Authors: Morgan Llywelyn
Finn Mac Cool (50 page)
“Then let's exchange them now,” she would plead.
But he could not take that irrevocable step. The tattered shreds of his loyalty to Finn lay like splinters in his eyes. Grania, seeing them there, wept.
But she went on.
And Finn pursued them.
Across the face of Erin, he pursued them. Soon enough, people in every territory knew the reason for the hunt. It was the sort of story beloved by bards.
Many were sympathetic with the guilty pair. Women especially wept over the imagined fate of Diarmait and Grania, and urged their husbands to hide the two if they saw them.
Men with an eye on their own prosperity and survival were less quick to turn against Finn. As one chieftain remarked to another, “There's no harm in a bit of fun with a woman, but any lad who tries to take the RÃgfénnid FÃanna's woman deserves whatever befalls him. I wouldn't care to have Finn Mac Cool angry with me. It would mean having the whole FÃanna against me, and I can't afford it.”
“Not the whole FÃanna,” said the second man. “From what I hear, some of them sympathize with Diarmait and refuse to join in the hunt.”
“A bad thing, that. It could split the army.”
It could and did. Finn seemed unaware of the quarrels that sprang up at night when the hunters were encamped. Officers and fénnidi who were accompanying him seemed to have divided loyalties. Many counted themselves among Diarmait's friends, and were with Finn only because of the oath to him that they had sworn. The Finn Mac Cool they found themselves following now was a man they did not know.
Goll Mac Morna was surprised to discover how much he regretted Finn's disintegration. He tried more than once to talk to him. But as he subsequently confided to Red Ridge, “Talking to Finn is like talking to a bull maddened by bees. He hears nothing. He just shakes his head and roars.”
Still, Goll tried. One last time.
He waited until the evening of a long day, when he hoped Finn would be too tired to be argumentative. He himself was exhausted, but he knelt by a stream and splashed icy water on his face until he was somewhat restored, then went and sat down beside Finn at the campfire.
When he turned to look at the RÃgfénnid FÃanna's profile with his one good eye, he thought at first he was seeing the implacable face of a stony cliff. Even the mouth, once so tender and merry, was a cruel slash.
“Let them go, Finn,” Goll said.
Finn did not look at him. “I cannot let them go. Diarmait. Mac Donn has disgraced the FÃanna. We discipline our own; it's up to me to catch him and do what needs to be done.”
“And what does need to be done? Are you going to hound that lad to death, and the girl too? To what purpose? Men who loved you once are beginning to look at you sideways now. Diarmait's obviously dismissed from the FÃanna, which is the normal punishment. What more do you want to do to him?”
“He owes compensation.”
“You know he couldn't pay the compensation in a hundred years. Would you destroy his tribe over this? Donn's been loyal to you all these years, why make him suffer forâ”
“I'm not making Donn suffer. You'll notice I haven't included him in the pursuit.”
“That's not what I meant and you know it.”
“Then I don't know what you do mean,” Finn said stonily.
“That this relentless pursuit is nothing more than a lust for revenge! And you telling me for truth, all those seasons ago, that you disavowed personal vengeance. You even made that a rule for the FÃanna. Yet here you are, breaking your own rules just to get even with Diarmait and Grania.”
Finn slowly turned the upper part of his body until he was looking at Goll. “I did say that, didn't I? That I would seek no vengeance?” he asked slowly, as if he had forgotten.
“You did of course. And I've relied on your word ever since,” Goll added recklessly.
“Have you? Did you really believe me?” Finn asked.
Goll's entire body tensed. I knew it, he told himself, I knew it all along. “Are you saying it was a lie, Finn? A lie you told to get my guard
down, so someday you could take revenge for your father?” he asked in the calmest voice he could manage. There was, he felt, a terrible inevitability about the question.
down, so someday you could take revenge for your father?” he asked in the calmest voice he could manage. There was, he felt, a terrible inevitability about the question.
As Goll watched, Finn's features seemed to blur, shift, re-form themselves. A feral light glowed in his eyes.
The hackles rose on the back of Goll's neck. I should have kept my mouth shut, he told himself. I should never have reminded him of Cuhal's death, not in his current mood.
Then Finn smiled. The smile was most frightening of all. “I never lie, Goll. I'm famous for my honesty. What I say, I believe to be the truth ⦠when I say it.”
“So it was the truth, once. But apparently it's not the truth any longer, because you are seeking vengeance.”
“That was then and this is now,” said Finn Mac Cool.
Run for your life! cried Goll's brain, trapped inside his skull, peering out through the eye-hole at a merciless face that had its teeth bared in what was not a smile after all, but the snarl preceding the attack.
As a hunter, Goll had faced dangerous wild animals many times. He knew enough not to run. He stood up slowly and carefully, making no sudden move that might provoke Finn. “I'm tired,” he said, trying to sound casual. “I'm going to make my bed now.”
No muscle of Finn's moved, yet Goll received a sudden impression of coiled intensity. With his good eye he measured the space between them. If Finn leaped, there was no way he could outrun himâand no way he could outfight the younger man either. If Finn leaped, he was dead.
But Finn did not move. He stayed exactly where he was, fixing Goll with that terrible gaze. Through his bared teeth came one word, spoken low. “Compensation.”
Goll's nerve broke. He turned and left the fireside at a pace lacking in all dignity. Every moment he expected to be seized from behind.
The love he had borne Finn had always been mingled with resentment and fear, but it had been, in its own way, the proud affection of a father toward a son. Even when Goll plotted against Finn, there had been an element of sport about it, the attempt to regain the FÃanna being a game he did not even need to win, so long as he could play.
But the time for games was over, and so was the love. Finn had destroyed that by revealing Goll to himself as a man who would run if he was frightened enough.
And he was frightened. Goll's legs were pumping with an energy they had not felt for years. He went from trot to gallop in a heartbeat and sped into the woods beyond the campsite, fleeing thoughtlessly, knowing only that he had to get away from the creature with silvery hair who sat beside the fire and grinned at him.
He did not stop running until he was deep into the woods and so breathless he thought his heart would burst. Then he sank onto a rotting log and just sat there for a measureless time, feeling very old and very broken.
GOLL STAYED HIDDEN IN THE WOODS UNTIL DAWN, FIGHTING to recover his lost courage. He was furious with himself for running. Though he tried to excuse his action on the grounds of age and weariness, when he considered it honestly, he knew he had simply been afraid.
Any man who had seen the look Finn Mac Cool gave him would, he told himself, have been afraid.
I could take the officers and men of Clan Morna and pull out now, he said silently. I should do. I don't owe Finn anything. I could simply go home.
The prospect was tempting.
But he had already been a coward. He could not allow himself to be a deserter as well. And so, when the sky began to fill with grey light and the first sonorous call of Caurag's hunting horn rang through the dawn air, Goll wearily stood up. Every muscle ached. Every bone rebelled.
But he put one foot after the other and returned to the camp.
To his relief, Finn paid no attention to him. He was busy organizing the day's pursuit.
Each new day brought new problems. More and more of the FÃanna were openly reluctant to continue. A team of expert trackers belonging to Clan Navin approached Finn and told him, “We are friends of Diarmait Mac Donn and resent being made to search for his trail. Get someone else to do it.”
Finn's lip curled. “You swore an oath to me when you joined the FÃanna. You vowed to obey me. Are you breaking your oath now?”
The young men glanced nervously at one another. “We are not,” their spokesman said at last. “We just wanted to sayâ”
“Say nothing to me until you've picked up Diarmait's trail,” Finn snapped.
The party set out again. A thoroughly exhausted Goll gathered his fÃans and went with them, thankful that he had a horse to ride and was no longer a foot warrior. He could slump on his horse's back and doze, trusting the animal to follow the line of march, and one of his men to catch him if he actually went to sleep and started to fall off.
His fÃans were made up of men from Clan Morna, and he was certain of their loyalty.
The hunt swung southward.
Oisin was increasingly unhappy. Like every member of the FÃanna, he had sworn an oath to Finn, a powerful and binding oath upon which his honour depended. But they were pursuing his best friend, and the man leading the hunt no longer seemed like Oisin's father. He was a stranger with staring eyes, a man who listened to no one and nothing but his own obsession.
“I know where they are!” Finn announced some time later. “They're hiding in an oak forest in the next valley!” He kicked his horse to a canter, riding at speed toward the distant darkness of the trees.
Hurrying to keep up with him, Caurag muttered, “He's like a wolf, he scents his prey when no one else can. Even the hounds haven't got the scent yet, they're trying to go west.”
Cailte put a hand on Cuarag's arm. “Whistle in the one called Conbec and direct him into that wood at once,” he urged. “He's the swiftest of the hounds and he'll get there before Finn. When Diarmait sees him, he'll know we're not far behind and he'll have time to make good an escape.”
Caurag frowned. “In all the seasons I've served him, I've never been disloyal to Finn.”
“Trust me when I tell you you aren't being disloyal now. Do this, Caurag. Do it for Finn, even if he can't appreciate it at the moment.”
Cailte fixed the huntsman with his grey eyes, and at last Caurag nodded. He whistled to Conbec, who came running up to him. Then he gave a firm directional signal with his arm and the huge hound raced off toward the woods, reaching them well before Finn Mac Cool did.
By the time Finn and his men arrived, there were only cooling embers where a campfire had been, and crushed branches that had once formed a bed for Grania and Diarmait. But the pair were gone.
Oisin commented, openly admiring, “See how he's dragged the limbs of trees after him to obscure his trail! There's no substitute for a training in the FÃanna. Now that they've abandoned travelling by chariot, they'll be harder to find.”
“Not so hard,” Finn replied grimly. “They go slower on foot. We'll catch them. Soon.” He scowled at Oisin, his expression warning his son not to sympathize with the fugitives. But Oisin threw a fearless look back
at him. “Diarmait may surprise you,” he said. “He's young and strong and clever.”
at him. “Diarmait may surprise you,” he said. “He's young and strong and clever.”
“I'm young enough to take him,” Finn snarled.
He drove his men relentlessly. Once they loved hunting; the joys of the chase were their greatest pleasure. Now, increasingly aware of the tragic nature of their prey, they had to be urged forward continually. Even those most devoted to Finn found themselves dragging their feet. Only Finn seemed more determined than ever. Each time Diarmait eluded him he grew angrier.
He began to suspect that his own men were conspiring against him on Diarmait's behalf. His fury flared to singe everyone around him. Only toward Oisin did he temper his anger, with an effort.
His men avoided speaking to him. They proceeded according to his orders, but there was no light in their eyes.
All along their way, people gave aid to Diarmait and Grania. The poetry of their plight ran ahead of them, winning support in unexpected places. More than once some chieftain's women so berated him that he at last took horses and went to bring the pair to his own fort to rest for a night or two, until the runaways learned the FÃanna were approaching and would not stay longer lest they put their host in danger.
That summer, which should have been a battle summer, faded into the russet and gold of autumn, and still the FÃanna had fought no wars in the name of Cormac Mac Airt. They had done nothing but pursue a harried man and woman back and forth across Erin.
“My father has gone mad,” Oisin said bitterly to Cailte one long, weary day when the wind from the north had begun ripening the last of the sloes.
“He has.”
“Will he recover and be himself again?”
Cailte said sadly, “I cannot tell you. It's happened to him before, and each time he becomes harder to reach. I suspect he will continue as he is until this dreadful matter of Diarmait and Grania is resolved. Be patient with him, Oisin.”
But the dreadful matter had not yet run its course. The next day a team of trackers reported to Finn, “In the forest beyond the next ridge is something that looks very like a Fénian hunting booth, the sort of wickerwork shelter we've always built for ourselves when needed. There is a wicker palisade around it too, a flimsy thing that would only reassure a woman, never a man.”
“Diarmait and Grania?”
“It could be indeed. The scent blowing from the place excites the hounds.”
Finn Mac Cool bared his teeth in what was once a smile.
As for a battle, he divided his men with orders to surround the forest. It was one of those dull, dark days that makes light flat and perspective deceptive. As they approached the trees, the rÃgfénnidi ordered their men to advance soft-footed, breaking no twig. Only the birds were aware of them. Sensing menace, they sat silent and hunched on their branches.
An eerie quiet descended on the forest.
By the time the fÃans were deployed, it was late in the day. Finn sent his orders around by silent, swift runners: surround the area of the hut and wait until morning.
Like trees, the men of the FÃanna waited in the forest, each thinking his own thoughts. It was not an easy time.
Diarmait awoke before dawn. As he did each morning, he turned first to look at Grania, asleep beside him on their bed of moss and leaves. Her face was a pale, featureless oval in the grainy grey light seeping through the cracks of the hut, but he saw it clearly in his mind. She had grown very dear to him.
He lay listening. Something was wrong. There was dawn rising, but he heard no birds.
He slipped from the bed and began gathering his weapons, taking care not to awaken the sleeping woman.
A tiny creak of wickerwork warned him. He went quickly to the doorway and saw the narrow gate in the fence opening. Diarmait had reached it, sword in hand, by the time a lone figure entered.
The man threw back the hood of his cloak just in time to save his life. “Angus!” Diarmait exclaimed, almost dropping the sword in astonishment.
His foster father nodded. “I've come to help you. Are you aware Finn's men have you surrounded?”
A flash of terror shot through Diarmait. He was young and very tired; it was hard to summon courage in the cold grey light of dawn. “Are you certain?”
“I am certain. I was barely able to slip through their line myself without being seen.”
“But why did you come here? How did you know?”
“And did I not oversee the raising of you? Are you not dearer to me than the children of my siring? I felt danger closing in on you and I came, that is all I can tell you.”
Against his will, tears burned into Diarmait's eyes. They made him feel even younger and more tired. He brushed them away with an impatient hand, but Angus saw, and it tore his heart.
“Come away with me now,” he urged. “I think I can get you out of here by the way I got in. There is one place Finn's men haven't covered, andâ”
“I won't run from him,” said Diarmait Mac Donn.
In that moment the youth was wiped from his face. For the first time, Angus noticed the threads of premature grey in his hair, and lines of strain around mouth and eyes.
“You must come,” he urged. “Finn means to kill you. That's what everyone believes.”
“I won't run from him any longer. I'll fight him man to man, and if we escape, I'll find a place even more isolated than this and build another shelter for us, and wait. Winter is coming. Soon the FÃanna will have to return to Tara for the Samhain Assembly, then go into winter quarters. It's a rule never broken. Once that happens, we'll be safe for the winter at least, and perhaps by spring we can have made a more permanent escape.”
“You cannot possibly defeat him,” Angus said sorrowfully. “He has a large force with him, you have no chance, good as you are. I do not think he'll fight you man to man, I think he'll attack you with every warrior he has. You'll be hacked to bits in front of your woman. Is that what you want?”
Diarmait gulped. “He wouldn't.”
“I think he would,” Angus replied.
“Then ⦔ The young man hesitated. “Then take Grania away with you now, so she won't see.”
“Never!” exclaimed a voice from the doorway.
Grania stood there, dishevelled from sleep. Her face was puffy and her eyes swollen, but by now she was always lovely to Diarmait. “I won't leave you,” she told him, hurrying into the protection of his arms.
“You must.” He bowed his head to touch his lips to her hair. But he kept his eyes locked with the eyes of Angus. Then, silently, he mouthed, “Take her.”
Suddenly he shoved her away from him with all his strength. Angus caught her and enveloped her in his cloak before she had time to struggle. He thrust a wad of fabric into her mouth and dragged her bodily through the gateway.
She kicked and tried to scream, but even in his middle years, Angus of the Boyne was a powerful man. He held her while Diarmait took thongs from his neck bag, and the two of them trussed the struggling woman like a deer in the thick cloak. Then Angus slung her over his shoulder with a grunt, cast sad eyes on his foster son one last time, and set off, back the way he had come.
He knew it was all he could do for Diarmait.
He took his captive, who fought him all the way, to a little valley beyond the forest. There he waited with a heavy heart, knowing the wind
would bring him the sounds of battle. He would not go any farther until he knew if Diarmait had, somehow, survived.
would bring him the sounds of battle. He would not go any farther until he knew if Diarmait had, somehow, survived.
At the same time, Finn and his men were closing in on the hut in the forest.
“I want my most trusted rÃgfénnidi with me,” he decided. “Cailte, you. And you, Goll. Oisin. Gonna of Clan Navin. Madan Bent-Neck. And myself. We six will stand at six points around the hut, so no matter which way he tries to run, one of us can strike him.”
Oisin demurred. “You can't ask this of me, Fathel. He's my best friend.”
Finn's eyes were like chips of flint. “I'm RÃgfénnid FÃanna. Prove your loyalty now. Do you understand what's brought Diarmait to this? Lack of loyalty to his commander. Now, prove yours.” His face was as implacable as his voice.
Oisin glanced toward Cailte. “You'd better do as he orders,” the thin man said quietly.
They took their place. At a signal from Finn, his men laid hands on the flimsy wicker palisade and ripped it away, leaving the similarly constructed hut unprotected.
From inside, the sound was like ripping skin. Diarmait braced himself, shortsword in one hand, shield on arm. “Who's there?” he called, forcing his voice to remain steady.
Other books
In Safe Hands (The Safe House Series Book 1) by Leslie North
Christmas in Apple Ridge by Cindy Woodsmall
The Penderwicks in Spring by Jeanne Birdsall
Murder 42 - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries Book 2) by Methos, Victor
The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block
Starhawk by Mack Maloney
Lies of Light by Athans, Philip
Unrestrained by Joey W. Hill