Lion of Ireland (37 page)

“How can you be certain of that?”

She shifted her weight again, closing the space between them. Though the day was cold a dew of sweat had begun to form on Magnus’s upper lip.

“I have made it my business to know a great deal about Malachi Mor,” he told him. “He is the obvious successor to the kingship of Tara; he is of the southern branch of the Hy Neill, and the Ard Ri has always been of the Hy Neill. Donall is northern Hy Neill, so by the tradition of alternate kingship ‘ it will go next to the south. Malachi is young and aggressive, hungry to make a name for himself to rival that of his famous ancestor, the first Malachi Mor. There is no other man in the land with a future such as his.”

“What about this king of Munster, Mahon the Dalcassian? Isn’t he coming to be something of a force among the Irish?”

Gormlaith lifted her silky eyebrows. “He is not Hy Neill! It is unthinkable that a usurper from a minor tribe should be crowned Ard Ri at Tara. No, it will be Malachi, and my poor husband is already shivering in his sleep for fear of him.”

It was hard for Magnus to imagine that any man could so unnerve Olaf Cuaran, the conqueror of Northumbria, victor of a hundred savage battles. “You misjudge Olaf, woman,” he said sternly, determined to put an end to her aggression before it became too threatening. “He is a magnificent warrior, he has made of these Irish a subservient race, and he will not lie trembling in his bed this night or any other, just because one of them rises against him.”

She tossed her head. Her smile was no longer hot and full of promises. It was as if he had failed some vital test. “Olaf is a man to be broken, like any other man,” she said. “I could break you, Magnus Ulricsson, if I thought you were worth the effort. But you are a little man, a weak man, an old man like my husband. The sap has dried in you. It would be more interesting to match myself against, say, this Malachi Mor.”

She turned her shoulder to him then and looked away. “A storm is coming,” she said in a voice grown cool with disinterest. “Can you smell it? I love storms.” Then she whirled away and was gone, and where she had been there was a cold emptiness.

PART TWO

A long season of peace came to Munster. A landman could plant his crop, harvest it, let the land lie fallow, and then plant again, and still it was not watered with the blood of his children. The Northmen skulked along the coast and pieced together the shattered fragments of their strength, but each time they challenged the power of Cashel an army marched out behind the king’s brother, and death came with it.

The Norse bided their time, licking their wounds. To the east, Malachi was enjoying similar successes, and the fellowship he had once felt toward the Irish in Munster began to fade in the light of his own ambition. He called back those of his troops who had stood with Mahon and employed them in continuing campaigns against the foreigners in his own kingdom and the Leinstermen to the south.

The monument that was Cashel brooded beneath wintry skies and glowed in the summer sun.

Marcan was often there, closing the gap between his elder brother and his God, encouraging Mahon in the religious fervor that grew within him. From dawn to dark prayers arose from the precincts of Cashel, punctuated occasionally by the cries of an infant as Brian’s children were born.

Conor followed Murrough with but a year between them, and then Sabia, a lovely miniature of her mother, and next the dimpled daughter they named Emer, for Cuchullain’s wife. And Flann, and merry Teigue.

If the policies of Munster were the policies of Brian of Boruma, few knew that but Brian and the king.

With each passing year Mahon found it simpler to give Brian the decisions to make, the responsibilities to carry, and Brian accepted them all without hesitation. To him, Mahon had ceased being the king; he was God’s man now—and, sometimes, Fithir’s, although his marriage had not rekindled his interest in things of the flesh as much as that lady might have desired.

Apart from all of them, from Mahon and Deirdre and even his children, Brian lived alone within himself.

And waited, as the Northmen waited. Something was coming alive in his mind. Sometimes he could catch a glimpse of it, a glimmering of an outline, a fragment of a perimeter, and he knew with deep certainty that the time would come when it would all be there, intact and perfect. It need not be rushed. It grew quietly in the dark, nourished by his experiences and his love. He thought of it not as a dream, but as a presence.

The green land, the passionate, intensely alive people, the great weight of their history together that stretched back through memory to myth, to some prehistoric dawn he could not even imagine.

Ireland.

A need to love which could not be fearlessly bestowed on any mortal being could be satisfied by the country herself. She could not die. If a man could weave himself into her very fabric she would be his forever, capable of absorbing all his passion, his to safeguard and cherish.

Ireland. The beautiful, ravaged, troubled land. The sum of the parts of all her people. More than that. The shape in his mind began to firm. He could grasp its dimensions, and the size of it astonished him but did not frighten him. Once he had thought all his being consecrated to the destruction of the Northmen, but now he could see that was only a part of the overall task. The foreigners were but an obstacle to be removed from the road.

The road?

The words came to him and he played around with them, rearranging them in his head, waiting to see where they

would lead.

The road ... to empire.

It was there, finished and dazzling, in the center of his soul. The Empire of the Irish, as Charlemagne had built the Empire of the Franks, but stronger, immortal as Charlemagne’s was not. A land under God, where education and art were valued as the most precious of human accomplishments. An empire kept safe by the strength he would give it, where books would not be burned nor children butchered. The Empire of the Celts, of harps and hospitality, of poetry and peace.

But it must be won by the sword.

He began to be hungry for this thing that had never been.

With Deirdre he was gentle and wary, always conscious on some level of the wounds within her that might break open once more. When she was tired she grew fretful, and her tears fell as easily as a child’s—there was the constant worry that they might not stop. She could not be joked with, nor could she endure casual play in bed. Indeed, the act of begetting children required her total forbearance, and he was aware of it. But though she felt no pleasure in their conception, she took pleasure in the little ones themselves, and it was the belief of everyone that her babies kept her quiet and sane.

There was never any question of putting them out to fosterage. Noble families routinely exchanged children, to strengthen the ties between them, but, when Aed mentioned it in a passing conversation, Fithir silenced him with a stern glare. “My sister’s children will be raised in her household and no other, seanchai They do her more good than all your wisdom or the physician’s medicaments.”

“But it is the tradition, my lady. Young ones are being sent to Cashel from the four corners of Munster in accordance with the custom, and they expect like in return, or how else can we be of one family?”

Fithir answered him resolutely. “The king and I will have many children and see one in every powerful tribe in the land, if that will insure peace. But speak no more of sending Deirdre’s away, and ask the Brehons not to mention it to her; even a whisper might do her harm.”

Aed was saddened. Any break with tradition was a sacrilege to him, and though not every family participated in the ritual of fosterage he believed deeply in the wisdom of the custom. He also saw, with the eyes of the observant, that Fithir was moving past her childbearing years and had not yet conceived. She holds Brian’s children close to warm her own heart, as well as for her sister’s sake, he thought.

The youngsters wove a thread of merriment through Cashel, Murrough in particular was the light in his father’s eyes. He lacked Brian’s serious side, but he was a sturdy little fellow, scrappy and full of pranks, and he poured his enormous energy and opinionated spirit into everything he did. From earliest infancy Murrough had seemed to be very much his own person, and Brian delighted in him, even as he tried to control his more headstrong impulses.

It was Murrough who was responsible for the scurry of cats at Cashel. As soon as he was old enough to straddle a pony he had ranged far from the Rock, fearless as an eagle, returning at day’s end with some present to placate his parents. Once it was a cloakful of squirming cats.

“A little girl in the woods gave them to me, father,” he explained to an amused Brian. “She said her mother wanted job

to have them!”

Brian cocked an eyebrow and tried to appear serious. “And what would I be doing with a tribe of kittens? Are you sure this isn’t your latest army, little general?”

“Oh, no, my lord!” Murrough insisted. “I was told they were a gift for you. To keep down mice, I expect,” he added

earnestly.

The cats were incorporated into the life of Cashel. They were good ratters, but they became more particularly, as Brian had expected, the playfellows of his oldest son. Murrough liked having his own way. On the eve of the young prince’s eighth birthday, Brian and Padraic were returning with a company of warriors from a skirmish exercise, a war game Brian had devised to keep ht troops battle-ready in the absence of Northmen. Padraic, Brian’s shadow, had come to be more than an aide; he was as much of a confidant as Brian would allow himself, and ‘ younger man was proud and jealous of his position. They were discussing the morrow’s festivities. “The will be pleased with the banquet planned in his honor, I think,” Brian told Padraic. “My brother the king intends to be back from Bruree, where he has gone to hold out the hand of friendship to Donovan of Hy Carbery. Bishop Marcan will be celebrating Mass, and that wild boar I speared in Graedhe’s Woods is turning on the spit this very hour. We shall have a feast suitable for the son of a king!”

“The son of the real king of Munster,” Padraic said, almost under his breath.

“Hush,” Brian reprimanded him sternly. “I won’t have you saying such things, even in private.”

“In all but name ...”

“Enough!” Brian’s voice cut him off sharply. “The son of the king will be Mahon’s firstborn in marriage, if he has one. I believe that a strong dynasty passed from father to son would be the best way of insuring stability for us. As for myself, I have no kingship to offer my heirs, so I must give them something else; something of more value, perhaps.”

“What could that be, my lord?”

Brian’s eyes stared forward, through Time. “A legend,” he said. “I want to know, before I die, that when I am gone the harpers in the halls will still sing of me. That is a thing I can assure within my lifetime, so that my children will remember me, not only as their sire, but as a force that shaped the world they will inherit, a source of pride to be handed down to their children’s children.”

“You are already a legend among your men, my lord,” Padraic assured him.

“Thank you for that, my friend. I work at it, as well you know; you’ve seen my hands shake when I make speeches, and you know that I deliberately conceal them, so they do not spoil the image. The books I study, the lessons I set myself to learn—they are all part of something I am building piece by piece. Each bit of it must fit perfectly with the others.”

“How can you know when it does?” Padraic asked.

“In the same way a singer knows he has sung the right note, or a harper knows to touch the strings that create a chord that feeds his soul. I know, that’s all.

”The time will come when it will all be put to use, Padraic. I don’t know when or how, but everything I have made of myself will be of value someday.”

Padraic’s eyes shone. “You believe in destiny, my lord?” Brian’s answer was firm. “I believe in myself. I was given a good mind and a strong body, which gifts obligate me to use them to the best of my ability. I was given a hunger for power, which some men might call evil, but I believe that it can be a force for great good. The only alternative to educated power is brute force, mindless, inhuman, a rolling stone that crushes everything in its path. That is infinitely more immoral than ability used wisely, Padraic.

“I cannot deny my ambition—not to myself, nor to you. The addiction to power is the end result of a long series of small seductions. It begins as a reaction to some real or imagined injustice, as a grain of sand irritates an oyster into producing a pearl, layer by layer. The layers men build are of strength, influence, the ability to get things done.

“All the power I possess or can gain will be used to win something more than a mere kingship, Padraic; something I can hand down to my sons with great pride.”

They were nearing the Rock. The road broadened and was harder, beaten down by many feet, rutted by carts and the wheels of an occasional chariot. Soft gray stone, moss frosted, edged up through the thin crust of the soil Eke bare knees pushing through worn trews. A skittering of midges thickened the air.

A speck was racing down the road toward them, pursued by a cloud of dust. As it drew near it resolved itself into a man on horseback, hair streaming, eyes wild. He sawed on the rein and set his mount on its haunches directly under the nose of Brian’s own animal.

“My lord! Fearsome news!”

In reflex, Brian’s hand dropped to his sword hilt.

“Tell me,” he commanded.

“The king has been taken captive, my lord! It is a piece of the most dreadful treachery!”

Beneath the bronze of his wind-burned skin, the blood fled from Brian’s face. “How do you know this?”

“Some of those who went with him to Bruree escaped and have just returned to Cashel, my lord, in dreadful condition. They fled for their lives across Munster and arrived but an hour ago. They say that instead of receiving King Mahon as an honored guest in his home, that whoreson Donovan laid hands upon him as soon as he arrived and bound him with ropes and chain. He’s being delivered like butcher’s meat, handed over to Molloy of Desmond and his foreign allies!”