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| The Rite of Spring: Fragment 18g | ||||
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The Leader of the Red Band |
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| in which Fheardheach visits his colleagues, and encounters a relative | ||||
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| The Rite of Spring: Fragment 18g | ||||
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The Leader of the Red Band |
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| in which Fheardheach visits his colleagues, and encounters a relative | ||||
Taking my own troop, I rode first North, to find Duiriach. It was a long time before I saw any of his camps. Then I met with a herdsman, and was directed into a narrow, steep sided defile. Coming into the defile, we were guided between a number of covered pits set to break a charge, and found, under the trees, a sizable encampment. I thought to myself how shameful to hide one's encampment; also how foolish to place it there, where the enemy could seize the hilltops. Nevertheless, I found that most of the old people and the children of his band were there, and I supposed that the women were in the tents, as should be.
Duiriach, however, was not there. A young scout said that he was out hunting, and offered to take me out to him. I thought hunting a frivolous pastime in such a crisis, but as the need to talk with him was great, we set off. After we had ridden briskly for some distance and were coming to a rise in the ground, my guide said we should dismount and leave the troop here. I was loathe to do this, but again consented, so as not to antagonise Duiriach. As we topped the low ridge, my guide directed me to crouch with him in the grass and wait a while.
In front of us was an open bowl of land, stretching off into the distance. About two bowshots from us was a small encampment, round black tents looking lonely in the wide sweep of the grassland. There was no-one to be seen. My guide bade me wait; and I waited, though with but poor patience for time was wasting, and it was unlikely that I would be able to go on to find Mheadhonach that day. At last a small cluster of horsemen came in sight over a rise, riding swiftly; and, close behind them, a larger band. As they grew nearer I saw the leading band were of the Noble Clan, and their pursuers, Coiremhiconicfhear. At once I started to get up, meaning to bring up my troop, but the scout hissed at me to stay down, and not interfere with the hunt. I was angered by the impertinence, but sufficiently cautious - and interested, I may say - to do as he suggested.
As the horsemen came up to the tents, instead of turning to fight as I had expected them to, they circled round behind the camp. The Coiremhiconicfhear were so close that they had no option but to follow. As they did so a storm of arrows flew from the tents, so that many of the attackers fell at once, and then horsemen started to burst out of the camp to join in the melee. It seemed to me inconceiveble that so many men and horses had been hidden by those small tents. The fight was clearly going well. My scout jumped up and said that we might now proceed.
When we got down to the camp it was all over. None of the Coiremhiconicfhear were left alive; no prisoners had been taken for Rhiconic the All Seeing. Warriors on horseback were rounding up the last of the attackers' horses; others were turning over the bodies, trying to work out which had been killed by whom.
Duiriach was in high spirits when I found him. Indeed, who was to blame him, for he had achieved a significant victory, even if the manner of it had been by a concealed stratagem rather than the open challenge a noble warrior should offer. Three troops of Coiremhiconicfhear were dead most shot by the hidden archers. I congratulated him. He greeted me cordially, and invited me to ride back to the main camp to share his evening meal. Something about his appearance puzzled me - it was nothing out of the ordinary, simply something I felt should not be so.
A great heap of Coiremhiconicfhear weapons was being assembled. Duiriach told me to take something as a souvenir of the day. I was minded to refuse, but then a thought came to me, and I took a fine belt quiver of Coiremhiconicfhear arrows.
His men had started to tear down the dummy camp. I saw that the tents had had their inner walls removed, so that horses could be hidden in the tents, and ridden out from them, and a series of vertical slits had been made in the outer walls to allow archery. I saw more. I saw that many of the archers were not warriors or scouts but women. This horrified me. If he would so far stray from tradition to permit women to leave their tents and take on mens' functions, where would the end of it be?
At last the camp was packed, and the warriors mounted up, most taking up a lad or a woman with him on his horse. We started out. Duiriach rode up alongside me, a woman sitting behind him. She was veiled, and kept her head turned away from me. Again, I had the feeling of something not as it should be... and then I realised that Duiriach wore the same tunic as he had had on at the Council. That was why the woman riding behind him seemed so familiar, in a way that clothes could not describe. The anger in me boiled up furiously, but I choked it down. We rode on, back to the camp in the defile. As we rode in, troops on top of each of the two flanking hills suddenly appeared out of the grass to cheer.
At the meal itself, I was pleased to see that the younger women took no part, and the older women merely served the warriors, as is proper. We ate a good meal of roast mutton and oatbread. In celebration of the days success, a skin of wine was shared among the men - a pleasant treat. After the meal, over a flask of fermented mare's milk, Duiriach asked me why I had come. I said that we must decide how long we could wait for the new Chieftain to arrive, before we accepted that Aonan had failed. He laughed in my face. He said that his band would not wait for any new Chieftains. The Clan had been hidebound by tradition for generations, and that was why it was getting beaten. The only way to save our people was to forget custom, and follow the leaders who could win. If Aonan had brought Gruath back to us, that would do no good to us, because he had never fought a battle in his life. He could not lead the people.
Of course I remonstrated, saying that we could not expect the favour of the All-Seeing Rhiconic if we did not keep the ways that had been laid down for our mighty ancesters in the long past. He said something most blasphemous, and then went on to say that if the Rhiconic had any potency then he had deserted the Noble Clan. He said he had taken council with his warriors, and they were determined that they would no longer follow the word of the Chieftain of the Rhiconaiach unless it suited them to do so. He said that while we were fighting the same enemy it might suit his band to fight alongside the rest of the Clan, so long as Clan's troops were well led. But they would do so only so long as it suited them.
I grew very angry at this. I said that I saw he had so far forgotten tradition and honour as to take a nameless woman into his tent. He looked at me very straightly, as if he had taken off a mask. As for the woman in his tent, he said, if she had been defiled it was by force and not by her own act. And if any had been dishonoured by that, it was surely not herself, but those whose duty it was to protect her; and if he did not choose to name her, that was not because she had dishonoured her name, but because others had dishonoured it for her. Then he went on:
"but tell me, old man, If you still had a daughter, whom you might, perhaps, call Fheardhan - for I know that is a name traditional in your family - and she had, let us suppose, been betrothed to a warrior called Ryvoan, whom we believe is dead. Suppose that. If I, as Leader of the Gold, were to ask you if I might take your daughter Fheardhan into my tent, would you refuse me?"
I stood up, emptying my cup of mare's milk into the fire. I had no daughters, I said. But if I had had a daughter, she would go to the tent of a noble warrior, not one who shot arrows from hiding. The Rhiconicfhearchaorusduadh would never fight alongside renegades and savages, but against them. If his band had given up the ways of their ancestors, they should go and join the Coiremhiconicfhearchaorusduadh, where they belonged. I then called my troop to me rode out of his camp into the dark.
We were forced to make camp out on the open steppe that night, for we were too far from any friendly tents. We set sentries, as is usual, and went to sleep. About the middle of the night something wakened me, and I lay listening for a moment. Two of my younger warriors were keeping the watch, speaking of the day in quiet voices. It became clear that they thought that Duiriach was in the right of it, and they were considering leaving my band to join him. One said that they should leave it a while. It would not be long before the old ones were beaten, and then the whole Clan would join Duiriach. His companion seemed to agree, and then, as they paced round the camp, their voices faded away again. It was a long time before I went to sleep. I knew that if we were to hold the Clan together, we would need to turn the tide quickly. But could Braert the Idiot lead us to victory? I prayed to the All-Seeing God, asking for guidance.
The next day we found Mheadhonach, and I had conference with him. He thought there was no point in holding off the investiture. It was almost certain that Aonan had failed. Braert would have to be invested. We would have to learn how to control him, and guide his decisions. If it should happen by some chance that Aonan succeeded, then he was sure Braert could be made to step down in favour of her master. Mheadhonach was not unduly concerned about Duiriach's defection. The Gold Band were too small to survive without the protection of the Clan. As soon as we started to win victories, he said, people of the Gold Band would start to drift back.
I thought about who would take the succession if Braert were to die. There was a warrior of the line of Braeriach the Great in the Gold Band, I knew; presumably he must be considered to be dishonoured, so he would not inherit. Old Ceathre is descended from the line of the second son of Braeriach the Virile, but it has never happened that a shaman has taken the Chieftainship; I did not think this would accord with custom. I myself am directly in line from the third son of Braeriach the Virile, as Mheadhonach is of the fifth, the line of the fourth son having died out. So that if Braert were to die, I might become the Chieftain. It needed thinking upon; I took up my bow and went hunting. I think best, alone among the grasses.
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