The Last Days of Magic (26 page)

Shadows grew long. Art and Aisling finally appeared at the tower door. Conor’s chest tightened more. Air became scarce. Aisling smiled to the crowd, nodded, and kissed Art. The crowd cheered.

The cheers subsided and the crowd parted, opening a path to the Lia Fáil and the final test. The previous election had been twelve years earlier, and Conor had avoided it, but he had heard. Ireland itself must acknowledge Art for him to become high king. When he places his hand on the Lia Fáil, the land must roar. Well, he, Conor, was not going to add his voice.

Art reached for the head of the standing stone, placed his hand on it. Conor’s throat spasmed. He tried to stop it, but could not. He lifted his head to release the cry, which rose uncontrollably within him, as it did within every other person in the yard. The sound radiated out through the city, down the hill, and across the land, as every man, woman, and child, every bird, stag, cow, and sheep, every animal that had a voice, took up the cry and passed it along.

Conor felt a sense of relief and, surprisingly, joy as the spasm left him. He felt Aisling’s arms around him. She nuzzled her face against his neck. “My love,” she said. “I have a surprise for you.” She slid her hand to cover his heart. “My lord.”

. . . . .

Busy days followed for Aisling and Conor. Maolan’s body was recovered, and with little of his head remaining, his hands and feet were ceremoniously hacked off and burned. The corpse was pressed into a bog.

The pride of Maolan’s estates had been a pair of castles, Killeen and Dunsany, which controlled the principal road between Tara and the
two southernmost kingdoms, Leinster and Munster, much to the irritation of their nobility. Therefore, upon the announcement that the Maolan clan would forfeit both—Killeen Castle going to the estate set aside for support of the high-kingship, and Dunsany Castle, which was really more of a fortified manor house, going to Conor—the southern nobles lavished even stronger allegiance on their new high king. Art, in turn, let it be known that this move had been in his plans all along.

Queen Gormflaith, ruler of Munster, commissioned both a last name for Conor and a coat of arms for his new, if provisional, lordship, to be recorded in the Tara annals. Conor chose mac Tadg, in honor of the man whom he considered his father and to ensure that Tadg’s widow would be recognized as part of his new clan. The chief bard was summoned and produced a coat of arms featuring a green tree and a red arrow on a sky blue shield.

At their wedding in the great hall, Aisling wore a long green dress, elegant in its simplicity, matching the color of the tree on Ireland’s newest coat of arms. Conor’s white surcoat partially covered his new chain mail, which sparkled in the candlelight as Art performed the ceremony. Aisling and Conor laughed at the absurdity of signing a contract for five years and a day. As soon as the seal was applied to the document, Art embraced the pair of them, and his deep voice resonated through the hall, “Now we celebrate! Bring in the food and wine, lots of wine!”

“One thing we can count on with Art, there’ll be a feast at every opportunity,” said Liam. He and Patrick waited by the door, away from the thick crowd, which jostled with squires and pages carrying tables, benches, and food.

“I wager ten silver pennies that he leads a drinking song by the third course,” said Patrick, snagging a cup from a passing basket and scanning the crowd for a page to fill it.

Rhoswen wedged herself between Patrick and Liam. She addressed Liam without a greeting. “Do you understand that Aisling will still need your protection?”

“She beat a demon!” exclaimed Patrick.

“She is in flux. She must feel secure to continue to develop her powers,” said Rhoswen.

“I am grateful for your insight, but don’t worry, I don’t plan to abandon her,” said Liam.

“Conor also. You will stress this to him?” Rhoswen insisted.

“Not tonight, tomorrow. Tell me—”

Rhoswen interrupted, “I will not let that priest talk at me,” and slipped away.

Colmcille, leader of the smaller of the two factions of the Irish Christian Church, was pushing his way through the crowd toward the door. Reaching Patrick, he declared, “This should be a Christian wedding.”

“Christian weddings are for Christians,” replied Patrick. “Besides, pagan weddings are more fun.”

“That is all it is to you, isn’t it? How much fun you can have?”

“Jesus was always up for a good feast.”

“There will be no feast for you in hell,” warned Colmcille. “Or for anyone else here.”

“I hear that hell features prominently in your sermons of late,” said Patrick. “No wonder your congregation is shrinking while mine is growing. You’re becoming quite Roman, aren’t you?”

“The new Church of Rome will cover the world soon. There’s no standing against the true word of God. Look to your own rotting soul, your church is too accommodating—educating women, sanctioning divorce. Your sermons do more harm than good.”

“Let’s let the Bell decide whose words are true,” said Patrick, drawing the Blood Bell from its holster.

“I wasn’t going to grace this heathen gathering with my presence anyway,” hissed Colmcille as he left.

Patrick noticed that Liam, along with everyone else nearby, was backing away from him. “Don’t worry,” he said laughingly. “I’m not going to ring it. Let’s go find the wine.”

. . . . .

A week later Conor’s coat of arms fluttered on a flag above a mounted column of twenty-four Gallowglass. The small force was a gift from King Murchada of Leinster. To this, Murchada added his sealed pledge to support, with his own forces if need be, Conor mac Tadg’s right to Dunsany Castle—there was no better way to ensure that the Maolan clan actually turned over the property.

Two wagons of supplies followed, with Tadg’s widow driving the first. At the head of the column rode Liam, behind him Aisling and Conor, side by side. Since departing Tara to the cries of a herald, Conor had been wearing the awkwardly furtive smile of a young boy who has been caught eating a stolen pastry, only to learn it was intended for him all along.

The procession had taken the southern road out of Tara. Open fields now lay to both sides. Two curious young shepherds trotted along the side of the road, talking to one of the younger Gallowglass. The road was about to enter Laigen Forest when a Woodwose stepped out.

The air filled with the sharp scrape of swords being drawn from scabbards.

“Hold!” shouted Aisling.

Liam’s sword flashed, knocking down an arrow that had already been loosed by one of the Gallowglass.

“Hold!” Aisling repeated.

The Woodwose, an unpainted male wearing a loincloth, carried a severed head. He took several steps forward and tossed the head toward them. It rolled to the forelegs of Aisling’s horse and stared up at her with vacant eyes. Aisling recognized the dead face, still contorted, of the Woodwose shaman. She dismounted.

“What are you doing?” objected Conor.

“They seek a new shaman,” she answered.

Liam circled his horse back protectively.

Conor studied the Woodwose as Aisling picked up the head and lashed it by its bushy hair to her saddle. He asked, “Why do this? They killed Tadg and almost killed us.”

“That’s why I need to. They’ll follow their shaman to their death without question, so I must become their shaman.” Aisling looked up at Conor. “And you must become their lord.” She wiped a smear of blackened, sticky blood from her hands. “They’ll be a powerful ally for you, to the exclusion of all other nobles. What they lack in organization and weapons they make up for in fearlessness and ferocity.”

“She has a point,” offered Liam.

Aisling walked toward the Woodwose while Liam watched. Conor pulled his bow from its pouch behind his saddle and fitted an arrow but did not draw. When Aisling stood in front of the Woodwose, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. A line of Woodwose, men and women, materialized from the trees, moved forward, and dropped to a supplication pose. Then another line, followed by more, until more than two hundred, Aisling estimated, knelt before her.

. . . . .

One hundred forty-six miles north, on the coast of Ireland, large waves crashed through the soaring, arched mouth of Dunkerry Cave, an entrance that rivaled any cathedral’s. Its crimson-hued galleries extended far under land, briefly dipping beneath the dark water before emerging to form a vast cavern.

In the cavern, scattered torches did little to push back the darkness. Carvings of the sea-serpent-shaped God Seonaidh glistened faintly on the damp walls. There was just enough light to reveal blood dripping from open wounds on the Fomorian’s strong arms and chest, staining his white sable cloak as he sat, for the first time, on the stone throne of the Fomorian high king. At his feet lay the broken body of his predecessor. The new high king reached down, ripped out the single engorged eye of the former ruler, and held it aloft, his own single eye looking out at the four thousand Fomorian warriors kneeling before him.

15

The Palace of Westminster, London

October 1392

P
ropped up in bed on a copious pile of purple silk pillows, Queen Anne watched de Vere getting dressed. Opening the chamber door, he glanced back at her. She smiled, a smile he returned, and then he left. Anne looked down at Richard, his head in her lap, eyes closed, and stroked his hair. Richard curled up tighter against her bare body.

“Our pretty king,” she cooed. “We hate that Our lovely friend had to run off to a war council meeting. Such a tedious errand.”

Richard nuzzled her lap and whispered, “He must prepare for the invasion.”

“You and he are spending altogether too much energy on these plans. We are not happy that there is less time for Our games. How hard will it be to defeat the faeries? There cannot be that many of them—We have never even seen one.”

Richard opened his eyes. “Our sweet queen, do not be cross. You have not seen a faerie because the Romans drove them out of southern England a millennium ago. However, Longshanks had to fight them in Wales, and he recorded that they were quite fierce. We have been reliably informed that there are a lot of faeries in Ireland, as well as Celts. You would be happy We are making such efforts to protect de Vere’s force and make sure he comes back to Us, if you heard what happened during the last attempted invasion. We cannot afford to repeat that disaster.”

T
WO
CENTURIES
EARLIER
, twenty miles off the Irish coast, gray clouds closed in on the sun, building a midday gloom. A quarter mile
ahead of Strongbow’s flagship, enchanted waves suddenly sprang up thirty feet and tossed themselves about, forming turbulent fortifications spanning the horizon, blocking the armada’s route to Ireland.

“Time to earn your kingdom back,” Strongbow said to Diarmait, the exiled king of Leinster.

Diarmait removed his cloak, handed it to Strongbow’s marshal, Robert Fitz-Stephen, and strode to the prow. Spreading his arms wide, he began to chant. At first nothing happened, but then a wide channel of calm opened up in the wild sea ahead. Strongbow’s armada sailed easily into it.

Pope Adrian IV had issued the Laudabiliter grant authorizing Henry II, the Norman king of England, to invade Ireland. As tempting as the Vatican’s offer was, Henry did not act upon it for a decade, not until the apparently blessed event of Diarmait’s eviction from Ireland and arrival in Henry’s court. By demonstrating a few simple enchantments, Diarmait convinced Henry that he would be able to perform the rite necessary to land an invasion force safely on the Irish shore. So with great confidence, King Henry, having also secured the Vatican’s payment for the nine-hundred-sixty-man mercenary army, launched an armada at Ireland under the command of Richard de Clare, second Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. With him went his marshal, Robert Fitz-Stephen, illegitimate son of the constable of Cardigan.

Robert watched as a wave rose up above the port rail only to fall harmlessly away from his ship and, for the first time since hearing of this plan, allowed himself to smile. Clapping Strongbow on the back, he said, “I’m looking forward to plenty of Celtic ale, and I hear their women—” He did not finish.