Andrew Offutt: The Sword of the Gael

And now the hall was ablaze with shields newly painted and enameled, each behind a sturdy, well-carved chair, and the trumpeter sounded another long sweet note to tremble on the air.

In a rustle of robes and a blaze of jewels, the Kings of Eirrin entered the place of their triennial assembly, and the shields paled before their splendour.

In the vast room’s center the High-king sat, with his face to westward. Munster’s pale, fat lord took his place on his left hand, while the King of Ulahd sat to the Ard-righ’s right. Behind Erca of Tara in Meath, Connacht’s sword-thin king took his traditional place.

Across from them, facing the High-king, was the blue-and-silver bedecked monarch of Leinster, with his ever-rising forehead and his thin dark mustachios.

Some there were that had said both Leinster and Meath insisted that they must be able to see the other, face and hands, at all times. Some had said that the High-king trusted none behind him but Connacht; others avowed that Connacht thus symbolically backed the High-kingship; still others had opined that Leinster felt comfortable and fully secure only when mighty Connacht was at such a distance, and the Ard-righ betwixt them.

Others still said that all was symbolism, and the true reasons forgot. It was pointed out that such an arrangement could be said to favour Leinster-but so too could Uladh’s position at the right hand of Meath be considered to favour that northern land. All that was certain was that the arrangement did not repeat in miniature the geographical location of the kingdoms.

Munster and Uladh flanked Meath and the high throne, with Connacht behind, and Leinster faced them all.

Jewels glittered in green and blue and yellow and red. Chains of silver and of gold, both delicate and heavy of link, rustled and clinked. Fine brooches and ornate neck-encompassing torcs winked and flashed from many throats, for the room now filled with nobles and advisers, chiefs and priests, Brehons or judges and Seanachies or historians, ollams and sternly robed Druids. To the chairs backed by their colours they solemnly went.

All were aware that the last, the Druids, had failed in their attempts to keep out the priests and their god; all were aware that the priests would not rest until the Druids and ill they represented had been ousted. The Celts were becoming Romanized.

“The Druids represent the snarling, dog-eat-dog Eirrin of the past and are a constant reminder of that which we should forget,” some said of those who represented the son of God.

“The priests represent the transformation of Eirrin’s hopes of Empire and her warhounds into toothless old dogs with but memories of past glories,” others said of the cross-wearing men who represented the son of God.

And mayhap both were right, and their god the same, and cared little for the petty way men acknowledged their creator. But history was upon them all.

The great triennial Feis began.

There were readings of genealogies and histories arid laws, in voices sonorous, or crackling and breaking with age, and, in one case, nervously atremble with a genius’s youth. There were agreements to reconsider and reaffirm, and petitions to be heard and deliberated upon by crowned heads; petitions to be granted in whole or in part, or denied, or held over, or remanded by common agreement to lower courts.

It was Munster’s lord who bespoke an attack on his eastward coast by Picts. Heads nodded and frowns became smiles, amid some cheering, when he told how the barbarians had been slain to a man.

It was the High-king himself who directed the reading of a letter from the lord of Tullamor, of how Cairbre Black-beard, thief and murderer, had been slain with his red-handed trio of men. Again there were gladsome faces and some cheers, and men called out that the slayers of that slayer should be brought before them…

Erca Tireach waved a hand. On one finger gleamed a ring that was a gift from Viking spoils, brought to him by exiles, but none knew save he-and all knew him to be a man afflicted with conscience and blessed with a high sense of justice.

“The Assembly would greet the slayers of the murderous thief of Brosna Wood,” he called, and most eyes turned to one of the fourteen doors.

It was not weapon men who passed in through that portal.

Into that awesome room bright with jewels and robes of many colours and more gold than the Romans had stolen out of Britain, came two of the three heroes. Leinster’s lord Feredach an-Dubh was shaken, aye and visibly, by their appearance, though only a few noticed that he did not join the others in applause.

“And what would ye have of us, heroes?” called out the High-king himself.

“JUSTICE!” the regally-attired young man with the orange-red hair called back. “Justice for me, and my sister, and our land, and for our murdered brother-LIADH, KING OF LEINSTER!”

The uproar was not soon quieted.

Ceann and Samaire, well-favored of visage and well-attired of form, told their dark story. Their brother, who was prepared for the advent here of Cormac mac Art but not of these two, sat like a sullenly brooding stone.

Objections were raised. Feredach and his counsellors conferred again and again, in low voices and behind ring-bedizened hands. But the two finished their ugly narrative, and dark indeed went the face of Feredach the Dark-a sobriquet used not in public. Yet many including himself heard the whisper:

“Feredach the Dark, indeed!”

“Thus do we make accusation,” Ceann Ruadh finished, gazing upon his older brother, “and now do we call for rectification of wrongs.”

A scarred man in plain weapon-man’s garb awaited just without one of those twice-seven doors, and he held his breath the better to hear.

Cormac heard that which he expected: that all this matter was one of the Leinsterish succession, an internal affair of that realm and not for this assembly that represented all Eirrin. Cormac’s lips widened a bit in the hint of a smile nevertheless, for the chief judge and poet spoke with open disrespect for King Feredach, nor did any call him to task.

The decision was made: the assembly would not decide. Feredach’s thin mustache seemed to writhe as his thin lips parted and drew back in a smile of triumph that few indeed took for justification.

“The will of the Feis-mor has been stated,” the High-king said solemnly, “and it is written. I speak now only as King of Meath and as one with respect for the royal-born, as for all Eirrin-born of whatever realm: I Erca Tireach mac Lugaid make known to all men that Prince Ceann and Princess Samaire will remain in my personal household for so long as they choose, for they are Eirrin-born, and free.” He paused, then added, “And under my protection.”

The smile of Feredach faded like the mist of a sunny morning.

Hardly pleased, but with dignity, Ceann and Samaire departed the hall. They were welcome in Eirrin; they remained exiles from their home.

My lord the King of Uladh changed his position ever so slightly, so that without moving his chair he seemed somehow closer to Erca and farther from Feredach.

Again the Ard-righ spoke, turning his head about so that as many might hear as possible, even in the echoic vastness of that building that could have contained many, many houses.

“The leader of the tiny band that put defeat on the Pictish invaders of my lord of Munster’s demesne, aided by Munsterish fisher-folk, is the same as he who laid low Oisin Pictslayer: The third member of the trio that put defeat on the land-pirates of Brosna Wood is the same as he who brought down Bress of the Long Hand. And all are the same man, a man who has borne several names, and birthed legends over half the length of Eirrin, and who is called even mac Cuchulain and Curoi mac Dairi. ADMIT THE CHAMPION OF EIRRIN!”