The Hound of Ulster Read online

  Cuchulain turned away from the hazel thicket where the nuts fell splashing into the water above the ford, and set himself to the steep heathery slope that was crowned by the turf and timber ramparts and the great gate of Emain Macha. Once within the gates, he went in search of Conor the King, and found him just back from the hunting, sitting at ease on the bench before the Great Hall, with his legs stretched out before him, and his favourite hounds at his knee.

  Cuchulain went and stood before him, and Conor, who was at peace with the world after his day’s hunting, looked up and said, ‘Well now, and what will you be wanting, standing there so big and fierce, with your shadow darkening the sun?’

  ‘My Lord the King, I come to claim the weapons of my manhood today. I have learned all that the Boys’ House teaches, and now I would be a man among men.’

  ‘Your time is not yet for close on another half year,’ Conor said, startled.

  ‘That I know, but there is nothing I shall gain by the longer waiting.’

  Conor looked at him long under his brows, and shook his head, and indeed, slight and dark as Cuchulain was, and small for his age, he seemed very far as yet from being a man. ‘Nothing save maybe a wind-puff of strength and a thumbnail or so of height.’

  The boy flushed. ‘Size is not all that makes a warrior, and as for strength—give me your hunting spears, my lord and kinsman.’

  So Conor gave him the two great wolf spears that were still red like rust on the blade, and Cuchulain took them lightly and broke them across his knee as though they had been dry hazel sticks, and tossed the pieces aside. ‘You must give me better spears than these,’ he said, and it was as though deep within him a spark kindled and spread into a small fierce flame.

  Conor beckoned his armour-bearer, and bade him bring war spears; but when they were brought, Cuchulain took them and whirled them above his head, and broke them almost as easily as he had done the wolf spears, and tossed the jagged pieces away. By now there was a crowd begun to gather, and Cuchulain stood in the midst of them, waiting for someone to bring him better weapons. They brought him more spears, and then swords, and each he treated as he had done the first, and flung contemptuously away. They brought chariots into the forecourt, and he smashed them as easily as he had smashed the spears, by stamping his feet through the interlaced floor straps and twisting the ash framing of the bow between his hands, until all the forecourt lay littered with wreckage as though a battle had been fought there. And at last Conor the King burst into a harsh roar of laughter and beat his hands upon his knees and shouted, ‘Enough! In the name of the High Gods, enough, or we shall have not a spear nor a war chariot left whole in Emain Macha! Bring the boy my own weapons, my spears and sword that were forged for me by Goban himself, and harness him my own chariot, for ‘tis in my mind that those are beyond even his breaking!’

  So the King’s armour-bearer brought out Conor’s own angry battle spears headed with black iron and decked with collars of blue-green heron hackles, and his sword whose blade gave off fire at every blow like shooting stars on a frosty night; and the charioteer brought the King’s chariot, with polished bronze collars to the wheel hubs and its wicker sides covered with red and white oxhides, and in the yoke of it the King’s own speckled stallions that scorned any hand on their reins save that of Conor himself or his driver.

  And Cuchulain took the spears and sword and strove to break them across his knee, and could not, though he strained until the muscles stood out on his neck like knotted cords. ‘These weapons I cannot break,’ he said at last.

  The King said, ‘Keep them, then, since it seems that none others will serve you. See now if the chariot serves as well.’

  So Cuchulain sprang up beside the charioteer, and the horses felt the stranger behind them and began to plunge and rear so that their own driver could do nothing with them and it seemed that they and not Cuchulain would crash their heels through the chariot floor. Then Cuchulain laughed, and the fire in him blazed up like the smoky flames of a wind-blown torch, and he caught the reins from the hands of the King’s charioteer and fought the team as a man might fight with a hurricane. For a while the watchers could see little but the cloud of red dust, hear nothing but the trampling and neighing of the horses flinging their plunging circles about the forecourt, and the screech and thunder of the wracked chariot wheels—until at last Cuchulain reined the panting beasts back on their haunches close before the King, and the uproar fell away, and there above them in the unharmed chariot stood Cuchulain alone, for the charioteer had been flung clear in the struggle, looking down at them out of his dark face with a smile that was both triumphant and a little sad, as though he were saying to his own heart that all good things passed too soon, and the horses standing with heaving flanks in their traces, and the last red dust sinking, eddying down about the wheels.

  ‘Assuredly you are a warrior, and there is no place for you in the Boys’ House any more,’ the King said.

  And Cuchulain sprang down over the chariot bow to the horses’ heads, and standing between them with his shoulders leaned against the yoke, he set an arm over the neck of each horse. ‘Then if I am a warrior and have my war chariot, let the King also give me a charioteer. No man can well fight his chariot and drive at the same time—not even Cuchulain.’

  ‘Choose for yourself,’ said Conor Mac Nessa. ‘That is the right of every warrior.’

  Cuchulain looked about him, and saw among the crowding warriors the red head and long freckled face of Laeg who had been with him in the Boys’ House only a few months before. And he cared nothing for the fact that Laeg was older than himself and a noble’s son and should be no man’s charioteer, but called out ‘Laeg! Hai! Laeg! There is none that can handle a horse like you. Let you come and drive for me, that we may be together when the war horns sound!’

  And as for Laeg, he flushed like a girl under his freckles, and a light sprang into his eyes that made his whole face kindle, and he strode out from the rest to Cuchulain’s side. ‘Let any other man try for the place that is mine, Hound Cub!’ and he bent his head before young Cuchulain as though he and not Conor Mac Nessa were the King.

  By the time he was sixteen, Cuchulain had won for himself a place among the warriors that many an older one could not lay claim to. And dark and meagre and bird-boned as he was, women found him so good to look upon that wherever he went their eyes would follow him, and not only the eyes of the maidens, but those of other men’s wives; until the warriors and chieftains of Ulster began to urge him to take a woman of his own from her father’s hearth.

  Cuchulain was willing enough, but though he liked all women, he found none that his heart called to, until one day, at the great three-yearly gathering at Tara, he saw among the maidens in the Hall of the High King Conary M?r, one that seemed to him to stand out from among the rest like a wild swan among herring-gulls.

  She was dark-haired almost as himself, and her skin white as mare’s milk, and her eyes wide and proud and brilliant like the eyes of Fedelma, his favourite falcon. Her gown was green, dark as the leaves of the hill juniper, and balls of red gold hung at the ends of her long braids and swung a little as she moved among the warrior benches to keep the mead cups filled. Cuchulain touched the wrist of Fergus Mac Roy who sat next to him, and leaning as though to share the same cup, whispered, ‘Who is she?’

  Fergus saw where he was looking and said, ‘That is Emer, the daughter of Forgall, Lord of Lusca.’

  ‘She is very fair,’ said Cuchulain.

  ‘She is fair enough, but her thorn hedge is thick. Best leave her alone.’

  ‘And what is the meaning of that riddle, old wolf?’

  ‘Her father is called Forgall the Wily. He is a Druid of great power, and it is said that he looks none too fondly upon men who come seeking to take his daughters from his hearth.’

  Cuchulain said nothing more, but he did not put the thing from his mind.

  If Emer had been his for the plucking like a strand of honeysuckle beside the tr
ack, he would likely have thought no more of her, but as soon as he knew that she might be hard and even hazardous in the winning, he knew also that of all the women in Ireland she was the only one that could make life sweet for him. All that evening he watched her as she moved among the crowded benches, and when she was gone with the other maidens back to the women’s quarters, he turned his watching to the dark proud Lord of Lusca instead, and wondered what way he could best win the daughter from her father’s hearth.

  He did not try to speak with Emer during the days at Tara, for it would be against all custom and courtesy to pay court to any maiden save in her own home. And if Emer had seen the young dark warrior, she gave no sign of it.

  But when the Tara gathering was over for another three years, and all the chiefs and nobles and the kings had returned to their own places, he waited three days that he might not come upon her weary from the journey, and not having time yet to gather her own life about her again, and then he bade Laeg to make ready his chariot for a journey.

  ‘Where do we drive?’ Laeg said.

  ‘To Dūn Forgall.’ And Cuchulain and his charioteer looked at each other, and the laughter leapt between them, and the purpose under the laughter.

  In Dūn Forgall, Emer sat under the apple trees within the curve of the turf rampart. Her maidens were with her, and together they were stitching at a rich hanging for her father’s hall, working on the dark cloth strange beasts and birds whose spread wings and together-twined tails broke into looping sprays and leafed and blossomed like some fantastic thicket.

  They heard the distant rumble of sound, and one of the girls looked up quickly, saying, ‘Surely that was thunder?’

  ‘Let us take the work and run indoors before it can be spoiled,’ said another.

  But the sky was clear overhead, and the sun cast the shadows of the apple branches across the coloured work. And Emer said, listening, ‘Foolish! That is a chariot driven at racing speed. Your eyes are like a hawk’s, Cleena. Do you climb up onto the rampart and tell us who comes.’

  So Cleena ran her needle into the work, and sprang up and climbed to the crest of the turf bank and stood looking out northward under her hand, while the distant thunder drew swiftly nearer and became the drum of horses’ hooves and the clangour of the chariot behind them.

  ‘Well and what do you see?’ said Emer, laughing and impatient.

  ‘I see a chariot indeed! Drawn by a pair of speckled horses such as the King of Ulster drives. Fierce and powerful, they are, tossing their heads and breathing fire from their jaws; and the sods that they throw up behind them are like swallows darting in their wake.’

  ‘So much for the chariot and the team,’ said Emer. ‘Who drives?’

  ‘I do not know—a tall man with curling red hair held by a fillet of bronze about his temples—with him——’

  ‘Well?’ said Emer, and she jabbed her needle into the embroidered stuff and ceased her stitching.

  ‘A small man—a boy—no, a man, dark and sad but best to look upon of all the men of Ireland. He wears a crimson cloak clasped at the shoulder with a brooch of gold, and it flies from him like a flame in the wind of his going, and on his back is a crimson shield with a silver rim worked over with golden figures of beasts.’

  ‘That sounds like Cuchulain of Ulster,’ said Emer, ‘for when I saw him in the High King’s Hall at Tara, always until he laughed he looked as though he were listening to sad music in his heart . . . Come, we must go to welcome him, since my father is from home.’

  And she gathered up her skirts and ran towards the hall, her maidens after her, with the many-coloured hanging gathered among them. And as they ran, they heard the thunder of hooves trample into stillness before the great gate, and the sound of running feet, men’s voices and the barking of dogs.

  When the chariot swept behind its team into the forecourt of the Dūn and Laeg circled wide about the grey weapon-stone in the midst of the place, where the warriors sharpened their blades in time of war, and brought the horses to a trampling halt, and Cuchulain sprang down with his shield clanging behind his shoulder, he found Emer and her maidens already gathered at the threshold of the hall. She came forward, bearing the brimming guest cup of age-darkened bronze and silver inlay, and held it to him, smiling. ‘My father is from home, and in his stead, I bid you drink, stranger, and be welcome.’

  Cuchulain took the cup, letting his fingers touch hers, and looked at her above the rim. ‘Am I then so much a stranger? Will you tell me that you have never seen me before, Emer, daughter of Forgall the Wily?’

  Emer flushed bright as a campion flower, but she did not take her eyes from his. ‘It may be that I saw you at Tara, at the Great Gathering.’

  ‘It may be that I saw you there also,’ Cuchulain said, and they stood looking at each other, and though Emer had given him the guest cup, she did not bid him enter. And the maidens drew apart and watched them, while Laeg stood at the horses’ heads and watched them too.

  At last Cuchulain said, ‘Will you not bid me enter?’

  ‘My father is from home, and I do not know when he will be back.’

  ‘It was not your father that I would see, this first time.’

  ‘Who then?’ she said, determined that he should speak it.

  ‘Who but yourself, Emer?’

  ‘Then still less should I bid you come in. For what would my father say and do at his coming home, if it were told to him that his daughter had brought young warriors of another tribe into his hearth place, who came to speak with her when he was from home?’

  ‘Only one warrior,’ said Cuchulain, and his dark sad face flashed open into laughter. ‘And he will be speaking with Forgall your father, when he returns.’

  ‘So? And what would he say to my father, this one warrior?’

  ‘That he wishes to take Emer the Fair to his own hearth,’ Cuchulain said.

  She felt for the carved doorpost behind her, and her breath caught in her throat. ‘It might be that Emer the Fair has her own word to say as to that!’

  And Cuchulain set his hands against the house-place wall on either side of her, so that he held the maiden captive without touching her. ‘What word? What word, Emer?’

  Emer was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Listen, Cuchulain. My father will not lightly let me go from his hearth to another’s, and he has champions among his household warriors who could break you across one knee as it was told to me that once you broke the war spears and the hunting spears of the Lord of Ulster. And if it were not so, my sister Fial is older than I, and it is her right to be first wed.’

  ‘But I do not love your sister Fial,’ Cuchulain said.

  ‘How should you, when you have not yet seen her?’

  ‘I have seen you,’ Cuchulain said, and the voice of him soft and warm-under-the-soft as the breast feathers of a falcon.

  And Emer said, ‘That is talk for men, not for boys with their battles still unfought. And he that takes Emer’s heart and Emer with it, must have a mighty sword-hand for the taking. Come back when you have slain your hundreds, and the harpers sing your deeds in the King’s Hall, little Hound, and it may be that I will bid you to come in.’

  So Cuchulain dropped his hands from the wall, setting her free, and turned and mounted into his chariot without another word.

  3. The Bridge of Leaps

  ALL THE LONG road back to Emain Macha, and all the next day and the day after, Cuchulain was silent, thinking how he could best accomplish the great deeds that Emer demanded of him.

  Now he had heard, one time, of a mighty woman-warrior who lived in the Land of Shadows, which some say is in Skye, and who could teach the arts of war better than any man to those who came to learn from her. So on the third day he bade farewell to Conall his foster brother, and to Laeg his charioteer, saying, ‘I am away over seas to find Skatha of the Land of Shadows, and learn what she alone can teach me.’

  Laeg would have come with him, but Cuchulain said, ‘Can you drive sea-swallows in the h
arness? I must go over seas to find what I seek. Bide here until I come again, and keep my horses swift and happy.’

  And so he set out on his journey.

  For a long while he wandered, seeking Skatha and the Land of Shadows, and many a time he came near to disaster on the way. And when at last he stood on the edge of a vast bog that it seemed had no way round or over, he was near to admitting in despair that the end of his journey was come. But as he stood on the last hummock of firm land, mired to the thighs with the black sucking ooze—for he had not taken defeat easily—and looking out hopelessly across the distance beyond distance of rushes and fluttering silken tufts of bog grass and the treacherous mazes of sour green turf that lay over quaking ooze, and hearing nothing but the desolate soughing of the wind and the small greedy sucking noises that the bog made around his feet, he saw the figure of a young man coming towards him on feet so light that they did not stir one white tassel of the bog grass. A young man like a flame, like a ray of the sun when it pierces between storm clouds.