Iruis was mystified. “How?”
“If you plan to build a fort up here. surely you know of some fresh water supply on the mountain.”
“I do. There's a spring not far from where we stand.”
“Lead me to it!” Finn said cheerfully.
Iruis took him to a small spring that bubbled up in a natural stone hollow fringed with ferns. Crouching on his heels, Finn examined it thoroughly, estimating volume of water and speed of flow with the skill of practise. Then he stood.
“Dig the pool just ⦠there,” he commanded his men, pointing. “And the ditch from there to there.”
Dividing into work parties, his fÃan dug out a pool below the spring. A channel, which they temporarily dammed with stones, was dug to connect the spring to the pool.
Lugaid and Fergus built a fire beside the pool, using alternate layers of rocks and dead brush to create a draught. With sparks from their flintstones, they lit the fire, while Cael lined the pool with Finn's deerhide to keep water from seeping away. As they waited for the fire to get hot enough, the others scoured the slope for stones the size of a baby's head.
Meanwhile, Lugaid patiently tended the fire. Its heat grew steadily. A deep red glow began to appear in its heart.
After an interminable wait, Lugaid pronounced the fire ready. The dam was broken and water flooded into the pool. The fénnidi dropped the stones they had gathered into the heart of the fire, waited, then twitched them out again and expertly flipped them into the pool with their shortswords. The water began to steam, then to boil.
Donn had been gathering plants from the surrounding area, finding what he wanted with unerring instinct even after the sun had set. He threw his collected seasonings into the boiling water, adding strands of seaweed taken from the leather pouch he wore on a thong around his neck. Then he motioned to Cailte and Red Ridge to throw in the by-now-dismembered deer.
A heady aroma soon rose from the pool. The hungry men crowded around to watch the hunks of meat tumbling in the roiling water. “This is wonderful entirely!” cried Iruis. “I never expected to have a banquet such as this tonight.”
“The FÃanna hunt all over Erin,” Finn replied, “and we travel light. But we live well. We carry necessities like flintstones for fire and seaweeds for salt in our neck bags and rely on the land to supply the rest. We may be men of no property, but we want for nothing, as you can see. When we need a cauldron, for example, we simply construct a
fualacht fiadh,
a deer's bath, like this one. You could track the FÃanna clear across Erin by the cooking sites they leave behind.”
The night was cold, the men ravenous. They began pulling meat from the pool long before Donn thought it was ready.
Finn would not allow any of his fÃan to eat, however, until they performed a set ritual.
In spite of the cold, every fénnid had to strip to the waist and wash himself in the icy spring. The men then combed their hairâexcept for Conan Maol, who had none. When it was neatly braided, they performed a complicated set of suppling exercises. Only then did they re-clothe themselves and sit by the fire to eat.
“What's all that in aid of?” Iruis asked Finn.
“FÃanna discipline.”
“I'd never delay a meal just to flex my muscles.”
Finn shrugged. “Then you'd never make a fénnid.”
The hint of condescension in his voice annoyed Iruis. “Why would I want to join the FÃanna? I have everything a man could want. I have this mountain and the fort I'll build and the woman who'll warm my bed here. I have cattle of my own and ear rings and arm rings and a storehouse filled with furs. I have all the Burren to hunt in. I might even be elected chieftain someday, when my father's dead. What have you to compare with that?”
“We have the songs we sing as we march,” Fergus told him. “We have the thunder of the
bodhran,
the war drum, and the cry of the trumpet.”
Donn said, “We sleep someplace new every night, and the stars themselves are our sentinels. People envy us our wild, free life.”
“We chase the red deer in the south and the wild boar in the north,” Blamec contributed. “We aren't limited to our tribelands, as you are. We can hunt anywhere in Erin.”
“From Beltaine to Samhain, we support ourselves by hunting,” said Cailte, “but from Samhain to Beltaine, we're quartered on the people. They vie for the honour of being our hosts.”
“They also keep our hounds for the winter,” Cael added, “at no cost to ourselves, no matter how much they eat.”
“It's because the people are grateful to the FÃanna,” Madan explained. “A fine, chest-swelling feeling, that is.”
Conan muttered, “They aren't always grateful, the maggots. I could, tell you some storiesâ”
Lugaid interrupted smoothly, “Of course we don't complain, it's our profession. We were born to be warriors, just as others are born to be craftsmen or beekeepers or druids. Or princes like yourself,” he said, flattering the chieftain's son.
Only Finn had not contributed to the conversation. Iruis noticed that a gobbet of flesh was dangling forgotten from his fingers. He was gazing into the fire, which set his pale hair agleam and gilded the angular planes of his face. It also revealed an unexpectedly sweet curve to his lips. His was a boy's mouth, merry and vulnerable, in contrast to the brooding eyes.
Iruis sensed a mystery. “You're very young, Finn Mac Cool,” he commented. “Why did you join the FÃanna yourself? Because you were born to fight? Or is there more to it?”
Finn had not expected the question. Keeping his eyes fixed on the fire, he swiftly sorted through a range of possible answers. He could simply tell the truth, outlining in a few blunt words the loneliness and restlessness of his formative years.
But on the other side of the fire, Goll Mac Morna had stopped eating and was leaning forward intently, listening.
The fénnidi were listening too. Beside a roaring campfire on a cold
night on a lonely mountain, they huddled into their cloaks and looked expectantly toward Finn.
They wanted to be entertained. They were young, and the night was long.
“Blamec,” announced their new rÃgfénnid, “you'll stand the first watch. Go as far as the firelight reaches and circle the edge of darkness until I send someone to relieve you Mind you stay alert. Enemies could see the fire and try to sneak up on us from below.
“As for the rest of you, keep the soles of your feet toward the fire and I'll tell you something about Finn Mac Cool.”
BLAMEC RESENTED HAVING TO TAKE SENTRY DUTY. With the possible exception of Goll Mac Morna, none of the fÃan knew much about their leader. In a race notable for its loquacity, Finn Mac Cool had been closemouthed about himself. His only personal comments were made through his poetry.
But now he was going to talk openly about himself. In spite of orders, Blamec kept edging back toward the fire, trying to overhear.
“You know, of course,” Finn was saying, “that the FÃanna is the standing army of the kings of Tara, as the Red Branch once served the kings of the Ulaid. We're sworn to repel any foreign marauders, and to make our services available to those chieftains who give their loyalty to the king of Taraâlike your father, Iruis. This was the purpose for which Conn of the Hundred Battles formed the FÃanna when he was king of Tara. He wanted an army capable of keeping peace in his territory and commanding respect from other tribes.”
“Not easily done,” Conan interjected. “Peace is in short supply with the Gael so fond of fighting each other for sport and profit.”
Ignoring him, Finn continued. “Conn was succeeded at Tara by Airt his son. In the reign of Airt, Cuhal my father became RÃgfénnid FÃanna, not just the leader of a company, but the commander of the entire army of Tara.” His voice rang with the words. They seemed to come from somewhere deeper inside him than his chest.
“How large is the FÃanna, exactly?” Red Ridge asked.
“The RÃgfénnid FÃanna commands seven score and ten rÃgfénnidi. Each rÃgfénnid has three times nine warriors in his company. You see but one of my bands of nine here. Two more are waiting for me at Slieve Bloom, where we will winter.”
Finn's voice underwent a subtle change as he said, “Before I was born, there was a challenge to my father's leadership of the FÃanna. He
was murdered by members of another warrior clan, men who had served with him in the army.” Finn named no names, however. His eyes did not meet Goll's eye across the flames, though he felt the weight of its stare.
“My mother, who was called Muirinn of the White Throat, bore me on the Bog of Almhain while fleeing from my father's enemies after his death. She gave me into the keeping of two old women, a druid called Lia and a wise-woman known as Bomall. They hid me away in the Slieve Bloom mountains. There I grew; there I learned to hunt and fish and run and hide. I was called Demna in those days,” he added with a careless wink toward Red Ridge.
“My mother married another man, a chieftain from Kerry. But after six years, she came to visit me. She took precautions so no one would recognize her and follow her to me.” Finn paused to lick the last traces of grease from his lips. With sudden inspiration, he said, “She disguised herself as a deer.”
“You mean she was wrapped in deerskin?”
“I do not. I mean she became a deer. My mother had ⦠certain powers,” Finn said mysteriously, eyes dancing.
His listeners leaned forward. Such a claim was not without precedent. And on a night such as this, a night of windhowl and fireglow, anything seemed possible.
“The two old women trained me, and a hard school they ran. They would put me into a meadow leaping with hares and order me not to let a single one escape, or I should not be fed for three days. They threw me into a river and shouted that I must discover how to swim or drown straightaway. They taught me to survive in a world without mercy, those fierce old women.”
“A wise-woman and a druid?” Iruis sounded impressed.
Embellishing his tale, Finn said, “The druid was a kinswoman of mine, actually.” He could not resist adding, “She taught me some of her magic. She was that fond of me.”
If they laughed, he was ready to laugh with them. But they did not laugh. He saw belief in their eyes. They came of a race with a long experience of druidry. They had accepted Muirinn's transmogrification; they had no trouble accepting this.
That's it! Finn suddenly realized.
Until this night, his youth had seemed an insurmountable obstacle. He looked older than he was. In truth, he was scarcely old enough to lead one fÃan, much less entertain higher ambitions. But for a man who could do magicâor was believed capable of doing magicâage was irrelevent.
His future opened out before him, richly, goldenly, the gift of accident and inspiration.
The wind blowing off the western sea moaned around Black Head.
The flames of the campfire leaped and writhed. In the wind's voice Finn thought for a moment he could hear
her
voice, urging him on. Goading. Pleading. Tormenting. Or was it the stag's voice, belling a warning?
He could taste deer meat on his tongue.
Shapes shifted in his brain. He fought his way back to his story. “Bomall and Lia kept me with them until I was of an age when no woman could control me, and then I went wandering. I made Erin my pillow and hunted in forests where the trees were as thick as hairs on a hound. I learned to rely on myself only.”
“But would you not seek out your own people, your clan?” Red Ridge wondered.
“I didn't know who they were. The old women would never tell me.”
“Didn't your mother tell you when she visited you?”
“She couldn't. She came to me as a deer, not as a woman.”
“Then how,” asked Conan reasonably, “could you possibly recognize her?”
Finn saw his mistake. To cover it, he snapped, “And would you not know your own mother, no matter what she looked like? If not, it's a poor son you are!”
He went on hastily. “On the banks of the Liffey, in my fifteenth year, I saw a group of lads my own age. They challenged me to a swimming race. When I stripped to join them in the river, they called me Fionn because of my fair hair and fair, strong body; but when I outswam them all, they were jealous. So I left. them and went away alone again.
“But I kept the name they had given me.
“Soon afterward, my skill at hunting attracted the notice of a chieftain who hired me to hunt one summer for him. It was he who first told me of the FÃanna and their murdered leader. Peering into my face one day, he said, âIf Cuhal had a son, Finn, I think that son would be exactly like you.'
“From that day, curiosity tormented me worse than fleas. I learned that Cuhal's widow had married a chieftain in Kerry, so I made my way south. As soon as I saw her, I knew Muirinn of the White Throat for my mother.”
“Marvellous powers of recognition,” Conan said dryly.
Finn ignored him. “Muirinn told me of my people, the Clan Baiscne, and also the details of my father's death. But her husband wouldn't let me stay with her. He was afraid Cuhal's enemies would learn of me and come to kill me while I was under his protection, which would have forced him to break battle against them.”
“âThe guest in the house is sacred',” quoted Fergus.
“Indeed. So my mother's husband insisted I leave, and she took his part. At the last moment, however, she drew me aside and urged me
to ⦔ he paused, letting the tension build “ ⦠urged me to seek out the FÃanna and join them.”
A tight voice asked, “Is that all she asked you to do?”
Finn looked up. Across the flames, he locked gazes with Goll Mac Morna. As if the wind had shifted, there was a sudden change in the atmosphere.
“Did you?” Red Ridge asked eagerly. “Did you join the army then?”
Finn relaxed. “Not for a while. First I went looking for my father's brother, Crimall, who was reputed to be hiding out with the last surviving officers from my father's command.
“But on the way, I met an old widow, and she was grieving. Her only son had just been slain by ⦠a giant.” Finn paused in his narrative to adjust his neck bag, which had become twisted on its thong. “For the old woman's sake, I hunted down the giant and killed him. And on his body I found a ⦠a bag made of crane skin. I subsequently found Crimall and showed the bag to him, and he identified it as having belonged to my father. So the giant I had killed was one of Cuhal's murderers,” he concluded with satisfaction.
Goll Mac Morna sat up very straight. “You never mentioned this before.”
“I never did,” Finn agreed. “The giant was called Luachra and the bag he had stolen from my father contained the treasures of Clan Baiscne.”
“What were they?” asked a breathless voice.
Finn twisted around to scowl up at Blamec. “You're supposed to be standing watch, so why are you hanging over my shoulder?”
Shamefaced, Blamec scurried back to his post. Finn went on weaving words from smoke and flame. He was lost in them now himself. He believed, so his audience believed.
“The bag was made from the skin of a bird that had once been the beloved second wife of the sea god, Manannán Mac Lir. His jealous first wife turned her into a crane, but the magic killed her. Manannán took the crane's skin and had it made into a bag in which he kept his shirt and knife, and the shears of Alba, and the tools of Goibniu the smithâall of them items of great magical power, you understand? Treasures.”
His audience nodded as one, spellbound.
“Because the bag belonged to the sea god, it was full when the tide was full but appeared empty when the tide was out.” He was constructing his tale carefully now. There must not be another mistake like claiming he could recognize a deer to be his mother. “The bag was given by Manannán to Lugh son of Evleen. Lugh in turn gave it to Cuhal my father, when he married Lugh's sister, Muirinn White Throat.” Finn took
a deep breath, satisfied that the provenance of the magical bag was now firmly established.
Iruis asked, “Do you still have it?”
With one forefinger, Finn tapped his neck bag. Fénnidi were called Men of the Bag,
Fir Bolg
, because they carried pouches on thongs around their necks to hold their flints and combs and razors and needles and other necessaries of a nomadic life. The appellation Fir Bolg was an ancient one, predating the founding of the FÃanna, and had been applied to some of the most ancient tribes of Erin, many of them including Finn's ancestors.
Finn's bag happened to be covered with crane skin taken from a bird he had killed with a slingshot on the Bog of Almhain, near his birthplace. He neglected to mention this detail. He merely called attention to the bag and let the others draw their own conclusions.
Conan said doubtfully, “Clan Baiscne must be poor in treasures. That bag isn't exactly bulging.”
Finn was ready for him. “Of course not. The tide's out.”
Conan glowered.
The others laughed and elbowed him. “The tide's out! Didn't you even know that?”
Finn let himself relax. He had told them enough for now. Give them time to think about it, time to digest and accept. He felt as if he were watching the scene from a distance, a dispassionate observer assessing the advantage Finn Mac Cool had just won for himself.
Until tonight, his skills had been enough to entitle him to leadership of one band of warriors. But to lead the entire army, a man must be extraordinary.
Goll Mac Morna had been such a man. In his prime, he was reputedly the strongest man in Erin, and his hardiness was legendary. The injury that had cost him an eye was minor compared to some of the wounds he had survived. His body was a map of warfare. In addition, he owned the famous Gold and Silver Chessboard and was a master at the game.
Possession of the magic bag of Manannán Mac Lir would bestow a similar prestige on Finn Mac Cool.
He knew that someday he might be challenged to prove his tale. But not tonight. No Gael would ruin a good story on a night like this by questioning it too closely.
He drew up his knees and spread his legs so the fire could warm his private parts. Resting his arms on his knees, he stared again into the flames. One hand scratched the shaggy head of Bran, who lay beside him.
No one urged him to go on with his storytelling. He appeared lost in thought, and out of a new respect, his companions left him alone. From
time to time someone would dart a glance at him and quickly look away. Finn was aware of the glances, but he did not react. He concentrated on the warmth of the fire and the fullness of his bellyâand on trying to keep his face impassive.
The irrepressible boy just beneath Finn's skin kept threatening to laugh out loud. They believe me. They believe me!
His eyes were itching. The wind had shifted and was blowing smoke into them. He stood up and went around to the other side of the campfire. Bran lifted an ear, looked up quizzically, then rose and stalked after him.
When Finn sat down again, he found himself beside Goll Mac Morna. “So it was you who killed my brotherâLuachra the Large,” the older man said in an undertone.
Finn reached for a partially gnawed bone and gave it his full attention, tearing off shreds of meat with his teeth.
Undeterred, Goll went on. “Did you really take a bag from Luachra's body? I suppose you thought it belonged to the widow's son and meant to return it to her sometime. But was it Cuhal's bag? I don't recall precisely what his neck bag looked like, though I'm sure I saw it often enough during our seasons in the FÃanna together. I don't even know if he was wearing it at the Battle of Cnucha.