The Hound of Ulster (8 page)

Forgall gave back towards the earth-cut rampart steps, snatching at his dagger, and so, the one with a long sword, the other with shield and dagger, they fought close-locked up the steps to the rampart walk, along the crest of the great turf bank, until Forgall felt at his back the raw timbers of the stockade. Lithe and desperate as a wild beast cornered, he doubled and twisted, seeking to break clear, but on all sides it seemed, he was hemmed in by the leaping sword-point of the Ulster hero. And at last, with a cry of furious despair, he too hurled his shield into his enemy's face, then turning, flung himself across the timber coping of the stockade.

He turned over as he fell, struck against the stone roots of the wall, and was flung off into the ditch, and among the furze scrub in the bottom of the ditch he lay still, spreadeagled in the light of the burning gateway.

In the forecourt of the D
Å«
n the battle was slackening, and Cuchulain burst through it and ran towards the women's quarters, his sword still naked in his hand. The women were clustered like bats in the darkness, squealing somewhere at the back of the bower, all save Emer herself, and she had come out to the doorway and stood there waiting for him, with the last light of the burning thorn bushes shining in her eyes.

‘I have won the place you bade me, among the Chariot Chieftains,' Cuchulain panted. ‘I have slain my hundreds, and the harpers sing of me in the King's Hall. And so I come again—that also you bade me—but I could not wait for you to bid me to come in.'

‘It seems indeed that you required but little bidding,' Emer said.

‘I would have got none from your father, being not the King of Munster.'

‘If you had been, it's not myself that would have been here waiting for you, for there's no wish on me to be Munster's Lady.'

‘Come, then,' Cuchulain said, and catching her up across his shoulder, he turned and ran for the outer courtyard, where the chariots had been drawn back towards the gate, and the dead and wounded littered the ground, and the rest of Forgall's warriors, with no heart left in them, stood sullenly about the great weapon-stone in the midst of the courtyard, and the flaring light of torches that gilded the autumn mist fell upon cups of gold and silver and fine weapons and jewelled arm-rings piled within the chariots, for Cuchulain's men had not been idle. They greeted him with a shout as he made for his own chariot, and he set Emer down upon the floor of broad straps, and sprang in beside her, and cried to Laeg to whip up the team. ‘Surely this has been a wedding to surpass all weddings, and as surely no bride ever brought with her a richer dowry!'

And with the six chariots behind him, he crashed out over the scattered embers of the thornwork gate, Emer clinging to the chariot rim beside him, and her dark hair flying like a storm cloud.

But the thing was not yet finished, for Forgall had a sister, and that night she raised a great war band on her own account in Meath, and came rushing after Cuchulain. Cuchulain heard their hooves behind him and caught the moonlight on their spears, and knew his own small battle-weary band to be many times outnumbered. But even as he knew it, his battle fury came upon him, and he brought his chariots wheeling about to face those who thundered on their track. And with the fight
that followed, the turf was trampled to red mud, and the ford of Glondath ran blood. And turning again and again, he slew a hundred and more of the Meath men at every ford from Olney to the Boyne.

So for many years afterwards, if a man were telling of a battle that was especially sharp and bloody, he would say, ‘Ach! It was like Cuchulain's wedding!'

A YEAR OR
two after Cuchulain's wedding, Bricrieu of the Bitter Tongue made a feast in his D
Å«
n and bade to it King Conor and all the Red Branch Heroes.

Conor was no fool. He knew that he could not refuse the invitation of one of his most powerful chieftains, for to do so would be to put an affront on the man before the eyes of all Ulster, that doubtless would be repaid full measure and running over, when the chance came. And he knew that to accept would also have its dangers, for Bricrieu was renowned as a trouble-maker, one who found in the stirring up of strife and ill will among his fellows the pleasure that other men found in battle or a day's hunting or their arms round a girl. So he said
to the giver of the feast, looking him straightly in the eye, ‘Bricrieu, you are no stranger to me. Which of my young warriors would you set against each other this time?'

‘I? My lord misjudges me. No such thought was in my mind.' Bricrieu shrugged and smiled. ‘If I would stir up strife in the Red Branch, why should I go to the trouble of making a feast for them, when I could raise my little tempest as well in your hall as mine?'

‘Nevertheless,' said the King, ‘I should enjoy my meat more and drink with an easier mind in your hall if
you
were to feast elsewhere.'

‘Somewhat strange, that must seem, in the giver of the feast?'

‘Plead sickness. That should serve well enough,' the King said.

And Bricrieu knew that there was nothing left but to agree to Conor's terms with as smooth a face as might be.

But before he left Emain Macha for his own place, he contrived to meet Laery the Triumphant, who was one of the foremost warriors of the Red Branch, as he brought his chariot horses in from exercise. ‘The sun and the moon on your path, Laery, winner of battles. Those are horses worthy of the Champion of Ireland! Indeed there are none swifter and stronger it seems to me in all Emain Macha—save perhaps for the Grey and the Black of Cuchulain's that he swears are horses of the Sidhe!'

For not long since, Cuchulain had chanced upon a great grey stallion splashing ashore out of the grey lough below Slieve Fuad, and had captured it after such a fight as shook Slieve Fuad to its roots. And in the same way, within three days, he had taken the great black water-horse of Lough Seinglend. And these were the Black Seinglend and the Grey
of Macha, who were chief among his chariot horses from that time forward until his death-day.

‘One day I will challenge Cuchulain to a race between his horses and mine,' said Laery, who loved his horses and could never bear to hear any other team praised above them.

‘So? Maybe it would be better still if you were to challenge Cuchulain himself. For since his time in the Land of Shadows and his marriage to Emer he grows overproud, and would be the better for a lesson. Why, I have even heard that he claims to be the Champion of Ireland himself!' and Bricrieu laughed softly, with his hand on the chariot rim.

‘There are two words as to that,' said Laery the Triumphant.

‘Surely three. They are telling me that Conall Mac Finchoom makes the same claim—two mere striplings, and yourself a seasoned warrior. Ach well, at my house the Champion's Portion is always worth the having. When the roast boar is carried in tomorrow, bid your charioteer to rise and claim it for you, and we will see what follows!'

Laery leaned down towards him, suddenly fierce. ‘There are some who shall go to feed the ravens, if my right is denied me!'

But Bricrieu only laughed a little tauntingly, as though he doubted it, and turned away, while Laery in a fury jabbed his bronze-tipped goad into the haunches of his team and sent them thundering on up the steep track towards the gates of Emain Macha.

Smiling still behind narrowed eyes, Bricrieu went in search of Conall, and found him testing a new birding bow by shooting at a tuft of kingfisher's feathers flying in the wind from a slim whippy hazel wand. When the arrow had thrummed away carrying one blue feather on its tip, Bricrieu said, ‘Surely there is no hand quite like yours for the bow in all Ulster. It is no
wonder that men begin to call you Conall of the Victories, for none dare face you in battle; not even Cuchulain, for all the hero-light that burns about his head.'

‘It is as well, then, that we are not like to be standing against each other,' Conall said shortly, stooping for another arrow from the row he had set in the ground before him. ‘For his shoulder has a good feel to it, when we stand together against a common foe; and a sorry thing it would be for foster brothers to be facing each other across the rims of their bucklers.'

‘A sorry thing it is that all foster kin are not so loyal as Conall of the Victories,' Bricrieu said idly, and Conall turned to look at him, with the arrow already notched to his string. ‘And what would be the meaning of that, then?'

‘Nay, now, why should you pay any heed to the thing Cuchulain says? Yet it is true that all men believe by now you should have been declared Champion of Ireland.'

‘It is mine to take when I will,' Conall said. ‘But what is this that Cuchulain says?'

‘That you would be claiming the Championship tomorrow, but that you are afraid of
him
.'

Conall's arrow flew wide and bedded in the turf walls of the D
Å«
n, and his face darkened to a dusky red under the strong fair mane of hair. ‘Truly it is in my mind that he has changed in the Land of Shadows.
Not
tomorrow but this very night I claim the Championship of Ireland!'

‘Tomorrow! Wait until the night that you come with Conor to feast in my house. Then when the roast boar is brought in, bid your charioteer to rise and claim the Champion's Portion for your share; for the Red Branch Warriors should not be squabbling like starlings in the King's Hall.'

And he went on his way, well content, leaving Conall of the Victories hurt and raging, to gather up his arrow and tear down
the pretty fluttering target and grind it into muddy pulp under his heel.

Cuchulain was sitting on the weathered stone well-curb in the courtyard of the women's quarters, laughing at some jest with one of Emer's maidens who had come to draw water. And when the girl had gone her way, Bricrieu sat himself down on the well-curb beside Cuchulain, and laughed also. ‘Truly, being wed has not changed you! Not only are you our spear and shield against all enemies, the mightiest rampart of Ulster, but you must be holding every Ulster girl in the hollow of your hand, beside—whistling them as a bird off a tree.
They
would not deny you the Championship of Ireland!'

Cuchulain drew his black brows together. ‘
Who
then denies me the Championship of Ireland?'

‘No, pay no heed. I let my tongue run away with me.'

‘That poisoned tongue of yours never yet ran away with you,' Cuchulain said. ‘
Who
denies me the Championship of Ireland?'

Bricrieu pretended unwillingness, but when Cuchulain caught him by the shoulder to force it out of him, he told his lie. ‘I thought you would have heard—Laery the Triumphant and Conall who men begin to call Conall of the Victories (forgetting, I suppose, how the High King of Tara died). Each of them has been putting it about that they are better men than you, that all your skill and strength are but a few shadow-tricks that Skatha taught you in the Land of Shadows, that you might make a fine showing before the Lady Emer, like a pied wagtail strutting before his hen.'

‘You lie!' Cuchulain shouted. ‘Even if Laery forgot his friendship he would never speak so of me behind my back; and Conall—Conall is my foster brother, my hearth-companion; as soon would I speak so of him as he speak so of me!'
He gave Bricrieu's shoulder a thrust that all but tipped him into the well, and Bricrieu jumped clear, rubbing the place where the young warrior's fingers had bitten, but smiling still with his lips.

‘If you do not believe me, put it to the test! Tomorrow night when the Red Branch Warriors feast in my hall, bid your charioteer, when the roast boar is carried in, to rise and claim for you the Champion's Portion. Then see what these friends of yours will do! Only see!'

Cuchulain dashed his hand against the well-curb so that the blood sprang from his knuckles, before he could answer. ‘I will do as you bid me, Adder Tongue! And I will see!'

And Bricrieu went home to his own place to make ready for the feast, promising himself an amusing evening.

On the night of the feast, Bricrieu welcomed the King and the Red Branch Heroes and their women when they entered his splendid hall at D
Å«
n Drum, and then, excusing himself on the grounds of an old wound that was troubling him. withdrew from the hall, his own warriors with him, while the women of his household led Emer and her companions away to the women's quarters, for at D
Å«
n Drum they followed the old custom and men and women did not eat together at feast times. But at the foot of the stair that led up to the private chambers behind the hall, he turned and looked back, smiling still. ‘The Champion's Portion, you will find, is worth the having. Let it be given to the foremost hero in all Ulster.'

When he was gone, and the Red Branch Warriors were seated at the long tables down the sides of the hall, Bricrieu's slaves brought in the great chargers piled with oatcakes and curd, with mighty joints of oxen and deer meat and great
silver salmon sizzling from the cooking spits; and last of all, borne proudly by four warriors, the great grizzly carcass of roast boar, whose right shoulder was the Champion's Portion.