Pride of Lions (19 page)

Changing the subject, Donough extended an arm and pointed. "Does Ennis lie off that way?"

"There's nothing of interest in Ennis," Conor assured him.

"No important forts?"

"Not really, no. Some minor cattle lords have holdings, and there's a mill on the river, but not much else. Even the nearest crossroads fair is at Spancil Hill."

"I thought my father's old spear carrier lived near Ennis."

"Blind Padraic? He's a bit farther on, somewhere around Drumcullaun Lough."

"Will we pass his holding?"

"Not at all. It will be much easier, since we have the cart, if we swing north soon. There's a road of sorts, that way."

The landscape changed again; became a moonscape. Great slabs of gray limestone lay like paving upon the earth, with a profusion of rare and delicate flowers thrusting up between them. "The Fertile Rock," Conor pointed out.

Donough looked around appreciatively.

"None of my new holdings are in the Burren, but I might like to have a fort here myself."

At once Conor's cheerful face turned sour. "This is my land," he stressed.

Conor's wife made the party welcome when they arrived at his stronghold, and sent her women scurrying for heated water and cool wine. "I don't know how she tolerates living here," commented Gormlaith as she bathed her face and feet.

"This isn't a palace, it's a pile of rocks."

Fortunately Conor, Lord of Corcomrua, did not hear these disparaging remarks. After greeting his wife and introducing his guests he had promptly set off for Galway Bay, just north of his holding, to conduct some trade. The unforeseen influx of so many guests meant arranging for additional supplies; he would exchange promises of hides and butter for smoked cod and barrels of herring.

Despite Gormlaith's criticism,

Corcomrua was a stronghold worthy of a chieftain. A circular cashel, or

stone-built fort, its construction was dictated by its location. In the Burren stone was the most common material. Within buttressed stone walls stood several round stone houses as well as a capacious kitchen. Beyond this central ring-fort, secondary walls protected outbuildings and penned livestock. Burren limestone provided rich pasturage even in winter, and the lord of Corcomrua was known for the quality of his cattle.

When she insisted that she have "accomodation befitting my rank," Gormlaith was given sleeping space in the grianan, the women's sunny-chamber. Donough, Neassa, and the other ranking members of the party were put in the guesting house.

At night the men sat around the central hearth in Conor's house and drank mead and discussed the situation. Burren mead was delicious, a potent honey-apple wine that sang through the veins. A few goblets were enough to make a man optimistic.

"When the rest of the Dalcassians learn how Teigue has treated me, they'll take my side," Donough said.

Conor extended his goblet to his wife for a refill. "In what way? Become your army instead of his? Do you hope to gain Kincora by force?"

"I just want what is mine."

"But if you can't prove it ..."

"Teigue has the title," Fergal Mac Anluan interjected. "He's chief of the Dal Cais now, no one can displace him from Kincora."

"The King of Munster could," said a voice from the shadows.

Gormlaith had entered the room.

Women did not customarily break into the conversation of men, but Gormlaith had never been one to follow custom. She walked straight to the hearth and seated herself on a bench, then unabashedly hiked her skirts around her knees and stretched her long legs toward the fire.

Donough could not help noticing that his mother still had fine legs.

They all noticed.

After a long moment the cattle lord of Corcomrua inquired, "What did you say?"

"Something that should be perfectly obvious, even to men. As chief of the Dal Cais, Teigue cannot be forced from Kincora--except by his overlord, the King of Munster."

"But Teigue's going to be King of Munster."

Gormlaith's green eyes widened. "Is he? First he has to be elected, which can't happen until the chieftains of the tribes convene.

We're in high summer and I know you Munstermen.

Everyone is busy with their herds, or tilling the fields. There will be no convening at Cashel until the cattle are brought in after harvest." Turning toward Donough, she said, "And by then you can have enough supporters to claim the kingship for yourself."

He stared at his mother.

"Close your mouth," she smilingly advised him. "A gaping mouth is an invitation for a demon to enter."

Having planted the seed, she appeared to devote her total concentration to warming herself by the fire.

King of Munster. Claiming tribute in the form of cattle and produce from every tribal king in the south of Ireland.

The thought hung on the smoky air and they studied it; all except Gormlaith, who gazed into the flames. As she knew full well, firelight flattered her skin and burnished her faded hair.

At last Fergal remarked, "Donough would make a better king than Teigue. He has more spirit."

From under their eyebrows the assembled men darted glances at one another, each of them considering the advantages to be gained by supporting an ambitious prince on the rise. Their fathers and grandfathers had grown wealthy supporting Brian Boru.

Conor named the blight on the fruit. "It would undoubtedly cause a major split in the Dal Cais. Teigue may not be the timber kings are made of, but he's convinced his duty lies in that direction. He won't surrender kingship easily."

"He doesn't have it, not yet," Gormlaith reminded them, keeping her eyes on the fire.

"If someone else is elected, he would abide by the decision. He is ..."--her lip curled--

"... a basically docile man. Anything for a quiet life, that's Teigue."

Now they were all looking at the fire as if it contained an oracle about to tell them the future.

Before long, Gormlaith felt the atmosphere change. Enthusiasm had the men by the throat. They began talking in rapid, eager voices, making plans.

Only Donough remained silent.

But she knew how to reach inside him.

Turning toward her son, she said softly,

"Your father would be so proud of you. There are outlaws on the roads already, did you know that? Just since he died. He devoted himself to making travel safe. But now ... I myself was stopped, right here in Thomond." She neglected to explain that she had stopped of her own volition to interrogate a trader, not surrender her jewels to an outlaw.

Donough regarded his mother somberly. I wonder if I have a choice, he asked himself.

Already he could hear the other men beginning to make plans, discussing the numbers of warriors each could rally, the various pressures they could bring to bear on chieftains they knew. The noble network was considerably entangled. There was not a man in the room who was not related by marriage or fosterage, or both, to some powerful Munster clan.

By the time Gormlaith finally retired to her bed in the grianan, there to rest as smug as a cat in the sun, the next few years of Donough's life were being mapped out for him.

Still, she could not be sure of him. He had not leaped at the suggestion as she had hoped; he had sat back, listening to the others as they strove to convince him. He might need more pressure, Gormlaith decided as she pulled her wolf-fur robe up to her chin against the chill of a Burren night.

Early in the morning she intercepted Neassa as the young woman made her way to the latrine trench. In the most casual of voices, Gormlaith remarked, "This isn't much of a place, but I know a cashel much finer."

Neassa glanced at her suspiciously.

"What are you talking about?"

"The real Cashel, the ancient stronghold of the kings of Munster. You have never seen it, I suppose. But you will when your husband goes there for his inauguration."

Neassa forgot the pressure in her bladder.

"Inauguration?"

Gormlaith stifled her contempt. The fool girl could only mimic what others said, she had not a thought of her own. "As King of Munster, of course. Did you not know? Did he not mention it last night on your pillow? We are all encouraging him to make a claim; he's as entitled to be king as his fool brother."

Smiling, Gormlaith sauntered off.

Neassa ran to find Donough.

Cathal Mac Maine was upset. The four years since he succeeded the late Marcan Mac Cennedi as Abbot of Kill Dalua had been years of ecclesiastical success and personal satisfaction--until Good Friday, 1014.

After that, disaster followed disaster. First there was that fight at Kincora, brother against brother and good men dead. Then the summer turned wetter than any in living memory. Cattle stopped giving milk, geese stopped laying eggs, bees sulked in the hives. Chieftains who had made peace with one another were suddenly quarreling again.

The change of seasons did not improve matters. Autumn was early and bitter, with pellets of ice blowing down from the mountains.

Shortly before Christmas had come news of a shocking murder in the great monastic school at Clonmacnois--and now, early in the new year, this.

"Why am I being punished, Lord?" Cathal demanded of the sullen heavens.

It was too much.

"Brother Declan, enter in the annals that Domnall, son of Donohue of Desmond, is undertaking a hosting of his followers for the purpose of sacking and looting Limerick."

Declan almost dropped his quill. "Brother Abbot? I thought Domnall fought on King Brian's side at Clontarf, as did the Vikings of Limerick. Why would he attack his former allies?"

"This is a deliberate Owenacht provocation to test the new Dalcassian King of Munster."

"But surely," protested the scribe,

"Teigue Mac Brian can break the Owenacht's spear."

Cathal scowled. "That's the problem. He proposes to take no action. "Perhaps the plunder of Limerick will satisfy the Owenachts and there will be no further trouble," he says.

"Who knows what may happen next? If he gets away with this, Domnall might pillage Kill Dalua just to heighten the insult. I cannot understand why God is allowing this to happen!"

Cathal added in a rising moan.

Word of an army on the move traveled faster than the shadows of clouds racing before the wind. From smallholding to ring-fort, news was shouted that Owenacht warriors were marching across the countryside toward Limerick.

And Teigue was gathering no army to stop them.

Within the stone walls of Corcomrua, Gormlaith blazed with triumph. "I knew that wretched Teigue was inadequate! Now's your chance," she told her son. "Seize the kingship of Munster and fight Domnall yourself!"

It had been a long, hard winter for all of them. Gormlaith and Neassa were like chalk and cheese; any room with both women in it at the same time was soon icy with hostility. Donough had sent an urgent message to Sitric, his half-brother and er/while enemy, asking him to supply an escort to take Gormlaith back to Dublin. But no reply came.

At night, Donough put his arms around Neassa and allowed youthful lust to take its course, but the coupling was curiously unsatisfying. She talked too much, for one thing.

Even when he lay atop her she prattled about living in a palace, and blamed him for not having one. "If you were King of Munster ...," her monologues invariably began.

Donough closed his ears.

He knew what was happening. His mother was trying to manipulate him, using his poor silly wife as one of her tools. Rebelling, he put all thought of the kingship from his mind and refused to talk about it with the other men.

On the day he learned Teigue had been inaugurated King of Munster at Cashel, Donough had thought of mounting his horse and riding off alone in search of Drumcullaun Lough. But fear held him back. He could not say what he was afraid of; perhaps that he would not find the girl in the red skirt after all.

And if he did, what then?

Time dragged by and the stone walls of Corcomrua seemed to close in. They were getting on one another's nerves; every day brought a quarrel or a fistfight. Finally Donough offered to take his party and leave; go anywhere, just get out from underfoot. But Conor would not hear of it. "Surely I can offer hospitality to my friends," he insisted, mentally adding up the favors he would one day be owed.

"Once spring returns, you can think of finding a home of your own."

Spring seemed a long time away.

Then the Owenachts set out to plunder Limerick, and once more Gormlaith urged Donough to seize the kingship. For one moment wild excitement thundered through him. She was old, but there was still a power in her when she was excited. She infected him with her dream, so he saw himself wearing the gold circlet on his brow ...

Reality set in. "Even if I was willing to challenge my brother I don't have enough men," he told his mother bluntly.

"But Conor and Fergal and these others ..."

"Not enough."

"The Dalcassians would stand with you. You led them before."

He shook his head. "They follow Teigue now. As they should," he added, fighting back his bitterness. They had been, so briefly, his--but he remembered how it felt to have an army at his back.

Gormlaith had started him thinking, however. That night by the fire he remarked to Conor, "This is not just about looting Limerick. Unless I am very much mistaken, this is the Owenachts wanting to reclaim the kingship of Munster. Before my father, Owenacht and Dalcassian held the kingship alternately, you know. I suspect they want to see if Teigue is strong enough to retain it now.

If they decide he is not, an Owenacht prince

--probably Cian--will try to overthrow him."

"Do you care?"

Donough considered the question. He was still angry at Teigue, yet ...

When he told Fergal what he intended to do, his cousin was taken aback. "You're returning to Kincora? After your brother threw you out? Why, in the name of the Sweet Virgin ..."

"He's my brother," said Donough.

*