Scratched into the back of the sundisk of Behl was… the cross. of Iosa Chriost.
Slowly Sualtim straightened, and Cormac heard the old man’s joints pop. He looked at Cormac, and his usual solemnity of mien was clouded over with deep concern.
“This bodes no good, son of Art. None. It’s more there is to the murder of Art and the attempt on his son that mere murder of a man or two. A lord has died; the lordling has narrowly escaped, and think not that it was pure accident and your own whim made ye bend just as that arrow was loosed, Cormac.”
Mac Art stared at him, saying nothing. Gulls wheeled and screamed against a sweet blue sky, the birds jealous of these men who had chased them from their morning find. Aengus had after all eyes for the pecking.
“More here than a simple blood-feud, surely,” Sualtim said. “Where the New Faith is involved, there are seldom simple motives.”
“The Dead God, “Cormac said, his teeth set and his lip curling.
“Aye. But so long as he has followers, and Romish plotters every one-even those of Eirrin-he lives, Cormac.”
“Was known my father was no friend of him or his priests!”
“So it was, and is. Nor is that all of this matter; I’d vow on it.” Sualtim looked down at the corpse. “Disguised, but he wanted his god by him and so marked the symbol on the back of his sundisk-sacrilege! He dared much.” With a sigh Sualtim added, “He accomplished much. Well. There is naught I can do for this man I thought I knew, who turned his back on the faith of his followers and followed the foreign god-even to murder. Will ye be doing aught for-”
Cormac interrupted his lifelong mentor. “I will not! The birds covet his eyes; let them have those orbs of Aengus Bradawc-Aengus the Treacherous!”
“It’s bent on a vindictive path ye be, my pupil?”
Cormac met the soft grey eyes with his own suddenly icy-hard ones. “I am. It is what is left me, Sualtim. Come. I have shown you what I must, and it’s a long trek back we must be making.”
Cormac turned away to go. For a few moments Sualtim gazed most thoughtfully at the young man’s broad back. Then, with the tiniest suggestion of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, he nodded and stepped forward past the youth-become man. They set out to return to Glondrath.
After a time Sualtim said, “Ye spoke to me just now as though ye were Lord Cormac, my…” he swallowed the word he’d have uttered-“pupil”-and said, “son.”
“I meant no offense to the mentor of my youth and life.”
“None was taken, Cormac. Indeed, in some ways you have been as son to me, and to a man with maturity on him, it’s prideful pleasure he feels when the boy becomes so obviously a man.”
Cormac went on for a time in silence. Then, “Men followed me last night, mentor, as though I were Lord Cormac.”
“And-”
“We both know I am not,” Cormac said, and heard Sualtim sigh with relief. So he was worried I had big notions, was he?
“And you know you can never be lord of Glondrath,” Sualtim said, very quietly, and far from happily.
“I know,” Cormac said, as easily as he could sound; it had been but a brief dream. “Today or tomorrow or the day after, someone will come from Cruachan, with fine skirts and jewels on him. And he’ll be telling all in Glondrath the name of the king’s new commander. Nor will it be anyone here.”
“It was no idle word I spoke, Cormac, when I told you you’d not live out a year an you remain in Glondrath.”
“So I felt. A fell strangeness was on your face and voice, Druid. Foolish is he who believes not druids in their saying of the time-to-come, and that look on their faces. Foolish is he who believes Sualtim Fodla not, in any matter! I do not misdoubt you, Sualtim Fodla.”
They walked for a time in silence, and then Sualtim’s age forced them to skirt to the edge of the declivity down and up which Cormac had yesterday run, so that they added to their journey. Even so, when they were on level ground once again, Sualtim had need of rest.
“I’d fain hold further converse in the matter of myself, Druid.”
“Sualtim,” the old man corrected; they were awalk again, entering the wood.
“That comes not easy on me, Sualtim. Is no easy matter, this being a respectful boy one day and a man the next.”
“I know, lad. Many things have happed, one tumbling over the other.”
“Too many. Too swiftly.”
“I’ll not be denying it, Cormac.”
“Aengus,” Cormac said, with a sad and uncomprehending shake of his head.
“If such was indeed his name. Surely he was only a minor peg of others in a game of Brandub, Cormac. A follower of Iosa Chriost-in disguise! Peradventure he wore his real name, too, under a hooded cloak?”
“Then who?”
“That,” Sualtim said, “is to be learned.”
Cormac said nothing. He walked, trying to make his chaotic mind concentrate only on keeping his strides short.
“Cormac-”
“I’ve none to seek blood-feud with. And naught for me here but despair, and bitterness and… death, as ye’ve seen for me.”
“I can deny none of that, Cormac. Your life has been changed. Like skeins taken up by a new blind weaver, the threads of your life are different, all at once. Nor can the same pattern be taken up again.”
“Why? Why am I singled out, Druid?”
“Perhaps for something else. Perhaps the gods put geas on you to do that which ye’ve yet to learn. And perhaps not, but only that you may weave your own life, become truly a man.”
“Alone.”
It was an ugly word in any language; Cormac’s tone made it the uglier. The druid had no ready reply, and they trudged in silence through the forest.
“In truth,” Sualtim said after a time, “methinks Behl has no personal interest in any individual. There are too many of us to be overseen.”
“The-the followers of the Dead God say that His father has personal interest in each person, and animal, and each happening on all the ridge of the world.”
“So they do.”
“Methinks Behl is the wiser,” Cormac said, after a time of mulling. “A god must have better things to do and think on than to be interested in Cormac mac Art.”
“Or should, indeed.”
“It’s more alone I am than any of those who believe in the Dead God, with His personal interest in them. It’s little praying I’ll be doing in this life, Druid.”
Sualtim made no reply. They walked, enveloped in woods budding into spring and each man deep in his own thoughts. Though in truth each of them thought on but one of them.
For a long while they moved thus in silence through the forest, until at last Cormac forced himself to say that which had come to the fore of his mind, again and again, to be thrust back in something approaching horror.
“I leave, Sualtim.”
“Cormac-”
Cormac had said the words; was easier now to say the rest. The decision was made; remained but to make it true, first with words and then with the deed: “I leave at once.”
“Cormac-” Sualtim trailed off. Then, “I understand. Aye. It is a man’s decision, Cormac.”
“Sualtim,” the youth said with what was nigh onto sternness, “I do not need that.”
The druid’s robe-sleeved arm moved, reached out to the tall youth. It dropped without touching his mailed arm. Great sympathy was on Sualtim, and nervousness, too. Yet there was pride; for was he and Art mac Comail-aye, and poor Midhir-who had trained and created this youth who was so strong both in mind and body-and now was forced to prove it.
“The best horse in Rath Glondarth, Cormac. Art’s horse. You will fly for safety to the northern kingdoms?”
“It is best, surely.”