‘Is that all?’ Brecan said, a sly smile sliding over his lips.
‘I would have thought it enough to see you bound hand and foot and cast into the sea—or roasted on a spit over hot coals.’
To his amazement, the king put back his head and laughed. Conor stared in disbelief as Brecan shook his head in mirth. ‘You went to all this trouble? Soon all of Eirlandia will know about this alliance I have made. There will be no need to hide it any longer.’
He paced away a few steps, paused in thought, then returned to face Conor, his hands gripping his wide leather belt. ‘I may not be the most intelligent creature on two legs, Conor, but I am smarter than you—a fact you seem not to have fully appreciated.’ The king began pacing back and forth, then stopped and said, ‘You came to me seeking refuge. I took you in. I made you an amais in my warband. Have I mistreated you in any way?’
Conor made no reply.
‘Is this how you would repay my consideration and generosity?’
‘It is how I repay a traitor—one who would sell Eirlandia and its people for his own gain.’
‘Is that what you think? Is that as far as your paltry dreams can take you?’ Brecan paused and regarded him shrewdly. ‘If my desires extended only so far as a high king’s torc and throne, you might be right. I might even agree with you. But, Conor,’ he said, his voice falling to a whisper, ‘I have far greater plans than that—plans to see Eirlandia prosperous and secure for generations to come—for all time. My reign will be known as the Kingdom of All Tomorrows.’
‘All this by crawling into bed with Balor Berugderc?’ Conor muttered.
‘You are wrong to make an enemy of me when we could be allies,’ his lordship continued placidly. ‘We could be friends. We can still be friends. A man like you, Conor, can have a high place in my court.’
Cethern pressed forward, his hand on his sword. ‘Be done with him, my lord,’ he urged.
The king waved him aside. ‘The time for that has passed.’
The king walked away a few paces, then walked back. ‘How long have we been at war with the Scálda?’ he asked.
‘What difference does that make?’ Conor asked, suspicion edging into his tone.
‘You would have been but a boy when they came,’ continued the king, ‘if you remember it at all.’
‘I remember.’
‘Not a day goes by that I do not recall the arrival of the Black Ships. I was a warrior of the ranks then—much like yourself,’ Brecan told him. ‘But I remember the alarm and running up over the bluff and seeing all those ships filling the bay and I knew—even then I knew life would never be the same for me, for any of our race. Eirlandia would never be the same. And we have been at war with this evil horde ever since.’ He gazed at Conor with a heaviness that bordered on grief. ‘All these years … nothing but fighting and killing, burning and slaughter and waste … and what have we gained?’ He spread his hands wide in a gesture of appeal. ‘What has any of it ever brought us but more death and destruction?’
‘That is the way of things,’ Conor muttered. ‘Until the dog-eaters are driven into the sea, nothing will change.’
‘But that is my point exactly,’ Brecan said. ‘Nothing ever changes. Nothing will change until the Scálda are defeated. To our shame, we have yet to defeat them.’ Lacing his fingers, he pressed his hands to his lips as if deep in thought. Then, brightening suddenly, he glanced up at Conor and said, ‘Have you ever asked yourself why?’
Conor made no reply. He had his own opinions about why Dé Danann had never been able to conquer the Scálda invaders, but he was not going to tell Brecan what he thought.
‘Why have we never defeated them?’ continued the king. ‘Is it for lack of courage? Or strength? Is it for lack of skill or intelligence perhaps?’
‘Our warriors are as brave and strong as any in this worlds-realm,’ Conor told him. ‘And as smart. We are in every way a match for any enemy that dares raise hand against us—the filthy Scálda included.’
‘And yet,’ said Brecan, becoming adamant, ‘here we are, all these years later, and the Scálda are still raiding and burning and looting—still blighting the soil of Eirlandia with their odious presence. Why?’
‘Because the small kings of Eirlandia allow it!’ Conor snapped. He had not intended to be drawn into any discussion with Brecan, but could not contain the outburst. ‘The nobles of our fair island are more content to squabble among themselves than fight our common enemy.’
‘There!’ crowed Brecan. Turning to Mog Ruith, the king said, ‘You see? I told you he was more than just a … what did you call him? A canny scrapper?’
Conor glanced at the druid, who gazed at him with suspicion. ‘You may be right, my lord. But can he also be trusted?’
‘Can he be trusted?’ The king turned back to Conor as he asked this. ‘We shall see. Come,’ he said, ‘sit with me and I will tell you how we will defeat the Scálda and free our lands from their hateful presence.’
Despite his visceral opposition to the would-be high king, Conor felt his hostility eroding under the man’s bewildering candour. Never would he have imagined the scheming lord to be so bluntly forthcoming. Still suspecting a trick, he nevertheless agreed to sit—if only to hear what his lordship would say next.
As they seated themselves in chairs at the empty hearth, Brecan called to his champion. ‘Balor will be here soon and I would rather not be disturbed just yet. Go outside and warn me when he arrives.’
Cethern’s face darkened and he opened his mouth to object, but Mog Ruith intervened. ‘Go, but stay near. We want fair warning.’
The champion obeyed, but left no lingering uncertainty about his feelings for Conor’s unwanted presence. The druid claimed the third chair and, as Cethern took up his place outside, Brecan said, ‘Time grows short. I will not waste words. You think I aspire to the high king’s throne, and you are right. I do. I admit it. Indeed, it is my consuming desire to bring all of Eirlandia under my rule.’
‘With the Scálda’s help,’ muttered Conor.
‘Enough!’ cried the king, his voice sharp as a slap. ‘We do not have time to argue. I will speak and you will listen.’ He resumed in a softer tone. ‘I will be high king, aye, and with the Scálda’s help. But that is not the end of my ambition—it is only the beginning. For once I am on the throne and all the lords of Eirlandia acknowledge my reign, I will unite this island and all its tribes and, more importantly, all its warriors into one great warhost. Think, Conor, all Eirlandia’s tribes united in defence of our land to drive our common enemy into the sea. United, we can do this—and ensure peace and prosperity for generations to come.’
As Brecan spoke these words, Conor felt his once-solid confidence begin to crumble. The king watched Conor’s expression change as his meaning became clear. ‘Yes,’ Brecan said, nodding with satisfaction. ‘You see it now.’
‘All of Eirlandia’s warbands,’ Conor repeated. Indeed, he could see it now—both the breadth of Brecan’s determination and its ultimate purpose. ‘You would unite the tribes in order to drive the enemy from our lands?’
‘Why else? The high kingship cannot be the plaything of one man—a mere trophy to adorn his achievements. It is bestowed for a purpose—and it can serve no greater purpose than to win a lasting peace for our beleaguered, long-suffering race.’
Conor leaned back in his chair. Beguiled, confused, he did not know what to think. Could Brecan be right? And if he was, could this insane scheme work? Could the cunning lord be trusted to deliver the enormous promise he was making?
‘You doubt me,’ said the king, reading the uncertainty and hesitation in Conor’s face. ‘I understand. But ask yourself this—why have we enjoyed three seasons without any battles?’
‘We’ve had battles,’ Conor pointed out. ‘Plenty of them.’
Brecan waved aside the comment. ‘A few contests, border skirmishes, brawls only.’
‘Tell that to the warriors who died in those brawls.’
‘We’ve had no pitched battles, no massed confrontations,’ the king insisted, ‘and certainly none of these ruinous clashes we endured in the early years. Three summers of calm and quiet. Why do you think that is?’
‘Because three years ago is when you made the alliance with the Scálda,’ Conor surmised, and it was as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes.
Brecan nodded slowly. ‘I did that. And I can do more. Balor is a heavy-handed brute and vicious as the day is long. But even a brute must maintain the goodwill of his people or he will be deposed and another raised up in his place. He rules now, but the Scálda tribes grow ever more contentious and even Balor cannot appease them forever.’ Brecan sat back in his chair. ‘Once I become high king, I will turn the discontent of the Scálda chieftains and tribes against Balor. I can do that—we can do that if the lords of Eirlandia allow it—and the moment the Scálda turn against Balor—the moment he is weakest … we will strike!’
Brecan all but leapt from his chair. ‘The massed warhost of our tribes will strike, and we will drive the Scálda filth into the sea … for good … forever.’
Conor gazed at the king, his mind and spirit roiling with a welter of conflicting thoughts and feelings. He was far from convinced, but far less suspicious than he had been when he sat down. After all, this was his dream, too; he had often said as much: to drive the hated Scálda out, the kings of Eirlandia had to be united. But, the petty kings could never unite long enough to mount a meaningful challenge to the invaders. Too caught up in their own prideful jostling and pointless quarrels, they wasted their substance and energy on each other rather than combatting the common enemy. What is more, the Scálda had taken endless advantage of this fact, exploiting it for years. Brecan was right—as Ardan and Cahir and others, and even Conor himself, understood only too well—if the tribes were united the balance of power could change. And, clearly, something had to be done to end Eirlandia’s suffering.
The king saw Conor’s confusion and doubt. ‘This is not what you were expecting to hear.’
‘I’m not sure anymore what I expected,’ replied Conor. ‘Something else, not this.’
‘So, I ask you, Conor mac Ardan, will you help me?’
To delay having to decide, Conor replied, ‘You say we’ve enjoyed calm these last three years, but Balor has not been idle. He has used that time to make machines of war—chariots, hundreds of them—to complete the invasion. And that is not all. He has taken faéry captives to learn their magic and use it against us.’
‘You know this?’ Brecan’s gaze became sharp. ‘How? How do you know this?’
‘I was there. I saw it.’ Conor told briefly of his sojourn behind enemy borders—of seeing the forges, the wheels, the completed war cart, and of finding and rescuing the faéry Rhiannon of the Tylwyth Teg. Before he finished, Brecan was seething with anger.
‘I knew it!’ cried Mog Ruith, pounding the arm of his chair with his fist. ‘I told you that black-hearted son of Cromm could not be trusted.’
‘So you told me,’ replied Brecan. He paced back and forth for a moment, then turning to Conor, said, ‘This is why I need you.’
‘Need me?’
‘I need men like you to stand with me—men who are clear thinkers as well as clever fighters, men who can see further than their own interests and appetites, men who can lead other men.’ He reached out an imploring hand. ‘Join me, Conor. Help me rid Eirlandia of the wicked Scálda blight.’
Conor, in defiance of every natural feeling he had ever had for the man, found himself reaching for Brecan’s hand. ‘I will,’ he said, and surprised himself saying it. ‘To this end, and this alone, I will help you any way I can.’
The deal was sealed then and there, and Conor felt a sudden release, mingled, to be sure, with a healthy dose of caution. Brecan might not be the most worthy lord to wear the high king’s golden torc, but neither was he the worst. In the end it came down to the simple fact that Conor reckoned he could do more working with Brecan than he could likely accomplish in the hostage pit, or with his head on a spike over the door of a Scálda hall.
Mog Ruith rose from his chair and, taking the joined hands of the two men into his own, said, ‘A bond is forged this day that will see the end of the Scálda dominion and the return of freedom of our people.’
Beneath the wily druid’s approving gaze, Brecan pulled Conor from his chair and, gripping his arms in a warrior’s greeting, welcomed him into his ardféne. ‘We will do great things together,’ he said. ‘You will see.’
There came a shout from outside and a moment later, Cethern bulled into the room, announcing, ‘Balor is here! He has brought some of his dogs and wants you to see them before they are taken away to be fed.’
The champion glanced at Conor sitting next to the king and seemed to understand what had passed in his absence; he gave a curt nod of acceptance, and went out again. Brecan and Mog Ruith followed, and Conor trailed after, stepping into the yard as the Scálda king rode through the gates on a superb piebald stallion—almost entirely brown, but with a ghostly white neck and head; one of its eyes was black and the other white. Like horse, like rider, thought Conor, for the man astride the back of this remarkable beast was none other than the baleful one-eyed chieftain he had met twice before: first on the battlefield with his faéry captive in tow and, lastly, driving the chariot in the fortress where they had freed Lady Rhiannon.
36
With the Scálda king rode three more heavily armed warriors. The enemy scouts Conor had encountered earlier came running behind, and all entered the yard behind their lord. Balor threw a leg over his mount and slid down as the Scálda idling in the shade ran to take the reins. Without a glance left or right, he marched across the yard in long, ground-eating strides, raising a hand to Lord Brecan, who smiled and, under his breath, muttered, ‘Stinking barbarian whorespawn. I do believe he gets uglier every day.’
Lord Brecan glanced at Conor and warned him to stay out of the way, and then hurried forward to grip the Fomórai chieftain by the arms in a warrior’s welcome. The young interpreter with the Dé Danann cloak hurried to join them and the two kings exchanged greetings.
So this is Balor Berugderc, mused Conor, Lord of the Fomórai, King of the Scálda, he of the Evil Eye. The big brute appeared much the same as Conor remembered him: long, matted hanks of black hair hanging in unruly ropes about his thick neck and heavily muscled arms, the permanent sneer caused by the red scar dividing his face from forehead to chin, cleaving his right eye, further distorting what was already a grotesque countenance well on its way to being hideous. The insignia of a coiled serpent was carved into the hardened leather of his breastplate; the same device adorned the pommel of the enormous knife he wore in his iron-studded belt and the iron-rimmed shields carried by his men. Clad in similar armour, with additional protection to their upper arms and legs—which were encased in hardened leather plaques studded with iron rings—the forearms of each man were gloved from wrist to the elbow with protection made of thin bands of iron over more supple leather, and each wore battle caps embellished with black horsetails.
As Balor and Brecan were talking, there came a creak and rattle from across the yard and a team of horses appeared in the gateway pulling a flatbed wagon with a square iron cage; inside the cage were three enormous creatures of vaguely canine appearance: long-legged beasts with massive forequarters and slender backsides; short-haired and sleek and uniformly black, save for a ridge of stiff reddish hair down their sloping backs. Thick, short necks supported flat, outsized heads that bulged at the sides to accommodate their prodigious jaws.
The three armoured men hastened to the wagon and, with ropes and chains, wrangled the growling animals out of the cage and brought them to stand in the middle of the yard. Conor, having never faced a dog on the field of battle, was both fascinated and dismayed; the very sight of these foul creatures made his skin crawl and sent a cold tendril of fear snaking through his bowels.
The snarling beasts w
ere paraded before the kings, first one way and then the other, and brought to stand before them, and ordered to sit. With some coaxing and the liberal application of the whip, the animals complied. Brecan, having appraised the animals, gave his nod of approval, and the fighting dogs were led back to their cage in the wagon.
Having observed formalities, the kings moved toward the round hall. ‘Are they difficult to train, these dogs?’ asked Brecan as they approached the entrance where Conor, Cethern, and Mog Ruith were standing to one side.
The bedraggled young interpreter repeated his lordship’s question and Balor offered a lengthy reply, and the translator answered, ‘My lord say these are dangerous creatures and require much, ah … control. And care—very much care.’
Brecan observed that he was eager to see this training for himself one day, and that the kennel he was building would soon be ready to receive the dogs. Then he turned to the hall and indicated that they should go inside. He nodded to his champion to open the door, and Cethern stepped to the entrance. As the kings passed, Balor glanced over at Conor and Mog Ruith, who were standing off to the side. Conor met the Fomórai lord’s eye and saw the light of recognition flare instantly in that singular, dusky visage.
Balor stopped. With a low, guttural growl, he raised a massive hand and pointed directly at Conor. The interpreter came running up, his eyes wide and fearful.
‘What is this?’ said Mog Ruith.
Brecan looked to Balor’s interpreter, who said, ‘My king say he know this man. He is thief.’
Brecan glanced at Conor. ‘A thief? I do not think—’
‘Lú-ní-zuch!’ roared Balor. Reaching out, he grabbed Conor’s face. Conor resisted, but the Fomórai lord’s grip was strong and, turning his head, Balor slapped the lurid birthmark on Conor’s cheek. ‘Na tsi kanú!’
‘He see this man before. His skin betray him.’