Pride of Lions Page 8

  Another man stepped forward to shake his fist in Donough’s face. “We demand to know why you left the King of Munster to sleep among strangers in Ulster!”

  Donough was taken aback. “It wasn’t my decision. By the time I got there they had already taken him away.”

  “Why?!!!” a dozen voices roared.

  Although Teigue had not spoken, Donough directed his reply to his brother. “It seemed to be an arrangement the priests made.”

  “Did you not question it?”

  Donough had no answer. Too much had happened too fast; he was now aware that a lot of loose ends had been left dangling. A more mature man might have behaved differently, might have been less dazed, more …

  “You don’t know what it was like,” he said, “trying to think clearly in the middle of so much confusion. I did what everyone demanded of me, I brought the Dalcassians home. If you want an explanation about our father’s burial you should ask those who took his body to Armagh.”

  “They haven’t returned yet. But we’ll get an explanation, I promise you,” Teigue said loudly enough for all to hear. “For now, we need to be reminded of the law pertaining to elections.”

  The angry buzz subsided but remained an undercurrent in the hall.

  Standing to one side, Maeve listened enthralled as the brehons recited laws embedded in poetry to facilitate memorization; laws hammered out over many centuries, long before Christian monks brought literacy to Ireland. Every aspect of Irish life was addressed by Brehon Law. In spite of herself she was moved by the beauty and precision of language, a living tongue defining the structure by which a people consented to be governed.

  Once women numbered among the brehons, but it had been five centuries since there was a female judge in Ireland. Under the patriarchal influence of the Church, women were no longer allowed to be part of the professional class. The brehons summoned to Kincora were all men in their middle or late years, with faces of seamed sobriety.

  The chief brehon of Munster, whom custom dictated must belong to the tribe of the Deisi, began by intoning, “As people go by many roads to a royal residence, so they come to the law of the Senchus Mor, the Ancient Great Knowledge, by many covenants.”

  Behind his hand, Fergal Mac Anluan remarked to Ruadri of Ara, “They have to say that now. Brian Boru changed a lot of the old customs, didn’t he?”

  Ruadri said with a grin, “Brian Boru didn’t wait to be elected. He took what he wanted and then proved he was the best man to have it.” Ruadri was but a year older than Donough Mac Brian and audacity attracted him.

  Choosing his words carefully, the chief brehon continued, “The Dal Cais of Thomond mourn their fallen chieftain, but he must be replaced swiftly; a tribe cannot be without a head. As is … usually … the custom, in the absence of a tanist a tribe selects as its chieftain the best qualified man from the preeminent clan. Teigue Mac Brian is now the senior prince of that family, and furthermore a man of good health and sound judgment.

  “If none of his close cousins challenge him, and the principal men of the Dal Cais assembled here today agree, we can proceed to the election and announce his chieftaincy.”

  Seeing the pain on her husband’s face, Maeve knew he was thinking of his older brothers, those who should have stood between Teigue and the leadership he had never sought. Her heart went out to him.

  Then she looked at Donough and saw the light leaping in his eyes as he raised his right arm, requesting to be allowed to speak.

  The chief brehon nodded permission.

  “Will the chieftaincy include Kincora?” Donough wanted to know.

  The brehons exchanged glances. Property was a major source of contention, necessitating hundreds of tracts in Brehon Law. The judges did not want the tribal succession to descend into an interfamily wrangle over Kincora.

  The chief brehon cleared his throat. “As the royal residence Kincora will …”

  “It’s always been my home,” Donough interrupted—an almost unprecedented breach of decorum that caused a ripple of shock to spread through the hall. “Teigue has his own fort; he doesn’t need this one. Nor does he love it as I do. Let him be chieftain if he wants, but give me Kincora.”

  On the faces of the brehons he read their unanimous intention to refuse, which only strengthened his determination. He would fight; had not Brian Boru always fought for what he wanted?

  “My father willed Kincora to me!” Donough blurted. “He made me heir to his holding!”

  There was a momentary shocked silence.

  “When did he do that?” asked a cadaverously thin brehon from Nenagh.

  “On the evening before he sent me south with my cavalry. We were feasting here in the hall—I was sitting below the Ard Ri’s seat—when he leaned forward and told me I was to be his heir if anything happened to him.”

  Teigue was staring at him. “I didn’t hear him say that.”

  “He wasn’t talking to you, he was talking to me. Flann was sitting right beside me, though, and he heard him. Flann told me he had no objection. He had his own fort. They all did. Murrough the tanist had a great stronghold. I was the only one with no home but these walls.”

  “Flann Mac Brian is dead,” the chief brehon pointed out. “Who else have you as witness?”

  After a moment’s pause during which his brain was racing, Fergal Mac Anluan raised his arm. “I was in the hall that night, sitting with my kinsmen. I happened to overhear Brian’s words to Donough, so I can testify to the truth of his claim.”

  Even Donough was surprised. Flashing his cousin a grateful smile, he said, “You see? I have a witness, a noble of the Dal Cais whose word must be accepted. As my father’s chosen heir, I inherit his principal residence.”

  “If you were to have Kincora,” interjected yet another brehon, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, “why was your brother Teigue left in charge here?”

  “Because my father knew I wanted military experience. Teigue prefers being a cattle lord to bearing arms; I’m the one who takes after Brian Boru.”

  Maeve hurled her silent thoughts at her husband with all the strength she possessed. Leave it! she urged him. Let Donough have this great sprawling pile, then you and I will be free to go home to our children and our valley.

  But Teigue could not leave it, his sense of duty overrode his desire for a quiet life. Gormlaith had been a consummate liar and her son might be the same; what he was claiming might run counter to Brian Boru’s intention, and that Teigue could not allow. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I cannot accept this without more proof. If my father left such a will surely it was committed to writing. We must wait until Carroll returns and ask him, for he kept all the Ard Ri’s records.”

  Donough glared at Teigue. “Are you accusing me of making a false claim?”

  “And me?” Fergal interjected angrily.

  “I would never question the honor of either of you,” Teigue replied. “I simply feel it would be better to wait until we’ve had a chance to talk with Carroll.”

  Donough flung out his hands to the brehons. “What are my rights?”

  From the depths of a capacious memory trained through twenty years of study, the chief brehon recited, “Under the law, on the death of a father each son is entitled to an equal share of the land he held and the cattle fed upon it, but one of the sons, in addition to his equal share, also inherits the father’s residence. Whether this favored son is the eldest or a younger son depends upon the discretion of the father.

  “However,” he added, looking sternly from Donough to Teigue and back again, “the son who claims the residential inheritance is thereafter responsible for guardianship of the unmarried women of the family, is bound to provide hospitality for all those who have a claim upon his tribe, and is obligated to succor and defend any of his own who are in need and distress.

  “Think upon this, both of you. Kincora is large and its dependents are many; the responsibility for Kincora is a heavy burden requiring strong shoulders and a wise head.
”

  Donough felt the massed weight of eyes turning toward him, accusing him of a youth and inexperience he could not deny. “You have no wife, no children,” challenged Cathal Mac Maine. “What do you know of caring for women? You don’t even have the care of your own mother.”

  Someone at the back of the hall laughed. “Gormlaith needs no one to take care of her.”

  “Except in bed,” chimed in another voice. “Half the men here have taken care of her in bed at one time or another.” The laughter billowed into a wave.

  Donough balled his fists. His brother felt the leaping tension in him. “Go easy,” Teigue advised out of the corner of his mouth. “You have to expect such talk.”

  “No one speaks of your mother this way,” Donough replied bitterly. “You’re lucky; your mother’s dead.”

  Teigue went white. At that moment something hardened in him against his brother, a stone in his heart that would never dissolve.

  But Donough, who had spoken out of an excess of emotion, did not notice.

  Maeve did, however. Suddenly she had the strange sensation that the ground had shifted under her, under all of them, and she wanted to run to her husband and feel his arms around her. With an effort she restrained herself.

  Teigue turned toward the chief brehon. “I do not accept my brother’s claim of a will in his favor,” he announced in a voice stiff with formality. “Unless and until such a claim is proved, I intend to retain the control of Kincora, which my father gave into my hands for safekeeping.”

  Donough whirled on him. “Do you claim all else that was his as well? Do you mean to be King of Munster too, and possess the fortress of Cashel?” He started to say more but common sense finally caught up with him and he refrained from asking if Teigue wanted to be Ard Ri.

  What he had already said was enough to constitute a challenge, however. Teigue’s pride forced him to respond, “I will serve my people in whatever way they decide.”

  “The Owenachts may fight you for the kingship of Munster,” warned a prince from the Slieve Aughty mountains.

  “Then I’ll fight,” Teigue replied grimly.

  In spite of himself Donough laughed aloud. “Teigue Mac Brian, fight? The closest you ever came to emulating our father was when you made canoes out of bark and sailed them on the Shannon. And then you let them get away from you.”

  Maeve hurled her thoughts at her husband with all the strength she possessed. Leave it be! she shouted at him silently. Stop now before this goes any further!

  But he did not hear. Addressing Donough, but speaking for the benefit of everyone in the hall, Teigue announced, “In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I must consider myself Brian Boru’s heir. Donough, I invite you to remain as my guest at Kincora until Carroll and the others return from Armagh. If at that time your claim to our father’s stronghold is confirmed, I will of course surrender it to you. In the meantime I ask those present to vote on the chieftaincy of the Dal Cais.”

  “And what of Munster?” someone called.

  No! Maeve shouted silently.

  With shadows in his eyes Teigue said, “If I become chief of the Dal Cais, I am willing to hold the kingship of Munster for my tribe.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  FOR A MAN WHO WAS CHIEF POET OF MUNSTER, A RANK SECOND IN status to that of the king, Mac Liag had a very modest home. Built of timber planking, it was rectangular in shape with a sod roof and only two chambers. But Mac Liag loved his house by the lake. It had, he rhapsodized, “An ash tree on one side of the doorway and a hazel on the other. A row of pines behind, singing with the wind. Salmon and pike and perch and Gillaroo trout for my supper, and the song of the lark to wake me in the morning.”

  In the poet’s old age his widowed son Cumara lived with him and tended his simple needs. It was Cumara who answered Donough’s knock on the doorframe—the door itself was hardly ever closed—and made no effort to hide his surprise. “No one calls on my father here,” he told the unexpected visitor. “The Ard Ri was the only exception. This is father’s private place; those who wish to see the chief poet attend him at Kincora.”

  “I want to see him, but I don’t want to talk to him inside Kincora,” Donough told the round-shouldered, brown-haired Cumara, who in spite of being a widower was but a decade older than himself.

  “I’ll send him out to you if he’s willing,” the other man replied.

  As Donough waited he gazed out across the lake. Lough Derg, the Red Lake. Sometimes carmined by sunset, sometimes flushed with tides of roseate plankton that appeared and vanished inexplicably.

  Sometimes stained with blood.

  “You sought me, Prince Donough?” inquired a mellifluous voice behind him.

  Donough turned and looked down at Mac Liag. He had last seen the poet in the hall at Kincora three months earlier, but in those three months Mac Liag had aged years. His subcutaneous fat had melted away, leaving his flesh sagging from his bones like a garment borrowed from a much larger man.

  Donough said, “You were my father’s friend, and I need a friend now.”

  Inclining his head in the direction of Kincora, Mac Liag replied, “Surely you have many friends inside.”

  “Do I? And who would they be? Friends of my mother’s, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Come now, Mac Liag, you know she had no friends here.”

  “That was her own doing. Brian gave her every opportunity to have a good life with him. Had she made him happy, his friends would have been hers.”

  It was the first time Donough had ever heard anyone refer to his father’s happiness—or lack of it. Such a possibility had never crossed his mind. He was so young that the emotions of others were still abstractions to him, Brian’s most of all. “Isn’t being a king enough to make any man happy?” he asked.

  Mac Liag gave him a long look. “Walk with me, lad. Walk with me and we shall talk of kingship. And other things.” Over his shoulder he called, “We’ll be back by sundown.”

  The poet’s son appeared in the doorway. Cumara had the face of the perpetually anxious, with deep frown lines scoring his brow, and pale blue eyes that anticipated bad news. “Don’t you need me to come with you?”

  “Not necessary. If I require an arm to lean on I’m sure I can rely on my young friend here,” Mac Liag replied.

  They strolled away from the house by the lake, following a winding path among the murmurous pines. Donough waited for Mac Liag to begin the conversation, but the poet, for once, was silent. Even their footfalls were hushed by the centuries-deep carpet of pine needles.

  When Donough cleared his throat to speak, Mac Liag put a restraining hand on his arm. “Smell.”

  “Smell?”

  “The fragrance of the pines. My feet press out perfumed oils as I walk, and the blackbird on the high branch sings to me. And I am happy, do you understand?”

  Donough was plainly puzzled. “Not really. I thought we were going to talk about kingship.”

  “We are,” said the poet. “I know what happened in the hall yesterday, even though I was not present. There are no secrets at Kincora. You were foolhardy to challenge Teigue for your father’s palace.”

  “I have as much right to it as he has.”

  “But you are …”

  “Don’t tell me I’m too young!” Donough flared. “I’m a man by every law, including that of nature.”

  “I was going to say you are inexperienced,” Mac Liag replied smoothly. “What do you know of managing a vast strongholding?”

  “I’ve spent my life at Kincora, watching Brian Boru. Surely that’s enough experience.”

  “You’ve spent your life at Kincora, but not watching Brian Boru. Until he threw her out, your mother kept you as far away from him as possible. You weren’t trained at his elbow, you were hidden behind her skirts. And I never noticed you rebelling,” Mac Liag added.

  “I did rebel! Every chance I got. But she was always …”

  “I know. Gormlaith did eve
rything she could to keep you a child. You were an ornament to be taken out and paraded when she wanted to boast of her motherhood at an age when other women are boasting of their grandchildren.”

  Donough turned and faced the poet squarely. “Do you hate Gormlaith the way everyone else does?”

  “Hate?” Mac Liag considered the word. “I never hated her. Do you hate the storm that blows down your trees?”

  “Then will you be my friend although I am Gormlaith’s son?”

  Pity moved the old man to say, “Of course I will be your friend, lad. For your father’s sake. He used to come here, you know. To my little house.” The trained voice, which age had not destroyed, grew reminiscent. “We would sit for hours at my hearthside, talking. Sometimes he played his harp for me here. Or he would summon me to a banquet at Kincora and give me the first drink of red wine from his own cup.” The faded eyes misted.

  Donough was too impatient for the future to be enthralled with the past. “As my friend, you must support my claim to Kincora.”

  Mac Liag’s eyes opened wide. “I did not say …”

  “When Kincora is mine, you shall come to every feast and always have the first drink from my cup,” the young man promised.

  “Listen to me, Donough, while I give you a friend’s advice. The possession of a palace will not make you happy. Your father had Kincora but there was always a hunger in him, a longing for something else; something more. Don’t I know? I, who was with him?

  “He was a lonely man; to the very end he was a lonely man. Murrough’s mother died in his arms, other women were never enough for him, and then finally Gormlaith …

  “Even with all his power, the Ard Ri was not happy. I don’t think there was one day when he experienced the contentment I know in my little house by the lake. Out of a lifetime of experience I tell you: that feeling is more to be desired than all the noble strongholds in Ireland.”

  “Your ‘little house by the lake,’” Donough quoted. “Your own place. Well, Kincora is my own place. And I depend upon you to help me get it!”

  Later, as he sat brooding by his hearthside, Mac Liag said to his son, “How do I find myself in such a patch of nettles? Teigue has been elected chieftain of the Dal Cais and will no doubt become King of Munster. When that happens, he intends to rule from Kincora as his father did before him.