Lion of Ireland (12 page)

The smell of the food in Mahon’s tent was nauseating after the delicately seasoned meals Fiona had given him. Several men sat on folded blankets or small stools, eating chunks of pale meat from a communal pot. Their bearded faces were rough and hard, their eyes hostile to the sudden stranger.

Mahon introduced them, but Brian did not concentrate. He was trying to hold an image of himself within his mind so

strongly that they could see it too, a picture of a brave and noble prince. It was the only armor he had, and he clung to it.

One of the men, beetle-browed and florid of complexion, spat deliberately near Brian’s feet. “We have no need for a child in camp, Mahon.”

It was not the man’s words that hurt, but the fact the Mahon did not rush to his brother’s defense. All he said, and that in a mild tone of voice, was, “He is my brother and a soft of Cennedi; his place is here.”

“Aye, well, if he doesn’t prove himself you’ll have to send him back, brother or not,” the red-faced man said. “We have no time for hangers-on and no food to feed them; we’re too poor even to attract camp followers right now.”

“Give him a chance,” Mahon said.

Brian clenched his fists against his side. You don’t have to beg on my behalf, he thought to Mahon. I can prove myself; I’ll make you proud of me!

Mahon turned toward Brian but he did not put his arm around the boy’s shoulder, as Brian had somehow expected. He merely grasped his arm in a hard, impersonal hand and propelled him across the tent.

“There, sit yourself by Olan and we’ll see what we can do about making a warrior out of you. You’re welcome to whatever is left in the pot tonight, but after this you’ll have to eat with the men, for only my captains take their meals with me.”

Brian squatted on the ground between the jutting shoulders of iron-hard men. No one offered him a stool.

He plunged his hand into the pot and pulled out a morsel of something to cram into his mouth. At his first bite of the overripe boiled eel his stomach writhed in protest. Brian of Boruma, come to Kilmallock to be* a hero, scrabbled desperately out of the tent to vomit into the dirt. Behind him, he could hear them laughing.

It was the feeling that was the worst of it. All day, every day, the camp rang with shouting. Every order was delivered at the top of the lungs, and in an insulting tone; every voice was roughened beyond recognition by the constant need to yell.

“Get up, you worthless bastards, the sun’s over the rim and you’re all still snoring. A passel of weaklings, that’s all I’ve got here!”

“You call that running? You lazy maggot, I’ll put my sword to your backside and teach you how to really run! The Irish soldier is supposed to be agile and fleet of foot, so how in God’s name did I get a command full of men whose feet are rooted to the ground?”

“Quit that grumbling over there---you, I heard what you said. If you lot were half as good at fighting as you are at complaining and prevaricating, I’d have a command I didn’t have to be ashamed to claim.”

Brian, who had arrived expecting to ride from then on at his brother’s right hand, found himself at the bottom of a pecking order more stringent than that of his mother’s geese. Every man in camp seemed to feel it was his duty to heap insults on the head of Mahon’s brother. No job was too menial to give him, no joke too rough to play on him. From that first night, he was known to everyone as Eel-vomit, and even the lowliest baggageman used it contemptuously within his hearing.

Mahon made no effort to protect him. He had assigned Brian to one of his captains, given him a pat on the back, and thenceforth ignored him as if he were merely another raw recruit. Indeed, he watched unmoved one day as several of the men gave Brian a thorough drubbing for some-small offense.

When his tormentors gave up and left him alone, Brian spat a tooth and a gob of bloody saliva into the grass and looked reproachfully at the silent figure of the king, standing with folded arms some distance away.

“There’s no use appealing to him, he won’t help you,” one of the men cackled.

“I don’t need his help. I can fight my own fights.” Brian tossed the copper hair out of his eyes and jutted his jaw forward, forcing himself to give no visible sign of the pain in his bruised body.

Mahon turned away.

But that night, in his tent, he said to Olan, “The boy is making progress; he’s beginning to hold his own.”

“You think so? Every man in the camp can whip him.” “Today, perhaps, but not for much longer. Each beating makes him more angry, and I think he resents it very much that I don’t take his side in front of the others. He will toughen up in a hurry and we’ll have one more good soldier.” Olan narrowed his eyes beneath their heavy brows. He had been one of the fighting Dalcassians since Cennedi and his sons came marching from the ruins of Boruma; after Cennedi’s death he had given Mahon his total and unswerving devotion, fighting at his king’s side against both Ivar and King Callachan,” even when the tide of battle had gone against them and other—fainter—hearts had pulled out and headed home. It was his proud boast in the camp that Mahon considered him indispensable, and the statement was very nearly true.

As they shared the evening’s scanty rations, Olan considered the problem of the young princeling. “Is that all you want your Brian to be, a good soldier?” he asked.

“I would be very happy if he were at least good enough to survive,” Mahon answered. “I trust by now I have learned from the mistakes I made with the others. I treated my brothers as the sons of a king, and there are some who might say I pampered them too much; I never made them tough enough for this hard life.” He stared down into his half-empty cup. “And it is a hard life, Olan, as well you know. , “But I won’t make that mistake with Brian; he is all that is left to me of my family. He, and Marcan, who has chosen God over Cennedi’s struggle. The best thing I can do for him is to make him hard as iron, hating me if need be, but not squeamish about pain or hard work. I can see that he is armored in a tough hide if nothing else.”

“You seem dispirited tonight, my lord,” Olan said sympathetically.

Mahon forced himself to sit straighter and managed a bright smile. “Oh, not really. Things are not going all that

badly. Since we first made camp here the Northmen have not bothered us, which is a good sign, and I feel sure that if we continue as we have been we will eventually be able to win the countryfolk over to our side. It’s just a matter of time,-Olan; I must not lose heart, and neither must the rest of you.”

“The desertion rate is very high,” Olan said morosely.

“Ah, that will improve. I know it will. We’ll continue to follow Cennedi’s plan, harassing the Northmen as we are able, endeavoring to get the support of the local Dal Cais and what Owenachts we can.”

He frowned at a blister newly broken open on his palm. “My brother has come to join us and brought us two good horses and another strong right arm—that is a good omen, Olan, don’t you think?” He smiled, and forced Olan to smile back at him.

Brian struggled to learn the lessons of warfare. He ran, he wrestled, he pushed himself past his physical limits again and again, but the others did not befriend him. The more he achieved the more he felt their resentment. They took their cue from Mahon’s seeming abandonment of him and laughed at him around the campfires at night, while he sat alone, his back to them, trying to close his ears and contain his burning temper.

He could not help overhearing their constant talk of women, of their wives and tumblemaids and fantasies. “Ah, that Megan o’ mine, she’s like Queen Maeve in the old tales. Talks on the pillow all night long, makes my ear sore. But when I can get her to shut her mouth she’s a lot o’ woman, for all that.”

“I recall a lass up near Edenderry, a round young thing with hair the color of ripe grain. Shaped like this, she was” (Brian could imagine the circles his hands formed in the air), “and a mouth like a berry, only sweeter. Couldn’t deny me anything. I might have wed her, but a soldier’s life . .. ah, well ...”

“Marry ‘er anyway! You could be dead tomorrow, and

then where’d you be getting sons to mourn you and keep your name alive? For all the trouble of a woman, there’s nothing so fine as being able to just roll over in the night, easy like, and . . .”

Brian squirmed on his blanket and thought of Fiona. How could he have just ridden away and left her like that? What would he give, if only she were here with him now! Once his hunger was satisfied, why had it not occurred to him that he would soon be hungry again?

Lovely Fiona, with her heart-shaped face and her sweet mouth, and that voice like a bird’s singing.

Camp was loneliness and hard work and endless waiting and boredom . . . To think he had left her for that! He called himself names in the night. [

There were other boys in camp near his own age, but they I were toughened peasants,- suspicious of him and clannish. They made fun of his monastery accent, mimicking him with cruelty and skill.

“And will you be having a drop of wine, m’lord?” “Ach, thank you very much, just don’t be spilling it on my

fine tunic.”

“And why don’t you wear trews to cover your naked legs,

m’lord?”

“Why, because I’m the king’s brother, and I want everyone to be blessed with the vision of my noble, bony knees!”

They rocked with laughter.

Reluctantly, Brian went to Mahon about the issue of his

clothes.

“If I am to be in the lowest rank,” he began, letting a tinge of bitterness color his voice, “then should I not be dressed like the rest of them, in trousers and a jacket?”

Mahon was sitting in front of his tent, maps spread out before him. He looked up impatiently, with difficulty drawing his mind from the tactical problem he was considering. “The men furnish their own clothes, Brian, and because they are not of our class they do not dress as we do. Would you have me get some special garb for you, so that you could pretend to be a peasant? I tell you frankly, I have naught to spend on trifles.”

“When you sent for Marcan and me you sent good horses with golden bridles; how can it be that you cannot now afford trews and a jacket?”

“The campaign has gone against us, that’s why. I spent all I possessed to try to wrest the kingship of Munster from Callachan, and it wasn’t enough. Even those of the Dal Cais who live in the south are slow to come to our side. They had rather tend their holdings than drive the foreigners from the land. But I cannot afford to alienate any Munsterman, be he Dal Cais or Owenacht, so I cannot simply go out and take what we need from the countryfolk. Cennedi did that, and it turned them solidly against him and led to his death.”

“But couldn’t you attack the Norse city, Limerick, and get enough gold and weapons to support your campaign? Surely our fighting men are the equal of the foreigners, if only we attacked them by surprise, perhaps when most of their warriors are away. ... If we had spies to watch the city ...”

Mahon raised his hand to stop the flow of youthful enthusiasm. “There will be no attack on Limerick, Brian; we simply don’t have enough strength. The best we can do is raid small concentrations of Northmen, or waylay their overland merchants.”

“Then how do you expect to win and drive them out? And what are we fighting for, if not the destruction of the Northmen?”

“Little brother, you have yet to go on your first raid. I suggest you wait to debate policy with me until you have at least had some practical battlefield experience. And as for the trews and jacket, you should be content that you will have clothes without holes to wear when the weather turns chill. Those tartan trousers you covet are all worn through the seat.”

Two wearers of the tartan trousers, Nessa and Ardan, were men recruited from the-southern Dal Cais settlement on the Blackwater. Since Brian’s arrival at camp they had been aware of him, impressed by the fortitude with which he bore his lot.

Nessa was a master with the sword, Ardan a skilled slinger. When Brian’s physical strength reached the necessary level they would be-expected to instruct him in the use of their chosen weapons.

Nessa’s practiced eye took note of the boy’s quick reflexes, and measured the latent strength in his wrists. One day he ambled past the place where Brian had been put to work digging a new slit trench, and paused to watch. “They’re going hard on you, aren’t they?” Brian looked up at him, sensitive to a trace of pity, but saw none. Just a cool interest that did not threaten to turn into sarcasm.

“I suppose I have a lot to learn,” he replied carefully, hating the humble words.

Nessa threw back his head and laughed. “Aye, that you do! More than you can imagine. Unless you are given back your horse, you will have to learn to march like the rest of us, carrying everything you’ own on your back, and still be able to run and fight. You will learn to do without sleep or food, and to stay warm on the coldest nights because the wink of a fire might bring your enemy down on you.” “I can do all those things.”

“And how would you know, when you’ve never had the

doing of them?”

Brian cast a defiant eye around the camp. “If all these men can, so can I.” His tired body did not agree with him, but he had begun ignoring its complaints in self-defense.

“Brave words, lad! They may fly back into your face as spit into the wind, but let us hope otherwise. Tell me, isn’t Kernac the Red your superior officer?”

“Yes.”

“And he has assigned you duties?”

“Chores like this,- work fit for slaves. But he teaches me nothing of fighting.”

“Nor will he. Your comrades teach you that, and I know the lessons are not very pleasant. We have no formal school

of warfare here; a man must acquire his skills from his fellows.”

“Then I should be becoming very skillful,” Brian observed through gritted teeth.

“And so you are—I’ve watched you. The time has come for you to train with the sword and javelin, I think—or the sling, if you have a talent for it.”

“That’s a peasant’s weapon.”

“Aye, but a very effective one, more deadly than the weak arrows of the few poor bowmen among us. I have a friend, Ardan, who can put down as many with his sling and stones as I can with my sword. Well, almost.”