The Raid - Hardcover

Chapter 1
 
The Bed Argument
 
 
One night after the royal bed had been laid in Cruachaín of the Enchantments in the province of Connacht for the rulers Ailill and Maeve, known as "She-Who-Makes-Men-Drunk," they began to argue while lying spent upon the richly embroidered pillows. In the comfortable rubble of their bedclothes Ailill nestled his head, damp from fervent lovemaking, upon Maeve's lap, admiring her naked breasts above him.
"It is true, my love, what they say about things being good for a woman if she is the wife of a wealthy man," Ailill boasted. He moved his heavy shoulders, twisting them to crush the sharp quill of a feather that poked him through the cushion he lay upon. He reached up and tweaked the nipples of her breasts, admiring how they leaped out for his attention. Maeve's breath quickened. Her lips touched his briefly, and he tasted honey on the tantalizing flicker of her tongue.
"Perhaps," Maeve answered. "But what made you think of that at a time like this?"
She lazily twined her long fingers through the thick hair of his chest, tugging gently. He pushed a heavy curl of her thick red hair away from her cheek and caressed it with the backs of his fingers.
"It just struck me how much better off you are today than the day I married you," Ailill said. "Far more fortunate with me than you were with your other husbands, Conchobar Mac Nessa, Tinne Mac Connrach, and Eochaid Dála."
"I was well enough off without you," Maeve said arrogantly, slapping him lightly upon the forehead. He grinned and tweaked her breast again. Her eyes became heavy, her pale skin blushing rosily beneath its alabaster, her red lips curling up toward her high cheekbones. Her long, flowing hair glowed golden-red in the pale light emanating from the guttering candles in sconces upon the polished wood of the walls and she swung it forward, brushing it lightly over his naked flesh.
"Then you must have kept your wealth well hidden," Ailill said huskily. "Your neighbors had made off with all of your plunder--except for the things that a woman has that are hers alone--before I came to your father's house to seek your hand. Your father was grateful, indeed, that I would bring my wealth and my armies into his family. Of course," he added slyly, caressing the roundness of her hip with his palm, "I found the prize well worth my trouble--even though there were other women with far richer dowries begging for my bed."
Maeve sat up, her eyes flashing with anger, her breasts heaving indignantly.
"Then you should have taken them for your wife!" she snapped. She slapped his hands away when he tried to caress her. "And what do you mean by suggesting I was a beggarly mist-wanderer? No! My treasure room bulged with riches. You forget that I had the High King of Ireland for my father: Eochaid Feidlech the Steadfast, the son of Finn, the son of Finnoman, the son of Finnen, the son of Finngoll, the son of Roth, the son of Rigéon, the son of Blathacht, the son of Beothacht, the son of Enna Agnech, the son of Aengus Turbech. My father had six daughters: Derbriu, Ethne, Ele, Clothru, Muguin, and myself, Maeve, who became the greatest of all. None were as graceful, more generous than I! I could easily defeat them in battle for I knew more about war than they. And my beauty drew men to my side as a candle flame draws a moth. My court dwarfed theirs: fifteen hundred soldiers served me, drawing their wages from my war chest. All were the sons of Exiles, and the same number of freeborn Irishmen. For every mercenary in my service, I had fifty-five others, and that was only my ordinary household."
She drew a deep breath, eyeing him arrogantly. "My father recognized my worth and gave me a whole province including this one that I ruled from Cruachain. That is why some call me Maeve of Cruachain. Many kings sent their sons to woo me. One came from Finn, the king of Leinster, Rus Ruad's son. And from Coirpre Niafer, the king of Temair, another of Rus Ruad's sons. The son of Conchobar, king of Ulster, son of Fachtna, came and others came from Eochaid Bec. But none could win my hand for I asked a harder wedding gift from them than had been asked by any other woman in Ireland: whosoever claimed my hand would never display meanness or jealousy or fear.
"I knew what I was doing, Ailill, for if I married a mean man, our union would most certainly fail. I am too full of grace and giving for one man. It would be an insult to my husband to have a wife more generous than he, but not if both were equal. Likewise, it would not do for a wife to be more spirited than her husband and I need a man my equal in temper. Nor could my husband be jealous for I have never slept with one man without another waiting in the shadows to take his place.
"That is why I chose you, Ailill, for you are not niggardly, jealous, or afraid. But apparently you have forgotten that I brought with me the highest wedding gift a bride has ever brought her husband: enough garments to clothe a dozen men, a chariot easily worth three times the price of seven serving maids, enough red gold to cover the width of your face and the equal of the weight of your left arm in white gold." She drew a deep breath, fondly slapping his hands away from her. "But this does not mean that you should feel as if you are a kept man. I would not have chosen you had you not been my equal. And if one has taunted you, saying that it is your wife who is the more important one in the marriage bed, you should ignore him," Maeve said patronizingly. "The one who would be insulted is me for suggesting I would settle for an inferior."
Ailill laughed and leaned back upon the cushions, moving away from another quill's stab.
"In this you are very wrong," he said. "I am a king's son and I have two kings for brothers: Cairpre in Temair and Finn in Leinster. They rule only because they are older than myself. Neither is better than I in grace or giving. The reason why I came here to claim your hand, Maeve, is not because you were wealthy, but because I had never heard in all of Ireland of a province being ruled by a woman. Now, I rule this province as the successor to my mother, Mata Muires, Mágach's daughter. You are my queen because who would be better than a daughter of the High King of Ireland? Not because of your wealth. And as for your generosity, well, Maeve, all know you enjoy men between your legs, drinking the honey-mead from your lips. As many as thirty a night!"
"You can make all the claims that you wish," Maeve answered haughtily. "But the fact remains that my wealth is far greater than yours."
"How delightful," Ailill said, laughing and shaking his head. "Surely you jest! No one owns more property than I or more jewels and riches. This is fact. I know it."
Maeve's lips thinned, her eyes glinting like gray ice. She leaned back away from his questing hands, her heavy breasts swinging tautly away, rosy nipples defiant. "Then," she purred, "let's have an accounting to see who is the richer."
"I think," Ailill said, laughing again, "you are making too much of this. But if you really want to do this, then we will. But later," he said coaxing, rolling his eyes up, the blue dancing with tiny lights.
For a moment, she resisted, then she caught her breath as his hands brought a rosy flush to her skin. "One night won't make any difference," Maeve relented, smiling roguishly at him.
And so, on the next day, they began with the challenge. Orders went out among the many rooms of the hall and servants scurried back and forth through the kitchens and the corn kiln and buttery, the ale-brewing house, the baking house, through the storage sheds and the guest houses, tripping over the rushes on the floor of the great hall, gathering the belongings of Ailill and Maeve. Servants first brought out the lowliest of their possessions: buckets and tubs, iron pots, washbasins, and ewers and drinking vessels, but all were found to be equal. Next came servants with caskets containing their rings for both fingers and thumbs, bracelets, and intricately carved gold brooches and pins mounted by fine jewels, followed by servants staggering under armloads of clothing dyed in solid colors: crimson, saffron, purple, blue, black, green, yellow, and plain gray. These were followed by clothing dyed in various colors: brown-yellow, checked, and striped. Shepherds brought folds of sheep in from the fields, their wool heavy and unshorn, and meadows and plains to be counted and matched and paired to be certain that they were of equal size. All, however, decided one to be equal to the other. Even Maeve's prize ram, worth the price of one bondmaid himself, was matched by another belonging to Ailill.
Next, their herds of horses and teams were led in from paddock and pasture. Maeve's finest stallion was easily matched by another from Ailill's herds. Then swineherders scoured the woods and gullies and refuse piles and drove in vast herds of pigs, but all were found equal. Maeve had a fine boar, but Ailill had another easily his equal. Finally, herdsmen rounded up their cattle from the woods and wastelands of the province and brought them in to be matched and measured, and they too were found to be of the same size and numbers with one exception: a great bull in Ailill's herd that had once been a calf of one of Maeve's cows. His name was Findbennach, the White Bull, and so proud was he that he refused to belong to a herd owned by a woman and moved in with Ailill's herd. Maeve ordered her herdsmen to search for his equal among her herds, but their search was in vain, and Maeve's spirits fell into black melancholia as if she had not a single brass bracelet.
She had the messenger Mac Roth, a masterful maker of suggestions, called to her chambers and ordered him to find the match of Findbennach even if he had to search out every province in Ireland. Mac Roth, however, already knew where the equal of Findbennach lived.
"In the province of Ulster, in Cuailnge's territory, in the house of Dáire Mac Fiachna, lives the bull called Donn Cuailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley," he said. "This bull is easily the equa...