Andrew Offutt: The Sword of the Gael

A riever he was still, with Wulfhere and the crew of Danes. Or had been, until this day of dark portent.

Art’s son of Connacht was an exile from Dalriada; an exile from Connacht and Leinster. He was an exile from Alba… and from his own Eirrin. The name given him by his father had made even more nervous a High-king who sat his throne unsteadily, ever in fear of being toppled from it. By means of that High-king’s machinations Cormac had foolishly, youthfully let himself be goaded until he had fought, and slain the man he knew not was in royal pay, and that during the Great Fair.

That youthful Cormac had broken the King’s Peace at Fair-time, and death was the penalty. He had not waited for it to come seeking him.

Not in twelve years had he set foot on his native soil, though he claimed it to have been longer. Cormac was more thoughtful and less reckless than Wulfhere, who was older. Cormac pretended to be older, out of regard for his friend and fellow riever. He who was the descendant of kings had the vision and the wisdom of a king-though no regard for them, for by two crowned heads he had been betrayed.

He wondered, as he kept his brooding seaward watch, if the monarchs of old had been different.

Nigh onto three hundred years agone, a usurper had slain Art the Lonely, King over the kings of Eirrin. Not long did the murderer sit the throne of the Ard-righ , the High-king, in Tara of Meath. For the son of Art the Lonely slew that man and claimed his father’s throne. It was he who gave his people the safety of peace, and the sea-laws, and too their Book of Rights. Too, he caused to be builded magnificent structures at Tara, and a new dignity was born to the high crown.

“He was the greatest king that Eirrin ever knew,” Cormac’s father had told the boy. “In power and eloquence, in the vigour and splendour of his reign, he had not his like before or since. In his reign none needed bar the door, no flocks need be guarded, nor was anyone in all Eirrin distressed for want of food or clothing. For all Eirrin that wise and just king made a beautiful land of promise. His grandfather was Conn of the Hundred Battles; his father was Art; and he was King Cormac. Like you, son, for I have given you the greatest name in the history of our land: Cormac mac Art. And you of Connacht as well.”

He had told the bright-eyed boy Cormac had been how that other Cormac resigned his office in his old age, and after that there ruled other High-kings. Then came Niall of the Nine Hostages, who raided the Picts in Alba and the Romans in Britain-and even into Gaul of the Franks. One wrongful deed Niall had done. He it was who brought home to Eirrin a slave from Britain, who was to return decades later with a new name and a vocation other than the shepherd he’d been, up in Antrim.

Now he was styled “Patricius” by the chief priest in Rome, and Padraigh by the Gaels of his adopted land. He it was who preached the new faith-which Cormac despised as being unworthy of men and particularly of men Eirrin-born. It was that same “Patrick” who threw down the great gold and silver statue of the ancient chief-god of the Celts who came so long ago to Eirrin: Crom Cruach, on the plain of Magh Slecht near Ballymagauran.

Atop the basalt cliffs on the island with no name, Cormac stood, and stretched, and turned to gaze norwestward, into darkness. For there lay Eirrin. And he reflected on his heritage.

It was trouble King Niall had with Leinster, as did all the High-kings over the matter of the Boru Tribute, which chafed the Leinstermen hide and spirit and soul. Eochaid son of Enna King of Leinster slew Niall then, these six and eighty years gone, and that from ambush, with an arrow.

Many sons Niall left, who scattered to found kingdoms whilst his brother’s son succeeded to the high throne. He too died across the water west of Britain, in the land of the Franks. And his son Ailill was High-king, and none of Niall’s get. Nor were they at rest under their helmets.

Time came when those descendants of Niall, the ua-Neill , gave challenge. With Leinster’s king they met Ailill in great battle at Ocha, and Ailill was overthrown. He was the second High-king of all Eirrin from Connacht-and now Connacht’s power was broke.

“Perhaps he was the last son of Connacht to sit enthroned on Tara Hill and preside over the assembled kings at Feis-mor,” Cormac’s father had said, with his eyes on his stout son who, was so proficient with weapons-and with his brain. “And… perhaps not.”

Cormac had known what he meant, even then. He dreamed.

Now, exiled and marooned dreamless on this nameless isle so many years later, that son gave a sardonic smile to the heedless moon. Turning his back on the northwest, he resumed his seat on a round-smoothed stone. He stared morosely at the sea, which reflected the moonlight now as if it were a plain all of brass. Cormac wrestled with his restive mind; stubbornly it returned to his heritage.

After Ailill, Niall’s son Laegair ruled, and he it was who sat the throne when Padraigh came back on his infernal mission. Once the strange “bishop” with the spear-pointed staff had converted both Laegair’s wife and chief adviser to belief in his selfish Iosa Chriost -who brooked no other gods at all-Laegair gave Padraigh permission to preach throughout the emerald isle. Incredibly, the new religion gained and began to supercede the ancient faith of the Celts. The power of the bishops rose. That of the Druids declined. But not in the household of Art of Connacht, or in the mind of his son.

Art of Connacht , Cormac thought, and amused himself darkly by framing it in his mind as the seanachies and poets might style it:

“And in the time when Laegair’s son Lugaid was Ard-righ on Tara Hill, Art mac Comal, a member of the Bear sept of the powerless clan na Morna in Connacht and kinsman of the ua-Neill , got a son on his wife, and it was after the great king of old they named him: Cormac mac Art.”

That same Cormac mac Art snorted.

“King Cormac,” he muttered, and his scarred face was not pleasant in the pearl-light of the moon. “Good night on you, subjects all,” he muttered, and he lay back, and went to sleep, a marooned exile.

Cormac awoke at dawn, squinting. He resumed his watch and his reverie-but not for long.

It was shortly after dawn that the ship came. Lying prone, he watched it approach the island. When the striped sail vanished from his ken beyond the stern brow of the mesa’s shoreward cliffs, he rose. Cormac ran along the mesa heedless of his snarling stomach, until he found a vantage point for unseen observing.

From the towering cliffs above them he watched the ship’s crew drag her onto the beach. They were bearded, ruddy men in helms with wings and horns, men from Norge-Vikings! Though from the northlands like the Danes, those were no friends of his comrades.

He watched as they fetched their cargo up the beach: sword-gained booty ire sacks and two chests, and two captives as well. The watcher’s deepset, narrow eyes narrowed the more as he gazed on those two.

Both wore sleeved white tunics that were dirty and bedraggled, and leather leggings and soft buskins of leather: riding togs, and not peasantish. They were a man and a woman, slim and seemingly young, and them orange-red of hair.

More booty , Cormac mused, for those be worth ransom, surely.

Among the Norsemen was also a man lean as a reed rising from the fen and long of silvery beard, with a robe on him. A Nordic Druid, dark-robed and tall and with hair just past his shoulders, as his beard lay on his chest. Cormac saw that he was well deferred to, that slim old man. He wondered at his powers, for he who said the Druids were without powers beyond those of other men was a fool on the face of the earth.