CHAPTER 2
HOUND OF THE FORGE

Why had my father come rushing home in such a state? I dared not follow to the baths to find out, but the stables would be safe enough. I slipped out to find Laeg.

My father’s charioteer deserves a larger place in the stories, for his horsemanship was a wonder to behold and his faithfulness and courage unshakeable. Yet such is the way of the world: It is the kings and warriors whose praises are sung, not the advisors who guide them nor the charioteers who keep them alive.

He had unyoked the horses, but to my surprise they were not in the stable but out in the paddock, still in their harnesses and war-trappings. The Black had his nose deep in a grain bucket; still I gave him a wide berth as I edged past. He had a vicious leg on him, and I had seen him shatter an unwary groom’s knee.

Laeg had tethered The Gray to the apple tree that shaded one end of the paddock and was cleaning out his hooves. I forced myself to walk carefully, not wanting to spill the jar of beer I had thought to take from our stores on my way out. Silently I held it out to him.

His eyebrows, furrowed in concentration, lifted at the sight. Nodding his thanks, he put down the pick and stretched out a long freckled arm for my drink. Everything about Laeg was long—legs, arms, even his narrow face.

“I’ll not deny I’ve a terrible thirst,” he said. “My thanks to you, Luaine.”

“Laeg, why have you not stabled the horses?” I blurted. I didn’t even wait for him to take a swallow.

Laeg drank anyway and then looked down at me for a long moment, his face grave.

“Your father is setting out again, as soon as may be,” he said finally. “He has stopped here only to speak with your ma and give instructions to his men.”

“But why?” I persisted. “What has happened?”

Laeg shook his head. “That is for your parents to tell you, little one.” Then he grinned, but it was not a grin to make you smile back. It scared me. “The Hound is on the hunt,” he said, “and his prey will regret the day he caught their scent.”

The Hound of Ulster, they called him. Hound of the Forge.

My father, born Setanta, earned his warrior’s name as a young boy. Cu Culain—the hound of Culain. Culain was a smith, maker of the finest weaponry and armor in all Ulster. His dog, though, was a beast to be dreaded. Huge, savage, heedless of any hand but its master’s, it was loosed each night to stand guard and would tear apart any unlucky intruder.

One night my father, just a small boy at the time, followed King Conchobor’s chariot tracks to a feast at Culain’s home, batting a ball with a hurley stick along the road to amuse himself as he ran. The dog, clamoring in a murderous fury, sprang at him. The men inside rushed out at the commotion, fearing to find someone dead. But my father had batted his hurley ball right down the hound’s throat, and then he dashed it to death on a rock, with no injury to himself at all.

Culain, though, was grieved, for the great hound had guarded his home and flocks and herds. So my father, little as he was, promised to keep watch in the dog’s place until another could be found and trained. And Cathbad the druid said that Cuchulainn should be my father’s name from that day forward.

I had heard Laeg call my father “Cucuc”—little hound. It was a mark of the friendship and trust that was between them. But now when he spoke of the Hound, and flashed his teeth in that wolf’s grin, I saw with a chill that it was no hearth-dog Cuchulainn was named for. It’s a battle-hound he was, the watchdog of our people.

It was not skill at arms, or even the battle-frenzy, that won my father the championship of Ulster. This tale was my favorite as a child, the one I would beg our poet, Lasair, to recount, for it never failed to make my heart beat fast with fear and my eyes grow round with wonder. And I still think on it often—for it reminds me of the manner of man who sired me and of the courage I should find within myself as well. At that time there were three contending for the championship: Laegaire, Conall and my father. And they were set many trials by Conchobor, but although my father always prevailed, the other two would not accept his championship, but made excuses for every contest.

Conchobor could not have his best men at each other’s throats, so at last he sent them to Cu Roi of Munster to have the matter judged. But he warned them: “He will give you a right judgment, but it is only a brave man will ask it from him, for he is wise in all sorts of enchantments.” So off they went to Munster, only to return with the issue unsettled, for Cu Roi had been away on his own journey.

Well, time passed, and the championship remained unclaimed. Then one night, into the hall lumbers this great fellow, frightful to look at and massive in build. He is clothed in rough undressed skins and in his one hand he bears the biggest ax they have any of them ever seen. He says his name is Uath, the Stranger, and that he has traveled all Ireland looking for only one thing: a man who will keep his word and hold to an agreement.

“What agreement is that?” they ask.

And it’s a strange thing indeed. For Uath says he wants someone to strike off his head with the ax, and then on the morrow, he will come and strike off their own head! And, he says, since the men of Ulster have such a name for greatness and strength, surely there is one among them who could hold to such a promise.

Well, who would be in fear of a dead man? Up swaggers Laegaire. “I’m your man,” says he, and Uath lays his head on a block and gives Laegaire the ax, and doesn’t Laegaire swing it and fill the house with the man’s blood right there.

Now, I cannot explain this next part. I, of all people, know that there are many mysteries in the world, that there is magic in the sacred places and in the secret words, but I have never seen a magic like this. Yet all there saw it and believed it too. For Uath rose up all headless, gathered up his head and walked out of that hall. And you can imagine the despair that was upon Laegaire.

The next night, the stranger returned—but Laegaire did not. He hadn’t the heart. It is one thing to face death in battle, when the blood boils in your veins and the spear is eager in your hands. Another thing, it is, to lie down like a sheep to slaughter. So Conall stood up, and said he would take the challenge instead, and sliced off Uath’s neck with a mighty blow.

And the next night—no Conall. And Uath mocked and sneered at the Ulstermen, and then he asked, “Where is the one they call Cuchulainn, till I see if his word is any better than the others’?”

“I will keep my word,” said my father and swept off the man’s head in a second.

The next night my father knew was his last. “For,” he said, “I would rather meet death than break my word.”

And when Uath came, my father laid himself down on the block and submitted to his own death.

The stranger swung his blade up until it crashed into the rafters—and then swept it down with a powerful stroke. But the ax-head bit into the floorboards beside Cuchulainn’s head and never harmed him at all. For it was Cu Roi, under an enchanted disguise, and this was his test.

“Rise up, Cuchulainn,” he said. “The championship of the heroes of Ireland is yours from this day out. For of all the heroes of Ulster, there is not one to compare with you in courage and in bravery and in truth.”

No one tried to put himself before my father after that.