Andrew Offutt: The Mists of Doom

“Information, aye. From Connacht.”

“Ah, Connacht, Connacht. Long did it supply our land with its High-kings… until I , grandson of Niall Noiqiallach, united with the other ui-Neill and even those of Leinster, and overthrew Connacht’s power and strangle-hold on this hill! Dead is my predecessor Ailill Molt; dead is Connachtish power.” He too leaned forward, his hand only toying unconsciously with the design of his mug’s handle. “And doubtless Connachtish nobles plot, and plot! Eh, Milchu? Eh,eh?”

“Aye, High-king. There are those in Connacht who plot.”

“Ah. Against the High-king of all Eirrin!”

“Aye, High-king. Even against yourself.”

“Ah.”

A glow that came not from the fire entered into Lugaid’s grey eyes, for so he had surmised, and with Lugaid who dwelt ever in the shadow of his mighty uncle Mac Erca and the misty fogs of his own suspicions, to surmise in the matter of plotting was to believe. And in truth gladness was on him for Milchu’s confirming his suspicion-become-belief, For had the priest said otherwise, then Lugaid Laegair’s son must suspect him. Which would be to disbelieve him.

And one , Lugaid thought, must believe one’s spies… so long as one has them watched and checked now and again.

“Aye,” Milchu said again. “And plots are laid up in Ulster, too, lord King, and Munster, and even in Leinster-”

“Aye, aye, and in Meath and even here on Tara Hill!” The king’s eyes fair glittered. “But what of Connacht, priest? ”

“-and we who are united in Christ and who are everywhere, king son of a king, are your eyes and ears and, with some small increase in numbers, your protection.”

Milchu spoiled his own dramatic effect then, for whilst he sought to fix the king with a meaningful gaze of steel, that feather the fog seemed to have put into his throat tickled again, so that he coughed.

Power , Lugaid thought. Increase in numbers, is it? That means increase in power! I hear ye, priest. I hear even the words ye speak not.

“Milchu.”

“Lord King?”

“ Connacht. ”

“Let me tell the High-king not of those who plot, but of a perhaps worse danger in Coiced Connachta of the west.”

And Lugaid listened with attentiveness and narrowed eyes grey and impenetrable as fog, and forgot the tankard of ale and the mug of good mulled wine.

“It is of a youth only recently turned fourteen I’d be speaking, lord King.”

“ Fourteen! A boy! Milchu-”

Milchu but raised a pale, pale hand a little, fingers up, palm to the king. The king stared, silencing himself. And waiting.

“And is ten and four not the age of manhood, lord King? -and most especially when the youthful man in question is rising six feet in height, with an athlete’s muscle on him, and druid-taught craftiness in him, and a consummate weaponish skill, a natural talent? And when he all alone but a single moon’s passage agone did battle with no less than four Cruithne on the rocky shores of westernmost Connacht, and sustained him but a scratch, and left four Pictish corpses to rot in sun and tide?”

Staring bright-eyes, his knuckles nigh white on his tankard’s zoomorphic handle, Lugaid gestured impatiently with his other hand, for the spy had paused as if to tease.

“This is fact, Milchu?”

“This-” Milchu broke off coughing, and coughed, nor did he bring up aught of phlegm or curses. Blinking, he sipped, drank, wiped at the corner of his eye with a long thin index finger.

“This is fact, son of Laegair. He cut them down all four as trees are felled in the wood.”

“It sounds like legend.”

“Ah! Doesn’t it! It is what Connachtmen are saying of this youth… his name Cormac, son of Art son of Comal.”

“Art!”

“Aye.”

“Gods of Eirrin, what a name! Legend itself: Cormac mac Art! How dare one so named as Art give his son the name of that great High-king of long ago!”

“He does, my lord King, and with calculation. For the lord Art of Connacht has naught of the fool about him, and knew what the sound of that name he gave his son would be, in the ears and minds of all men of Eirrin… your Eirrin, mac Laegair.”

“My Eirrin,” Lugaid said, tasting the words and looking ready to smack his lips over them.

“Now this lad has done deeds to call attention to himself so that his name is heard throughout Connacht. And too, to him is applied another name, now. For it’s yourself has said it, lord King; his deed sounds like one of legend. For not only did he perform this deed with spear and sword and buckler, and him alone, but when afterward others came upon him he stood against a great standing stone on the shore, with the four death-hacked Cruithne at his feet.”

“Four,” Lugaid muttered.

“Winded he was, and splashed with Pictish gore, and he leaned panting against the great rock rising up from the sand. To those who first came onto the strand, it appeared the lad was bound there, that he was dead there, standing… as,” Milchu said on, emphasizing each several word now, “was Eirrin’s greatest hero at his death-”

“Cuchulain of Muirthemne!” Lugaid’s voice was an explosive whisper. Hey pronounced the name of the Irish Akilles or Odysseos/Ulysses; his land’s greatest folk-hero whose deeds were known to every lad. And the colour of the High-king came and went as quickly as the aspen by the stream.

“Even Cuchulain,” Milchu said.

Then Lugaid cocked his head and came nigh to smiling. “So was it at the death of Cuchulain, Chulan’s hound-and was Art’s son of Connact dead, then?”

“Far from it, lord King. Merely dazed and exhausted was the youth and his long-used arms atremble, whilst all victorious he supported himself against a stone taller than he and four times as broad.”

Lugaid’s eyes were ugly and his lips tight. “I much prefer a dead legend to a live hero, Milchu-especially with his parentage and that name.”

“Aye,” Milchu said, and he was silent then, seeing that the High-king pondered.

Known well to Lugaid was Art of Connacht. Well-birthed the man was, a descendant of the family of High-kings so many of whom had come from Connact that it had been called the Cradle of Kings and even Tara of the West. Aye, Lugaid knew of Art mac Comail. A brave and fearless fighter in the service of Connacht’s king the man was. For many a year he had done mayhem among the ever-restless Cruithne , or Picts, on Connacht’s shores.

Art, too, was of the descendants of Niall.

Seventy years dead was Niall, great High-king who had sallied forth into Alba and Britain and even into Gaul over the water. Sons he had in plenty, Fiacaid and Laegair, Conal Crimthanni of the Britonish mother, and Mani, and Conal Gulban and Eoghan and Cairbri and Enna… only thirteen years dead was Conal of Tir Connail. And these were the ui-Neill, the descendants of Niall, and so was Art, Comal’s son of Connact. Yet he was king not in Tara nor in Connacht.

Without real power the man was, and watched even by his own king for what and who he was. Lugaid knew he was popular and a hero, commander of a rath he protected well… a coastal command far from the capital at Cruachan.

I like not the man’s arrogance in naming his son Cormac, for that greatest of High-kings whose father was Art Aenfher, Art the Lonely. Too easily , he mused, staring at Milchu while hardly seeing him, do legends and popular fervors grow. And in Connacht…!

“And so… now even the son of Art of the Connachtish ui-Neill, and him bearing so auspicious and magnetic a name, is a hero…”

“Aye, lord King.”

“And him but fourteen.”