Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 01 - The Mists of Doom

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WHO WAS CORMAC MAC ART—
BEFORE HE BECAME THE FAMOUS REAVER,
BANE OF SORCERERS,
AND CHAMPION OF EIRRIN?
—and then Cormac mac Art was oblivious of the proffered meat, and the voices of these his companions, for
he was no longer with them...
He stood in a fine shining chariot drawn by two horses with the spirit of spring breezes. Mourning was on him
for his driver just slain, and he hurled again his spear of victory into the ranks of the gathered enemy, and its
gleaming bronze point drove through a man so that he died. And then another leaped forward, and tore free
that much-blooded spear, the gau-bauid, and hurled it even as Cormac whipped up his fine team of horses—
No! Not Cormac; no son of Art was he, but him born Setalta and later called the hound of the smith,
Chulan—Cuchulain he was. And he, Cormac who was Cuchulain, cried out for life and time were closing on
him, and in his anguished mind he heard anew the druid’s words of his youth:
“If any young man should be taking up arms this day, his name will be greater than any other name in Eirrin.”
He looked down then, he who was not yet Cormac for centuries were in the way of it, and he felt the cold that
came...
The Cormac mac Art Series
THE MISTS OF DOOM by Andrew J. Offutt
THE TOWER OF DEATH by Andrew J. Offutt & Keith Taylor
WHEN DEATH BIRDS FLY by Andrew J. Offutt & Keith Taylor
TIGERS OF THE SEA by Robert E. Howard
THE SWORD OF THE GAEL by Andrew J. Offutt
THE UNDYING WIZARD by Andrew J. Offutt
THE SIGN OF THE MOONBOW by Andrew J. Offutt & Keith Taylor
War of the Gods on Earth Series by Andrew J. Offutt
THE IRON LORDS
SHADOW OUT OF HELL
THE LADY OF THE SNOWMIST
THE MISTS OF DOOM
Cormac mac Art, king of Eirrin by birth, freebooter
by choice, makes the logest journey of them
all—into a time before he was born...
“No!” Cormac, who was Cuchulain, cried out, for
life and time were closing in on him, and in his
anguished mind he heard anew the druid’s words of
his youth:
“If any young man should be taking up arms this day,
his name will be greater than any other name in Eirrin.”
“He looked down then, he who was not yet Cromac,
for centuries were in the way of it, and he felt the
cold that came...”
ROBERT E. HOWARD’S
OTHER GREAT HERO
CORMAC MAC ART
THE MISTS OF DOOM
An Ace Fantasy Book / published by arrangement with the Estate of
Robert E. Howard and Andrew J. Offutt and Glenn Lord
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace Edition / November 1980
Second Edition / January 1984
All rights reserved.
Copywright © 1977 by Andrew J. Offutt and Glenn Lord
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information adress: The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Aveenue, New York, N. Y., 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-53504-6
Ace Fantasy Books are published by the Berkely Publishing Group,
200 Madison Aveenue, New York, N. Y., 10016.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Introduction: With Gratitude
Prologue: The Walker in the Fog
PART ONE: The Kingdom of Connacht
One: The Plotters
Two: The Bear
Three: Glondrath
Four: Master of Glondrath
Five: Exile of Glondrath
PART TWO: The Kingdom of Leinster
Six: Partha mac Othna of Ulster
Seven: Mesca and Mocci
Eight: The Flame-Lady
Nine: On the Plain of Sorrow
Ten: The Cattle-Raid of Leinster
Eleven: Samaire
Twelve: Picts!
Thirteen: In the Glen of Danger
Fourteen: On the Mountain of Death
Fifteen: Scars
Sixteen: The Trouble with Honour
Seventeen: A Druid and A Priest
Eighteen: Fugitive
The Mists of Doom
Andrew J. Offutt
ACE FANTASY BOOKS
NEW YORK
to
Jodie of the Erin-born
until further notice
Introduction
With Gratitude
Though this novel appears as the fourth in the series, it is technically the first in that cycle of the Irish hero of
the late fifth century, Cormac mac Art. Herein is chronicled all the information we have concerning Cormac’s
early life, his youth, the death of his father and the orphaned youth’s employment in Leinster as warrior—and
the events that led up to Cormac’s long series of adventures away from his beloved homeland; the reaver or
pirate Robert E. Howard wrote of in Tigers of the Sea.
If you are discovering Cormac for the first time, this is the beginning and the best place to begin the cycle. If
you’ve been with us through Tigers of the Sea and Offutt’s Sword of the Gael, The Undying Wizard, and Sign
of the Moonbow, you will surely welcome this look into Cormac’s origins—including his first meeting with
Samaire of Leinster.
Accounts of the later events of Cormac’s adventurous life were found and authenticated with relative ease.
The stories had been passed down orally in the Irish tradition and more than one writer of the fifth through
tenth centuries had written of his exploits: as commander of a crew of piratic reavers and the subsequent
years as reaver with Wulfhere the Dane; of his adventures in Britain and Denmark and the little kingdom of
Galicia; among the Tuatha de Danann within the Emerald Isle; of his crossing of life-paths with Arthur of
Britain and with Hengist, among the first of those from oversea to carve out sword-lands in Britain to become
England, of the matter of the sigil-ring of Egypt; of his perilous struggles with such sorcerers as Thulsa
Doom, Tarmur Roag, Lucanor of Antioch, and others.
Some of these adventures have appeared in the books previously mentioned; others are to follow as Offutt
and Zebra Books continue to present the cycle for the modern reader.
More difficult to unearth were the facts of his youth, before he became the famous reaver, bane of sorcerers,
and Champion of Eirrin. The task of tracking down and assembling these accounts fell to my friend Geo. W.
Proctor.
Like Howard who first discovered and began chronicling the Cormac cycle, Proctor is a Texan and a lover of
high adventure, particularly heroic fantasy. His own tales of weapon-men and images are included in my
anthologies of new heroic fantasy, Swords Against Darkness, and he is working on his own novels.
It was Geo. Proctor who tirelessly tracked down, along vermiculate paths leading into and through numerous
sources, Macghnimhartha na Cormaic: The Youthful Deeds of Cormac. From a crumbling monastery near
Cashel came the scraps of laboriously recopied—in Latin! —manuscript, Partha na Lagen, and realized that
this “Partha (mac Othna) of Laigin or Leinster” was indeed Cormac, written of as his cloak-name or alias.
From the musty library of an aged scholar—now deceased—living near Dublin that was Dubh-linn (and
formerly Baile Atha Cliath or Ath-Cliath), came into Proctor’s hands the nigh-unreadable Longes mac Airt: the
Exile of Art’s Son. In the Leinsterish archives is proudly recorded Tain Bo an Ard Riogh: The Cattle-Raid of
the High-king or the Driving off of the High-king’s Kine.
Laboriously Proctor checked and cross-checked, questioned and collected, compiled and discarded, and
somehow pieced together the story of a heinous plot by High-king and priest... and the story of young
Cormac. His work does shame on scholars and historians (whom in truth I have caught out in errors, in my
own researches—while doubtless making errors of my own).
Geo. and I were already in contact, and I am the chronicler and supposed expert. To me he sent his
account—and two copies of his pages and pages of notes. Pleading gross ignorance of Gaelic, I asked him
to compile it all into a sort of narrative, in outline form. (We agreed to leave out The Matter of the Queen’s
Chamber, and the Story of the Twelve Picts, as being surely fanciful, apocryphal additions by later
enthusiasts.)
Proctor complied, and once I had rewritten his outline I obtained his approval of that version. It was also
patiently explained to me that “Ceann” is not “Sean” but simply Ken and that the “family name” of the
Leinsterish royal house, Ceannselaigh, would be pronounced simply KEN-sley. He also confirmed the name
“Conan”: it is very old Irish, as are Crom and indeed the word amra, which means eulogy. Howard did like his
Celts—I mean, Kelts.
The volume, then, is my narrative based on an outline by Geo. W. Proctor of Tay-has, and we are all indebted
to him.
Andrew J. Offutt—Kentucky, U.S.A.
Prologue:
The Walker in the Fog
Though the rain had ceased just before sundown, the clouds remained. The setting Eye of Behl rayed its gold
and crimson across a sky of greys and deep slate. The spectacular effect lasted only a few minutes ere the
sun was gone and the sky became a wash of slate and indigo and the absolute black of onyx. Night ruled.
The imposing buildings standing aloofly apart atop the hill called Tara were become but shadows, some
limned darkly against the sky, others spectrally pale.
Fog and mist were permanent inhabitants of this land, which they and the forests had owned long before the
coming of the Fir Bholgs, and then the Tuatha de Danann, and finally the Celts. It crawled the ground now, so
that the peasantish houses huddled so closely all about the base of the hill were as if aswim in the cold fog.
Some indeed were invisible beneath their dripping roofs of wattle and sod. No women or children were abroad,
and few men. Even so close past sunset, many were already abed, for wakeful life and the work of the day
began with Behl’s eastward appearance each morn, when pearl and nacre displaced the dark of night and
were followed by rich gold. Thus came daily the manifestation of the god of the Celts, whether they abode
here in this land, or over in Gallic or Frankish lands. For not yet had the new god, him of the Jews and then of
Rome on which the sun had set, usurped the ancient power of Bel, or, depending upon where he was
worshiped, Baal, or Beal, or Ba’al or Behl.
This night, strangely, the fog rose up the hill among the houses of the nobles and even among the rath
structures of the righ-danna, the many who in this way or that claimed kinship to the Ard-righ, the High-king.
Aye, on this haunted night the fog eddied and crept even about that most noble lord’s own abode, the
rig-thig.
Through it, his feet and robed legs vanishing into the ever-moving gray, walked a man who neither strode nor
strolled. Hooded he was, rendered bodiless by the robe and faceless by the night. Almost silently, picking his
way with a long holly staff, he moved toward his goal.
A peasant, in leggings and leathern stockings, a patched brown cloak and flapped cap of hareskin, touched
his forehead when his path downward crossed that of the robed man ascending; the former was late wending
homeward from the house of his lord who had spoken not complimentarily to him of the peasant’s care for his
granary, for it was unpatched and the cats were hard-worked and fat from the catching of invading mice.
“Lord Druid,” the peasant said by way of greeting, and no more, and kept walking.
Nor did the druid in the hooded robe, the deep green of the forest, speak or otherwise acknowledge the
respectful greeting. He but climbed on, a bottle-green phantom in the night of darkness and fog-damp and
dripping eaves. His staff of holly made tiny sucking noises when he drew it up with each pace.
“Some of those in the service of Crom and Behl,” the peasant muttered, but not so loudly as to be heard by
aught of ears other than his own, “count themselves too high among mere men... other mere men,” he added,
for all of his sea-bounded land were proud and few acknowledged themselves lowly—when they were not
within lordly earshot.
He wended on to his little house of stout wood and roof of wattle and thatch with its dangling, dripping
tie-stones, and when his wife Faencha did chiding on him for his tardiness, he was sharp with her. In a
morose silence he ate his porkish supper and drank ale that was little more than barleywater whilst she
overbusied her good self with her embroidery.
The man in the druidic robe meanwhile approached the wall that had been raised about the splendid house of
the High-king; of oak was the wall, and over half a foot in thickness.
There he came upon two men in bronze-decorated helmets and close-pulled cloaks of scarlet wool. Their
bare, fog-wet hands were fisted about the hafts of long spears, each banded twice with bronze. Nor said they
aught, but only stared. The newcomer’s flowing sleeve whispered with the extending of his arm. They gazed
on his fist, and at the signet there, and they nodded. The gate was opened respectfully for the faceless man,
who passed through without the speaking of a word.
“Good it is to see a druid abroad and wearing a ring of the High-king himself, Cairthide,” one of the sentries
muttered, whilst they closed the gate, “and his wife and so many others believers in the New God.”
“Good it is to be knowing a druid’s about at all, on such a night as this!” Cairthide said. His sigh emerged
tremulously for he shivered. “A good night for hearth and ale—and locked door!”
His companion coughed and sniffed.
Through the grounds of the High-king strode the hooded man who seemed to have no legs. Outbuildings for
storage and creaming and smithing and the housing of animals had been scattered randomly, so that it was
no straight course he took. The fog was both thinner and lower to the wet wet earth as he approached the
rising rig-thig, as though the high son of Laegaire was immune, respected even by the powers of earth and
water and the sky that had come down this night to blanket the earth.
At the very walls of the High-king’s manse, the walker in the fog was again challenged by two men. Helmeted
they were, and mailed, armed with swords and bucklers with brazen decor, and long spears and each man
draped in a cloak of dark red woollen. These stalwarts took note of the newcomer’s long walking-staff, that
might have been a cudgel but for his druid’s robe.
The robe-swathed man said no word, but again showed them his fist on which flashed a ring of gold and
enamel and carbuncle.
“Enter then, Lord Druid,” one sentry said, opening the great door.
“And come ye in from such a surly night, Lord Druid,” the other said, with a smile, though he did not forget
the respectful inclining of his head in its shining round helm.
Robes of dark green rustled like fallen leaves; leather heels fell softly; the holly stick tapped once and then
was lifted clear of the floor. Otherwise in silence, the visitor passed them by. From the wall he took a candle,
which he waved a bit that it might flare the better while he paced through the dark defense-hall. On his way to
the chamber he sought in that high house he saw only a woman abroad. She was not the wife of the
High-king, and made a little obeisance as the cowled robe passed. It gave no sign of acknowledgement.
A tawny-haired man in clean green leggings and blue smock of wool sat before the door the visitor
approached. The door seemed to crawl with carven knotwork and fantastickal animals, lit and as if animated
by the torch burning in a cresset of bronze to either side.
“The lord High-king is receiving no visitors, Druid.”
Once again the cowled man displayed his ring, and in silence. The other gazed upon it, blinking.
For the first time, a voice emerged from the hood. In the middle range it was, and a bit strained as though its
owner had need to cough. The voice betrayed too a certain shortness of breath, for Tara Hill was no brief or
easy climb.
“It is disrespectful ye be, boy, and not minded to hide it. That will come as ye gain in wisdom. Be ye follower
of Iosa Chriost?”
“Aye, Lord Druid,” the green-legged man said quietly, and belligerence was absent from his voice and
manner. More, he had risen and taken a step aside. He stared at the darkness between the edges of the
cowl, but the light of three glims showed him only the tip of a nose. The visitor did have a face, then.
“Well—open it!”
With apologetic face and attitude, the tawnyhaired man rapped twice, paused while he counted mentally to
twice ten as his most noble lord had decreed, and opened the door. It swung inward. The young man turned
back just in time to wrap his fingers automatically about the candle the visitor had thrust at him.
With a whisper of his robes, the walker in the fog passed into a room alight with no less than four candles;
servingmaids would certainly be at the collecting of that wax, later! He paused as if to make certain the door
closed securely behind himself; it did. He was in a broad room of red yew, speckled with copper rivets and
with floor-to-ceiling hangings on two walls, warmly dark and richly woven and broidered with scrollwork and
fanciful animals and twining flowers.
In a carven chair behind a table set near the dancing hearth-fire a man sat, and he lifted his russet-haired
head to gaze upon his visitor. High was this man’s forehead, for his hair was thinning atop even as at the
temple grey usurped the rusty red, and had departed to the breadth of two fingers beyond the hairline of his
youth. Jowly his face, though he was paunchy, not fat. Fog-grey eyes fixed their stare on the intruder upon
his guarded, fire-warmed solitude, the seated man alone in the loosegirt robe of silver-trimmed darkest blue,
collared with beaver. On his chest a broad necktorc seemed to have grown, become a carcanet studded with
jewels and traced with a design of honeysuckle vine picked out in red gold. The overgrown muin-torch
depended even onto his pectorals. His ten fingers bore five rings, and one of gold and coral center-set with a
large carbuncle; was the mate of the ring on the guest’s finger.
The latter threw back his cowl with both hands, staff under his arm; the man by the fire smiled. His deep blue
robe was split at each elbow and edged there with beaver fur; from those slashes emerged his arms in
sleeves of white.
“A fine disguise, Milchu. Come, warm yourself. Indech!”
The seated man called out the last word, whereupon his visitor instantly restored his hood. Behind the door
opened; the seated man looked past his guest.
“Mulled ale—no, mulled wine, Indech. And knock first!”
“At once, lord King.”
The door closed solidly. The robed man called Milchu moved to the fire.
“It’s no talking we’ll do till the wine’s after being brought, Milchu,” the king said. “Add a few oak knots if ye’re
of a mind to. But it’s not for patience I’m known. Ye bring much information?”
“Much information, High—” Milchu broke off in a cough—“king of Eirrin.”
“Bodes it ill or else for Lugaid mac Laegair?”
Clearing his throat repeatedly, Milchu tossed several chunky oaktree knots onto the fire. “When the wine
comes, Lugaid mac Laegair.” His voice was strained; he coughed again.
“No night for being abroad, robed or no,” High-king Lugaid said.
And they were silent, the High-king fretting restlessly with the handle of a tall mug on the table before him.
Moulded as a fanciful beast was that long thin handle, though the bear thus represented was necessarily long
and thin of body, and its ears rose unnaturally long and pointed: The bronze tankard was inlaid about the
base with two rows of rectangles in green and red enamel; superbly carven coral formed a knotwork design
betwixt the rows of rectangles. Lugaid’s ringed fingers seemed to wrestle with the bronze bear.
Come the knock they awaited; High-king Lugaid son of High-king Laegair loudly called “Enter” rather than wait
those thirty or so heartbeats he had mandated as wait between knock and entry.
Immediately Indech of the green leggings hurried a sizable pottery jug and two mugs over to the table. He
bowed, set them down, looked his question. Receiving an equally silent reply by gesture, he poured both
mugs full of dark golden liquid from which rose tendrils of steam. Indech glanced at the fire, seeing that it was
blazing up all yellow and snapping. He looked again at his lord. Lugaid waved a hand: With another bow—and
a glance at Milchu, who stood by the fire with his back to the room—Indech departed the chamber with its
rush-strewn floor and cold-absorbing hangings over the fine red wood of the yew-tree.
The door closed on him. Milchu turned from the fire. Again with both hands he shot back the druidic cowl. He
commenced loosing the laces at the robe’s throat; they ran down to a point approximately horizontal with his
nipples.
Then did he bare a pectoral pendant that was strange indeed, on the chest of a man in the robe of a druid of
the Celts.
The Egyptians of centuries agone had formed the device of the male triad and the woman’s parts; a loop atop
two straight bars, one set perpendicular to the center of the other so that they formed three. Thus the male
and female united, a symbol of the creation of life, and Life everlasting of the faith of Set and Horus and
Osiris. After them the Romans used a similar design, formed of timbers, for the execution of criminals. Ankh,
those of Egypt called it; the Sign of Life. Crux, those of the more latterly “world” conquerors termed it; the
sign of Death. On it they had slain one Yeshua-Iesu in their tongue, changed in Eirrin to Iosa—for sedition
and the stirring up of the common folk against the priests... and, far more seriously, against the togaed
representatives of Rome’s might. Along with the fish, the sign’ was adopted by the Friends, later called
Saints by some and Christians by others.
Though they claimed that this cross, like the open one of old Egypt, represented and promised life
everlasting, there were many and many who pointed out that the female was closed against life and further
that the sign signified pain and slow death, and a dead god.
Though he had curbed it in himself now, Lugaid had been known to refer to Iosa Chriost who was Jesus
Christus as the Dead God, and the thought crossed his mind now as he gazed upon that which hung on
Milchu’s chest.
No druid wore the cross of Iosa Chriost.
PART ONE
THE KINGDOM OF CONNACHT
Chapter One:
The Plotters
The cross jumped and gleamed on the chest of the High-king’s visitor when the man coughed. Watching this
priest of Jesus come out of the disguising robe, High-king Lugaid reflected that it must sore have irked Milchu
to wear the robe of the Old Faith over his execution symbol. Iosa was the enemy of all other gods;
Christianity and its “Saints” were the enemy of all other beliefs; the druids of the Old Faith and the priests of
the New were hardly friends!
Lugaid grinned sourly. Toying with the mug of mulled wine, he reflected on how the former shepherd-slave had
returned here to Eirrin—from Rome-preaching the New Faith. He attacked the old ways and beliefs directly,
that Padraigh or Patriche, claiming that while as all knew the druids could with their powers bring on
darkness, only Jesus the Christus brought light. And he had thrown down the great statue of Crom Cruach
and its attending statuary on the Plain of Slecht. Nor had that ancient god of Eirrin, no nor Behl either, done
aught to avenge the sacrilege.
Those there were who began to say that Padraigh’s god was God. His faith spread throughout the land of
mighty warriors. Somehow the sons of Eirrin took the dictates of peacefulness more seriously than the
people of the continent; their Saints slew Saints and all the in the name of Jesus whom they called Christus
as though it were his name. Soon, Lugaid mused without pleasure, Padraigh had converted many. Aye, even
including the wife of High-king Laegair, for he put guilt on her, and on his chief advisor as well, so that Laegair
was no enemy of the Saints. Well Lugaid remembered the changes in his mother, and the change in the
relationship between her and his royal father.
Yet even that had not been enough for the Saints. They wanted all.
They want all, Lugaid the king thought, and his hand clutched the tighter at his tankard.
Still, the Ard-righ of Eirrin was no enemy of the Old Faith either, so that druids remained welcome throughout
most of the land. That proved not sufficiently satisfactory to the dark-robed priests who came to Eirrin after
Padraigh. That stern man with his great pointed staff preached that which had aided the toppling of the
Empire of Rome and now survived it in quest of an empire of its own.
No, Lugaid mac Laegair mused, gazing on the equally stern-faced opportunist Milchu, the Saints will settle
for naught less than ownership of Eirrin—and the world. And this fanatical follower of that dead son of a wright
of the Jews...
Lugaid saw Milchu for what he was, for all his ascetic face and pretensions. In the tradition of Padraigh
himself was this man, and yet steps beyond him, for the priests had power now in Eirrin, and they were far
from averse to using it.
This weasel face seeks only personal power and influence, Lugaid mused, and all in the name of his religion.
It’s more willing this man is even than I or my uncle to set aside his moral convictions and the gentle
teachings of his god, for after all there is always their Confession to Him... and surely to Milchu mac Roigh
the achievement of the goal ever justifies the means used in its attainment! Indeed, when once man on the
ridge of the earth feels that the warm breath of his god is upon him, it’s little there is he cannot justify in his
mind!
A fitting servant for Lugaid mac Laegair then, Lugaid mac Laegair thought. Once the priest had served his
purposes, the man with the ever-set lips and stern brow would easily be handled, one way or the other! For
surely I, Lugaid Ard-righ thought, am the superior of any at crafty plotting, though I be plotted against on all
sides by so many, at all times.
He was sure, in point of fact, that Milchu the priest plotted independent of him. For who did not? Were it not
for the High-king’s supremely powerful uncle Muirchetach mac Erca—and my own genius—Lugaid would
surely have been wrested from this highest of abodes years agone. Of this he was convinced.
“Ye passed safely and with ease,” he said aloud, “for surely none would expect to find a priest of Rome
abroad, alurk in the oak-green robe of a druid!”
The priest tossed aside the robe—to the floor, and with the movement his pectoral cross of silver flashed, for
fire and candles lit the room well if fitfully. Nor did he show amusement.
“It’s no priest of Rome I am, son of L—” he began and broke off to cough. “Son of Laegair, but a priest of Iosa
Chriost our Saviour—a priest of Eirrin, as ye be her High-king!”
With a slow blink of both grey eyes amid the disappearance of his smile, Eirrin’s High-king nodded.
“The ways of God are strange,” Milchu said. “I but use the tools he places before me, lord King.” And he
spurned that latest tool, the druidic robe, with his well-shod foot.
“Aye. It’s not the psalms of your god ye were to bring me, though; but information. Sit, Milchu. And speak.”
Milchu sat, sipped, leaned forward to fix the king with a gaze from the bright round eyes of a fanatic.
“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.”
“Aye, lord King.”
“With many years ahead of him.”
“Lord King, yourself has said it.”
Aye, and a threat to the highest crown, Lugaid did not say, a threat to me!
“Now... Milchu ... this is fact...”
“Lord King, the information comes from one in my service, and him of Connacht, close to Lord Art.”
“You will tell me his name.”
Milchu bowed to that and made answer at once, for it was no question but a command.
“Eoin mac Gulbain, High-king.”
“Gulban! Ah.”
“Even so, my lord King. The Lord Gulban’s son Eoin is a weapon-man among those who serve the lord Art. A
brave man and a loyal warrior, Eoin... though he wears another name, keeping his own under a cloak of
deception. For he has with Art a blood-feud—”
“Ahhh. And this time Lugaid did not smile, for possibilities of counteractions took shape in his mind nigh as
swiftly as plots.
“Aye, lord King,” Milchu said with a nod. He knew he need not explain the significance to this ever-mistrustful
man, this calculating plotter on Eirrin’s highest throne. “Aye. Nor would Eoin mac Gulbain wish good on Art,
for he feels that Art was responsible for the ruination of his father and the sinking of his family.”
Now Lugaid straightened. Now he took note of his mug, with beaming eye. He drank off a draught of wine.
“What said ye, Milchu, of God’s placing tools before us...”
Milchu smiled, very thinly, as if with reluctance to allow such interference with his ascetic mien.
“Even so,” he said. “And it is of interest that Eoin is baptised as one of us, one of the Saints.”
Lugaid was grinning. Shoulders hunched, he leaned forward on his table. “And will do as bids a priest of his
faith?”
“It’s only a priest of Connacht has stayed him from having his feud-vengeance on Art, lord King. Nor does he
refrain with much willingness on him. This has he said of his lord, Art: ‘If he did fifty good deeds on me, surely
this would be my thanks, I would not give him peace, and him in distress, but every great want I could put on
him.”’
“A fine worthy young son of Eirrin! And does he have a brain within him, as well?”
“He stays his hand, lord King.”
“Umm. But unwillingly.”
“Even so, lord King.”
“Ho.” Lugaid drank. “Ha. And were a priest to speak otherwise, counsel the opposite course, perhaps point
out that Art is a great enemy of Iosa Chriost—”
“In truth, lord King, he is no friend—”
“Surely then would be this fine young man’s holy duty to avenge his poor father!”
“Surely, my lord. Were he to be so convinced.” And as if he’d forgot and only just thought of it, Milchu
coughed again.
“A bad cough,” the High-king commented.
“The... night air... the fog,” Milchu said weakly, bent forward so that his chin was nearly on the table.
He did not move from that strange posture, for the other man’s eyes were upon him. The two gazed steadily
at each other. Nor did either misunderstand the other. The fire crackled and played games of light and
shadow with their faces, though not with their eyes.
So, the Ard-righ of Eirrin thought, so simple it appears, and now we are come down to it. Will it be so simple,
Milchu’s agreement to gain? Methinks not. He waits now... for he wants something. And that something,
whatever it may be, lies here in these hands, for I am High-king in Eirrin!
“Shall I ask, Priest?”
“My lord?”
“Seek ye not to play at games with me, Milchu, who has played so many for so long, and who wears Eirrin’s
highest crown!”
“My lord High-king. I—”
“Nor will I bargain as with some merchant over pigs or embroidery-work! Ye know well my meaning. What is it
ye’d be having, Milchu, Priest, to... counsel with Eoin as to his honour and his duty?”
“My lord!”
Lugaid said nothing. Again his fingers were tracing out the shape and the inlays of his tankard’s handle. He
waited.
At last Milchu leaned back, though he did not relax. “Great honour would accrue to my lord God,” he said
reflectively, “and to my lord High-king and thus to Eirrin, were it Lugaid. Laegair’s son who approved my
buiding a fine church in the town of Ath Cliath, with myself as Bishop once it’s done, to do glory to both God
and the High-king who pleases Him.”
For a time Lugaid remained as if frozen. Then he too sat back. He bethought him. Well he knew that men
said his crown rested shakily on his thinning russet locks ... that he was a man who like a child abroad alone
at night saw demain shapes in every shadow...
Such men of course were fools. The demons of treachery, Lugaid was convinced, did lurk in all places. The
cleverer he, who with such hidden eyes as those of Milchu could pierce the shadows and draw away the dark
veils from those who made plots against him. Fail to discover them and surely he’d not be toppled, for there
was his uncle Mac Erca with the weaponish host But... if Muirchetach mac Erca decided that a High-king
who had to be protected, nephew or no, were not, worthy of remaining enthroned?
Besides, Lugaid was sure that it was Mac Erca’s plan to make the High-kingship more than it was, not only
the highest seat in Eirrin, but actually king over the other kings of the Emerald Isle. And were a western
ui-Neill to be no longer available to defend that land against Picts... or... others, and his heroic son to be
nipped whilst still abudding like a rose never to be seen, an acorn fed as mast to the pigs rather than allowed
to grow into a great strong oak...
Aye.
Not shaky my crown; neither is my seat on Eirrin ‘s highest chair. Solid both, and to be made the more so for
my sons to follow. That is, if I prepare the way for those to follow me... preserve crown and throne and thus
serve Eirrin best; for how could I do elsewise, the High-king? ...by removing any who offer the slightest threat
to crown, or throne, or honour, and future... suzerainty!
Art mocks me by naming his son Cormac!
Cormac mac Art challenges me by bearing the name, by his feat, by suffering himself to be called
Cuchulain...
Art and his weaponish son threaten Eirrin!
“It seems to me that Art and his weaponish son, Cormac and Cuchulain all combined, are threats.”
Milchu had but waited for him to speak it aloud. “It is why I’m after coming direct to yourself, High-king.
“The best time to meet such threats is before they become manifest and thus even more dangerous and
harder to remove.”
“The thinking of a King of Kings, lord King,” Milchu said, and was careful to let his eyes remain flat and bland,
lest they bespeak his true opinion of this... this fearful puppet of Mac Erca!
“Methinks the god of Rome—and of Eirrin—should be honoured with a fine chapel in Baile Atha Cliath...
would ye be taking such a commission, Priest?”
“My lord King does honour on me!”
“Assuredly.”
“And should I wend my way eastward to Ath Cliath by a westward route, by way of... Connacht, lord King?”
The High-king’s eyes were hooded, but he leaned forward to end the game with plain words and royally
extended forefinger.
“Eoin mac Gulbain were better and covered surely with honour an he avenged his father’s loss of honour on
the man who replaced that father—and on the son!”
“Milchu nodded. His eyes were agleam. He rose.
“Soon, lord High-king of Eirrin, there shall have been but one Cormac mac Art in Eirrin, and him that great
king dead these two hundred years! As for the other... none shall remember him, after his death at age
fourteen!”
Chapter Two:
The Bear
A grassy branch popped loudly in the fire and one of the five men gathered about it shot out a foot to wipe the
good-sized spark into the ground. He continued rubbing that foot along the ground; little, value a well-made
buskin of good cowhide if he burned a hole in its sole. Still, one had to be mindful of the sparks. This
forest—Sciath Connaict, the Shield of Connacht—had stood here in southern Connacht far longer than any
man had lived, and fire in a forest was a terrible thing.
Huddled in furs to ward off the breeze-brought chill of early March, the five men stared at the fire. Eyes of blue
and of grey gazed at the great haunch and leg of fresh-slain elk that sizzled on the makeshift spit they’d
constructed of good green wood gathered from close round about. Bubbling fat became grease that dripped
down to spat and sizzle and pop amid the flames. The aroma that rose thick on the air was enough to make
摘要：

WHOWASCORMACMACART—BEFOREHEBECAMETHEFAMOUSREAVER,BANEOFSORCERERS,ANDCHAMPIONOFEIRRIN?—andthenCormacmacArtwasobliviousoftheprofferedmeat,andthevoicesofthesehiscompanions,forhewasnolongerwiththem...Hestoodinafineshiningchariotdrawnbytwohorseswiththespiritofspringbreezes.Mourningwasonhimforhisdriverjus...

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