Andrew Offutt: The Mists of Doom

“The… others?”

“Aye. Hold still, Partha, else we must tie ye down again. Your head is swollen still, healing under a great swath of bandage. Ye’ve no need to be feeling of it. It’s many a day ye’ve lain here thus, and many a change of bandage ye’re after having.”

Cormac relaxed his arms, repeated; “The others?”

Ceann mac Ulaid’s face went very serious. “There be but eight of ye left of those who made the climb. Twoscore and four are dead, heroes in Leinster and Munster and Osraige and aye, up in Meath and Connacht once the story’s spread in verse and song. But- but , Partha… only thirty others were slain! The deaths of twoscore and four, and the wounds on you and seven others… these saved surely hundreds of lives and limbs, Partha! As for the Picts… thrice a hundred and twoscore and twelve died on that mesa! And a few others; some jumped over the cliff and none took trouble to search for them.”

For the third time, while his sluggish brain worked to assimilate what Ceann had said, Cormac asked, “The others?”

“I… I cannot give ye their names, Partha.”

“Forgall?”

“Dead, Partha. A hero of Leinster-of Eirrin.”

Cormac closed his eyes and bit his teeth together. That exerted pressure on his cloven, tight-swathed head and pain leaped like jagged lightning. He hardly noticed. Other pain was there, too. Forgall. First my father… and then Midhir and now Forgall. It continues. Those I respect, and love… die.

He was not yet ready to remind himself that was stupid, but another form of in-turning, of wallowing in grief and worsening it with self-pity and -blame. That realization would come. Now, he opened his eyes to look up into the solicitous face of him who was third in line of succession to Leinster’s throne.

“Cas… mac Con?”

Ceann shook his head. “We tried. He died in his sleep, five days agone. He never awoke, even when his leg had to be removed.”

“Cas.”

Then, “Five days! How long has it been, Ceann?”

“Thirteen days since-”

“ Thirteen! ”

Aye. Men have lain longer with such wounds. The leech calls it natural enough, a coma; the druid says your body needed so long to mend itself; the priest says that god and devil wrestled for your soul. It’s often restless ye’ve been.”

“Prince Ceann: it’s no priest of the Dead God I’ll be welcoming in here! Thirteen days!”

“Aye. A day and a night in a peasantish house, and two days in the waggon that brought ye here. Only two days agone did the leech say he’d live. On yester day ye called out ‘ mentor ’ and a name: Sualtim. Then did ye smile , smile even as ye slept and release a great relaxing breath, Partha. And it’s peaceful ye’ve been since. Sleeping, rather than unconscious from wounds.”

I called. He is all left me-and did he come? Has Sualtim Fodla helped me still again?

He asked about others. He knew mixed mental reactions at news that Bress lived, whole; further, he’d been up and about for a seven-day. The good men die , Cormac thought with some bitterness, and Bress lives! Then he remembered that he too lived, and set the concept aside for consideration at another time. The while, he discovered that he had taken wounds to his chest and left leg. No longer were they hurtful, and he vowed silently that on the morrow he’d rise from this bed, lest a wounded leg stiffen into a limp. Meanwhile Ceann made sure he remained supine.

Samaire demanded twice-daily reports of him, Ceann said, and he must hurry to her now with the good news she awaited. She’d have been here day and night, but Ceann had convinced her that her father would learn of it.

“And have death done on me.”

Ceann did not say him nay. “Ye know I’ve no liking for this… relationship between yourself and my sister.”

Cormac stared at the wall. “Aye. And ye be right.”

Ceann pursued, “You know naught can come of this, Partha mac Othna! It’s the daughter of a king she is!”

Cormac had to bite back the words that wanted to flood forth; his lineage. Then a man entered the room; was Eoghan mac Foil of Forgall’s Fifty. Though he and Cormac had been but acquaintances, they greeted each other now as the oldest of friends. Eoghan walked with a limp, but vowed he’d soon not. He told Cormac of the other survivors. Among them was Cond the Barber, and they chuckled-but then “Partha” frowned, for Eoghan advised him he had more need of hair restorer than clipper. A considerable swath of blood-caked black hair had been snipped from Cormac’s head, and the scull scraped in that area.

He complained of the tightness of his bandage.

“Have some ale then,” Eoghan said, smiling. “A lot of it-it comes from the king’s own vats, Partha! But suffer the bandage. It holds together the edge of the wound in your scalp; thus it’s less scar ye’ll be having, and no great patch bare of hair will show.”

“Oh, that’s important,” Cormac said-only half japing-and they laughed all three, and that brought such a blinding slash of pain that he fainted.

That, the leech told him next day-and then General Conan Conda himself!-was good; “Partha” needed more rest. To that the patient replied by demanding food and ale. He received only ale and a bowl of stew with bread sopping in it. He complained-and then, when he tried to chew, thought his head was coming off with pain. After a time of rest, he finished a bowl of hot stew, and drank considerable ale, and next day he stood despite the leech’s protests and Ceann’s. But for Ceann he’d have fallen. He made the prince support him in walking twenty steps, and then it was more stew, with much soaked bread. He swallowed it whole rather than chew, for all his bravery and determination. And he drank more ale, which dulled the throbbing pain. The prince was not all that strong, mac Art realized; it was that he was weakened from lying so long abed.

Others, less wounded and more recovered, came. Samaire came, for the princess could come to a hero’s bedside as well as could a prince. That was painful; they durst not touch each other and had to be only soldier and royal heiress. The general came again. And Ceann’s older brother-the eldest, King Ulad’s firstborn-Prince Liadh. And the royal poet. And another poet. And a bard, who asked questions for his lay of the Mountain of Death, where the fifty had saved all Eirrin. Hardly so, Cormac told him, but the man paid no mind; facts hardly troubled most historians, and certainly must not disrupt the creative process of bards and poets.

Bress Lamfhada did not come.

Cormac rose everyday, and walked.

Nevertheless he was an impatient patient, and by the time he was allowed to leave the Royal Hospital, a bad patient. By then May was twenty days old.

On the next day he submitted to an hour of aid in bathing, and shaving, and hair-clipping and -combing (below the bandage)-it hurt-and even to help in dressing. He and the others who were all that remained of Forgall’s Fifty went to fulfill a royal request: to see the king himself. Their fellows were astonished at Bress’s words; he allowed that it was too bad so many good men lay in the ground, while the gods suffered their world still to be cluttered by this Ulsterish boy.

Cormac stopped short, just within the King-house. He stared; Bress met the stare, and tense men stood about, watching them both.

“Say it, Ulsterish boy! And among my Fifty it’s fiftieth ye’ll be-and worse.”

“Know this, Bress,” Cormac said very quietly, and even Bress blinked; was the first time his insults and sallies had had answer of the youth. “Neither of us is boy, and neither of us is coward, or foreigner. And no matter what may result, it’s in no Fifty of yours I’ll be serving-or squad of ten, or five.”