Lion of Ireland (17 page)

“I’m with you, my lord,” he said firmly. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

The Shannon, swollen by late summer rain, undulated like a muddy snake between her banks. Riding in the lead with Olan and Kernac, Mahon felt his horse yearn backward as they neared the sullen water.

“Horses don’t like it,” Olan commented. “It’s mighty deep, even here; we’d best swim them, my lord.”

“Yes, I can see that. It will be hard on the baggage animals. It might be better if we unload them and lash up some rafts; there’s a lot of young wood along here that we can cut quickly. Where’s my brother? I can put him in charge of that.”

Kernac shifted on his horse and looked around. “I didn’t see him this morning; he failed to report with the other captains. But that’s not uncommon; he has fits of pride.”

Something stirred uneasily in Mahon. It was unlike Brian to hang back at the beginning of a day’s march.

He wanted to see him, be sure he was all right; but the memory of yesterday’s quarrel festered like a wound and he would not ask after him further.

The-rafts were built, the baggage loaded, and the men began crossing the river. The strongest swimmers led the way, splashing through the shallows until they were swallowed up by the channel, then moving across it obliquely, pushed downstream by the force of the water.

Those with the least swimming ability were held back until the rafts were launched, and they were allowed to cling to the sides. The horses were gathered on the bank, to be brought last, when their own fear of being left would urge them onward, and if any panicked they would not trample helpless swimmers beneath them.

When most of the men had cleared the river and the first rafts were being hauled out of the water, Nessa gave a piercing scream. He had been guiding the lead raft, and appeared to lose his footing as he scrambled up the bank holding one of the two ropes. He slipped in the mud, floundered, slipped farther, and then fell back into the water with a great splash, letting it catch him and whirl him away.

He screamed continually, flailing his arms and presenting a picture of such acute distress that the waiting men ran along the river bank, following his progress and shouting encouragement. Several plunged in after him, but he fought them off in his apparent panic, and soon the shallows were a confused roil of would-be rescuers and helpless onlookers.

Brian and Ardan, who had been waiting in the trees on the south bank of the river, saw the whole mass go sweeping toward the next bend in the watercourse. A dozen men stood behind them, breathing hard, waiting their signal. When the time was right, Brian raised his hand and brought it down again in a hard, chopping gesture, and they burst from cover. The surprised horseholders, who had been watching the crossing and dreading their turn, were unprepared to have the horses snatched from them. They relinquished the reins and lead ropes when they recognized Brian, then watched wonderingly as he swung aboard the back of his mare and urged her into the river.

It was a risk, swimming a horse in deep running water; if she floundered she could roll and drown him beneath her in her struggles. But the image they presented was inspiring, and Brian knew instinctively that the men would be swept up by it and follow without hesitation.

Briar Rose galloped strongly into the river, then gave one shudder and leaped out into the channel. Brian fought to keep her headed upstream, pushing her against the force of the water, so that they would make their landing at a point above that where the rest of the army had gathered. He heard men yelling behind him, and the frantic whinny of a horse; then he had to devote all his concentration to keeping the two of them afloat.

The mare plunged and rose beneath him, her heaving sides slippery, only her head above water at times.

Ahead of them a tranquil sea of reeds waited comfortingly, promising a footing and safety; but it took an eternity to reach it.

As soon as he felt the horse’s feet touch bottom he fought her to a standstill and turned to encourage the others Choking and swearing they came after him, some mounted and some swimming beside the horses, one brawny fellow beating his way through the water with six lead reins in his hand and another in his teeth. There was a wild grabbing for reins as they reached the shallows and the horses bolted for the bank. A number of men—more than Brian had expected—were waiting for them. Nessa’s recruits.

When the swordsman had fallen so dramatically back into the Shannon they had broken away and come upriver, unnoticed in the excitement, and were gathered on the bank in a tense knot. There was a brief squabble over horses, but soon every animal had a rider and the remaining men were jogging beside them as they headed north from the Shannon.

Ardan, who preferred his two feet to any horse’s four, ran at the black mare’s shoulder. He was breathing hard but grinning. “We made it!” he exulted. “I don’t think they even knew what was happening!”

Hearing shouts behind them, Brian replied, “They do by now. I just hope Nessa’s act wasn’t too realistic, and he’s out of the water by now and on his way to join us.”

“He knows where we’re going?”

“I told him, and listed the landmarks to watch for. If he’s all right he can find us easily enough; he might catch up with us when we stop for the night.”

Ardan ran in silence, working to deepen his breathing and find the rhythm which allowed his legs to cover tireless miles. The horses trotted, their own breathing still ragged from the swim. Brian turned often to look over his shoulder for signs of pursuit, but there were none.

“Will the king send someone after us?” Ardan asked.

Brian looked back once more; the way behind them lay empty. “I think not. I’ve been a plague to him for a long time; maybe I-prick his conscience. I expect he will go on to Boruma and think himself well rid of me, as I am of him.”

To say those words aloud hurt him, but it served as a bellows on the smoldering coals of his anger. As he looked back the way they had come he had felt lost for a moment, cut off from the past and close to being frightened by the responsibilities he had taken on so precipitously. But being reminded of his quarrel with Mahon steadied him in his determination to see it through, whatever lay ahead.

That night they built a large fire to guide Nessa, though several of the men worried that it might also serve as a beacon to any of the numerous Northmen in the vicinity. Brian had the same worry and took a sentry watch himself, pacing tirelessly beyond the edge of the firelight.

A strange jubilation seized the men. Like small boys who had miraculously escaped from some wearisome chore, they were on the verge of hilarity, laughing at nothing and feeding on one another’s emotions. Watching them, Brian wondered I how he could keep that spirit of adventure alive in them through the hardships that were sure to follow.

And then one of the men warming himself at the campfire began to tell a tale. The man was no seanchai, but the storytelling gift had brushed his tongue in passing, and the men listened to him with breath-held interest. They were eager for anything that might distract their minds from the step they had all just taken.

The speaker, a sandy-haired man at the start of his third decade, with an easy grin and a hearty voice, drained his cup and began. “Sitting here in the company of heroes” (he was immediately rewarded with laughter and cheers), “I am reminded of a tale I often heard in my youth. Are any of you familiar with the story of Mac Da Tho’s Pig?”

Men who knew the story backward and forward pleaded ignorance of it and begged him to continue.

“Mac Da Tho was a famous king of Leinster, descended from the High King Crimthann Nia Nair, him who was king of all the Irish at the time Jesus Christ was born.”

“Blessed be his name,” someone intoned.

“Blessed be,” the storyteller echoed reverently. “Well, this Mac Da Tho had a huge hound called by the name of Ailbe, who was the guardian of the entire province of Leinster. Ailill and Maeve, king and queen of Connacht, heard of the dog and sent word to Mac Da Tho that they wanted him for themselves. At the same time Conchobar, king of Ulster, took it into his head that he was deserving of the hound, and likewise sent for him.”

“Sure, and that’s trouble,” a listener was moved to comment.

“Aye, and it was,” the spellweaver agreed. “With such pressure coming at him from both sides, the king of Leinster was much troubled in his mind. He could neither eat nor sleep nor bed his wife, until the lady tired of the situation and made a suggestion of her own.

“ ‘Send word to Conchobar that our splendid dog is his for a gift’ said she, ‘if he will but honor us with a personal visit to collect him. Then send word likewise to Connacht, that Ailbe is theirs if they will come to accept him in person. Speak with each messenger in secret and assign them to bid their masters come on the same day.

Then, when Conchobar and Ailill arrive, let them fight it out between them. That way they will decide it for themselves and we will be free of the responsibility.’

“Now, this Mac Da Tho had a wife whose brain was greater than her beauty, so he did as she suggested.

And when the two kings arrived on the same day he pretended to be much surprised, and proclaimed it all a misunderstanding. He played the gracious host, seating them and their parties facing each other on opposite sides of the banquet hall, and when they looked death and daggers at one another he contrived not to notice.”

Brian stood beyond the firelight, his senses divided between his assigned watch and the magic of the story being spun.

“Mac Da Tho presented his guests with a wondrous large pig that he had slaughtered in their honor. One of those present, Bricriu (called Poison-Tongue by those who knew him best), suggested that the pig be divided so that the largest portion should go to the greatest champion among them.

“Ailill and Conchobar both agreed, and the argument began at once. Get mac Magach of Connacht clutched his knife in his big red fist and sat down next to the smoking hot meat, saying he would claim both haunches. The brave men of Ulster stood up in turn to dispute him, but he had a silver tongue and was able to remind each man of some failure of courage or loss of valor on that man’s part, so they were forced to sit down again, one by one.

“Then, as Get was plunging his knife into the pig and the men of Connacht were crowding around their champion. Conall Cernach, strongest man in Ulster, came bursting in out of the night. If the tongue of Get was silver, the tongue of Conall was golden, and he recited in fine poetry a catalogue of his deeds of heroism that put Get to shame.

“But before he would surrender the pig to Ulster, Get said, bitterly, ‘If the great Anluan, my brother, were only here, he would give you a challenge that would bring you down!’

“ ‘Ach, but Anluan is here!’ cried the Ulsterman, and so saying he pulled a bag from his belt and lifted out the head of the same Anluan, with the blood still flowing from its severed neck. With a laugh to chill your marrow he flung it at Get.

“The stunned men of Connacht offered no further challenge to their old foes, and Conall divided the pig, taking the whole hindquarter for himself.”

“The murderin’ savage!” one of the listeners around the

campfire exclaimed.

“You’re one to talk,” retorted his neighbor. “Haven’t I heard you often enough, boasting of the Leinstermen and the Ulstermen you’ve killed in one dispute or another?”

“Aye, well. That’s another thing entirely. But I’ve never taken a man’s head. I’m a Christian!”

Ignoring them, the spinner of tales went on. “When the men of Connacht saw how little was left for them of that pig they were hurt in their pride, which is the worst place to wound a Connachtman. They began the argument afresh, with words and then with weapons, and the banquet table was reduced to a heap of splinters, by the blows they exchanged across ‘it.

“Mac Da Tho saw his chance. He had watched them going at it, Ulster pounding on Connacht, Connacht slicing at Ulster, and enjoyed the show—except for the loss of his good table, of course. But he thought the time was right to be rid of the lot of them, so he whistled up his hound, the fearful Ailbe, and turned it loose on the fighting men.

“ ‘You put such value on my hound,’ he yelled to them over the shrieks and moans, ‘we will let him resolve this matter in his own way!’

“Sure, it’s one thing to fight a man; it’s another thing entirely to fight a magic hound as big as a bear. The men of Ulster and the men of Connacht poured out of the hall together, falling over each other in their hurry and not stopping to say ‘Pardon.’ But the Ulstermen were fleeter of foot, and the men from south Munster were slowed by the fat of their land, and it was them Ailbe caught first.

“Mac Da Tho was laughing to the point of hiccups. But there was one hero yet to be heard from. Fer Loga, the royal charioteer of Connacht, came forward at the gallop and ran right into the huge hound, splitting its skull on the chariot pole.

“By now everyone was in full flight. They ran through the night with their hair streaming out behind them, and in their ears they thought they still heard the baying of that hound.

“Fer Loga, flushed with his kill, leaped out of his chariot and hid in the heather to waylay Conchobar.

When the Ulster chariot came abreast of his hiding place he jumped up behind and seized Conchobar by the neck, his hands closing on the throat of north Ireland itself. ‘Buy your freedom of me, Conchobar, or there will be a wailing and a tearing of hair in your palace when your body is carried home!’

“ ‘I bow to your terms,’ said Conchobar, who had it in him to live to a great age.

“ ‘Then my demand is this,’ said the charioteer of the west country. ‘Every night for a year, the fair maidens of Ulster must sing: “Fer Loga is my darling.” ‘

“And that was the victory of Connacht over Ulster, and of Mac Da Tho over the both of them. He and his wife laughed that night on their pillow, remembering how foolish their enemies had looked in full flight.”

A shout of laughter went up when Fer Loga named the price of Conchobar’s ransom, and the men seated around the campfire toasted the long-dead charioteer with their drinking cups. Then another toast was raised to Mac Da Tho, who had used his enemies as weapons against one another.