In the Annals of Ulster you may read the tale of Cath Chluain Tarbh, when Máel Sechnaill and Brian Boru rode together to the conquest of Dublintown and fought on those royal banks Sigtrygg Silkbeard, King of Dublin, Sigurd the Stout, Earl of Orkney, and the fleet their ally Brodir brought from the Isle of Mann.
From the walls of Dublin Lady Sláine ingen Briain watched the battle. Her sympathies had worn too thin over the years of conflict to be strong on either side and it was little she cared, at this distance of time, for the fulfillment of her father’s ambition or even the extension of his old age. Nor had she any concern for her husband’s life, for Sigtrygg paced the wall beside her all day, wisely living to fight another day.
Thus from dawn to dusk, a grim smile on her face, she tracked the swaying armies as they grappled each other on the moss. When, at length, twilight fell and she knew that the omens had come true and Brian was victorious at the cost of his life, she could still laugh at the flight of the Vikings as they splashed into the receding tide, desperate to reach their ships. “The foreigners have gotten their inheritance!” she sneered. “I wonder, is it warm that they are? But they tarry not to be milked, whatever.”
On both sides nigh all the leaders lay slain upon the field. Brian Boru, killed in his tent as he prayed for victory, had been avenged by Ulf the Quarrelsome who found Brodir with Brian’s blood still warm on his sword. Sigurd the Stout died at the hands of Murchad mac Briain, but that heir apparent to the High Kingship of Ireland had not survived the fight either. Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill alone stood whole and hearty as he led the last charge. Water, churned by a thousand boots, swirled between foemen as the Viking longships drifted away from the shore before the straining flight of their owners.
Foremost in the Irish charge, fifteen-year-old Toirdelbach mac Murchada Ua Briain screamed the O’Brian warcry—lamh-laidir abu! From her post on the walls Lady Sláine caught the glint of his helmet—vain boy, he decorated it with tufts of reddish fur—and recognized her nephew. Fearless he threw himself into the waves; spun around, flung, he emerged again clutching at a Viking warrior who was scrambling over his ship’s side. She strained her eyes as Toir wrestled, striking the Viking’s jerkin with his dagger what time the warrior swung his fists wildly at him. Another wave roared; she lost him in the mist, and when it settled, the boy was gone.
But his helmet rolled in on the morrow’s tide, and amid the aftermath Lady Sláine paused long enough to send it to her niece. —Lamh-laidir abu!
Caoimhe was eleven years old—a lovely girl; sweet, clever, and too cute for anything, Aintín Bé Binn said to her sister-in-law, smoothing the child’s hair as she glowered morosely beside her. “It’s simply tragic how the dear girl has been left without anybody,” Bé Binn said, dabbing at her eyes.
Lady Mór smiled. “What a privilege it will be for YOU to raise her,” she soothed.
Bé Binn stewed and Caoimhe, sighing a tiny sigh, clung more closely to her brother’s helmet, clanging it against the chainlinks on her belt.
Her aunt turned on her. “Child! That relic? I told you not to bring it to the coronation!”
Firmly Caoimhe placed the helmet on her own head, where it hung rather low over her eyes and threatened to stick her aunt in the ribs. “Toirdelbach should be king,” she said stubbornly. “I am here to represent him. Let them crown me, not Máel Sechnaill.”
“Heard anyone ever!” Bé Binn gasped.
“It’s a lovely sentiment,” Mór smiled. “Sweet, clever, and too cute for anything,” she murmured.
“I know you think he’s dead,” Caoimhe said, speaking with shocking clearness, “but he’s not. Water couldn’t kill Toir. He’ll come back, and everyone who supports the usurper will be sorry.” Her eyes flashed and she made a move toward the chancel.
Bé Binn sighed the massive original of Caoimhe’s sigh. Having no mind to find out what her husband Flaithbertach, hand-in-glove with Máel, would think if his niece made a disturbance on behalf of the O’Brian clan, she laid a heavy pair of hands on the girl and swung her unceremoniously to her shoulder.
Caoimhe gave a choked gasp of bewilderment. Prompt action was not what she had expected from her large and lethargic Aintín Bé. Carried inexorably down the nave, she lost precious seconds gathering her wits. “Put me down!” she cried—then, abandoning that useless line—“I protest this ceremony! The High Kingship of Ireland belongs to Toirdelbach mac Murchada Ua Briain, not to Máel Sechnaill—usurper!” Finding that no one paid her much attention, she began to kick heartily and direct her remarks more personally. “Uncail Tadc! Lazy soot, you betray your family! Flaithbertach, you meat-sniffer, what has Máel promised you? You lop-sided trolls! You fireside kettles! Máel Sechnaill mac Donaill! You wouldn’t hit water if you fell out of a boat!”
Bé Binn shut her mouth in a tight line and strode on.
“Fool of a goat, put me down!” Caoimhe raged, turning her attention to her aunt. “Are you Irish or are you a cow? You are a hobgoblin in disguise!”
At that ultimate affront, Bé found her tongue. “You’ll pay for this,” she snapped.
“You’ll pay!” Caoimhe roared. “You’ll pay yet, when Toirdelbach comes home! I shall tell him every insult and he will wipe the slate clean!”
“Whose insults?” her aunt retorted. “Silence child, you only make yourself ridiculous.” Panting, she flung the girl onto a heap of hay, some yards outside the church.
Up sprang Caoimhe, but Bé was on the alert and flung her back with a strong hand. Like a game of cat and mouse Caoimhe jumped and she pounced, until at last the girl gave it up in despair, flinging herself on the ground near to sobs. “I’ll escape yet!” she screamed. “You can’t watch me forever!”
“Don’t be a fool, Caoimhe,” Bé retorted, not unkindly. “You are no one and have nothing. You only make trouble for yourself.”
“I am Caoimhe ingen Murchada Ui Briain!” she cried. “My brother is High King of Ireland.”
“Your brother is dead. If he is not dead, he is a slave.”
“He is not dead, and I shall find him.”
“You! Caoimhe, you wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“I shall go visit Aintín Sláine,” she declared. “She is wed to a Viking. She will know where to look.”
“By all means, go visit Sláine. That will be delightful,” Bé Binn said with a sigh.
Lamh-laidir abu!
So it fell out upon a day that Caoimhe walked on sore feet into Dublintown. The richest city in Ireland, Dublin was larger and more opulent than anything she had ever seen. Everything in it awed her, her aunt above all. Lady Sláine saw her for three minutes; heard her intentions and gave her a dismissive, “Child, you are mad as a berserker! —Bridget, take Lady Caoimhe to her rooms. See that she gets proper attendance, and a bath. —Welcome to Dublin, niece.” Whereupon she promptly forgot her.
Caoimhe found that every inhabitant of Dublin had their own tale to tell of Cath Chluain Tarbh and was eager to contradict all others. She swallowed every account greedily, trying to discover whose longship Toir had reached.
“Toirdelbach?” one old salt mused. “Aye, mac Murchada, that one. He fought like an O’Brian. He drowned chasing that villain Hod, lass. Was he kin of yours?”
Others told the story from the Viking perspective. “Já, já, there was one dog of an Irish lad who reached the ships. Tried to stick a toothpick in Hod the Huge’s back,” a Viking guffawed. “He got what he deserved. Hrafnagud!”
“Who is Hod the Huge?” Caoimhe asked.
“What, not heard tell of Hod the Huge?! How did your mother frighten you?”
“I never had a mother.”
The hulking Viking stared at her in blank surprise. “Heá!” He dropped the rope he was coiling and sat thoughtfully on a barrel, leaning on his palms and staring at her.
“Tell me about Hod,” she prompted, leaning on his knee. “Who is he? Where does he live?”
“Hod the Huge, if ye want to know, lassie,” he said, “is the biggest Viking that ever raided Ireland. He has built a longport on the western coast of Mann.”
“Thank you,” she said, and long and wistfully she gazed at the sea and the ships riding it.
Lamh-laidir abu.
Dublin in these days was the mercantile center of the chaos of Gaelic clans and Viking settlements that dotted Ireland, and its quays were some of the busiest outside the Mediterranean. Originally a Viking longport, it had changed hands a few times. Sometimes, as now, though a Norseman ruled he owed tribute and allegiance to the Irish High King, not to the Viking earls. Yet no alliance was proof against good gold, no matter which side brought it. Longships sailed in and out, disposing of goods stolen on Viking-cruise, without too many questions being asked.
More brisk even than the trade in stolen goods was Dublin’s trade in stolen souls. Waves of slaves flowed through its marketplaces; Irish slaves when Vikings won a battle, Viking slaves when the Irish were victorious, but slaves, always slaves. Day after day Caoimhe watched them go by, marking their dejected looks and hopeless tread. Sold slaves were marched by their new owners down the quay and loaded into ships, destined for remote settlements in need of hard manual labor.
One day the group she had been waiting for came by. The weary tramp of their feet beat a hopeless rhythm, strange contrast to Caoimhe’s pounding heartbeat as she fell softly into line. The solid earth of the streets gave way to the trembling wood of a gangplank and Caoimhe, seeing the water swirl beneath her, clutched more tightly her brother’s helmet and crossed the point of no return with a silent farewell to the land of her fathers. Lamh-laidir abu!
The voyage to Mann was not long enough for Caoimhe to feel more than a mild heave of seasickness, and at the order given she scooped up her brother’s helmet and joined the slaves. They marched onto the rocky pier and Caoimhe, her heart sinking to her toes, singled out the giant Hod. The slaves lined up awaiting his verdict—“That one’s a sheep-herd. Helga can have this one. I want him as a housecarl. —What trash is this you’ve brought me, Trym, you slug?”
“He’s stronger than he looks. Bargain price.”
“Heá! Let him work in the fields until he dies.”
Hod’s judgments came swift and sharp. Caoimhe settled Toir’s helmet on her head and tightened a sweaty palm around the long knife under her jerkin.
Then his eye fell—it was a long fall—on her, standing bold and unchained. “Who is this?” he asked.
“I am Caoimhe ingen Murchada Ui Briain!” she cried triumphantly.
His eyebrows came together in puzzlement. “I’m Hod,” he said. His voice seemed to tumble down from the clouds.
“Viking thane,” she sneered, suitably unimpressed by his lack of pedigree.
“Irish thrall,” he scoffed.
She flung her head back and her knife flashed suddenly in the air. “I am no thrall! I am the sister of Toirdelbach mac Murchada. I have come to rescue him if he is alive, and avenge him if he’s dead!”
With this announcement of her intentions she sprang suddenly forward in an explosive strike that nearly reached Hod’s elbow.
He caught the blow, brushed it off with a massive palm. She saw blood and went wild. Swinging, slashing, swaying, her blade moved like a lightning strike. Thwarted time and again by his thick leather cloak, she struck time and again undeterred. He spun circles trying to catch her, but she danced like a will o’ the wisp around him.
While it lasted, it lasted forever; but it was over as quickly as it began. A single backhand strike sent her flying. Breathless, she tried to rise, but his boot pinned her helplessly.
From an immense height he bent to remove her helmet. “Caoimhe ingen Murchada,” he sneered, marveling at her youth. “From today on, you are only another thrall of Hod the Huge.”
She reached feebly up for the helmet. Her breath whistled in her throat; her lungs burned; her eyesight blurred, and she fell back in a suffocated faint.
Lamh-laidir abu!
Caoimhe woke in a dark room so small that she could feel three sides of it without moving. Slowly her fight with the giant came back to her and she raged, flinging herself from wall to wall. She stumbled onto a small pile of logs and began to throw them around instead, delighting devilishly in the way they bounced around in the tiny space. One cut her across the cheek and she threw the next one more furiously.
Suddenly she fell silent as a mouse. Someone had whispered her name.
“Caoimhe!”
“Toir!” Her voice trembled. “Toirdelbach—is that you, Toir, oh, Toir, where are you…”
“Here, here,” he whispered. “Look up, look up, there’s a window—”
She reached blindly up, for it was as dark outside as in, and caught his groping hand. “Toir!”
“Caoimhe… you came… you shouldn’t have come!”
“I had nowhere else to go…”
“Nowhere? Father…?”
“Father died. Grandfather too…”
“I am sorry,” he said. “But Caoimhe—you are a brave fool! I saw my helmet on a spike and the new thralls told me that you fought Hod the Huge… Caoimhe, you shouldn’t have come!”
“I had to,” she insisted. “They are crowning Máel Sechnaill High King of Ireland! Toir, it ought to be you!”
“I! What would I do as a king?” he laughed.
“You ought to be king,” she said stubbornly.
“Nay! I would be content as a free man.”
“Let’s escape!” she cried.
“Aye… I’ll think on it.” He fumbled with something through the window and presently she felt the soft squeeze of bread against her palm. “Keep up heart, Caoimhe. We’ll get home. Lamh-laidir abu.”
Lady Sláine ingen Briain rose from a sumptuous dinner with a curious sense of lack that she could not explain by anything related to the cookery, which was excellent, nor by the absence of intelligent conversation, which was (she thought) customary—it must have been… ah wait! The girl! Ingen Murchada. Her seat had been vacant. What was her name? Caoimhe? —Bridget, find that girl. One must not simply lose a niece, direct lineal descendant of the erstwhile High King of Ireland.
But apparently one had, in fact, simply lost the niece. Every trail came to a dead end and Lady Sláine, becoming honestly concerned, explained her predicament to Sigtrygg Silkbeard. He came up with a Viking who claimed that Caoimhe had shown marked interest in the location of Hod the Huge. Sigtrygg was annoyed.
“Your family,” he griped, “always stirs up trouble with our allies.”
“At least,” Sláine sneered, “we always win, whatever.”
Sigtrygg gave in and sent his swiftest longship to Mann with orders to bring Caoimhe back without offending Hod. Lady Sláine went along for the honor of the family, which she did not think would be properly attended to otherwise.
Hod the Huge, however, cared not a fig for the honor of the O’Brians—nor Sigtrygg Silkbeard’s, for that matter. Lord in his own dominions, he sent Lady Sláine right back onto her ship with a flea in her ear and fury in her soul.
Her fury was matched by the elements. What had been a slight swell on the crossing was growing into a storm. Therefore she did not shake off the dust of Hod’s longport as speedily as she could have wished, but instead rode it out in the bay, meditating vengeance. She had reason on her side too, for she had caught a glimpse of Toir’s helmet, rather the worse for weather but unmistakable with its fuzz of fur. But there was nothing she could do just now, with one longship to pit against Hod’s entire village.
Therefore she sulked, and remembered with pleasure how Toirdelbach had flung himself after those Vikings into the sea, and wished the defeat had been more thorough.
The rain, which came cascading out of the clouds, had battered the longship for many a long hour when Lady Sláine became aware of a battering sound that was not rain. Startled at the same moment, her seamen raised a cry and almost from one second to the next, the night erupted into blows and shouts, a blind battle in which friend was indistinguishable from foe. Sláine snatched up a sword and posted herself at the stern, slicing the air resolutely like an angel of doom and occasionally nicking someone who, in an attempt to gain a footing on her ship, got too close to the stern.
In the severe darkness, the greatest damage came not from the melee—which consisted more of yells, and swords or axes drummed against shields, than anything else—but from the crashing of her ship and Hod’s, which drove against each other with every wave, until the hulls creaked and groaned. When dawn streaked the sky, the light revealed that both ships were listing.
It revealed another thing too; and Lady Sláine saw with astonishment Toirdelbach and Caoimhe braving the wild sea in a coracle. She rubbed her eyes without rubbing the sight away. Delighted, she hailed her niece and nephew, while for his part, Hod leaned over the edge of his ship, frowning ferociously. But he was not frowning at his escaping thralls; he was frowning at his seven-year-old son Aer, who, for reasons best known to himself, had set off in pursuit of his Irish babysitter and her brother in his own coracle and was even now standing and paddling with all his might in boyish bravado.
The longships had drifted apart; their sides lined with warriors breathlessly watching. The coracles battled the waves bravely, but it was a hopeless struggle. Aer’s gave out first, and he sank with a choked gurgle.
Hod was over the side in a moment, but he had five hundred yards to go in a choppy sea. It was Caoimhe who reached the boy first, spilling over the side of her coracle more in surprise than by design. He pulled her helplessly under, but right behind her was Toirdelbach, and he pushed them up; diving and lifting with all his strength as Hod plowed through the water with desperate speed.
The longship crews had not been idle meanwhile. Oars flashed and the ships, moving sluggishly, drew closer and closer to the struggling swimmers. Hod lifted his boy and the girl up to the rowers, flinging himself over the oars in exhaustion. With the other hand he groped for Toir—groped, searched, hunted, until at last he reached a floating arm and pulled it towards himself.
Lady Sláine—hers was the ship first on the scene—bent first over Caoimhe and then over Aer; but over Toirdelbach she paused, and though she had not wept to think him dead before, found herself weeping now.
Lamh-laidir abu.
They buried him in the listing ship, sending it off westward toward Dublin so that he might reach home at last. Hod the Huge pushed it out to sea and Aer the Rescued sent after it the burning arrow. And Caoimhe clutched his helmet as Lady Sláine sang the song of mourning; and when her aunt went back to Dublin and Hod said, “Go with my thanks: you are free,” she said: “I have nowhere to go; am I free to stay?”
So passed the High Kingship of Ireland from the house of Brian Boru. And so passed the youngest hero on the field of Cath Chluain Tarbh, when Máel Sechnaill and Brian Boru rode together to the conquest of Dublintown and fought on those royal banks Sigtrygg Silkbeard, King of Dublin, Sigurd the Stout, Earl of Orkney, and the fleet their ally Brodir brought from the Isle of Mann. Lamh-laidir abu!
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Geneva D 
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