Whether Tuathal’s daughters had been good and sweet or hideous and whoresome, whether Eochaid had been a monster or a man overly timid at telling the High-king of his elder daughter’s liaisons-none of this now mattered. It was King Tuathal who had left the entire Emerald Isle this blood-soaked legacy. And now collection-time was again approaching.
“Will the tribute be paid, Forgall?”
Forgall snorted. “Not willingly!”
“Tara will come to collect with steel hands, then.”
“Tara will. Meath will come. And Leinster will fight.”
Tradition, Cormac mused, and the word was as a curse. He contemplated the stupidity and greed of men. Why had no High-king been big enow, man enow to dispense with that which was the prime cause of dissension among all the kingdoms of Eirrin? Why did each crowned Ard-righ sit on Tara Hill and leave the Boruma in force, that had cost so many lives? Why did no man in high office, even the highest in the land, have the nerve and honesty to do that which was manifestly best for all, despite his contemporary detractors? Had a previous High-king caused the insulting, draining imposition to be lifted, he might have been damned by some in his time. Yet he’d be famous now, and beloved, for his courage and that great act, now and for many years to come. Tradition, Cormac mused sourly, and a bit more of maturity came over him like a mantle.
And the time was nigh. And here was Cormac of Connacht, self-exiled lest he be slain and the truth never be got at, bearing an assumed name… in Leinster. And Leinster would resist. That meant combat. The sons of Errin against sons of Eirrin, brothers of this isle, all, and no way to know them apart without the trappings of the very mortal kings who bade them go and die.
Cormac who was Partha thought on it, long and long, as Taraneseach plodded northward through the gloom of early nightfall.
So be it, he decided at last. I shall join Leinster, then. I will fight for Leinster, and pretend it is Connacht!
And Thunderhorse plodded through the first hour of night. Slowly his hooves clopped away the miles, and the mailed men on his back were silent with their thoughts: thoughts of war.
The fortress called Redrock was a small one, though ringed about with walls of earth and mud so thick that a chariot could have been driven atop them. Within was little more than garrison, stables and barracks, with a well and granary and a few other outbuildings round about the space for assembly and exercise. Forgall was greeted with great cheer, and Cormac knew the man was well liked by those he commanded. They entered, dismounted and swung their horse-weary legs while the big chestnut was led away to be stabled and fed. And Forgall led Cormac in to be housed and fed.
Forgall mac Aed was unstinting in telling the garrison of the heroics of the tall youth beside him, “Partha mac Othna”. Partha was immediately accepted as companion. Smiling, friendly Leinstermen offered food and ale to a fellow weapon-man, and one who indeed had saved their chief. The new comer’s apparent youth was marked and remarked upon; Cormac said little, and laughed when he was called “Parthog,” one of his new comrades attaching the word “youth” to his supposed name. He noted that there were those here but a couple of years older than he, and yet smaller than he. He would pass, a man in deed and a boy in age, among men some of whom were but boys in deeds.
Forgall’s second came to him. This was a not-unhandsome, chesty man with reddish cheeks and huge hands at the ends of long, long arms. Bress mac Keth his name, Bress Lamfhada, Long-arm, his sobriquet. (Cormac learned only later that Bress was called Huge-feet, though not to his broad, reddish, and yet slightly equin face.) Mighty Bress the Warrior was not yet twenty. He wore his red brows in two horizontal arcs that ever gave him a perpetual look of superciliousness and disdain, as though all were less than he and it was condescension to speak of them.
“And how is it ye turn up so deep in Leinster, an Ulsterman none knows? Ah-pardon… an Ulsterboy none knows.” And Bress let his face rearrange itself just slightly into a sort of smile.
“I have told the captain,” Cormac said, and repeated his story with brevity. He forbore to comment on the use of the word “boy.” Bress knew what he’d done this day, and Cormac thought he must be in a testing process. Bress was not a fellow-soldier; he was after all Forgall’s second, and due some respect. And… unhappy?
“Ah. And what does your father up in Ulster, third son of Othna whose brother took his sweetheart?”
“He is the lord Othna, commander of the rath near the borders of Airgialla and Dal Ariada.”
“Ah-is that near Armagh, then?”
“Less than a day north-by-west, afoot,” Cormac said. He was not being tested as a man or a weaponman; Bress was treating him as if he might be some sort of spy! Cormac stood erect. Though longer of arm and thus of sword-reach, Bress was an inch or two shorter than the young man he braced.
“Ah. And ye come claiming to be a noble’s son of Ulster, do ye?” ’
The barracks room had gone silent. Cormac’s jaw tightened. He bethought him of Sualtim and his good advice, and he forced himself to draw and expel a deep breath through his nose. His gaze he kept on Bress’s bluish green eyes.
“I come claiming to be naught but a weapon-man proven, Bress mac Keth, with hunger and thirst on him, and a need of oil for his swordsheath.”
Around them men laughed in a break of tension; Bress did not so much as show his imitation of a smile.
“It is a good answer,” Forgall’s voice called, and he came forward through his men after having conferred with sentries outside. “Nor need Partha mac Othna say more. I vouch for Partha mac Othna, who saved my life. Enough. Arbenn-chatha; no more questions. Our new man is proven and this very day, on the field of battle, not on that of practice.” Forgall arrived at the side of the stiffly standing Bress. “The time is past for us to be abed-we’ve a long trek on the morrow, and daily training after that. Enough talk.”
Bress gave Cormac a look that seemed to promise he thought it not enough.
Cormac wondered if Arbenn-chatha were Bress’s military title. Or had his chief called him “Chieftain of battle” as a chide, since the big redhead seemed bent on picking a fight with the new recruit, or at least challenging him strongly?
What a little man he is, Cormac thought, despite his few years, to be jealous unto truculence of his commander’s attentions to a new recruit!
A man whose name Cormac did not catch led him to a sleeping bench. He spoke quietly.
“Best ye be staying clear of Bress, Partha. It’s a fine fighter the man is, with or without weapons.”
“He does well with his mouth, indeed.” But Cormac spoke just as quietly.
“-with a temper on him as mean as his sorrelhorse hair.”
“An odd choice for Forgall’s second in command,” Cormac observed, wishing there were time to go over his mail-links once more.
“It is possible that Forgall be too easy-going,” the other man said. “Bress is our tempering. He is not well-loved by any I know-but it’s a fighting man he is, who has slain no less than ten times!”
Without comment on his own tally-all in Picts-Cormac nodded. He accepted both information and advice with a nod of thanks, and reclined for sleep.
He was so weary that, once his muscles had relaxed, not even the chorus of snores from his new companions or the ache in his shield-arm kept him long awake.