Pride of Lions Page 9

  “As chief poet of Munster, my loyalty is to the king.

  “But now I’ve told … worse than that, I’ve promised … young Donough that I would be his friend. For a moment there, in the shadows of the trees, he looked so much like his father … I’m a sick man, Cumara, I’m not able for this,” the poet moaned. “Being caught between Brian’s sons will destroy me entirely. I’ve heard my last cuckoo sing from the whitethorn.”

  For as long as he could remember, Cumara had heard his father complaining about various ailments. Brian Boru’s death had unquestionably hit Mac Liag very hard, but Cumara privately believed the old poet had the constitution of bog oak. In spite of that he was worried; it was his nature to worry. Patting Mac Liag’s hand, he said, “Put it out of your mind, father. Let Teigue and Donough sort it out between them and you stay clear.”

  “I want to be waked for six days,” Mac Liag said. “Six; it is an honor I deserve.”

  “You aren’t going to die, you won’t need a wake.”

  “Six days, with candles lit ’round my bier. And Cathal Mac Maine to pray over me, no one else. Do you understand? Bury me at Cashel, the royal seat of Munster. Though, mind you, I would rather be buried here beside the lake. But we must think of my station.”

  “Yes, father.” Cumara sighed.

  “And one more thing—be sure to tell me as soon as Carroll gets back, will you? I need most urgently to talk with him.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  AS KINCORA WAITED FOR THE LATE ARD RI’S RETINUE TO RETURN from Armagh, Donough busied himself mustering support. One he was relying upon was his cousin, Fergal Mac Anluan. He found Fergal in the low stone building Brian had constructed as an armory. Together with Odar the smith, Fergal was counting the various weapons the Dalcassians had reclaimed from the dead and brought back to Kincora; weapons that gave mute evidence of the ferocity of the battle. The light of smoking fat burning in bronze lamps revealed substantial damage.

  “Some of these blades are beyond repair,” Odar was saying as Donough ducked his head under the lintel and entered the building. “The best thing to do is melt them down and re-forge them. We can still use most of the old hilts, though; particularly for the short-swords. The great-swords are another problem. Being two-handed, they need to be shaped to the wielder’s grip, so we’ll have to assess them individually.

  “Now these axes are a different matter; they’re made to stand more battering. A hammering here, a new edge there, and they’re ready to kill a man tomorrow.” Odar squinted at Fergal. “You know the test of an expert axeman? Cut a man in three pieces, first with a forehand blow and then with a backhand, before his dead body can hit the ground?”

  “I not only know it,” retorted Fergal, “I can do it.”

  “Can you now?” Odar did not sound convinced. “It’s an achievement rarely seen. Why, the last time I saw …”

  “You probably saw my father do it,” said Donough, stepping forward into the lamplight, which threw the bones of his maturing face into stark relief.

  “I believe I did. In the battle of Glenmama.”

  “Could you teach me?”

  “Did the Ard Ri not teach you?”

  Donough busied himself with pawing through the pile of damaged weaponry and did not answer.

  “You can do something for me,” Odar said to him. “When you next talk with your brother, tell him he’ll get as many as three hundred usable weapons out of this lot.”

  Donough swung around to glare at the smith. “He’ll get? These are mine; I brought them back.”

  “Of course you did, and fair play to you, but the chief will have the distributing of them among his Dalcassians.”

  “My Dalcassians. I brought them back, too.”

  Odar took a long, slow look at Donough. The smith had not lived in the heart of a warrior society all his life without being sensitive to shifts in the wind. He stole a glance at Fergal, but the son of Anluan was keeping his face studiously blank.

  “I had best get to work,” said Odar in a tone that made plain they were both expected to leave him to his craft.

  Outside the armory, Donough caught his cousin by the arm. “You know the Dalcassians are mine, they followed my banner home.”

  “They aren’t your private army,” Fergal pointed out. “The chief of the tribe is their ultimate commander.”

  “Are you not on my side? What about the will?”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “I thought you made a good argument; you should have Kincora. Besides, I like you and it’s always a good idea to have a prince owing one a favor. That’s worth a small lie.”

  “A lie? Are you saying you didn’t hear my father make me his heir?”

  Fergal narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying he did?”

  “You didn’t hear him?”

  “No, of course not. But it doesn’t matter, I …”

  His words went unheard. Biting his lip, Donough walked rapidly away.

  As she crossed the paved courtyard between the private sleeping chambers and the grianan, the women’s sunny-room, Maeve noticed him sitting slumped on the ground with his knees drawn up to his chest and his back against a wall. He looked so dejected she could not resist going over to him.

  He looked up gratefully. “Is there any news of Carroll’s return?”

  “Not yet. You should not pin all your hopes on him, Donough. So much has happened; if there was a written will, it may have been lost in the confusion. Or Brian might have intended to dictate it to Carroll as they marched to Dublin, then been overtaken by events and forgot about it.”

  “My father never forgot anything,” Donough said stubbornly.

  Maeve laughed. “Och, everyone forgets.”

  “Not my father.”

  “Have you nothing to cling to but your memories of him and your desire for Kincora?”

  The gray eyes that looked up at her were bleak.

  Impulsively, she bent down to him. “I have a sister visiting me,” she said. “Younger than me, not yet betrothed, and very pretty. If you’re old enough to bear arms you’re old enough to marry, and if you have a family to shelter and support it would strengthen your claim to Kincora. Though why you would want a place this large and all the headaches that go with it is quite beyond me,” she added.

  “A wife? Your sister?”

  “And why not? Neassa has all the virtues required of a woman of high rank, she has a lovely voice, she can embroider and make mead and command servants. I’ll introduce you, shall I? Who knows, you might like each other.”

  Donough found himself gazing into the square neck of Maeve’s gown, at her full round bosom. “I suppose there’s no harm,” he replied.

  That night, as the main meal of the day was being served in the banqueting hall, Maeve and a young woman approached Donough. They had to thread their way around long benches and small trestle tables, trying not to trip over outstretched legs, for almost the length of the hall. The strained relations within the clan of Brian had resulted in a change in seating arrangements.

  Enda the chief steward had been plainly embarrassed when he led Donough to his new bench. “Here, with your own table and a stool for your feet, will this do?” he had asked hopefully.

  “But my brothers and I always sat in the center of the hall between the two hearths,” Donough protested. “Where Teigue is sitting now.”

  Enda would not meet his eyes. “There is a new order of precedence now, set by Prince Teigue. I can only obey.”

  Donough said nothing, merely seated himself on the bench.

  But he gazed across the hall at his brother with such intensity he was unaware when Maeve stood beside him. She had to tap his shoulder to gain his attention.

  “Prince Donough, I want you to meet my sister, Neassa. Is she not as lovely as I promised?”

  The woman who stood beside Maeve was very like her: the same sweetly rounded form, the same fair coloring. Seen by the light of a hundred candl
es, she had a tempting glow.

  A wife, Donough thought with sudden fierce determination. When I have a wife I have to have a fort. And it’s going to be this fort.

  He could see it so clearly in his own mind, every detail a replication of his father’s life—except, of course, for Gormlaith—that he was almost surprised to find himself still seated far from the center of the hall, with the girl called Neassa looking at him as if he were a stranger.

  He forced his mind back to the present. “Sit here beside me,” he invited, “and share my cup.”

  Neassa raised her eyebrows and cast an interrogatory glance at her sister. Maeve hastily informed Donough, “An unmarried woman of our rank cannot share a cup with a man unless he has offered her father a bride-price. You know that.”

  “I know that,” he echoed, a dull red flush creeping across his cheeks. Then he said brusquely, “So what would be a satisfactory bride-price? Would your father accept five cows? And what sort of dowry will come with her?”

  Teigue’s wife was taken aback. “Both dowry and bride-price are usually arranged through an intermediary with no close personal interest,” she informed him. Women often knew more about these things than unmarried men. “A distant cousin, a priest, a brehon … someone who can negotiate between the two parties over a period of weeks or months.”

  Donough made an impatient gesture. “Too long. We could be dead tomorrow; I’ve seen plenty of dead men recently, enough to make me want to do my living while I can. Your family lives just up the river, so send word to your father immediately that I offer him five cows, and I shall settle another five cows on Neassa the day we marry. If that is not enough, ask him what he will accept.”

  Maeve could not resist asking, “Do you actually have ten cows?”

  “I do of course, didn’t you hear the brehons? Teigue and I will share equally all the cattle our father fed on his landholdings. I have hundreds of cows,” he elaborated, throwing his arms wide in an expansive gesture that swept the cup from the table nearest him and splashed its contents over Neassa’s gown.

  She drew back with a startled cry and began mopping furiously at herself.

  By the next day everyone in Kincora—and much of the surrounding countryside—had heard the news. “Prince Donough has chosen a wife!”

  “The woman is Maeve’s sister,” an understeward informed a kitchen servant.

  “But she has not agreed to the marriage,” the kitchen servant told a porter.

  The porter assured his wife in bed that night, “They will marry, of course. Even if the girl’s against it, I should say her family will prevail upon her. A prince of Thomond, and all those cows!”

  “Her family has already married a daughter to a prince of Thomond,” the wife reminded him. “Teigue Mac Brian. And him with the chieftainship and Kincora as well.”

  “Kincora is not so certain,” said her husband. “Young Donough’s disputing his claim. He says there’s a will.”

  “Is there?”

  “And how would I know? All this talk … . Turn around here, woman, and put your head on my belly.”

  Arranging a marriage was not as swiftly done as Donough would have liked. It seemed to him that Brian Boru had only to snap his fingers and his wishes were fulfilled at once, but people appeared determined to thwart and frustrate his youngest son.

  Once Neassa told Maeve she was willing to consider his proposal—an admission she made in response to her sister’s urging, and with some reluctance—the girl was promptly returned to her father’s house to remain there until all negotiations between the two clans were concluded. Runners would be sent back and forth, brehons consulted and then consulted again. An accurate current count of the late Ard Ri’s cattle must be made, for under the law Donough could not give away a single cow until the size of the various herds in their various meadows was known and the cattle were evenly divided between himself and Teigue.

  “But we know I shall have more than ten!” he protested vehemently. “Why can’t I just take ten now?”

  There was, however, no arguing with the law.

  Yet had not his father successfully manipulated the law?

  Donough stormed to the house on the lake to complain to Mac Liag, “Why is everything being made so hard for me?”

  “It is not. It just seems that way because you’re young.”

  “I merely want to marry quickly. Is that so unreasonable?”

  “Not at all. People have been doing it for years. I myself …” Mac Liag paused, a reminiscent smile spreading over his face like the last glow of sunset. “I did not have a prince’s marriage, with complicated property settlements,” he continued dreamily. “I am a poet. I kidnapped my wife; I carried her away into a sea full of stars and …”

  “Kidnapped?” Donough’s eyes were very bright.

  “I did of course, an ancient and honorable tradition. She was delighted, though she essayed one small shriek of protest just to observe the conventions. But …”

  Mac Liag found he was talking to himself. Donough had gone.

  “Ah, to be young again,” the poet wistfully observed to his son. “Young and impetuous, thinking all things are possible.”

  Staring into his own future as sole caretaker of an elderly, crotchety parent, Cumara, who liked to think of himself as still young, commented glumly, “Nothing is possible.”

  The banner of the Ard Ri, its golden field and three red lions stained with blood, was carried through the main gates of Kincora. The entire population of the great fort turned out to greet it in reverent silence.

  Behind the flagbearer came Brian’s retinue, exhausted, hollow-eyed; men who had survived the end of the world.

  After the entombment in Armagh they had stayed on for some days as guests of Bishop Maelmuire. When they finally left Ulster, Malachi Mor had insisted they stop at his stronghold in Meath for more hospitality. There he had entertained his old rival’s followers so lavishly that Carroll was moved to remark, “Malachi dreams of being High King again.”

  “Not a dream,” replied a member of clan Cuinn. “Who else is there to succeed Brian but a man who already knows the office?”

  Carroll thought of arguing, but somehow it did not seem worth the effort.

  Nothing seemed worth the effort anymore.

  And so Brian’s men came home to Munster, and the gates of Kincora opened to receive them.

  An interrogation similar to that which had greeted Donough awaited them, but Carroll had the answers.

  “The Ard Ri was entombed in Armagh at his own request,” he explained to Teigue even before going inside to wash his feet and face. “It was an arrangement Brian made years ago; I was with him when he made it. In challenging Malachi Mor for the high kingship he needed all the allies he could get, particularly the Church. So we made a journey to Armagh and he left twenty ounces of gold on the altar there while confirming Armagh as the principal ecclesiastical city in Ireland. In the clerical record he titled himself ‘Emperor of the Irish’—a designation the Church let stand.

  “Then he paid the supreme compliment to Ulster. He willed his body to be buried at Armagh so his flesh would become one with the north.

  “The flattery was successful. When he challenged Malachi, the northern clergy—while they did not actively support Brian—did not support Malachi either. Thus Ulster was instrumental in Brian’s becoming Ard Ri, and now they have given him a funeral more splendid than any ever seen in Ireland. He was waked for twelve nights and twelve days, and masses said in every chapel and monastery for the repose of his soul. His body rests in solitary honor in a great stone tomb on the north side of the church at Armagh; his debt is paid, as he willed.”

  “As he willed,” Teigue echoed. “So shall it be. But … speaking of wills, have you seen my brother?”

  “Dead,” Carroll replied dolefully. “Murrough, Conor, Flann—all dead.”

  “I mean Donnchad; Donough, as he calls himself now. He claims there was a will, and we need you to verify
it, if you can … where is that boy?” he interrupted himself irritably, looking around. “I would have thought he’d be among the first to greet you.”

  But no one knew where Donough was, until one of the horseboys came forward to say, in a rather nervous voice, “Prince Donough galloped away from Kincora at first light on his best horse, and leading another.”

  Teigue stared at him. “Another?”

  “For his wife to ride, he said.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  BEYOND THE EARTHEN EMBANKMENT WHICH ENCIRCLED HER FATHER’S stronghold was a tree-fringed meadow Neassa visited at sunrise on May mornings. Beltaine dew was prized for its ability to improve a woman’s complexion. It was most efficacious on the first day of the month, but Neassa was a young woman who liked to be certain; she collected the dew each dawn as long as Beltaine lasted.

  On the last day of May she lingered in the meadow longer than usual. In a household crowded with parents, siblings, servants, and an occasional sick cow, it was the only place where she could be alone with her thoughts. Neassa was of a passive rather than a contemplative nature, but she had several things on her mind this morning.

  Under Brehon Law, a woman could not be forced to marry against her wishes. Brehon Law did not preclude relatives from bringing considerable pressure to bear, however. Neassa’s father Gadhra was a cattle lord with a sizable holding, but he was always eager to enlarge his herd. Upon learning that Donough wanted to marry Neassa he had begun making plans at once.

  “The Ard Ri’s son Teigue gave me that spotted bull as part of the bride-price for Maeve,” he recalled. “Best bull I ever had. Every heifer he covered produced a calf. A number of them even had twins,” he added with a gleam in his eye.

  “I don’t know that I want to marry Donough,” Neassa had protested. “He’s a stranger to me. And he’s clumsy. And he doesn’t even have a full moustache yet.”