Lion of Ireland (65 page)

Carroll’s mouth went dry. It had begun. “You won’t lead the first engagement yourself?”

Brian sighed. “No man lives almost sixty years as I have without learning some degree of caution. The time is still not right for me to appear at Malachi’s gates in the forefront of an attacking army. The people would interpret it as me, personally, coming to kill the Ard Ri out of envy and limitless ambition, and that’s not the impression I want them to have of me. I shall send the cavalry as an advance guard to give Malachi the opportunity of making a peaceful abdication. The cavalry is composed primarily of Leinstermen, so they can take the brunt of the blame when the histories are told afterward. I will follow them at a distance with my Munstermen, ready if needed.”

“You will nonetheless be accused of treachery and rebellion, my lord,” Carroll said sadly.

Brian shrugged. “I am not breaking the Brehon Law, nor my oaths of kingship. My allegiance is to Ireland before Malachi. If he is failing her, then I must take her side against him.”

Padraic’s face lit up when he heard the news. “At last!” he breathed, clasping his hands together. “I’d begun to fear it would never happen, that Brian would never openly declare his intentions. Thank you, Carroll, for bringing me this good news!”

“The king was waiting for the right time,” Carroll replied. “There is some inner voice that whispers to him—advance

now, wait now—that the rest of us do not hear, Padraic, and he trusts it implicitly.”

Padraic smiled. “I know,” he said.

Gormlaith was ecstatic. “I shall be revenged on Malachi Mor!” she exulted, throwing herself into the king’s arms.

Brian disengaged himself and stepped back from her. “That’s not my intent, Gormlaith. I’ve had more than my share of vengeance, and it makes a thin soup. This is just the next step in my own destiny; it has nothing to do with you.”

The light in her eyes faded. “But you will depose him? You will destroy him?”

“I mean to replace him as ruler of all Ireland, yes. But I will do no personal harm to the man, nor will I allow any of my men to hurt him.”

“You can’t mean that! You have to kill your enemies, Brian, you have to ...”

“Malachi Mor is not my enemy,” Brian said firmly. “I don’t intend to kill any man, if I can avoid it.”

She stared at him aghast. “I don’t understand you!”

“It seems to be a common problem,” he said, a little bitterly.

When Malachi had first learned of Brian’s marriage, his courtiers at Dun na Sciath feared for his sanity.

He laughed until he was weak and his beard soggy with tears. He ordered fresh kegs of ale opened and a Mass said for the soul of Brian Bora. He walked his fields, shaking his graying head and talking to himself, chuckling, giggling like a green maiden, sometimes sitting down on a bench or a stone and convulsing with helpless laughter, holding his sides and whooping, “Bora and Gormlaith! Gormlaith and Bora!”

It was the high point of a year otherwise going badly.

Malachi convened the High Council at Tara, but none of the provincial kings attended. They all seemed to be too busy with other problems. And then the news came that a large force of horsemen was approaching from the west. With a face black as a thundercloud, Malachi ordered the army of Meath into the field to meet them.

The skirmish was brief and unexpectedly brutal. The cavalry, led by Brian’s foster son Donogh and Cian the Owenacht, was heavily defeated before actually reaching Tara, and Cian sorrowfully brought Donogh back, draped across his horse and covered with a bloody cloak.

“There was nothing to be done for it, my lord,” he told Brian. “The Leinstermen were not as skillful with their horses as they might have been, perhaps, but that didn’t decide the issue. We were simply outnumbered; it was as if the Ard Ri had been waiting “for us.”

I called Donogh my son, Brian thought, looking at the still shape beneath the hillocked Wool. When he was still a baby I made myself responsible for him all the days of his life, and kept his secret in my heart.

And now I have sent him to his death rather than lead the first step of revolution myself.

He turned to look bleakly at the massed ranks of Leth Mogh, waiting for the command to move on Tara.

“We will not attack now,” be decided, “because Malachi expects it. We will take Donogh home and bury him as ... an Irish prince should be buried, and challenge Malachi another day.”

Warned by the first encounter, Malachi prepared himself for all-out war. “I knew it would come to this,”

he told his council. “I knew it the first time I saw Brian Bora. All Ireland is not big enough for the two of us.”

“He is a traitor and a usurper!”

“He is a good king,” Malachi said sadly. “If God is on my side, I suspect he stands equally with Bora.

But ... we will do what we can. The traditions of centuries must be defended. I will send for aid to my kinsmen in the north kingdoms and we will make a stand here.”

“You won’t go back to Dun na Sciath?” his nephew asked.

“There is no point to it. It’s Tara Boru he wants; he will come here.”

Gormlaith found it hard to believe that she was pregnant. But the evidence was undeniable; even her maid had taken to giving her simpering, sidelong glances,’ and her breasts were growing heavier daily, the nipples engorged, the aureoles roseate and tender to the touch.

It was inevitable that Brian should notice. He noticed everything. It was frightening to think that this ultimate expression of her vulnerability to him would soon be plain for all to see. I should be proud, she thought. What woman my age may still conceive unless she has borne a litter, one a year, throughout her adult life?

The most private of smiles curved her lips. Of course, Brian would get me with child. I should have known it, there are enough mac Brians at Kincora to prove his potency. He did not even have to lie with me very often to accomplish it.

The same thought occurred to Brian. “You carry my child?” was his first question.

“Of course, my lord!” She flung her heavy hair back and gave him her most savage glare. There was no one to tell him that if he touched her then she would crumble. “I have known no other man here!”

“I’m pleased to hear that. I know I haven’t given you enough of my time, Gormlaith, but I have little to spare. You are treated with absolute courtesy, however, and I do expect fidelity in return.” They sat together on the edge of her bed, her voluptuous body golden in the candlelight, and he leaned a little closer to her as he spoke. “I’m not as lenient as Malachi Mor,” he said in a voice with a sword’s edge to it.

She held her breath. He would kill me.-He would really kill me if I betrayed him. But how could I betray such a man as this?

She wanted to nestle into his arms and feel his big hands stroke her hair. She wanted to be gentled, like a kitten or a colt, held close to the warmth of him and sheltered there. It was as if her own body had betrayed her, overwhelming her with these alien feelings. But when she looked at Brian’s face it was not welcoming but closed, and his arms did not open to take her inside. He gave her an absentminded smile.

“I’m pleased that you will bear me a child, Gormlaith,” he told her. “If it’s a son I will name him Donnchad, partly in memory of my good friend and son-in-fosterage Donogh.” He sat quietly, looking through her into the future, which had just claimed a new hostage. Another child to love and, perhaps, to lose. I have loved and lost too much, Gormlaith, he said to her in the silence of his heart. You were the woman I should have cherished, but there is not enough left of my strength or my years to divide between you and Ireland—and my first love was Ireland.

There was something in the emerald depths of her eyes, just for a moment, that looked out at him with a wistful hope like a little girl’s. And something in him answered and yearned toward her. It made them both wary.

Gormlaith flattened against her pillow of linen and goosedown, watching him, her white teeth set in her full lower lip. He stood up quickly and wrapped his bratt around himself. “I cannot stay with you tonight,”

he said brusquely, “I just came to ask after your comfort.”

She lifted her hands and pushed the blanket all the way down, baring her entire body before his gaze, angry with herself for making the offer but willing to do anything to hold him. Their eyes met again, and Brian’s were briefly naked with regret before he turned away.

Outside her chamber he let himself lean against the hard, cool wall, waiting until the hammering of his heart slowed and he could trust himself to walk away. She had the ability to ignite a feverish desire, a thing that tormented a man and could not be set aside. But she must be conquered over and over again, night after night, fought into submission with all the weapons at his disposal, and it was too much. There were the Ard Ri’s allies to fight as well, and the years . . .

At last he stood straight and walked with a firm tread -to his own chamber.

Alone in her bed, Gormlaith curled into a tight ball and pulled the blanket beneath her chin. The goosedown pillow was wet with tears.

There was a pattern to Brian’s campaign that might have been reassuring, had the strength behind it not been so awesome. Brian marched large armies to the borders of resistant kingdoms and camped them there, threatening, but unless they were actually attacked no battle was initiated. The clenched fist waited, and in time it unrolled to reveal an open palm, in which the tokens of submission were laid.

The kingdoms still giving unquestioned allegiance to the Ard Ri shrank until he felt himself alone on the island that was Tara hill.

Only when resistance could not be broken by intimidation did Brian order the javelins hurled and the stones slung. It was necessary at Athlone, where Malachi and Conor of Connacht put together their last alliance against him, but Brian led the entire army of Leth Mogh into the field and the battle was over almost before it began.

“With very few lives lost on either side, historian,” Brian emphasized to Carroll. “Be sure you write that plainly.”

Conor submitted at once and sent hostages to Brian, who accepted them courteously, making a point of not mentioning Conor’s unfortunate defection.

Malachi withdrew to Tara, to listen for the cold wind which would soon blow across the lake country, whipping the amethyst waters to milk.

The army of Leth Mogh approached Tara and Malachi ordered out his remaining army, but there was no fighting. Brian sent word to Malachi that he had one month to make a decision: fight, with whatever forces he could bring to the battle, or submit unconditionally.

Desperate riders raced up the Slighe Midluachra to the kingdoms of Ulster, to beg aid once more of the tribes of the Hy Neill, only to return at the end of the allotted time with exhausted horses and long faces.

The princes of the north would not stand with Malachi.

At the next dawn, Malachi wrapped himself in an inconspicuous country bratt and rode out alone from the royal enclosure, through the main gates and down the road to the west. In the distance he saw the huge encampment of Leth Mogh, spread over the meadows like a dark lake, waiting. By straining his eyes he thought he could make out the royal tent, and he imagined the raging lions on Brian’s flag, rippling in the morning breeze. He sat for a long time, looking, and then he rode slowly back to Tara.

He signaled his cupbearer to pour him out a hearty measure of mead, and warm it at the hearth. He bade his body servant fetch his most regal cloak and buff the gold hilt of his sword. He took his time dressing, fussing with the combing of his beard and adjusting the heavy gold collar of Tomar to his satisfaction, but when at last there was nothing more to be done he knelt a moment in prayer, then walked with firm step from the House of the Kings.

Murrough and Flann waited with their father in his tent. Conor mac Brian came running in with Duvlann, their eyes shining and their cheeks stung pink by the wind. “The Ard Ri is coming, my lord!” Duvlann exclaimed, and Conor added, “He is followed by his guard and his nobles, and a retinue of twelve score men!”

“That seems an excessive number if he means to murder me in my tent,” Brian commented dryly. He went to the flap and looked out across the fields, toward Tara.

“Malachi’s swordsmen are carrying their weapons in the position of submission, Father,” Conor pointed out from beside him.

Brian stood very still, watching them come toward him. There was only trampled grass between them, but he seemed to see a winding, difficult road, stretching between unimaginable points. He had been traveling that road a long time. Now Malachi was coming to meet him.

“Duvlann,” he said in a faraway voice, “I want as many horses brought up here as Malachi has men with him.”

“You want twelve score of cavalry, my lord?” Duvlann asked.

“No, just the horses. The best we have. And hurry.”

Malachi Mor stopped before Brian’s tent and stood waiting. In that moment he” appeared more regal than he ever had in his life—or ever would again. Even Brian’s sons bowed their heads in the presence of the Ard Ri. Brian went to meet him and once more they exchanged the kiss of greeting. This time Brian stooped so their eyes were on a level, and Malachi rewarded him with a faint smile.

“It is over, Boru,” he said in a husky voice. “I will no longer oppose you.”

“The Hy Neill have ruled at Tara too long, Malachi,” Brian said. “They have allowed Ireland to be a constant battleground, with each petty tuath-king the enemy of all the others. It’s a stupid, wasteful way of life.”

“Strange words from Brian Hundred Killer,” Malachi remarked.

“It was a lesson learned on the battlefield,” Brian told him. “Perhaps only a soldier can know the true futility of war. But if you will stand behind me, Malachi Mor—you and the other provincial rulers—we will teach that lesson to all of Ireland, and bring her out of the darkness into a new Golden Age.”

Malachi was thinking hard. “You said, ‘provincial rulers,’ “ he repeated.

“Of course. The Ard Ri must be more than the king of all the kings; he must be the king of all the people, and he will have to have the support of those men who are loved and trusted by the peoples of the individual provinces, as you are in Meath. I will do whatever I can to be certain of having your support in the new order.”