‘Possibly. I play
Gudrod had heard of
‘You have the word of a Christian on matters,’ he answered, while the blood of the abbot patted in large, wet drops to the stones. There was the briefest of hesitations, then the priest started to read.
Crowbone’s Crew
They skliffed over worn stone slabs, clack-clacking in salt-stained boots, skidding in the scowl-dark of the place, which was all tall shadows broken by the dazzle of torchlight so that Crowbone could not get a true impression of it.
They walked through skeins of men in the long hundreds, sorting themselves out so that the whole of that fortress writhed like a cut snake. Then, suddenly, they were at a door and the men in the lead, swathed in shoulder-fastened cloaks of muted check, stood to one side to let their king go through.
The king half turned then, to where Crowbone and Gjallandi and Murrough followed, rearing to a stop with the surprise of facing him. His eyebrows, like snow on lintels, had closed to make one iced line and his long moustaches, the colour of old walrus teeth, trembled almost as much as his belly when he spoke.
‘Watch your words,’ he growled. ‘This is Mael Sechnaill himself in here and he is judge. I have offered my hand to you on the strength of this Ui Neill man here and would not like to find I had misplaced it.’
He paused, then hitched up the great gold pin that fastened his cloak to the bulk of him.
‘Prince,’ he added, in such a scathing way that Crowbone took a step forward until Gjallandi’s hand gripped his forearm and stopped him. The anger in him burned his belly, all the same, as he stepped after the king of Brega, Gilla Mo Chonna. Gjallandi caught Murrough’s eye as the Irisher stepped up and was not made easier by the wild grin he got back.
They moved into the bright of the place, blazed with torches. Crowbone was surprised to see a floor of stone slabs that bounced the light back, so that the place seemed like the inside of a great bowl of red gold; he became aware of the salt streaks on his clothes, the tarnish on his pin and neckring.
He half-turned once to the other two, convinced the three of them were griming a trail on the floor, like slugs on a gold plate — then his laugh, half-shamed, died on his lips at the sight of the guards he had forgotten were behind them like pillars, long ring-coats jingling and dragging round their calves, faces blanked by helmet metal. It reminded him that his men were snugged up in the warm, but not part of the feast and kept away from the High King’s army until matters were resolved.
The dark gable of the place soared above Crowbone and the noise and smell of food was a blow to the senses. Ahead on the High Seat sat a figure, his dark hair bound back by a braided thong of gold threads, his face wreathed in smoky torchlight as he spoke from one side of him to the other with all the lesser kings — Mael Sechnaill, High King of the Irishers.
He turned as Gilla Mo stepped up and, smiling, waved the king of Brega to the seat beside him. This was Gilla Mo’s hall and that was his High Seat, but he acknowledged Mael Sechnaill as his better and bowed, then sat — on his left, Crowbone noted, not at his right hand, which was reserved for what seemed to be a blind man.
In a moment, though, Gilla Mo had his white hair close to the High King’s ear, while Crowbone stood, aware of the looks and the muttered questions, the faces turning like hog snouts to see who was coming to share the trough.
Crowbone could guess some of what the fat king of Brega told — how a band of Norse claiming to be part of the famed Oathsworn and led by a self-styled Prince of Norway had wrecked themselves on the shore near Ath Na Gassan, the Ford of Paths. On how they claimed to be Christians and one of them had announced himself as an Ui Neill called Murrough macMael, so Brega had offered them hospitality and brought them to the High King.
A fair walk it had been, too, Crowbone thought bitterly — they rode and we tramped. After a few hours of forested hills, humping their own sea-chests on their backs, Crowbone had refused to go further until this was resolved. In the end, reluctantly, Congalach had relented and the sea-chests had been taken on the front of the ponies; it had gone some way to quelling the black scowls directed at Crowbone from his own men, who thought his luck was poor.
On the way, Murrough had tried to find out more about these men of Brega and what they did, but beyond the mention of Mael Sechnaill’s army being at Cnobha, Murrough found out nothing much.
‘He is mannered enough,’ he whispered to Crowbone one rest-halt, ‘but this Congalach speaks a lot and tells nothing. I only know that the army goes to Tara and his men took seven years to train for war.’
‘I know that we are prisoners, for all we have our weapons,’ muttered Kaetilmund and grim faces growled agreement to that. Crowbone laughed as easily as he could make it.
‘As long as we have edge and hand, we are not prisoners,’ he told them. ‘We are war, waiting to be woven.’
Standing in front of the High King, all the same, Crowbone did not doubt that he had his feet firmly planted in a kennel of dogs who eyed him like a strayed wolf, so he pretended to ignore the stares and squints, looking instead at the richness of the hall.
There were wall hangings — a winged youth or a woman, in blue and green; a bearded man who seemed to be dead or sleeping and others, their colour faded by dark and smoke but some with the gold head-circles that Christ figures had. Real gold wire, too, Crowbone noted.
‘Murrough macMael.’
The voice cut through the noise and stilled it at once. The High King raised a hand and flapped it at them to come forward and Murrough, grinning, swaggered out. Gjallandi and Crowbone hesitated a moment and felt the body heat of the guards closing in behind them, forcing them forward. Congalach strode out in front and to one side.
‘Kneel!’ he ordered and both Murrough and Gjallandi went down on one knee.
‘Kneel before the Ard Ri,’ Congalach bellowed. ‘And the king of Brega. And all the kings of Ireland.’
Crowbone saw the cat’s arse purse to the Brega king’s mouth then and thought — aha, here is a man who does not like being an afterthought on the left hand of a High King. Then he felt the hard wolf eyes of all that other nobility raking him, so that he clenched hard on the bowels that threatened to turn to water and tilted his chin.
‘Never bow the knee, me,’ he declared and Congalach moved, two clacking steps, with one hand poised to grip Crowbone’s shoulder and force him down; then the odd eyes turned on him and he felt himself stop in mid- stride.
‘Lay that on me, Irisher, and suffer for it,’ Crowbone declared, then raked the assembly with a single sweeping glance. ‘Know this — you think we are prisoned here with you, but it is you who are trapped with us.’
‘In the name of Christ’s heaven,’ cracked out a voice and you could taste the dark scowl in it. ‘What does it matter? The man is a prince of Norway, after all, who does not need to bow even to the High King of Ireland. If we find that to be less than true, all the same, we will take his measure anew. If only to allow for the length of his burial hole.’
Congalach swallowed and the muscles in his jaw worked before he drew back. Mael Sechnaill rose, moved to the edge of the High Seat dais and stepped confidently off it. Suddenly, there was a stir at the back of him as men parted to let a figure through; it was the blind man from Mael Sechnaill’s right-hand seat and Crowbone stared at him.
He was old, with a face seamed and soft-skinned as an old purse, his eyes blind-white as boiled eggs. He was wearing a long kirtle of check and Irisher-laced shoes, with a blue cloak fastened round his waist and thrown over one shoulder, fastened with a pin which winked silver.
‘This is Meartach, my
Crowbone heard Gjallandi move slightly at the announcement and remembered that an
