“Oh, oh captain,” one of the peasants nervously began, while the soldier was pacing forward, to the side of the cart.
Thump, went his spear-haft against a wooden cask, and the sound that returned was not from hollowness. Catching his spear-butt at the edge of that keg, he rocked it.
Slosh.
“Ale!” The Meathish captain’s voice was as of one in awe in the presence of the very gods. “Ale, by Lugh’s cup!”
“Well,” the cart’s driver said, “ah…”
“Ale!”
“Ah… well… aye, Captain.” And hurriedly, “Mightn’t we be passing now, Captain sir your worthiness?”
“Ha! Not without paying the toll! It’s war we’ve had this day, man, and your innkeeper untouched by it-why had we failed in our steadfast duty, his inn might have been invaded by barbarians and who knows what damage done? Brion-tap that keg!’
And Brion did. And the dark liquid came spilling forth, gurgling happily like a mountain brook. And the captain, his eyes fair emitting sparks now, used his helmet to catch some, so that it frothed up golden foam in the steel pot. And the captain drank.
“How… how tastes it?” This from Brion the sentry, with hope.
“Like sweat,” muttered one of the carters, and his companion introduced an elbow to his ribs.
“Ha! Good! Good, by Crom’s beard. It’s ale-Good ale! Not our pale stuff,” the delighted captain cried out. “It’s Leinster’s good ale this be!”
“Wh-why yes, Captain, aye your worthiness, the innkeeper our lord’s always wont to say there’s no comparing Meathish ale to this. He imports this for Meath, Captain, ye see, your worship. Might we be going on along our honest way now ye’ve quenched your thirst, good Captain?”
The sentry muttered to his superior. The captain nodded, with exuberance. His teeth flashed in a grin.
“So your innkeeper says that, does he? Why, that’s treason! And he’s trafficking with the knavish people we’ve after fighting this very day. Och! For shame! I do fear me this load of ale is hereby declared contraband, my man, and confiscated in the High-King’s name!”
“The High-king!” The carter almost whispered, in his awe.
“Aye. Hoho! And why should not we be celebrating with the rest of the army, we those others are after turning into smelly-booted nursemaids to an army of cattle? Did not these swords spill Leinsterish blood as well and as redly as theirs?”
One of the two carters tensed and his knuckles went white on the fist gripping his horse’s reins. His companion of the sword-grey eyes squeezed his arm.
“But-but Captain, fine honoured Captain, surely ye can’t be meaning to…”
The younger carter, he of the darkish skin and the grey eyes, broke off. The captain had drawn steel, and it shone like silver in the moon’s cold light. The captain’s eyes were as cold.
“It’s… to the count of twenty I’ll be giving ye, boys, to hush your voices and become scarce hereabouts. Else-”
The carters stared. The captain said, “One.” The sword lifted, gleamed. The carters exchanged a look. “Two… three… fo-”
Reins dropped. The carters scrambled from atop their sloshy load. Hitching up their smocks’ long skirts of reddish-brown homespun, they made haste into the night, heading for shadows back in the direction whence they’d come.
Behind them, the captain and his sentry laughed.
“Spoils of war!” the captain cried, and his eyes gleamed bright as the sword he now swiftly sheathed. The slap of peasantish boots faded into the night. “Into the camp with it, Brion-it’s I and yourself are about to become the most popular men in all Meath this night!”
Brion saw the two peasants disappear from his view behind a hairy, sprawly clump of furze that reared up in the darkness. Grinning he took up the reins of their horses. He did not see the two men slow to a jog; did not see the smiles spreading across their faces. They proceeded into the deep shadows of a growth of rowan bound about with last year’s woodbine and this year’s new green runners.
Around them men rose up in the darkness, and Forgall and Cormac were handed their proper clothes. Soon whispering, hopefully smiling men were helping them into their chaincoats. The clump of rowan was alive with men of Forgall-and nine others, handed into his command. The nine were all that remained of their own Fifty, with their captain and his seconds all slain on the Plain of Sorrow.
Amid the trees, crouching behind the haw that partway ringed the grove like a low defense-wall, they waited.
Weary weapon-men practically held their breaths in silence. Excitement and the hope given them by the plan of their comrade Partha had restored them as though they’d slept many hours. Soon it came: plainly they heard the sounds of revelry from the Meathish cattle-camp.
“The sons of sows are snorting up that ale as if the High-king had decreed it out of existence on the morrow!”
“Hush. We hear them.”
“Hump! They hear nothing.”
“Mayhap it’s they who’ll be out of existence soon, happily and insensibly guzzling…”
“Pray they do indeed guzzle just so: to insensibility!”
“Be silent.” Forgall’s voice slashed among his men’s, low and angry. “An… one of those yonder steps away to relieve himself, and wanders this way…”
There was no need for him to say more; there was silence. They waited, six-and-thirty men of Leinster, armoured, armed, waiting, hoping, hearts pounding, helmets doffed against a betraying flash of steel in the moonlight. Not a man but held his breath in order to hear the better-and against being heard by the joyous, ale-guzzling men of Meath.
Measured against the branches and tops of trees, the moon visibly moved in the cloud-drifted sky. A little breeze came, and tarried for a time, and retired for the night. Squatting men moved, stifling grunts, for toes and calves had begun to ache. They waited. The noises from the Meathish camp commenced to diminish. They diminished. Now but three or four continued to sing, to shout, to laugh. Then there were definitely but two voices. And then one.
That man sang a couple of lines, shouted again, bellowed curses on his weakling fellows. He essayed another line of song, an obscenity. There came a crash; wood splintered. Another great string of curses. And then silence.
And silence. Not even a cow lowed.
The men of Leinster waited. Their heads they cocked, with one ear turned toward the cattlecamp, holding their breaths and straining to hear.
There was naught to hear. Not even the wind soughed.
Forgall made them wait longer than any other man would have done. All chafed. Cormac chafed-and mentally congratulated his leader. Patience, he thought, and perhaps he matured a mite more.
Then, with a little rustle, Forgall Mac Aed rose. All about him, with rustles and clinks and little grunts as circulation rushed back into limbs in which its flow had long been disrupted by their squatting, the others rose.
Six-and-thirty men moved from the rowan grove and paced toward the Meathish camp. Helmets capped their heads now, and shields bobbed high at their sides, and swords and axes were naked and sinister in their fists.
They discovered no need for their weapons. Drugged with quart upon quart of ale and the sleep-inducing oil of boar-blossom with which the Leinstermen had steeped it, the cattle-guards lay deep in slumber. Each sprawled where he’d sagged or toppled. The camp’s only sounds were snores.
Grim-faced Blueshirts stood over sleeping Meathmen. Sword- and ax-hands twitched. Their owners looked to their captain. Forgall too gazed upon the slumbrous men, and regarded the blade bared in his fist; he reflected on slain Leinstermen.
A hand touched Forgall’s arm; it was a big hand, unlined, and Gael-dusky.
“Best we leave them asleep and alive,” Cormac Mac Art dared counsel his leader. “Will be greater insult and shame on them and High-king Lugaid, that the entirety of the ‘tribute’ was retaken without the spilling of one drop of blood!”