Declan O'Duinne Read online

  Declan O’Duinne

  The Saga of Roland Inness

  Book 6

  Wayne Grant

  Declan O’Duinne, Copyright © 2018 by Wayne Grant. All rights reserved.

  Printed by Kindle Direct Publishing. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN: 9781724081681

  Declan O’Duinne is a work of fiction. While some of the characters in this story are actual historical figures, their actions are largely the product of the author’s imagination.

  *Cover Art by More Visual, Ltd.

  For Phyllis and Don

  Contents

  Prologue

  The Lost Son

  The Trosc

  Carrickfergus

  The Road Home

  Reunion

  Hugh O’Neill

  The Council

  Allies

  The Broken Brother

  Margaret Maelchallain

  Leap of Faith

  Pursuit

  Down

  Saint Patrick’s Bell

  War Clouds

  Conor Mac Lochlainn

  The Gathering Storm

  Fight at the Ford

  The Eve of Battle

  Onslaught

  Abbey Square

  Victory

  Tullyhogue and Home

  Names and Places

  ~

  Prologue

  April, 1196 AD—Tandragee, Ulster

  Hugh O’Neill lurched to his right, dodging the sword thrust aimed at his throat. The razor-sharp blade slid along his hide-covered shield, digging a furrow but drawing no blood. The man who lunged at him stumbled forward, off balance, into the gap in the Irish line. It was a fatal mistake.

  O’Neill pivoted back to his left and brought his axe down behind the Englishman’s steel helmet. The blow did not penetrate the mail coif there, but the force of it broke the man’s neck. He fell face-down into the bloody, churned-up muck at O’Neill’s feet and did not stir. He would be one of the few English knights slain this day.

  The stocky Irishman slid left, straddling the Englishman’s corpse and hooking the blade of his axe over the rim of an enemy shield. Leaning back, he dragged the shield forward and down. Its owner tried desperately to rip his arm free of the straps but the forward pressure held him secure. The man was an Irish auxiliary who fought for the English and had no mail to protect him. A quick sword thrust by one of O’Neill’s warriors pierced him just above the heart.

  O’Neill looked down his line. For two hours they had pressed the English hard. Again and again he had led his men along the southern slope of the broad valley to strike the enemy left flank. Here the lines were manned by Irish levies from Antrim and Down who fought by choice or necessity for Sir John de Courcy, the Englishman who ruled the eastern third of Ulster. The Irish lines were stiffened by English knights clad from head to toe in chain mail.

  De Courcy’s attack had been a surprise and by the time the clans of the Cenél Eoghain had gathered to oppose him he’d crossed the River Bann with seven hundred men and had reached a place the locals called Tandragee, only twelve miles from the sacred abbey town of Armagh. For the clans, Armagh was more than an abbey and village perched on a hill. The church atop that hill was the mother church of all Ireland, founded by Saint Patrick himself when first he brought Christianity to the island. To lose Armagh would be a grievous blow, not only to the Cenél Eoghain who controlled the region, but to the Irish church as well.

  And so the clans had gathered.

  Outnumbered, de Courcy had pulled his men back to higher ground and dared the Irish to attack. And attack they had. Three times O’Neill watched his men break through the enemy ranks only to be thrown back by the English knights de Courcy had positioned just behind his lines. Now, as the afternoon drew on, the hillside was littered with the bodies of Irishmen on both sides—too many were men of the O’Neill clans, his men. They were dying for a king’s folly and his own damned pride!

  There was no time to think on that now as the English and their Irish levies gave ground slowly up the hill. His men pressed in on them, their war cries mixing with the clash of steel on steel, screams of pain and pleas to God. Then, above the din, Hugh heard a sound he dreaded. It was the piercing note of a hunting horn, the signal to retreat. It came from far off to his left, down on the valley floor. He prayed it was a mistake, but the horn sounded three more times.

  O’Neill cursed. He had feared this, had argued against attacking the English on open ground, had begged the King to wait, but Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn had overruled him. This was not O’Neill’s first battle against the English and meeting them in the open like this seldom ended well.

  He’d pleaded with Mac Lochlainn to fall back to higher ground and let the English attack him there, but the King had refused, openly hinting that O’Neill and his clans had no stomach for a fight. That had stung his pride. And so he’d allowed himself to be goaded into joining a frontal attack against these English invaders. He’d been a fool.

  This time would be different.

  That’s what the King had said. This time, they would march into battle against the English bearing the holiest of relics from Armagh—the bell of Saint Patrick. The venerable saint would not fail them. This time, God would give them the victory and they would drive the accursed English back into the sea!

  Saint Patrick’s bell.

  Hugh well understood the power this sacred artefact had over the hearts of men. His own clansmen had fallen to their knees in the dawn as Eamon Maelchallain, hereditary Keeper of the bell, paraded the relic before them. To the Irish, Saint Patrick’s bell was more than a symbol of Christian faith. It stood for ancient customs passed down in Ulster since the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages, traditions that made the Irish who they were.

  The bell itself was not visible, shielded inside a beautifully crafted shrine of bronze and gold that had dazzled in the early morning light. As the shrine passed along the Irish lines, men crossed themselves and arose, sure in their hearts of victory. Hugh had knelt and crossed himself with the others, but doubted that God picked sides in these fights, or that a bell, no matter how sacred, would decide the outcome.

  Now, all of his doubts and forebodings came back to him, as down in the valley, he heard another desperate blast from the hunting horn. The Mac Lochlainn clans held the line there, so the signal must have come from the King himself. He edged back behind his own line to see what was happening below and the sight made his stomach clench.

  The English heavy cavalry had ripped a gaping hole in the Irish lines on the valley floor and a rout was on. Riders on their big, English-bred warhorses, surged through the gap in the line and fell on the Mac Lochlainn men like a pack of wolves. Their deadly blades rose and fell, glinting in the late afternoon sun. Men went down like wheat before the scythe.

  He saw that his own chieftains had heard the horn and were following the orders he’d given them before launching their first charge against the English positions. All along the O’Neill shield wall, men began to back away slowly, edging up the slope toward the thick woods that crowned the southern lip of the valley. He’d ordered their horses picketed on the far side of those woods. Once into the trees, they could break contact with the enemy and, God willing, flee the field without being cut to pieces. It was the only wise decision he’d made this day.

  O’Neill looked back toward the valley floor and saw the King’s banner fall in the dust. Desperate Irish warriors encircled the Keeper of St Patrick’s bell, but to no avail. The English knights rode them under. Eamon Maelchallain fell along with the rest.

 
; O’Neill watched, aghast, as a tall knight, clad in shimmering mail and a white tunic, dismounted from a magnificent white warhorse, and wrenched the bell from its dead Keeper’s hands. He’d seen this man before, on other fields of battle. As Sir John de Courcy lifted Patrick’s bell in triumph over his head, the leader of Clan O’Neill turned away in disgust.

  “Damn the English and damn all Mac Lochlainns!” he cursed and backed away toward the safety of the trees.

  ***

  Finbar Mac Cormaic dabbed a cool cloth on his master’s forehead and was pleased to see the man had drifted off to sleep. Cathal O’Duinne had been brought in half-dead and senseless the night before with a deep gash along his rib cage. It had taken his men two days to carry O’Duinne from the field of battle beyond Armagh to his rath in the valley of the Blackwater River and the clan chieftain had lost a lot of blood.

  Finbar had gasped when he’d seen his old friend’s chalk-white pallor and went to work immediately trying to save him. He’d cleaned and stitched up the wound with practiced skill, but knew that the rest was in God’s hands. If Cathal managed to survive the loss of blood and if the wound did not fester, he might yet live. Finbar prayed that he would, but dreaded the news he would have to give his master when he came back to his senses.

  For Cathal O’Duinne had lost much more than blood at the fight at Tandragee and it would be Finbar who would have to break the bad tidings to him. Cathal’s oldest son, Fagan, had been slain outright, an arrow in his heart, and Keiran, his younger, lay in the next room, racked with fever and missing his right hand, sliced cleanly off by an English broadsword.

  All through the night, Finbar had moved between the two wounded men. Near dawn, Keiran’s fever abated a little and he took a sip of water. The young warrior looked up at his father’s old counsellor with red-rimmed eyes and held up the bandaged stump where his sword hand had been.

  “Finbar,” he managed to croak, “ye should’ve let it bleed.”

  Finbar grimaced. When they’d dragged Keiran in, the stump of his wrist had already been cauterized with a hot blade, but it still bled. He’d used all of his skill to stop the young man’s blood loss, binding up the wound with honey and linen. He’d changed the dressing three times through the night and had thanked God when the wound began to clot. Now he realized that the loss of the lad’s hand was not the only wound that would need to be treated. He shook his head.

  “If yer t’ die, Keiran, it’ll be God’s doin’ and none of my own,” the older man said sternly. “Ye must be strong. We’ve lost yer brother and yer father lies in the next room, closer to death than yerself. If, God forbid, he leaves us, the clan will look to you in the days ahead, lad.”

  Keiran lifted his head from the cot, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “They must look elsewhere,” he said bitterly, “for I cannot even hold a sword!”

  Finbar sighed. Keiran had always lived in the shadow of his older brother, Fagan, and had long ago accepted his lot. The oldest O’Duinne son had been handsome and charismatic and had made no secret of his ambition to succeed his father. Few would have challenged that succession, though Finbar had his doubts about Fagan. Unlike his father who was steady and prudent, the son had been notably rash and hot-headed. Now he was dead and that no longer mattered.

  Finbar looked back at Keiran who had fallen back on his cot, his eyes tightly closed. Keiran had been an honest and earnest boy and more than a little clever, but he’d always suffered from crippling doubts and those had not been eased by the dominance of his older brother. Finbar shook his head. With Fagan gone, Keiran could have stepped out of the shadows and made a better clan chief than his dead brother, but this wound…. He knew the stump would heal but would Keiran’s spirit?

  Finbar slipped quietly out of the room and returned to look in on Cathal. The chieftain seemed to be sleeping, but his breathing was rapid. Finbar touched the wounded man’s forehead. It was hot, a sign of infection, though the wound still looked clean. It would now depend on the strength of Cathal O’Duinne’s constitution whether he lived or died. Finbar knew that his master was as tough as boot leather and had taken many wounds in his life, but Cathal was no longer young. The man had seen close to fifty summers. Perhaps this would be his last.

  So much of Finbar’s own life had been bound up with the life of his clan chief. Though he was older by three years than Cathal, they had been boyhood friends. Cathal’s father was chieftain of the O’Duinne sept in those days and from an early age, Cathal had shown all the qualities of a leader. He could ride like he’d been born in the saddle and out-wrestle boys who were years older. He was brave and strong and good-natured, though sometimes impulsive. Cathal O’Duinne was all the things that Finbar Mac Cormaic had never been.

  As a boy with a spindly frame, Finbar had shown no promise as a warrior and, while not averse to hard work, had displayed little aptitude for herding or farming. As these were the principle occupations men were expected to fill in the sept, his prospects had been limited. But while he was not particularly strong or especially brave, he was clever—very clever. And it was this that set the course of his life.

  By age seven, Finbar’s active mind took in everything around him in the sept and beyond. He could look at the sun and predict when the cattle would be moved to summer pastures and when the salmon would appear in the rivers. He knew where to find the best stones for the slings used to bring down hares and birds. He knew which of the sept’s mothers might hand out sweet morsels to begging boys and which would chase the same boys with a switch. By the age of twelve, he ofttimes heard news from beyond the borders of Tir Eoghain before the men of the sept did.

  These talents did not endear Finbar to other boys who found him strange. They mercilessly bullied him until Cathal O’Duinne intervened. Cathal could not abide abusing the weak and took the skinny older boy under his wing. But what began as an act of mercy grew into true friendship. The son of the sept chieftain did not find Finbar’s talents strange or frightening. He found them useful. Many a boyhood adventure, and not a few brilliant jests, were launched by Finbar’s clever mind and that cemented the bond between them.

  Years later, when Cathal became the leader of the O’Duinnes, he had bound Finbar to him by oath. For twenty years thereafter, Finbar Mac Cormaic served as Cathal’s closest advisor. It was a role that did not make him popular, but Cathal would not hear a word spoken against his old friend.

  Weary beyond words, Finbar turned at last to go, but then Cathal croaked at him from the bed.

  “My sons. Finbar, have my sons come to me.”

  Finbar hung his head. He wanted to lie to the man, to cozen him until he had some of his strength back, but in over forty years of friendship, he had never done such a thing and could not change the habits of a lifetime.

  “My lord…Cathal…they cannot come. Fagan was slain in the battle with the English. He is buried on the hill next to your wife.”

  Finbar heard a half groan, half sob come from the bed.

  “Keiran?”

  “He lies in the next room, Cathal. Gravely wounded, like yourself, but alive.”

  Cathal swung his legs off the bed and tried to rise, but fell forward on his hands and knees. Finbar shouted for help and a servant hurried in. Together they lifted the man back onto his bed. Cathal’s eyes were slightly mad now and as Finbar started to draw back he sat up and grasped the old man’s robe with a gnarled and scarred hand, pulling his old counsellor close.

  “I am dying,” he gasped, and slumped back onto the bed. The madness drained from his eyes and he looked at Finbar with supplication.

  “My sons…Finbar, my sons.”

  ***

  Finbar stepped out of the wounded man’s chamber and into the common room of the large round house that dominated the walled rath. He found a bench and slumped down. He had not slept in a day and a half and was bone tired. His chin was on his chest and he considered how grey his beard had become.

  I’m old, he thought.
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br />   He tried to clear his mind. There were important decisions to be made. The clans of the Cenél Eoghain had taken a terrible beating east of Armagh. Many clan chiefs had been killed or wounded and their holiest treasure, the bell of Saint Patrick had been taken from them. Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, King of Tir Eoghain, had fallen at Tandragee and the men of the Mac Lochlainn clans, fighting on the valley floor, had suffered grievous losses.

  Only Hugh O’Neill’s skilful fighting retreat into thick woods had saved the O’Neill clans from the same fate, though their losses had been considerable. Word had reached Finbar earlier in the day that Conor, the dead king’s son, was laying claim to the throne. The young Mac Lochlainn was calling for a council to be convened at Armagh in just over a fortnight to ratify his right to lead the Cenél Eoghain and rule over Tir Eoghain.

  But that right was sure to be challenged. For there were two royal lines within the clans of the Cenél Eoghain—the Mac Lochlainns and the O’Neills. For three hundred years, the kings of Tir Eoghain had come from one of these royal clans, but for the last hundred of those years, only a Mac Lochlainn had ruled.

  Hugh O’Neill had made it clear that he would make his own claim to the kingship at the coming council and expected all of the O’Neill septs to stand behind him. Some of these septs, like the O’Cahans and the O’Hagans were large and powerful clans themselves. The O’Duinne clan was a small sept, but was well known for its steadfast support of the O’Neills across uncounted generations. Now that loyalty was about to be tested like never before and the O’Duinnes had no leader capable of standing with Hugh at the council!

  Finbar sighed and wished, for the thousandth time, that Maeve O’Duinne were still alive. Cathal’s wife had been as smart and steady as her husband and always listened to Finbar’s counsel, though she had not always agreed with it. Maeve could have taken up the leadership of the clan until Cathal or Keiran recovered. But she had been gone for over twenty years now, dying as she gave birth to Cathal’s youngest son. He missed her still.