The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25 (Mammoth Books) (113 page)

THE IRON SHIRTS

Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Michael F. Flynn has a B.A. in math from La Salle University, an M.S. for work in topology from Marquette University, and works as an industrial quality engineer and statistician. Since his first sale there in 1984, Flynn has become a mainstay of
Analog
, and one of their most frequent contributors. He has also made sales to
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Weird Tales, New Destinies, Alternate Generals
, and elsewhere, and is thought of as one of the best new “hard science” writers to enter the field in several decades. His books include
In the Country of the Blind, Fallen Angels
(a novel written in collaboration with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle),
Firestar, Rogue Star, Lodestar, Falling Stars, Eifelheim, The Wreck of the River of Stars
, and
The January Dancer
. His stories have been collected in
The Forest of Time: and Other Stories
and
The Nanotech Chronicles
. He’s been a Hugo finalist several times and twice won Prometheus Awards, for
In the Country of the Blind
and
Fallen Angels
. His most recent books are the novels
Up Jim River
and
In the Lion’s Mouth
. He now lives in Edison, N.J.

Here he takes us to thirteenth-century Ireland for a complex alternate history tale, a subtle and complicated story of deadly political gamesmanship, full of betrayals, double crosses, and double double crosses.

Geantraí

The outriders were galloping in from both flanks and David ó Flynn pulled back on his pony’s reins to wait halfway down the hillside. His companions imitated him, some yanking warbows from their scabbards and stringing them with thoughtless ease. The footmen lined up in a loose array, holding their javelins ready but with their thumbs not yet in the throwing loops. They had passed unmolested south of the bog country around Dun Mor, avoiding the Foreign-held lands, but one never knew. The heavens cried out the deaths of kings; but on earth in this Year of Grace twelve hundred and four and twenty, men planned those deaths in whispers.

Cill Cluanaigh rolled away fat and green from the base of the hill toward the broad expanse of Lough Corrib. From his position on the hillside, David could just make out the smudge of the lough’s farther shore. Iar Connaught resembled nothing so much as a sullen, gray cloud on the horizon. Freshening, the breeze rippled the grass and raised a sparkling white chop from the lough, as if the grass were an emerald sea breaking on a shore of shattered glass.

The outriders signaled with the finger-ogham but David couldn’t make out the numbers.

“A party of fourteen,” said Gillapadraig, his principal man-of-trust. “Armed.”

“Now, there is a surprise . . .” David glanced behind. “We’ll move back,” he said. “Just below the crest, not atop it.” Such a position would provide the widest field for the archers.

On David’s other side, Liam ó Flaherty shifted on his pony. “It’s not a trap,” he said. “Only an escort. Himself would not send me all the way into the Sliabh ua Fhlainn only to lure you into a trap.”

“Would he not, then?” David replied distractedly. The western man spoke as if the Sliabh ua Fhlainn lay at the very ends of the earth. Yet if any land deserved that name, it was surely Iar Connaught. West of Lough Corrib they grew nothing but stones, and not very good stones at that. “Those horsemen may not be your own folk, but Rory’s sons,” he said. “Rumor trickled south with the melting snow: Turlough and Little Hugh have left The ó Neill’s hospitality and have come back into the country to wrest the kingship from Aedh.” He turned to Liam, all bland innocence. “Perhaps you did not hear of it out here in the West.”

Liam grunted and said nothing. David faced forward, morosely satisfied at having his suspicions confirmed. Fools the sons of Rory might be to come back, but not such great fools as to ride openly about. They were hiding under the protection of some great lord, and what better place for hiding than at the very ends of the earth?

Ó Flaherty’s stronghold squatted upon an island in the lough, distant from the shore and stoutly defended by a fleet of war boats. David considered how he might attack the place should the need arise. There was nothing ill between the ó Flynns and the ó Flahertys, but a prudent man kept his wits as sharp as his sword, lest he have need of either weapon. The walls were built of stone after the Foreigner fashion; but if there was anything of which The ó Flaherty had a sufficiency, it was stone.

By the time the party disembarked at the wooden dock below the stronghold, David had concluded that only a
siege
would be practical – and impractical as well. A hosting of Gaels could perform marvelous feats, but sitting on their backsides and waiting was not one of them. The very word
siege
was a foreign one, learned the hard way from the wrong ends of
trebuchets
.

In the courtyard, a ridge of turf had been built up and wooden planks laid atop to create a long table. Upon this a quantity of food had been spread: meats of all sorts: beef, pork, horse, poultry, salted fishes; milsén, wheat cakes and loaves; butter, sweet cream and soured cream, a variety of cheeses; milk – boiled, of course, and with honey added; beans and beets; two or three sorts of apples; and the three condiments: salt, leeks, and seaweed.

There were some strange foods set out, as well. Kernels of some large yellow grain mixed with a flat, round, pale-green bean. Lumpish brown things that he thought roots of some sort. These looked and smelled not at all toothsome, and their odd aromas hinted that something out of the ordinary awaited.

Hugh ó Flaherty greeted David in the courtyard, gripping his hand, as was the Irish custom. Hugh squeezed. David waited and Hugh squeezed harder and David waited some more. Finally, The ó Flaherty grunted and released him, then presented him with an arm bracelet as a hospitality-gift. David praised him for his open-handed generosity, all the while wondering was the old fox was up to. The guests, as was customary among the Irish, clapped their hands to show approval.

Hugh led him to the center of the table, where a linen cloth had been laid across the planks and three high seats placed side by side. David’s standard-bearer already stood behind the rightmost one. On the left sat Naoife, his host’s wife, a rail-thin woman with falcon’s eyes. She welcomed David with a smile intended to be pleasant.

Once David was seated, gillies hurried about the courtyard, serving out the food. David turned a little to the side and handed the armband to Gillapadraig, who sat beside him. “Have you ever seen the like of it?” he murmured.

“Cunningly wrought,” his man-of-trust replied, “but the gems are only polished, not cut.”

“Oh, it’s fine enough work,” David said, taking it back and slipping it onto his arm, where it nestled among twisting tattoos. “But when have you ever seen an eagle outspread and perched upon the sun?” He searched the crowd for what he knew he must find. The ó Flaherty held a platter of roasted boar to him and David took a portion.

“Serving you with his own hand, is he?” Gillapadraig whispered. “He wants something.”

“Is not this day full of surprises.”

The guests were a mix of ó Flahertys and clans allied with them. David noted some rough men from Connemara, the rockiest part of Iar Connaught. Fell fighters, but clearly uncomfortable here among their betters. Their Pictish blood showed in their shorter stature and dark hair, prominent here in a tall sea of Gaelic red and blond. There were two Danes present. Both wore their hair twisted into long braids. The shorter Dane boasted a broad, flattish face, darker in coloring.

David chewed the meat, savoring the juices. “Excellent boar,” he told his host as he continued to study the assembly.

“I speared him myself,” ó Flaherty said.

“Valiantly done.” David had no doubt that the boar was safely dead before ó Flaherty’s men-of-trust had allowed him to approach. Kings were not so plentiful as to waste them on the odd pig or two.

Gillapadraig leaned close. “What are you looking for?”

“Turlough and Little Hugh.”

“Ó Flaherty would not be so bold!”

“Would he not? He’s all twisted in on himself like those capitals the monks draw in their books. He’ll use the sons of Rory to bring down the sons of Cathal; and he’ll use Cathal’s sons to bring down Rory’s. It’s the use that delights him, not the cause. He brought me here so that I might take some word back to Cormac. What word, I don’t yet know.”

He spotted them at last. Not the sons of Rory, after all, but at one with the strange foods and the odd eagle motif. Half a dozen men and women huddled in a small group in the back of the courtyard. Their hair was dark like the Connemara men. But Picts, like the Irish, greased their hair and pulled it out into spikes, while these braided their hair like Danes. The strangers shared with the shorter Dane the same flat features, and their skin was colored a dark copper.

From the corner of his eye, David caught ó Flaherty’s feline smile.

Nothing so pleasures a man who believes himself clever than to succeed at some small trick. Hence, David was not surprised to find Rory’s sons waiting when The ó Flaherty led him into his hall after the banquet. Turlough was standing with his back to the fire, his arms clasped behind him. Little Hugh, his brother, sat at the long table with a bowl of uiscebeatha and not, by the evidence, his first of the evening. They both turned to face the doorway when David entered.

“So?” Hugh blurted out. “Are you with us?” Turlough reached out and placed a silencing hand on his brother’s shoulder. Ó Flaherty closed the door upon them.

“I haven’t spoken with him yet,” he told the brothers.

David went to the board by the wall and found the jar of uiscebeatha and poured a bowl of his own. “I am with you in that we stand together in this room. Whether I am with you in any other fashion depends on where else you may stand.”

Little Hugh, who had brightened at the first sentence, scowled upon hearing the second. Turlough grimaced. “That wasn’t funny, David.”

“So. I hadn’t meant it to be.”

“All the chiefs are with them,” ó Flaherty commented. Having closed the door on the little gathering, he too proceeded to the jug. “They’ve come and given their pledges.”

“Oh, doubtless there’s been a regular procession through here,” David said. “I can even guess at the names of them. Oaths must have little value these days, if men discard them so lightly.”

Ó Flaherty had fetched his drink and sat with Turlough and David.
“I’ve
sworn no oath to the ó Conners of Cruachan,” he said.

David shrugged. Iar Connaught had never been counted a part of the kingdom. The ó Flaherty had been expelled from Connaught only a few generations earlier – and by the ó Conners of Cruachan. “And the others who have come?”

Turlough spoke up. “What oaths they gave to my cousin he has forfeited by his feckless and dishonorable behavior.”

“As an argument, that has its conveniences.”

Turlough stood and leaned on the table with both fists. “He is ‘no-king’. We’ve all agreed: ó Taidg, ó Flannigan, McGarrity . . .”

David maintained composure. The consent of the four principal chiefs was needed to proclaim a king in Connaught, and Turlough had just named three of them. No wonder ó Flaherty had feasted him and covered him with honeyed words. Win over the ó Flynn and they could raise Turlough up on the very rock at Cruachan! He emptied his bowl and tossed it to the table, where it clattered and spun.

“You haven’t mentioned Cormac,” he observed. “The Marshal of the Host may have some little say in the matter, whether the Four Chiefs forswear themselves or not.”

“You’re his officer,” ó Flaherty said. “He listens to your advice.”

“The McDermot has the most marvelous sort of ear. What goes into it is only what he permits.”

Turlough struck the table. “The white rod is mine,” he insisted. “My father was High King!”

“And what came of that,” said David, “but that the Foreigners came into Ireland? And there is the pebble over which all your plots will stumble. If I do come over, and if I do bring The McDermot with me, Aedh will turn to
them
, with their shirts of iron. They’ve already castled Meath and Leinster. Would you hand them Connaught, as well?” With a growl of disgust, he turned away.