Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill Read online

  ‘Oh?’ said Mac Cumhaill, imagining for a moment that the plump, tight-mouthed owl-men had actually divined some original information.

  ‘Yes, information they have gathered from sea traders has it that the Crúca Róma forces may be about to attack our land. And they tell me their opinion is that our forces are, eh, somewhat unprepared.’

  Mac Cumhaill was not too impressed. Though this was the news he had most dreaded hearing, news that meant a likely end to all that had worth, his first feeling was rage. He had been warning Cormac for years about the Crúca sweeping across the countries to the east. Many of the smaller chieftaincies in the lands nearest Éirinn now answered to the Crúca. And there had been several attempts by the Crúca to take Halban. Cormac well knew that Mac Cumhaill had led many men to fight alongside the Halbanach, as much to expose his own soldiers to the methods and weaknesses of the Crúca as to help the Halban kinsmen protect their possessions. He had warned Cormac many times that the next head of the Crúca would want to add new ground, so as to turn himself into a god in his people’s eyes, and that Éire’s remaining beyond their grasp would one day become an unbearable provocation to them.

  Cormac’s advisers, these very men now assembled, had for years dismissed all this, assuring Cormac, ‘Why would they consider invading here when their trading boats can do business? Fionn thinks like a soldier and only sees the makings of a war, where level-headed people see the makings of good beneficial dealings.’

  The truth of the matter was that some of the brehon s and many of the lowland people were fond of the shiny cloths and smelly soaps that the traders brought in return for meat, wool and metal. A trade that went on even in years like the present one when there were people in Éire going hungry and cold. They hadn’t wanted Mac Cumhaill doing anything that might upset the cosy relationship.

  Now, of course, from their daily dealings, they were the first to hear that there was an army and a fleet of giant ships gathering just across the water. And when they had added the suggestion that Mac Cumhaill was to blame for the Fianna not being ready for this, it seemed that no voice had protested. Not Cormac. And not even Goll.

  As Fionn stood to leave, he looked from Cormac to Goll in a rage that he could not even put words to. Conán had no such inhibition. He shouted at Cormac: ‘You are a great man in several ways. But it would really round you off if your memory was less selective. You forget that you were the one who said Mac Cumhaill was wasting the lives of young men, taking armies over to Halban to train. And you forget how many times he asked you to put aside builders and resources to build fortresses and ambush sites at all of the coves where the Crúca might try to land. And you forget how many times he asked you to stop the traders who come here with wine and go back with information. Information on landing points. Information on the state of our defences. Information on which chiefs like nice things and might be open to offers of high office under Crúca rule. Information on which chiefs might be open to bribery during a harsh winter such as this one, when aching bellies are making the people restless.’

  ‘Sit down now, honoured gentlemen. Cool heads. There’s no point in raking over old arguments now,’ said Cormac urgently to Mac Cumhaill and Conán, all pompous recrimination replaced by fear. ‘I was not meaning to blame anyone. Not in the slightest. We all need to stick together now. What can we do?’

  ‘And, by the way,’ said Conán unnecessarily, turning back as he left with Mac Cumhaill, ‘did you remember when Skellig was boxing the head off you earlier this morning, that it was you who boasted you were a great man to spot talent and you that insisted that Skellig be made a senior man in the Fianna even after Mac Cumhaill told you that doing so would be like giving a barrel of golden whiskey to a man already drunk on his own importance in the world?’

  After they’d left, Conán asked Mac Cumhaill, ‘What are you going to do?’

  Mac Cumhaill just shook his head. ‘I have nothing left inside me. I will leave them to it now.’

  Conán parted from him. Because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, he resumed the journey south to attend to the now minor problem of tracking down Skellig, the man who had turned on Cormac. Cormac had laughed at Skellig for demanding that he be made head of the Fianna, and Skellig had rushed Cormac in a tantrum. He punched the royal head several times and fled before the guards realised what was happening.

  Conán was going to stick to the plan Mac Cumhaill had set earlier that day: to disobey the king. Since it was partly the king’s own fault for feeding the wrong-headed boy’s notions about himself, they would capture Skellig, but spare his life and send him somewhere he could do no harm.

  Fionn himself headed southwest to try to forget the major problem of the Crúca.

  It was only a few years since the Crúca had moved into the neighbouring land. They took the ground of Togodum and Caract. Every season, they controlled more of the middle and south of that land. These Crúca armies made servants of entire nations. They turned all of a people’s crafts, all of their farming and all of their metalwork to the service of a foreign Crúca headman. Up to then, most peoples had laws and regulations as suited their own temperaments and their own ways of looking at the world. But the Crúcas enforced the same set of laws on every different kind of people, no matter what the beliefs of those people were. Instead of liberty, the once proud followers of the great Cunobelin now had bathtubs, wine and servitude. Mac Cumhaill knew better than anyone in Éire how overwhelming the danger was. He knew the Crúca too would have learned something from Halban. They would not launch unless they had several armies ready, each massively outnumbering the Fianna and they would attack with overwhelming ferocity at several points simultaneously. Their timing was perfect. They knew that at the end of a winter after two bad summers when the grain had sprouted before it could be harvested, the apples had rotted, the turf had been too wet, and there wasn’t even fish oil to light a candle and shorten the cold hungry late winter evenings, the population’s fighting spirits would be in a delicate state.

  He knew that people would now be expecting that Fionn Mac Cumhaill would somehow lead them through this. The people had little idea what they were in for or that stopping the Crúca now would be almost impossible. He knew all that. But the only way he could see to avoid massive bloodshed and likely eventual defeat was total capitulation. He was not capable of making the sensible choice. It could not happen while he led the Fianna. So it was best if he left them alone now. Under Goll and Cormac the resistance would be feeble and the misery soon over. And that was what was making him feel like he had a heavy boulder in his stomach.

  As he set out walking, he was traipsing from one mountain to the next looking for a man called Lorcán, a man he regarded as wise and true. He wanted to talk to him in the hope it would clear his own thoughts.

  Lorcán wandered alone in the most desolate hills. He had been the most popular poet in the land at one time. But he had no time for any of the newer styles and soft tastes that had consumed some of the people in the lowlands. Not when ordinary people still had to employ all their wits just to keep death at bay. He became unpopular when he didn’t humour certain chiefs who asked him to go easy with his words. He had taken to solitary living and didn’t seem to feel any loss.

  When Mac Cumhaill eventually spotted Lorcán, it was late evening. He was leaning on a long ash plant, looking out into the distance from a mountain ledge high on Sliabh Laigin. He was a tall, lean man, younger than Mac Cumhaill. He had red hair and a wary look about him all the time. He welcomed Mac Cumhaill as always and Mac Cumhaill gave him a flask of whiskey he had been given by a man he knew, as he passed the foothills.

  ‘I trust, my large friend, that your life is progressing in a manner that is to your liking,’ he said to Mac Cumhaill.

  Mac Cumhaill didn’t answer.

  They sat by a small fire, burning the backs of their throats with cups of the harsh drink. What settled Mac Cumhaill in Lorcán’s company was that he wasn’t offended by si
lence and that he didn’t feel the need to speak unless there was something to be said. After a while of staring into the fire, as on many occasions before, Mac Cumhaill just started talking to Lorcán.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I am not the right man for this time. We are caught on the wrong foot. Nothing Cormac or I can do or say now will change that.’

  ‘Why would they want this trouble? Haven’t they had a bitter enough taste of your methods and your madness in Halban? Maybe their leader is the only one who wants it. Would that not give you some hope that it mightn’t be so impossible to shake their determination?’

  ‘I think it’s just too far out of my reach this time,’ said Fionn.

  ‘What is it that they already know?’

  Mac Cumhaill lay back and looked at the stars, with his hands behind his head, thinking about Lorcán’s question. They would know from Halban that the Fianna will run towards them rather than away from them. That their rock-and spear-throwing contraptions instill no fear but only make easy targets of the men fiddling and trying to set them up. And they would know that the orderly lines of men marching behind a wall of shields held no terror. Their lines weren’t long scattering when four or five chariots raced into them, each carrying only one or two men with deathly red paint on their faces, lime in their hair, and naked as the day they were born, screaming in fury and slashing in every direction. They would understand how many soft young men with a fear of the sight of their own blood were needed to overpower one Fianna soldier who sees a glorious death as a transition he is ready to make any minute of any day.

  Mac Cumhaill said, ‘Our ambushes, better hill fitness and wild surprise attacks always made the Crúcas fall into disorder.’

  ‘Yet, they come. Is there much that they do not yet know?’ asked Lorcán.

  ‘They may know some things but their methods are so uniform and their previous successes so great that they seem unable or too proud to adapt. They still don’t understand that the orderliness and regalia which might have frightened other nations is seen here as weakness. To people here, they look like dancers rather than soldiers. And then when they are knocked into disarray and descend into random cruelty against ordinary people, they don’t understand that in these parts that does not make people want to submit. The Crúcas haven’t realised that here, cruelty only makes peaceful domination an everlasting impossibility. That each injustice is stored and passed on until the time comes to correct it, even if the opportunity takes generations to arise.’

  ‘But I don’t believe that kind of thinking brings Fionn Mac Cumhaill satisfaction – seeking consolation in the knowledge that after defeating your people they will not have a comfortable reign here. So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. But if I was to go back, the first thing I would do is to stop the merchants and cut off the Crúca’s supply of information.’

  ‘It sounds like they have already got as much nourishment as they need from that well. Would it not be possible to poison the well instead of closing it off?’

  This was all that was said during the night in relation to the country’s problems. However, much else was talked about, as was always the case when Mac Cumhaill met Lorcán.

  Mac Cumhaill spent the night on a heather cushion in Lorcán’s cave. The next morning was as clear a day as Mac Cumhaill had seen in a very long time. From the mountain top he could see the peaceful green carpet spread as far as the sea, clumps of trees starting to peep out at the spring light and soft crooked boundaries between the big infields of various clans, looking random to someone who didn’t know how many generations it had taken to work out every finger length of them, and small patches of brown where turf had been cut last year. There was smoke here and there coming from homes where mothers were up and preparing porridge or whatever bits of food they had magically found to nurture the ones they loved. He could hear whistles and dogs barking from some early starters, boys who were out rounding up the few black cows to tease the last drops of the year’s milk out of them. On the lower slopes he could see a man with the patient calmness of an expert, coaxing a fine white horse in to stand alongside a red bull, already harnessed to a wooden plough. Up closer, a mountain ewe with two bony lambs had stopped to inspect him, deciding whether to risk carrying on about her business despite this big intruder standing on her track, or to retreat until he had gone back to wherever he came from. Mac Cumhaill fell in love with his country again.

  As he wandered back towards Tara, he was spotted by Conán. ‘There you are! I knew you’d be back. Goll owes me a flask of whiskey.’

  ‘How did you know, as a matter of interest?’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘You are always complaining about wanting to go off on your own and live the quiet life,’ said Conán truthfully, ‘but at the back of it you know you wouldn’t survive a minute wandering the bogs if you knew there was excitement and trouble going on without you.’

  Mac Cumhaill didn’t have time to put up a denial of his friend’s observations, as Goll spotted them and came out demanding to know what Mac Cumhaill’s plans for the Crúca were. And where Skellig’s head was.

  ‘Don’t worry about Skellig,’ Conán intervened, ‘some of my men have him cornered and he is not going anywhere.’

  ‘That won’t do,’ said Goll, ‘Cormac wants his head, and if you are not up to that task, I am.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that,’ said Conán. ‘Do you not think though, that Cormac should be engaging his formidable brain with more important matters now?’

  ‘You should be glad he is not yet looking for your own head, with the lip you gave him yesterday,’ shouted Goll.

  Conán laughed at Goll, only making him redder and meaner.

  Fionn intervened. ‘I will deal with Skellig myself. Conán and Fiachra and I will go to see to that now. In the meantime, I would be obliged if you would take charge of the Fianna and start taking in and training all the new people that Cormac wants.’

  The contortions were wiped off Goll’s face and he wandered off, no longer bothered about Skellig, Conán or anything that Mac Cumhaill might have up his sleeve.

  Conán was puzzled at Mac Cumhaill’s interest in Skellig. But he didn’t say anything. He called for Fiachra and the three of them set out for Fotharta in the southeast corner of the country where Skellig was hiding in a copse of trees.

  This young man, Skellig, had come to Cormac’s attention in the battle with the buans. As a new recruit tearing into the buans with a fervour and fearlessness that had made many take note, Cormac had insisted that Skellig be made a group leader. Mac Cumhaill cautioned that the fearlessness seemed born more of a belief in his own immortality than in any sense of gallantry. Cormac didn’t understand Mac Cumhaill’s opposition and listened to the whispers that Mac Cumhaill feared that the might, speed and cunning of the young man undermined his own status.

  Initially, Skellig had given the impression of being a very strong leader. His men either loved him or were terrified of him or both. Anyone he thought was undermining him or questioning his authority in any way was beaten and kicked by Skellig in front of everyone else. None of them would even tell this to Mac Cumhaill at the time, because they were so afraid of Skellig’s threats. They could see from his eyes that no threat he made was idle. When he said, ‘If you go crying to the bosses, I will attack your wife and tear your children apart like dolls,’ his calm stare left them in no doubt.

  By now, Skellig was making his even grander plans. At first, the large young man had persuaded himself only that he was the rightful leader of the Fianna. However, yesterday even as he had made his strategic retreat from Conán, his admiration of himself had grown further. Now that he’d seen Cormac bruised like a mortal, he started to believe it was time for him to overthrow Cormac too. The entire army he was going to do this with consisted of seven weak-minded men who must have been mesmerised by Skellig’s grandiose delusions.

  Within a few hours, Mac Cumhaill was at the small grove of hazel trees
accompanied by Conán and the much-trusted Fiachra.

  They left their shields and weapons down and sat relaxing on a mound a few paces beyond the trees. They had seen one of Skellig’s companions scurry inside, giving up his observation post, so they knew Skellig wasn’t far away. At the back of the clump was the sea shore and there was nowhere for Skellig to go.

  ‘Now is your chance to assert yourself,’ shouted Mac Cumhaill. ‘Come out here to me now, because time is precious and I don’t want to waste another minute of mine on you.’

  ‘Your day is past, Fionn Mac Cumhaill,’ came the voice of Skellig. Conán and Fiachra instinctively went out to flank the spot the sound was coming from.

  ‘Come out, you gombán,’ said Mac Cumhaill, ‘while there is still good humour on me.’

  ‘Old man, I’d rather you would just retire and enjoy the stories of your glory days,’ came Skellig’s heavy voice, ‘than make me cut you down here in this lonely place.’

  There was a terrible yelp from the trees and one of Skellig’s companions came running out. Conán had spotted where they were sitting in the trees and lobbed a spear in. The youngster came running towards Mac Cumhaill, throwing down his weapons. He had only a slight gash on his hip, as Conán had not thrown with any serious intent. However, a bellow came from Skellig, ‘Traiterous coward,’ followed by a spear thrown with ferocious intent. It went straight into the man’s back and the poor fellow dropped like a log.

  Mac Cumhaill could hear Skellig growling at the others with him: ‘If any of the rest of you wants to run to the losing side, go now and the same will happen to you.’

  Mac Cumhaill picked up a fairly large boulder and rolled it like a marble in the direction of the voices. It flattened bushes and small trees as it went and stopped at Skellig’s feet, exposing him entirely.

  ‘Come out, I said,’ said Mac Cumhaill, still calm. ‘You’d better hope that gormless Déise chap lying there is still drawing breath, because there are fairly serious consequences for murder.’