Andrew Offutt: The Mists of Doom

“And be welcome! And why not this year?”

“This year is the Great Fair at Tara. Only once every three years is it held-and the Games. Ye deserve the chance to compete for the Championship of all Eirrin, Bress. Besides-already ye’ve done defeat on me, that first day I was here.”

Bress gazed upon the other man in the long-sleeved tunic of Leinster blue. He shook his head, with a stirring in the air of his helm’s blue plume. “I have no belief in any man’s being so honourable, Captain. I cannot accept such consideration. I look for other reasons.”

Cormac heaved a sigh. “From your mind comes that, Battle-leader, not mine.”

For a long while they were silent, gazing one upon the other, and both were most aware of their helms, and armour, and of the blades by their sides,

“Captain,” Bress said, “I will speak to ye, on the morrow.”

Cormac nodded. He’d given Bress till then to decide. He knew both anticipation and apprehension as they rode back… not that Bress might decide to transfer to another’s command, but that he might wish to remain. For Cormac would love to get on with this man who was so very good a warrior. Yet he did not relish daily proximity. Had it not been for his plaguing sense of honour, he’d have done what Bress had said: He’d have asked that the man be transferred elsewhere, that mac Art might handle his men in peace and happiness.

Hours and hours later, an aide to General Conan came to Cormac. The general would have converse with him: Now. Cormac cloaked himself against the night’s misty chill and hurried with the aide to the house where the general both lived and held office. Cormac was most surprised to find Bress there, afore him.

“Captain,” the general said from behind his finely-carved oaken desk, “I ask ye to relate to me, now, what ye talked of this afternoon with Bress mac Keth.”

Surprised, Cormac looked at Bress. What showed those eyes under the superciliously arched brows… nervousness? Apprehension? Surely not fear! Cormac set his gaze on the general’s face, and did his best to recount all his and Bress’s words to each other.

“And that be all, Captain Partha?”

Cormac knew it was, but felt obliged to make a show of reflection. Then he said, “Aye, General.”

The general turned to Bress Long-arm who stood to his left, and looked upon him, and said nothing, and looked… until Bress looked away.

At last General Conan spoke. “Bress mac Keth, ye have defended Leinster well, and the Games at last year’s fair proclaim ye the best weapon-man in the realm. It is a shame on us all, then, that ye be unbearable, and a troublemaker, and with no such honour on yourself as many lesser men-and a liar as well. I will not incarcerate or discharge from the army Leinster’s Champion. Nor could I trust ye even in one of our border outposts. Best I know precisely where ye are, and can keep these eyes on ye. Accordingly on the morrow I will make announcement that I have want of a seasoned Battle-leader on my staff, and it’s yourself will volunteer at once.”

Bress spoke quietly, looking at the general’s desk-top. “Aye, General.”

“Go.”

Bress left; Conan turned his pale blue eyes on the astounded Cormac. The general lifted a hand to push fingers through his thinning flaxen hair, and he sighed.

“I’ll not ask why he dislikes ye so, Partha, and I’d not wager ye know. Nor will I tell ye what he told me. Lies. Avoid him, Partha, and do not trust him.”

“General, it’s-”

“Assembly an hour after breakfast, Captain. An announcement from the general. Go.”

And Cormac went.

And so that problem was solved, without being solved, for Cormac had no doubt but that Bress’s mind was well capable of twisting matters so that the man he knew as Partha was responsible for his removal from activity. Indeed, the days passed slowly for mac Keth that summer, for he had no specific duties whatsoever but was called on now and again to carry this message or call that man for the general. Nor did Cormac mac Art ever know what Bress had told their commander, who had heard him out, and sent at once for Cormac, and had without other comment bidden Bress utter not one word whilst Cormac spoke… and who had believed Cormac instantly.

For mac Art the days went swiftly.

He was his own training-master, aided by the stern, hardly imaginative but superbly competent veteran he made his second. And many nights passed all too swiftly, too, in Samaire’s company. And summer lengthened.

From time to time the new captain saw the new aide to the general. From time to time he thought of Sualtim, and the approach of the Great Fair at Tara, and of the Assembly of Kings later. Sualtim came not. The paths of mac Keth and mac Art crossed not. Once Cormac waited a long, long hour for Samaire to keep a tryst, and then allowed his disappointment to be alleviated by another, and her older and most willing. Upon learning that Samaire had been unable to get away from the King’s House that evening and durst not send word either, Cormac felt guilt, and did not like it. Yet he liked no better the realization that he wished to remain constant to a woman with whom there could be no future.

And July came. Coichte Forgaill went out on maneuvers with four other Fifties, and acquitted itself superbly, new men included. Well trained they were; so said Fergus Buadach most publicly while Conan Conda smiled at his side. And July steamed on, and days came and went, and the Great Fair drew nigh.

In a room in an inn of Carman of Leinster, a pair of youths lay embracing and avowed their love. She wanted only to live out her life with him, Samaire said, and bear his sons. He wanted the same, Partha told her with sadness on him, but such could never be. He was but a weapon-man, and she the king’s daughter. She sought to argue and dissuade, though was not logical or truly reasoned or reasonable.

And that evening, lying abed staring at an inn’s ceiling in Carman, he told her who he was, and why he’d left Connacht, and why he lived with a name not his own. She told him that she cared not and showed him, as well, and avowed that there must be a way for them.

He wanted that too, he told her, holding her to him and pretending not to be aware of her tears. It would be pleasant to believe, he mused, that they could surmount or smash through all obstacles, or even flee them. But the sense of honour was strong in the son of Art of Connacht in this matter as in that of Bress when he’d given the man his choice that day in June. In him too was a druid-trained pragmatism, and Cormac saw no way. She must be wed to some prince or king, thus to make alliance and bear Leinsterish sons to rule elsewhere. Such was the way of kings, and their daughters.

In truth Cormac knew in his mind that were far better he depart Leinster and hope they two could forget each other. Yet being that practical was a pain within him, and he did not say it aloud or make unbreakable resolve. He hoped still that Sualtim would bring word or send word, and that somehow all problems would be solved thus. Sure, and even that practical mind was a youth’s; he entertained ridiculous and colourful thoughts of himself showing up the High-king for a plotting bit of low-life, and being forced then to defend himself from Lugaid’s rushing attack, and slaying him, and being proclaimed High-king by the other monarchs assembled, so that all proffered gifts and daughters on him, and he reached forth his hand to the sunny daughter of Leinster’s king.

These were dreams, he told himself, holding that sunny daughter, and unworthy.

At last it was time for her to depart the inn, and him. They would be apart for weeks: the king and his entourage left on the day after the morrow to be travelling Leinster, and visiting in Munster, with whose king they’d ride up to Tara for the Great Fair. Ulad Ceannselaigh wanted his daughter with him; his daughter would be with him, fearful of the discussion of matches for herself.