Finn Mac Cool (54 page)

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Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

BOOK: Finn Mac Cool
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“You know how devoted he's always been to the law, how he's made it central to his rule and spent the better part of his time with the brehons, learning, discussing, enlarging the body of the law. I was privy to much of that. I can continue where he left off.”
Cairbre spoke so smugly it set Finn's teeth on edge. And the central question was not yet answered. He repeated it once more, very softly. That softness was deadly. Cairbre's bodyguards recognized the danger implicit in the tone and raised their spears again.
This was the fabled Finn Mac Cool. He might do anything.
If Cairbre was frightened, however, he gave no sign. He had studied his father and learned well. “When it became apparent the blemish was sufficient to deny him kingship, Cormac wisely retired to a holding at Cenannus. Flaithri went with him, in fact. I daresay they are there this moment, still discussing the law. He seems content enough. He's an old man anyway, Finn. It's time he rested.”
Cormac Mac Airt, old? It was not a concept Finn had ever considered, though he knew the number of the High King's years and had watched his hair go white.
Cairbre gave him ample time to digest the information, then said, “What of you, Finn? Will you serve as Rígfénnid Fíanna under me? For the time being, at least? At some future date I may make another appointment. You're not young either, you're—”
“I am able to serve as Rígfénnid Fíanna for as long as you or any other man holds Tara,” Finn said icily.
For the first time. Cairbre's arrogant mask slipped. In Finn's eyes he saw something he did not care to challenge. “Well then,” he said as if to himself. “Well then. That's settled, I suppose. I, ah, am relieved to hear you'll serve me. I know it's what my father would want,” he added as a sop.
Finn stared at him stonily, then turned on his heel and left the House of the King.
Cailte was waiting for him, holding his horse's rein. Finn did not even bother to vault onto the animal. He needed to feel solid ground underneath his feet. The earth seemed to be tilting crazily, threatening to spill him off.
He stalked across the royal compound with Cailte and the horses following. Livid with inheld anger, he crossed the lawn below the Fort of the Synods and was heading for the nearest gate when yet another strange warrior barred his way.
“Where are you going?” the man challenged.
Finn's jaw dropped. “Who are you to challenge me?”
“I serve Cairbre Mac Cormac, and I have orders not to let you leave Tara.”
“I am Rígfénnid Fíanna!”
“I know that. I mean no disrespect. But Cairbre feels that you should stay here now, within these walls.”
Instantly, Finn understood. The last thing Cairbre wanted was for him to get back to the Fíanna. The army was the strength of the king, and that same strength meant control of Tara. It could also be turned against anyone who tried to seize the kingship. Finn had only to utter one word. Cairbre must be very afraid he would utter that word.
But Cairbre, for all his cunning, must not realize that the Fíanna was no longer as solidly Finn's as it had once been.
Finn pretended to accept the situation. He turned back toward Cailte and said calmly, “You are not needed here. You might as well go.”
Cailte understood. He started to turn the horses and ride toward the gate, but the guard cried, “Stay!”
“Have you any orders concerning this man?” Finn asked.
“Och, I have not, but—”
“But he is under my command, not yours. Go, Cailte.”
The thin man took advantage of the guard's obvious confusion to ride swiftly away, out the gateway and back to the waiting warriors beyond the trees.
Age had taken a toll on Cailte's legs, but not on his wits. With his old rapidity he outlined the situation for Finn's men, sent messengers to
bring reinforcements from loyal Fénians beyond the plains of Míd, dispatched an armed escort to convey Grania to Cormac at Cenannus, and organized a rescue of Finn Mac Cool.
When what appeared to be the majority of the Fíanna came marching toward Tara along every one of the five roads, holding their weapons aloft and shouting Finn's name, Cairbre had no choice but to let him go.
“I was only offering you hospitality,” he tried to claim. “You misunderstood me, Finn.”
Finn's face was stone. “While we await the decision of the electors as to the new High King, I prefer to take hospitality from Cormac at Cenannus.”
Seeing Cormac almost broke his heart. The former High King was truly old, with an empty eye socket and a haggard face. His fingers continually made restless, twitching gestures. But he seemed genuinely delighted to welcome Finn, and glad to have Grania back. “My daughter is welcome to live in my household for the rest of her life,” he said. “My circumstances are somewhat reduced, of course, but—”
“But you belong at Tara,” said Finn.
“Ah, Finn, I don't. Not at all. I have obeyed the law, as we all must if there is to be order rather than chaos. I'm aware you don't like Cairbre very much, but I've been preparing him for a long time. He is the most intelligent of my sons and the one best able to replace me, if he is chosen.”
“He may not be,” said Finn hopefully.
“I think he will be. He's the best of the litter.”
Cormac's assessment was correct. Within a few days, the decision was made and word brought to Cenannus. Cairbre Mac Cormac was king of Tara, High King of Erin.
Finn grieved in his heart. At night, lying on his bed in Cormac's guesthouse, he spoke of it to Sive. The high times are truly over, I fear, Sive. Cairbre is not the man his father was. Who could be? Cormac and I had our differences, but he has been extraordinary. We'll not see another like him.
Now this new one. He expects me to serve under him and lead the Fíanna to his order, but I don't know, Sive. The army has changed too. My fault, my doing. If you had been with me to talk things through with me, support me … but. But.
He sighed in the darkness. But everything changes.
Sive did not deny it.
Finn fell asleep and tried to find her in his dreams, but they were clouded and filled with undefined turmoil.
He could not find Sive, but in the morning there was Grania emerging from the women's chamber, plumped with maturity, mellowed by
tragedy. Finn found himself hungry for a woman's voice and fell into step beside her, discussing recent events pertaining to the kingship, and also to her future.
On the journey from Rath Grania, Finn had hardly said three words to the woman. The very sight of her made him feel guilty for Diarmait's harrying and, to some extent, for Diarmait's death, whose details became increasingly blurred in his mind as the days passed. Grania had not openly accused him of killing Diarmait as Oisin had done, yet he had begun to wonder. Did he do it?
Did I, Sive?
So he was pleasantly surprised that Grania was being friendly toward him now. She walked with him and talked with him, and her female presence was curiously comforting.
He did not see, hidden behind her slanted eyes, the plan in her mind: the slow and subtle and very female revenge she had long since determined to take on Finn Mac Cool.
Later, she found her father closeted with Flaithri the brehons, discussing some obscure point of law pertaining to the size of outbuildings. She asked Cormac to dismiss the brehon, then got straight to the point.
“I want you to ask Finn Mac Cool to accept me back as his wife, Father.”
Cormac could not hide his astonishment. “You do?”
“I do. When my period of mourning is over. Will you ask him to do it … as a favour to you?”
When Cormac made the request of him, Finn was equally astonished. But the former king asked so beseechingly he could not refuse, though his every instinct was to do so.
“Take care of my daughter for me,” Cormac said pleadingly. “She's had a terrible time these past years, and only you can make it up to her.”
“I should think I'm the last person she'd want to make it up to her.”
“I would have thought the same,” Cormac agreed, “but apparently not. She seems to feel she should in all honesty revert to her former position as your wife. She actually seems to feel some guilt for having been disloyal to you all those years ago, and says she wants to make it up to you. So if you come together again, you can bind each other's wounds and wipe away the past.”
Finn gave Cormac a dubious look. Once the former king would have been too wise for such fatuous talk. But he was old … changed.
And he did seem to desire the reconciliation.
As if he could hear Finn's silent thoughts, Cormac said, “It will be the last formal request I ever make of you, Finn. It will put my mind at ease, knowing the two of you have forgiven one another.”
Finn started to put his thumb into his mouth before answering, then
dismissed the idea. It seemed childish at the moment, a silly prank. “If that's what you really want.” he said stiffly.
Cormac. smiled, a faint light briefly glowing in his one remaining eye like an echo of an ancient sun. “It is what I want, because it is what my daughter wants,” he said.
So it was agreed between them. When Grania ended her season of mourning, she would move into Almhain. Finn would care for her and protect her for Cormac's sake.
He was not entirely comfortable with the idea, but he accepted it.
It did not matter very much. Nothing seemed to matter as it once had. He was going through the motions more out of habit than conviction, even when it came to commanding the army.
But Cairbre made it obvious from the beginning that he wanted an energetic, dedicated Rígfénnid Fíanna, and that Finn Mac Cool was not his favourite in that position. There was frequent friction between them.
It came to a head when Finn learned that Cairbre had secretly sent to Connacht for some of Goll's own kinsmen, promising the men from Clan Morna they could be officers in the Fíanna if they were loyal to him.
Finn stormed into the House of the King with some of his old authority and a face like thunder. “The rígfénnidi don't give allegiance to the king, you fool!” he shouted at Cairbre. “They swear their loyalty to me.
I
swear to the king of Tara!”
Cairbre tried to stare him down. “Do you call the king of Tara, to whom you have sworn your loyalty, a fool? That sounds like the act of an oath-breaker to me.”
The mention of that epithet, last heard from Goll's lips, enraged Finn. He almost repeated Goll's action and deserted Tara then and there. At the last moment he caught himself and realized what he would throw away.
The Fíanna. Not the Fíanna it had been, but still … his creation. Shaped to his desire. If he left now, by sunset Cairbre would have given it to someone else to command.
So with an effort as mighty as any of his feats in battle, Finn choked back the furious response and stood his ground, meeting Cairbre's challenge unblinkingly. “I lost my temper,” he said.
“You owe me an apology.”
In all their long years, Cormac Mac Airt had not asked Finn for an apology.
But everything changes, Sive.
“I apologize.” The words hurt him. His tongue did not know their shape.
Life changed like a river, shifted in its bed, flowed in a different direction. Finn Mac Cool served as Rígfénnid Fíanna, but the army he
commanded was only nominally his; he did not employ his entire will and energy in welding them into one weapons. Old arguments surfaced, factions developed. The men Cairbre had brought from Clan Morna kept apart from the others, causing problems.
Finn felt the subtle dissolution as he felt the dissolution of his own body.
He tried hard to care. But more and more he lay alone in the dark and talked to Sive in his head.
Grania was not proving to be the feminine companion he might have hoped. No sooner had she moved into Almhain than she began making changes. Their lodge was too small, it must grow this way and that. The roof should be higher, more visible from a distance. More bondservants were needed. The midden heap should be moved farther from the door.
Finn's old companions should spend less time lounging around his guesthouses, or drinking ale in his banquetting hall.
Only the most loyal ignored Grania's increasingly sharp tongue and stayed with Finn whenever they liked. Cailte could be relied upon, always. Blamec and Fergus Honey-Tongue would not be driven away. And Oisin, though married and with a new son of his own now, came on occasion to Almhain of the White Walls, though Finn rightly suspected it was out of a sense of duty and not through any desire to be with his father.
More and more frequently, Finn escaped by going off into his head with Sive.

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