Lion of Ireland (66 page)

Malachi nodded slowly. “I had to hear it from your own lips, I suppose, before I could fully accept it.

You will be the Ard Ri, Boru?”

Brian raised his chin and looked over Malachi’s head, over the gentle meadows, over the land he loved and had won.

“I am the Ard Ri,” said Brian Boru.

As Brian and Malachi spoke together in Brian’s tent, the massed ranks of the Meathmen waited outside, occasionally exchanging glances with the warriors of Leth Mogh. Each side was restrained, as there must be neither cheering nor jeering to dishonor the occasion, but across the lines a man sometimes saw a familiar face and a wink or a wave passed between them.

The rumbling of the earth signaled the arrival of the horses

Brian had sent for, and in a few minutes Duvlann stood at the tent flap. “My lord?”

Brian nodded and gestured to Malachi to come outside with him. He looked approvingly at the glossy herd, each animal held in place by a capable horseman recruited and trained to his specifications. The horses were .well-rubbed and sleek; a noble collection.

Brian turned to Malachi and spoke formally, raising his voice to be certain that every word carried clearly. “Malachi Mor, I, Brian mac Cennedi, king of Leth Mogh and chief of the tribe Dal Cais, have this day accepted your tokens of complete submission to me. Let it be known throughout Ireland that you have relinquished the High Kingship to my claim, and that you are henceforth my tributary as king of the land of Meath.

“In recognition of your homage, I give to you a subsidy of two hundred and fifty horses, the best in my possession, to be passed in turn to your personal retinue as symbols of the bond between us.”

At last, too late, Malachi grasped part of the secret of Brian’s success. The faces turned toward them were all alight with admiration for the splendid gesture. In the ranks, soldiers on both sides were beginning to chant Boru’s name, the familiar chant that had already conquered most of Ireland.

Well, I can be grand too, Michael thought. Once. There is nothing to lose, anyway.

“Brian of Boruma, my men and I appreciate your generous token, and ask to be allowed to extend the same generosity in return.” He glanced toward the cluster of his officers and saw them nodding in understanding. Then he looked beyond Brian to the oldest and tallest of the younger Dalcassian princes, Brian’s son Murrough, a man who almost equaled his father in stature and fame as a warrior.

“On behalf of the people of Meath, I would like to give these splendid horses here assembled as a gesture of friendship to ... Murrough mac Brian. And I bow before his sire, the greatest champion in Ireland, the man most worthy to be Ard Ri.”

The applause for Malachi’s gesture was unanimous and sustained.

The day was spent in feasting, and by sundown preparations were underway for the breaking of camp next day. Malachi returned to the council chambers of Tara to set in motion the complicated transfer of ritual power from himself to Brian. In the spring there would be an inauguration on the most beautiful hill in Ireland, and a new Ard Ri would mount the Stone of Fal.

I wonder if it will cry aloud for me? Brian asked himself. He had refused an escort and was walking alone at the edge of a small stand of trees some distance from the main body of his encampment. Wild geese called high in the sky above him, anticipating the sunset as they sliced down through the cool air to a distant lake. Flann and Conaing had both asked to accompany him, and he felt their disappointment when he insisted on taking this walk alone. Only Padraic would have understood.

He passed into the shelter of the trees and walked through a sunlit rain of golden leaves. The slanting radiance of the dying sun gilded everything.

This is what it feels like. The dream is reality, the impossible is accomplished. I am the king. I am to be Ard Ri.

The trees watched him.

He walked slowly, not seeing, his vision turned inward.

Savor this moment, Brian, he told himself. Know what it tastes like, how much it weighs, the exact shape of it—do not let it drift away and be gone, unappreciated. For once in your life, take the time.

My ships are in the Shannon, my warriors cover the plain, and it is all my doing. The peace that exists throughout the south was created first in my own imagination, and then I made it a reality. I, myself. If I had not lived and fought, it would not have been.

He raised his head and continued to walk, his eyes turned in the direction of the setting sun. Beyond the Shannon, beyond Galway and Connemara, it sank into the Cold Sea in crimson splendor. Dying, it was more beautiful than in its brief day. The clouds that had haunted its pathway from the east were forced to reflect its glory, hurling purple banners across the lurid sky, lining them with the dazzle of gold.

There was no one to share it with; there was no one who could have shared it. And then he thought of Gormlaith. Not Gormlaith as she was, but some younger, fresher girl who would have ridden beside him on a shaggy pony and swung a sword in his service in some prehistoric dawn.

As he thought of Gormlaith, the sun sank below the rim of the earth and something dark moved across the land, accompanied by a rising wind. Brian shivered slightly, then began to grin. He knotted his muscles and tightened his skin, daring the chill to seep through to the bones beneath. He lashed out with one foot and kicked a drift of fallen leaves, sending a yellow swirl of them spiraling into the air to be caught by the wind. The leaves executed their own merry dance around him, and he threw his arms wide and laughed aloud.

“I am the king,” Brian cried into the wind. “I am the king!”

Gormlaith bore Brian a son. The labor was prolonged and difficult; the midwives sent for Cairbre, and Cairbre sent for the priest, but at last Donnchad entered the world with a scream from his mother and a great outgushing of blood.

To her own surprise, Gormlaith felt very maternal about the red-faced, squalling baby. She was jealous of the wet-nurse and tried to feed Donnchad herself, only surrendering him when he repeatedly spat out her nipple with a grimace and turned his small face away. “I must be too old to have good milk,” she said regretfully, but as soon as the baby was fed she reached for him once more, insisting on keeping him in the bed with her.

Brian brought Padraic to visit his new son. Gormlaith shuddered when the blind man entered the room.

“What’s he doing here?” she demanded.

“He’s my friend, Gormlaith, and I want him to see my son.”

Gormlaith clutched the baby against her breasts. “I want no imperfects handling my child! Besides, how can he see—his eyes are useless!”

Padraic pulled away as if he would leave, but Brian took him firmly by the arm and guided him to the bed. “Even without eyes Padraic sees clearer than most men,” Brian said, “and I trust him with my child as I have trusted him with my life.” He broke her grip on the baby, and in another moment the belching and bubbling little fellow was in Padraic’s trembling arms.

“My lord, don’t do this; I’ll drop him!”

“No you won’t,” Brian said, laughing, “just put your arm under him—so—there, isn’t that better? Feel how strong he is already!”

With hesitant fingers Padraic brushed the baby’s face and Donnchad immediately grabbed one of the fingers and began sucking it furiously. Padraic blushed to the roots of his hair. Brian chuckled, and Gormlaith, torn between anger and amusement, found herself laughing too.

“He’s so little!” Padraic marveled.

“I’ve thought that with all my children,” Brian agreed, not noticing the way Gormlaith’s eyes flashed jealousy at the mention of his other offspring. “But they do grow into real people in time, with God’s grace,” Brian continued.

“Please, my lord, take him b-b-back!” Padraic begged. He felt the small burden lifted from his arms and gave a sigh of relief. He felt Gormlaith’s presence very strongly, and her resentment battered him.

The king was soon called away to other matters. He gave Gormlaith a casual kiss on the cheek before he left, his hand guiding Padraic by the elbow, and he did not see the hungry way her eyes followed him.

The inauguration was to be held at Tara as soon as all the

arrangements could be concluded. Conor of Connacht had become engaged in a struggle for the over-kingship of his province with Ruairc of the Brefni, and the tribes of the kingdoms of Ulster were still independent of Brian’s influence and enjoying their perpetual wars with one another. Brian wanted to be recognized as Ard Ri immediately, so that he would have the authority to intercede in the politics of the north and bring the whole country to a condition of peace.

When Brian emerged from his final conference with his nobles at Kincora and went to Gormlaith’s chamber, he found the room crowded with chests and bundles. “What is this, my lady?” he asked.

“Everything you possess is piled in the middle of the floor.”

“I’m preparing for our trip, of course,” she told him over her shoulder as she pushed a servant aside and rescued a bauble being mispacked.

This was a confrontation Brian had dreaded. “No, Gormlaith,” he said as gently as he could.

Her eyes blazed with green fire. “What do you mean? Certainly I’m going to Tara with you—you will be the Ard Ri and I will be your queen; do you think I would miss that?”

“I’m afraid you will have to,” he told her, bracing himself for the storm. “Malachi has been most gracious about all this, and I count on his support in the future. It would be extremely insulting for me to appear at Tara with you, flaunting you in his beard even as I take his kingship from him. I will not do that to the man.”

She replied with an inarticulate syllable of outrage that sent her servants scurrying from the room as if by prearranged signal. “Damn Malachi and his precious feelings! Curse his eyes and his beard and his whole worthless being! Don’t you understand, I want him to see me as your queen; I want him to be humiliated by my presence and your triumph. It means everything to me!”

“Don’t make this harder than it already is, Gormlaith,” he advised her, keeping his voice carefully calm.

Gormlaith’s temper was not like Deirdre’s madness; no matter how violent she became, her rational mind continued to work and could be reached. “The time has come to put personal considerations aside and work for something larger, and as my wife I expect you to support me in this.”

“People will think you are ashamed of me!”

He shook his head. “You are fresh from childbed and no longer a young woman; you have an obvious reason for staying here in comfort. Kincora is a true residence while Tara is actually only a ceremonial place—you know that.”

“I don’t care about my comfort!” she spat at him. “And why are you mentioning my age now—do I seem suddenly too old for you, Boru, is that it? Do you want some green twig who will flatter your vanity? I know better than most what sorts of diversions are available to a High King.” The cords stood out in her white neck as she cried out, genuine fear in her eyes, “Do not leave me, Brian! Take me with you! Show me to the world as your queen!”

You cannot start giving in, for there is never an end to it, he reminded himself. “There will be time in the future, when the old resentments have faded, for you to appear openly at my side. But for now the matter is closed, Gormlaith.”

Feeling degraded and vulnerable, she nevertheless took his hand in hers and put her soul in her eyes for him. “Please,” she said more softly, “take me with you.”

The temptation pulled at him like an undertow, and he fought it. “I rarely ask help from anyone, Gormlaith,” he told her, “but now I am asking for yours. Only you can do this for me, only you can be a true queen and make a noble gesture worthy of the mate of the Ard Ri.” He felt her softening and pulled her body against his. “Work with me, Gormlaith,” he murmured into her hair.

She went to the gates of Kincora to see them leave, carrying the infant Donnchad in her arms. Brian was splendid, riding in his royal chariot, and the vast train accompanying him was worthy of a High King. As he rode past Gormlaith he bowed in salute to her and she freed one hand from the baby and touched two fingers to her lips in reply.

The wind blew up from the river. It swirled fitfully around

Gormlaith and her child and then fled with a rising wail into the distant stand of ash and oak. It sang to the trees of the woman and the boy she carried, and the trees shivered and sighed. There was a promise of pain on the wind.

Brian arrived at Tara. Malachi met him formally, so that all might see the amicable relations between the two kings, and then returned to Dun na Sciath. Brian’s courtiers took over the House of Hostages, and the House of a Thousand Soldiers, and he set up his personal headquarters in the Miodhchuarta.

Dalcassians replaced Meathmen as guards of the fourteen doorways. The banner of the three lions floated from the flagstaff.

In the seven ring-forts which dotted the great hill of Tara were many buildings. Halls stood awaiting the arrival of each of the provincial kings. The Star of Bards, though very ancient and weatherworn, was still the meeting house for the historians and poets, the physicians and senior judges, and the wisdom soaked into its walls permeated the very air. For centuries the brehons had debated their most complicated cases in this hall, with the Senchus Mor and the Book of Acaill open before them. Judges were themselves liable to damages if they delivered a false or unjust judgment, and the scrupulous care they took in forming the civil and criminal laws was held in reverence by all who came after them.

The ancient culture of Ireland was still palpable at Tara.

Brian walked with Carroll along the swelling ridge which formed the sacred hill, and they pointed out the sights to one another in friendly rivalry. The Fort of Conchobar, king of Ulster, had sunk into the soil in the thousand years since its building, and little remained of it but a low circle of earth enclosing a grassy mound. Carroll recited its history while the king listened, nodding with impatience, anxious to make his own entry into the competition.