(I'm the author of Cost Benefit Jr., an economics textbook for kids, so most of my work has economic undertones. Galloglass is a work in progress, set in medieval Ireland and populated with knights, faeries, and angels. Thank you in advance for any feedback. Also, I'm new here, and if anyone can explain to me how to post a picture with the story, I'd be most grateful. -Stephanie Herman)
Galloglass, a novel (in progress) by Stephanie McPeak Herman
Pronunciation Legend:
Saoirse (SEER-sha)
Leannán (LAN-awn)
Uachtarán (OOK-ter-awn)
Aoibhneas (EEV-nass)
Láidreacht (LORD-ract) -
Draíocht (DREE-oct)
Chapter 1
Small Hands
The marriage of Leannán to Saoirse, a faery's maneuver on the chessboard of Ulster, was first suggested by mortals at a well-laden winter table at the Feast of the Snows. The banquet had been called by Lord Uachtarán, who was then over the kingdom of Aduaine. Thundersnow had cracked on that day over Ulster's pillow'd hills, and her folk would later weave the feast into lore, telling of a maneuvered pair, joined not for love but for war.
The faery in question stayed hidden, but in visible attendance were all the members of the Clan Council, including Uachtarán's mighty cousin Láidreacht, and the large-femured Eònan, and the six broad-armed chieftains from all about Aduaine, including the Ugly Mouth of Mealladh, and an unlikely guest of honor: a rickety little man from a shire near Faodail, known as Draíocht the Shortshanks.
The Council's purpose had always been threefold: to eat boiled meats and argue threatening ideas and plan preemptive actions. The ideas and the actions were always of a violent nature, much like the procurement of the meats, and this nature spoke sweetly to the hearts of the larger men of Aduaine. Smaller men, with their simple ideas and tiny plans, were rarely invited to speak to the Council. But on this day, Draíocht had something important to tell them, and in an unusual move, the the men had granted him audience.
“Good men of Aduaine,” the Shortshanks began, “you must needs be given the doleful news that there has been the sighting of a frog in Ireland.” A gasp went up, and everyone at table understood what this meant. He continued, “It was found in a grassy meadow and carried to court in Carrikfergus, alive.”
The men contemplated this loudly, and someone asked if the frog were green. And when Draíocht confirmed that it was, in fact, green, the group of normally brave men began to resemble a collection of nervous hens.
“Tell us more about this frog,” they implored him, and he related the event, as far as he knew.
“Men, men, please,” Uachtarán began his attempt at reassurance, “it surely traveled over on a frigate from Scotland.” To the frantic men, this seemed unlikely.
“I've heard say,” continued Draíocht, “that Duvenold, King of Ossory, found a frog near Waterford, and told those in his presence that the frog portended an invasion of the English.”
“Well, of course,” they agreed. These were fighting men, well acquainted with the signs of impending war.
“But I thought Duvenold was an ally of King John,” one of the men objected, but it was of no use, as nobody was any longer entertaining objections. A plan of preemptive action was needed.
“We are not ready for such an invasion,” they all seemed to convey at once, though in varied combinations of words.
“What we need,” spitted the Ugly Mouth of Mealladh, “is some galloglass.” A cheer erupted.
“After all,” said Eònan, “if the Scots can be affordin' to part with their frogs, they can send over some fightin' men and all!” This observation was punctuated by the clanging of steins.
Eventually, talk turned to how a clan in Aduaine might procure a group of galloglass. Draíocht spoke again, telling the men that they required a contract of lánamnas comthinchuir, a dowried marriage to a young, Scottish lass with big brothers. He knew of a family, MacMuir of Stane, who could offer 47 mercenaries, along with a small spouse.
“My lord Leannán will make the bond,” Draíocht assured the Council. “He can offer the daughter of clan MacMuir the castle at Faodair and his 200 sheep and his 60 farm-men. That's more than any other laird in Aduaine!”
Eyebrows raised. The men muttered at this suggestion, worried perhaps that the little man had gone mad. Their scoffing was interrupted by Lord Uachtarán, often called upon to speak sense.
“But Draíocht,” he began, “Leannán is already married.”
Draíocht folded his arms. “That has never stopped a marriage for the strategy and unity of clans.”
Láidreacht jumped in. “But Leannán is married to the niece of King Ostrom, himself! And I'm doubtin' the church will permit a divorce.” Láidreacht's son was a parish priest, and so his word was accepted as knowledgeable on this second point.
“Nor a second wife – a lucky bastard, indeed!” This third point was well received by the men in attendance, and rewarded by nods and renewed drinking.
“There are no children,” Draíocht swung back. “Annullment is all that's needed here. She's the sixth niece, for goodness sake, four sons, two daughters, and a male cousin removed from the throne.” And then, pausing, Draíocht pulled this from his sleeve: “And, Leannán has a secret. When I speak to him of this secret, of which I have knowledge, he will agree to my request.”
And so, the men toasted the assured arrival of fresh blood and sharpened sparth in Aduaine.
An angel and a faery walked into a bar.
“Or so the old saying goes,” the inn keep winked.
“That saying doesn't exist yet.” Brighid shut her eyes. “Give me a nectar of tulip, please.” She turned to Gavenleigh. “Hm. What's wrong with you?”
He sat next to her at the bar, nursing his lemon and lavender. It was midnight, so he was technically off duty and perfectly within his rights to be sitting at bars, even with faeries and time travelers. But weren't they all, really? Time travelers? Time was only the first dimension, after all. Less complicated than widths or heights or even depths – it was measured along a simple line folded into minutes and months and millenia. Simple enough to navigate.
He sighed out troubled breath.
What bothered Gavenleigh tonight wasn't what time it was, but rather, what width and heighth and breadth it was. “There's rumors of war out there, hopping about.”
“You should be happy,” Brighid said. “What kind of a mercenary dreads battle? Business is finally picking up.” She rammed him with her little shoulder.
“What do you know about it, little poet? Are you planning to enverse the Battle of Ainghníomh?”
“Who do you think's been depositing all those frogs?”
Gavenleigh turned to face her. “You?” He started over with his gaze, giving her a quick up and down. “Why are you starting wars?”
“They start themselves, Gavenleigh... well, coins start wars...” and when she saw he was unconvinced, “well, this one, anyway.”
“Wars are funded with debt, Brighid, not currency.”
“In this case, war may be funded with debt, but it's struck” her eye twinkled as she finger-stabbed his arm, “by De Courcy's die and hammer. Render to John what is John's.”
“You're creating a problem here, Brighid.”
“Not creating anyting.”
“Aduaine is full of men. Human men, especially right now, are getting a lot of things wrong.”
“They've always gotten things wrong.”
“They labor under the misthought,” he continued, “that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. If they oppose the English crown, they'll support De Courcy. They forget he's one of them. They forget so easily.”
She nodded. “Binary thinking. Well, show them a third way, big man. Surely an angel of the Trinity could manage that.”
“It's hard for me to get things across to them. Men dislike being told anything. And I'm not as eloquent as you are.”
“When words fail,” she sipped and said, “try frogs. Or songs. Or an emblem. Words don't always work, Gavenleigh. Sometimes your best message is a silent one.”
“It's not the sound of words that concerns me. That's your area, little poet. It's the definitions I care about. Take the word ally, for instance, or loyalty...”
Brighid was busily counting her coins, preparing to pay. “A pulchritudinous parlance can propel a people, Gavenleigh, no one knows that better than I do,” she slapped a coin on the bar, “but you can't wave words on a flagpole.” She turned, and walked out into the good night, raging gently.
On the kalends of June, Saoirse, the Scottish bride arrived in Aduaine. Lord Uachtarán met her carriage and her retinue just after their crossing of the River Foinse, and led them back to his Castle Bawn Guelph on horseback.
Waiting just inside the castle doors was Lord Uachtarán's wife, Lady Aoibhneas, with a spread of drinke and meat broths of herbe, as well as many colors of roasted starches pried from the earth. This was welcome as Saoirse was famished and weak. After sharing many swallows of sacke, the shire folk had fallen away, the war-minded men had retired to a lower domestication, and Aoibhneas and Saoirse had begun the circling dance of two women determining their station.
Aoibhneas led her guest to a third-floor bedchamber. She told her guest that the bed's bulging mattress was crafted in County Fermanagh, stitched together there by its oldest shoe cobbler. Some days before that, it had been stuffed plump with the hairs of the llamas kept in Eniskillen by the quiet monks. The mattress held a nagging, ragged smell, and yet, was likely the most expensive piece of furniture Saoirse had ever seen.
“Tell me about your journey here,” Aoibhneas entreated her. “Tell me about your home.”
But Saoirse had been instructed, and knew better than to answer this. “Your beautiful homeland, your Aduaine, that is my home now.”
She had been eventually left alone in the guest chamber to sleep, and she now studied the flickering room. Its stone walls trembled in the candlelight. A wooden cross hung by the window, floating still, while its thin shadow bobbed and danced behind it.
She sighed out troubled breath.
A breeze nudged the woolen drapes, and they seemed to sigh back at her. This worried her and she sat up, wondering if a tree sprite or an imp of the loam might have snuck into the room. Perhaps it had been listening to her innermost secret thoughts, privately breathed out. Saoirse determined to keep all her thoughts, including her emotional airs, quite silent.
The tubers she had eaten that evening, grown (no doubt) in the imp-infested soil of Aduaine, pulsed their way through Saoirse's body as she slept. Purpled potatoes were often fostered by the Tuatha Dé Danann, a clan of tiny people who lived hidden in mounds of Irish earth. The Danaan were so small in stature, they were assumed to be faeries, and as such, in possession of magical powers. For this reason, Aduaine suffered from an oppressive faery fear. And since it was believed that the Main Hall of the Tuatha Dé Danann was located beneath Nathair O'Byrne's potato field, his harvests came highly and urgently recommended, so as not to offend them.
Lady Aoibhneas was always quite particular about obtaining her potatoes from the field of Nathair. But his purpled potatoes contained a bit more sweetness than Saoirse had been used to back in Stane, and she woke in the night at the bewitching hour when spirits and digestions tend to plague mankind.
Saoirse laid open-eyed on the bed of hair and listened to the castle draftings. Again, she hoped the imps were not capable of interpreting her breath. She called upon the Almighty God, though quietly, to protect her from any goblins who might be scampering about the castle floors, and after a time, began to imagine what sorts of sounds she might soon hear in her own castle at Faodair. The thought comforted her, not realizing it had arrived on an air of its own, and she was eventually asleep again, dreaming and digesting her potatoes.
The next morning, Saoirse awoke only half covered and shivering on the mattress of hair. A manservant was tending the fire in the giant pit at the far end of the room. A maidservant was standing guard, to keep the guest, and her bridal integrity, safe. Aoibhneas floated into the room, a brocade over her arm.
“Come, we must get you dressed.” She placed on the bed a pale blue gown with a patchwork of thin furs lining the side that would be touching skin. Saoirse crawled to the foot of the bed, where Aoibhneas had laid it out. “I made this for your wedding.”
“Go raibh maith agat,” Saoirse said. “Thank you.” She pulled it over her head and it stopped, lodged round her shoulders. “You were expecting an infant?” Saoirse tugged the tight dress down over her chest.
Aoibhneas stood back, worried she had stitched this girl a gúna bainise that was offensively small. Nobody in Aduaine had known exactly what to expect, and they had been told little of the coming bride from Stane. They knew she came to wed Leannán of Faodair. They knew she brought a dowry of galloglass and that these soldiers would defend Aduaine from the consuming English crown. But beyond that they knew very little, least of all the width of her shoulders. Aoibhneas, herself, had been expecting a child with a freckles and averting eyes. Who arrived was a grown woman with shoulders and a held gaze.
“Most brídeach married in Ulster are small, cailín lasses,” Aoibhneas admitted, smoothing the gown stretched across her back. “A mite younger than you, to be sure. But we should have expected a woman to arrive in Aduaine, a woman living well in herself,” she turned Saoirse around. “You will make a powerful lady to Leannán's lord.”
The two women smiled, though it was unclear what this meant.
“I was 14 when I married Uachtarán,” she continued. “But I had no dowry, as you. Only small hips, small shoulders, a small appetite. In all things, I cost him little. You must be, what? Thirty years?”
“I'm 26.”
“You'll cradle children well in your hips, Soairse. Most brides of an Ulster lord have useless hips. A problem for the ages. This is why so many massive kings always struggle for an heir.”
“Yes,” marked Saoirse. “Men like small things of no price.” She smoothed the gown over her broad, firm belly. “I would guess that half your bottom still fits in one of Uachtarán's hands.”
“Yes,” Aoibhneas smiled, “and all his valor fits in one of mine.”
Saorise looked up. “This hand?” Saoirse grabbed it with her own. “I hope it's well washed.” The manservant and maidservant now stoking the fire in the second guest chamber wondered at the shrieks of laughter coming from the first.
Once the gown was anchored and battened down, Saoirse asked about her galloglass. Aoibhneas told her that they were bedded up north, learning the lay of Ainghníomh's hills, the first area of Aduaine vulnerable to attack.
“Tell me about Leannan.”
Aoibhneas wrapped Saoirse's head in a veil scarf and placed a small wreath of heather over her forehead. “He is a busy man. You'll not be bothered of him much, I'm sure.”
Brighid sat in the grass of the Faodail valley, enjoying a ray of sunlight with her feather pen. She had recently returned from a place far away, not in miles but in years, and was daylight dreaming, penning the verses of an idea that had been growing like a tendril in her brain.
“What are you writing?” A small child from the shire stood before Brighid with mussed hair and a dirty nose.
“I am writing Hymm.”
“A hymn?” the child's eyelashes raised like two hands. “Sing it!”
“It doesn't sing,” said the faery. “It recites.” And just to prove that she was right about this, she recited it:
Hymm was a hero, hawkish for war:
A savior without a save-ye.
At our ditty's beginning we find this young lad
on the prowle and hunt for a wee bit of knaving:
searching for weaklings in gingham or plaid,
or a nyrd with the need of his saving.
Hymm's wish was for war: raping, pillaging, gore;
all about Hymm, alas, only peace.
Still, he wanted the glory, his name in the story,
a sword's swarthy motto, a vain Irish villain,
the money, the many, the madness, the... truth?
All he wanted was someone to need him.
Why so lacking in war, in this lair of the knight?
Why such quiet, amenable calm?
Well, the hamlet of Mundt had a marketplace venue
where force wasn't practiced, exchange was a choice
that was made by agreement, consensus, and voice.
Folks grew up thinking profit was peaceful.
Now, the love of his life was a lib'ral, a lass,
who supported control of all swords.
Sweet Cindy the Sleeve-Hearted sat on the Board
of Peaceable Outreach in Smyrtlegut Fjord.
She hated all war and the weaponry for,
but she slept with the knights if they paid her (the whore).
So to win her affection, Hymm set out to prove
that his violent nature could save her.
He softened his sword with an inlay of jewels.
Named it Penelope, banned it from schools.
He signed her petition for sgien-card renewals,
and promised to tythe with his taxes.
Then he set out to find a good way to achieve
all the glory that might catch her eye.
In his thoughts he did think opportunity lay
on the outskirts of Mundt by the gardens of Smay
where the sentries would play, with the ladies, croquet,
and where Cindy could watch from the Fjord.
Placated in peacefulness, profit, and pie
Mundt made a vulner'ble prey;
The people were focused on serving their peers,
and soldier attrition had gone on for years.
The routes for invaders were rife; after all,
the defenses of Mundt were just fences.
So, insisting on sinister twisting of plots
Hymm decided to drum up some business.
A monster he'd seek and some havoc he'd wreak
on the village of Mundt, with their swords somewhat blunt,
Sleeping peacefully now, but they knew not how soon
Hymm would threaten their lives just to save them.
The child clapped. “Tell another one!”
“I'm not done with this one.” But her rhythm had been interrupted, and the interruption reminded her of something else. “Have you heard tell, child, of the burgeoning bride coming to Aduaine?” And as the child had not, she proceeded to tell a riveting, rhyming tale about the Scottish lass who was coming to help defeat the English army at the Battle of Ainghníomh.
The youngster didn't realize that battles aren't normally named until after they're fought. But had she realized this, she would probably have been content to believe that faeries might know things other people did not, and out of order, too. But one thing did puzzle her. “Why are you so fond of war, wee faery?”
“I'm not!” Brighid barked. “But,” she pointed at the child. “You can't have a hero without one.”
Saoirse hiked up her dress of restriction and followed Aoibhneas up the stairs. In the great hall of the castle Bawn Guelph, many fiddles were sawing and a drum beat. The hands plucking the harp looked like busy spiders. Lord Uachtarán noticed his wife in the archway and raised his stein, drawing them over.
Many people, mostly men, were laughing, some shouting over the strings. Several oaken tables offered friendly fluids: beer, aqua vitae, ale, honey mead. Aoibhneas sipped one, and having given it her approval, offered it to Saoirse.
Lord Uachtarán reached out his hand for her, then turned to Leannán. “Má phósann tú i n-aon chor, pós anuraidh! If you're going to get married at all, get married last year!” The men laughed at this because it was, in actuality, exactly what had happened.
“Lord Leannán,” began Uachtarán more soberly. “Sonuachar chugat! A good spouse to you!”
The priest, Lord Láidreacht's boy, approached the center table and clapped. “You will now pledge your troth and give your consents before almighty God. Join hands.” He looked at the bride. “Will you take this man, his earthly possessions, his status, his flaws, his full character, and so pledge before the God of our fathers, and of the good St. Patrick, and of your future issue?”
“I do,” spoke Saoirse.
“Will you take this woman, her earthly possessions, her status, her flaws, her full character, and so pledge before the God of our fathers, and of the good St. Patrick, and of your future issue?”
“I will,” said Leannán.
Aoibhneas noticed his verb's future tense.
“Let it so be recorded,” said the preist to the scribe, and their words of consent were written into a large, leather-bound book.
After this, more drinke was poured and more foods ladled out. Leannán sat beside his new wife, laughing much but rarely looking in her direction. He smelled of ale and horse. After the feast, which seemed to Saoirse to have been the main purpose of their gathering, she was taken downstairs, undressed with some effort, and packed and prepared for her new journey home.
“Lord Leannán will bring your galloglass on the week next to Faodail. Your cook, Nádúrtha will take you there today and settle you in.” The castle servants loaded the trunks in the wagon, and Aoibhneas offered embrace. “Know this well, young Saoirse,” she said quietly, “that the small hand of a castle lady wields great power. It can form any wall, swing any tool, and thrust any weapon but by its simple point.”
As her wagon dragged away from Bawn Guelph and toward Faodail, Saoirse watched the tiny hand of Aoibhneas waving farewell from under its long, woolen sleeve. ###