Gallicenae (14 page)

Withal, Niall remained a leader, a part of him watchful and aware. He kept track of the other chariots in his van, right and left. Nearest was that of Domnuald, son by the second of his Queens. This was the lad’s first combat, he no more than fifteen summers of age. Hard practice rewarded itself; Domnuald poised easily and struck keenly. Hair like his father’s hung wet down cheeks still girlish. O Brigit, Mother of Love, how he recalled Breccan, who died in Niall’s arms outside the wall of Ys!

Older sons drove in the wings, themselves already blooded men, restless as stallions, toplofty as eagles. Several nobles had chariots too. More chose to come behind afoot, leading their tenants, with swords, spears, axes, bills, slings, while bows twanged and arrows hissed. The din cut through wind and rain, on up to the hasty clouds. There cruised scaldcrows and ravens, birds of the Morrigu, gathering at Her feast.

Before Niall, and soon around him, the Lagini fought back. They were equipped and marshalled like his men, and maybe numbered the same. Most of them battled wolfishly well. But they could not make headway. They could not even hold fast. Day had not much dwindled when they were all fled, or captive, or sprawled and emptily staring corpses.

3

Éndae sent a herald to ask for truce. Niall received him as was fitting for one whose person was sacred, and sent him back with word of agreement.

The meeting place they set was near the battleground, a house of the king of the tuath that lived thereabouts. While they waited, Niall and his chieftains took it over and made merry. Dark as the afternoon was, they burned lamps and links without stint. Breaths smoked white athwart shadows crouching, dancing, changing shape, filling every corner and the smoky spaces under the roof. Highlights gleamed, an eye, a smile, a lifted beaker. This was no mead hall, with benches along the walls and a flock of servants. The highest ranking men sat on stools, the rest on the clay floor, and drink passed from hand to hand. Nonetheless, merriment rang.

“Have you a song for us, Laidchenn, dear?” Niall called.

“I have that,” answered the poet. As was the custom, he had accompanied the army to watch what happened and afterward put it in words. That was as honorable as to fight, or more so; for what was the use of mighty deeds, did they not live in memory and the fame of them travel afar? “But I ask leave to wait a while.”

“How is this?” wondered Niall. The buzz of talk died away until rain sounded loud on the thatch overhead.

Laidchenn gestured. He was a burly man with fiery, bushy hair and beard, carelessly dressed, but a man to command awe—chief singer to the King, former pupil of Torna Eces in Mumu. “You know that I, like you, have brought a young son of mine along for the experiencing of his first war, though Domnuald is to become a valiant fighter whereas Tigernach is studying my art under myself. Would you be so kind as to hear the lad’s piece? A maiden effort, but burning within him it is, and I think not unworthy of you.”

“He is very welcome,” said Niall graciously.

Tigernach stood up. He was about the same age as Domnuald, and growing toward his father’s body form. Brown-haired, his countenance was plain, somewhat marred by skin eruptions beneath a fuzz of whiskers. He did not shake a chiming rod, for he was, after all, a novice in the craft. Yet melody rippled clear and true from his harp, and boldness—brashness, almost—rose in his tones.

“Lord who harried Lagini,

Star-brilliant in the battle—”

His verse lacked subtlety, the tropes were sparse, and older men winced a bit at its fulsomeness. However, it was properly composed and showed high promise, as spirited as it was. Niall thanked him and gave him a silver brooch. Tigernach blushed so it could be seen in the dimness, mumbled his own thanks, and sat down. Laidchenn glowed with pride.

Of course, there was no comparison to the father’s words. They soared, they cried, they sent ghosts shivering up and down backbones. Tears rolled over leathery visages, fists clenched, eyes stared outward beyond the world, as Laidchenn wove his magic.

Meanwhile King Éndae drove up with a dozen well-born attendants. Guards made them wait until the chant was finished and the reward given. A youth at Éndae’s side protested. “Hush,” said the King. “This is meet and right. Never show disrespect to a druid or an ollam poet. That is a gess upon all men,”

He stared glumly into the gloomy day. Rain and mist made vague the encampment of the invaders, though he heard their boisterousness loudly enough. Closer by, servants of the dispossessed labored at the cookhouse to prepare a magnificent meal, or at the pens to feed cattle that would doubtless be herded away.

At last the guards let the newcomers in. When Éndae’s champion announced him, and the Laginach King himself entered, Niall did not rise, nor even lift a knee. However, he did in seemly words offer a few seats he had reserved, and call for full cups that the guests be refreshed. Attendants bore off their overgarments and brought dry cloaks for them to wrap themselves in against the chill.

“Well,” said Niall presently, “shall there be peace between us or shall there not?”

“That we must see,” answered Éndae. He was a lean man, gray of hair and beard.

“Let us begin by knowing each the other,” Niall said, and beckoned Laidchenn to name the Mide men on hand, with their honors.

“No such show have I this mournful day,” Éndae said, “but myself I will tell you who accompanies me.” He gestured. “Here are my sons—”

He came to one about the same age as Dumnuald and Tigernach, also clearly a war-virgin until now: slim, comely, intensely black of hair, white of skin, blue of eye. “Eochaid, youngest who has followed me; but younger still are brothers he has at home, and they growing.”

“Why, that is the name my father bore,” Niall said with a smile. “Well met, Eochaid, I hope.”

He got back a glower. Cruel it was that defeat make rank a lad’s first taste of battle.

Éndae hastened on with the introductions. “Now, then,” he concluded, “the Gods this day have seen fit to grant you the victory, Niall maqq Echach; but you will be acknowledging that it was dearly bought, and the valor of the Lagini abides. What offer do you make us, that we swear peace with you?”

Niall tossed back his bright locks. “No offer, Éndae Qennsalach. Why should I pay for that which I have won? Henceforward you shall keep your spoon out of my stewpot; and, obedient at last to oaths given long ago, you shall deliver the Boruma.”

Breath hissed between teeth, but men sat still, not altogether surprised—save young Eochaid, who leaped to his feet and howled, “What, would you gnaw us bare, you maggots? Never!” His voice cracked across, which enraged him the more. “Well pull you from our flesh and stamp you flat!”

“Quiet,” Éndae commanded. He reached to pluck at his son’s sleeve. “You disobey.”

Eochaid was unaware. “Maggots, blowflies, beetles you are!” he raved. “Wait, only wait, and we’ll seek your nests and smoke you out!”

Laidchenn surged erect. The bulk of him loomed huge in the flickering gloom, a touch of flame in his beard. He rang his poet’s chimes. Men shrank into silence. “Have a care, boy,” he warned. “Overwrought or no, you slander honorable foes, like some mad crone in a ditch. Behave yourself.”

Eochaid wept. His arms flailed. “Crone, am I? Go back to your sheepfold, old ewe, and let the rams tup you again!”

Horror ran around the room. Before anyone else could rally the wit to speak, Laidchenn’s son Tigernach was up also. In him, fury was a winter storm.

“You fling filth like that at my father, at a poet?” he hissed. “Go down in the dung yourself.” He made a twin spike of the first two
fingers on his left hand and thrust it toward Eochaid. As if something inside him had foreseen, brooded, prepared, the verses snarled from him:

“Listen, you light-witted youth!

For that you thus dared speaking

Words unwise and without truth,

We shall soon hear you shrieking.

“Bellowing your bluster out

As if you a gnawed a nettle,

You’d be shrewder not to shout

But kick an empty kettle.

“Shame there shall be on your face.

It is of your own earning.

Curs will cringe when in disgrace.

May likewise you be learning!”

Eochaid screamed, stumbled backward, fell to his knees, clutched at his head. On cheeks and brow three great blisters were springing forth, bloodred, sleet-white, mould-black. He groaned in his pain.

4

Toward sundown the rains blew over and the wind lay down to rest. Laidchenn and his son walked from the house, away from others who likewise came forth, off toward the river.

Clouds still towered in deepening blue. Light, pouring level through the valley, reached to a rainbow. Grass drank those rays and gave them back in glitter and green glow. They made treetops smolder, water glimmer. The air was cold and quiet, save as shoes scuffed and slithered over wetness or voices came faint across distance. Most of those cries were sounded by carrion birds, scared into darkling clouds by men who searched the battlefield for kin and comrade.

“You should not have done it,” said Laidchenn softly. “I did not reproach you then, for that would further have undermined King Niall; but now I tell you, a satire is a weapon more fearsome than knife or poison.”

Stubbornness made Tigernach thrust out his lower lip, though it quivered. “How did it harm our King, if one who behaved thus in his presence suffered punishment?”

Laidchenn sighed. “It was too harsh for a grieving, bewildered boy. His insults diminished none but himself. Surely his father was about to send him outdoors with a heavy penance to do. Now—The blisters will heal. They may or may not leave disfiguring scars. But the wound in the soul will fester for aye. Niall saw this—I could tell—and softened his demands. Else the damaged, unappeased honor of the Lagini would
have forced them into war to the death. After Ys he can, as yet, ill afford that. You have cost him dearly, my son.”

Tigernach’s will broke. He shuddered, covered his eyes, wavered on his feet. “If the King wants my head for that,” he choked, “here it is.”

“Not so.” Laidchenn squeezed the shoulder beside him, and kept his hand on it as the two walked along. “We understand each other, himself and I. His feelings were clear to me from his glances my way and the words he used. Folk should certainly avenge injuries done their darlings. He is not angry because of your anger on my behalf. He is only… rueful. After all, he did win the day; he did exact good terms; the Bóruma was really too much to hope for, unless in some later year.”

Still Tigernach sorrowed. “Indeed, my heart,” Laidchenn went on after a moment, “none was more surprised than me at what happened. Who would have thought that you, as far as you are from being an ollam poet, that you could already cast a destructive satire? Did a God seize you, or do you have it in you to become at last as powerful as Torna? Whichever, clear is to see that you have been marked for a fate that will touch many lives.”

Tigernach drew an uneven breath and straightened.

Laidchenn gazed toward the river. Mysterious Sittings and rustlings went through the reeds along the bank. “Beware,” he said. “Henceforward be always careful, and never use your art but on those occasions when you feel sure you must. This day you have made us an unforgiving enemy. Do not do it again without sore need. Your fate will be famous, but perhaps it will not be happy.”

1

At high summer, the rain sometimes fell nearly warm through unmoving air. It was heavy upon the day when Queen Lanarvilis received her Captain and the Speaker for Taranis. Sight quickly lost itself in that iron-colored cataract; it found no more sky, no more sea, only dim walls along streets where water rushed and gurgled. What filled the world was the noise of the downpour on roofs and paving, and below this, remote and eternal, waves a-crash against the rampart of Ys.

The men gave their hooded cloaks over to the servant who admitted them and proceeded directly to the room where the priestess waited. For them, its numerous candles did not truly fend off gloom, nor its
red-blue-ivory-crystal sumptuousness offer comfort. She had attired herself in a loosely cut dress of white silk whose folds and drapes joined with a silver headband to make a timeless dignity. The visitors were in plain civil tunic, trousers, half-boots. Besides the weather being unsuited for robes, they had not wanted to draw notice on their way here.

“Welcome,” she said, touching her breast in the salutation between equals. The gaze of Soren Cartagi followed that hand. “Be seated, pray. I’ve naught set out but wine and water, for your message asked I receive you on grave business. Gladly, though, will I call for better fare, and afterward have you be my guests at supper.”

Taking the couch that faced her chair, Hannon Baltisi shook his craggy head. “I thank you, my lady, but best we not linger, the Speaker and me,” he said. “Folk might wonder why, and this needs to be secret.”

Soren joined his companion. For a moment, play of light tricked the eye, and Soren’s hair and beard seemed as gray as Hannon’s. As he settled down, they regained their darkness around his broad, beak-nosed visage. It was just the scattered white in them, more of it all the time. He and Lanarvilis regarded each other, forgetting that a third party was present, until she said slowly: “This concerns the King, does it not?”

“Who else?” Soren growled.

Her voice wavered a little. “What’s wrong? I read trouble, anger on you, but—but he’s done naught that he shouldn’t.” Flushing, compelling herself to look steadily into the faces, both the faces: “It happens he spent last night with me. After three years wedded to him, I’d have known if aught was awry. Did it touch the city, he’d have told me.”

“What had he to say, then?” Soren asked impulsively.

The color mounted in her cheeks. “No affair of anyone else!” She regained self-possession; she had had much practice at that. “Oh, mainly small talk. We played a while with Julia, and he babbled about the latest wonderful thing Dahut has accomplished, and we went on to discuss his journey in autumn. Naught new. His plans remain the same that he set forth at the Solstice Council.”