Taidle sat on the seat atop the dais. He needed to think about how best to proceed. He did not welcome the unforeseen. Many believed there was nothing unforeseen for a druid, but that was just petty superstition. Druids tended to surmise future events through careful study and reasoning, not foretell them through bloodletting and divination. When they did perform a sacrifice and an augury on the victim’s viscera, it was for show and not a means of predicting the future.
“Boy,” he called to the runner waiting behind the dais. “Tell the elders we need to meet in the sacred grove as soon as they can.”
Contrary to its name, the sacred grove was not in a wood in a shadowed glade but on a hill near Caer Leb. The grove was a circle of standing stones that had been there since the dawn of time. The druids liked to think their order had placed the stones there, but they did not really know.
When Taidle arrived twenty minutes later, the rest of the council members were already there. With Taidle’s arrival, they were seven. There were the druidesses Biróg and Dornoll, neither long out of their prime. Becoming a druid took many years to accomplish, but Biróg and Dornoll had both started at a very young age. Biróg, because her father had been a druid, and Dornoll because she was to guard the lore of warfare for all the clans and had been trained almost from birth. Besides the women, there were Bres, Kathvar, Myrddin and Mug. The seven of the council were always the same. Their bodies might wither and die over time, but their names were passed on. They would never cease to be unless unforeseen forces destroyed them and their chosen successors. Taidle shook his head. The ruse worked to the extent where the Éireannachaigh believed Myrddin was born old and grew younger.
But this new ruse is failing.
Their new ruse needed to succeed. The threat from the east was palpable. They all felt it. The Gauls were vanquished, their druids slain or in hiding. How long, then, before Alba fell, and Ynys Môn? Success in The Five Kingdoms was paramount to the druid’s continued existence. He looked at the gathered council and wondered how many truly saw the threat. Dornoll and Biróg, without any doubt. But the others?
“Nuadu’s assassins have had their throats cut. The situation with Connery is quickly turning into a comic ballad of epic scale,” he said.
“It is fortuitous, I think,” Biróg shook her head, smiling at him in that way he found condescending.
“How is it fortuitous?”
“Think, Taidle. Nuadu’s reign has been punctuated with nothing but pettiness and misguided justice. The people are already hurting even though he has been High King for only a few months.”
“Yes, I still do not see how the death of the assassins who were sent to kill the boy and his bodyguards could be considered fortuitous? We promised Nuadu that his knifemen would not be impeded. The warriors and the boy were to die. The woman was to become his plaything.” The other five druids of the council murmured their consent while Taidle and Biróg engaged in a battle of wills with their eyes.
“The agreement this council made with Nuadu was that we would help him gain the throne in Temuir and rid himself of any opposers. In return, he was to put a stop to Destruction in the Five Kingdoms,” the druidess said with slow, halting words. The council members nodded their agreement.
She thinks we are all gaimbíní, Taidle realized.
“He has done nothing to stop Destruction. He has done nothing at all except aggravate the people,” she continued, placing her hands on her hips to emphasize her point.
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Taidle found the woman’s pose provocative. He was not a man who would typically succumb to his baser instincts, but something about the druidess caused his heat to rise. Standing with her chest thrust out, it seemed to him she was using her womanhood to gain some advantage.
“Yes, he is more interested in mead, whoring, and hunting,” Taidle allowed while trying to think what possible advantage she could be trying to gain.
“What are you thinking, Biróg?” Myrddin asked.
“We have the grandson of Eterscel with us at Caer Leb. He was one of the original candidates for Eterscel’s successor—”
“This we all know,” Taidle interrupted, causing Biróg to frown. He did not understand why the druidess could not accept her place on the council while the others accepted his lead.
“Can we not groom him while he is here?” she asked, tilting her head.
Taidle realized what the druidess was thinking. The Elder Council had failed with Nuadu because they had no control over what he did after he took the throne. Truth be known, they would have little control over anyone in that position. But if they had the successor under their control before he was proclaimed High King, they could mold him into whatever they wished.
“There will need to be a mentor from the council,” Biróg said. “Someone who the Éireannachaigh would trust.”
Ha. She wants me to wetnurse the boy, so she can use my absence to garner more control over the council, he thought, smiling with admiration for the druidess’s cunning.
“And I suppose a fellow Éireannach would be the wise move?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Yes, and Mug Ruith is blind. No disrespect, Mug,” Biróg continued. “That leaves only one.”
“Why do you think an Éireannach, rather than Dornoll, say? Could she not train the king in warfare?” Myrddin asked.
“No. The people need someone they feel they can trust. Connery will have his advisor, Macc Cecht, to handle the martial aspects of his reign.”
“He is a warrior we can rely on?” Kathvar asked.
“He has been with the boy from the outset. He treats him like a son. He can be trusted to keep the boy safe.”
Looking around the glade, Taidle could see the council all saw the sense of Biróg’s proposal. He kept shaking his head with wonder. By a canny move without any pre-planning, the druidess had effectively removed her most potent opposition.
“Does Nuadu have any backup plans for the death of Connery and the warriors?” he asked.
“We cannot take the chance that he does not,” Dornoll said. “Let us add extra guards.”
“I will present the future High King with some hounds,” Taidle said. “Hounds can be more reliable than men, I find.”
***
Connery was sitting outside the guest roundhouse in Caer Leb, whittling a piece of wood. A few paces from where he sat, Dond and his sons practiced with wooden swords. Macc and Buachalla walked near the sacred grove behind the settlement.
The clacking of wood on wood was soothing him, a pleasant change from the frustration he’d been feeling since running from the Five Kingdoms. Connery found the raid into Ulster and the subsequent discovery of the High King’s treachery confusing. He knew Macc thought him wise beyond his years when it came to the politics of the clans, but he was less confident in his political prowess than the warrior seemed to be.
He heard a whistle, like someone calling a dog to heel, and looked up from his whittling. A tall man approached. His beard was white and long, covering a gray wool robe to his waist. He had two wolfhounds beside him. He kept them to heel as he walked to the roundhouse and stopped before him. The hounds were nearly as tall as the man, causing Connery to fidget nervously.
“Connery?” the druid asked.
“Yes.”
“I am Taidle Ulad, and I have been ordered by the council to act as your guide during your coming tribulations.”
“What tribulations?” Connery asked. He noticed that Dond and the boys had stopped their practice and were standing behind the druid, listening. Macc and Buachalla had also returned from their walk.
“The tribulations you will face reclaiming your rightful place as High King of the Five Kingdoms. You are intending to reclaim your place, surely?”
This, greybeard, I do not know.
Connery had not spoken to his mother, Macc, or Dond about what he planned to do. Indeed, he had not even thought about it. His grandfather had been murdered by a usurper, his friends and his mother had been chased out of their homeland with him, and all he had done was sit by this roundhouse whittling wood. The words of the white beard acted as a catalyst, and Connery decided at that moment, to retake what was rightfully his.
“Yes, of course, Taidle, I will be retaking what is rightfully mine.”
“It is the right course,” the druid said. “I have brought these hounds as a gift to mark the beginning of our relationship.”