Picts were well known betwixt the forest called Sciath Connaict and the sea.
Both riders who emerged from the woods were cloak-muffled, furs up, for the, dawn-chill had hardly dissipated. They sat their mounts loosely in weariness, and both beasts were winded, blowing with flanks atremble. For hours they had been urged with care through the night-blackened forest. Their riders had held their mounts to a walk while trusting otherwise to the instinct and surefootedness of the animals on the hardpacked roadway. The trail was broad, though, for reasons of defense and the slowing of any possible force of invaders, it wound about abominably.
Winded or no, the horses quickened their trot. One whickered and both strove to stretch reins and riders’ arms to allow a lope. For with home, oats and stable in sight, they were no less anxious to reach that hilltop fortress than the men they bore. Yet despite the haste that had driven them to the long ride through the night, the men held their reins now in stern hands that drew skin tight over knuckles. Neither was anxious, this close, to have his mount go down under him in final weariness.
They but glanced at the apple orchard to the east; the guard, that was ever posted there to surprise interlopers would not bestir themselves and betray their position to challenge only two men. And besides, Midhir mac Fionn was at pains to display in that direction his scarlet-painted shield with its four sun-catching points of silver; a gift from his lord Art that shield, and known farther abroad then hereabouts.
The forced ride had been cruel in more ways than one. There had been the darkness and the danger of a stumbling mount. There had been the sleepiness that came on, with the growing ache in buttocks and thighs. And too the long silent hours of darkness had afforded much time for brain-meandering.
Nor had Cormac mac Art done aught else. His mind would not clear, nor would it consent to remain on any one of his several worries. Of no avail the years of words and mental exercises drilled into him by Sualtim whose counsel was ever that one should get to know oneself, and then to control him one thus knew, to make him the better-and no animal merely reacting.
There had been too much, and all at once. The thrill of bracing that huge bear had been enow. Sure and such a feat deserved to be followed only by a basking in the bright glow of praise, followed by earned sleep. Yet close on the heels of that encounter and that accomplishment had come the… the rune-sent vision, the samha.
Cuchulain! Sure and Cormac knew the tales, which he had heard far more than once. He had dreamed of those times, of those days of great and incredible deeds. But this-!
Had his mental state, the decline in mental and physical heightening from their peak following the slaying of the bear… had these and the eyeseizing, mind-dulling effect of the fire merely sent him into a sort of trance? Had he but seemed to see, to feel himself a participant in those tales of, the Hound of Chulan the Smith?
Or… had Edar’s words held the truth? Cormac, the druid had said, had about him the look of a man remembering his past lives.
Was that what I was about? Was I Cuchulain-or rather am I? Is it possible?
Certainly few in Eirrin questioned the ancient Celtic assertion of immortality by way of the return of the basic life force in a new body. Reincarnation was a part of religion and life. A man came onto the earth, and trod the ridge of the world for a while. The while was called a lifetime. Its length varied. Then he was gone for a time again to that Other Place, Donn’s realm. Thence he returned to begin anew as an infant, the offspring of new parents, a new personality with a new name in a new body. Nor did he remember his previous lives, save in occasional snatches and glimpses. Thus was explained the inexplicable: genius in this or that trade, or at singing, or at any of the arts or skills.
Cormac’s taking to weapons and combat seemed instinctive. Perhaps. And perhaps it was the continuing ability of another life, or lives. So had Sualtim suggested, and few argued with the druids.
Whatever the explanation-if one indeed existed-that strangeness of the “remembering” had been enough, of itself. For Cormac had felt the pain and pangs of dying, physical and mental, with him unable to prevent that death or even take one more foe with him…
And then had appeared Sualtim. To the matter of the bear and the matter of the Remembering was added still a third jarring experience.
Never before had the druidic tutor of his boyhood appeared to him thus, and the man himself not there. Yet Cormac was certain had been no trick of his mind. Illusion, perhaps-but of Sualtim’s mind, of Sualtim’s devising, of Sualtim’s sending. All through the night had Cormac mac Art worried over the meaning of the druid’s all too few words. And still he did, as he and Midhir allowed their mounts to pick up their pace to a trot toward the outer wall of Glondrath.
Aye… and Cormac had known fear, too. He still did.
Treachery, Sualtim had said. Treachery-by whom, from whom? Against whom? To what malignant purpose? For how could treachery be benign, or even neutral?
Even more troublesome to his youthful mind was the dread question: Had the treachery succeeded in its doing and its purpose?
He would find out soon enough. Around him bird sang their gladness of spring’s coming, and he heard them not. The horses were nearing the tall wall of oak and earth. Men gazed down upon the riders, men in armour and, under their helms, faces that Cormac well knew. Dour and drawn were the faces of the two weapon-men on Glondrath’s eastern wall, showing little warmth of welcome to their commander and their chieftain’s son.
Much of his weariness left mac Art, then. A new energy of excitement came on him, born of apprehension and foreboding-and fearfulness.
The way was opened to the two, without a word. They passed within.
“Brychan!” Cormac called. “What’s amiss?”
The two guards exchanged a look. One said, “Amiss?”
Cormac’s stare was nigh onto a glare. “Ye heard ‘me aright.”
Brychan tucked under his lip; his companion made reply. “The druid will tell ye, son of Art.”
Brychan could not help himself. “How-how knew ye aught was amiss, son of Art?”
Cormac but looked at him; Midhir glowered. The weapon man set his teeth in his lower lip and busied himself with the gate’s closing.
The, horses paced into the sprawling townlet that had grown up around the fortress-become-manorhouse. There the main granary. There the other. There the stables. Near it the milk-sheds. There the creamery and buttery, there the cozy home of Midhir and his wife Aevgrine, and there doored mounds over underground storage chambers. Two large smokehouses. The barracks, sprawling, and homes of workmen and maids, drovers and churls, planters, the smith and armourer, the tanner and the horse-manager. Dogs yapped, wagged their tails, and some came running. Cormac’s mount whickered. A woman lugging her wash looked his way, met his eyes, looked a greeting with what seemed embarrassment, looked away. Children were clamorously at play-or work, for that life began at six or seven and sometimes earlier. Yet they seemed subdued, and they hushed at sight of the two riders.
Taller, huger, somehow darker and more gloomily foreboding, loomed the old fortress itself, the house of Art; the fortress-house that had been the home of Cormac mac Art through his memory.
Other people avoided his eyes, or looked away. None smiled. A chill came on Cormac’s very bones.
Something was sore amiss.