Kenneth C Flint, page 1
PROLOGUE
"Cuculain!"
The voice called to him, forcing its way into his uneasy sleep.
He dreamed of a tree whose leaves glittered silver in the bright suniight as it grew and spread and bore strange fruit. But the calling of his name seemed to blight it, for the fruit rotted on the tree and fell, and the leaves tarnished to black and fluttered down to leave only bare, gnarled branches.
"Cuculain!" said the voice again, soft and bright as a child's laugh, sorrowful and insistent as death. This time it awoke him fully and he sat up in the bed to peer around him at the room. The full moon threw a shaft of light through the single window and lit even the cham-^jber's corners. They were empty.
-.:- The voice seemed to have come from the window. He
•*• fitted the cover and climbed carefully out of the bed, not wishing to disturb his wife who slept peacefully on. The sharp chill of the air tingled against his skin as he crossed the room to the window and looked out.
Below him the Dun Dalgan cliffs dropped sheer away to the sea. At their base the great waves of the Eastern Ocean crashed against the rocks with an endless rhythm. The moon's brilliance struck the sea spray and made the ^rising peaks of water titanic blossoms of light that ^bloomed only an instant before exploding into fragments on the cliff face.
; It was only the sound of the waves he heard, he told himself sleepily, and moved back to the bed. He sat down Upon it, but looked up in alarm as something caused the light from the window to suddenly flicker and dim. A tall, slender woman in a long, gray cloak stood in the 1
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shaft of moonlight. She seemed barely past childhood, her face smooth, her hair a flow of white-gold. Her skin glowed with a subtle inward illumination as a banked fire glows with the deep-buried embers. She seemed even to emanate a warmth that drove the chill of the sea from the room.
In confusion, Cuculain looked from her to the still form of his wife.
"It is all right," the woman assured him in a voice as fine as a strand of thinly drawn silver wire. "Your wife will not awaken. It was only you I came to see."
"And who are you?" he asked.
"Faythleen, I am. Prophetess of Tara."
He understood, then. She was of the Sidhe, that, ancient race who seemed more of the air than of the earth. But the realization only deepened his confusion.
The Sidhe seldom came out from their hidden places to speak directly with men.
"What is it you want?"
"You must go out of the Province of Ulster for a time," she answered. "You
must leave your home."
The words of the Prophetess were without tone, but still they carried some deeper meaning to him. Some hidden fear, it was, that chilled him more than the sea air.
"Is something to happen here?" he asked on impulse. "If so, I'll not be leaving. I am a warrior of the Red Branch."
"Be easy in your mind. Nothing which you can help will be happening here." She spoke with quiet assurance and he did not doubt her. The Sidhe did not lie.
"Then what is it I am to do?" he asked.
"I wish you only to come to Tara. A small enough thing for you. I must see you there in a fortnight's time. When you come, you will understand the reasons why."
His mind was still hazy with sleep and unable to clear itself. He could find no will to argue her strange request.
"I will come," he agreed.
She leaned toward him, bringing a scent of warm spring with her. A hand slid forward out of the folds of the cloak' and gripped bis lower arm. It was a long, slim
PROLOGUE
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hand, but it gripped him with a strength that surprised him, the delicate fingers pressing deeply into his flesh.
"You will remember?" she said.
"I will remember," he replied.
A sudden, overwhelming weariness seized him, then, and when she released his arm, he lay back on his bed and closed his eyes.
"Remember," said the voice again, drifting away to be lost in the thunder of the waves.
When he awoke again, the dawn sun lit the room. He felt he had dreamed a strange dream that had faded almost away. But something drew him to look down at his arm, and there he found five marks where a hand whose strength no mortal knew had gripped him.
He remembered.
Book One
THE BULL OF CUAILGNE
Chapter One
MEAVE
The broad Plains of Ai shimmered with a green glory beneath the clear sun of early spring. The wealth of Eire lay openly revealed in them. It thrust itself up from the earth in the lush grasses, thick with new growth, that covered all the fields. It wandered freely in the cattle herds, swelled with spring calves, that fed on those grasses and filled the plains to the distant hills.
Two chariots sat in the heart of those plains, amidst the richness. Their horses grazed quietly while the man and woman who were their drivers examined the cattle about them.
"They are a fine spring herd," said Queen Meave with satisfaction.
"They are that," said the young man beside her, "and I've seen few finer springs in all my life."
His pleasure fairly beamed from him as he spoke, and Meave could not help but smile broadly in return. His open exuberance seemed a natural response to the grand day, and she was feeling the lift of it herself.
Hard it was to be a queen when the air was fresh with the scent of new grass and the sky was the cloudless blue so rare in Eire but in its brief spring.
Not so many years before she would have played in the fields on such a day, chasing the long-legged calves and climbing the low hills as the energy pent in by the cold rains of winter was released.
Indeed, she seemed far from a queen now as she stood in her chariot, her lithe form relaxed, her head tilted back to feel the sun's heat. Though past her thirtieth year, the vigor and freshness of youth were with her yet. The lines 8
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of her face were clean and bold, and the brilliant sunlight struck flickering sparks in her flaming red-gold hair as the gentle breezes stirred and lifted it.
"It is a mighty job you've done with the herds," the young man remarked.
—
His words recalled her. She was no longer a girl of the forths and fens. She was a queen, and her pleasures in life were of a different kind. The pull of spring and of the past was brought firmly to heel.
"The work here is your own, Fardia, not mine," she tol.d the chieftain honestly. "Your Firbolgs have worked magic with these beasts."
"There's many would say the reason for that lies in our being beasts ourselves," he replied. He spoke with a smile, but his words were tinged with bitter truth, as both of them well knew.
Still, Fardia himself would have provided little evidence for such reasoning.
The young warrior was not a common man of his race. The Firbolg warriors were heavy of body and coarse featured, given to thick beards and long hair that went unfastened and unkempt. In contrast, Fardia's clean-shaven face revealed quite pleasant features, while his dark hair was combed back and caught hi a golden brooch. He was well proportioned in shape and smooth limbed, carrying himself casually erect with a warrior's unconscious pride in his own power.
Very young he was, even for a warrior of Connacht, being barely past twenty years in age. But he had fought for many of those years, gaining renown in
Eire and in Espan across the Southern Sea. Now he was a chieftain of the Firbolgs and a swiftly growing influence among all their tribes.
It was because of this last fact that Meave's voice was grave when she spoke to him again. She needed this man and his savage people. She needed to keep his loyalty.
"Fardia, you rmm believe there's no ill ffvljng in me for your people. There is much you know that we would benefit in learning."
"Aye," he said, smiling, "that's true enough. But you'll have need of many years to leani w^*t w v*«nw. It was the land itself taught us... and our blood is in the very stones and trees of it!**
MEAVE 9
_ "I understand. Your people held the land for a long tune before we came."
"No one can hold it," he corrected. "We wandered it, yes. We lived with it and learned soroe of its secrets. Yet, Eire is a fierce arid a lonely mistress that always holds danger for its lover. The land made wanderers of us, divided our tribes and left us unable to stand against the strength of you Milesians when you came. It was only that made us your subjects."
She heard a colder tone in this. A hint of something deeper.
"Would you wish to change that?"
"The druids say my people labored as slaves before they came to Eire. We've a hatred of bondage that lies deep in the heart. We would be free..,."
He said this last reflectively, then stopped abruptly and looked toward the queen, as if suddenly remembering her presence.
"Ah, Queen, I meant nothing serious by my words," he assured her with obvious embarrassment. "Our freedom would never be at your own cost. There's much you've done for us already. No, we'll earn our rights ... and slowly, if we must."
She smiled. "It won't be slow with such as you about."
The praise only deepened the young warrior's sense of modesty, and he hastened to shift the subject from himself.
"Well, tell me now, have you seen enough of cattle for one day? Would you be wishing to return to the dun?"
"Yes, I think so," she answered, looking about once more on the quiet scene.
&nb
But even as she said this, the spirit of the day assailed her senses once again and, this time, as if to counter the solemn nature of their talk, she let the spirit win. It was ^intoxication of a kind, a dropping of the sobering limits of
r station. Suddenly she felt only the need to do some-|ihing, to find some way of saluting the spring.
"Fardia," she said, "I'll wager you can't make it back to the dun before I
do!"
He was startled by the challenge, and by the note of 10
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youthful caprice in her voice. He was uncertain how to react until he saw the glowing of her face and the sparkling in her eye as she lifted the horses*
reins in anticipation. For that moment they were but two young people, matched well in daring and in skill, and so he accepted it. "Ill race you," he responded boldly, "but it will be no easy run you get from me!" "Then be about it!" she cried.
Together the two chariots leaped forward as the teams obeyed their drivers'
commands. The vehicles were for pleasure only and lightly built, and the powerful animals pulled them along as if nothing at all held them back. The racers flew over the broad plains. They met and vaulted low walls and narrow ravines. They skirted rocks and wheeled about alarmed cattle by a reckless margin, and still the drivers urged their steeds to even greater efforts.
Fardia laughed aloud at the pace, so exhilarating it was, but his sideways glance at Meave showed him ail opponent grimly intent, crouched low over her reins, calling commands to her team in a clear, hard voice.
Ahead of the racing chariots, against the distant gray-green hills, a darker mound began to show. As they moved toward it, it seemed to rise and swell rapidly until its presence dominated the Plains of Ai and structures became visible upon its flattened crest.
Tile hill was Dun Cruchane, chief city of Connacht, raised years before by Meave's husband, King Aileel. Then it had been but a simple fortress, an artificially built mound whose brow was crowned by a round, timber palace surrounded by a high palisade. Now Connacht's rise in power was reflected in the new buildings within the fortress walls and the growing town which clustered close without.
Meave and Fardia sped toward this goal without a slowing in the pace. For long no watcher could have called a leader. The four animals ran as if harnessed side by side in the same traces, their chariots almost touching hubs. But soon a change was evident. The steady run began to tell on the horses of the queen, while Fardia's, bred and trained by Firbolg masters, went on untiring. Slowly he began to pull ahead.
While caught up in the race, Meave could not ignore MEAVE
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the wearing of her team and was quick enough to judge her chances lost. With a sign to Fardia she reined in, still a good distance from the limits of the town.
Fardia circled and pulled up beside her, his expression purposely neutral as he tried to judge how she had taken the loss.
"A fair win, Fardia," she said simply,
"Thank you, my Queen," he answered with relief. "I think that now we'd best walk them in to cool them."
They drove on slowly and in silence for a time. Then Meave smiled ruefully at him and shook her head,
"You know, it seems to me it was the jiorses and not our skill that decided this. My team was no match for yours."
"And glad I am of that!" said Fardia. "For had your animals been as good as mine, I'd likely be the one left behind."
"Ah, but then nothing is solved. We might never know which driver is the better."
"But we may," he said knowingly, *'My Queen, you've many fine animals for your chariots of war, but they're bred to size, not speed. No driver with your skill should be without racing horses, and my people have animals the like of which can be found nowhere else. Let me give you a pair I have in mind, both tall and proud and with a fire blazing in their black eyes. They'd suit you well."
"I'm certain now your people will achieve success with a poet's tongue like yours to speak for them. I'll accept your offer gladly."
Again Fardia flushed with pleasure and embarrassment, and for a moment his youthfulness was very evident in him.
"Good, my Queen. Tomorrow you will have a team like no one in Connacht..." he paused and smiled "... except, perhaps, for me. The next time we race, we will be matched for certain!"
"A bond I'll hold you to," she said. "But there must be no gifts. These horses must be bought."
He tried to protest, but she stopped him.
"No, Fardia. Some token amount at least must change hands, or else I'll not feel the animals are truly mine."
He nodded. "AH right, my Queen. I understand."
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MEAVE
By this time they had entered the town about the dun's base and they drove up its broad street toward the fortress gates. At the town's outer edge they passed only the small, stone huts of the many workers who provided service to the dun, but nearer the palisades these huts were replaced by the larger roundhouses of higher ranks. As Connacht had grown in influence, so had the number of these residences grown, for more and more people of means sought to be near this seat of rule. Now land near to the walls was very dear, and the structures had begun to crowd upon one another, seeming to shoulder each other away as did their owners when seeking an audience with the king and queen.
The two passed many people as they drove, but these only waved or nodded as Meave passed. There was no riotous celebration at her every appearance, for
she was often about in the town and well known to everyone. So, thus unhindered, they passed on through the gates of the dun, left always open hi daylight, and entered the Royal Enclosure itself. There they pulled up before low stables built against the inside of the walls. Attendants moved to hold Meave's steeds while she climbed from the chariot.
"Take special care with the horses," she told a gray-bearded overseer.
"They've been well run today." She noted, then, that Fardia still stood in his vehicle.
"What are you doing there?" she asked. "Climb down. Here, someone, take his horses."
None of the attendants moved. They only looked uncertainly toward the gray-bearded man.
"The Firbolg's, my Queen?" the overseer asked, distaste evident in his words.
Meave flared. "Yes, the Firbolg's! And now! Take bis horses and give them the same care you give mine."
There was no threat. She needed to make none. It was in the very tone of her voice. Five men leaped at once to take the Firbolg's horses.
But still Fardia hesitated.
"My Queen, perhaps I should not go...."
"Fardia," she said firmly, "I've business with you. Come along."
With great reluctance the young warrior climbed from his chariot and released it into the attendants* care. He
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and Meave then started up the slope toward the Tec Meadcuarfa, the immense gathering hall of the dun and the center of its life.
At its wide doors Fardia paused once again, and Meave looked quizzically at him.
"For one so quick to race not long ago, you've certainly a slowness on you now."
"My Queen, you're not meaning for me to go in?"
"And why not?" she demanded. "Are you afraid of my company?"
"The opposite was more in my mind, my Queen. Few of the Milesians share your friendship with the Firbolgs. We've just seen the evidence of that." - "More reason, then, for me to welcome you," she said with decisiveness. "Come, let's go in."
Though as a warrior Fardia had faced many terrors, unafraid, he felt a strange kind of apprehension when he passed the threshold and entered the cavernous space beyond. The Firbolgs were a subject race and had no part hi the running of the province. Even Fardia, a chieftan, had been but twice within the dun and never in the great hall. As it opened before him, he was awed by its size.
From the top of an outer wall of thick logs set upright to form a wide circle,
roof timbers rose toward a central pillar. Much of the vast area thus enclosed was filled with rows of low tables; enough to easily serve hundreds of the warriors of Connacht. At this hour of the day, however, the hall was empty save for a few servants at work sweeping the stone floor, and a few sleeping dogs who impeded their moving brooms.
