‘Ruined your life,’ sneered Mádoc in a mincing voice. ‘Listen to you. I will tell you about ruin, shall I? You whine about leaving home and your beloved Aoife, about marrying, about soiling your spotless honour. Let me tell you there is no honour in death and the dead do not marry. You mourn the loss of your home and your woman? If we fail to stop Brecan, you can forget about ever going home. Your home will be nothing but a mound of cold ashes. You can forget about Aoife, too—or perhaps visit her grave, if there is anything left of her to bury when the Scálda finish with her.’
‘Stop it!’ snarled Conor. ‘Stop saying these things.’
‘Today I merely say this,’ Mádoc told him. ‘Tomorrow it is real.’
Conor started at the old druid. Silence stretched taut between them.
‘Bah! Sooner teach a pig to play the pipes than teach you to see what stands naked and dancing before you.’
‘What, then? What do I fail to see?’
‘Did the beating you received from Brecan’s men teach you nothing?’ The horses jostled uneasily, anxious to be moving once more. Mádoc became insistent. ‘Think! Why did they attack you?’
‘We’ve already discussed this,’ complained Conor.
‘Tell me. I want to hear you say it.’
‘They attacked me because Brecan is vanity itself stuffed into a pride-bloated skin. I questioned his integrity before his brother kings and made him look a fool,’ answered Conor. ‘That’s why he had me beaten.’
‘You may think you made him appear foolish,’ replied Mádoc, his tone dripping scorn, ‘but, in truth, I suspect the proud king was grateful for your ill-advised challenge.’
‘A strange way to show gratitude,’ Conor muttered.
‘Aye, grateful—because your impudence concealed the real reason he wanted you silenced. Should anyone question what happened, they would merely think that you overreached yourself and so Brecan’s men decided to teach you a lesson.’
‘That was reason enough for me.’
‘Ach, just throw yourself in the sea and be done with it.’
Conor’s brow lowered in thought. ‘Brecan’s real object was to keep anyone from prying into the presence of the spies so close to Tara?’ he mused aloud. ‘And that was why he was so indifferent to our capture of the Scálda spy. Brecan made small of our discovery in order to allay concern. But I would not let the matter rest.’
‘Finally,’ sighed Mádoc. ‘Now ask yourself this—what if the Oenach itself was not the reason for the summons?’
Conor stared hard into the darkness as if he might somehow penetrate this mystery by force of will. ‘Brecan merely wanted to lord it over us—to make everyone jump to his command. What other reason could there be?’
‘Think!’ Mádoc’s voice was quick and sharp as a slap.
‘I am thinking—but you talk in riddles and who can—’
‘You, Conor mac Ardan, stumbled over it when we first met. How have you forgotten?’ The druid waited for him to arrive at the answer and then, losing patience, lifted the reins and urged his restless mount to walk on, leaving Conor in frustrated silence.
‘Wait!’ Conor called, thought for a moment, then followed, reining up beside his prickly companion. ‘So, tell me—what did I say?’
When Mádoc did not deign to reply, he said, ‘We were talking about Brecan and … Nay, you asked me what I thought and I said…’
‘Aye, I did, and what did you say?’
Conor cast his mind back to that conversation. The druid had just finished binding his arm and asked for information: He wanted to know why had Brecan commanded his men to silence Conor. What did it mean?
‘You asked what was meant by Brecan’s men attacking me,’ answered Conor as the memory came back to him, ‘and I said I thought it was because Brecan had eyes on a high king’s torc—and you agreed. You said we had to expose his schemes and end them. You said Brecan had to be stripped of his power, or else—’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else,’ replied Conor, recalling the words exactly, ‘he would become invincible.…’
‘Aye, to be sure. And how would he do that?’ asked Mádoc.
‘I don’t know,’ Conor said. ‘Anyway, the other kings would never allow it. They would unite in their outrage and rebel against him. They would resist.’
‘If you say so,’ granted the druid.
‘The other kings would never acknowledge Brecan’s sovereignty. Even with the backing of his client kings, he could not stand before the combined forces of the other lords.’
‘Well, you know best.’
‘The kings would never allow it,’ he insisted, loudly, ‘unless they were forced to it.…’
Invincible! The word broke fresh upon him as a new and terrible vision formed in his head: Brecan as high king with the help of the Scálda.
Conor pulled hard on the reins, bringing Búrach to a halt. Mádoc’s warning of only moments ago took on an ominous cast … If we fail to stop Brecan, you can forget about ever going home. Your home will be nothing but a mound of cold ashes. You can forget about Aoife, too—or perhaps visit her grave, if there is anything left of her to bury when the Scálda finish with her.
‘That is why the kings were summoned to the gathering’—Conor whispered the words to himself as the meaning came clear—‘to allow the spies freedom to move about the land.’
Conor flicked the reins, urging his mount to close the distance between himself and Mádoc once more. ‘Brecan in league with the Scálda,’ he said, still trying to fathom that possibility. ‘With the support of the enemy, he can claim the throne—is that what you mean?’
The old bard nodded. ‘A thought we will keep to ourselves.’
‘We cannot let that happen,’ Conor told him, his voice charged with alarm. ‘We have to stop him.’
Mádoc returned a thin, mirthless smile. ‘You got there at last. There may be hope for you yet.’
13
Sunrise found the two riders approaching the edge of a dense woodland many miles inland and south of Dúnaird. Exhausted from lack of sleep—as well as all that had happened to him and all he had learned in the last few days—Conor dozed, slumped over, reeling on the back of his horse. From somewhere far away, he heard someone whispering his name. He roused himself enough to lift his head and realised Mádoc was calling him. Búrach plodded to a stop, and Conor looked blearily around to see Mádoc a few hundred paces behind; he was studying the dark line of trees rising before them in the near distance.
‘What so?’ asked Conor, stifling a yawn.
Mádoc made no answer, so Conor asked again.
‘Shh!’ hissed Mádoc. ‘Listen.’
Conor paused, but his weary ears heard only the whisper of the western breeze sifting the broom and long grass along the track, and somewhere, far away, three dull clicks—the sound of two sticks struck together … a pause, and the sound repeated.
‘Ah!’ said Mádoc with satisfaction. ‘There it is.’
‘What was that?’
‘The signal. All is well. We may proceed.’
Conor, tired as he was, did not question any of this as he surely would have if not aching to remove himself from his mount, lie down, close his eyes, and forget the last few days had ever happened. Mádoc, who seemed impervious to fatigue, picked up his reins and rode on. Conor allowed him to pass, and then followed listlessly, returning to his dozy, slumping sleep. As they drew nearer the tree line, Mádoc stopped again; the aged ollamh reached out, took hold of Búrach’s bridle, and pulled the grey to a halt. Conor felt the horse stop and woke again in time to see a pale flicker of movement on the trail ahead.
‘Mádoc!’ he whispered. ‘Someone’s lurking in there.’
Mádoc regarded him with a curious glance. ‘I should hope so. That will be our céile.’
‘We have a servant?’ said Conor.
‘We do.’
They rode on until the trail entered the wood and, as the canopy of branches closed over
them, a slender boy stepped from the shadows. No more than nine or ten summers old, with large dark soulful eyes that looked out beneath a wild thatch of black hair—more like the feathers of a flustered bird than the locks of a well-groomed child—he appeared at once innocent of all experience and wise beyond his years. He was dressed in a simple yellow tunic and breecs, and very tall, slightly oversized brócs that had obviously been made for a bigger boy. He neither smiled nor offered any greeting.
Conor acknowledged the boy with a silent open-palmed salute, which the boy returned. ‘This is Huw,’ said Mádoc. ‘He will tend the horses and camp.’
‘Greetings, Huw. I am Conor.’ The dark-haired boy regarded him with an open, interested stare, but made no attempt to reply. ‘Not one for simple courtesy, I take it?’ sniffed Conor.
‘He is deaf and mute,’ said Mádoc. Throwing down the reins, he slid from his mount and stretched the ache from his back and legs. ‘And even if he could hear and speak, he would not likely understand you. He’s Cymry.’
‘Cymry, eh?’ Conor mused. Their cousins across the Narrow Sea were odd, and perversely difficult to understand. As the boy moved to take the bridle of Conor’s mount, a black pony emerged from the shadows—one of the mean-tempered, stubborn little half-wild beasts that roamed the rugged, cloud-bound Cymru hills of western Albion. Stout, stub-legged, and spiteful the animals were; in Conor’s opinion they were not worth the trouble it took to keep them.
Huw grabbed the bridle and Conor dismounted; he took a moment to knead the muscles of his shoulders and massage his injured arm, wishing now that he had not thrown away the sling quite so hastily.
‘Here, let me look at you,’ said Mádoc, stepping before him. He took Conor’s arm and gingerly applied his fingertips to the wound, pressing it gently, and then gazed into Conor’s bruised eye for a moment and felt the bruise there, too.
‘Well?’ asked Conor when he finished.
‘You’ll live,’ he said, turning away.
‘Where are we?’ Conor gazed around, recognising nothing. The wood looked strange and, having dozed, he had no firm idea how far they had travelled.
Mádoc did not deign to reply, but made a series of motions with his hands, and Huw turned and led them off the trail and through the trees where, after a short walk, they came to a clearing—little more than a wide place among the trees—in the centre of which stood an earthen mound of the sort used by charcoal makers. Next to the mound was a round leather tent, and before the tent a stone-lined fire ring with glowing coals ready to be kindled, a brass basin of water, and fleeces spread upon the ground. Conor stood, reeling on his feet as he looked around.
‘Leave the horses,’ Mádoc said, joining him. ‘Huw will take care of them.’
A grateful Conor smiled and nodded his thanks, then staggered to the nearest sheepskin and collapsed. When he opened his eyes a few moments later, the sun was full up and filling the dell with warm midday light. A fire blazed and stew bubbled away in a black caldron at the edge of the fire ring. Someone was humming nearby and, across the clearing, Huw had stretched a picket line between two trees and was hauling water to the horses in a leather pail.
Conor sat up and turned his head in time to see Mádoc deposit the quartered carcass of a skinned hare into the murmuring cauldron. ‘That smells good,’ he said, his voice dry and cracking slightly.
‘Greetings and good day to you,’ said Mádoc, interrupting his song. ‘This will suffice until we get something better.’ He cocked an eye at Conor. ‘When was the last time you ate anything?’
‘I don’t know—yesterday or the day before.’ Conor yawned and kicked off the rough woollen cloak someone had thrown over him; he stood and stretched, then winced as he overstressed his injured ribs.
‘Well, that will not do,’ Mádoc told him. ‘From now on we eat whenever we can, for we never know when the next meal will come.’
‘I won’t argue with that.’ Conor looked around the camp. ‘Are we staying here, then?’
‘Only one more night. You can use the rest and another day to heal. We will move along tomorrow morning…’ He paused and added, ‘One way or another.’
Conor heard the slight hesitation. ‘Why? What are you expecting?’
‘Perhaps nothing.’
Conor rolled his eyes and shuffled from the camp. He walked a short distance into the wood to relieve himself, and then went to find the little willow-lined stream where Huw was drawing water. He shed his clothes and waded into the chilly water, washed himself, and then climbed back onto the grassy bank to sit in a patch of sun to dry. Every now and then a nearby willow would shed a leaf that would spin down to alight on the water and be swept away by the smooth-flowing stream.
That is me, he thought, a leaf spun round and carried off to who knows where.…
Was there any moment in the last many days that he might have pulled himself from the flow—a moment he might have stepped out of the relentless race of onrushing events? If there had been such a time, it had passed without causing so much as a ripple. And it was far too late for such thoughts now. ‘Three years!’ he sighed, throwing back his head. He was already missing Aoife, missing his swordbrothers—and this was just the first day. How was he to endure the thousand to follow?
Suddenly aware that he was being watched, he sat up and glanced quickly around to see Huw standing behind him, holding a cloth bundle and regarding him with a curious gaze. Conor lifted his hand and beckoned the servant to continue with his chores. ‘Do not mind me, boy,’ he said, knowing the lad could not hear him. ‘I’m just sitting here feeling sorry for myself.’
Huw stepped nearer, unfolded the cloth, and produced a clay bowl, a pair of scissors, a knob of green soap, and a razor. He smiled shyly, and placed these items on the grass beside Conor. ‘Is Mádoc trying to tell me something?’ he said. The boy ducked his head and hurried away. Cheered by the druid’s thoughtfulness, Conor spent what was left of the morning bathing, shaving, and trimming his moustache; he returned to camp a much better man than had left it.
The stew was not yet ready, so he went to the picket line to spend some time with the horses. He pulled up a handful of sweet grass, tied it in a knot, and offered it to Búrach, pressing his face against the splendid grey’s head while the horse nuzzled his hand. Conor offered him another knot of grass and while the animal ate, he stroked the long neck and shoulders, whispering in low, gentle tones, telling him what a handsome, strong creature he was and how much he valued his strength and grace and endurance. Next, Conor examined the legs and hooves, checking for any sores or injuries, then inspected the creature’s body from head to tail and saw that Huw had rubbed Búrach’s coat and combed his mane; he appeared well fed and watered. With a final affectionate pat on the rump, Conor moved on to Mádoc’s mount—realising for the first time that it was the gift horse he had chosen for King Cahir: the big bay mare. With a coat of deep brown with a black mane and tail, it was a sturdy, dependable animal—a good choice, as it turned out, for their purpose. ‘Has Mádoc given you a name, my girl?’ he said softly, looking into her big, liquid eye. ‘No? Well, then, I will call you Drenn—for you are surely a stout friend.’ He repeated his examination of the horse, pausing to feed it a knot of grass before moving to the pony. The testy little beast nipped him on the hand, so Conor left it alone, saying, ‘Just for that, I will call you Íogmar. Maybe then you will think twice before biting the hand that feeds you.’ Conor concluded his inspection and decided that young Huw had done his work well. Satisfied that the animals were in good hands, he returned to the fire to wait for the stew.
Mádoc sat on a low three-legged stool with a bowl of brown batter between his knees. ‘All in order?’ he asked as Conor resumed his place cross-legged on the sheepskin.
‘Take care of your horse, and he will take care of you,’ Conor replied, watching the old man pinch off a small lump and slap it back and forth between his palms to form the dough into a flat patty that he gently placed on one of the h
ot rocks of the fire ring.
‘Bairgen,’ Mádoc told him, indicating the little loaves. ‘Small bread.’
‘Small is better than nothing,’ Conor replied. ‘I didn’t know druids could cook.’
‘In druid schools where there are few céile,’ Mádoc told him, ‘the young ovates must all lend a hand in the cookhouse. We quickly learn the ways of pot and fire.’ He regarded Conor with eyebrow raised. ‘Have you ever cooked anything?’
‘Aye, once or twice,’ Conor replied. ‘I wouldn’t starve, anyway.’
Mádoc snorted through his nose and continued moulding the little round loaves. He finished and set the bowl aside; from another bowl he took up a handful of leafy herbs, tearing them deftly between his fingers and dropping them into the steaming pot.
Conor yawned and lay back on his elbows. After a moment, he said, ‘So now, if we believe Brecan has made a pact with the Scálda, how are we to prove it? And, assuming we can find this proof, what are we to do with it?’
Mádoc pushed out his lower lip and stirred the stew with a long stick. ‘The last part is the easiest,’ he said at last. ‘We will take our evidence to the Ard Airechtas.’
Conor repeated the name; it meant nothing to him. ‘Who is that?’
‘Not a who—a group,’ corrected Mádoc. ‘It is the Oenach of bards, you might say. The high and noble gathering brings druids from all the tribes and clans of Eirlandia. Every kingdom is represented and all bards are bound by its decisions.’
‘So we take our proof to this druid gathering,’ mused Conor. ‘What happens then?’
Mádoc lifted his bony shoulders. ‘Who knows? Who can say what they will decide? But whatever their judgement, it will become law throughout the land—and all must obey. The Learned Brotherhood will see to that. But, as you ask, if presented with compelling evidence of Brecan’s treachery, I expect the members of the Airechtas would see the danger and act accordingly.’