Last Summer in Ireland

The King paused. Deara felt at that moment, that if she took her eyes away from his face, he would toss her aside like a bone to his hound.

‘Do not let him frighten you.’

As if the words had been spoken by someone present, Deara felt the memory touch her. She held her gaze and it was the King’s eyes that moved away.

‘What think you, my warriors?’

There was not a murmur from the warriors. They knew their King too well to answer a question that was purely rhetorical.

He raised the sword and looked at her again. Then he spoke once more, addressing himself to her in a strangely quiet manner.

‘A rare thing is it not, handmaiden, for a Druid, a Druid of such mighty power and knowledge of magic, to require your death so unceremoniously? Think you not it more seemly for him to make sacrifice to the Gods, to ascertain the most auspicious time for your despatch, the most auspicious place, and the most pleasing method? Surely there are proper observances for the purification of the evil caused by one such as you – a witch?’

The warriors murmured. Even the slower-witted amongst them had seen the drift of the King’s words. They had no love for Conor and his self-important ways, but, even if they had, it would be enough that the King’s favour had turned against him.

‘What say you, witch? Shall your King become your Druid? Shall I consult the magic lore and tell you what I see?’

The warriors roared their approval, and Morrough, smiling broadly, held out his hands to them.

‘I see a fat man, and a long road,’ he whispered loudly. ‘And I see hounds baying and footsteps fleeing – and – I do believe – ah, the mists, the mists dim my vision, I cannot see as I should. My powers are dimmed by a slavegirl – oh, what mischief is this . . . I am asleep again by her spells.’

There was laughter now, and the slapping of hands on thighs. Conor’s face, Deara could not see, but within her grew a seed of hope. If only she kept her eyes on the King she might yet live.

The laughter died away as the King made a dramatic gesture with his raised arms. He closed his eyes.

‘Ah, but hold, all is revealed to me. Why, it is Conor. Conor, the fat man, who boasts of the past and listens at doorcurtains, who feasts on the sacrifices the poor bring him out of fear. What say you, men, to my prediction? Shall I not be your Druid?’

‘Surely, surely. Morrough, our Druid and our King.’

The Hall filled with noise, the bang of weapons on wooden benches and walls, the hammer of fist on collar and belt, the stamp of feet, the chanting shout: ‘Morrough, Morrough.’

From the corner of her eye Deara glimpsed Conor’s hasty movement as he ran from the chamber. The men, still laughing, drifted away.

Morrough filled his drinking horn and lowered it, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. He wiped his mouth with his hairy arm and threw himself back in his chair.

‘So, brehon, what pledge did I give the Lady Merdaine? I have forgot.’

‘Sire, I have the deed here and your mark upon it.’

‘Get on then, man, would you have us here till Connaught wished us well?’

‘Item, that the Lady Merdaine doth give all her property to the King for his sole use upon one condition.’

‘Condition? I agreed to no condition. You are mistaken, man. You cannot make out your own marks.’

‘Sire, it is not writ in my marks; the script is in the lady’s hand.’

‘Then how can you read it? Her hand she conned from a trader in my father’s time. A rogue he kept about the place to play fidchell with.’

The brehon, who had throughout the day tolerated the King’s irritability, seemed at last to lose patience.

‘My Lord, the times are changing and we must change with them. It would not do if all of the King’s servants dozed by the fire and lined their pockets. In these three winters, Lord, I too have conned this language that can be written down more easily than our own. By your leave, I read you the words you spoke to the Lady Merdaine:

‘By the brooch of my mother brought in token, I swear that I will free the girl, Deara, give her dowry of twenty milk cows that she may be betrothed, or, if it be her wish, dowry in gold that she may pursue her studies with Alcelcius of Ard Macha into whose household she may enter.’

‘Twenty milk cows!’

The King bellowed as if he had been stung by a wasp, his face dark with anger.

‘Where in the name of all the Gods, man, would I find the price of twenty milk cows to dower a slave-girl? Had I a daughter of my own I might be hard-pressed to do as well.’

‘Sire, may I remind you of the kist the Lady Merdaine left to you. It was her wish that you would benefit by her gift.’

The beam of sunlight that had filled the chamber all day finally moved westwards. Shadows sprang up in all the corners. Deara, still standing before the King, felt again the sense of desolation that had come to her as she tied back the hanging after Merdaine’s death. Then, she had faced the blinding light of day with no protection from its strength, now, what strength she had seemed to be draining away with the light, as the King and brehon argued.

‘Well, then, open it. If you have no key, let Fergus fetch Ulrann and his hammer from the forge.’

The brehon, however, had already produced the key. Like everything he had done, all day, he proceeded meticulously. Watching him, Deara realised that his manner was both a defence against the King’s turbulence and a compliment to it. These two men, opposite as they seemed, were in some way bound to each other. It was not a bond of love, such as she saw amongst the young warriors. It was a bond of need, a defence against a loneliness which neither colleagues, nor warriors, wifes or concubine, could take away. In the midst of her own need, intensely aware of her own unprotected isolation, suddenly she saw a need just as great in two men who, it seemed, had everything that she lacked. They, who had position and power, who could dispose of her life by a word to a warrior, or a mark on a tablet, were in a way she could only dimly grasp, as weak, as vulnerable, as unsure of their place in the world, as she herself was.

‘By all the Gods.’

The King turned to Deara from the open kist behind which the brehon still knelt.

‘What do you know of this, girl?’

‘Of what, my Lord?’

By way of answer, the King leaned down and showered at her feet a handful of coins and a cluster of armbands, beaten in gold and inlaid with bronze. In the dim light they gleamed like pale flowers at dusk.

The thin hands of the brehon set down on his table a silver drinking cup, a set of gold torcs, a terracotta figurine and a jewelled belt.

Deara looked from one to the other.

‘Well, then, what do you say?’

‘My Lord, it is the custom to bring an offering to the God when one comes to ask for his healing.’

‘And do my people bring such gifts as these that I, their King, have not the least of them?’

‘No, my Lord, the people of Emain bring food and drink, and neighbouring peoples bring cloth or skins. Only the traders bring such gifts as these.’

‘Traders? The Lady Merdaine traded? With what?’

‘Wound salves, sire.’

‘To salve the wounds of our enemies?’

‘No, my Lord. All that I could make went to Albi.’