Pride of Lions (10 page)

From that moment Donough was devoted to Maeve.

She accompanied him to the great hall, listening with flattering interest to whatever he said. She could not help noticing when he reached out to touch a carving on a post with appreciative fingers, or paused to take an admiring look at the elaborate ironwork of a torch holder.

He saw her watching. "Home," he said softly.

Maeve understood. She loved her own home in the valley beyond the hills.

The hall was crowded when they arrived. Members of the hand-picked company of warriors Brian Boru had left behind to guard Kincora were stationed around the walls, every man holding a spear upright.

With a broad smile, Teigue came forward to greet his brother. The smile faded when Donough's first words to him were, "My father never allowed weapons in the banqueting hall."

"He did on occasion," Teigue countered.

"You were probably too young to remember."

The reference to his age irritated Donough.

It was exactly the sort of remark his mother might have made to put him in his place; he assumed it was deliberate, as he assumed Teigue's regal attire was a deliberate attempt to intimidate him.

His face hardened. "Why are all these people here?"

"Surely you know many of them," Teigue replied. "There stands Cathal Mac Maine, Abbot of Kill Dalua since the death of your uncle Marcan. Beside him is Eamonn, chieftain of clan Cuinn, and over there is your cousin Fergal. And Enda, my chief steward, and Conor, a cattle lord from Corcomrua, and ..."

Donough responded to each face with a nod of acknowledgment. But his eyes kept returning to a small cluster of men who stood apart. They wore heavily embroidered triangular mantles, and ankle-length tunics innocent of girdling.

"And those men over there, Teigue?"

For the first time, a note of wariness crept into Teigue's voice. "Brehons," he said.

"Why are there so many judges here? I can't recall my father having more than one or two at Kincora."

"That would have been the usual complement,"

Teigue agreed. "But under the circumstances we need the advice and counsel of every expert in the law."

"Under what circumstances?"

Teigue looked at his brother blankly.

"Why ... the fact that both our father and Murrough, his tanist, his chosen successor, died at the same time. The Dalcassians have lost their chieftain and brehons must preside over the election of another."

But tribal chieftainship, as both men were aware, was the least of the titles so abruptly vacated. Thomond was the tribeland of the Dal Cais, but only one of many tribelands tributary to the larger province of Munster.

Brian Boru had also held the

title of King of Munster, the first major step he had taken on his way to becoming High King of the Irish.

Ard Ri.

In the days since news of Clontarf reached him, Teigue had accepted that he would follow his father as chieftain of the Dal Cais. He had even conceded he might claim the crown of Munster as well. But no mention of the high kingship had crossed his lips. Teigue was basically a simple man who would rather stay with his herds and his family than slog through deep mud to wave a sword in the face of some rebellious underking.

Only Maeve knew how dismayed he had been to find himself the senior prince of his clan.

Upon receiving the news, Teigue had sent for every brehon he could gather. Whatever decisions were taken now must have the support of the practitioners of the ancient Brehon Law.

Brian Boru had overthrown tradition but not the law itself; he had, however, reinterpreted various laws to support his own ambitions.

Traditionally the kingship of Munster had been held alternately by a prince elected from the senior branch of the Dalcassian tribe and one from the Owenachts, just as the high kingship had been held alternately by a chieftain from the northern tribe of the Ui Neill and one from the southern branch.

Until Brian Boru had wiped away

alternate succession, and the divisiveness it engendered, with sword and strategy.

Now he was dead. In the vacuum of power following Clontarf, leadership might be redefined.

The timing of Donough's arrival was fortuitous; the two surviving sons could now hear the brehons' pronouncements together.

The great hall of Kincora was abuzz with conversation: the low, angry rasp of a swarm of bees about to attack.

"Why didn't you bring the Ard Ri home?" the patriarch of a Dalcassian family challenged Donough as he and Teigue were making their way to the top of the hall. "You brought other dead princes with you for their people to bury; surely you could have returned the Ard Ri to us."

"He should be entombed here, in the chapel of Saint Flannan!" insisted the sonorous voice of Cathal Mac Maine. The portly, tonsured abbot bore little resemblance to the late Ard Ri, though his father had been Brian's first cousin. Only his ambitious eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw revealed their kinship. "Is there any place in Ireland so suitable for the tomb of Brian Boru as the chapel where he said his prayers?"

Another man stepped forward to shake his fist in Donough's face. "We demand to know why you left the King of Munster to sleep among strangers in Ulster!"

Donough was taken aback. "It wasn't my decision. By the time I got there they had already taken him away."

"Why?!!!" a dozen voices roared.

Although Teigue had not spoken, Donough directed his reply to his brother. "It seemed to be an arrangement the priests made."

"Did you not question it?"

Donough had no answer. Too much had happened too fast; he was now aware that a lot of loose ends had been left dangling. A more mature man might have behaved differently, might have been less dazed, more ...

"You don't know what it was like," he said,

"trying to think clearly in the middle of so much confusion. I did what everyone demanded of me, I brought the Dalcassians home. If you want an explanation about our father's burial you should ask those who took his body to Armagh."

"They haven't returned yet. But we'll get an explanation, I promise you,"

Teigue said loudly enough for all to hear. "For now, we need to be reminded of the law pertaining to elections."

The angry buzz subsided but remained an undercurrent in the hall.

Standing to one side, Maeve listened enthralled as the brehons recited laws embedded in poetry to facilitate memorization; laws hammered out over many centuries, long before Christian monks brought literacy to Ireland.

Every aspect of Irish life was addressed by Brehon Law. In spite of herself she was moved by the beauty and precision of language, a living tongue defining the structure by which a people consented to be governed.

Once women numbered among the brehons, but it had been five centuries since there was a female judge in Ireland. Under the patriarchal influence of the Church, women were no longer allowed to be part of the professional class. The brehons summoned to Kincora were all men in their middle or late years, with faces of seamed sobriety.

The chief brehon of Munster, whom custom dictated must belong to the tribe of the Deisi, began by intoning, "As people go by many roads to a royal residence, so they come to the law of the Senchus Mor, the Ancient Great Knowledge, by many covenants."

Behind his hand, Fergal Mac Anluan remarked to Ruadri of Ara, "They have to say that now.

Brian Boru changed a lot of the old customs, didn't he?"

Ruadri said with a grin, "Brian Boru didn't wait to be elected. He took what he wanted and then proved he was the best man to have it." Ruadri was but a year older than Donough Mac Brian and audacity attracted him.

Choosing his words carefully, the chief brehon continued, "The Dal Cais of Thomond mourn their fallen chieftain, but he must be replaced swiftly; a tribe cannot be without a head. As is ... usually ... the custom, in the absence of a tanist a tribe selects as its chieftain the best qualified man from the preeminent clan.

Teigue Mac Brian is now the senior prince of that family, and furthermore a man of good health and sound judgment.

"If none of his close cousins challenge him, and the principal men of the Dal Cais assembled here today agree, we can proceed to the election and announce his chieftaincy."

Seeing the pain on her husband's face, Maeve knew he was thinking of his older brothers, those who should have stood between Teigue and the leadership he had never sought. Her heart went out to him. Then she looked at Donough and saw the light leaping in his eyes as he raised his right arm, requesting to be allowed to speak.

The chief brehon nodded permission.

"Will the chieftaincy include Kincora?"

Donough wanted to know.

The brehons exchanged glances. Property was a major source of contention, necessitating hundreds of tracts in Brehon Law. The judges did not want the tribal succession to descend into an interfamily wrangle over Kincora.

The chief brehon cleared his throat. "As the royal residence Kincora will ..."

"It's always been my home," Donough interrupted--an almost unprecedented breach of decorum that caused a ripple of shock to spread through the hall. "Teigue has his own fort; he doesn't need this one. Nor does he love it as I do. Let him be chieftain if he wants, but give me Kincora."

On the faces of the brehons he read their unanimous intention to refuse, which only strengthened his determination. He would fight; had not Brian Boru always fought for what he wanted?

"My father willed Kincora to me!" Donough blurted. "He made me heir to his holding!"

There was a momentary shocked silence.

"When did he do that?" asked a cadaverously thin brehon from Nenagh.

"On the evening before he sent me south with my cavalry. We were feasting here in the hall--I was sitting below the Ard Ri's seat--when he leaned forward and told me I was to be his heir if anything happened to him."

Teigue was staring at him. "I didn't hear him say that."

"He wasn't talking to you, he was talking to me. Flann was sitting right beside me, though, and he heard him. Flann told me he had no objection. He had his own fort. They all did.

Murrough the tanist had a great stronghold. I was the only one with no home but these walls."

"Flann Mac Brian is dead," the chief brehon pointed out. "Who else have you as witness?"

After a moment's pause during which his brain was racing, Fergal Mac Anluan raised his arm.

"I was in the hall that night, sitting with my kinsmen. I happened to overhear Brian's words to Donough, so I can testify to the truth of his claim."

Even Donough was surprised. Flashing his cousin a grateful smile, he said, "You see?

I have a witness, a noble of the Dal Cais whose word must be accepted. As my father's chosen heir, I inherit his principal residence."

"If you were to have Kincora," interjected yet another brehon, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "why was your brother Teigue left in charge here?"

"Because my father knew I wanted military experience. Teigue prefers being a cattle lord to bearing arms; I'm the one who takes after Brian Boru."

Maeve hurled her silent thoughts at her husband with all the strength she possessed.

Leave it! she urged him. Let Donough have this great sprawling pile, then you and I will be free to go home to our children and our valley.

But Teigue could not leave it, his sense of duty overrode his desire for a quiet life.

Gormlaith had been a consummate liar and her son might be the same; what he was claiming might run counter to Brian Boru's intention, and that Teigue could not allow. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I cannot accept this without more proof. If my father left such a will surely it was committed to writing. We must wait until Carroll returns and ask him, for he kept all the Ard Ri's records."

Donough glared at Teigue. "Are you accusing me of making a false claim?"

"And me?" Fergal interjected angrily.

"I would never question the honor of either of you,"

Teigue replied. "I simply feel it would be better to wait until we've had a chance to talk with Carroll."

Donough flung out his hands to the brehons.

"What are my rights?"

From the depths of a capacious memory trained through twenty years of study, the chief brehon recited, "Under the law, on the death of a father each son is entitled to an equal share of the land he held and the cattle fed upon it, but one of the sons, in addition to his equal share, also inherits the father's residence. Whether this favored son is the eldest or a younger son depends upon the discretion of the father.

"However," he added, looking sternly from Donough to Teigue and back again, "the son who claims the residential inheritance is thereafter responsible for guardianship of the unmarried women of the family, is bound to provide hospitality for all those who have a claim upon his tribe, and is obligated to succor and defend any of his own who are in need and distress.

"Think upon this, both of you. Kincora is large and its dependents are many; the responsibility for Kincora is a heavy burden requiring strong shoulders and a wise head."

Donough felt the massed weight of eyes turning toward him, accusing him of a youth and inexperience he could not deny. "You have no wife, no children," challenged Cathal Mac Maine.

"What do you know of caring for women? You don't even have the care of your own mother."

Someone at the back of the hall laughed.

"Gormlaith needs no one to take care of her."

"Except in bed," chimed in another voice.

"Half the men here have taken care of her in bed at one time or another." The laughter billowed into a wave.

Donough balled his fists. His brother felt the leaping tension in him. "Go easy," Teigue advised out of the corner of his mouth. "You have to expect such talk."

"No one speaks of your mother this way," Donough replied bitterly. "You're lucky; your mother's dead."

Teigue went white. At that moment something hardened in him against his brother, a stone in his heart that would never dissolve.