The Hound of Ulster (14 page)

‘Who are you that startle my horses,' cried Maeve. ‘Who are you, and what is it that you do?'

‘As to who I am—I am Fedelma, from the Fairy Hill of Cruachan,' said the maiden. ‘As to what I do—I weave the four provinces of Ireland together for the foray into Ulster.'

‘And how do you see them, the war hosts of the four provinces?' Maeve asked, against even her strong will.

‘I see a whole war host stained crimson red,' said the maiden. ‘A war host all blood red—blood red. And over against them I see a man, a slight man, scarce more than a boy; but the Hero light shines upon his brow. It is he that has made the war host of Maeve to be blood red . . .' She brushed the free hand she had across her eyes. ‘He is like Cuchulain of Murthemney.'

Maeve cried out at the name, between fear and anger, and struck at the maiden with the goad she snatched from the hand of her charioteer—and in the flicker of the light of the eye, the maiden was not there, and the horses sprang forward along the empty hill track. And Maeve was silent, very silent, as she drove.

The humming and the drumming and all the bronze clangour of Connacht making ready for war, came to Ulster like
‘twere the distant thunder of doom among the hills. And doom indeed seemed in the note of it, for many years before, a woman of the Lordly Ones, married to a mortal farmer, had been forced by certain of the Ulster Nobles to run a race against the King's chariot horses. She had won her race, but had fallen at the winning post, and with her death upon her, she had cursed the men of Ulster. ‘From this day forward, the sorrow that you have put on me, let it fall on you; and at the time you are most needing your strength, with the enemy hard upon you, the weakness of a dying woman shall come upon the warriors of Ulster.' And as she cursed them, so it had been ever since. And now Conor the King himself lay at Emain Macha, and his son Cuscrid, and Owen Prince of Ferney and even Conall of the Victories lay moaning on their beds with not so much strength in them as would serve to lift a spear. All the Red Branch Warriors save one; Cuchulain was of Ulster only on his mother's side, and his father's blood in him, the blood of the Sun Lord himself, was stronger than any curse.

Now Cuchulain was at Ard Cuillen on the southern borders of Murthemney settling some dispute between two of his chieftains, when the Great Weakness struck, and he heard the deep war thunder of the four provinces of Ireland gathering to the south, and he knew what was afoot. And that same evening as he sat at supper in the hall of one of the chieftains, waited on by the sorely troubled women, while the men sprawled groaning on the sleeping-benches, a light war spear was flung in at the open door and when he plucked it up, he saw cut on the shaft certain word-signs in the Ogham script. Take this spear with the love of thy friend and all but foster father, Fergus Mac Roy. They say that there will be a spear-dance in the Gap of the North, within two days.'

Then Cuchulain looked into the eyes of Laeg the Charioteer, who being no Ulsterman by birth, was also free of the curse of the Ulster warriors. ‘This is from Fergus Mac Roy, to give me warning. The hosts of Ireland will be in the Gap of the North within two days.'

‘Then the time comes to be yoking the chariot,' Laeg said.

‘First the time comes to send the warning back into Ulster. At Emain Macha they may be safe, but with the Great Weakness upon them, it is little good that the scattered warriors will do by biding in the open country to be slain like oxen. They must make for Emain, or take to the woods and glens where the host of Ireland will not find them. You've a busy night before you, Laeg my friend, but the young and swift among the women will help you. Once you set the word going it will run like heath fire, and when it is running, then come back to me here and yoke the chariot and set the war-blades to the wheel hubs.'

‘And you?' said Laeg.

‘I have a thing to do that will maybe gain us a night and a day for our warriors to be clear of the open country before the spear dance starts.'

And while Laeg gathered up the boys and young women of the place and set about the task of warning Ulster, he went to the stable where the Black Seinglend and the Grey of Macha were trampling and snorting as though they already smelled battle on the wind, and taking a pony mare of the chieftain's renowned for her speed, rode off to the valley woods far below, where a small white-running stream through the brown autumn bracken and squat wind-shaped oak trees marked the boundary of Murthemney. And there he cut an oak sapling and twisted it into a garland such as men use for target practice, and cut on the strong central stem a certain message in Ogham, and
hung it over the pillar stone of Ard Cuillen beside the stream bank.

At dusk the next evening the host of Maeve came to the pillar stone of Ard Cuillen and found the oak garland upon it, and read there Cuchulain's name and the warning that they should not pass the pillar stone that night, for if they did, he would take a mighty revenge on them at the next day's sunrise.

Then Maeve said, ‘A pity it would be that first blood should go to Ulster, for there are those among the war host who would call it an ill omen, and lose all heart within them.' And though she bit her nails in her fury, until the crimson started at the quick, she knew that there was nothing to be done but to make camp for that night and advance no farther into Ulster until morning.

The first snow of the winter fell that night, and the men could find no shelter nor place to cook their food, while the chariot ponies stood shivering miserably with their heads down and their rumps to the whirling whiteness. But at dawn the snow ceased and the skies cleared, and the sun broke through. And the bone-chilled war host raised a yell and ran to harness up the chariots.

‘Ach well, it has gained us one night,' Cuchulain said to his charioteer, when from the D
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n of Ard Cuillen he heard the distant thunder of the war host flowing into Murthemney. And he laid an arm across the other's shoulders, laughing. ‘And the snow shall stand friend to us and traitor to them like the fine brave Ulster snow it is! Harness up, my brother.'

And so before the sun was past the blue shoulder of Slieve Fuad, Cuchulain in his war chariot came swooping down on the track of the host, where all the snow of the broad glen was trampled and mazed with tracks of men and horses and the
ruts of the chariot wheels, and swept to and fro across it like a hound nosing out a trail, until the traces had told him all that they had to tell.

‘More than five thousand men have passed this way. Surely this is a cattle raid beyond any that ever was known before,' Cuchulain said, ‘and they were travelling fast as lash and goad can drive. Now, that is a thing that we can alter a little, at all events,' and he laughed and took the goad and the reins from Laeg and sent the team bounding forward. He swung them wide of the war host, touching them about the haunches with the goad now on this side and now on that like a gadfly, yet never so as to draw blood. ‘On, my beauties, my brothers! This is a race worth the winning!'

And a while beyond noon, with the race truly won, he came sweeping in far beyond the advance guard of Maeve's host, and turned to meet them. He gave back goad and reins to Laeg, for from now on it would be for Laeg to drive and for him to fight the chariot; and as he waited, listening, Laeg holding the sweating team in check, he felt all Ulster at his back, beyond the wild glens of Bregia, and knew that until the Great Weakness passed from his comrades, it was for him to hold the passes against the whole war host of Ireland; and he sent up in his heart a great cry to Lugh of the Shining Spear: ‘Father, if I am indeed your son, help me in this, for sorely I will be needing your help—you who gave me as a gift to Ulster, let me be a gift worth the having! Let my horses trample the enemy beneath their hooves as rotten apples at the cider harvest, and let the slaying of my spear be like lightning blasting them through and through!'

The sound of hooves and chariot wheels stole upon the autumn quietness of the glens that was full of the trickle of snow water and the soughing of the little wind, and two light
chariots came sweeping over the shoulder of the moors, down towards the ford that just there crossed the river. ‘Queen Maeve sends her scouts ahead like a prudent war leader,' Cuchulain said softly, when he saw them. ‘Well, they shall tell one thing to their mistress at least—that the passes into Ulster do not lie open to all comers! Now Laeg! They are across the ford—make for the nearest of them!'

They raced down upon the first of the scouting chariots, and as they thundered yelling past, Cuchulain leaned out over the rim and with one mighty sword stroke smote the heads of both warrior and driver from their shoulders. Then almost without orders the Black Seinglend and the Grey of Macha swung round upon the other chariot as the driver lashed his horses to meet them, and again Cuchulain's sword flashed in the snow-paled sunlight, and again two heads fell.

Then Cuchulain leapt from the chariot and cut the traces of the terrified Irish horses and let them run, and himself he turned to the alder scrub along the river, and found a young tree with four branches, and cut it down and lopped the branches and trimmed what remained into sharp points. And on each of the four prongs he impaled one head of those that he had struck off, and he set the pole up at the river ford for a warning. And that place was called Athgowla, the Ford of the Forked Pole, ever after.

And when, a while later, Maeve and her war host came roaring down to the ford, they found the bloody heads on their forked pole, like a tree of death bearing hideous fruits, and knew, if they had not known it before, that Cuchulain held the passes. But though they sent out the best hunters among them and scoured the glens of Slieve Fuad and Slieve Cuillen, not a hide nor hair could they find of the Hound of Ulster among his own hills.

Nevertheless the war host poured on, fanning out like a forest fire and spreading great bursts of black ruin and desolation through the lands of Bregia and Murthemney. Many a farmsteading went up in flames, many a shrieking woman was carried off into slavery in the days that followed, while the snow melted and the early winter was turning green again. But the war host did not go scaithless, for slingstones whistled through their camps at night, and by day Cuchulain hung about their flanks, cutting off stragglers, slaying by ones and twos at first, then as his battle frenzy grew upon him, descending upon the whole war host to slay as a reaper cuts his long swaithe through standing barley. Scores and then hundreds at a time went down before his onslaught, cut down by whistling spear and whirling war scythes, and trampled into red ruin under the thundering wheels and the thundering hooves of the team.

And now for the first time, the hosts of Connacht and Leinster and the rest saw the man who had played wolf-pack unseen on their flanks, the Hound of Ulster, and saw him in the full terror of his battle frenzy, the Hero light blazing upon his brow and the jet of black blood shooting skyward to make that murk like a rushing storm-cloud that hung above his head. And indeed now it was not only with weapons that he killed, for at the very sight of him rushing towards them behind his flying team, it is told how once a whole company of Maeve's warriors fell dead from sheer horror at the aspect of him.

Maeve began to grow desperate, and sent message after message to him under cover of the Truce Branch, striving to buy him over with promises of greater power and wealth than ever man held in Ulster. But Cuchulain laughed in the faces of the envoys, and called up his charioteer again for a new foray. But matters could not long endure in such a way; and
on the fourth day Maeve and Cuchulain stood facing each other across a narrow glen that was like a sword gash full of shadows in the hills that rose towards Slieve Cuillen, Maeve with her chiefs and captains behind her, her spear in her hand and the Royal Gold on her head and her long pale hair streaming sideways in the buffeting autumn wind; Cuchulain like a dark flame in his war gear, his black hair flying like hers from under his war-cap, and no man with him save Laeg, at all. And Maeve marvelled in her heart that this slight dark stripling—for indeed he looked little more—should be the terror of her whole war host, who, in his battle frenzy, was like a red War God rather than a warrior. But she had not called this meeting between them to see what like he was.

And to and fro across the narrow glen, the green plover calling on the slopes behind them, they called to each other, offering and refusing terms, bargaining and counter bargaining. At last and at last, leaning on his spear, Cuchulain called across the glen, ‘All day we have argued this thing, and I am very weary. Here then is my last word, O Queen of Connacht; listen to it well, for there is no more to come after; and on these terms and these alone, I will cease to harry the war host. But an hour's trail northward of this place, midway into the Gap of Ulster, there is a river ford. There I will take my stand, and you shall send against me your champions, one champion at a time, and one each day. And to each one I will give fight in defence of the ford. And while each combat lasts, so long may the war hosts of Ireland press forward into Ulster; but when each battle ends, the host shall halt, wherever it be, and camp until the next morning. These are my terms, Maeve of Connacht; think well before you refuse them.'

Maeve thought for a long while, leaning also on her spear. Then she lifted her head and shouted back across the glen.
‘Better to advance a spear's throw a day, than to advance not at all. And better to lose one man a day than a hundred. So be it then, Cuchulain, Hound of Ulster, I agree to your terms.'

SO CUCHULAIN TOOK
his stand at the ford, and that same evening, Maeve sent against him the first of her champions, and they fought knee-deep in the shallows of the ford. But the fore-guard of the Irish host had not moved a bowshot from their last night's camp before their champion went down with Cuchulain's spear through his heart, and they must needs camp again for that night. But Cuchulain kept his word and they slept unmolested through the darkness. And the next day Maeve sent her second champion into battle, and that time the rest of the war host moved up and all of them were three spear throws farther north when the second combat ended as the first had done.