Calgaich the Swordsman (14 page)

There were also a number of Celts seated at the table, but none of them were familiar to Calgaich. Probably they were broken men, and not of the Novantae, but rather tribeless warriors or those outlawed from their own tribes. At the far end of the table, in semidarkness, sat two men wrapped in rusty-colored cloaks. Their hair was cut short and their faces were cleanshaven in contrast to the other guests who were long haired and mustachioed. There was something about those two men that sent a chill of warning through Calgaich.

Two gillies staggered past Calgaich carrying a huge wooden trencher upon which rested the roasted carcass of a boar. The beast's ugly, grinning visage still sported its long curved tusks. They placed the trencher in front of Bruidge.

Bruidge leaned forward a little and peered through the steam and smoke which arose from the boar carcass. “My brother's son is either the bravest man in Albu or the biggest fool to come here," he rumbled. “You boldly enter my hall with a blood price on your head. Any man here can kill you, Calgaich, and will not be held to pay the
galanas”

Time had not dealt kindly with Bruidge. Too much strong drink had ravaged his face. His eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets and there was a glassy look in them. His hair and long mustache were striped with gray like a badger's pelt. His once strong features had lost the sharp, alert look of the warrior and hunter.

“Welcome to your old home, then, Calgaich mac Lellan," Bruidge said heartily, his tone changing. He raised his big silver-mounted drinking horn. “I but jested. Come! All of you. Do honor here to the son of my brother. Bring drink for my foster son and nephew."

A gillie came swiftly from the shadows and filled a drinking horn from a huge bronze-bound heather-beer vat. He handed it to Calgaich and left as swiftly as he had appeared, with a rearward glance of mingled awe and fear.

“Sit and drink, Calgaich!" Bruidge roared. “Do not fear that the good heather beer is poisoned, nephew. Poisoning is a dirty Roman trick we barbarians have not yet accepted as a means of warfare." He glanced toward the two cloaked men at the end of the table.

And treachery is an ancient Celtic trick, thought Calgaich. Even so, it was hardly likely Bruidge would attempt to poison his own nephew in front of strangers.

“What has brought you home to Eriu?” Bruidge asked as he lowered his drinking horn and wiped his dripping mustache both ways.

“You know why I have thrust my head into this
dun,
Uncle,” Calgaich replied curtly. “My father is in the hands of the Romans—if he is still alive.”

Bruidge’s yellowed eyes flicked again toward the two men seated at the end of the table, then he looked back at Calgaich. “My brother is still alive, Calgaich, although his sight is almost gone.”

“And his health, my uncle? How is that?”

“He was not in good health when he left here.”

“It is better for a man to die in his own country among his own people than in the hands of the Romans.”

“The Romans do not think so.”

“Is he a hostage then?”

“The Romans are skilled in medicine. They know much about the eye sickness our people suffer from. Some say it is caused by marsh gases. I myself think . . .” His voice died away as he saw the look on Calgaich's face.

“It is also said that my betrothed, Morar, and her sister, Bronwyn, are in the hands of the Romans at Luguvalium,” Calgaich continued.

His uncle shifted uneasily in his seat and studied his huge, veined hands.

“Is the answer in the palms of your hands, my Uncle?” Calgaich demanded.

Bruidge raised his head. “You always did have the bite of a sword’s edge in your voice, Nephew. But I will not have it so in my hall.”

“In my
father's
hall, Uncle,” Calgaich corrected.

Bruidge smiled faintly. “Times have changed since you fled from Albu, murderer. The blood of my only son still seems to be on your hands, or is that an illusion?” Calgaich held up his hands. “Wolves tried to stop me from coming here to this den of human wolves.”

“You left here. There was no one here who could stand behind your father to lead the Novantae, and to take his place when he was too old and weak to maintain his position. He could no longer lead the war spears.”

"If that's so, then he would be of little value to the Romans as a hostage,” Calgaich said pointedly.

Bruidge flushed. He drank deeply. He was being bearded in his own den by this upstart of a nephew.

“The food grows cold,” a Pict complained.

Bruidge nodded, then he looked at Calgaich. “You know that our hospitality is such that we ask nothing of a man's purpose in being here until he has eaten and drunk his fill. Will you accept that ancient rule, Calgaich?”

Calgaich nodded. He strode to the table and walked behind it, passing behind the cold-eyed Picts and Celts who sat at that end of the table. He kicked back a chair at the left side of his uncle' and then drew his dirk, which was still faintly filmed with wolf blood. He leaned across to the wooden trencher and began to hack away at the right thigh of the roasted boar.

An uneasy hush fell over the hall.

“That is the portion of the best man present,” one of the Picts coldly reminded Calgaich.

Calgaich looked steadily at him. “Well?” he asked icily.

The Pict half rose from his chair and placed his hand on the hilt of his dirk. “Braggart,” he sneered.

Calgaich raised his head a little. “In Eriu the champion's portion is the
whole
boar.”

“You are not in Eriu now!” one of the Celts shouted angrily.

“Do you challenge me?” Calgaich demanded.

Bruidge slapped his huge hand on the table. “Enough!” he roared. “Eat and drink! Take whatever portion each of you want, and be damned to you!”

Even Calgaich was momentarily taken aback by the sound of his uncle's stentorian voice. Memories of his fosterage came back to him. Bruidge was not to be trifled with when his ire was up. Maybe it had been the
usquebaugh
Calgaich had drunk with Guidd that had made him speak so foolishly amidst these strong, fierce and prideful men, whose honor, such as it was, was easily touched.

There was little speech as they ate, but all eyes were surreptitiously studying Calgaich. They knew of this wild
fian
by hearsay, and knew he was not to be trifled with, at least in fair combat.

At last Bruidge shoved back his food with his greasy hands, belched and loosened his belt from across his bulging belly. He looked sideways at Calgaich.

Calgaich pushed back the remnants of the boar's haunch. He emptied his drinking horn and had it refilled. "What do these Romans do here in the hall of my grandfather?" he asked Bruidge.

The crop-haired men at the far end of the table looked up from their food. One of them slowly placed his knife on the table and bent his head a little to look at Calgaich from under lowered brows.

"They talk of trade and perhaps an alliance," Bruidge replied bluntly.

Calgaich narrowed his eyes. "Trade? An alliance? Their trading is only a means to worm their way into our country. An alliance can only be dominated by them. They accept no one on an equal basis. You must be joking, Uncle!"

Bruidge leaned back in his chair. "Why not?" he asked thoughtfully. "We Novantae gain nothing by battering our heads against the Great Wall and the shields of the Roman legions. The Romans themselves lose too many men by raiding into our country." He could not help grinning at the thought. "In peace, however, there can be mutual benefit."

Benefit only for Bruidge of the Bottle, Calgaich thought.

Bruidge stared into the leaping flames of one of the fireplaces. "There will come a time," Bruidge continued, "perhaps not during my lifetime, when Caledonia will be one people—-the Old People, Novantae, Selgovae, Votadini, Damnonii, Picts, perhaps the Saxon newcomers, and aye, even the Romans. The blood of these strong people will be mixed into one great people. The Caledonians!"

"I no longer hear Bruidge of the Battle-Axe," Calgaich sneered. The mixture of heather beer and
usquebaugh
was making him bold, and perhaps a little careless. "When the
cran tara,
the call to rally for battle against the enemy, went through the hills of Albu to unite the tribesmen in battle against the Red Crests, it was always Bruidge, with singing battle-axe, who fought next to my father. Bruidge of the Battle-Axe! Rather say Bruidge of the Bottle! Where has your fighting spirit gone, my Uncle?"

There was a deathly silence in the hall broken only by the crackling of the flaming logs. Several times the drink-reddened eyes of Bruidge tried to meet the eyes of Calgaich in defiance, but failed. His hands, at one time more used to the worn shaft of his famed battle-axe, opened and closed about his drinking horn.

One of the Picts stood up and rested his knuckles on the table top as he leaned toward Calgaich. “You talk like a fighting man and a champion at the table of your uncle,” he insinuated. “In my country you would be stripped naked and flogged to the door, to be driven bleeding into the hills, food for the wolves, for such talk at the table of a chieftain.”

Calgaich looked casually at the Pict. “Who talks?” he asked coldly, standing up.

“Maelchon, the Pict,” the tattooed man replied.

Calgaich smiled a little. “But you are
not
in your country now, Maelchon, the Pict. Aye, this is the table of a chieftain, but not that of the man who now sits at the head of it. He is a man who has sold his own brother to the Romans so that he himself might sit there. Look you, Pict! In my grandfather’s and father’s time, your tattooed face would be grinning sightlessly atop a spearshaft set on the battlements. My uncle fouls his own nest by having such filth as you in this hall!”

Maelchon dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword and partially drew his weapon.

Bruidge smashed a massive fist down hard on the table. Plates and drinking horns near him rose into the air and clattered down again. “Silence!” he roared. “Cenwulf! Ottar! Finn! Lulach! Finglas! Cathal! Stay between these two fighting cocks! I’ll have none of the red work in my hall this night.”

Two Saxons moved quickly in behind the angry Pict. Maelchon slammed his sword back into its sheath and dropped back into his chair. He reached for his drinking horn, but his angry eyes never left the flushed face of the man who had bridled him. He would remember Calgaich mac Lellan. There would come a time when the insult would be paid off by the point of his sword or dirk.

Bruidge leaned toward his nephew. “Look you, Calgaich,” he emphasized in a hard, low voice. “This is now
my
hall. It matters little what you say.
I
lead the war spears of the Novantae now. These men seated at my table are my friends and sword brothers. You are alone here. Were it not for the great love I bear your father, I could have had you killed this very night when you arrived at the stinking hut of that swine, Guidd One-Eye. I wanted to see you, Calgaich, to patch up any differences between us. But you came here to beard me in my own hall.

"Now, sit down, and listen well to me, for I won’t repeat myself. There was no
galanas
paid by your father to allow you to return here. Therefore the blood price is still on your head,
outlaw.
But murder and hospitality must not lodge together under a chieftain’s roof. Now, I give you peace and a guarantee of safety as long as you remain here. You must do the same for me, Nephew.”

The old, hard, biting edge had come back to the voice of Bruidge of the Battle-Axe, as Calgaich well remembered it. Bruidge meant what he said. There would be no gain in Calgaich striving against the swift torrent of his uncle’s wrath. How had Bruidge known that Calgaich had been in Guidd’s dwelling that night? Was it possible that Guidd had somehow betrayed Calgaich?
Bruidge of the Battle-Axe has his spies everywhere,
Guidd had warned Calgaich. Perhaps Bruidge’s men had already taken the woodsman and Cairenn into captivity, or perhaps he had slain them. Maybe Bruidge was merely playing the drunkard with Calgaich before giving the killing signal to his mercenary wolves.

Calgaich smiled winningly. "I apologize, Uncle. It was the drink speaking. I had no right to beard you at your own table. I am alone in this country. It was not an easy thing to do to return here with a price on my head, half expecting a spear blade in my back rather than the good beer and meat you’ve served me here.”

Bruidge waggled his big head up and down, looking blearily at Calgaich, his words once again slurred. “By the gods, my boy,” he reasoned plaintively, with the self-pity of the drunken, “why should I want to kill you? My son Fergus is long gone. More bloodshed would not bring him back. That blood debt was paid more than a year ago.” His voice trailed off as he realized the slip of the tongue he had made.

Calgaich stared at Bruidge. The liquor haze began to clear from Calgaich’s mind. "The blood debt was paid more than a year ago,” he repeated his uncle’s words.
"What is that you say?”

Bruidge hiccupped. "I meant I had forgotten that the debt was not paid,” he lied.

"You lie in your teeth!” Calgaich snarled. He stood up and shoved back his seat.

"Take care, Nephew! I will not forgive you again!”

"Who paid the blood debt?” Calgaich demanded. "Who paid the
galanas,
my Uncle?”

Maelchon, the Pict, leaped to his feet. He brushed back the two startled Saxons and rounded the table toward Calgaich. "I warned you once,” he growled.

Calgaich whirled. "So you did, Pict! Well, one of you tattooed swine is the same as another! A reiving vessel of Picts tried to ambush me off the coast and I met them alone on their own deck and slew half a dozen of them!”

"You lie!” the Pict yelled.

Calgaich grinned wolfishly. "And I met more of your tattooed brethren on land, the war band of Aengus of the Broad Spear. I fought their champion, Girich the Good Striker. He died under my sword.”

Maelchon stopped short. "Man for man we Picts can drive you Novantae from your own dunghills where you crow like fighting men!”

Calgaich shrugged. "So? I give honor to Girich, one of your own people who did not drive Calgaich mac Lellan from his own dunghill.”