Playing up
Rinn Duin, mid-summer CE 987
A part of Rannal strove for control even as he gave himself into the moment. He let go of restraint, and waves of mirth took over. Tears squeezed between his half-closed eyes. He could neither breathe nor stop laughing. It was an agony of pure joy. Relief! He was free again.
The sense of liberation was unexpected. Latterly, his duties in the monastery town of Clonmacnoise had consumed every waking moment. He’d borne the burden with equanimity at the behest of Abbot Dúnchad. Who, after all, could refuse that sternly compassionate man, especially in the grace of his final years? But the new abbot, Mael Finnia, was made of different stuff. Maintaining personal integrity under pressure to siphon wealth into the hands of power brokers was a grinding distraction. Being supplanted by a more compliant man was a release rather than a disappointment. So now, the challenge was to find his place in the future. He lacked for nothing in spiritual and material domains, although he was landless and without the inherent protection conveyed by social rank.
On the ground, unable to think what to do, was Lorcán mac Conaill, Rannal’s oldest friend in Ireland and former high steward of Kiltullagh. The greying giant was distraught with the indignity of being beset by a horde of children. They beat him with play-swords and sticks, darting in from all sides. A pretend helmet of linen and twigs was knocked askew to sit at a jaunty angle. He bowed his head between raised arms in futile defiance and was beaten again.
“That’s enough!” Medb, the matriarch of the Uí Díarmada, strode across the lís, scattering the children. Her face was radiant, hazel eyes alight with the brilliance of the day. “What’s going on? Is that any kind of example to set?”
“Ah! Sweet Medb,” wheezed Rannal, “if we that are growing old cannot indulge the young with our stories, what is left to us? We have little strength for the battlefield and fewer wits. All we can do is recount the defeat of our enemies and hope to be remembered beyond our mortal span.”
Lorcán sat and brushed his clothes. “So much for Murchad Glun!” He pulled the costume armour away from his shaggy mop of hair. Motes of dust rose in clouds illuminated by the slanting, late-afternoon sunlight. He clapped his great hands together, preparing to push himself upright, but grunted and twisted in pain.
Rannal studied his friend’s face. “How’s your shoulder?”
The latter-day Lord of Rinn Duin flexed his arm. “Stiffer by the year. I’d have been dead in the snow that day on the Slí Mór but for Fionn and Ruairí.” He grunted and pushed himself to his feet. “Still, here I am, proudly decrepit and eating at Cinnéide’s table. Bless him for his sacrifice!” His comment was a weary insight into the disappointment of his diminished vitality.
Automatic words of consolation came to Rannal. “We’ve come far, my friend. Our victories have been many, but no one defeats time. Life is a battle we all lose, but don’t wish it away. There is more left for you to give.”
“You oaf!” Medb spoke sharply. “This was never Cinnéide’s ráth, and he only did what you would have done in his place. The holdfast belongs to the chief and benefits the tribe. You were chosen by the council as its guardian for a good reason. No one has your experience. Besides, family is all! You should know that better than anyone. If we pension our heroes to poor pastureland, it’d not be long before the rest of us follow.”
Lorcán was about to respond when a solitary but persistent hand clap drew their attention across the water on the northeast side of the peninsular. They turned and watched as a magnificent vessel arrived. It was a longship fit for a king. Rannal recognised Skithblathnir, looking as fresh as the day she’d been launched, but carrying only a skeleton crew.
With practised precision, the 100-foot leviathan swung in and came to rest. The longship’s hull made the lightest of kisses on the staves of the pier. A thick-set man at her bow ceased his lonely applause and vaulted confidently over the rail. Unfortunately, the aplomb he aimed to demonstrate evaporated when his feet landed. A loud crack from tortured wood reached the onlookers, and Cormac lurched to his hands and knees. “Blood of Christ!” he cursed red-faced, pulling his leg from an alarming hole in the deck. He picked himself up and started forward afresh. “Is everything rotten around here?”
Lorcán shrugged off his momentary lapse. “Apparently, no Irish timber is now stout enough to hold the wealth of your weight!”
The erstwhile Lord of An Líonan turned scourge of the sea attempted once more to pretend to his youth in a laboured jog up the foreshore. “Out of my way, land-lubber!” Cormac brushed past Lorcán with a scowl. He glanced at Rannal and came to Medb, whom first he had met only a day after helping to steal Skithblathnir. He swept her up in an embrace. “By the bones of my sainted mother, you look well. And I see you have the time to keep these two balding goats in check!”
“Be careful who you call a goat,” said Lorcán. “Don’t make me regret saving your sorry backside from the Vikings while you were busy protecting that longship. I’ve looked after Rinn Duin for ten years and taken pride in showing unwelcome visitors the wet way home. I’ll not suffer injury to come to it by the feet of a fat fisherman from the west.”
“Ah!” said Medb, pressing herself from the embrace. “Normality returns!”
Cormac feigned a look of hurt and then switched focus. “And how is my favourite man of God?” A trunk-like arm extended towards Rannal.
“Happily less encumbered by the affairs of church estate. I’m blessed to greet you and fully prepared for our great pilgrimage. I see you’ve been busy with the shipwrights refitting Sveinssen’s pride and joy.”
“She’s solid enough for our purpose. Unlike that damned pier! Mind you, there’d have been less to do had she been in my care from the day we liberated her.” It was the opening comment in an old and, by now, ritualised exchange.
“Then you should have understood the power of Thor’s hammer earlier.” Rannal looked pointedly at the golden charm suspended, as always, from its leather thong around Cormac’s neck.
“Hark at you, still full of contradictions!” Cormac fiddled with the charm and dropped it behind a layer of clothing. “Piety and holiness mixed with pagan symbolism. No wonder this land is spread at your feet.”
“I believe in the fortitude of the human spirit and God’s will.” Rannal’s credo came to his lips without conscious thought. “He works through all things and rewards the pure in heart.”
“Like the new Abbot of Clonmacnoise, I suppose! In God and silver, he doth trust! More especially the latter.” It was an unworthy but accurate provocation that failed to penetrate Rannal’s studied reserve.
“You, sir, can try to disguise the kindness of your nature with cheap words, but your soul shines through. The world may be fooled by your ill-grace, but you can hide your true self from neither friend nor maker.”
“Pah!” Cormac gave up. “This is not Sunday. There will be time enough for your sermons soon enough.”
“On that, you may depend.”
“Oh! How I’ve missed you both,” said Lorcán, “but my ears will grow wings and fly away if I listen to much more of this.”
Medb interrupted the banter. “Come, you’re here in perfect time. My mother has slaughtered the wealth of the tribe so we can eat well and send you and the saintly Rannal off with a full stomach.”
A whistle drew their focus towards the main gate across the far side of the lís through which walked Medb’s husband, Fionn, and Rannal’s stepson, Ruairí. Ahead of them, and now halted by his master’s command, was a great grey wolfhound. The dog was full of energy and desperate to be released back to its purpose of investigating the new arrival. Fionn’s word was law, though. He beckoned it to heal, and it dutifully obeyed.
“The bloodline is still strong,” observed Cormac, studying the rangy dog.
“Third generation,” said Medb. “Fionn grieves for each one that passes, but he’s like his father and wouldn’t be without. It looks as though they’ve finished checking the livestock.”
The two men skirted the rise upon which stood a new meeting hall built as the centrepiece of renovations commissioned by Lorcán and his wife, Iseult. The architecture of the longhouse spoke as much of peaceful times as the hard labour of the tribe. Its walls were high, and its width accorded it an airy feel. New sheaves of thatch on the roof reflected a warm glow from the summer sun. Ruairí’s attention was drawn to its entrance as Brigida emerged, wiping her hands on a cloth, her curiosity aroused by the activity. She was joined by Iseult and they walked across to accompany her son and the Chief of the Uí Díamada as they converged on the flat ground where the theatrics had taken place.
“Welcome, Cormac!” said Fionn. “It has been too long since you were here.”
“You should not have waited fifteen years to invite me,” replied Cormac.
“Is it really only the second time we’ve had the pleasure?”
“I’d hardly call the first occasion a pleasure. As I recall it, we stopped only briefly on our way north to rescue the king at the Sionainne ford.”
“The king was not the only one in need at the time. I well remember you dragging me away from the hooves of a thousand head of cattle after I lost my senses and put you all at risk. So, more shame on me that you have not been back since.”
“We were all lost in the madness of that day.” Ruairí’s comment sounded vaguely flat despite the smile he wore. Rannal noticed but let it go. The hand of change at Clonmacnoise had excised Ruairí from his hard-earned position, just as it had forced Rannal from his own role. Graciously, Ó Connor, the King of Connacht, had lost no time in welcoming Rannal’s stepson into royal service; his value recognised by a grant of tenure over lands around his childhood home of Duncarrow. Trouble lay below the surface, though.
“Speak for yourself, my son,” said Brigida while standing to one side. In contrast to Ruairí, her face was sternly impassive, except her eyes, which could not hide her delight. “It’s good to see you.” She looked the newcomer up and down, assessing the growth in his girth. “Though you might come to regret sharing our journey. Looks like there’s work to be done if you’re not to drop dead on the way.”
Cormac groaned. “Would you condemn a man for enjoying the odd jug of ale?”
“Odd and even successively, if you ask me!”
Rannal shrugged as if to say, ‘What did you expect?’
Medb intervened, trying not to smile. “May I suggest you save that particular conversation for after the feast.”
Brigida relented, and the light in her eyes spread across her face. “Of course! What was I thinking? Our pilgrimage is not yet begun.”
Cormac brightened. “I humbly accept your challenge and will bear the infinite pleasure of your company as though sipping from the wine of the gods. Each moment of our travels will be a testament to your grace and caring nature.”
“You’re a silver-tongued rogue!” Brigida swiped the tangle of hair on Cormac’s head. “But bless you for that.”
A warm zephyr stirred the air around the group, carrying the enticing smell of roast meat emanating from cooking fires all around the lís. The aroma was impossible to ignore and caused Cormac’s ample torso to emit an involuntary grumble of anticipation.
Brigida laughed. “Why don’t you bring your crew up from the longship? They can go and eat with the crown prince’s men-at-arms.”
“Lord Muirgheas is here already?”
“How else would Ruairí be standing among us?” replied Brigida. “Our future king is in the gathering hall with the Chief of the Uí Briúin Seola, Lord Cosgrove. They’re making a tally of the annual tribute.”
“He’ll not be disappointed if the changes here are any guide to Uí Briúin prosperity,” said Cormac, appraising the evidence of recent construction. “It was good of Lord Cosgrove to come all the way from the southwest for the farewell.” There was a hint of wry humour in his words.
“Muirgel would have graced us regardless,” said Rannal, not rising to the bate of Cormac’s tone, “but the event is also convenient for Lord Cosgrove. Besides tribute, they have brought their son, young Ruadhri. He’s going to Cruachan as a hostage to good faith.”
“There’s still a place for some of the old ways,” said Cormac.
“You would not be so stoic if it was your son,” said Iseult. “My cousin Muirgel has had a lot to bear over the years, not least being married off to an older man of brittle disposition by order of the king.”
“I guess not. Ruadhri must have been an unexpected consolation for her.”
“My half-brother is tender in years,” said Fionn, “but will survive the experience and be the better for it. We should not dwell on such matters nor disparage a revered chief of the Uí Briúin. But speaking of trials,” he said, nodding down towards the partially crewed longship, “won’t you be challenged on your voyage with so few hands aboard?”
“Not ideal, I admit,” said Cormac. “There’s talk of a great raid, and all the sea rats have eyes only for plunder. Still, the expedition must pay for itself, so now I have more room for traders. Anyone bringing goods will pay for space and take a turn on the oars.”
“Aye, as they will for me,” added Rannal, “though I believe we should not be over-anxious to encumber our holds. If Jarl Thorfinssen’s legacy can do anything for me, it is in giving us the freedom to roam without constraint.”
Fionn wrinkled his brow. “That’s a funny way to refer to your father.”
“I guess it is, now you mention it,” replied Rannal, also struck by his choice of words. “It’s strange to think of myself as the bastard son of a Viking noble from far off Orkney. But, that’s all in the past, and I am interested only in the future. What’s this about a raid, Cormac?”
“No one knew or was prepared to say, but news has gone out about a fleet bigger than Brian Ború has ever mustered. And, before you ask, Liv knew nothing, and your son, Seíghín, wasn’t in port.”
Rannal shrugged. “Not our concern anymore, though I expect we’ll find out when we head south.” He glanced speculatively at Lorcán and saw him wearing the queasy expression he often had during discussions about sailing. “How about it? Your one good arm is as useful as many a deckhand with two! It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Lorcán gulped and belatedly resumed his rightful role as the steward for the gathering. “Call yourself a friend! You come to my house and deign to suggest I have nothing better to do than sail the seven seas with a bunch of decaying has-beens. I have duties and responsibilities, or so my queen seems to think. Now, let there be no more talk of co-opting crew here. Come; we have a feast to enjoy.”
