Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

Cormac glanced over to find that Wulfhere had departed from his side. They had long been companions; the Dane recognized at once when thought came heavily upon mac Art. Thinking was not Wulfhere’s province, and he well respected it in the Gael. Neither of them had a better friend than the other-until, perhaps, Samaire. Cormac noted that the fiery-haired giant had appropriated the largest of the axes dropped on this floor of bloody tiles, and the mailcoat that had belonged to the burliest of the Norsemen.

Alone with the dead, the Gael returned again within himself. Wulfhere had called up Ceann into his mind, but it was of the prince’s sister Cormac thought.

Samaire.

He’d known her long, the princess with the Eirrin-green eyes. Long before his own years and years as blood-splashed reaver, an exile…

Both bright and sturdy had been Art’s boy Cormac; the old druid Sualtim saw to the training of the lad’s mind while his father taught him the wielding of arms. Auspicious the name of Cormac son of Art of Connacht, for it had belonged centuries before to one of Eirrin’s very greatest kings. Unfortunately the boy’s stoutness and skill at arms, combined with the very name, attracted the notice of a man whose crown rested shakily on his aging head; High-king Lugaid was a fearful man on a throne that had been sat afore him by giants among men. Young Cormac knew naught of plots and scheming. His father paid no heed, he who was a descendant of great men though he wore no crown. But treachery was done by a man with fear upon him, and came the time when Art of Connacht was slain, and that mysteriously by an unknown hand.

Young Cormac mac Art was not slow, either to learn or to adapt. His judgment was astonishingly logical, and good, for so Sualtim had trained his good mind. There could be no blood-feud with the Ard-righ , the High-king, not for a boy of Connacht and him both fatherless and motherless.

Not yet a man, Cormac did what he must: he fled Connacht, ere his father’s fate could overtake him.

The Connachtish youth was not recognized as the “Partha mac Othna of Ulahd” who-lying about his years-took warrior service in Leinster. He proved a good soldier and a good man, for all his being not yet a man. He remained apart from his fellow weaponmen in Leinsterish blue, lest they learn age or origin. Partha mac Othna kept his counsel, and was promoted even to the Command of a Hundred. Eventually he had still another secret, a dangerous one: a friend who became more than a friend, a girl but a year younger than himself. Fair and freckled she was, with eyes of a startling green and hair like a rich October sunset.

Forfeit would have been the head of Partha/Cormac, had His Highness known of the young weapon-man’s friend and paramour-the king of Leinster’s own royal and well-betrothed daughter Samaire.

Came the day when young Partha mac Othna well represented Leinster in the too-frequent warring between Leinster and Tara over the latter’s collection of the ancient and much-hated Boru Tribute. Spawn of a long-ago quarrel it was, and like a wedge driven into the heart of Eirrin or an insurmountable fence across the land. But it lingered on; no High-king forewent its collection or declared it banned. Leinsterish kings but tried…

In that year, though the “tribute” was gained, the hero of the skirmishes was Partha mac Othna.

He was so accomplished and valiant a weapon-man that some compared him with the legendary Cuchulain of old. And soon, on Tara Hill of Meath, High-king Lugaid learned the real name of the so-called son of Othna. It was High-kingly gold brought to an end that era of Cormac’s life. He was goaded, carefully and deliberately, into drawing steel at the Great Fair. Thus he slew; thus he broke the King’s Peace; thus he condemned himself. For he who broke the King’s peace at Fair-time stepped instantly outside the law, and must die-or flee.

Samaire had wept that night, and assured him that she loved him. And then Cormac mac Art, driven already from home and home-land, was driven from Eirrin. He fled, outlaw.

Then came the long years in which he was a farmhand, little more, in Dal Riada, on the southern coast of Alba. Next he was a warrior in the service of that king-until once again royal treachery was done on him. Pictish captivity followed, a captivity during which he’d have died had it not been for a Pictish girl, widowed but recently in her youth. After that came escape and the years as coastal raider, and then capture and imprisonment anew… and escape with a prison-made friend, a mighty and outsized man from the cold north.

It was then Cormac and that new friend and comrade, Wulfhere the Dane, became a perfect pairing. With a crew of Danes, they raided every coast save that of Dane-mark and Eirrin-and far Norge.

Was a vicious wind swept them here, an unfathomable whim of capricious gods. Then, by similar caprice, the gods saw that the life-line of Samaire of Leinster again intersected that of Cormac of Connacht, after over a half-score of years.

That first night she had joined him as he lay beneath the sky, in whose chill starlight he’d slept so often. That night he slept but little, and he and Samaire had not been apart since. And now she had told him they’d part no more…

She told me, aye, he mused, and I said naught to the contrary!

Standing in the great hall of Kull’s Castle and gazing in silence upon corpses and skeletons and a floor cluttered too with dropped weapons and shields and helms, the memory-bound Cormac heaved a great sigh-and heard the approach of footsteps from behind. Instantly he turned, to see bright-eyed young Brian.

Once I was bright of eye and clear of mind and bushy of tail , Cormac mused, cheerlessly, but he showed nothing.

First making apology for the interruption of thoughts, Brian said, “All the booty be gathered at the tops of the stairs, Captain.”

Cormac nodded. “It is late of afternoon for the loading of ships-and after that too late to launch them. It must be tomorrow we leave, Brian.”

Brian looked about them with distaste, though Cormac saw no fear on the youth.

“It’s another night we’ll be spending on this isle, then.”

“Aye,” Cormac said. “Though some prefer to be away from this place and remain with the ships, I’ll wager there are others who’d be averse to leaving the amassed treasure!”

Brian grinned. “True. And… Osbrit?”

“Brian,” Cormac said, seeking to be gentle, “it’s… not my second ye be.”

Brian slapped his head. “Och, it’s the Dane who sent me, my lord.”

“Oh. Wulfhere.” Cormac nodded. Without appointment, Wulfhere had become his second in command. “But I be no man’s lord, Brian na Killevy. Hm; Osbrit. A badly frightened man. Not likely to attempt aught against one man, I’m thinking, much less a dozen. Nor likely, either, to want to be apart from the company of others… nor will he be attempting to sail off alone! Only Wulfhere could ever accomplish such as that. A man not to be worried over then, is Osbrit of Britain. Nor I noted has Wulfhere aught against him that be personal, from his captivity of the Britons.”

“I think not, Captain-other than that Osbrit be neither Dane nor yourself! He be unsure of us, methinks, and… we be of him.”

“Osbrit.”

“The Dane, Captain.”

“Wulfhere?”

“Aye,” Brian said. “It be obvious he trusts none and is friend of none save yourself, Captain. We others are, after all, of Eirrin save Osbrit, who is a prisoner. Wulfhere is… neither.”

Cormac faced about to fix Brian’s clear large eyes with his own dark gaze. “Brian: see you that all understand this, though quietly apprised. Wulfhere Hausakluifr is my blood-brother. It’s five men he’s worth, in any passage of arms.”