Brian Boru (13 page)

‘So Sitric and Maelmora think it will take a huge army to kill me?’ said Brian. ‘I am flattered.’

‘Do not jest about your death,’ said Murcha.

Brian turned towards his son. ‘People have been trying to kill me for as long as I can remember. I don’t take that threat seriously anymore. The threat to plunder Ireland, though … I take that very seriously. It shall not happen. Not while my strong hand is uppermost.’ He looked at Murcha, and beyond him, to young Turlough, being trained to follow his father and grandfather. Brian’s voice rang strong in the feasting hall. His face was lined, his hair was grey, but his eyes were clear and hard. All his life was in them. He did not mean to be defeated.

Swiftly he sent messengers of his own, seeking allies. Ospak carried word to Prince Malcolm of Scotland, who had married another of Brian’s daughters. Malcolm promised to send a band of warriors led by the Steward of Mar.

Young Donncha kept pleading to take part in the battle to come. Brian still did not trust him for the front lines. Instead, he said, ‘You may take a picked company
of horsemen down towards Waterford. Keep the Vikings in that area distracted, so they do not come up to Dublin.’

‘I want to take part in the real war,’ protested Donncha.

‘It is all war,’ his father told him. ‘You can get killed as easily in one place as in another. Do as I command. That’s the way you can be of the most help to me.’

Donncha obeyed, though not with good grace. ‘You’re favouring Turlough mac Murcha over me,’ he complained.

The winter passed, the fighting season approached. When his army was gathered around Kincora, Brian rode among the men on his favourite grey horse. The warriors were eager to be on the march, but he held them back with the force of his will until he was certain everything was ready. The smallest detail did not escape him. Nothing could be half-done, or half-ready. With a keen eye, he examined the fitness of the men, the sea of spears and pikes they carried, the gleam of sword and shortsword, the deadly edges of the axes.

As always, the warriors were divided by tribes. Each group was clustered around the standard of its leader. Brian rode over to where Carroll the historian was watching. ‘See that, Carroll? One of those standards belongs to the Danes of Limerick. Mark it well.’

When at last Brian was satisfied that the men were ready, he gave the order to march.

He looked back only once. After they had crossed the Shannon, he reined in his horse and turned to gaze for a long time towards Kincora, and the grey crag.

Then he set his face towards Dublin and urged the horse forward.

In the Year of Our Lord 1014, spring came early to Ireland. As Brian led his army through the countryside, grass was greening and lambs bloomed like flowers on the hillsides.

Shortly before Palm Sunday, Sitric’s foreign allies began arriving in Dublin. At first there was only one longship, then two, but they were the advance wave of hundreds. Sitric welcomed them gladly. There was no doubt a great battle would soon take place.

According to the historians who would write of the battle afterwards, the foreigners brought with them as many as one thousand coats of chain mail. So much armour, so many weapons, so many warriors hoping to defeat Brian Boru!

Maelmora reached Dublin at the head of his army of Leinstermen. He told Sitric, ‘Malachy is on the march, but still some distance away. In order to reward his Meathmen, he’s letting them plunder the land north of the Liffey.’

Sitric scowled. ‘I promised the plunder of that region to our own allies.’

‘Then let us attack Malachy and stop him!’

‘First, I want to know how near the High King is,’ said Sitric.

The scouts he sent out soon reported, ‘The army of the High King has caught up with Malachy. There was some argument about the plundering. Brian Boru was said to be angry about it. Perhaps he wanted it for himself, or his own men. We do not know. But the armies are
together now, under his command.’

Sitric gnawed his lip. He would have preferred to attack Brian and Malachy separately. But if the two had united, there was nothing for it but to fight them both together.

‘I’m thankful we have so many coming to help us,’ he told Maelmora. They went together to stand on the walls of Dublin and watch Viking longships coming in to harbourage.

Meanwhile, Brian was calling a council of war. Foremost among them was Murcha, and his cousin Conaing, one of Brian’s most trusted warriors. The leather command tent was crowded with hard-faced men who held the light of battle in their eyes.

The sentry at the tent flap refused to let Turlough mac Murcha enter. ‘You are too young, lad.’

‘My father is in there, and my grandfather. And I am not too young to die with them.’ Turlough drew himself up proudly.

The sentry would recall those words later.

He drew back the flap. ‘Enter, then.’

Turlough was fifteen years old. Most men did not become warriors until they were sixteen, and he was aware of the honour he had been given and determined to make Brian and Murcha proud of him. He was certain nothing as exciting as this moment had ever happened before. He slipped into the tent and flattened himself against the wall, hardly daring to breathe least someone notice him and make him leave.

Malachy was protesting the fact that Ospak of Man was included in Brian’s army. ‘I think he’s a spy,’ Malachy said. ‘I don’t want him with us.’

‘He has proved himself a friend and an ally,’ Brian replied.

‘But he’s a foreigner!’

‘Many of those we once called foreigners are marching with me,’ Brian said in his deep, slow voice. ‘They are part of the Irish army now. I have treated them firmly but fairly, and we know what to expect of each other. I can turn my unshielded back to them without fear.’

‘I don’t see things the way you do at all,’ Malachy said.

Brian nodded gravely. ‘I know that. I hope in time to be able to change your mind.’

But as the discussion went on, Brian and Malachy disagreed more and more. Malachy did not approve of any of Brian’s battle plans. When Brian spoke of moving men in this way and that to trap the enemy, Malachy refused. ‘If we just run at them all at once and overpower them, the battle will soon be over,’ he insisted.

Murcha could not hold his temper any longer. ‘Don’t you know how many warriors Sitric and Maelmora are bringing in? They will be spread out for miles along the coast. We can’t fight them in the old way. My father’s way is the only plan that can work. He is the High King, Malachy, and you must remember that. The command decisions are his to make. He knows better than you do.’

The Meath king was offended. ‘I have won many battles,’ he said coldly. ‘And I was not trying to steal another man’s authority, if that’s what you’re accusing me of. That is not my way.’

Murcha reddened. ‘If you mean that as an insult to my father, take it back.’

‘Murcha!’ said Brian warningly.

Malachy growled, ‘Apologise for your son, Brian. He is a discredit to you.’

Everyone looked at Brian, but Brian was looking at Murcha. To the younger man’s surprise, he said softly,
‘Murcha is a great credit to me, and I shall never apologise for him. He is loyal to me, so I am loyal to him.’

For a heartbeat it seemed as if there was no one in the tent but Brian and Murcha, who gave his father a look of such love and gratitude it made Brian’s eyes sting.

Malachy said angrily, ‘If you place Murcha above me you do not need me, nor my men.’ He whirled around and left the tent, almost knocking Turlough aside on his way.

Murcha said to his father. ‘I’m sorry. My temper has cost you another ally. I always seem to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.’

Brian smiled. ‘If you know that much, you are making progress. Let it be, Murcha. The battle draws near and we are all tense. When Malachy has had time to think, he will come back to us. He has a good heart in him.’

As Murcha started to leave the tent, he saw Turlough. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked his son.

‘Learning,’ the lad replied truthfully.

Murcha clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come with me, then. The lessons will soon begin in earnest.’ Brian had long made it a habit to hold back from battle until he was in a superior position and could be certain of winning. But this time, much was against him. He had lost, at least for a while, the support of Malachy and his Meathmen. Also, the land around Dublin favoured the defenders, whose numbers were constantly increasing. By the day before Good Friday, Sitric’s harbour was filled with ships. The singing and shouting of the Vikings rang out clearly in the evening air, carrying as far as Brian’s encampment to the west.

Brian stood outside his tent, listening. He became aware of Murcha at his shoulder. ‘When we set out from
Kincora, I was certain of superior numbers,’ he said to his son. ‘Now I’m not so sure. And I’m weary.’

It was the first time Murcha had heard his father admit to any form of weakness. ‘If you’re weary, father, you can lean on me.’

Brian turned and smiled at him. ‘I’m not too weary for what must be done. We cannot simply march back to Munster and leave the land to her enemies. We have to fight. And it is better that we fight tomorrow than wait any longer. If we delay, the battle might be joined on Easter Sunday. I refuse to kill anyone on that holy day.’

Murcha looked at Brian’s silver hair and stooping shoulders. The weight of seventy-three years was pressing down on the High King. Last year he had still been able to use his sword, but this was a new fighting season, and would be a terrible battle.

When Brian said, ‘We shall march at dawn,’ Murcha argued with his father one last time.

‘You must not take an active part in the battle,’ he said to Brian. ‘You are the heart and soul of our people. If anything should happen to you …’ Murcha could not finish that thought. Instead he said, ‘Give me your sword, father, and let me lead the army tomorrow in your name, following your battle plans. I have done much that has hurt you. Let me make it up to you now, this way.

‘You were right all along, I see that now. I should have listened to you. I will listen, in the future. Just promise me you will be in my future! Keep yourself safe while I defeat Sitric and Maelmora in the name of the High King. The Emperor of the Irish,’ he added. Carroll had told him of the words in the Book of Armagh.

Brian could not speak. He put one arm around Murcha’s shoulders and hugged hard.

Murcha’s heart leaped. Why did I not admit to him long ago that I knew I was wrong? he wondered. It was so easy, it just took a few words. Now those words have built a bridge between us.

At last Brian said, ‘Leave me my sword tomorrow. I have carried it for too long to surrender it to anyone, even you. But you may take the command. I shall wait at a safe distance and pray for your victory.’

Alone in his tent that night, with his attendant Laiten standing guard outside, Brian tried to sleep. The night before a battle was always difficult. His brain imagined the day to come, going over and over it and allowing him no rest. He sighed. He tossed. Several times he got up and went to the entrance of the tent. Each time he found Laiten awake. ‘Do you wish anything?’ the faithful man would ask.

‘Nothing,’ Brian replied. He lay back down on the ground again and rolled himself in his cloak, as he had for so long, before so many battles.

Shortly before dawn, he saw a faint glow. There was no torch and no fire in the tent, and it was still too early for dawn light. Brian sat up, peering towards the mysterious glow.

‘Aval?’ he whispered.

Men everywhere saw visions that night. Some claimed to have heard the wail of a banshee. A group of Brian’s enemies, encamped on the beach, told of seeing a figure on a grey horse, a ghostly shape they took to mean their own doom. They fled, howling with fear.

Others claimed the same vision promised them victory. Brodir of Man boasted that the spectre had promised him the destruction of Brian Boru.

Brian’s son Murcha saw something that night, but he would not speak of it. Turlough glimpsed a wild, strange
look of joy and despair mingled in his father’s eyes, however, and was afraid.

All men were glad when Good Friday finally dawned, chasing away the spirits of the night.

Dawn, the twenty-third day of April, in the Year of Our Lord 1014. A clear dawn, with only a few tattered rags of cloud in the sky, streaming across the face of the rising sun.

The High King’s command tent was pitched in Tomar’s Wood, overlooking an area that would see much of the fighting. From the timbered palisade of Dublin, Sitric and his wife and mother had another vantage point. Sitric had chosen not to take part personally in the battle, but had not bothered to inform Maelmora of his decision.

Sitric had met Brian Boru on the battlefield before. He was not anxious to repeat the experience.

In Tomar’s Wood, Brian emerged from his tent to address his warriors before they went to battle. A great cheer went up when they saw him. Murcha had gathered the Dalcassians in the forefront. Brian called many of them by name, praising their courage. As he spoke, many men wept. Brian knew how to touch their hearts.

The sight of the High King inspired his followers as nothing else could. He was Brian Boru, and they were going out to fight and perhaps die for him.

Murcha led the Dalcassians. Cian, son of Molloy, led the Owenachts, once enemies to the Dalcassians. They were enemies no longer. With the Danes of Limerick, they were simply ‘the Irish’ now.

They were the warriors of Brian Boru.

The order to march was given, and they moved out, following Murcha’s standard. According to the bards,
Murcha mac Brian was the last man in Ireland trained to use both his right and his left hand equally in wielding weapons. This he had learned from Brian Boru.

Close to his shoulder was his son Turlough, who was being prepared in all ways to succeed him.

The army of the High King marched bravely and haughtily, with one mind.

The enemy prepared to meet them. The ranks of Maelmora’s Leinstermen were swelled by Sitric’s Norsemen. But the most fearsome warriors of all were those who came leaping out of the longships and wading ashore through the shallows, screaming for blood. They had come without honour and without mercy. They had come to plunder, come to kill.

In addition to swords and axes they had polished yellow bows, and quivers filled with arrows. Some had dragons and snakes painted on their flesh. Some were berserkers, men dressed in bearskins and out of their minds with drugged wine.

Holding his men back, Malachy of Meath watched from a distant hill. ‘Let Brian Boru do it without me,’ he said, standing with folded arms.

The two armies came together with a mighty impact, shield to shield and breast to breast, eye glaring into angry eye. A thousand screams of fury split the air at once.

Young Turlough had not expected such total confusion. One moment there were two masses of men. The next moment there was only one mass of shouting, slashing, cursing warriors locked in combat. Soon they were so covered in blood you could not tell one from another.

Turlough dodged, ran, struck, dodged again, always moving forward, trying to keep his eye on his father’s
standard so he would not be separated from the Dalcassians. He did not have time to be afraid, everything was happening too fast.

From the walls of Dublin, Brian’s daughter Emer thought she could see the standard of the three lions and cried out, ‘Brian Boru!’

Sitric snarled at her, ‘Cheer for my side, wife.’

She gave him a hostile stare. ‘My father is an old man, yet he goes to war. You are a young man, yet you stand here with the women.’

‘Maelmora’s down there somewhere. If he’s killed, who would be in command? I have to protect myself in case I am needed later.’

Emer snorted.

Gormla, who was standing just beyond Sitric, said nothing at all. She was shading her eyes with her hand, trying to make out the standard of Maelmora of Leinster.

Following Brian’s battle plan, once they met the enemy his warriors formed themselves into three lines, attempting to pin the foreigners between them. But led by Sigurd and Brodir, the enemy was also using a plan. They were fighting for time while they waited for the last men off the ships to join them. The invaders had been coming ashore since sunrise, when the tide was full and the vessels could come close to land.

Maelmora of Leinster was unaware that Sitric Silkbeard was not also in the field. As he hewed and hacked his way through men, he was looking for Sitric. Perhaps that is why he did not see Conaing the Dalcassian until it was too late.

Brian’s nephew had just slain one of the warriors from Orkney and was turning to meet a new challenge when he found himself face to face with the King of Leinster. They had last seen each other at the ill-fated chess game
in the hall at Kincora. Conaing grinned a savage grin. ‘There’s no yew tree for you to hide in here, Maelmora!’ he cried, leaping at his foe.

Watching from the walls of Dublin, Gormla had just caught sight of her brother’s standard when she saw it fall. Next she glimpsed the standard of Conaing of the Dalcassians. Then it too fell, and was seen no more.

Gormla drew in a deep breath. Without turning to look at Sitric, she asked, ‘Have you brought in enough foreigners to kill Brian Boru even without my brother’s help?’

‘Why?’

Gormla did not answer. She kept her eyes on the battle, and her fists clenched.

Dublin, the town of the black pool, occupied the land south of the Liffey. The area north of the river was now fully overrun by warriors. Smoke was rising from various outlying districts that had been burned in the march to battle.

The only way to reach Dublin from the battlefield was by Dugall’s Bridge. The fighting was heavy there throughout the day. It was also heavy around a fishing weir on the river Tolka, a place that would come to be known as the Weir of Clontarf.

Sitric’s army, for the most part, fought with their backs to the sea that had brought them. Brian’s men fought with their backs to the land that was theirs.

Because the day was Good Friday, those who were Christians in Dublin – and there were many of them – sought to observe the holy day. It was impossible. The fighting was too near. Prayers could not be heard above the shrieks of the dying.

At Brian’s order, his men marked out for special attack the invaders who wore coats of mail. With the axes Brian
had taught them to use, the Irish cut the armour to bits.

Watching from the walls, Sitric at first compared the scene to that of reapers cutting corn in a field. ‘See how my men are flinging the sheaves to the ground,’ he boasted.

Emer replied, ‘The true harvest will be measured at the end of the day.’

Gormla said nothing. She stared grimly towards the battle, wondering where Brian was.

Was he alive? Or dead?

Did she really want him dead?

Did she really want to be carried away to Orkney, or the Isle of Man, to end her days in a foreign hall as the wife of a brutal man?

How had things come to this? she wondered.

The day was long and terrible. The tide turned and still the fighting went on. And still Malachy watched from his hill.

Murcha was fighting like a man inspired. No one could stand against him. He cut his way through the enemy ranks with his brave young son beside him until he reached the Earl of Orkney himself, Sigurd the Stout.

Sigurd’s raven banner identified the man, and was a rallying point for his followers. Murcha quickly killed the standard bearer so the Orkney warlord’s position would not be known by his men. Alarmed, Sigurd shouted for someone else to lift the standard, but the man he had thought his most trusted friend cried ‘Carry it yourself!’ and fled.

Murcha mac Brian was a terrifying sight on that day. No one wanted to face him.

Sigurd, abandoned, had no choice.

With a righthanded blow, Murcha hit Sigurd’s head so hard that the Orkneyman’s helmet straps burst and the
bronze helmet flew from his head. A heartbeat later Murcha’s left hand drove a sword deep into Sigurd’s body, and the Earl of Orkney was dead.

Murcha turned and began fighting his way towards the Weir of Clontarf, where a number of Dalcassians had engaged the enemy in the most savage fighting of the day.

By this time, everyone in Dublin was trying to find a place on the walls from which to watch the fighting. They saw the tide of battle move back and forth for a long time, but at last it became clear that the High King’s forces were winning.

A light came into Emer’s eyes. Her husband Sitric wore a face like a winter storm.

Gormla merely stood and stared.

Towards evening Brian’s forces made a combined and very determined attack, and the enemy fell back at every point. Soon they were running, with the High King’s army in hot pursuit.

At that point, as the watchers on the wall noted, Malachy changed his mind. He and his Meathmen hurried to join the fight. They mingled with Brian’s men, sharing in the final slaughter.

In terror, the invaders ran for the ships that had brought them.

Emer cried triumphantly, ‘Your foreigners rush to claim their inheritance, the sea! They gallop over the plain like a herd of cattle driven mad by flies!’ She laughed with joy.

Enraged, Sitric struck the daughter of Brian Boru such a blow that he broke two of her teeth.

But Emer did not cry.

Murcha was so weary he could hardly lift his arms to strike another blow, but he could not stop fighting until
the last of the enemy surrendered or was dead. He saw yet another foreign banner in the distance and hurried towards it, sword in hand.

In the tent in Tomar’s Wood, Brian had waited through the long day for each bit of news from the battle. Again and again he sent Laiten to observe and report. ‘Can you still see my son’s standard?’ the High King would ask eagerly.

‘I can,’ came the answer.

‘Then all is well.’

But soon Brian would ask again, ‘Can you still see my son’s standard?’

‘I can. The fighting is so heavy it sounds as if a huge crowd is cutting down the forest with axes. But there is the banner of Murcha mac Brian, and it is moving forwards.’

Brian managed a faint smile.

The third time he asked the question was late in the day. Twilight, blue and shadowed, was creeping through Tomar’s Wood. The sounds of battle had grown fainter, for fewer men were alive to fight. The High King’s forces were driving the enemy ahead of them into the sea.

The tide, which had been full at sunrise, was full again at sunset. The foreigners were drowning in the water that had carried them to Ireland.

‘Where is Murcha’s banner now?’ Brian called to Laiten, who had climbed a tree to have a better view.

‘I see it … there … I … it is fallen.’

Brian stopped breathing. ‘Fallen?’

‘The Prince Murcha has fallen also,’ Laiten said sorrowfully. ‘He does not rise.’

Brian stood at the entrance to his tent, listening to the fading sounds of battle. The last battle sounds I shall ever hear, he thought. And the enemy is defeated.

‘Is my son dead?’ he forced himself to ask Laiten. ‘Go and see.’ But he did not have to wait for the answer. He knew it in his heart. Aval had told him.

Brian Boru had taken many blows in his long life. He took this as he had taken the others, standing.

His enemies were crushed. They had swum against the tide, they had attacked a mighty oak with their puny fists. They had flung themselves against a will stronger than their own, and had been broken. Now they lay bloody and uncaring on the battlefield, or floated on the swelling tide, their dreams of plunder forgotten.

But they had not died alone. Though every foreign leader, except Brodir of Man, had been killed in the day’s fighting, many Irish princes were also dead. In slaying Maelmora of Leinster, Conaing the Dalcassian had lost his life.

Murcha, son and Tanist of Brian Boru, the man trained to preserve Brian’s vision of kingship, had died at the very close of battle.

And in the bloody waters of the Weir of Clontarf, with his fingers still tangled in the yellow hair of the Viking he had killed there, young Turlough mac Murcha floated with his dead face turned towards the sky.

A kind fate spared Brian this final heartbreak.

As he stood in the twilight, Brodir of Man was running wildly through Tomar’s Wood, trying to hide from pursuing Dalcassians. He was the last invading warlord left alive.

Soon Brodir, mad with fear, would stumble across a leather tent and a tall, white-haired old man who still had his sword.

Neither would live to see the first star.

But Brian did not know this as he stood listening to the last sounds of battle. He knew only that Murcha was
dead, and that his army had won a mighty victory. Never again would the Vikings try to take Ireland by force. The plunderers were dead. The survivors would become ‘the Irish’.

Already, Brian could hear his men beginning to celebrate. Down by the shore, the army of the High King was chanting its victory cry. The voices of the Gael mingled with those of Brian’s loyal Danes, rising to make one voice, one clear cry of triumph.

‘Boru! BORU!
BORU
!’

Listening, Brian Boru smiled through his tears.