Authors: Morgan Llywelyn
Finn Mac Cool (5 page)
This time the man's scream was totally inhuman.
The night was ruined for sleeping. As they waited for dawn, they sat and told and retold versions of Finn's battle; Cael's descriptions were the most effusive. Scraps of meat were flung to the hounds, and dry brush was found to feed the fire with.
By the time an angry red flush appeared in the east, the fénnidi had begun singing triumphant marching songs and teaching the words to Red Ridge.
Finn and Goll sat a little apart from the others. “Not a bad beginning for you,” Goll was saying. “A bit nasty, a bit crude, that part with the dog. There's no style in a killing like that, no art. But I'd say you've made an impression.”
“If you were in charge, would you track down the rest of the clan?”
“Why? To batter them into submission unnecessarily? Let me tell you something, Finn. The best commanding officer isn't the one who breaks the most battles on his enemies. He's the one who wins the most victories with the least effort.
“You won such a victory tonight. The leader of the outlaws is dead, and Ceth will tell a tale that grows in the telling until his people think the entire FÃanna was on Black Head tonight. They'll be considerably discouraged from their predations for some time to come. You can report to Huamor that his troubles with them are over, at least for this season.”
“And you'll report to the king of Tara.”
“I'll report to Feircus Black-Tooth,” Goll agreed. “Favourably, if you're wondering.”
Finn's eyes sparkled with gratitude, though he said nothing. For a while they listened together to the singing. Then Finn said in a low voice, “I'm sorry about Luachra.”
Goll shrugged one shoulder. “He probably deserved it. That sounds like him, killing a widow's only son and leaving her to cut her own wood and fetch her own water. Even if he was my brother, I have to say it. Luachra loved killing for its own sake.”
“And you don't?”
Goll evaded by asking, “Did you enjoy killing Luachra the Large?”
With a burst of candour, Finn replied, “I didn't mean to kill him. It was an accident.”
“Are you serious? What about the widow and her son?”
“Och, that was true enough. She cried on me for vengeance and I promised it to her to comfort her. But as I rambled on my way, I forgot about her. Then one night as I lay on the ground asleep, a twig snapped near my head. I thought it was an outlaw hoping to rob me. I grabbed my spear and lunged upward. By a lucky chance, I took Luachra in a vital spot and he was dead before I was fully awake.”
“Then how did you know he was Luachra?”
“I didn't, not then. I only knew he answered the widow's description of her son's killer. But when I finally found my uncle Crimall and told him the storyâand showed him the bag I'd taken from the man's body” Finn remembered to add, “he identified the dead man as Luachra and the bag as having belonged to my father. He told me its history.”
In a husky whisper, Goll said, “If you took that bag off a dead man, you'd done no more than Luachra did to Cuhal. But I don't think my brother was trying to rob you the night you killed him. He was probably just trying to get close enough to you to identify you.
“The members of Clan Morna had been watching for you for a long time, Finn. For years we'd heard rumours of a lad who looked like the very reflection of Cuhal Mac Trenmor in a still pond.
“Luachra probably caught sight of that freakish silver hair of yours and followed you, hoping to get a good look at your face to be sure. Cuhal had the same hair, you know. No other man in Erin possessed such a mane. But it was Luachra's misfortune to be clumsy as well as large. If he hadn't snapped that twig, you'd be ⦔
“I'd be what?”
“Dead,” Goll replied succinctly. “We assumed you had sworn to avenge your father's death. Killing you before you could kill us would have been a matter of self-preservation.”
“But when you finally did meet me, you didn't kill me.”
In spite of himself, Goll chuckled. “I did not. Imagine my surprise when an overgrown lad dressed in untanned skins came swaggering into Tara one day, crying âI am Fionn son of Cuhal!'”
“Was I too presumptuous?” Finn asked innocently.
“Presumptuous!” Goll laughed again. “You should have been killed on the spot. My hand was on my sword hilt to do the deed, but then I had a rush of common sense and waited to see how Feircus would react to you.
“Feircus Black-Tooth was very new to the kingship, having just overthrown and killed the Son of the Wolf. My star had fallen with the old king. I was lucky to still be alive and I knew it. I was trying very hard to stay that way by not getting crosswise of Feircus.
“He was impressed with your audacity, anyone could see that. You amused him. You were bold and different and had the smell of the wild on you and he liked wild things. I had no choice but to let you live.”
“A good chance missed,” Finn remarked. “If you'd killed me that day at Tara, you wouldn't be second in command to me now.”
“Second.” Goll spat the word. All warmth was gone from his voice. “I'll never be second to you. Just because I didn't kill you then, don't assume I never will.”
Perversely, the surfacing enmity enabled Finn to relax. “I'm glad to know where we stand, Goll. Make no assumptions about me either.” He bared his teeth very slightly, signaling intent. “None.”
He would kill me! Goll thought. All that talk about never seeking to avenge his father, that was just talk. Lies. He's playing a game with me, trying to lure me into a trap. When I least expect it, he means to kill me. I know it. I know it!
But I can't prove it. What can I â¦
Just then Finn's expression changed and he gave Goll a smile of such radiant affability that the older man doubted his own intuition.
At sunrise Iruis paced solemnly across his mountain, waiting for some ancient instinct to tell him,
This is the place. Build here.
He went by himself, though the others watched from a respectful distance.
This is the place. Build here.
He went by himself, though the others watched from a respectful distance.
“Imagine building your own fort!” Lugaid sighed wistfully. “Your own stones, your own place ⦔
At last Iruis found his site, and he and Red Ridge marked out its perimeter with piles of rocks.
Iruis bubbled with plans. “The walls will be higher than two spear shafts,” he enthused, “and from the top you'll be able to see the western isles. Finn, you'll come back here as my guest and I'll serve you such a feast, you'll have to let out your belt.”
“Never,” Finn laughed. “I'll come, but I won't let out my belt. Once
a man does that, it means he's lost the run of himself and he loses status in the FÃanna, Goll over there has had to let out his belt just since I've known him.”
a man does that, it means he's lost the run of himself and he loses status in the FÃanna, Goll over there has had to let out his belt just since I've known him.”
Goll, watching, said nothing.
Iruis went over to him, eager to share his own good mood. “That Finn Mac Cool has the makings of a good officer,” he said. “He had courage in the dark before dawn, when most men lose theirs. And that story about his origins is very colourful. It's the sort of tale men like to tell about their leaders. Is any of it true, Goll?”
In a carefully neutral tone, Goll replied, “I would say at least some of it is true.”
“You've known Finn for some time, I take it?”
“Know Finn? I don't know him at all. I've merely been exposed to him.”
They marched the captive Ceth down the mountain and turned him loose, hurrying him on his way with threats and a growl from Bran. Iruis then guided them toward his father's stronghold. “It's not easy to find,” he said. “Huamor prefers to avoid visitors who need to be fed.”
Along their way, Finn paused once to soak his hurt hand in the waters of an ancient well snuggled into a brambled hillside. Finn overheard Iruis saying that the well was famed for its healing powers, sacred to the Tuatha Dé Danann.
He dropped back a few paces to let the others go on. Then he slipped through an opening in the well-kerb and made his careful way down moss-slick stone steps until he could thrust his hand into the water. The shock of icy cold made his whole arm tingle.
The wound he had received the night before was a deep, ugly gash running from the base to the ball of his thumb. It was sore and inflamed. He had not mentioned it to anyone, however. Compared to Goll's many wounds, a lacerated thumb would have seemed ludicrous.
The damage had been done by a bronze reaping hook that had slashed to the bone. Finn's other assailant had been armed with a fishing trident. Only the man Bran killed had had a sword, and daylight had revealed it to be pitted with rust, the edge nicked, the point broken. Weapons of desperation.
When the cold water had numbed his hand, Finn ran to catch up with the others.
The day was dull and dark. From time to time, sheets of grey rain swept across the Burren. “When we get to my father's fort, you can dry your clothes and fill your bellies,” Iruis promised. “Huamor's not the most generous man in Erin, but he'll see you right.”
“We can't stay,” Finn said. “It's almost Samhain. That means the Samhain assembly at Tara, then we're off to winter quarters.”
“You could spend the winter here with us.”
Finn shook his head. “Some other time perhaps. After we report to the king of Tara, I go straight to Slieve Bloom.”
The smell of Huamor's fires reached them long before they reached his stronghold: rich, thick smoke from flames fed by dead bracken and gorse; billowing sweet smoke that cushioned the sharp air and made a man's guts ache with nostalgia for hearth and home.
Finn's companions began to walk faster.
Rounding a shoulder of hillside, they saw the ring fort ahead of them. A water-filled ditch that reflected the leaden sky ringed a high, circular bank of earthwork and rubble, faced with limestone. Rain spattering into the ditch shattered the reflections, drumming like fingers on a war drum. Set in the earthwork wall was a gateway, two timber doors half open, hanging on iron hinges. Through the gate, flashes of colour were visible as men and women inside the wall went about their chores.
Women.
Finn's companions gathered speed.
“Let me go first,” Iruis cautioned. Cupping his mouth with his hands, he shouted, “I am Iruis returned, and I bring the FÃanna with me!”
A kilted man with a spear in one hand peered down from the top of the wall, yelled a greeting, and disappeared. A moment later he was at the gate. “Come in, come in!”
He escorted them to a round stone building in the centre of the enclosure, an impressive house with a conical roof of thatch. A grizzled, jowly man stood waiting in the doorway. He embraced Iruis, but over his son's shoulder, Huamor said to Goll Mac Morna, “Thank you for bringing my son home.”
Goll's good eye blinked. “Thank our rÃgfénnid,” he said, indicating Finn. “In single combat he destroyed three men who'd climbed Black Head to take your son hostage.”
“The maggots! I hope you fed them to the ravens. Come in out of the weather and tell me about it. You ⦠what's your name?”
“Finn Mac Cool.”
“You'll sit in the place of honour, Finn Mac Cool.”
Inside the lodge there was brief confusion as the fénnidi arranged themselves on the flagstones around the central firepit. Huamor barked a constant stream of orders to various women who moved in and out of the building. He did not, Goll observed sourly, bother to introduce any of these women to the fénnidi.
“Bring cups!” Huamor demanded. “Here to me now!”
“And food,” Iruis suggested.
Finn quickly protested, “We eat only once a day, and that after sundown. We travel faster on empty bellies.”
“Nonsense. You saved me, my father will feed you.” Iruis looked hopefully toward Huamor, who at last snapped his fingers and issued an order for hot food.
He did not, however, order water for washingâa serious breach of hospitality. Finn had to suggest it. “My men and I need to cleanse ourselves and supple our muscles before we eat.”
Huamor raised his eyebrows. “You do? Och, of course you do. Good idea, that. Watch them and see what they do, Iruis. You might learn something from these lads. Young as they are, I'd say they're men, every one of them.”
The interior of the lodge was blackened by smoke, hut an attempt had been made to brighten it by hanging rugs of dyed wool on the walls. Beyond the hearth, piles of seal and otter skins waited to provide luxurious bedding. Honey mead and barley ale gurgled from stone jugs into elaborately chased cups of heavy silver.
A young woman offered mead to Finn. As his hand closed on the cup, his thumb throbbed and he winced in spite of himself.
“Have you a thorn?” the woman asked solicitously. “We keep a jar of foxes' tongues, they're the best for drawing thorns.”
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