“Thrust, parry, back. Thrust, parry, back,” Conall shouted, although distracted. He was not watching the recruits. He was looking at Fergus atop the gatehouse, talking to a stranger. The man wore black boiled armor studded with iron rings and seemed familiar. Not an Ulsterman, for sure. Conall knew all the Ulster warriors in exile.
Sighing, he turned back to the training square.
“You. Do you not know what thrust means, you sow’s arse? Put your back into it.” The recruit looked up, startled, and then looked around as if to confirm she was the one not putting her back into it. “Yes, you, blondie. If you cannot stick it into a straw warrior with nothing but worsted in the way, what hope one clad in armor, batting at you with a longsword or a hammer?”
“You are too harsh, Conall,” Longas said with a chuckle.
“Harsh? Aye, I suppose. The king has charged me with training this sorry lot.” Conall cast his eyes over Connacht’s youth, waving their practice swords about in the space behind the palisade of Crúachain. “Better a harsh tongue than their guts on the field, feed for the ravens,” he said with a frown.
“I agree these youths are unfit for battle. But battle against who? Do you really believe the rumors of war with these Southerners? These so-called Romans?”
Conall looked at Longas over his shoulder. He could see the guile in The Deceiver’s son. Longas was fishing for information. Was he fishing for his father and acting as a spy for the Ulaid? Conall still did not understand why Longas had come. Fergus had run, and Conall had run after him. But Longas? There was no logic to it. Why are you here, son of Mac Nessa? his oft-thought but never spoken question. “Setanta saw them in Gaul. He said they were fearsome to behold and unstoppable. If that is true, why would they not come?”
“What is here for them? Rain? Oats and mutton? Mead? The odd cow? One or two nice maidens to plow?” Another shake of his head. A false smile. Conall looked back at the gatehouse and frowned.
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“They have a thirst for gold and glory, Longas. Gold, we have aplenty and fighters enough for glory.”
“There would be scant glory pig sticking this lot.”
“Is that not what I have been saying? But never mind these children of Connacht. If it ever comes to it, the Red Branch will face the Romans.”
“You think they will fare better?”
“That is better, blondie, if only marginally. Thrust, back, parry. Thrust, back, parry. Good. Better, at least.” Turning back to Longas, Conall frowned. “They could not do any worse.”
“I know she craves war, but do you not think it will be closer to home?” Longas asked.
Conall had turned back to the gatehouse, where Fergus was once again alone, gazing across Mag nAí. He knew who Longas meant; it did not need a druid’s intuition to work out. And he knew who Longas thought she would take the fight to. “There is no great affection between your father and the queen, but do you honestly think she would be mad enough to pit these children against the Red Branch?”
“She has other warriors. She has you and Fergus. She has me. Perhaps she thinks we are enough to provide her army with a backbone?”
Conall said nothing, knowing she had Fergus because he was self-exiled, and Conall had disobeyed Mac Nessa’s order to hunt him down, resulting in a price on his head.
“Will the battle be against the Ulaid or the Romans?” Conall asked. “It is in the hands of the Aos Sidhe, and they are notoriously capricious. So, I do not know if she thinks we are enough. I know Ailill does not, hence my training these,’ he waved his frustration at a lack of appropriate adjectives, “who want to be warriors. That said, I am not sure Ailill’s worry counts for much in the eyes of the queen. She is not easily controlled, and the king was never one to force his will on another.”
“Really, I had not noticed,” Longas scoffed before turning and heading for the hostel.
“More thrust, blondie. Stick him like you mean it.”