Pride of Lions (6 page)

Sometime during the night Donough fell asleep in Cian's tent with his head pillowed on his arm.

His rest was disturbed by a jumble of swirling images compounded out of what he had seen and imagined.

Meanwhile the surviving senior officers had crowded into the tent. Sleeping at their feet, Donough heard them in some level of his mind below conscious thought. Heard them and entered into the stories they told until it seemed he was wading through the bloody weir; he was striding across the gory meadows. He was in Tomar's Wood with something red and sticky dripping down on him from the trees.

Axes swung in his mind.

His fists clenched in his sleep. He groaned and twitched.

Murrough fell a second time, and Donough seized his banner and ran forward, howling for vengeance.

Against a background of flashing swords, Brian Boru was cut down like a great tree, as an agonized Donough watched from a distance. When he tried to go to his father's aid, his feet seemed rooted to the earth.

In his sleep tears slipped from beneath his closed eyelids and ran down his cheeks.

"Wake up, lad. Wake up now." A hand shook his shoulder.

Donough muttered and pulled away. One moment more! One moment in which to fight off the paralysis, find a weapon, get to his father's side in time to ...

"Wake up now! It's dawn."

As Donough struggled to reach Brian the shreds of dream dissolved into reality and he found himself lying on the floor of Cian's tent, beneath a shaggy mantle someone had thrown over him. He tried to shake off the hand tugging at his shoulder.

"Ronan? Go away, leave me alone."

"It is not Ronan," a voice informed him,

"and I will not go away. We must have our orders, Commander."

Commander? But Brian Boru was the commander.

Donough came awake with a startled leap as if he had been hurled from a height.

Cian of Desmond was bending over him. "We must have your orders." He snatched the mantle away.

"I'm cold," Donough complained.

"And am I not cold? It's a desperate bitter day, no fit weather for Easter Monday, but what difference does that make? Be up now. You can warm yourself at the fire outside. The officers will be gathering soon for your orders."

"My orders," Donough repeated blankly.

This is still the dream, he thought. Or some other dream.

He was ushered out of the tent into a cold dawn.

Streaks of pale light were appearing above the Irish Sea. For the first time in days the morning promised to be clear, but the smoke of numerous campfires hung thick enough in the damp air to make him cough.

The world was too tangible; this was no dream.

I am supposed to lead my father's army!

The years of childhood. Toy swords.

Shields made from basket bottoms, and javelins that were broken broom handles. Himself strutting up and down, pretending to be a commander of warriors.

Suddenly the play was real.

He had never been so afraid in his life.

Swallowing hard, he swept his eyes across the camp and tried to think like Brian Boru. But the only thought that came into his head was a vague dismay at the number of men now looking to him for leadership.

An army. My army. what do I do with them?

He turned around as if the answer might be behind him. There, to the east, the dark bulk of Dublin's walls rose in silhouette against the dawn.

Sitric's stronghold. If my father were still alive he would be planning to capture Dublin now. Seize the city, punish Sitric, do ...

something ... about Gormlaith.

At the thought of his mother, Donough's thoughts twisted into a tangle.

A small group of officers was coming toward him across the camp ground, talking among themselves. Most of them were Dalcassian, but some were Cian's Owenachts.

Donough must command them as the Ard Ri would have done.

But he suffered a massive disadvantage.

While Murrough had--reluctantly--trained at Brian's elbow, Donough had been kept away from his father most of the time. As a result he knew Brian more through reputation than personal experience. In his eyes his father was the consummate hero, all knowing, utterly fearless.

The deliberate construction of that image by Brian himself had been well concealed from his youngest son.

Never having had access to the man behind the image, Donough could only give a

superficial imitation of Brian Boru.

But he tried. Uncertain, grief-stricken, on that cold Easter Monday he swallowed his fear as best he could and prepared for the day to come.

"Cian," he told the Owenacht prince, "your tent will be my command post from now on, as it seems the largest one here." He did not bother to ask permission. He had never heard his father ask anyone for permission to do anything.

Cian was outraged that a mere boy, no matter whose son, would appropriate his tent--an Owenacht tent, not Dalcassian--so arrogantly. Usurper! he thought. Ignoring rank and custom! Brian Boru had been called a usurper when he took Malachi Mor's kingship from him. Now here was his son setting out on the same path.

But Cian said nothing aloud. He smiled a fraction too broadly and relinquished his quarters with a courteous bow. This is the way princes should behave, his attitude said to Donough --who did not notice.

The youthful commander placed himself in front of the tent, and the officers arranged themselves in a semicircle around him. They were tired past the point of weariness, and there was not one among them who was not bruised and sore at the very least. Their faces were old beyond their years as they waited for a boy to give them orders.

Donough stood as tall as he could and prepared to pitch his voice as deep as it would go, mindful that it had only changed during the last year and might not be totally trustworthy. It was one more thing to worry about.

Under his breath he whispered a single word, like a prayer. Father.

Then he filled his lungs and addressed the officers. "We shall finish the campaign the Ard Ri began! This means we capture Dublin and punish Sitric Silkbeard for his treachery in breaking his truce with the Ard Ri."

"But we haven't finished burying our dead,"

one of the officers protested. "And we have more wounded men than able-bodied ones; what about them?"

Donough realized his error. Caring for the dead and wounded first had been one of the tenets of his father's military philosophy. "We must take care of them before we do anything else, of course," he said hastily. "Then we can challenge Sitric."

The officers exchanged glances. They knew, better than he, how depleted their troops were. Such battered men were in no condition to take up arms again so soon.

Donough sensed their hesitation, and in that moment it seemed as if someone standing at his back pressed hard against him. Reflexively, he stepped away from the tent. The rising sun promptly haloed his auburn hair with coppery fire.

Seen thus, his features were in shadow.

"We can succeed!" he assured the men.

His youthful lankiness was concealed by clothing, but his height was obvious. It was, almost, Brian Boru's height. And surely that deep voice was Brian's voice?

It was the season of Resurrection and they desperately wanted to believe.

Fergal Mac Anluan began to smile.

"Yes," he whispered to himself. "Yes."

"As long as the Vikings cower behind the walls of the city they're safe," Donough went on, "since we don't have enough healthy men to storm the gates and go in after them. But what if we lure them out? We have a herd of their oxen, fine strong beasts, valuable. I propose to begin slaughtering those oxen one at a time on the Fair Green, in plain sight of the palisades. That should bring Sitric's men out to try to stop us, and we can attack them as they come."

The cleverness of the stratagem was as familiar as the deep voice. A couple of the captains shouted their enthusiasm.

While burial parties dug graves for foot warriors, other men built sledges to transport the wounded and carry dead chieftains back to their own people. When these preparations were complete, Donough ordered every man capable of wielding a weapon to the Fair Green and gave the order to begin slaughtering the oxen.

Sitric's men watched from the catwalk atop the palisade.

Donough gave the signal. A two-handed sword blow to the neck cut halfway through the spine of the first ox, and the animal fell to its knees. As it toppled onto its side the Dalcassians shouted defiance toward Dublin.

Sitric's men responded with a hail of spears that fell short, and a thunder of curses.

They vowed to torture every Dalcassian to death and rip out their lungs to leave atop their torsos, forming the Viking "blood eagle."

"They'll have to come out here to do it," Ronan remarked, grinning with anticipation. He took his short-sword from its leather sheath and tested the blade with a practiced thumb. The other Dalcassians were similarly preparing for battle, finding that the prospect eased the stiffness from their joints and the soreness from their muscles.

But Cian of Desmond was unhappy. "Those oxen are spoils of war," he complained. "They should have been divided among us, not wasted like this. The Vikings may not even come out after them."

"They will," said Ronan confidently.

He was wrong. Some pragmatic mind within the city ordered the Viking warriors to stay where they were, safe within the walls.

With Sitric Silkbeard. And Gormlaith.

When a battle was over, no matter which side won, the local women scavenged the battlefield in search of valuables. It was a time-honored tradition to strip the dead of their ornaments and weapons before their fellow warriors could retrieve them.

In the peaceful latter years of Brian Boru's reign, however, this profitable pastime had been seriously curtailed.

But Clontarf made up for the privations of the previous decade. Dead men littered the ground for miles and the scavengers swarmed over them like bees at the hive. They were still at work on the last unclaimed bodies when Donough ordered the oxen slaughtered.

From where he stood, waiting with fading hope for the Vikings to emerge from the city, he could see some women in the distance. The loyal Irish had all been claimed by then; they were now working on Viking dead, or some of Maelmordha's followers. As Donough watched they bent to their task like harvesters in a field, stooping over one corpse after another and picking it clean. They were country women; they did not flinch.

"That was a fine idea you had," Ronan said abruptly beside him, startling Donough from his reverie. "Pity it didn't work. What are you going to do now?"

"Any suggestions?"

"Me? I should say not, you're the commander now,"

Ronan replied cheerfully. He was enjoying seeing the lad under pressure; it might make a man of him.

Donough gave him a cold stare. "I didn't say I would take your suggestions, I just asked if you had any." He meant to deflate the man. Ronan's lack of respect could prove disastrous if it were communicated to the other warriors. Leading them would be impossible then.

Turning on his heel, Donough strode across Fair Green with no clear destination in mind, although he walked as purposefully as if he had someplace important to go. He paused once to gaze regretfully at the pile of cooling meat that had been twenty-eight fine oxen.

The scheme had not worked. Nothing to do about it.

He bit his lip and went on, feeling the men's eyes on him, wondering if they were beginning to lose faith in him.

Fergal Mac Anluan, who had killed the last ox, came toward him, wiping his weapon clean.

"Fergal," Donough greeted him, "tell me

--how many of my father's officers are still alive, do you know?"

Fergal stopped to think. "Not enough. Why?"

"I was thinking about appointing a new second-in-command. Ronan's a good man, but sometimes I don't think he ... has enough respect for me."

"Fair enough. Well, there are several members of clan Cuinn who were part of Brian's personal bodyguard."

"Where are they?"

"Gone north with Brian's body, I imagine."

"Will they return to Thomond? Afterward?"

"I should think so, their clanhold is not far from Kincora."

"Who else knew my father's ways?"

Fergal began ticking off his fingers. "There's Carroll, of course. The historian. Brian rarely went anywhere without him, not since together they rewrote the Book of Rights. He had great respect for Carroll's knowledge of the law.

I would say if any man knew the shape of Brian Boru's mind, it would be Carroll."

"I know Carroll. He's too old and too fat, and he's a scholar not a warrior. No use to me."

"Perhaps you will find someone when we return to Kincora," Fergal said hopefully. "We could leave at dawn tomorrow and ..."

Donough's gray eyes flashed. "I'll decide when we are going to leave. And that won't be until we've taken Dublin."

Fergal was disappointed. It had become obvious to him that they were not going to be able to capture Dublin. Any further effort to do so would be a waste of time and energy. He wanted to go home.

The battle was over.

He started to say as much, then realized Donough was not paying any attention. The youngster's gaze was fixed beyond him, on something in the distance. "Who's that over there, Fergal?"

"Where?" Fergal turned to look. "I don't see anyone."

Donough pointed across an expanse of meadowland. "There, beyond that ditch. Where the women are scavenging. Do you not see that slim girl in the red skirt?"

Fergal shaded his eyes with his hand. "They're nothing more than tiny black figures to me. You take after your father; he always could see a bedsome woman."

Donough reddened. "I wasn't ..."

"Of course you were, and why not? If you want her, go get her. You're the commander now, that's better than being a chieftain when it comes to women.

They love a man with a long spear and a hard sword." Fergal winked.

"I have no intention of ..."

The wink was replaced with a knowing look. "You've never had a woman, is that it? Do they frighten you?