In the Region of the Summer Stars

  Conor paused and as he turned, he was struck from behind by the shaft of a spear. The blow hit the back of the knee; his leg buckled and he fell. Before he could squirm out of the way, the next blow found his ribs and stole the breath from his lungs. Instinctively, he doubled up to protect himself and caught another jab in the ribs followed by a crack on the head as the three warriors joined in the beating, raining down punches, kicks, and clouts.

  Twisting on the ground, Conor kicked out with a foot and toppled one of his attackers. He managed to snatch hold of the spear shaft and yanked down hard, momentarily wresting the weapon from its owner. He made to rise, but the third warrior reared back and gave him a swift kick to the head. Blood-red stars exploded in his eyes, obscuring his vision. The weapon was pulled from his grasp and the beating resumed with a vengeance. Pain jolted through him with every thump. One particularly vicious kick aimed to take his eye. Conor absorbed the blows as best he could, but the world grew dim around him and he had almost passed beyond knowing when he heard a familiar voice cry out somewhere below him.

  ‘You there! Leave off!’

  One of the warriors shouted something back, and then, mercifully, the beating stopped.

  ‘Back away!’ commanded the voice and a moment later Fergal was there beside him. Conor opened his one good eye and saw Fergal crouching beside him, sword drawn, and Donal standing over him, spear lowered. ‘What is wrong with you lot? Eh? Three against one and that one unarmed?’

  ‘We only wanted to talk,’ said the leader, backing away a step. ‘But he wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Nor will I,’ replied Fergal, ‘your talk is too rough.’

  ‘Cowards,’ snarled Donal. ‘Creep away now while you can still walk.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘Then stay and talk to my blade.’ Donal moved forward, ready to strike.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said another of the warriors, also backing away. ‘We’re going.’

  ‘Ach, aye,’ Donal told him, ‘and if I ever see any of you again, blood will flow.’

  ‘Just you tell your friend there’—the leader pointed at Conor on the ground—‘that King Brecan is not a dog to be whipped by any upstart spear-polisher. Remember that.’

  The three departed then, and Fergal raised Conor into a sitting position. Conor tried to get to his feet, but was reduced to breathlessness by another wave of pain. ‘Easy, brother,’ said Fergal. ‘Rest a moment. They won’t come back.’

  ‘If they do, they’ll regret it.’ Donal bent down and, looking into Conor’s face, said, ‘That is going to hurt.’ Conor reached up and touched his cheek; his right eye was already swelling shut.

  ‘What did you say to them anyway—to make them so angry?’ wondered Fergal.

  Conor shook his head. ‘I challenged high-and-mighty Lord Brecan before the gathered lords,’ he moaned.

  Fergal glanced at Donal and shook his head. ‘I hope you think it was worth it.’

  ‘Challenging Brecan before the council.’ Donal shook his head. ‘What were you thinking? Or, were you thinking at all?’

  ‘Brecan is slippery as any eel in the lough.’

  ‘And did you not know that already?’

  ‘I wasn’t the only one,’ Conor said, feeling his arm and wincing at the touch. ‘Also Cahir and Ardan—they both tried to get Brecan to admit that there is some foul purpose in play.’

  Donal squatted down in front of him and reached out a hand to his cheek. ‘I don’t like the look of that eye. I expect Aoife will like it even less.’

  ‘She loves me as I am,’ grunted Conor. He lay back with a groan.

  ‘Brecan’s men, eh?’ said Fergal, glancing back up the hill. ‘We’ll have to think of some way to return the favour.’

  ‘Leave it alone for now,’ said Conor. ‘Their time will come.’

  ‘Well,’ said Fergal, ‘let’s get you back to camp and see what damage they’ve done you.’ Together, he and Donal levered Conor up and onto his feet and, as they made to drape his arms around their necks, Conor gave out a shriek of pain and promptly vomited. ‘It’s that arm there,’ said Fergal. ‘It must be broken.’

  ‘Wait till Liam learns about this,’ sneered Donal. ‘Bastard Brigantes.’

  8

  ‘It is your own fault. You had no right to speak in council. Perhaps this will teach you to keep your place.’ Liam’s tone was cool and critical.

  ‘We can but hope,’ allowed Conor. He lay on the ground outside his father’s camp tent on a bed of river rushes overspread with an ox hide. His head ached. His ribs and shoulder hurt. His eye throbbed and his arm was hot to the touch; he feared it was broken. Fergal and Donal stood beside him, still seething at the Brigantes’ treatment of their friend.

  ‘What did you think would happen?’ said Liam. ‘He is a king, after all.’

  ‘That is no reason to ambush a brother,’ said Fergal.

  Liam turned on him. ‘Were you there? No? Then stay out of it.’

  ‘We were there when they attacked him,’ Donal pointed out. ‘And lucky, too. They would have done worse if we hadn’t put a stop to it.’

  ‘See?’ said Liam, appealing to his father. ‘I said it was a mistake to bring them. I knew nothing good would come of it.’

  Ardan waved aside the comment, but was no more inclined to sympathy than his battlechief. ‘What made you think you could confront Lord Brecan before the council?’

  ‘I thought,’ groaned Conor through gritted teeth, ‘that the Oenach was where men of honour could meet to speak their minds without fear of reprisal.’

  ‘You were wrong,’ said Liam. ‘You should have known better.’

  ‘King or no,’ said Fergal, ‘it seems to me that Brecan has overreached himself.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ demanded Liam.

  ‘I know that sending three to attack one—and him unarmed—is unworthy of any man of honour.’

  ‘Shameful,’ concluded Donal.

  ‘Well, thanks to your friend here’—Liam indicated the wretched Conor on his rough bed—‘we’ve enough trouble now without you two stirring the pot.’

  ‘Enough—all of you!’ rumbled Ardan, growing weary of the bickering. ‘We do not want a battle with the Brigantes over this. But I agree’—he nodded to Fergal—‘Brecan has gone too far. I will bring the matter before the council tomorrow and demand an answer for it.’

  ‘I fear that would be a mistake,’ said Conor, rousing himself at last. ‘Say nothing to anyone about this. We will keep this to ourselves.’

  ‘But the attack was meant to silence you,’ Fergal pointed out.

  ‘Then we will be silent—and bide our time.’ Conor appealed to his father. ‘Brecan has many friends in the council. Go against him alone, and we can but fail. To challenge him properly, we will need the help of the other lords—or at least as many as can be made to see reason.’

  His father considered this for a moment, then announced, ‘Conor may be right. We will say nothing for now, but I will begin seeking among the other tribes for those who view Brecan’s ambition as a threat to us all.’ Ardan told his injured son to rest and recover his strength, then moved off to speak to Eamon and his ardféne.

  ‘Fool,’ sniffed Liam before taking his leave of Conor. ‘This is your own fault. You poked your nose into the hornet’s nest and got what you deserved.’

  Liam stalked off, shaking his head at the stupidity of his brother. Fergal glared after him and Donal spat onto the ground. Conor saw their disapproval and said, ‘That was frustration speaking just then,’ Conor counselled. ‘Liam doesn’t mean half of what he says.’

  ‘Ach, aye,’ observed Donal, ‘but it is the half he does mean that worries me, so it does.’

  ‘He’ll come around. But I am sorry to leave you to care for the horses on your own,’ said Conor, quickly changing the subject. ‘It means more work for you.’

  ‘No matter,’ replied Fergal, ‘we won’t be going up to the council anymore anyway.’

/>   ‘At least,’ added Donal, ‘the animals welcome our company.’ He gave Fergal a nudge. ‘We’d best go and see to them.’

  The two left him then, and Conor remained sprawled on his bed, hurt and dejected, watching his clansmen at their chores, but mostly just feeling aggrieved that his ill-considered confrontation had not only failed, but had landed him in such difficulty and discomfort. His father spoke to Cahir about his son’s injuries, and the Coriondi lord sent his druid to see what could be done to ease Conor’s pain and aid his healing.

  The bard was an upright man, old as an oak stump and thin as a willow rod, with a hawk nose set in a narrow face framed by a scant fringe of snow-white hair, his druid tonsure long since eroded away by the years. He wore a thin cloak and long belted siarc the colour of autumn leaves on the turn, and breecs of the same material bound with leather laces to his spindly shanks; from his wrist dangled a heavy gold bracelet of the kind kings often give to champions and valued advisors, and a slender torc of twisted silver hung around his wattled throat. The old fellow carried a leather satchel, battered and bulging, on a strap around his shoulder, and a small three-legged stool; a knife with a blade of black stone was tucked into his belt. The druid arrived unannounced, spoke briefly to Ardan, and then set to work. ‘I am Mádoc. How are you?’

  ‘I am Conor, and I am as you see me.’

  ‘Ach, well, hold still.’ The bard seized Conor by the chin and proceeded to inspect Conor’s angrily swollen eye, damaged limbs, and bruised torso, prodding here and poking there, making Conor flinch and grit his teeth. ‘Are you spitting blood?’

  ‘Not so much,’ replied Conor.

  ‘Pissing blood?’

  Conor shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Headaches?’

  ‘Only where they cracked my skull.’ Conor lifted his fingers to the lump on the back of his head.

  The druid touched the lump lightly and shrugged. ‘What about those ribs?’ he asked, pointing to the bruise spreading across Conor’s chest.

  ‘It hurts if I breathe too hard.’

  The druid nodded. ‘Arm and ribs,’ he mused, stroking his long chin. ‘Anything else?’

  Conor thought for a moment. ‘No.’ He glanced at his swollen arm. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘I’ve seen worse,’ Mádoc concluded.

  ‘Happy news.’

  ‘Now be quiet while I treat you.’ He rose and went to fetch some supplies, returning a few moments later with a wooden bowl of warm water and a small roll of clean white linen. Then, perched on his stool, he drew from his leather satchel bits of this and that; he wet a scrap of linen and began carefully cleaning the bruise around Conor’s eye. Next he bound the swollen mass with soft damp moss mixed with dried herbs of elderflower, camomile, and dandelion root. That finished, he turned to Conor’s chest and arm.

  ‘I do not like this.’ Mádoc, holding the arm as if it were a length of kindling wood, lowered his head and sniffed the tissue.

  ‘Is it broken, do you think?’ asked Conor. ‘You would tell me if it was.’

  ‘If the bone was truly broken, you would not need me to tell you.’ He placed a dry palm on the warm, flushed skin. ‘Does it hurt very much?’

  Conor winced at his touch. ‘It burns with a vengeance.’

  ‘That is probably for the best.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad of that—for I would hate to think I was enduring this agony to no good purpose.’

  ‘The bone has been deeply bruised, perhaps even cracked—likewise your ribs. Fortunately, your bones are young and not old and brittle or they would be in pieces. Still, I will bind your arm, but you must refrain from using it as much as possible.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘For as long as it takes.’

  ‘Are you really a druid?’ Conor asked.

  The old man regarded him with a grudging look. ‘I was an ollamh … once—a long time ago.’

  ‘But not now?’

  He shook his hoary head. ‘I am my lord Cahir’s chief advisor. That is all, and that is more than enough for an old man.’

  ‘What happened? Why did you leave the Learned Brotherhood?’

  ‘Not that it is any concern of yours,’ replied the once-druid tartly, ‘but I grew weary of the endless pomp and pageantry, and self-important preening—few nuggets of truth hidden in a mountain of empty ceremony and bluster—and all to maintain a feeble hold on their precious authority.’ He made a sour face. ‘Bah! You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘More than you think,’ Conor muttered.

  The old ollamh gave him another canny look, and proceeded to wrap the injured forearm with strips of wet linen lined with shavings of willow bark; he then bound the entire limb to Conor’s chest with more strips of linen to render the limb all but immobile. ‘Tell me about what happened to you,’ he said, tying off the binding strips. Conor gave a cursory account of the disagreement at the council and the subsequent attack by Brecan’s men—and expressed the opinion that such things ought not happen between brothers of the sword and spear, and never at an Oenach.

  ‘Hmph!’ snorted Mádoc through his nose.

  Nothing more was said, but Conor could tell the old man was deep in contemplation of what he had been told. Mádoc finished and rocked back on his stool, surveyed his handiwork, and pronounced himself satisfied with the result.

  ‘That’s it?’ said Conor, regarding his arm with some misgiving. ‘That’s all you can do?’

  ‘All?’

  ‘What about my ribs?’

  ‘You are young. You will heal.’

  ‘A very prodigy of a physician,’ sighed Conor.

  ‘Just refrain from sudden movements. That means no fighting. In a few days, you will hardly notice the pain at all.’

  ‘I thank you, Mádoc.’ Conor relaxed and lay back once more. ‘I am sure Lord Ardan will reward your good service.’

  The old man inclined his white head in a slight bow, and said, ‘A little information would be reward enough.’

  ‘That is readily supplied. What would you like to know?’

  ‘You claim that you were set upon by Brigantes warriors for your impertinence in questioning King Brecan before the council.’ Mádoc folded his hands and cocked his head to one side. ‘Yes?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Conor admitted. ‘They were Brigantes at least.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ allowed the druid. ‘Yet my lord Cahir also questioned Brecan but was not set upon or attacked by anyone.’

  ‘I am just unnaturally lucky.’

  ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘Why ask me? I’m just a fool poking the hornet’s nest.’

  ‘Even so, here I am—asking you all the same,’ replied Mádoc. ‘What do you think it means?’

  Conor paused to consider a moment, then said, ‘I am thinking that Brecan intends to seize the high king’s torc. See how he behaves—summoning everyone to a special Oenach so that he can lord it over all the others—up on his platform in his big chair and his arrogant druid looking on. And when we raise a matter of real concern—’

  ‘The Scálda spies?’

  ‘Just so,’ said Conor with a sharp nod. ‘When I try to alert the council to the danger, Brecan says it is of no consequence. Scálda spies! Of no consequence!’ Conor’s face contorted in a grimace; his outburst sent a stab of pain through his chest. ‘Well, Brecan is jealous of anyone who might try to ruin his plans. That much is clear.’

  Mádoc’s glance grew keen. ‘We have not had a high king in Eirlandia since Artuin mac Datho, and that was more than ten generations ago.’

  ‘As long ago as that?’ said Conor.

  ‘At least.’ Mádoc bent to his satchel and began putting away his medicines and herbs.

  Conor sensed some hesitation in the old man’s tone. ‘But what?’

  ‘Think you now,’ replied Mádoc, his voice falling to a whisper, his tone sombre. ‘Eirlandia has not faced a foe like the Scálda for ten generations, either.’
br />   ‘And this alone gives Brecan the right?’ Conor scoffed.

  ‘Your words, son. Not mine.’

  Conor stared at the white-haired man before him for a long moment, trying to decide what else he was withholding.

  Mádoc seemed to read the trend of his thoughts. ‘You took a beating and others did not. Think! What does this tell you?’ A puzzled expression wheeled across Conor’s face, but before he could reply, the bard lost patience. ‘Bah! Life is not long enough to wait for you to blunder into an answer.’

  ‘You speak to a fool—so everyone tells me—what do you expect?’

  Mádoc sighed and shook his head. ‘You saw something you were not supposed to see.’

  ‘I saw only what everyone else saw up there. I saw—’

  ‘Not up there…’ The druid jerked his head in the direction of Tara’s hilltop. ‘Before—when you fought the Scálda spies.’

  ‘Fergal and Donal saw them,’ Conor replied, ‘and Eamon, too—he was attacked and would have been killed. ’

  Mádoc shook his head wearily. ‘Aye, to be sure. But they were not up on the platform confronting Brecan before the whole assembly. You were.’

  ‘There is some hidden purpose here—is that what you mean?’

  Mádoc nodded with satisfaction.

  ‘But that’s what I’ve been saying all along!’ protested Conor.

  ‘Ach, so now you have confirmation. You have the proof of your mistrust in the bruises you carry.’

  Conor allowed that this might be so, and said, ‘But I cannot see that this leads us anywhere.’

  Mádoc laughed and shook his head. ‘No, you would have to be a druid to see where this leads.’

  ‘Can you? Can you see where it leads?’

  Suddenly serious, Mádoc leaned forward. ‘Do you trust me?’

  Conor looked into the intense dark eyes. ‘I trust you as much as I trust any man,’ he answered truthfully.

  ‘Hmph!’ said the bard again. ‘There speaks a suspicious man—a wary and skeptical man.’

  ‘If so,’ Conor observed, ‘perhaps I have earned my suspicions.’

  Mádoc regarded him for a moment and then smiled. ‘Yes, by the purple bruises on your flesh, perhaps you have earned the right to your suspicions. Even so, if you will put at my command what little store of trust you still possess, we will undertake a work to lay bare Brecan’s plans to usurp the high kingship. We will expose his schemes for all to see and thereby end them.’