Chapter Seven:
Mesca and Mocci
The soldiers and new recruits of Forgall mac Aed entered Carman of Leinster under a pearl-hued sky lightened by a waning afternoon sun.
Though Carman was on Leinster’s southern border and the stronghold of Redrock up near the northern, Meathish border, Forgall’s company had spent but one night under the stars. The distance from Leinster’s northernmost point to its most southerly was but forty miles. The kingdom was smaller than Munster, which sprawled to its west and south; smaller than Connacht, smaller even than Mide or Meath, which had been created of parts from the other kingdoms, as an expansion of territory around Tara of the Kings.
Carman was the greatest center of population that fortess-raised Cormac had ever experienced, and he saw little while trying to see everything.
To him the human throng was enormous and exotic. Merchants and close-crowding buildings; well-dressed nobles in pearl-sewn mantles, and yapping dogs; slouching rag-tags and bustling hawkers of this and that merchandise; all merely formed a backdrop. The Connachtish youth’s eyes swerved this way and that to pick out women, and girls, more females in twenty paces than he’d seen in all his life. With fine clothes on them, and clean, curled hair, and paint or dyes to enhance eyes and lips!
The men tramped; Cormac tramped; Cormac stared. An occasional pair of bold eyes stared in return, and girls there were who imparted more swing to their hips, once they’d become aware of the big tall youth’s grey-eyed gaze. Entranced and enchanted, he heard not the babble of a hundred conversations, nor noted the words of the loud-voiced hawkers of goods. He had seen cod and white haddock before, and pig’s and badger-meat, and prawns and scallops and herring, and sloke and dulse, mace and honey, and fragrant little juniper berries his people used for flavouring and seasoning. He had not seen before so many fine-looking members of the opposite sex, and the Conachtish youth was at an age when his interest in females was passing high.
At the permanent military encampment outside the city-a bit too close, Cormac thought, to the city’s main refuse dump into the Slaigne-forsaw to the entry of “Partha” into King Ulad’s service, and to his outfitting. Yes, he could wear his own fine chaincoat in combat, when and if that became necessary. Otherwise, and for dress, the new recruit would wear the same sleeveless coat of boiled leather as his fellows, over their Leinsterish tunics of speedwell blue.
Cormac learned that he would be charged for both, against his wages…
The captain bade the veterans from Redrock be at their ease and leave, so long as they were back in camp by sundown, for pre-dinner muster. Aye, Cormac could go into Carman too: the newcomer had earned his leave that evening on the beach. With Boruma time so nigh, Forgall warned, many and many a day might pass ere again they found opportunity to recreate themselves.
The veterans welcomed their leave, and most had already accepted Partha as a comrade. Some few of the other recruits, who must remain in camp, frowned; so, Cormac noted, did Bress mac Keth.
A burly farmer’s son named Cas mac Con accompanied Cormac as guide; Cas was a score or so years of age, russet of hair and brown of mustache and called Bull by some of his comrades. Cormac willingly accepted the thickset man’s guidance into and through a city about which mac Art knew nothing.
Cas gave little time for sightseeing, instead taking a direct route that soon led them into a section of the capital that Cormac realized was hardly the best. He followed without thinking, hardly noticing his surroundings apart from the many exemplary examples of femininity; he gawked and girl-watched. A mug of ale? Oh, yes. This place? Certainly. Lasrian’s Blue Shamrock, eh? Noted for his own brew of beer from wheat and honey, with a secret ingredient Lasrian the brughaid would not reveal? Fine; Cormac knew not one place from another, and if Cas vouched for this one, why not? He was no expert as regards ale; an Cas thought Lasrian’s special bew worth the trying, he’d do so.
The two men entered the little tap-room, which was also an inn, with a door leading to private rooms behind.
Places to sit were not hard to find. Neither, as they ordered mugs of ale, was companionship-for Cas. A few minutes later the farmboy soldier was gone; so was the black-haired girl he’d told Cormac was his cousin. The big recruit sat and drank alone, only sipping for he was not overly enamoured of Lasrian’s vaunted brew. He strove to look as if he’d been wearing the blue tunic-over his own leather leggings-and long vest of black leather for years.
Cormac strove, too, not to be too noticeable in his watching of the most handsome girl nearby. Fiery of hair she was, and surely no older than he, though he saw that she was more sophisticated. That she was far from well dressed was of no consequence whatever; she was pretty and more, with a vivacious look about her. Her eyes were marvelous rounds of truly grassy green. Other patrons of the Blue Shamrock were no better dressed.
Indeed, the excellent young minstrel over in the corner wore a tunic of so faded a red it could be called pink. His hooded cloak was threadbare in more than one place and his leggings looked as if they’d been made of a carrion cow found a century ago. In a good clear voice, he sang quietly the while he strummed his lute.
Listening, enjoying the quiet music and verses-in-the-making of some love story or other, Cormac gave most of his attention to the girl. (Young woman, he thought, for I am a young man!) Naturally he pretended to be studying the brown liquid in his mug.
He was mindful of nursing his ale, that he might not empty the mug and have to suffer its refilling. Not so the two older fellows, who had obviously been here longer than he; longer, indeed than necessary. The younger, perhaps twenty, made a teasing remark. It was directed at the girl. She continued to devote much attention to her nails, which she had dyed crimson in the manner of a lady of leisure. Berries had darkened her eyebrows, which Cormac assumed were lighter than her orange-red hair.
The fellow who’d failed to attract her attention with his remark now stretched forth a leg. He tried to toe her ankle. He could not reach. Slouching the more in his chair, he used his foot to tap the leg of her stool. She paid no mind. Her apparent interest in her nails was as deep as Cormac’s in his mug of brew.
“High ‘n’ mighty li’l wench, huh? Nails like a lady-or a…”
She shot the young man a green-eyed stare magnificently notable for its coolness. When she disengaged that look, her glance flashed over Cormac, just in passing. He felt warmed by it. The man glanced his way; Cormac affected not to notice. The youth of Connacht was most aware of being well out of his element.
“It’s mighty fine them nails’d feel digging into a man’s shoulders,” the older of the two drinkers said, grinning, staring at the girl. “The backs of his shoulders.”
“Is it aught else ye’d be having?”
This from the Blue Shamrock’s owner-proprietor, or brughaid.
“Only a room in back, Lasrian-with that pretty drolleen for company.”
Lasrian shook his jowly head. “Och, Scumac, it’s ashamed I am for ye. That wren as ye call her does not work here-and she’s too young for yourself, sure. And yourself here with your nephew… Scumac!” Again Lasrian gave his head a chastising wag.
The older man named Scumac imitated the action. “So I might be, Laz… but yon filly’s not too young for Blai here, is she, boy?”
Blai laughed-a high-voiced giggle that Cormac thought ridiculous and nigh as shameful as the pair’s treatment of the girl… the young woman. And them uncle and nephew! He saw her give Lasrian the brughaid a grateful look, which told Cormac what he’d surmised: she was a youth of tender sensibilities, better than those two, better than the Blue Shamrock, and distressed by the unwanted and lewd attentions of a pair of louts who should have been out slopping the pigs they doubtless slept with.