Connery shivered in the morning cold.

He still did not understand the need for all the theatrics. Why could they not just say the blood drinker had seen him on the throne. Walking through the forest with his assets exposed to the elements was not only embarrassing but possibly risky to his health.

He walked because he did not dare to run.

Seeing Ailill of Connacht standing in the road with a cloak, that almost changed. He did not want this burden of kingship they were thrusting upon him. He was too young, not strong enough, caring more about beautiful things and song than about meting justice and pacifying a land so torn and bloodied by constant raiding that its survival was in serious doubt.

Tuatha but I need to run.

Instead, he tried to affect a calm he did not feel as he walked the remaining paces to where Ailill waited.

“Connery, it is you. Why am I not surprised?” the king asked with an air of sarcasm.

“I met my father, the spirit of a bird—”

“Yes, yes, I would wager a bag of silver that you did. I meet my dead relatives constantly in the form of animals,” Ailill interrupted, his face pulled into a grimace of disbelief. “Let’s get this over with.”

“I was robbed on the road, and all my things were stolen,” Connery said as the king of Connacht threw a cloak around his naked shoulders and laughed. “Put these on so you can ride,” he said, handing Connery a pair of breeches.

The look Ailill gave was not one of belief. Connery knew that, despite what Macc and the druids thought, there would be little faith in the foretelling of the Bull Feast. The people would not accept the rule of one so young. They would insist on a wiser, older, and stronger man than Connery.

The ride from where the king of Connacht had been waiting, to the Bull Ring was many miles by the flight of a raven, so he could not hear it at first. As they drew nearer to the hill, Connery could hear a humming, which rose and fell, not unlike the sound of the surf on a calm day. The closer they got, the louder the sound became. The louder it was, the more confused it became.

That is the sound of mass excitement, he realized.

The druids declared a Bull Feast, and it seemed the people came to the hill in their thousands to witness it. The graybeards said nothing about the reason for the Bull Feast, but there was a feeling a new era was dawning.

The people sense things must change; the murder of Nuadu in his bed signals a beginning, overly late in the arrival.

According to rumor, Connery exacted revenge. No one knew, but apparently, Eterscel was Connery’s father. He was also Buachalla’s father, making things awkward, at least if those rumors were to be believed. Macc told him the people would forget that part of the tale. Eterscel didn’t know Buachalla was his daughter, they would say. She was stolen away and hidden as a child, or so the rumor would go. Neither Eterscel nor Buachalla had known who the other was when they met and fell in love, would be the convenient story.

Connery looked up the hill as they approached the gates of King’s Fort. Macc was standing outside, out of sight of the crowds within. He held a leather sack over his shoulder. They tethered their horses outside the palisade of Grainne’s Fort, and walked to the gates. As they reached him, Macc gave the sack to Connery and said, “You will know what to do with this when the opportune time presents itself.”

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The humming sound stopped abruptly as they entered through the gates and became visible to the crowds gathered in their thousands between the outer palisade and the Bull Ring.

Connery felt his gut flutter. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. And then another sound started. What had been the hum of multiple people talking at once became a hiss as they whispered and nudged each other. Not many of them knew him by sight, but they all knew him by reputation. He was the beautiful, blond-haired son of Buachalla. As they watched him climb the hill to the Bull Ring, he could feel their hope for peace surging like a palpable force of nature. Despite the crowd, there was always a path for Connery to follow up the hill as if some invisible force was holding the people back from their soon-to-be-crowned High King.

Entering the Bull Ring, Connery looked at the sack Macc had given him. There was a thin film of crusted blood at its base.

I hope this is not what I think it is, he thought, as he swung it over his shoulder, walked into the center of the Bull Ring, and stood beside the druid, Taidle Ulad.

“Behold,” the druid proclaimed, with arms outstretched. “Ailill saw this man walking naked down the High King’s Road with nothing but a sling. It is as the seer foretold: this man is to be our High King.”

Connery stood in the ring and gazed at the people who were on the rise looking down at him. He could not see individual faces, just a blur of color, and would not have been able to recall names even if he had seen faces. He saw the white beards of the druids and the helmets of kings and chieftains. Arms were crossed over barrel chests or white beards; voices were gruff. These people were not showing any welcome to their proposed High King. Connery felt a shiver run up his spine as he turned in a circle, looking up at his supposed benefactors, those who would elect him into the highest seat in the land.

“He is a man you say. Look at him,” someone said in a voice Connery did not recognize, “he is just a boy. He does not yet have whiskers to shave from his chin.”

There was a murmur of agreement.

“His becoming High King was foretold by the blood drinker. We cannot gainsay the predictions of the druids,” Connery heard Macc say, although he could not see him in the crowd.

“It was the druids who gave us Nuadu, and look what happened there.”

Again, there was a murmur of agreement.

“He does not look like a man who would have the strength to kill two guards and murder a man in his bed, never mind lead us.”

Connery could hear the disdain in the tones of kings and chieftains standing on the edge of the Bull Ring looking down on him. He had dropped the gift from Macc at his feet when he reached the center of the ring. As the strength of the voices grew, Connery looked down at the sack. He did not want to open it and see the head of Nuadu looking up at him with dead eyes. It would be horrific. But he knew he needed to do it for the sake of the Five Kingdoms. They needed to have a gentler High King, a ruler who would outlaw raiding and rapine but also kill to protect his rightful place and sit in judgement of wrongdoers.

Connery bent down and picked up the sack. Pulling the cord loose, he saw the head and the silver hand. Grimacing, he grabbed the hair, pulled the head from the sack, and threw it into the mud at the center of the ring.

“The head of the usurper,” he yelled as the head settled. The shout was met with silence.

Connery looked around at the faces of the kings and chieftains. They seemed to be looking down on him in awe. He lifted the silver hand from the sack and held it above his head.

“The hand of the usurper,”

Turning so all could clearly see, he asked, “Do any of you now doubt my word?”

There was complete silence—not even the hiss of an indrawn breath. No one thought to question how Connery came by the head. No one would take such a trophy and then give it away, so he must have taken it himself. With the head taken, the hand would come too, they knew. That he was supposed to have been robbed on the road and left with nothing but carried a sling, seemed to have been forgotten.

As he watched the kings and chieftains pretending awe over his actions, Connery realized it was all a game. Each of the men standing around the bull ring knew what was in the bag before he even pulled the drawcord. They knew he had been given the bag when he entered the King’s Fort. Connery also knew that for the succession to be guaranteed, the people crushed between the inner and outer palisades needed to believe, and the drama was being played out for their benefit. He wondered then how much of Eterscel’s death and Nuadu’s succession had also been part of the game. Connery lost track of that question as he warmed to his role in the basin created by the Bull Ring.

“Yes, I am young, but I am also strong, and I will surround myself with experience and wisdom,” he called, with his arms spread wide, and turned so the gesture would encompass all five of the kingdoms.