Lion of Ireland (3 page)

Fiacaid’s skill was not limited to the extent of his knowledge or the richness of his voice; he also knew when to stop. “The rest of the history of the Tuatha de Danann must wait for another time,” he announced firmly. “My eyes are burning with want of sleep; I will go to my bed now and refresh myself.”

“No! Please . . . just a little more!”

Fiacaid shook his head. “Not tonight. But soon I shall tell you of Nuada and the Silver Hand, of Second Moytura, of the destruction of the monster Balor of the Baleful Eye, and”—his voice trailed away, leaving an aching emptiness in the room—“and many other things,” he finished brightly. “But that will be another day. I bid you all God’s peace this night.”

He wrapped his bratt around him with a dramatic flourish and left the table. The others reluctantly shook off his spell and busied themselves with their own pursuits. Only Brian sat, quiet and dazzled, still seeing wonders.

Cennedi also lingered on his stool at the head of the table, enjoying the moment and watching his family.

Bebinn looked up and saw him there, an inward smile just touching his lips; she poured fresh goblets of the Danish brew they both liked and carried them to the table, slipping into place beside him as easily as a foot in a well-worn sandal.

He did not turn to look at her, merely reached out and put his broad hand on the abundant roundness of her thigh. The flesh was not as firm now as it had been in the days when she ran in the hills with him like a wild thing, but it was infinitely more dear, its growing flaccidity a reminder that life was short and each hour must be savored while it lasted.

They sat in companionable silence. Bebinn gazed at the room that seemed composed of atoms of her own being: the walls glazed with the patina of thousands of smoky fires, the strong amber posts that supported the thatched roof and were hung with pots and baskets and household articles. She looked at the big central hearth and watched Brian drag his little stool closer to it, that he might sit and stare into the flames as she liked to do at the close of the day. A connecting doorway led from the main room to an additional apartment which Cennedi had been forced to add as his family grew, there were the beds and chests for clothes, and the partitioned corner that was the separate chamber of the chief and his lady. Cennedi’s warm hand on her thigh prompted Bebinn to think of that private corner.

She saw her sons moving about the house, their ruddy flesh glowing against the soft linen of their knee-length tunics. Fine boys, handsome men; soon they would begin marrying and there would be more babies to carry and dandle and fret over. Bebinn’s shoulders slumped. She had dandled a great number of babies already; she hoped for a little rest before the onslaught of the next generation.

His attention drawn by her slight movement, Cennedi squeezed her thigh. “Tired?”

“A little. Thinking about the future makes me tired.”

“The future? Why, the future is full of good things, woman!” Looking at his sons, Cennedi saw beyond hearth and home; he saw his immortality. Twelve equal heirs to his cattle and land, twelve branches of a tree that would carry his blood into the distant future. And more than that. It had become his secret dream to see one of them, his favorite, carry the Dal Cais to glory by becoming the king not only of the tribe, but of all Munster.

“What an honor that would be for the line of Lorcan!” he absentmindedly mused aloud.

“What say?” Bebinn, her thoughts elsewhere, gave him a curious glance.

“I might as well tell you. I have had it in my mind of late that the tribe of the Owenachts is worn past its strength. The Owenacht Callachan is king of all Munster now, but he is tired and weakened from his battles against the Northmen and his imprisonment by Muirchertach mac Neill. He’s begun to make deals with the Northmen instead of making war against them, and it’s time for a stronger tribe to lay claim to Cashel and the kingship of Munster. Callachan no longer bothers to defend north Munster from the Norse and the Leinstermen; Thomond will be ravaged by the kings of other Irish tribes as well as by the foreigners unless we establish ourselves in a position of strength.”

“You are thinking to lay a Dal Cais claim to the kingship of all Munster?” Bebinn asked in horror. “That would bring us nothing but trouble and bloodshed, my dear! We have our cattle, our healthy sons, and the land is sufficient for our needs; why should we risk all that by disputing with the Owenachts for the kingship?”

“You have no understanding of such things!” Cennedi roared, his quick temper flaring like a dry twig on the hearth. “The kingship of Munster has been passed from tribe to tribe down through the centuries, always claimed and held by the strongest. Some day Callachan will die, and the people will repudiate the alliances he has made with the foreigners; they will want a king who abides by the old ways and has no traffic with the Northmen. They will flock to the Dalcassian standard, they will accept the supremacy of our tribe, and we will have great leaders to offer them, such as our splendid Mahon, there. Ah, there would be a worthy claimant to Cashel, an honor to my own famed sire, King Lorcan!”

“Have you told Mahon of this idea of yours?”

Cennedi shook his head. “Not now; everything in its own time. He only knows that he is my choice to succeed me as chieftain of the tribe; I will not tell him the rest, yet, and have his brothers at his throat.

That Lachtna is a jealous fellow, and besides, I have not yet gotten the approval of the tribal elders for my plans.”

Bebinn said nothing. Inside her clothes, she moved a tiny space away from her husband. It was wrong to doubt his wisdom, but of all her sons, Bebinn saw herself most in Mahon. He was strong and an excellent warrior, but she knew him to have a gentle heart, a love of comfort and harmony. Was such a man meant to be sacrificed in a dynastic struggle?

Mahon was sitting by the fire, carving new straps for his sandals from a piece of leather. He worked slowly and carefully; Lachtna would have been singing a tune over such a task, Niall would have been intent on creating a new and better version of footgear, but Mahon was patiently duplicating the old straps, his mind absorbed in the process and undistracted by imagination.

Brian edged closer to watch. To him, everything Mahon “ did was wonderful, and his eyes grew round as he saw the leather curve upward from his brother’s staghandle hipknife. “Show me how to do that, Mahon!” The young man smiled the easy, brilliant smile that endeared him to all, but did not relinquish his knife to eager little fingers. “When you’re older, Brian. Someday soon.”

“Someday” had no meaning for Brian. There were too few days in his memory to stretch it; he could not conceive of a distant future when he would be granted the rights so casually given to his brothers. Too bored to sit and not tired enough to sleep, he wandered away, searching for something.

Cennedi had gone out, Bebinn and her serving woman were scrubbing the dishes with wood ash and rinsing them in a pot. Some of the older boys had gone to visit other families—families with daughters.

Conn and Muiredach were fighting, Marcan had gone to bed to say his prayers, and Anluan had curled up under the table with his father’s hounds and gone to sleep.

Brian took his dry bratt from its peg and wrapped himself! in it, for the adjoining chamber was cold. But it contained most of the beds, including Fiacaid’s.

The seanchai had already left the everyday world to go bad in dreams to the golden age he preferred.

When Brian tugged at his blanket he was annoyed. “What do you want, boyo?’ he snapped, knuckling the sagging flesh beneath his eyes. “I it a fire? Have the Northmen attacked? Has the Day of Judgment been announced? If not, God help you for disturbing at old man!”

Slightly abashed, Brian took a half step backward and stared at the dark shape of the seanchai, as Fiacaid hoisted himself to a sitting position with much wheezing and groaning.

“I just wanted to hear the rest of the story, the one about Nuada,” the child said softly.

“What? What!” roared the seanchai, fully awake now.

“The story! It was so exciting, I wanted to hear the rest of it and find out what happened to King Nuada.”

“Sweet Jesus Christ! You woke me up in the middle of the night for that?”

“It’s not the middle of the night,” Brian argued, feeling more sure of himself now that he had a defensible point. “Everyone else is still awake and busy. But nothing is happening that’s as interesting as your story.”

The old man could not overlook the child’s deliberate flattery, nor-could he resist the effect it had upon him. A young mind such as this, eager for the histories, as excited as he had been when he first heard them! Perhaps this would be the gifted one, to be apprenticed to him and someday replace him as the seanchai of the Dal Cais. If that were the case, he must be very careful to train the boy in discipline and respect from the beginning. With an effort, he set aside the temptation to weave a web of magic in the darkness for Brian alone, and adopted a stern, instructional voice “Our merciful Father, in His wisdom, made you last and least of your family so that you might learn humility, Brian. It is His special gift to you. Please do not abuse it by making demands out of keeping with your station.”

“I didn’t ask to be last and least!” Brian objected.

“In this life, we do not always get what we ask for.” Fiacaid repeated the time worn truism by rote.

“Why not?”

The seanchai’s mind went blank. Over the, decades he had grown accustomed to respect, even to veneration. In his experience, small children did not ask a seanchai impertinent questions, and he found himself with an uncustomary lack of words.

“ Why can’t we get what we ask for?” Brian repeated, standing solidly planted with his hands doubled into aggressive little fists on his hips. Everything about him demanded the explanation Fiacaid could not give. The old man fell back on his talent, building words into structures whose weight alone was meant to impress, even if the meaning was obscure.

”Our rewards and punishments are not up to us, young man, but are determined by powers beyond mortal control. We must accept that. The fawn does not tell the stag where to graze, nor does the cub dictate policy to the wolf pack.”

Brian considered that, then returned to the attack. “But telling the story is up to you, isn’t it? You could do it right now if you wanted to. So why not?”

Fiacaid was weary. Blood and bone, he ached for sleep. It no longer seemed worth the effort the duel with the child. “I will not tell you because I am too tired,” he said with a sigh, fearing that the plain words would be inadequate to quiet the boy.

“Oh! All right, then, I’ll wait,” Brian replied equably, and with no further argument he trotted from the chamber, leaving the surprised seanchai to seek a sleep grown strangely elusive.

As Brian returned to the main room, it exploded in argument over the spring breeding of the virgin heifers.

Every male in the house seemed to have an opinion he was willing to defend to the death, and the yelling was lusty and joyous. Only Mahon took no part. He had no real enthusiasm for the disputes that were a favorite family pastime; he listened without comment, idly toying with Cennedi’s old harp.

Brian, who knew no one wanted his opinion anyway, curled up close to the hearth and stared at the flames. For him alone, the glorious army of the Tuatha de Danann marched in tongues of fire across the glowing coals. Invincible!

Dreams know no geographical limitations. The visions in the mind of one person can cross space and time to appear in the mind of another, colored by his own experience and emotion. As Brian gazed into the fire in his father’s home at Boruma, dreaming of ancient glories, so did Eyrick the Bold stare at the flame on King Ivar’s hearth in the Norse city of Limerick.

A buxom girl clad in red samite sat with her cheek pressed against his knee. His fingers were toying with the thick rope of her hair, but his mind had gone a-voyaging. Shapes were taking form in the fire as he watched, reminding him of past battles and raids when the blood sang with success. An ache grew in him, a hunger he had almost put from his mind until he saw the vision in the blazing logs.

He pushed himself to his feet and shoved the girl away. He looked around the vast timbered hall, feeling a deep sense of pleasure at the gleam of gold winking at him from every corner. A hundred fortunes in booty, all won with sword and ax. The wealth of a dozen monasteries, wrested in joy from the puling monks who lacked the courage to kill for their god’s treasures. Silver and jewels and silks, pearls and ivory and the fancy chests the Christians called reliquaries, so highly prized as jewel boxes by the Norsewomen back in the homeland. Plunder was piled against the walls and on the benches in fabulous disarray, opulent testimony to the strength of the Northmen’s grasp.

But it had been a long time since the last raid—a very long time. As he stood, he felt the stiffness and slackness in his muscles, and when he ran his hand down his belly he was aware of the little roll of fat gathering there. A man could go soft if he did not keep his fighting skills honed. A warrior could be idle for only a little while, then he must once more prove himself to be a man, or lose the respect of great Odin forever.

He shoved the girl again, this time with his foot, to show his contempt for all things gentle and womanly.

“I am Eyrik Gunnarsson!” he cried aloud to the crowded room “And I have had enough of this wenching and sprawling about! Is there one strong man here who would go viking with me this night?”

Indeed, the room was filled with strong men, many of them Eyrik’s comrades from past skirmishes. They gathered each night in the king’s hall, enjoying the choice women and the best food, singing the old songs, and drinking prodigious quantities of ale and mead. But the Norse stronghold on the Shannon had been established for many years; there were some men in that room who had never gone raiding, never had their manhood proved in that fierce ecstasy of fire and blood.

Eyrik looked around with contempt. “You are all soft.” he snorted. “You will sit here forever, getting fat and lazy, and when you die no Valkyrie will come for your spirit. I am sick of the lot of you. How long has it been since you set foot on a warship, Svein? How long since you gave your ax throat-wine to drink, Torfinn? Not since the battle with the,Irish king, I wager! Did Callachan frighten you so that you plan to hide here always, licking your wounds?