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Cruachan

The night I left Connaught, the night I killed the King, was three days before Samhain when the King would have died anyway. Strange how one night can change so much. When I think back about it now, I can see all the things that happened after radiating from the night three nights before Samhain like the spokes from the hub of a chariot wheel. And, like the hub of a war-chariot, that night had a knife in it.

I had been at weapons-practice most of the afternoon with my spear-brother Dalaigh. We had thrown light holly-wood throw-spears at each other and warded them off with our shields; we had had a mock fight with our stabbing spears and then finished by fighting with our swords, as if we had been fighting a single combat. Dalaigh had learned a new trick while I had been away which was why he suggested the weapons-practice in the first place. I had hardly started to attack properly, before he casually knocked myh blade away with a twist I had never seen before and stopped the thrust just short of my breastbone. I stood there, breathing fast and sweating a little with exertion and looked ruefully down at the blade as Dalaigh lowered it, grinning broadly.

“All right,” I said, “Now how did you do that?”

“Ailell showed me while you were away.”

“Ailell? I should have known. How do you do it?”

He tried to show me, but I find it difficult to learn new tricks of swordsmanship, though I’m adequate enough as a swordsman. Dalaigh delighted in them, collected them and treasured them as the children of Cruachan did the wooden dolls and carts he made for them. He gave up in disgust when I got it wrong for the fifth time and announced that he was hungry. We wandered into the Queen’s hall, routed out one of the slave-women and told her to find us some meat and make us a couple of oat-cakes. She started off with sighs and black looks, but by the time the oat-cakes were half-burned Dalaigh had his arm round her waist and was grinning down at her in a way she understood perfectly well.