High King Connery sat on the throne in the feast hall in Temuir and looked down at the brothers kneeling before him. Despite the filth clinging to them and their powerful smell pervading the feast hall, they had their heads up. They were grinning at the king like mischievous teenagers caught scrumping apples.
Macc—his hands on the pommel of his broadsword—stood beside Connery. He had unsheathed his sword and was resting it point down on the dais before him, a clear sign of the impending conflict. Its blade was glinting in the torchlight and reflecting on the faces in the crowd. Looking at the grins of the kneelers, highlighted by the reflected light, Macc wondered if they were sane—if they realized death was the only outcome of their actions. Surely, they did not believe the High King would fail to act a second time?
The champion looked over at Dond Desa, standing in the crowded feast hall with his arms folded across his chest. He looked old and frail, but even so, Macc knew he would need to watch him. When Connery pronounced a sentence of death on the warrior’s sons, Dond Desa had to react violently. Macc felt a gnawing sadness because he knew today would not only see the foster brothers sentenced to ritual strangulation but also the death of his old friend and mentor.
If he does not best me, he thought, and then shrugged it off as an impossibility. Dond had been fearsome as a warrior for many years, but those years were behind him. Despite the sword, he was no longer to be feared by any seasoned warrior.
Macc took a sidelong look at his High King. This was to be the greatest challenge of his reign, and the warrior was not sure he was ready for it. Connery was doing nothing to appease the warrior’s fears. He was fidgeting and looking around the crowded hall as if searching for a way out or a friendly face who would sponsor what he was about to do.
Macc wondered precisely what he thought he could do because there was no way out. His foster brothers were the last of the one hundred and thirty men captured outside Crúachain when Lee had thrown down his sword. Apart from the man who was hanged on the march through Connacht and Meath, the others had all been tried, and their fathers ordered to execute them by ritual strangulation.
As far as Macc knew, none of the executions had yet been carried out. He knew they would carry out the sentence, though. It would be more than any would dare to ignore the ruling of the High King, he thought, and then nearly laughed, realizing the trials were necessary because men had done just that.
The atmosphere was tense. Considerably more people were present at this final hearing than there had been for those who had gone before. Each of them knew the High King could no longer delay the trial of his foster brothers. He had heard the excuses of the reavers in groups of ten, one group each day, since their capture. The excuses varied from being forced into it to not knowing what they were doing. They had fallen on deaf ears. The High King’s law had been broken, inexcusable, and punishable by death. Each group had heard the druid, Taidle Ulad, pronounce the sentence.
“Death by ritual strangulation, to be carried out by the father, followed by an eternity of wet darkness.”
On the previous day, the High King had heard the excuses of only six, leaving his foster brothers in the Mound of Hostages, where they had been kept since their arrival in Temuir. Even that distinction made the people angry. He kept Lee, Gar, and Rogain separate from the other offenders, who were kept in a guarded pen, constructed for the purpose. The people saw it as showing favor to his brothers, which caused Macc to wonder why anyone would consider imprisonment in the Mound of Hostages in high summer over an open-air pen as a favor. The space in the mound was small, and the brothers had been in it for thirteen days. The only break they got was when they were let out to use the ditch at the back of the feast hall. Even that would not have been allowed, except the Mound of Hostages was not big enough to squat in.
There was an unspoken feeling throughout the Five Kingdoms that Connery would be unable to do the right thing and have the three offenders executed like the men they had led. No one wanted him to fail through weakness, but all accepted its inevitability. The High King was not strong enough to order Dond Desa to strangle his sons. The consensus was he would order them to pay reparations and then pardon their actions, as he had in the past.
The members of the Elder Council were in the feast hall. They had arrived the day after the raiders were caught as if they had foretold the outcome of the reaving and sailed to Ériu and Temuir before the mock battle on The Plain of Sheep outside Crúachain. Macc could see Biróg and Dornoll, the druidesses standing with the white beards, Kathvar, Bres, Myrddin, and Mug Ruith. Taidle was in his place beside the High King and had only given the council the most fleeting of welcomes when they arrived in Temuir several days previously.
The noise in the feast hall had grown steadily since the brothers were led in and forced to kneel before the dais. Macc could not hear any individual voices in the crowd, but the sound was a sound any warrior would recognize. It was the sound of dissent in the ranks, and it needed scrutiny.
“We will hear the pleas of the accused,” Taidle shouted to get the attention of all in the hall. The silence was almost instantaneous and profound.
“Lee, you will speak first. How do you plead for the High King’s mercy?”
“Plead for our brother’s mercy, druid, what do you mean? We are innocent of any wrongdoing,” he said with a shrug.
The hall erupted in a cacophony. There were jeers, catcalls, and guffaws of laughter. The people had known the proceedings would be farcical, but they had not expected the farce to begin with the brothers.
“Silence,” Macc shouted, lifting his sword for emphasis.
“What do you mean, innocent of wrongdoing?” Connery asked.
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Macc looked at him and frowned. The High King’s voice rose in pitch as if he had finally seen a way out.
“We were forced into our actions by the renegade warrior, Fandall. He threatened to kill Dond Desa if we did not join him and bring our friends with us.”
Again, the crowd in the feast hall erupted in a cacophony of sounds, from outright laughter to exclamations of incredulity.
Again, Macc shouted for silence.
“That is convenient, Lee since your alleged oppressor died on The Plain of Sheep,” Taidle said. Lee shrugged but said nothing.
The crowd waited for the High King to say something. He had to speak. He could not sit on his throne in silence forever. As time passed and Connery’s dejectedness became more apparent, the crowd’s mood switched from expectancy to acceptance. Their suppositions about how their ruler would deal with the crisis were correct. He would pardon his foster brothers despite having sentenced the other reavers to death. Macc could see the transition from excited expectancy to disdain as it happened. He was about to insist the High King should leave the hall when Connery spoke.
“You are banished from Ériu on pain of death. You will spend the rest of your lives reaving in Alba. If you are seen in Ériu from the third day after this, you will be summarily executed.”
***
They were gathering on the knoll above the strand of Bend Etair, where Dond Desa’s ships were beached. After the raid on Emain Macha, he moved the ships closer to Temuir, thinking—however incorrectly—that he would have more control if they were closer. His skeleton crews were there with them. Ten sailors for each of the ships. Not enough men to man the oars, but more men were arriving. This time, the brothers had not sent any messages telling them to come to the knoll. There was an unforeseen force bringing the condemned together. The High King’s pronouncement of banishment had spread through Ériu like the sands of a dune in an autumn wind. The condemned reavers knew where Dond Desa kept his ships. They knew where to congregate and were either on the hill beside the fire, looking at the ships on the beach, or on their way.
There was a buzzing around the knoll, an expectancy of action. No one was under any illusions about what was going to happen. They knew Connery’s sentence of his foster brothers amounted to a reprieve of the condemned. Even if the High King did not see it, he could not banish Dond Desa’s sons and still hope the other reavers would be strangled by their fathers and dumped in a bog for eternal damnation.
They arrived in twos and threes, meeting on the roads leading to the harbor north of Átha Clíath, each with the same goal. Join the brothers in their exile to Alba. Make a name and a fortune by raiding their closest neighbors. After all, is that not what the life of a warrior is all about? Each of them thought in their own way. They thought they would return one day. Perhaps after the death of the High King, when his banishment would effectively end.
Dond Desa was sitting beside the fire with his sons. He knew he was too old to go reaving in Alba. However, he wanted to show his support, so he left the feast hall with them and most of the others who had been there when the High King threw away his throne. It was more than just showing support for the boys. He also wanted to show his disgust for a man unable or unwilling to exhibit the strength required to rule. Dond would have respected him more had he stood by his duties and condemned the boys to death, even though they were of his blood. He would have died, too, at the hands of his long-time friend Macc Cecht, but he was old and tired and long past overdue for a meeting with Donn in the Otherworld. He would rather have died and let the kingdoms of Ériu continue to prosper under the reins of the Peaceful King, than see it all thrown away in a moment of weakness.
“We won’t be able to man all six ships,” he said as he pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders.
“The others will come, Father, then we can man two ships at least.”
Dond nodded his acceptance. It was the early evening following the sentence, and his sons still had a day to leave the island. There was enough time for the rest of the condemned to gather on the knoll above the beach. He would have preferred to take all six ships, but when times are hard…
“They will come,” Lee reiterated as he stood up and climbed over a dune to relieve himself.
“Dond Desa,” someone spoke, and the old warrior looked up from his mead to see Mane Milscothach looking at him from across the fire.
“What do you want?” Dond Desa tried to project a confidence he did not feel. Mane was a warrior of some renown, and Dond knew he would no longer be able to fight him one-on-one.
“I am here to join you, Dond. I no longer want to serve in a land where the High King is weak and unable to mete out justice.”
“I’m not the leader of this rag-tag warband,” Dond frowned.
He suspected Mane had been sent by Connery to spy on his foster brothers. It did not matter. They could cut his throat and slip him into the sea when they were sailing for Alba.
“I know, Dond. But I also know you will doubt my motives, so I am telling you before I tell Lee, who I guess is the leader of the rag tags?” he said raising his eyebrows.
Dond looked at Mane with interest then. He spoke about Lee being the leader with an element of sarcasm in his tone, implying he believed Dond to be the true leader. The warrior of Connacht kept his face open and honest. Dond knew he was either telling the truth or was an excellent liar.
“Sit here beside me, Mane Milscothach, and tell me why I should not have your throat cut and your body dumped at sea when we sail tomorrow,” Dond said, patting the sand beside him.
Mane sat, “I think you will need the service of good men before this adventure is concluded,” he said.
“I think you are right, warrior of Connacht.”
Mane was the first of many disenchanted warriors from Ériu to arrive on the knoll above the beach. By the time full dark had fallen, three hundred men sat around the fire drinking mead with solemn looks and a communal sense of a breached code. The numbers meant all Dond’s ships could be sailed. He even recognized some of the disenchanted as sailors. There was a stillness around the fire as if the three hundred men were holding their collective breaths, waiting for some unannounced event.
“They are waiting for you to say something, Lee,” Dond Desa said.
“What? I have nothing to say. I don’t even know what they are all doing here.”
“They are searching for a leader, Lee, and like it or not, they seem to have chosen you.”
“Why me? I have done nothing of renown.”
“You stood up to a high King in the face of death. You knelt with your head held high and a grin on your face. You could have begged for mercy, as many who knelt in front of the dais before you did.”
“But what can I say to them?” Lee asked, looking around at the expectant faces dancing in the firelight.
“Try to inspire them. Tell them they will get their revenge. Warriors always like to hear they will get back at whoever has wronged them.”
Lee climbed to his feet and said, “I am sure I am not the right man to lead these warriors; they need a soldier like themselves.”
“They need someone to tell them what to do. You are as capable of that as the next man.” Lee shrugged his acceptance and held up his hands for silence.
The crowd on the knoll quietened to listen, sipping mead and staring into the flames of the fire.
“My friends, warriors, and chieftains of Ériu, tomorrow we sail for Alba, but I promise you this, we will return with vengeance in our hearts, lightning in our blades. and thunder in our shields.”
The men sitting around the fire on the knoll erupted into cheers. “See, he is a born leader,” Dond Desa whispered with a wink as he leaned toward Mane Milscothach.