Andrew Offutt - The Sign of the Moonbow

He asked her again. Her gaze snapped to his face.

“Oh! I make apology-I was staring… the beard of… of…”

“Wulfhere,” the Dane rumbled, and she jerked a little.

“Oh! And what a voice! Your beard is beautiful, my lord Wulfhere. I-my name is Erris. Of the de Danann, aye. It’s handmaid I am, to Queen Riora Feachtnachis of Moytura.”

Queen Riora! This time Cormac’s smile was broad and genuine.

Chapter Nine:

Battle Beneath the Earth

Cormac gazed smiling upon Erris the Danan, handmaiden to Riora, Queen of Moytura. His heart surged and he felt as if a breeze had arisen to blow warm air over him.

A queen ruled here, beneath and within Eirrin; a crowned woman!

The queen of Moytura… Moytura: Magh Tuiredh, the site of the long, long ago battle in which the Danans had put defeat on the Fir Bholgs, the first rulers of Eirrin. As for the other names, Erris and Riora; well, the sounds were familiar, though Rory-Rudraighe-was a man’s name. The naming of people had taken its own course here, he realized.

Cormac mac Art twisted about to share an elated look with Wulfhere.

Grinning, Wulfhere asked, “And do the people of Moytura wear no clothing?”

Immediately Erris of Moytura erupted anew into tears. Cormac resisted the desire to get up and strangle the Dane…

Rising, he pulled around the sizeable belt-pouch he wore, and fished within it while he approached Erris. He squatted before the small huddled form. His touch was gentle, and his hand on her shoulder looked like the shadows of night swallowing the wan glow of the moon. She looked up briefly, stricken and tear-stained; dropped her head to her hands again.

He felt foolish, proffering the necklace from the Doom-heim trove. Jewels they had brought, aye, hopefully to deal with a queen. But of clothing-none. All, every scrap of cloth, Samaire and the others had taken to Tara. Yet now he remembered that he had that to offer her which would cover her nakedness, though he hated with a man’s instincts and urges to see it done. Naturally he and Wulfhere wore cloaks; they had wrapped themselves well in them, each night.

He cupped his palm under the disk of his mantle’s brooch, drew forth the pin, and caught the disk in his palm. Setting them aside, he removed his cloak, placed it over her drawn-up form, to the chin. He tucked it around.

She stilled her sobs, looked up sniffing. For a long while she gazed into his eyes.

“You are kind,” she said.

“Is it kindness to lend clothing to someone who has none? Here, here is the clasp to my cloak.” He considered. “Ye have done wrong, Erris Rioranacht? ye were stripped and…” He looked about, and it came to him. This was not Moytura-not yet! “And cast out!” he blurted.

She nodded, her so-pale eyes watery and leaking tears down the cheeks of her thin face. Looking at him, she tugged the cloak up to cover all of her save her head-and her back, which was against the tunnel’s wall. She told him.

Yes. She had been stripped, and cast forth-but not for wrongdoing. Because she was the queen’s favourite.

Cormac frowned and a coldness grew around his heart.

Erris of Moytura spoke more, and all elation faded from him, and from Wulfhere, until it had ceased to exist and it was only distress they knew.

Riora of Moytura was daughter of Riora, queen. But a year ago the queen had died; her daughter was crowned. Riora, daughter of Riora, was queen of Danan Moytura.

But Queen Riora did not rule in Moytura.

Her cousin Cairluh had plotted with the mage, Tarmur Roag. Cairluh and Tarmur Roag had seized power in Moytura; they ruled.

Cormac clutched at a fleeting and unlikely hope. “Cairluh is not… a woman’s name here, is it?”

Erris shook her head and cloudlike hair flew. She looked at him without smiling, and there was less colour in her eyes than in the nails of his fingers.

“Oh no,” Erris said, but she did not smile at his suggestion.

Cormac sighed. “How is it then that the people of Moytura suffer a male cousin to rule in the place of her who is their rightful queen? Is your mistress so bad a ruler?”

“She is not! ” Erris snapped with some anger and much vehemence, and then she softened and explained.

Tarmur Roag was a man of considerable power. A simulacrum of Riora, created or called up by Tarmur Roag in the queen’s precise likeness, ruled in her stead. She-or it, was controlled, of course, by Tarmur Roag and Cairluh.

“Hmm. And-what differences have come of it? Does it matter who rules Moytura?”

“Of course! My lady Riora is Queen! ”

Cormac nodded. Yes, yes, of course, but rulers came and went…

“And Cairluh believes that with the power of Tarmur Roag we of Danu can rise up and overthrow… you who live above. The people are being stirred up to such a belief, and all-all, men and women and girls and boys-are being forced to train with weapons, to carry red death above along with the sorceries of Tarmur Roag!”

Cormac thought: Aye, it matters who rules in Moytura within Eirrin! For even though it was a ridiculous thought, a futile concept that these people could conquer his, there’d be much, much blood shed in the trying of it. And he knew that the sons of Eirrin would not stop this time until no Danan remained alive in all the land-on or in the isle called Emerald.

Clinks and a rustle announced the drawing close of Wulfhere. His voice was a hopeful croak. “The queen? What have the plotters done with your mistress?”

New tears scudded down the white cheeks of Erris as she replied. Riora, the real Queen Riora, languished in misery of mind and body in her own dungeon, an ensorceled and pain-fraught captive who was mocked and teased and preyed upon by the torturemaster. He had made brag he’d get a child on her ere he ruined her face and body forever.

With a long sigh, Cormac stared down, half-seeing. Gentle were the de Danann of the isle; not so these of Moytura of sub-Eirrin, whose queen’s demesne included a dungeon and a master of the tortures administered there! He twisted partway about to stare at the face and robe of Bas the Druid.

Thulsa Doom.

So long as he lived, Cormac mac Art was in danger, and so was all Eirrin, for it was Cormac who had brought the monster here, and him evil incarnate and a hundred and eighty centuries old. And it was only a queen could end the mage’s unnatural life that was not life at all but foul un-death. And Riora of Moytura was such a queen… and Riora of Moytura was dethroned and crownless.

Queen Riora is… presently dethroned and crownless , Cormac thought.

“Wulfhere… in order to end the menace of Thulsa Doom… I must attempt to restore their queen to her throne.”

Standing beside the squatting Gael, Wulfhere said nothing. Cormac heard his great sigh. Then:

“Girl-Erris. We , Cormac and I, will aid ye and your queen. For no matter how many men it is that Cairluh and Tarmur… Ro have guarding her prison, we shall send them dripping gore to their goddess. Now-what of this Tarmur Ro? He is to be feared? He is impervious to this?” Wulfhere’s ax hummed in the air.

“Tarmur Roag,” she corrected.

“He-he is a… none is so powerful, not even Dithorba!”

Cormac said, “Dithorba?”

“Aye. Dithorba Loingsech, the queen’s own adviser and himself a mage. But-”

It was Thulsa Doom who interrupted. “The two of ye cannot overcome this Tarmur Roag, Cormac mac Art. Release me now, O Cormac of the Gaels, and I swear never to bring harm upon ye or your land or any of its people, wherever they be, and all your friends, and to make you a king among men… King Cormac … more than a king!”