Lion of Ireland (53 page)

It was worth it all, just to see the expressions on the faces turned to him in amazement.

But that night, after an unpleasant confrontation with his treasurer and a careful computation of the cost of the gesture, Brian allowed himself the luxury of a small regret,” expressed only to Padraic.

“The nobles will go back to Connacht with their fighting spirit considerably thinned,” he said, “for every time they think of me they will think of wealth they cannot match or hope to prevail against, and a generosity they would like to share in. I wish that both were as great as they think.”

He took a drink from his cup and stared gloomily at the row of figures written on the tablet before him.

“Perhaps you could have accomplished more by giving the cattle to the Connachtmen themselves?”

Brian shook his head. “You can’t buy friends, Padraic. Such a gesture would have told them I have a weak defense or a guilty conscience, and I wouldn’t want to give either impression. A statesman must usually go after a thing sideways, rather like catching a horse. Besides, I’m no fool—I would never send that many good cattle out of Munster!”

On the final night of High Feasting, Brian brought to life another of the traditions from Ireland’s poetic past. Heralds moved through the chambers and the compound, announcing a bardic duel in the banquet hall after Evensong.

“Every prince who has brought a seanchai in his retinue is invited to make an entry for the competition, and the winner will be chosen by acclamation. All are invited to attend, lords and ladies alike.”

Kincora was magic that night. Great logs burned on the hearth and the air was sweet with the perfume of heated wine. The courtiers wore their most elegant clothing and . their finest kidskin slippers; the ladies outshone them all with veils of gilt-threaded silk draped bewitchingly about their heads and shoulders.

Even Emer, who was little more than a child, with uncovered hair as a token of her virginity, wore a glittering swath of veiling draped across her budding breasts.

Brian looked at her critically. How could a mere infant have acquired such a womanly figure almost overnight? He turned to seek out her sister Sabia, and finally located her half-hidden behind a screen, laughing with that laughter which a daughter does not share with her father. She was leaning against the shoulder of Cian mac Molloy, the young Owenacht prince of Desmond on his first visit to the court of his dead father’s former enemy. One glance told Brian there was no room for him in the world these two had lately found.

“Did you want something, my lord?” Sabia asked sharply, looking at Brian with her mother’s violet eyes.

Brian felt a return of the old clumsiness, the awareness of himself as an unwelcome intruder, a violator of secrets. He was never comfortable around Sabia. “No, nothing,” he said curtly, turning away before he could stain his own reputation for hospitality. Then he paused and looked back, intending to warn her with his expression mat a king’s daughter must always observe the proprieties, but she had already forgotten about him. She was preoccupied with her swim in the pool of Cian’s adoring eyes.

Brian stalked away from them and ran directly into the abbot of Terryglass, to their mutual confusion.

After an assortment of apologies, Brian indicated the Owenacht prince, still absorbed in conversation with Sabia. “Tell me, Celechair, have you ever seen an uglier youth than mat one?” he asked, gesturing toward Cian.

Celechair looked at the well-built, handsome young man, admiring his high color and intelligent brow.

“Ugly, uncle?”

“You don’t think so? Look again, and you’ll see that the fellow has a vacant stare and a weak mouth. I despise a weak mouth!” Brian walked away briskly, leaving a puzzled Celechair to regard Cian in bafflement.

The competition of the seanchaithe began. One by one, the storytellers of southern Ireland stood in the place of honor beside Brian’s High Seat and spread their shining talents for all to see. The legends came alive again in Kincora that night. The panorama of courtships and cattle raids, battles and elopements, voyages and miracles, the heartsong of Irish memory and myth were retold to a spellbound audience, as each bard drew on his utmost skill to win his audience. The polished voices rang like musical instruments in the hall, evoking tears or laughter at will.

Only once did Brian interrupt the contest. Kevin of Ennis had risen to sing of Cuchullain, that greatest of heroes, and had chosen to tell of the mighty warrior’s ultimate destruction by treachery and magic. As he was describing the wounded but defiant Cuchullain binding himself to a pillar of stone while the cursed demonic crows circled above him and his attackers approached to take his head, Brian leaped* to his feet and raised a voice like thunder in the hall. He stood with his two arms outstretched, as if he would hold back the very darkness, and glared furiously at the storyteller from Ennis.

“Enough, seanchai” he commanded. “Sing no tales of defeat in my hall; stories of doom are not welcome at Kincora! My people must be fed on the legend of their successes, not reminded of the possibility of defeat. Do not commemorate tragedy, or it will reach a dark hand out of the past and strike us down again!

“Sing to me of glory, Kevin of Ennis! Tell us that we can live, lest we be too quick to accept death. Tell us that we have a chance at happiness, lest we learn to expect only sorrow and live uncomplainingly in its shadow. Do not pander to our Celtic melancholy, or we may think it is a normal condition and that we deserve nothing more than tears and grief.

“Tell us that we are strong, seanchai, that we may help each other. Tell us that we are valuable, that we may cherish each other. Tell us that life and love and victory are possible!”

The princes of Connacht rode back, afterward, to their own kingdoms. Each carried with him the memory of the king of Munster, and the enchantment of his court. Each man wondered, in his inmost heart, if he would be able to kill Brian Boru if he were ever forced to face him in battle.

The waters of the Shannon pushed gently against the hastily erected stone-and-timber barrier that ran from Connacht

to Meath, seeking a way through it. The rocks shifted, slightly; the logs moved and swung around, the water surged forward. Bit by bit the causeway disintegrated. The Connachtmen stood on the western bank and watched, but upon the orders of their princes they did nothing to repair it. In the spring Brian’s ships once more sailed north, unimpeded, to Lough Ree.

Malachi was crimson-necked with rage. “The king of Munster has sent the annual tribute to the Ard Ri, right on time and correct to the last cow! Every bale of wool is scrupulously accounted for, and every sack of grain is numbered. The arrogance of the man is appalling! He defies me on every front, and yet is perfectly correct in fulfilling his obligations under the Law!”

“More tribes support him this spring than last,” he was

warned.

“How is he winning them?” Malachi wondered. “The people respect me and I’ve treated them well; I’m a good Christian, I’ve fought as well as Brian Boru and won fine victories ...”

“They say in the countryside that Boru is champion of Ireland against the Northmen,” he was told.

“I’ve fought the Northmen too!” Malachi protested.

“But it is Brian Boru the poets sing of in the halls,” he was reminded.

“Sometimes I wish I weren’t a Christian,” Malachi muttered under his breath, out of the hearing of the priests. “It would give me such satisfaction to have Brian Boru’s head hanging at my belt. I wonder . . .”

He tented his fingers and closed his eyes, seeing visions behind them.

Malachi attacked Connacht as a warning against their apparently increasing affiliation with Munster.

Refugees streamed down from the north and Brian emptied the storehouses of Thomond to feed and clothe them. King Conor of Connacht sent messengers to Kincora to report on the Ard Ri’s treachery, and then emissaries to implore Brian’s aid against the “unjust” pillage of his most loyal province by the High King.”

In Meath and in Munster, the two kings concentrated, each upon the other. Brian thought of Malachi, the rank he held, and the opportunity it represented.

Malachi thought of Brian. Bloody thoughts that echoed from the ancient Celtic days of head-hunting* and drove him to his knees in the confessional. But they did not go away, those thoughts.

“We will meet at last, Malachi Mor and I,” Brian said, drawing the swordbelt tight around his muscular body. He smiled at his officers, assembled with him in the joint camp they shared with the allies of Connacht. West of the camp, in the lap of the Shannon, Brian’s fleet waited, shields overlapping the sides in the Norse fashion, crimson crosses freshly painted on the sails.

The foot soldiers who had accompanied the boats, trotting tirelessly along the bank of the river, had had their rest and were preparing themselves for the march eastward, forming themselves into the long columns that would snake through the heather. Princes on horseback cantered up and down the lines, issuing orders or merely presenting themselves to be admired by the warriors of their tribes. Their command was nominal at best. This was Brian’s army, guided by his will, shaped by his hand; at his order, the random Celtic fighting formation could be transformed swiftly into a flying wedge, a hollow square—any configuration and fighting style that the situation might require.

“Are you going to call out the Ard Ri for single combat?” Padraic asked eagerly, standing beside Brian to readjust the

brooch that held his cloak. Padraic never believed that Brian—or his body servant—could pin the massive gold badge of kingship properly. The sharpened spike must be worn pointing upward at just the proper angle to the shoulder, to protect the king from any man so foolish as to attempt throttling him from the rear. Brian, who usually rejected such ministrations and dressed himself, had laughed at Padraic about it—“Who could possibly reach over my shoulder anyway, Padraic?”---but Padraic had taken it upon himself as a compulsion, and did not feel right in his mind about the king’s safety until he had seen to the brooch’s pinning with his own blunt fingers.

He settled it more firmly in the cloth, nodded in satisfaction, and stepped back. “Will you?” he repeated, just as Laoghaire the Red asked in the same breath, “Will you take female hostages, Brian?”

The king looked over their heads, his gaze sweeping the camp. The nearest Connacht chieftain was conferring with his officers just a little distance from them. Brian turned his back toward the man and spoke away from the wind, so that his voice reached only the ears of his own men gathered about him.

“I don’t intend to fight the Ard Ri at all,” Brian told them in a low voice, shifting his body so that his broad shoulders blocked the view of their astonished faces from the Connachtmen. Before they could question him he explained, “Our purpose in being here is to develop an alliance with Connacht as much as is possible under the circumstances, but even that is a secondary consideration. I’m principally interested in having Malachi see the force of the army I can assemble, and in meeting him personally in a situation where I am certain of numerical superiority. Without the armies of Connacht I could not be sure of that, but today enough men march beneath my banner to make an overwhelming impression on the Ard Ri.”

“But if you don’t intend to fight ...” Conaing protested, bitter disappointment in his voice.

“The time has not yet come when I would be willing to

.challenge the Ard Ri in life or death combat. I hope it will never be necessary. Today I come only in support of my friend, the king of all Connacht, who has been treated badly. Do you understand? We’ll sit at a table with Malachi and establish an accord that will pacify both sides—for a while—and I’ll have an opportunity to take the measure of the Ard Ri in my own way.”

“I cannot believe you would take so many men such a long distance with no intention of a battle!” Illan Finn complained. “How can I explain it to my wife if I come home with no loot?”

“We may yet have a battle,” Brian said. “It can never be “ discounted as a possibility. But I would prefer not; I would rather have Malachi form the habit of agreeing to my policies under amicable conditions than have to impose my will on him by force. If I attack him, I only encourage someone else to attack me when I am in his place.”

Listening, Carroll nodded, a halfsmile on his face.

The army of Meath was encamped on the eastern shore of the limestone lake known as Lough Ennell.

They were gathered to defend the Ard Ri’s tribal stronghold, Dun na Sciath—the Fort of Shields. It stood but a little distance from the water, a timbered fortress snug within its banks and ditches, home to generations of kings. In the center of the lake was a dotting of small islands, favorite haunts of Malachi and his court on long summer evenings. This was Meath’s heartland, center of power for the whole tribe of the southern Hy Neill. News of an invading army had struck terror here.

The scouts came running hard, breathless with the news. “Boru!” they cried. “He is coming!”

The warriors shouldered their weapons and strapped their shields to their arms. Priests moved among them, giving blessings, offering prayers for victory, promising heaven.

On the far shore of the lake a dark line appeared, a sinister black crop growing out of the green fields, advancing over the land like a blight. It seemed to stretch for miles. Its size and its menace were obvious.

*

A party of twelve, six from Munster and six from Connacht, marched around the lower end of the lake under the banners of the two provinces to arrange a meeting between the over-kings. For Conor of Connacht it was a formality before battle; for Brian, it was to be a negotiation, although Conor was not yet aware of that. But the deputation returned with unexpected news.

“The Ard Ri is not here, my lords.”

“What!”

“Malachi Mor is at Armagh on a holy pilgrimage. His army is here, and many of the princes of Meath, but the Ard Ri himself is in the north and will not be back for several nights.