Make it not be happening!

  But it was happening. The other men were looking at him, waiting.

  Waiting for Donough, through some miracle, to replace Brian Boru.

  Chapter Seven

  THE CORPSE OF THE ARD RI WAS BORNE ALOFT ON NINE SHIELDS lashed together, as was necessary to carry one who had been, in life, the tallest man in Ireland.

  The procession carrying him to the monastery at Swords trudged to the solemn beat of the bodhran and the wild wail of the war pipe. “Brian Boru’s March,” someone said, giving name to the dirge.

  Defying the gloom of a rainy evening, men carried torches to form a moving rectangle of light around the body. Icy drizzle made the torches sputter.

  Brian Boru was wrapped in a crimson mantle and draped with his banner of three lions, modeled after the stylized Celtic lions in the Book of Kells. The priests had wanted to put his crucifix in his hands; his warriors had argued for his sword. In the end they compromised and gave him both.

  Malachi Mor walked at the front of the procession with a deliberate space kept between himself and Brian’s personal entourage. He could feel their resentment. From time to time he glanced covertly around to reassure himself that his Meathmen were within hailing distance.

  The bulk of the procession was made up of warriors, but a number of priests accompanied them. The men of God kept their eyes averted from the horrific guard of honor that surrounded the body on its bier.

  About this, Brian’s warriors had been unwilling to compromise.

  In a Celtic tradition much older than Christianity, the heads of the heroes who had given their lives fighting for Brian had been arranged on his bier so they encircled his corpse, glassy eyes staring outward, vigilant in death.

  Conaing. Duvlann. Niall of clan Cuinn, captain of the High King’s bodyguard. Mothla of Oriel. Scandal Mac Cathal. Donall, a prince of the Scots, whose cousin Malcolm was married to one of Brian’s daughters. Princes of Connacht and of Munster.

  Flann Mac Brian.

  Conor Mac Brian.

  The intact body believed to be that of Murrough Mac Brian was carried separately, a few paces behind the Ard Ri. The plump little man walking beside it would have preferred walking beside Brian, but the warriors had elbowed him out of the way. Brian was theirs now, their fallen chieftain, and they had no patience with a mere historian.

  Carroll did not take offense. He was accustomed to the warrior mentality.

  From his vantage point to the rear he was busily committing every detail of the procession to memory, to be scribed in his leisure as Brian would have wanted.

  Laiten, who had been Brian’s personal attendant, dropped out of the procession for a moment to relieve himself. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Carroll waited and fell into step beside him. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you,” the historian explained.

  Laiten was short and slender, with dark wiry hair and a narrow face aged by grief. Little more than a lad, in recent days he had seen more of death than most men would ever know. “What do you want of me?” he asked. His voice was husky with weeping.

  “Just conversation. We got such a late start that we won’t reach Swords until after dark. Talk will shorten the journey.”

  Laiten was not deceived. Carroll’s plump cheeks and pouched eyes gave an impression of guilelessness, but as everyone knew he had been the Ard Ri’s confidant, learning the arts of manipulation from a master.

  “I have nothing to talk about,” the young man said shortly.

  “Oh surely you must! You were in the eye of the storm. You could tell me so much from your own point of view about what happened on Friday. Who was where, that sort of thing. You don’t know what a help it would be to me.”

  “You mean to write it down, I suppose?”

  “One of the porters has my little folding writing desk and my parchments and inks. I can write tonight at Swords if the good brothers are not too mean with their candles.”

  “If you need more light ask Malachi for a lamp,” Laiten said. “I should think he’ll do all he can for us now.”

  Carroll’s amiable expression faded. “Malachi didn’t do much for us on Friday though, did he? He stood off until he was certain the battle was won before he came swooping in to claim a share of the glory.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely fair.”

  “Are you taking his side, Laiten?”

  “How dare you say that! Everyone knows I was devoted to the Ard Ri.”

  “Yet you left him defenseless.”

  “The Ard Ri was never in his life defenseless, even at the end of it. Besides, he sent us all away. As captain of his bodyguard, Niall tried to argue with him, but no one ever won an argument with Brian Boru. He insisted we join in the final fighting. Said we deserved a share of the victory. Obeying that order cost Niall his life, as things turned out. He was almost the last man to die … except for the Ard Ri himself.”

  “Exactly when did Brian send you away, Laiten?”

  “After I reported to him that Prince Murrough had fallen.”

  “And were you not concerned, knowing he must be in despair over his son’s death? How could you leave him?”

  “I told you, he ordered it. Could you have refused a direct order from the Ard Ri? I could not. Besides, he didn’t seem to be despairing. He was surprisingly calm. Almost … at peace.” Laiten’s voice dropped, became a whisper. “Looking back, Carroll, I think he knew what was going to happen to him. Knew, and welcomed it.”

  “How could he possibly have known Brodir would stumble across his tent by accident and kill him?”

  Laiten hesitated. “He was warned.”

  The historian stopped walking. “By whom?”

  The two men stood facing each other as the last of the cortege moved past them. Laiten did not want to speak, but Carroll’s attentive gaze drew the words out of
him. “On the night before the battle a woman came to the Ard Ri’s tent.”

  Carroll’s eyebrows shot up. “What woman?”

  “I never actually saw her. I had been in the tent, adjusting the cushion on his prayer stool and lighting the lamp for him on his map table. The commander said he wanted to be alone, so I went outside and took my place by the tent flap as usual. Then suddenly I saw a woman’s shadow as she passed between the wall of the tent and the lamp.”

  “Are you sure it was a woman?”

  Laiten was indignant. “I know the hills and valleys of a woman’s form! And it was a woman’s voice I heard, but … strange, whispery as leaves. The very sound of it made my belly go cold. Even remembering … I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “You must,” Carroll persisted gently. “I’m sure he would want you to tell me. He wanted everything chronicled you know; that was his way. So tell me, Laiten—did you get a look at her when she left?”

  “That’s the strangest part. I never moved away from the tent flap, not for one moment. But after a while the Ard Ri called for me and I went into him … and he was alone.”

  “What do you mean he was alone?”

  “I mean no one was with him. No woman, no living being.” A recollective shiver ran through Laiten’s body. “Yet I had been just outside the entire time and I swear she never left.”

  Carrol’s eyebrows tried to crawl into his receding hairline. “Did you ask Brian about her?”

  “I did ask him. He smiled and said, ‘My guardian spirit.’ Then he turned away and I was afraid to question him further, Carroll. You know how he was about people … prying.

  “But I swear to you on my mother’s grave that I overheard the woman tell the Ard Ri he would die the next day. When the battle was over. It would be the price of his victory, she said.

  “So I don’t think our leaving him made any difference. I am convinced he sent us away so we would not try to save him.”

  The evening seemed very dark.

  The drizzle turned into a relentless bitter downpour. The drums beat, the pipes wailed. Torchlight flickered and flared.

  On overlapping shields the corpse lay, hands folded over crucifix and sword. Around it twelve decapitated heads glared balefully outward, daring anyone or anything to interfere.

  Chapter Eight

  DONOUGH SPENT THE REMAINDER OF EASTER SUNDAY IN THE DALCASSIAN camp. His band of horsemen mingled with the remnants of Brian’s army and listened enviously to their descriptions of the battle. In a matter of days such stories would begin to assume mythic proportions, but now, recounted by weary men whose clothes still stank of the blood they had shed, the events of Good Friday were repeated in the crude terms of the foot warrior, embellished only with profanity.

  Sometime during the night Donough fell asleep in Cian’s tent with his head pillowed on his arm. His rest was disturbed by a jumble of swirling images compounded out of what he had seen and imagined.

  Meanwhile the surviving senior officers had crowded into the tent. Sleeping at their feet, Donough heard them in some level of his mind below conscious thought. Heard them and entered into the stories they told until it seemed he was wading through the bloody weir; he was striding across the gory meadows. He was in Tomar’s Wood with something red and sticlry dripping down on him from the trees.

  Axes swung in his mind.

  His fists clenched in his sleep. He groaned and twitched.

  Murrough fell a second time, and Donough seized his banner and ran forward, howling for vengeance.

  Against a background of flashing swords, Brian Boru was cut down like a great tree, as an agonized Donough watched from a distance. When he tried to go to his father’s aid, his feet seemed rooted to the earth.

  In his sleep tears slipped from beneath his closed eyelids and ran down his cheeks.

  “Wake up, lad. Wake up now.” A hand shook his shoulder.

  Donough muttered and pulled away. One moment more! One moment in which to fight off the paralysis, find a weapon, get to his father’s side in time to …

  “Wake up now! It’s dawn.”

  As Donough struggled to reach Brian the shreds of dream dissolved into reality and he found himself lying on the floor of Cian’s tent, beneath a shaggy mantle someone had thrown over him. He tried to shake off the hand tugging at his shoulder. “Ronan? Go away, leave me alone.”

  “It is not Ronan,” a voice informed him, “and I will not go away. We must have our orders, Commander.”

  Commander? But Brian Boru was the commander.

  Donough came awake with a startled leap as if he had been hurled from a height.

  Cian of Desmond was bending over him. “We must have your orders.” He snatched the mantle away.

  “I’m cold,” Donough complained.

  “And am I not cold? It’s a desperate bitter day, no fit weather for Easter Monday, but what difference does that make? Be up now. You can warm yourself at the fire outside. The officers will be gathering soon for your orders.”

  “My orders,” Donough repeated blankly. This is still the dream, he thought. Or some other dream.

  He was ushered out of the tent into a cold dawn. Streaks of pale light were appearing above the Irish Sea. For the first time in days the morning promised to be clear, but the smoke of numerous campfires hung thick enough in the damp air to make him cough.

  The world was too tangible; this was no dream.

  I am supposed to lead my fathers army!

  The years of childhood. Toy swords. Shields made from basket bottoms, and javelins that were broken broom handles. Himself strutting up and down, pretending to be a commander of warriors.

  Suddenly the play was real.

  He had never been so afraid in his life.

  Swallowing hard, he swept his eyes across the camp and tried to think like Brian Boru. But the only thought that came into his head was a vague dismay at the number of men now looking to him for leadership.

  An army. My army. What do I do with them?

  He turned around as if the answer might be behind him. There, to the east, the dark bulk of Dublin’s walls rose in silhouette against the dawn.

  Sitric’s stronghold. If my father were still alive be would be planning to capture Dublin now. Seize the city, punish Sitric, do … something … about Gormlaith.

  At the thought of his mother, Donough’s thoughts twisted into a tangle.

  A small group of officers was coming toward him across the camp ground, talking among themselves. Most of them were Dalcassian, but some were Cian’s Owenachts.

  Donough must command them as the Ard Ri would have done.

  But he suffered a massive disadvantage. While Murrough had—reluctantly—trained at Brian’s elbow, Donough had been kept away from his father most of the time. As a result he knew Brian more through reputation than personal experience. In his eyes his father was the consummate hero, all knowing, utterly fearless.

  The deliberate construction of that image by Brian himself had been well concealed from his youngest son.

  Never having had access to the man behind the image, Donough could only give a superficial imitation of Brian Boru.

  But he tried. Uncertain, grief-stricken, on that cold Easter Monday he swallowed his fear as best he could and prepared for the day to come.

  “Cian,” he told the Owenacht prince, “your tent will be my command post from now on, as it seems the largest one here.” He did not bother to ask permission. He had never heard his father ask anyone for permission to do anything.

  Cian was outraged that a mere boy, no matter whose son, would appropriate his tent—an Owenacht tent, not Dalcassian—so arrogantly. Usurper! he thought. Ignoring rank and custom! Brian Boru had been called a usurper when he took Malachi Mor’s kingship from him. Now here was his son setting out on the same path.

  But Cian said nothing aloud. He smiled a fraction too broadly and relinquished his quarters with a courteous bow. This is the way princes should behave, his attitud
e said to Donough—who did not notice.

  The youthful commander placed himself in front of the tent, and the officers arranged themselves in a semicircle around him. They were tired past the point of weariness, and there was not one among them who was not bruised and sore at the very least. Their faces were old beyond their years as they waited for a boy to give them orders.

  Donough stood as tall as he could and prepared to pitch his voice as deep as it would go, mindful that it had only changed during the last year and might not be totally trustworthy. It was one more thing to worry about.

  Under his breath he whispered a single word, like a prayer. Father.

  Then he filled his lungs and addressed the officers. “We shall finish the campaign the Ard Ri began! This means we capture Dublin and punish Sitric Silkbeard for his treachery in breaking his truce with the Ard Ri.”

  “But we haven’t finished burying our dead,” one of the officers protested. “And we have more wounded men than able-bodied ones; what about them?”

  Donough realized his error. Caring for the dead and wounded first had been one of the tenets of his father’s military philosophy. “We must take care of them before we do anything else, of course,” he said hastily. “Then we can challenge Sitric.”

  The officers exchanged glances. They knew, better than he, how depleted their troops were. Such battered men were in no condition to take up arms again so soon.

  Donough sensed their hesitation, and in that moment it seemed as if someone standing at his back pressed hard against him. Reflexively, he stepped away from the tent. The rising sun promptly haloed his auburn hair with coppery fire. Seen thus, his features were in shadow.

  “We can succeed!” he assured the men.

  His youthful lankiness was concealed by clothing, but his height was obvious. It was, almost, Brian Boru’s height. And surely that deep voice was Brian’s voice?

  It was the season of Resurrection and they desperately wanted to believe.

  Fergal Mac Anluan began to smile. “Yes,” he whispered to himself. “Yes.”