11. Feast and Following #3
At last, the very young bond servant from the weaving hall fell to her knees and whispered, "The y-y-young arms man with the small feet and a dark way of going, oh great master allav.
I saw the f-f-fleeces and the cask when I was taken to his place, or fleeces and a cask very much like.
" She shook like a white bark tree in the wind.
"He beat me for asking if they should be spun or carded. "
"Daithi Short-foot," Odhran and Cathal spoke, almost together. "When we left the south, Daithi swore before me that he'd brought nothing back but what the priests had allowed," Odhran continued. "Swore on sod and blade both."
Oh, the hissing gasp that greeted those words. Tuathal winced. Others turned pale. The servant girl shrank down, fear as clear as spring water.
"He had charge of the wagon with our bread and beer," Morlais said. "Made sure everything was packed proper and under cover every day and night, he did."
Anger turned to sickness in Tuathal's gut. If Daithi had indeed kept back what the law had forbidden, he'd have had a way to hide and carry it that no one would test. "Has anyone told the priests?"
The silence answered his question. The serving girl went flat on the ground, sobbing.
Tuathal studied the dirt, then looked up at the anger-reddened faces of the men.
None of them would keep proper, respectful tongue in his head.
Tuathal said, "I will go tell them, one of you find the king.
Set the forbidden goods aside. Girl," he crouched beside her.
"This is none of your doing. You are under my protection, and if Daithi or another try to hurt you for speaking the truth, they will feel the edge of my tongue. "
A few gulps met his words. He smiled a cold, humorless smile as he stood.
"I go." He strode off before the others could stop him, or Daithi reappeared.
A path cleared ahead of him, and the guard at the lower gate glanced at him, then opened the way without asking.
Once on level ground, he calmed himself.
Taking anger to the wise ones ended poorly, even anger rightly felt.
The path to the dwellings of the wise ones wound through some trees, separating it farther from the main way.
Tuathal slowed his steps, giving time for the unseen watchers to speak to the wise ones of his coming.
Indeed, when he reached the two wooden posts marking the edge of the priests' land, Eoghan himself and a young female wise one waited there, staffs in hand.
Tuathal stopped short of the boundary and bowed.
"What brings you?" Eoghan's frown and tight grip on his staff boded poorly.
Tuathal gestured peace, hands spread as he bowed a little. "I come to ask the judgment of the wise. Forbidden goods were brought back from the south. The one who brought them swore on blade and sod, before witnesses, that he had nothing save what the gods allowed."
The hiss from the two priests chilled him. "On blade and sod." Dark fire seemed to flash in the woman's eyes.
"Yes, honored wise one. The goods were concealed twice from those who sought for them."
"We come," Eoghan snapped. "Now. All is explained."
Tuathal bowed and followed as they hurried to the hill.
Once again, the gate opened without question or challenge, the guard drawing back well clear of the trio.
As they reached the top of the mound, Fiachta himself met the priests, Odhran at his right shoulder.
Tuathal slowed his pace as the king bowed, then turned and led the wise ones to the items. He was no longer needed.
He knew the laws of men and the penalties of men's laws.
The ways of the gods ... Not his to know.
"Becaush south mead's too good to washte," a slurring voice declared as Tuathal drew closer to the arms men's hall and the gathered crowd.
A third of the watchers departed at the declaration, fleeing perhaps.
Tuathal waited for them to leave, then approached the group once more.
"An' the fleeces were good. We left t' sheep, an' I didn' get my proper share. "
Several people turned worried eyes toward him. Tuathal murmured, "You hear drink and greed together." Three more detached themselves from the witnesses with speed.
Next they heard thumps, a howl of pain, and more thumps, then silence. Eoghan declared, "He will return to the gods what he denied them, plus a penalty. The gods will determine what is required to lift fully the punishment Daithi brought to this land."
That would not be a sheep or cow, no, nor a payment in other goods and coin. The crowd murmured, the sound of agreement, and dispersed as Fiachta commanded, "Bind him, and leave him by the cistern until he wakes."
How badly had the other arms men, or the king himself, beaten the fool?
No, fool was not sufficient a word. Betrayer?
Oath breaker, that most certainly. Tuathal considered as he watched Cathal, Rian, and another drag the bloodied and limp warrior toward that part of the royal hill.
How often had greed been a man's undoing?
Perhaps a third of the tales warned of the dangers of desires unchecked by caution or custom.
"Between day and night," Eoghan said, voice cold and carrying, almost echoing.
"Between day and night, between land and sea, by blade and breath shall his life be given.
Burn the fleeces and scatter the ash in the pasture.
Pour the bee-gold into a furrow, and bury the shattered cask under the field.
" One long arm pointed to the south and east.
"It shall be done. Now," Fiachta swore, hand on his sword's bare blade. Arwel grabbed the fleeces and hurried them toward the gate as Cian the Red hefted the cask onto his shoulder and followed them. Fiachta beckoned to Tuathal, and he came to the king. "We go, witness the return."
"Yes, oh king." He followed at Fiachta's left shoulder, Odhran at the king's right hand.
Servants sped ahead of the warriors, and by the time they reached field and pasture, a heap of dry wood awaited the men's burdens.
After two tries flames began to lick the wood.
Eoghan and the lady wise one joined them.
"In there with the gift of the sheep," Eoghan commanded, voice sharp edged yet deep, not like a man's tones.
Arwel fed them into the flames, one at a time.
The fire darkened, the smoke turned black, and all moved away from the roaring heat.
"Burn them to ash," the one who spoke through the priest intoned.
As the creamy white wool charred and crumbled, Eoghan pointed to the closest field.
Cian the Red hefted the cask once more and carried it through a gate, well into the water-weakened wheat, and set it on the dirt.
Odhran had an ax, and slammed it into the cask's wood, springing the staves apart.
The arms men turned the small barrel so that the contents poured into a furrow.
When that ceased, Odhran finished breaking the wood into pieces as two farmers dug holes here and there.
The priests pushed the wood into the wet dirt, and the land men buried them.
Tuathal watched until the priests scattered the oily ashes across the pasture. "Tomorrow the oath breaker returns his life to the land," Eoghan intoned. "Between day and night, between land and sea, there shall we meet you, and the one foresworn."
"As you say, it shall be," Fiachta replied.