Pride of Lions (44 page)

Only the great hall, the chapel, the private apartments, and an armory were there.

Everyone else must wait below, looking up.

When he was attired in fresh clothing and with his auburn hair still damp from the comb, Donough set out up the steep incline to the top of the Rock. He went on foot, with no escort and no weapon.

A massive double gate at the top of the incline barred the way to the interior, which was ringed with a wall of stone. One gate was ajar, but no sentry stood there. A roar of voices came from inside, punctuated by shouts and profanity.

Puzzled by the volume of noise, Donough stepped through the gateway. He was barely inside the walls when someone ran toward him, pursued by a crowd of shouting guards and a hail of spears.

Donough ducked instinctively.

The running man crashed into him, staggering them both.

It was Lethgen.

"What ..." Donough began, but Lethgen was thrusting something at him.

"Take this, I did it for you!" the cattle lord cried. He plunged past Donough, through the gate and down the incline. His pursuers pounded after him.

Looking down, Donough discovered he was holding the sword of Brian Boru.

My life ended that day. Or rather, any hope of the life I anticipated ended that day.

At first I could only gape dumbfounded at the weapon Lethgen had thrust upon me. I knew what it was, of course, though I never touched it before. Our father did not allow any of us to handle his sword, not even Murrough.

Just holding the hilt in my left hand gave me a strange feeling. For a moment the only thought in my head was astonishment to find it was not too large for me.

Then a guard grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. "You!" he shouted into my face. "Did you have something to do with this?!"

"With what?" I pulled away from him. "Are you accusing me of something? I am Prince Donough, and I ..."

He recognized me then, and a variety of emotions chased one another across his face. At last he simply said, "Come with me."

I was led through a great hall crowded with shrill, excited people who seemed to be trying to explain the unexplainable to each other by means of half-finished sentences and wild gestures. Beyond the hall a passage led to the king's chamber.

My brother lay on his back beside an overturned brazier.

Part of his clothing had caught fire and there was a stink of burnt cloth. Burns were not the problem, however.

A terrible wound in his chest poured blood.

I fell to my knees beside him. "Teigue!

Teigue!"

He opened his eyes. Framed by their thick lashes, they were as soft and puzzled as a child's. With an effort he focused them on me. His mouth worked but no sound came out.

I heard a sob and glanced around. Maeve was leaning against the wall, holding her burned hands away from her body. It was she who had beat out the fire.

The boy Turlough shoved through a crowd at the doorway and stopped abruptly, staring at his father on the floor.

When I turned back to Teigue his lips were moving again. "You," he said, looking straight at me. "Y."

His eyes closed and he seemed to go flat all at once.

With a pitiful cry, Maeve hurled herself past me and onto his body. Turlough ran to join her.

The lad bent over his father and called his name several times, then glared at me with burning eyes. "You did this," he accused. "I heard him. You did this!"

"I did nothing," I protested. Tears were rolling down my face but I was hardly aware of them.

"You're carrying a sword!" Turlough cried, pointing.

Looking down, I discovered I still held the sword of Brian Boru in my hand. But there was no blood on the blade.

Though nothing made sense yet, I was relieved my father's weapon had not killed my brother.

Could the fatal wound have been made by a short-sword? I leaned forward to try to get a better look, to see if the blow had only penetrated or had gone all the way through. The mighty weapon I held was capable of cleaving a man in half.

But young Turlough blocked me with his own body.

"Assassin!" he screamed at me.

Guards seized me then and dragged me out of the chamber, while I tried to point out to anyone who might listen that the sword I held was clean.

But no one wanted to hear me.

They threw me into a tiny chamber without a window, and I was left alone for a time I could not measure. There the full realization gradually dawned on me.

Teigue was dead. Murdered. My brother.

My last brother.

And they thought I did it.

"No!" I roared with all the power in my lungs. My cry reverberated in the stone chamber, deafening me.

Eventually they came for me. I was taken back to that terrible chamber, where Teigue now lay on the bed, his face covered by a blanket.

Maeve sat beside him, keening. The chief brehon of Munster was in the room together with several other officials. Someone had had the sense to take Turlough away.

Questions were asked of me and I tried to answer.

I must have been convincing; eventually I was allowed to ask some questions of my own.

"Lethgen of the Ely stabbed the king,"

I was told. "It may have been a thwarted theft.

When you were seen with that sword in your hand everyone assumed you were involved."

"I was not! I knew nothing about this until I walked in the gate and he flung the sword at me!"

I honestly protested my innocence but already I was sick at heart. As clearly as if I had been an eyewitness, I saw what must have happened.

And knew I was indeed responsible.

When Maeve looked at me with reddened eyes, I think she knew too.

Officially, the brehons accepted my word. I was a prince of the Dal Cais; if I said I had not ordered the assassination, I must be believed. The unfortunate Lethgen had already been caught by the king's guards and slain on the spot without benefit of trial.

In my father's day he would have had a trial.

"God has bestowed a martyrdom upon me,"

bewailed Cathal Mac Maine, "by allowing me to live long enough to see this dark day. Teigue Mac Brian has been murdered amid terrible rumors that his own brother was somehow involved."

"Shall I put that in the annals?" inquired Brother Declan.

"Certainly not! Would you disgrace the Dal Cais?"

Declan refrained from recording the rumors in the Annals of Kill Dalua, but other annalists would be less generous.

No one would accuse Donough to his face, however.

It could be imprudent to accuse the King of Munster of murder.

Donough had been more surprised than anyone when Maeve sent for him the day after Teigue's death was shouted across Munster. The province was plunged into mourning. Masses were being said in every church and abbey. Together with his men, Donough was waiting to attend the king's final entombment.

He dreaded facing his brother's widow. Only his pride enabled him to meet her with his head up, though his face was bleak.

Hers was equally bleak. She had aged a decade overnight.

They gazed at each other in silence for a long moment, then with a cry Maeve flung herself into his arms.

Donough held the sobbing woman and patted her awkwardly, intensely aware of his maimed hand touching her.

"I'm sorry," he kept murmuring.

"I know." Her voice was muffled against his chest.

"I didn't order him killed, Maeve."

"I know that too. You never would have done that."

An integrity bred in his bones compelled him to say, "Yet I do feel responsible ..."

She tore herself out of his arms and gazed up at him with frightening intensity. "Never say that. Never!"

"But ..."

"Whatever burdens your conscience bears it must bear in silence from now on, Donough. Don't you understand?"

He hurt too much. He could not follow her thoughts.

Maeve bit her lip and tried again. "You are the senior prince of the Dal Cais now. My son Turlough is too young to be king, but the last thing any of the Dalcassians want is to relinquish the rule of Munster to the Owenachts again after all these years. The kingship has to stay in the clan O Brian.

"Therefore you must succeed Teigue."

Donough flinched as if she had struck him.

"I cannot! Don't you see? People will consider it proof that I deliberately killed him for his title."

"Since it isn't true you have nothing to fear.

This is what Teigue would have wanted, Donough, for the sake of our children and their children. The O Brian dynasty must continue."

"Through me?" he asked bitterly.

"Through you if need be. He loved you, for all your quarrels."

"I wish I could believe that."

She smiled sadly. "I tell you it is true."

Donough realized the effort this was costing her and was awed by her courage.

On the day of Teigue's entombment the chief brehon announced Donough Mac Brian was to be the next King of Munster.

He could not stay in his stronghold in Ely territory, because that would only fuel rumors of a conspiracy. Therefore his principal residence would have to be either at Cashel--or Kincora.

"I wanted Kincora with my whole soul," he admitted to Fergal. "And I wanted my father's sword. Now I have both, and I find I want neither. They cost too much."

Reluctantly, he decided to occupy Cashel. When Maeve had taken her children to their old home in the valley west of the Shannon, Donough ordered the murder chamber sealed. He had a new one built for himself a few paces beyond the tomb of another assassinated king--his own uncle, Mahon.

Upon Mahon's death, Brian Boru had succeeded him as King of Munster. Now the crown he had worn would be worn by Donough.

The irony was too close to the bone.

Fergal returned to Tipperary to escort Driella and the rest of Donough's household to Cashel. The Saxon woman was heavy with child and the journey was made very slowly. Geoffrey rode in the cart beside her, holding her hand.

Others were traveling to Cashel; the roads were black with people. Some came to express their loyalty, others out of morbid curiosity, eager to smack their lips at the sight of a king who had murdered his brother to gain a kingdom.

A king who was one of the high and mighty Dal Cais.

In spite of what he had said about being too old to travel any more, Carroll also returned to Cashel. He was immediately taken to Donough, whose appearance alarmed the old historian.

"You're as thin as a hazel wand!"

"Am I?" Donough shrugged indifferently.

"And your hair ..."

"I know, it's turning gray. People have already pointed that out to me. Gleefully, some of them, as if it's no more than I deserve."

"You are guilty of no crime," Carroll said with certainty.

"Will history vindicate me then?"

"Ah." The other man stared down at the floor. "It depends on who tells the history."

"The Owenachts are doing everything they can to make sure their version is the one remembered. I suspect they will influence at least some of the annalists."

"Then you must live a life," Carroll replied, "which gives the lie to your accusers."

"I have lived such a life," Donough countered.

"I've never done anything to make people think I could be guilty of fratricide. I've always done my best to live up to my father."

Carroll said softly, "Perhaps that's the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"You have taken too much on yourself. It was incredibly difficult for him. You started halfway up a ladder of which he had built every rung, then climbed from the bottom. Other people's expectations of Brian were never as demanding as his own."

"But he could do anything!"

Carroll laughed. "No, he couldn't. He was simply clever at making others think he could.

He held us all spellbound and I suspect you've fallen victim to the same enchantment. I admired him as much as any man, but over the years I learned he was only human."

"He was more than human," Donough insisted doggedly.

The other man only shook his head. "You lack a historian's perspective. I tell you this frankly--I who loved him--Brian Boru has blighted the lives of his sons."

Donough did not want to hear.

On the day he was inaugurated King of Munster he made himself carry his father's sword.

All eyes were on him--and on that shining blade.

He stood before his people with his head high and his face set in dauntless lines the oldest of them well remembered, and they cheered him. Even his enemies cheered him that day.

He received messages of congratulations from Malcolm of Scotland and Godwine of Wessex, and both sent gifts appropriate to a king. Malcolm wrote, "I trust you now have a considerable army at your disposal. Our struggles against various foes continue, and we would not take amiss the loan of some men-at-arms."

Donough promptly dispatched a contingent of Munstermen to Alba.

Earl Godwine's letter to his son-in-law was slightly different. "The death of Llywelyn, King of Wales, coincides with your own accession to kingship, thus reminding us that change is a law of nature. Canute retains the throne of England and is in full vigor, but I now have my first son, a big lusty boy whom we christened Harold Godwinesson. He is a splendid fellow, the image of me. My fond hope is to see him follow Canute on the throne. Should that opportunity present itself, I trust we may rely upon the support of a powerful ally in Ireland."

Powerful. Donough read the letter alone in his chamber, put it aside, took it up and read it again.

My power is only Earl Godwine's

perception, he thought. Unless someone tells him, he has no way of knowing what unstable footing I stand upon. What was it that Carroll said of my father? Ah yes--"Brian Boru was simply clever at making others think he could do anything."

Donough summoned a scribe and wrote back to the earl, "At such time as you may require them, the full resources of my kingdom are at your disposal." He did not mention that he ruled over a divided Munster where fully half of the people, openly or secretly, thought him a fratricide. Nor did he mention that he had lost all hope of ever becoming Ard Ri ...