Lion of Ireland (43 page)

“You would have had to pay for Molloy anyway,” Murrough said. “You intended to kill him yourself.

Besides, you’re the king; no man can force you to pay.”

Brian scowled. “You have not even tried to learn the Law, have you? The king must be the foremost respecter of the

Law, even when it goes against him, or his very land will turn lawless around him.

“The rule of compensation is a good one, Murrough. Every man, from the lowest class to the king of kings, has an exact value put on his head the moment he enters the world, whether it be one pig or five hundred cows. That is his worth and can never be diminished as long as he is within the Law, though he may increase his value through his own efforts. It gives a man a platform of pride on which to plant his feet.

“If he is killed or injured outside of a true act of war, then the guilty party must pay. If they cannot, their entire tribe is levied upon until compensation to the full amount is furnished to the family and tribe of the victim. This serves us well, for each tribe controls its own members so as to avoid having to pay large fines for their behavior to some other group.”

“Why don’t they just refuse to pay?”

“But that is the very strength of the system!” Brian exclaimed, struggling to hold on to his diminishing patience. “Surely you have had this explained to you many times—why don’t you listen?”

Murrough planted his feet solidly and made no answer.

Brian forced himself to continue in a reasonable voice. “We obey the ruling of the Brehon Law because the penalty for refusing to do so is expulsion from the tribe—permanent outlawry. No tribal lands to till, no share of the cattle or crops, no access to the Jilidh, no armed tribesmen to protect you. Such an outlaw is one lamb, separated from the flock forever in a world of wolves.

“He has no property rights, for the Law will not uphold his right to property, nor compensate him for loss. Any man may kill him without fear of legal redress, for the clothes on his back or the food in his bowl. An outlaw is outside the law. He has no tribe and no protection. His life is usually very poor, very short, and very miserable.”

“You were an outlaw, once,” Murrough said.

“Not really,” Brian told him. “I had not broken the Law of the Brehons, my ears were not notched, and I had not lost

any of my rights. I was merely a rebel.” He allowed himself a ghost of a smile. “But I got over it.”

Murrough had the kind of mind that could not be led into byways for very long. “I still don’t see why you had to pay for Donovan, or Molloy either,” he said suddenly. “Their deaths were acts of war.”

Brian’s voice was cold. “Those were acts of revenge. It is important to see the difference, since we suffer so much from our thirst for vengeance. It is an indulgence, Murrough, nothing more noble than that. I could afford it, but you could not—you were only a child, and you were rash and careless with your valuable life.”

“I will repay you for Molloy’s end” Murrough exclaimed angrily. “I will pay you for everything you’ve ever done for me! I wouldn’t want to be in debt to a man who held it against me and punished me for it the way you do!”

Why do I bother? Brian thought.

He went to stand at the window, gazing out over the misty plain. And he saw his dream there, spread before him, bigger than the pettiness of daily living.

I love this land, he reminded himself. What I do, I do for Ireland. The gray rocks of it, the ribs and spine that have been here since the Creation.

Over there, where it blurs into the trees, there is a sweet curve to it that makes my heart ache the way Deirdre’s smile does. I could stand here for hours and feast my eyes on it. It is almost as if I could stretch out my palm, so, and feel it rounding against my flesh. In that copse of autumn-brown trees I might fancy I could see Fiona . . .

He shook his head and wiped his hand across his eyes. There was no one in the trees.

If I were to ride down to the river and sit on the bank I could smell the mud, he thought; the decay, but also the richness and rebirth. An animal falls into the river and dies and its bones are washed clean, its mortal part carried away and returned to the whole mass of existence. It becomes part of the land again.

When I am old and tired I will sink into the soil, too, and dissolve into the earth and be one with it. When I am but a memory it will still be here, and a thousand years from now men may stand where I do and see what I saw, feel what I felt, and we will all be part of the same thing.

Irishmen, with a throat-aching love in them for the hills and the valleys and the singing of the water. Men whose bones will be formed from the crops they grow in the soil to which my body shall return.

Brian snorted and turned away from the window. I make a lot of fancy speeches in my head to impress myself, he thought. I am a pretentious bastard.

But the sweet land still lay beyond the window, beckoning. Before he returned to the problems of the day he spared it one more look of lust and love.

“Erin,” he said aloud, softly. “Erin.” A tender smile lighted his eyes and spread, slowly, to curve his lips.

Tara, hill of kings. And the green plain beyond it, within sight of the jumble of royal buildings and the sacred mounds where dead kings and unredeemed hostages slept together in the dark earth.

Nothing disturbed the brooding peace of Tara—not the ceaseless traffic on the network of roads leading to it, nor the clash of battle on the sunlit plain. It was the heart of Ireland.

And it was here in the year 980 that Malachi Mor, ruler of Meath, had at last forced the decisive confrontation he sought with the Dublin Norsemen.

The battle over, the victory won, the jubilant young king was celebrating with his officers. Goblets and flagons were overflowing and the bonfires were piled lavishly high.

Malachi was in a merry mood.

“Ho there, Rone!” he called to a newcomer just arriving from the battlefield, his splintered shield and bloody arm

testimony to his recent efforts. “Are the dead from Dublin identified yet?”

Rone widened his eyes. “As soon ask me if the leaves on the trees are numbered! There are hundreds of them out

there.”

Malachi was stretched full length on the ground, propped on one elbow. Wiry, ruddy, with narrow shoulders and the beginnings of a pot belly, his was not a king-like figure. But an aura of energy emanated from him, quivering the very air he breathed.

To be in Malachi’s vicinity was to be aware of life, of mirth and merriment bubbling close to the surface.

When his blue eyes danced and his chuckle broke into hearty laughter, as it usually did, he became the center of any group, warming them like a good fire. Malachi the Great they called him, with love and affection.

Malachi the Victor, today. Malachi Mor, successor to Donall, new Ard Ri of the Irish, and conqueror of the Dublin Norse. He grinned and sat up, sloshing his mead. “I don’t want them all named, you great dolt; just see if old Olaf the Shoe is among them, will you? He’s the one I’m after.”

“I can tell you now, my lord, he’s not,” a glowering dark Celt stepped forward to report. “It seems he didn’t come up to stand against you after all; the coward sent his son instead, and he’s safe behind walls at Dublin, enjoying that gorgeous wife of his.”

Malachi’s grin widened. “Ah, yes, Maelmordha’s sister. Well, we’ll be going on to Dublin anyway to collect hostages, so perhaps we should take a look at the lady and see if she lives up to the songs sung about her, eh? I hear she’s a spirited girl, and I do like a spirited girl!” He glanced at the men around him and gave a broad wink, then threw back his head and laughed.

The news reached Dublin before the setting of the sun Olaf Cuaran sat impassive in the hall, listening to his runners as they told their tale of tragedy. He was in full Norse armor, but a gold crucifix gleamed at his throat and a Christian priest stood at his elbow, hands clasped in an attitude of prayer. The torches in their holders flared and smoked, throwing fantastic patterns against the walls.

“You say my son Ranall is slain?” Olaf asked in a hoarse

whisper.

The runners bowed their heads. “He is.”

“Killed ... at Tara? By the new Ard Ri?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Olaf Cuaran looked past them to the doorway and the courtyard, and thought of the land that lay beyond. “He was my first son,” he said at length, in a voice erased by grief. “My oldest—my viking, I called him. Ranall.” He roused himself with difficulty from the reverie that clutched him. “You will pray for him, Father?” he asked the priest.

“Of course; a Mass will be said at sunrise for the repose of his soul.”

Two Norse chieftains in the hall exchanged glances. “Ranall died a warrior. Odin will claim him!” one hissed to the other.

The second shrugged. “There will be a war for his spirit, then. Since the king’s converted to the White Christ he’s consigned all our souls to the Christian heaven.”

“But there’s no fighting there! No drinking, no sleeping with women . . . it’s an abominable place! Just because Olaf chooses it, that’s no reason the rest of us must be imprisoned there.”

“Well, then, I suggest we get out of here quietly and be on board our ships before Malachi reaches the gates of Dublin. At least if we die in northern waters on a viking expedition we can anticipate a ride with the Valkyries instead of a wooden box buried beneath a stone cross.”

His comrade gave a brief nod and jerked his belt tight. “Let’s go,” he said.

The man who stood at her chamber door was old. His skin sagged on his bones like wrinkled leather bags, empty of riches. Gormlaith did not even bother to dismiss her maid—it had been a long time since anything had passed between her and Olaf that required privacy.

“What is it now?” she asked him, irritable because he had interrupted her reading.

“I thought you might like to know I’ve made my decision.”

Gormlaith showed him an extravagant yawn. “I didn’t know you had one to make.” She stretched out her arm and indicated to the maid that she wished more scented oil rubbed onto it.

“Malachi Mor is advancing on Dublin, Gormlaith. He will be here by tomorrow.”

“I told you you should make more of an effort to establish friendly relations with him.”

“He doesn’t want my friendship; he wants control of the harbor and its trade. He knows that we have spent our strength in the effort to hold on to Northumbria, and he’s moving in to pick our bones.”

“You Northmen are fine ones to talk about predators!” Gormlaith laughed at him. “I see you as an old wolf, lying on the ground with your feet in the air, begging mercy of a young one.”

Olaf’s voice tightened. “I won’t beg mercy, and I won’t stay here and be his pawn. My plans are already made, wife. I am going to lona to enter the monastery there, if they’ll have me.”

Gormlaith whirled around on her cushioned stool and stared at him. “You’re what?”

“I’m going to answer the call of Christ. I’ve fought it too long already, and my son’s death is my punishment. I’m going to spend the rest of my days in prayer and peace.”

Gormlaith roared out a laugh as full-bellied as a man’s.

“Do you hear that, Dahud?” she shouted to her maid, a Cornish slave from one of Olafs more successful viking raids. “The terrible warrior is going to be a gentle monk! It’s too funny; I can’t quite comprehend it. Are you having a jest with me, Olaf?”

“No jest, I assure you. I’ve had enough turbulence for four lifetimes; I long for the solitude of the holy isle.”

‘And what of your sons—your responsibilities?”

“Ranall is dead. Malachi killed him at Tara. Harold goes his own way. As for Gluniarand, I suppose he will satisfy his belly and his loins by the easiest way, as he always has, even if that means licking the Irish hand. I expect no better of that one.”

“And me? And my son?”

I here was a ghost of a smile on Olafs lips. “Do you want to come with me and request admission to a nunnery?”

Gormlaith gave a brittle laugh. “God forbid!”

“Then, woman, what you do with your life from now on is up to you. Sitric is a likely lad, but not quite a man yet, no matter what he thinks. You might send him to a noble house ...”

Gormlaith began to realize that Olaf was really serious. Incredulous, she stood to face him, feeling her temper kindle. “Are you trying to tell me you mean to abandon us? You would leave your wife and child helpless here, with an army marching on our gates?”

She was splendid in her anger, her lips curled in contempt and her emerald eyes flashing. But Olaf was not moved. I will never look on that face again, he thought with vast relief. I will pray may day at the shrine of some cool and pallid Madonna, and count my blessings. “You slander yourself, Gormlaith,” he told her. “You are the least helpless of women, and if you confront Malachi I worry more for his sake than for yours.”

The volcano erupted. “You clay-eater!” Gormlaith screamed at him, grabbing the nearest jar of unguent and hurling it at him. “You maggot-heap! You stinking vermin! May you taste hair in your mouth and have sand in your eyes every day for the rest of your life!”

With what remained of his warrior’s reflexes, Olaf Cuaran sidestepped the barrage of objects she was throwing at him. One heavy gold bracelet struck his shoulder and fell with a clatter to the floor, and he bent to pick it up.

“Farewell, Gormlaith,” he told her, speaking calmly beneath the rising volume of her yelling. “I’ll present this as an offering to the monks of lona in your name, and buy a prayer for your soul with it.” He turned away. “Or for the soul of the next man to fall into your power,” he added under his breath.

Deirdre had a cough. In the beginning it did not seem serious, just the occasional hacking that afflicted everyone during the course of a long wet winter. The move to Kincora had overtired her, the royal physician said, and when she was rested and the spring came the cough would disappear.

But spring came and the cough remained; it began to sound as if it came from someplace very deep within her. She would be seized with it during meals and turn away, her eyes begging forgiveness, to strive without success to empty the phlegm from her lungs into a basin held by a solicitous servant.