Brian Boru (5 page)

It did not take the Danes of Limerick long to learn that Thomond was unprotected. Even as Brian and the Dalcassians were celebrating the wedding, Viking raiders fanned out across the countryside. They looted and burned; they slaughtered Irish cattle in the field and took the best parts away with them, leaving the carcasses to rot.

A terrified farmer came to tell Mahon what was happening. ‘Where are your warriors to protect us?’ the man cried.

Brian was very angry. ‘I warned you!’ he shouted at Mahon. ‘Didn’t I send word to you to leave Thomond well-guarded along its borders?’

Mahon drew himself up stiffly. ‘I don’t take orders from you.’

‘You would not take my advice simply because it came from
me
,’ Brian charged. ‘You never listen to me because you’re jealous of your authority. Now you see what it has cost!’

Mahon knew Brian’s words were true. He could never admit the younger man was right. He was the king.

They glared at each other with all the old anger rising between them.

‘I think you had better leave now,’ Brian said coldly. ‘Go back to Killmallock. Go try to explain to the people whose homes are destroyed for the sake of your pride.’

‘I was hoping you would come with me,’ Mahon started to say. Then his anger overcame him. He would not ask Brian for anything. He turned away and began gathering his men.

When Brian saw them marching away he wanted to run after them. But he did not. He was as proud as Mahon.

He took his new wife to Beal Boru, where she would live in the rebuilt lodge that had belonged to his parents. Brian himself spent most of his time in the nearby hills and valleys, protecting the area. It was doubly precious to him now.

The Vikings controlled the river, but Brian held the highlands. At night, in camp, he studied by firelight the books he kept with him, books describing the successful wars of Alexander and Charlemagne. Books telling how to win.

He learned new ways of outwitting the enemy. He learned how to take advantage of mist and fog to make a few men seem like a larger number. They shouted until their voices echoed throughout the hills, like the cries of an army.

From his books Brian also learned new battle formations. Using a stick to draw in the dirt, he showed his warriors ways of fighting they had never seen before. Until now, Irish men had just run at each other in a broad line. But Brian showed them how to break up that line into wings and flanks and circles, and how to get behind the enemy and surround him.

They won more victories. The Vikings learned to be afraid of Brian. They were the first to call him Brian
Boru, after the place he fought to protect.

Between battles, Brian sometimes climbed alone to the heights where the grey crag jutted out against the sky. He gazed down at the great blue lake called Lough Derg, and the rebuilt fort where Mor was awaiting the birth of their first child.

He could sense the guardian spirit of his tribe close beside him. ‘Watch over my family, Aval,’ he whispered to the banshee, knowing she could hear him.

In southern Thomond, Mahon heard reports. Brian’s band fought brilliantly, but they were heavily outnumbered. Slowly, man by man, the Vikings were killing them. There were so few rebels with Brian in the hills, and so many Vikings.

Almost as if he meant to insult Mahon, the Viking King of Limerick was concentrating on Brian Boru and all but ignoring the King of the Dalcassians. Ivar the Dane, King of Limerick, considered Brian more dangerous than his brother and wanted to see him dead.

Mor worried about her husband. Brian came to see her as often as he could, but they never had much time together. She would hear his familiar whistle ringing from the hills, and when she ran to the gate to meet him he would take her in his arms and swing her around and around, laughing. But he always left at first light, going back to his warriors.

Brian hated to leave. The lodge was warm and snug, with fresh reeds on the floor and brightly coloured woollen rugs hanging on the walls to keep out draughts. Mor wove those rugs on her loom, and kept his harp safe for him when he was in the hills. Puppies descended from his father’s hounds, slept beside the central firepit, and on baking days the whole fort smelled of the bread Mor baked in the beehive-shaped stone oven.

Beal Boru was home again, the home Brian thought he had lost. But in order to keep it safe he could not stay to enjoy it.

The year of Brian’s marriage had been a year of important deaths in Munster. First the chief poet of the province died. Soon after came the death of the Tanist, who stood second in line for the kingship of Munster.

The next spring Brian’s first son, Murcha, was born. At almost the same time the King of Munster died, leaving the kingship vacant. The province was ruled from the royal stronghold at Cashel, which was thrown into confusion by the king’s death.

Mahon was not surprised when Brian came down out of the hills and confronted him in his camp. ‘Claim the kingship,’ he said bluntly.

Mahon looked at his brother. Fighting hard and living rough had made the boy a mighty man. He was the tallest of all the Dalcassians, with eyes as grey as winter skies over Lough Derg, and a jaw as firm as the stones of Slieve Bernagh. By now only a few of his followers were still alive, but he stood as if there were an army at his back. ‘Claim the kingship,’ he demanded again. ‘My warriors and I will support you.’

Mahon could have laughed at the idea of that battered band being any help to him in claiming Cashel. ‘It would take more help than you could give me,’ he told Brian. ‘The Owenacht tribe are very powerful in Munster and would oppose me. They have a strong claim to the kingship.’

‘Our grandfather Lorcan was called the King of Munster,’ Brian reminded him. ‘It is time we made that boast a truth.’

He looked totally confident. Mahon could hardly believe his eyes. Brian was lean and ragged and
battle-scarred, but still managed to look as if he could never lose. How does he do it? Mahon wondered.

Brian wore his courage like armour, and kept his secret fears to himself. ‘I heard a rumour that you made peace with the Danes of Limerick,’ he said suddenly.

Mahon was startled. ‘How did you … who told you that?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Is it true? I did not want to believe it until I heard it from your own lips.’

Mahon hesitated, but he could not hide the truth from Brian’s sharp eyes. ‘I have made peace with the Danes,’ he admitted at last. ‘My warriors were exhausted, and harvest season had come. They needed to be able to care for their farms and families.’

Brian understood. But he said, ‘You made a great mistake, brother. Never trust the foreigners. We can use your mistake, however. There is always a way to profit from an error if you give it some thought, and I’ve been thinking about this one.

‘While Ivar of Limerick thinks you are willing to stop fighting him, he may be willing to let you become King of Munster without opposing you. He knows you, remember. He does not know whatever man the Owenachts may wish to make king.’

‘Are you suggesting I ask for the support of the Vikings?’ asked Mahon, astonished to hear this from Brian.

Brian smiled a faint, wry smile. ‘I am not. I’m just telling you to take advantage of what you have. Proclaim yourself King of Munster now, take everyone by surprise, and my men and I will help you take Cashel.’

Mahon was tempted. The Dalcassians and the Owenachts were ancient enemies, and an Owenacht had killed Kennedy in a battle between the two tribes. It
would be very satisfying to deny the Owenachts the kingship of Munster. ‘But what about afterwards?’ he asked Brian. ‘If I do become king of the province, what will you do?’

A faraway look came into the younger man’s eyes. ‘I’ll go home to my wife and son, and eat fish fresh-caught from the weir on the Shannon below Beal Boru.’

‘But wouldn’t you want to bring your family to live at Cashel?’

Brian raised one eyebrow. ‘You may have made peace with the Danes, but I haven’t. You rule Munster. I’ll continue to protect that part of Munster which is Thomond. Cashel is not my home.’

And so, in the Year of Our Lord 959, Mahon mac Kennedy claimed the title of King of Munster and captured the stone fortress atop the Rock of Cashel. Because the time had been shrewdly chosen, he was not challenged. Surprised by his swift and unexpected move, the Owenacht chieftains did not have a prince ready to stand against him. Besides, they were uncertain about risking the anger of the Danes of Limerick, who seemed willing to let Mahon be king. So they accepted the situation, for a time. But their resentment simmered like a pot coming to the boil.

Brian saw his brother crowned King of Munster, then true to his word, he returned to Beal Boru. As he had known they would, the Danes continued raiding in Thomond, no matter what truce Ivar had made with Mahon. Thomond was too rich a land to be spared by the Vikings.

While the new King of Munster ate fat meat in his stronghold on the Rock of Cashel, Brian went back to sleeping wrapped in his cloak, through wind and rain, in the hills of Clare, and protecting his homeland.

He had quietly recruited a number of new followers from among Mahon’s own warriors, while Mahon was being crowned king. Brian believed in taking advantage of opportunities.

But once more his numbers were reduced through almost constant fighting until word reached the King of Munster that Brian was almost the lone survivor. This time Mahon went to him. He found him wrapped in wolfskins, camping in a limestone cave.

‘Look at you,’ said Mahon. ‘Bashed and bloody and weary. You with two babies and another on the way, I hear. Give up now, Brian. Come to the south, come to Cashel and live with us. We shall make your family very welcome.’

Brian’s grey eyes met his with a steady gaze. ‘I won’t abandon Thomond to the Vikings. Neither our father nor our grandfather surrendered this land, and I will not.’

‘But don’t you see, Brian, that it’s impossible to defeat the foreigners? There are so many of them – the Danes in Limerick and Waterford, the Norsemen in Dublin – they’re everywhere now. They have terrible weapons and coats of mail. If you keep on fighting you’ll surely be killed one day.’

Brian gazed sadly at the brother he had once admired so much. ‘It’s natural for men to die,’ he said, ‘and death in battle is better than a life in slavery to foreigners.

‘But one thing is not natural, not for Dalcassians. We have never submitted to outrage or insult. You shame us, asking that we do so now. We would be forever dishonoured if we gave up the land for which our ancestors died.

‘And we don’t have to, Mahon! The Danes can be beaten. I myself have beaten them many times with a much smaller force of men. Once I cleared the
countryside of them from Lough Derg all the way to the river Fergus, with only a handful of warriors beside me. While you, with your much larger army, did nothing to help,’ he added bitterly.

Mahon cleared his throat. ‘What if I had helped you and been willing to fight your way?’

‘By now the strength of the Danes would be broken in Munster,’ Brian told him.

‘If that is true,’ said Mahon, ‘I regret that I didn’t listen.’

My brother is the man I thought he was! Brian thought joyously. Aloud he said, ‘Regret is a waste of time. We have today. And tomorrow.’

‘You would still fight for me?’

‘You are the King of Munster,’ Brian replied. ‘If you will declare war on the Danes again I will fight at your shoulder until we drive them from our land forever.’

Staring at his brother, Mahon knew those words were true. Brian would fight alone or with an army, but he would fight. Nothing could stop him.

The King of Munster summoned the heads of the Dalcassian families to a council. Each clan leader arrived in full battle dress, with a shortsword in a leather scabbard at his hip, and a train of attendants following him up the steep pathway to the top of the Rock of Cashel.

When they were gathered in the great feasting hall,
Mahon spoke to them. He used many of the words Brian had used. ‘If we do not make a stand and fight the Danes of Limerick now it will be too late,’ he told the Dalcassians. ‘They have their hands around our throats. I have said nothing, for the sake of peace, but the time has come to throw off the clutching hand.’

Many of the clan leaders were men who, like Mahon, had lost heart over the years and been willing to settle for submission to the power of the Vikings. But when they heard the King of Munster speaking in this way, they became excited. They put their hands on their sword hilts and their eyes shone.

‘Throw off the clutching hand of the Vikings,’ they said to one another, nodding agreement.

Some of them noticed the tall, silent young warrior who stood in the shadows, watching them with measuring eyes.

‘That is Brian, the one they call the Lion of Thomond,’ the whisper went around the room.

A vote was taken. The decision was war.

An army camp was set up around the base of the Rock of Cashel, and warriors were summoned from every tribe that had a duty to supply the king with fighting men. Soon the Dalcassians were joined by warriors from many other southern tribes.

Ivar, the Danish king of Limerick, was very angry when he learned of this. ‘Mahon betrays the peace he made with me!’ he cried in his huge boat-shaped hall beside the Shannon. He summoned all the Danes of Munster, as well as the Irish who were connected to them through trade or marriage. He demanded the loyalty of these Irish in the war to come. When some of them refused, he had them put to death to serve as a lesson to the rest.

The Danish army marched from Limerick towards Cashel. The Irish forces broke camp and set out to meet them. But the Irish leaders were not in agreement about the way to fight the Vikings. Brian had been explaining his ideas about battle formations to the older chieftains, and they complained to Mahon. ‘Your brother has strange ideas,’ they said. ‘He wants us to fight in ways we have never fought before. Each of us is used to leading his own men in his own way. We want no part of this new plan.’

Mahon tried to keep peace between Brian and the chieftains.

‘You must not insist on your own ideas,’ he told his brother.

‘They are not my ideas. They are battle plans that have worked for the most famous military leaders in history. If we were to use flankers, instead of meeting the Danes in one single broad line …’

‘I don’t want to hear this again,’ Mahon said wearily.

It was hard for Brian to plead, but he made himself say, ‘Please, Mahon. You are the king. If you give the order they will follow it. Order them to take the positions I suggest when they face the Danes.’

Mahon locked eyes with his younger brother. A struggle of wills heated the air between them until Brian thought it would burst into flame, but he never blinked. Finally Mahon was the one to drop his eyes. ‘I shall do as you ask,’ he said. ‘But I warn you, Brian. Though the men may take up the positions they won’t fight from them. Once they see the enemy they will each fight in the old way; they will never follow you.’

The army of Mahon met the army of Ivar at dawn, at a place called Sulcoit. Much of the land was covered with trees, making fighting difficult. The Danes advanced at
sunrise across one of the few stretches of open meadowland, holding up their axes as they came, to frighten the Irish with them.

But Brian’s Dalcassians had axes, too, and he had taught them how to use them.

In spite of this, Mahon’s warriors stared fearfully at the Danes. They had not expected such an enormous number. The Irish who had joined with Ivar made his army very large indeed. Mahon’s men, in the battle formation Brian had planned, could not make themselves move forward. They could only stand and watch the sea of death flooding toward them across the meadowland.

Then one man started forward. All alone. To meet the enemy.

Fear filled Brian’s belly like a great, cold stone, but he did not let the fear show on his face. Mahon’s army was frightened enough. They must see someone who did not appear to be afraid.

He marched forward alone, with his sword in his hand, as if Ivar and the Danes meant nothing to him. He left his horse behind, choosing to fight on foot like a common warrior. Only Mahon and the tribal leaders were mounted, sitting on their horses and staring at Brian as he did this mad, reckless, incredibly brave thing.

Cold sweat ran down Brian’s back. He lifted his sword higher, so it caught the light of the rising sun. He walked on, waiting for the first Danish spear to hiss through the air and strike him down.

That would at least make Mahon’s army angry enough to throw off its fear and to attack, Brian thought. He did not want to die. But he was more afraid of losing.

No spear was hurled from Ivar’s side. His warriors were all staring at Brian too. Vikings admired courage
above all else, and the red-haired young giant approaching them filled them with awe. They knew they would never again see anything like this, one man in splendid defiance against thousands.

To Brian it seemed as if everything happened very, very slowly, as if there were all the time in the world that morning. He walked on and on, expecting to die. Two armies seemed frozen, watching him. And then at last he heard behind him the first stirrings of Mahon’s army shaking off its fear and beginning to move.

Someone shouted Brian’s name. Another voice took it up and the cry swept through the Irish ranks. ‘Brian Boru!’ they chanted as they started forward, drawn by his courage.

‘Brian Boru, Boru, Boru!’ They changed in rhythm as they broke into a run, holding the pattern he had set for them.

Swords lifted. Slings whirled in the air. Spears clashed against shields making an awful din. Mahon’s army thundered across the meadowland toward the enemy, shouting a new battle cry. A cry both terrible and glorious.

‘Boru! BORU!
BORU
!’

No longer alone, Brian was now running too, leading the Munstermen. His fear was gone. His heart was singing inside him. He felt as if he could fly, as if no weapon could ever kill him.

The two armies came together with a crash of iron and the screams from thousands of throats. On that summer morning at Sulcoit in the Year of Our Lord 968, the warriors of Munster gave Ivar’s forces the worst defeat they had ever known.

By midday the Danes and their allies had given up the battle and were running for their lives. Some sought
safety in the forest, some hid in the hedges. Others fled to Ivar’s stronghold at Limerick, twenty miles away.

Mahon intended to stop and celebrate victory, but Brian said ‘Julius Caesar won great victories for Rome because he followed a beaten enemy and destroyed them totally, so he didn’t have to fight them again a fortnight later.’

Mahon was willing to listen to Brian now. The chieftains of Munster were all willing to listen to Brian now.

They set off in pursuit of the enemy, chanting, ‘Boru!’

Brian and Mahon captured Limerick, where they found and freed hundreds of Irish children the Danes had taken as slaves. In Ivar’s storehouses they found the loot of Munster: beautifully crafted Irish jewellery and ornaments of gold and silver and bronze, bales of wool and linen, stacks of leather, tools and weapons and harnesses, cups and goblets and chalices and book boxes decorated with gold and silver and precious stones.

Looking at the wealth stolen from his people, Brian thought of his mother lying murdered in the ashes of Beal Boru. She had died so a Viking could add her trinkets to his piles of plunder.

Without asking permission of Mahon, Brian ordered the warriors to plunder and burn Limerick. Then he took the prisoners of war to a hill called Singland and there executed every man who was fit for battle, whether they were Danes or Irishmen who had fought with the Danes.

Much, much later he would admit to his brother Marcan, ‘I had my revenge, but when the killing was over and the fires of Limerick died I felt empty inside. Why is that?’

Marcan said, ‘Because revenge does not bring back the
dead, Brian. It only creates more dead.’

After their defeat, Ivar and his surviving followers managed to get to Scattery Island in the Shannon and build a fort for themselves there. In time, they began raiding again. The Munstermen fought back, following Brian’s battle plans. Even the most stubborn old chieftain admitted, ‘Brian Boru knows how to win.’

Brian did know how to win. After seven defeats, Ivar the Dane fled for a time to safety in Wales. He was no longer willing to challenge the Lion of Thomond.

For six years, Mahon ruled Munster in peace, and was given tribute and warriors by the kings of the Munster tribes. But one called Molloy of Desmond, who was an Owenacht, complained that he should be King of Munster instead of Mahon. He and his friend, Donovan of Bruree, had enjoyed profitable trade with Ivar and his Danes and blamed Mahon for their loss of wealth.

Molloy and Donovan began to plot together against Mahon. They called on him at Cashel and urged him to show Christian forgiveness to Ivar, so the Dane could return to Limerick.

‘Ivar is a changed man, and will make no more trouble,’ they claimed.

‘Don’t listen to them,’ Brian urged Mahon. ‘Molloy wants Ivar back to be his ally and help him take the kingship of Munster from you. And Ivar would surely do it to have revenge against you.’

‘You are too quick to believe the worst of others,’ said Mahon. ‘We have won peace, Brian. Accept it and enjoy it. I believe Molloy and Donovan, they have sworn loyalty to me, and I ask you to trust my judgement in this. Remember,’ he added with a frown, ‘I
am
the king.’

Brian bit his lip and did not answer.

Since he had been with Mahon at Cashel, he had developed a curious habit. Every night before he went to sleep, Brian climbed to the top of the stone wall surrounding the king’s stronghold. From there he could look across the fertile plains of Munster to the distant mountains.

He liked to think he could smell the breeze blowing off the Shannon. He pretended that the scent of flowers in the air was really the perfume from the hair of Aval on her grey crag.

Brian was lonely. At Mahon’s urging, he had brought his family to Cashel, and Mor had sickened and died there during one of his campaigns against the Vikings. She left behind her four small children, and new shadows in Brian’s eyes. Alone in the night, when no one could see, sometimes he wept for his dead wife.

And sometimes, when the wind sang to him, he thought Aval was calling him home to Beal Boru.

Brian was teaching his oldest son, Murcha, to ride a horse when word reached Cashel of a meeting of chieftains at Donovan’s stronghold near Bruree. The King of Munster was invited.

Leaving Murcha, Brian ran to the great hall. Bursting in upon Mahon he cried, ‘Don’t go!’

The king bristled. ‘Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?’

‘I am your brother who wants to keep you safe, and I tell you, you must not go to this meeting. I do not trust the people involved.’

‘I shall request a promise of safety from the Bishop of Cork himself,’ Mahon said. ‘Will that satisfy you?’

‘Nothing would satisfy me but going with you to protect you.’

‘That I won’t do, Brian. You are too hot-blooded, you
might say or do something that would cause trouble.’

‘The trouble is already there, waiting for you!’

But Mahon would not listen. ‘You may understand warfare, Brian,’ he said. ‘But I understand kingship. This is a meeting of the leaders of Munster and I must go.’

He left wearing a woollen cloak striped in the six colours of kingship, and carrying on his breast a sacred reliquary that was supposed to hold a fragment of the writings of St Finnbarr. ‘This holy object will keep me safe,’ he assured Brian.

‘Only a sword, my sword, would keep you safe,’ Brian muttered. He watched from the walls as Mahon rode away.