Bard I (20 page)

Truth or lie, it delighted them. They shouted with laughter. Although they had covetous eyes for the gold winking on his person, they made no demands.

‘Come within the rath!’ said one, chuckling. ‘Oban the Strong would joy to meet you, were the time a better one—but he’ll welcome you none the less.’

Felimid entered the stockade. Cooking-fires danced and sheep milled witlessly in their pens. One rude byre held a dozen cattle, all that these folk had been able to support through the winter. They had butchered the rest late in autumn.

The cattle were as much a symbol of strength and pride as four-footed wealth, Felimid knew well. Being more valuable and faster to drive than the sheep. they were a challenge to lifters. The mere possession of them seemed to say. ‘Come and take them from us, if you can.’

And of course, these same men would cheerfully add to their own stock by lifting from others-when they could; cattle-lifting was an honorable pastime. The bard had ridden on cattle-raids himself at home in Ireland, as had his father before him. Kings and princes thought it wonderful sport.

No kings or princes dwelt here. In the fading light, Felimid reckoned this clan at twenty men, as many women, and a dozen children. The women were straight, fierce, free-moving in long skirts. with linen blouses under bodices of wool or fur. They covered their heads with shawls or bright scarves. Most were handsome; none looked shy. Nor were any old.

The clan’s chief came forward. Four decades of stormy living showed in his face. Grey, grizzled, he welcomed Felimid expansively-and studied him shrewdly. He gave thorough trust to no stranger. Three short throwing axes were slung handily across his chest. A dagger was buckled to one thick thigh, while a long sword hung on his other hip. He’d the look of a man who couldn’t walk properly balanced without them.

‘I’m Oban the Strong,’ he rumbled. ‘I lead this clan. If you’re a bard, I make you welcome in the name of the horse-goddess. Ask and have what you will.’

‘I’m grateful,’ Felimid said, and was, ‘but it wouldn’t be decent for me to take your hospitality without saying what I’ve said to your kinsmen here. I’m a hunted man. by the Romans of Calleva.’

‘What of it?’ Oban demanded. ‘Their rule does not run here. If they led a bard captive away from this dun, I could not live with the shame. But they never shall! How far behind did you leave the pursuit?’

‘A day, I’m thinking. And I’m not sure they haven’t all turned back but one. I saw him riding uncompanioned. though he did not see me; but it’s more likely he simply rushed ahead of the rest in his eagerness. You will maybe know of him. His name is Kyle.’

‘The master of King Agloval’s horses? Yes. I’ve heard of that one! He honors the goddess. For that, I may let him live if he comes here seeking you. He shan’t have you, though.’

‘Not so free with your promises, Oban!’ growled one of the Downsmen. ‘See what he carries behind his saddle.’

Oban looked. His affability vanished. The chief of a clan who heard blood calling for blood rounded on Felimid now.

‘How did you come by that fur? Tell!’

‘Why, from a giant ermine whose body I found slain on the turf. Dead men lay near it. Weapons had slain them, not the beast, and one horse’s tracks led me here from the place of the slaying. Now that is all I know, except that I stripped the beast of its pelt. Who wouldn’t have done? And why does it enrage you? Were the slain men of your own clan?’

‘By the goddess of my people, they were!’ Oban snarled. ‘One was my sister’s son, Cas! You followed the trail of the survivor straight here, you say. Whose men did you think they would be? Caius Julius Caesar’s?

‘Besdath alone survived. and he lies wounded in his hut as we talk, but he will live. The others were destroyed by men of Dun Arodhin, he says. They are at feud with us. By Mabon! If Besdath had dared return unhurt with the news that Cas was dead and slain, I’d have cut off his head myself!’ Oban’s eyes glittered with rage and grief. ‘Well. there are other lives I can take for this, other heads. And I’ll have them! Red and dripping I’ll have them!’ He ground his teeth.

The same man who had pointed out the ermine’s fur now voiced another question. Plainly, he was suspicious.

‘How is it that you found the beast untouched? You say that anybody would have taken the fur, and I’d agree. Then why didn’t the slayers?’

‘I cannot say.’ Felimid paused diplomatically. ‘What makes you think I would know?’

‘And also. they left the corpses where they fell?’

‘So they must have done. ·Felimid answered. patient and forbearing, ‘for surely the slain were untouched save for their death-wounds when I found them.’

The other threw high his clenched fists in bafflement. ‘It makes no sense! Why didn’t they take the heads?

What kind of man kills an enemy and leaves his head on?’

Oban the Strong nodded heavily. ‘I do not like this. I’ve said you are welcome, Felimid mac Fal, and I do not unsay it – I’m no quibbler-but you and I will have to talk on the matter. You and I and Besdath together. Come with me to his hut when you have given your horses care.’

‘To be sure,’ Felimid said compliantly. He liked it better that Oban did not seem to regard the wounded man, the slayer, with any great love. Besdath. So that was his name.

Fires shook in the sobbing wind. The ghosts of murdered men wandered the downs, moaning, craving vengeance. Their horses moved through the dusk, seeking home. Women keened in Oban’s dun.

Kyle awaited his time to move, and thought how much simpler it would have been to turn back as soon as he became separated from his riders. Prince Justin lay on a rich bed in Calleva, with a physician at his side and the town bishop standing at his feet. Besdath the king-­murderer lay on a pallet of skins in his thatched hut of wattles.

Epona the horse-goddess saw it all, and anticipated. Perhaps she designed.

* * *

Now I have met with the man that I hunted

Far o’er the hills at the risk of my life,

Judged of his rotten heart, hating and stunted,

How can I take him without raising strife?

His chieftain would reckon his honour affronted,

And-this killer of kin has a beautiful wife.

Felimid mac Fal,
The Seeking of Kincaid

F
ELIMID
SHARED
A
MEAL
BY
THE
FIRES
OF
O
BAN
’
S
CLAN
. All ate together, the men, the children and the tall, free­speaking women, while in the background the keening for the dead went on. It would continue until morning.

One woman in particular caught the bard’s eye when she came to the fires with a wooden bowl and spoon Fox-red hair was hers, a limber body that moved with a sway, and a face that any man with blood must long to take between his hands.

‘Ha, Cein,’ Oban greeted her. ‘Is Besdath awake?’

‘Awake, and ill-tempered.’ she answered with a grin.

‘He’s in some pain.’

‘And growling like a surly dog, I don’t doubt! Well, tell him to find his manners, for the bard and I will be visiting him when our food has settled. This is Felimid mac Fal, of Erin.’

‘I was hearing as much,’ Cein replied. with an interested look at the bard. ‘Were you not at Badon, among the light auxiliaries of Count Artorius?’

‘I was there, yes,’ Felimid said, pleased that she should know it.

‘You were? By the goddess. so was I!’ Oban interrupted. ‘And the victory feast afterwards—but so was half Britain, it seemed! Not strange that we didn’t meet at the time. That was a day, that was a night!’

He appeared ready to reminisce. Cein forestalled him, speaking to Felimid again. ‘I thought so. You danced with me, after the battle.’

Felimid had danced with a hundred women, in the wild, glorious month after Badon, and lain with at least ten. He didn’t remember Cein, but then the chances were that he’d been rather magnificently drunk at the time.

‘I remember,’ he lied courteously. ‘It was in the war­camp by the Gap.’

‘Right!’

The guess had been reasonable; he couldn’t picture Cein within Calleva’s walls, and many women of the downs had followed their wild men to the fighting.

‘Cein,’ Felimid said thoughtfully as she went away.

‘Jewel. It fits you.’

‘It does at that.’ Oban agreed. ‘Besdath married her, not long after Badon-wed her by capture. That’s lawful among us, on payment of compensation.’

It wasn’t lawful among Felimid’s people-it would have been thought downright appalling. Irish law in such cases demanded that the woman be set free, by fighting if negotiation failed, and that compensation be paid to Iter. Still. he was a long way from the banks of the Shannon now. Though it seemed odd that such forthright women should be content with such an arrangement; and Cein—was she content with Besdath? The moment Felimid saw the man, he began to think it unlikely.

Besdath welcomed his two visitors with a scowl. The expression had cut its lines so deeply above his eyes and about his mouth that he must have worn it all his life. Shadows of bitter discontent flickered under his brows.

What made his discontent could not be seen, for he’d a good form, well-muscled and tall. His nose jutted from a big-jawed, wide-browed face, on which grew hair and a long moustache of darkest brown. The colour of his eyes was vague, less memorable than the murkily inturned look of them. He ought to have been a fine-looking man. Somehow. he wasn’t.

Oban the Strong did not hedge or circle about. ‘Besdath, this is Felimid mac Fal. a bard out of Erin. He came to the dun an hour since, bringing the skin of that great ermine you left where you found it—on the beast. Now Felimid found it still untouched, and the bodies of Cas and Mamoc lying near. I’d say that is a strange thing. wouldn’t you?’

Besdath spat into the embers of his hearth. ‘So strange that he must be lying,’ he growled. ‘I left the skin to the killers of Cas and Marnoc because there was nothing else for it! We three encountered the ermine, we three killed it! Then came the turds of Dun Arodhin to steal it from us. They were too many, or they’d never have dared.’ He scowled deeper. pretending anger and hate.

‘If you have the skin, whoever you are. you can only have got it from them! And since that’s so. why are you here?’

‘I’m here because I do not happen to be somewhere else,’ Felimid said amiably. ‘As for these men from Dun Arodhin that I’ve been hearing so much about, I saw never a sign of them. There were tracks of three horses only– those you and your two companions rode. I suppose. And the tracks of yours led me straight here. Clan chief. let you send out trackers to read the story in the turf, and you will be cured of doubt as to which of us has the right of it. From the folly this fellow talks, I might think his head had been wounded and not his leg.’

‘I’ll kill you for that!’ Besdath spat. ‘I’ll be on my legs and hale in three days. Then you won’t be safe from a fight. If you’re still here, you’ll have to meet me with swords—not with clever words! I’ve killed men for less.· Felimid’s brows went soaring,·so you tell me? By the gods my people wear by! I’m sure I’d tremble. were I not rigid and petrified and stiff with fear. Well. if we’re fated to fight. I’ll just have to hold my weapons as firmly as I can. . . won’t I?’

‘How firmly is that?. Besdath asked. His dark scowl became a sneer. ‘With the strength of a one year’s child?.

‘Some say five years, but then they are friends of mine.’

‘Besdath, stint your graceless noise!’ declared Oban.

‘Are you honing to be outlawed again? Are we Romans in this dun, or are we descendants of the Iceni? The days of Boudicca may be long gone. but bards are still sacred where I give orders! Mind that!’

Besdath stirred on his pallet and farted loudly.

Oban reddened with fury. His swinging foot caught the wounded man heavily in the side, making him roll over and double up with a breathy shriek of pain. The chieftain grinned ferociously.

‘Be more careful how and when you break wind! Now, by the milk of the nine mares-if you’re going to fight anybody when you’re bale again, you may challenge me!’

With agonized effort. Besdath uncurled. He lay straight. Although he looked at Oban with bitter hatred, he said nothing. There was no need.

Oban stamped out. Before Felimid turned to go, he slipped a thorn under Besdath’s hide with a deliberately chosen oath.

‘By the silver-hilted sword of Ogma,’ he said, ‘your chief is a hot man.’

Besdath’s mouth moved, as at the first faint spasm that warns a man he may have been poisoned.

‘Yes,·Felimid thought. ‘You are the one.’

Passing out of Besdath’s house, he was thoughtful. The man had brought Kincaid here, into his people’s dun. That had been a great chance to take. Why? Belike with a dogged, greedy possessiveness that could not endure to let the sword pass out of his reach. When he’d reached the dun—Felimid could picture it–he’d have cursed and struck away from him any who offered support or help, and gone to his own hut as soon as he might, to have his wound treated by Cein. If he’d been known all his life as a surly, cross-grained, snarling dog, such behavior from him would amaze no one.

And there would have been the deaths of two men better liked to think about. Weapons were being sharp­ened, vengeance planned, even now-against the men of Dun Arodhin, who knew nothing of the deed. The women’s keening throbbed in the night.

‘Well, the horse-tracks tell a plain story,’ Felimid thought. ‘They will show that Besdath lied.’

As though in perverse answer. thunder boomed. A few heavy drops of rain became a pelting downpour in moments. Felimid sat in Oban’s house drinking strong birch wine, listening to the rain as its fierceness increased. Puddles grew into little lakes. Runlets by the score snaked into the ditches around Dun Oban, hiding the bases of the defensive stakes under stippled water.

‘A giant’s tracks couldn’t last through a sluicing like this.’ Oban commented, showing his feet closer to the hearth. ‘No, not if he wore iron shoes. By morning there will be nothing to see, Felimid. It will be your word against Besdath’s, just.’