Andrew Offutt: The Sword of the Gael

This scarred, rather sinister-visaged weapon man who had won the high championship… Cormac Mac Art?!

Beside Erca then stood his chief poet and adviser, Cethern of the magnificent larynx and pharynx. He thundered so that other voices were as whispers. He bade them be silent, and looked about, and bowed to his king. Then, drawing up his poet’s mantle, he resumed his seat.

Erca Tireach looked at Cormac mac Art.

Cormac spoke.

“I have worn other names, lord King. When I took service in Leinster after my father’s death,” he said, his brief pause bringing a change of expression to many faces and nervous glances toward the king, “it was as Partha mac Othna. It was whilst bearing that name that I brought dishonour on myself, and upon Ulahd, for there I falsely claimed to be from-and upon Connacht, for there was I born and I broke the King’s Peace at Fair-time.”

“And upon Leinster, whose king’s colours you wore?” someone asked boldly, but Cormac saw not who it was, for he kept his dark gaze on the Ard-righ.

“Would you make reply?” King Erca asked.

“Lord King, I would reply thus: No. I brought no dishonour on Leinster, for that was done when a poor young fool was paid to provoke another-myself-into drawing steel… by the King of Leinster himself!”

There was a new outburst, girt with anger. The younger of those present bent their heads to hear hurried explanations from the older, who l remembered.

When silence had been gained, it was Erca son of Lugaid who spoke, and his words brought new surprise.

“That too I have heard,” he said, to them all, not just the unmasked champion. “Though this be a matter for deliberation by the kings assembled at the Great Feis, and that so soon to be, I will tell you this. There was, and there remains question about the death of this man’s father, and too about the manner of mac Art’s breaking the peace at Fair-time. It was I, Erca Tireach High-king of Eirrin, who set aside the old warrant, pending investigation and hearing. We are not barbarians, like the Saxons or Britons, to condemn a man without giving ear to his words! I assure you that Cormac mac Art… Partha mac Othna… Ceann mac Cor… has lived in exile by his own decree , not that of any king.”

The voice that spoke up then Cormac recognized as the same he had heard before, challengingly demanding whether he had dishonoured Leinster. Now:

“He broke the High-king’s Peace at Fair-Time! With a red sword, and thus it was barbarism, and the punishment death! No exile this-he fled justice!”

Erca’s brows remained smooth. He stood blinking for a time, looking calm and. yet stern, and the swell of voices soon ran out like the coastal tide at the time of the quarter-moon.

Erca said, “It were not seemly my lord, surely, that one of Leinster should raise a voice of accusation and prosecution!”

That was answered by gasps and murmurs, and Erca waved a hand impatiently.

“Cormac mac Art, this be no court and ye may answer or no. Did ye flee justice, twelve years past?”

“I answer you and your office, lord King, and no Leinsterish challenger. I fled, aye. As to what I fled-it ‘was death, not justice. No justice was available then.”

“SILENCE!” the king’s poet thundered at the murmurers-and the louder voices.

“Methinks it may be available to me now,” Cormac said, as though he had not noticed the interruption. “But I came not back to Eirrin as a supplicant-nor seeking death, for there’s been no guilt upon me these twelve years.”

“The High-king,” Erca said into the new buzz, which diminished that its makers might hear him, “has no power over the laws, and I seek none. Of this, though, I assure ye all. Cormac mac Art may or may not deserve exile or death, and true it is that there was more to the matter then than met the eyes and ears of all of us. Mayhap he fled justice. Mayhap he fled death. And mayhap he departed his homeland to hope for a less… prejudiced hearing in some future time-as now. But- it’s he who has returned, and revealed himself all willingly, and this be no coward’s act. I repeat: I have no power over the law, and none do I seek. It is within my power to force custody or offer protection. This I now do, that Cormac Art’s son may be heard and judged at the Great Feis.”

In silence then, the High-king gazed upon the returned exile.

“You who have borne more names than one but who were born and remain Cormac mac Art of Connacht, hear my command. You are to remain in the household of the lord Cumal of Tara, until we command your presence before kings and judges assembled, at Feis Mor.”

Cormac inclined his head in a deep nod, and said nothing.

Considerably later that night, Erca mac Lugaid heard the story of Ceann and Samaire, and received the letter from the lord of Tullamor. The High-king listened. He nodded the while, and his face writhed darkly. In the end he granted them sanctuary and welcome in his household-and advised that Feredach their brother was older and thus heir, and that their problem, like Cormac’s, was a matter for the Great Assembly.

“In private,” he said quietly, “I am worse than horrified. It’s welcome I make ye here, with sadness for you and your kingdom. Again in private, I assure ye and your friend Cormac that I do not share my father’s… apprehension for the son of Connacht with the magic old name. I know, Cormac, that it’s tricked and got rid of you were after being. Now I hope to see righted the wrongs against all three of ye. All, though, my lord and lady of Leinster and mac Art, must be up to the Assembly.”

“And Leinster,” Samaire murmured, “is part of it.”

“And Feredach,” her brother said, “is, at present, Leinster.”

“Were all Alba mine

From its centre to its border,

I would rather have the site of a house

In the middle of fair Derry. “

– Colm Cill, exile from Eirrin

Fourteen doors opened into the Mi Chuarta, and they were well separated.

Over seven hundred-fifty feet in length sprawled that ancient banqueting hall, and just under fifty feet in width, while the beamed ceiling soared nearly the same distance above the floor. Twice and a half a hundred years this mighty structure had commanded Tara and awed all Eirrin, and still it stood.

Each third year came all the kings into the Mi Chuarta, in solemn gathering. And it was the third year, and the time was Samain or Hallowday, the Celtic new year known to some as first November. It was a day sacred to the Druids-and hurriedly adopted by the priests of the Jesus-faith, who adapted well and without embarrassment to what they were pleased to call pagan customs and feast-days.

A king named Cormac mac Art had builded the awesome hall. An exile named Cormac mac Art must seek his justice in it.

Within one of those fourteen doorways stood a trumpeter, tall and straight and splendidly arrayed.

Already he had blasted forth two long notes. The first summoned numerous shield-bearers into the massive hall. Directed by a marshal and his aides and presided over by the high genealogist, those colourfully-garbed men had hurried about, carrying the flashing shields of their noble lords. No assemblage of butterflies had ever been more colourful. Soon it was as if gigantic butterflies of every hue had alit upon the walls, for they were festooned with the shields of families both ancient and relatively new. A poet had said it was as if the rainbow had come to Tara Hill, and taken up its abode in the colossal room.

The trumpeter’s second blast had brought more men hurrying in. These bore the symbols of both Druids and the new priests, and more shields. The shields were of men who stood high in the favour and regard of kings, advising them, keeping their records, commanding their armies.