Although just lit, the crackling flames of the cookfire were already warming Conall’s feet. His boots were off, his toes sore in a way that had crept up on him over the years. He could no longer reach them to rub some life back in but found the heat of the fire an almost acceptable alternative. He chuckled and shook his head, remembering when he was young, fresh from The Isle of Shadows and Scathach’s ministrations. So full of youth and vigor, he had not suffered from sore toes or aching, aging limbs. Back then, he could shake off wounds in days. Now, a simple blister took weeks to heal.
“Stop moaning, traitorous pig’s ball sack,” he whispered to the flames. “You are turning into an old fisher wife.”
As always, he rubbed his chin with a smile, the rasping bringing a sense of fulfillment. The roundhouse was starting to warm. He listened to the crackle and breathed in the smell of burning pine, heady, resinous. As the temperature increased, Conall began to strip off his clothes, which were muddy from a day of training the pups of Connacht.
He sighed.
It was over a year since they took refuge in the only house still opposing Mac Nessa. So now, he was training an army she intended to use against his rightful king. If that made him a traitor, then so be it. He sighed again, suddenly bent on breaking out a flagon to ease the aches. He pushed himself forward, preparing to lunge to his feet, when, “Your body is not bad for an old man,” caused him to look up with a start.
Queen Medb was leaning against the doorpost with a look he could not fathom. “Lady.”
“I see. Lady, is it? Why so formal? There is no one to hear or even to see us. We can do as we wish, Conall.”
He frowned at the burgeoning flames and wondered whether he had heard correctly. It sounded like the queen was trying to seduce him. Not something new. From Scathach to Dornoll, they had all tried at some time. His prowess attracted their attention. Well, prowess and what used to be blond locks and tight muscles. He did not return it. He invariably had too much on his plate to worry about that distraction.
He shook his head free of such thoughts and smiled. “How can I help you, Lady?”
“First, by using my name. I am Medb.”
He bowed slightly and repeated his question. ‘How can I help you, Medb?”
She moved over to the side of his chair before answering. Conall watched the way she walked. There was seduction in the sway of her hips. “You are training our soldiers, I think.”
“I am. What of it?”
“Where is the mead?” Conall waved at a storage chest beside his bed.
“Would you like some?” the queen asked with a glint and a mischievous smile.
“Why not? A little replenishment would not go amiss. Thank you.”
Conall watched her hips as she glided over to the chest. If anything, the sway was more pronounced than when she entered the roundhouse. When she bent over to take out the mead, he could see her dress was figure-hugging, the contours of her buttocks like two perfectly formed knolls in the mountains of Ulster. Oh, for the green fields of home, he smiled. When she turned back carrying a flagon and two cups, her mischievous smile was still on her face.
“Are you satisfied with your life here, Conall?”
“How so?”
“Are you happy? Are you lonely, perhaps?”
“Happy? Lonely? I have no time for such emotions. I am trying to train a young army in preparation for the shield wall. An army more used to hoeing than hacking.” As he spoke, he cracked the knuckles of his aching hands. The queen winced and shivered, forcing him to smile.
“Too used to hoeing?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Aye. Training your pups so they can stand firm in a shield wall means I have no time for anything else.”
“Except sitting in your roundhouse warming your toes.”
“Exactly so.”
“Exactly so, you say. You never think of women?”
Conall shrugged. The queen handed him a cup and poured some mead for them both. She drank hers in one gulp, threw the cup into the corner, and swung a leg over his lap, hiking her dress up as she did so. He could see the gleam of her thighs and the deeper shadows between before she took his head in both her hands and kissed him full on the lips.
Conall did not react.
“What is this?” the queen demanded with a pout. “Are you rejecting me, warrior?” Conall shrugged again, unsure how to answer. “I see. Well, let me try something a little more to the point,” she said as she pushed a hand down between her thighs and into the front of his triús.
After a few moments grunting an attempt to arouse him, the queen blushed, withdrew her hand, and stormed from the roundhouse, throwing over her shoulder as she left, “Am I not good enough for you, warrior of Ulster?”
“Am I not good enough? The cow’s udder asks,” Conall whispered at the cowhide cover hanging over the roundhouse door. He gulped down his mead before taking off his triús and falling into the pile of skins on his bed with a satisfied moan. Another legacy aging limbs brought to the warrior caste was a need for an early bed. Tuatha, but life is hard enough without these complications; his last thought before a hard day on the training square took its toll.
***
“You sent for me, Lady,” Fergus said, hands resting on the pommel of his broadsword.
Medb looked at him from where she was sitting at the main table in the feast hall, fronting the raised dais. Growing impatience had turned her half-eaten meal of mutton and oats cold before her; its taste turned to dung. Pulling the gold pin from her hair, she smiled at the warrior. He was a fine-looking man, dark-haired, broad-shouldered, square-jawed—a warrior of renown and a man she would welcome into her bed and her army. Not that there were many warriors she would not welcome into her bed, not now her need was so dire.
Shaking out her red tresses, she asked, “How are you finding our hall?”
“You and the king were always welcoming, Lady.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Medb frowned down at her bowl of quickly congealing gloop. The warrior’s ignoring her attempt at goading a compliment upset her more than she thought possible. However, she recognized rising to anger over something so meaningless as wasted emotion. “I see. Always welcoming, are we?”
Fergus bowed his head slightly. He stood in front of the dais with a look of studied concentration, waiting for her to speak. The show of patience was also irritating Medb, another waste of emotion she could not understand. She wondered if Fergus were mocking her, a warrior with delusions of his own importance, perhaps? Medb managed to suppress the thought as soon as it arose. She needed this man if her plans were to have any chance, especially now Conall had shown his lack of interest.
“Why are you here, Fergus?” She asked, running her hand through her troublesome fringe.
“My Lady?” The warrior’s confusion was made clear by the tilt of his head. Medb could see he was not disingenuous but genuinely confounded by the question.
“Why did you come to my hall?” she asked, licking her lips slowly. The warrior kept his face averted so Medb knew he was not seeing her overt invitations.
“My king betrayed me.”
“That I know,” Medb hissed. She knew Mac Nessa had deceived and murdered a foster brother of the warrior and had involved Fergus in the deception. “It is not what I asked. Why did you come to Crúachain? What is there here? Why did you come to us rather than one of the other royal seats? Tara, Caisel or Dun Aniline?”
“The rancor between you and Ulster is well known. Leinster and Munster favor Ulster, and Meath has been kingless since the death of Lugaid. I came to you because you offer the best opportunity.”
“Opportunity for what?”
“For revenge.”
“And if Connacht aids you with your revenge, how will you repay?”
Once again, the warrior shrugged. Medb was losing patience. She returned to suspecting he was intentionally being obtuse and playing some game. Warriors tended towards arrogance, even when looking at royalty, even if the royalty in question was female. Medb did not doubt the man standing before the table would best her in a fight if conducted with broadsword and spear, but she doubted he would beat her if his only weapons were his wits.
“We will not aid you for nothing, Fergus. Surely you knew this?”
“Are you not also seeking revenge?”
Medb frowned at the man. His hands were still resting on the pommel of his sword, and his eyes would still not meet hers. She wondered how to seduce a man who would not look at her. Instead of answering him, Medb pushed her plate away, stood, and walked to the throne. She sat in the king’s seat and threw her leg over the arm. The warrior blushed at her immodesty, despite darting a glance at her exposed thighs, and delighted in the knowledge she had a weapon she could use to bend him to her will.
“There is something you could do at once.”
“Lady?”
“Think about how best to take Ulster.”
“Take in what sense, Lady?”
“Invade, Fergus. How would you get an advantage over the Red Branch?”
“I will think about it.”
“Good. You must also decide what you will give Connacht for our help. I have asked Conall the same.”
Fergus nodded and turned his back on the queen before walking from the feast hall. She frowned at his discourtesy but knew she needed him more than he needed her, so she would have to ignore his obvious disdain.
Medb wondered if any of what she had to endure was worth it. She was intent on saving The Five Kingdoms from its drive towards self-destruction, but she was unsure whether the people deserved her care. The chieftains, warriors, and commoners went about their existence without a thought for her or the monster of Ulster. They called him The Deceiver and thought it a catchy name. They did not have her experience of his sweaty, heaving body and stinking breath. She had her name for him, The Defiler, but no one knew it. She kept it to herself, sure the people would laugh at her or call her a liar.
***
“Sire,” the guards said as Ailill stumbled through the door and fell on one knee with a chuckle.
“My feet are not as sound as they once were,” he slurred as he regained them, wiping his triús with the back of his hand.
Looking under his eyebrows, he could see Medb watching him with a face full of disgust. She could not abide weakness in anyone but in the king—Ailill knew—she thought it punishable by death. No surprises there. She thought many of his actions did not suit his station and were punishable with a knot-bound leather thong and an eternity in peaty blackness.
Stumbling up the aisle, laughing and waving his flagon, Ailill slurred, “My queen, my queen.”
Medb looked down on him as he approached. She lifted her leg off the throne arm and arranged her skirts more decorously. Ailill pretended not to notice. It had been a long time since he felt anything physical for her and Medb for him. That did not ease his hurt. He had watched Fergus leave. No doubt the position of Medb’s leg had been for the benefit of the rugged warrior of Ulster. An open invitation to which words would add no clarification. He wondered when she had become such a slut before he pushed the thought away. It was too late for such worries.
“My lovely and loving wife,” Ailill stumbled over the bottom step of the dais and laughed again as he continued to dust himself off.
“You are drunk, Ailill,” she said, followed by a forlorn head shake. “Why am I surprised? You are always drunk.”
“Whatever you say, my queen,” with a mocking bow. “Drunk I am, but can you blame me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You must know?”
“No, I do not know,” the queen sneered. He burped and slumped down on the top step.
“You have unmanned me in the eyes of my subjects. The people used to love…” he tailed off.
“Why do you insist on talking in ogham? Speak plainly.”
“I was once king of Connacht. Now, I am just the husband of the queen.” Ailill smiled and took a swig from the flagon he was carrying.
“And you think this is my fault? You do not place any of the blame on your constant friend and companion?”
“Now it is you who is talking ogham. I have no friends left.”
“No friends left. And who is that in your hand, if not your friend? Probably your only friend.”
“The mead,” Ailill laughed. “My friendship with the jug began after you took my onions, woman.”
“Did it now? Do you genuinely believe that, or are you trying to convince yourself as much as you seem to be trying to convince me?
“I think you always enjoyed the company of the jug. Maybe it is true your reliance on it happened after my tragedy, but I cannot take the blame for your choice of companion after my son’s death.”
“Our son’s death, or Mac Nessa’s alleged attack, Medb? Who knows which is the chicken and which is the egg? I, in all honesty, no longer recall.”
“Alleged attack. Alleged, now is it?”
“Ah, Medb, it has only ever been alleged—your word against the king of Ulster. You were alone in a clearing. Who can vouch for you besides the trees and forest animals? And with your reputation, who would bother.”
“My reputation. What do you mean by my reputation? What I do, I do for the kingdoms, for Ériu. For the people of Connacht,” Medb hissed, clenching her fists, a flush of anger rising in her cheeks.
The king shook his head and took another pull on the jug.
Eyes flashing, Medb continued, “And you would take that monster’s word over mine, would you?”
“Why did you marry me?”
“I married you because I saw a man without jealousy. A strong man. A warrior. A man who was true to his beliefs and firm in his convictions. I married you because your wealth was equal to mine. I married you, Ailill because you were the best of my suitors.”
“Really? And there I was, thinking you married me because you wanted a crown.”
“Your crown is it. So, I am an opportunist looking for nothing but a kingdom. Do you not think I would have chosen a stronger king, Ailill? You are a traitor to your kingship, a traitor to your people, and now, it seems, a traitor to your wife.”
Ailill looked at Medb and thought he understood why she was losing her love. It had nothing to do with his kingship or his liking the flagon; it was because he had not died defending her honor.