CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Another Rough Time/Space Ride

The tumult suddenly eased and merging cautiously from under the cloak they found themselves on a hilltop overlooking the fort of Eamhain Macha. Amtashtalee raised his hand to the sky in thanks.

"Well done, Amtashtalee," shouted Cúchulainn. "You got us home safely at last."

As they approached the fort, a rider galloped by and saluted them. Cúchulainn called out:

"Ferdia, my cousin, are Conal and Laoghaire within?"

It was good to be speaking the sweet Gaelic again.

Ferdia, reining in his horse, a perplexed look on his handsome face.

"No, my cousin Cúchulainn. They are not. I thought they had gone to Connacht with you."

"They went ahead of me. What is more, they set off for home before me too. Have they not yet returned?"

"Perhaps we should send scouts to search for them? I trust they have encountered no evil on their journey."

Cúchulainn, smiled mischievously.

"It seems some great good has overtaken me! But have no fear Ferdia, I'm confident they will arrive shortly."

Ferdia shrugged his shoulders, uncomprehending.

"I hope they will, but now I'm on my way to relieve the boundary guard on the ford of the Dee."

He galloped off towards the river that marked part of the boundary of Conor Mac Nessa's kingdom. Amtashtalee gave Cúchulainn a sad look and shook his head.

"Looks as though I've done it again Cúchulainn my lad, timing badly awry. I think the time has come for me to settle down."

"Never you mind, my dear old friend.  Your sense of time defective as it is, has served me well  on this occasion. Stay here at Eamhain Macha for a while,  I have need of your wisdom in planning the remainder of my life."

"My wisdom, what wisdom is that?"

"Yours is the wisdom of the ages to which mortal man is rarely privy. Only you and the eternal gods have seen and heard all the follies of the world, mistakes from which men ought to distil wisdom."    Cúchulainn sighed heavily. "If only they would learn and apply such wisdom to all their affairs!"

"But Cúchulainn, my dear friend, I have become a bumbling old man."

"It is not only your skills, your recollections or your wit I cherish.  It is the final product of all your experiences: a tolerant, forgiving and loving heart.  Let me refresh my travel-weary spirit at that gentle fountain.  Mine is, indeed, a spirit sorely in need of healing."

"If that is the simple nature of the service I can render a dear friend I will stay."

Cúchulainn turned to the pipe-maker.

"And you Homofeeb, I'd like the court of Conor to share your gentle talents for a while and demonstrate the charm of the mellow elbow pipes at our noisy feasts."

"Wherever you are Cúchulainn the brave and beautiful, that is where I most want to be."

"And you Farbeg, the funniest, wisest man in Ireland.  Your place is here, not just as a jester, it won't surprise me if Conor appoints you his personal adviser."

"Oh, but the King long ago appointed me to that very office."

Homofeeb bared his teeth and made a mock lunge at Farbeg.

"I see you are sober!" he laughed.

As they neared the entrance to the Hall of the Knights, Emer came rushing out and embraced Cúchulainn, her large green eyes moist with delight, a faint pink blush betraying her excitement. 

"Oh, Cúchulainn, my beloved Setanta, I'm delighted to see you back safe and sound once more. Two days without you has become for me as two millennia."

She paused to stifle a sob and wipe away a tear.

"I've had such horrid dreams about you."

Cúchulainn, with a soft, shushing sound, held her close to him for a moment, savouring her perfume, relishing her softness. With a quizzical frown he took her shoulders and held her at arms length, searching her eyes.

"Dreams? I too have been having strange dreams. But on waking they sink below consciousness, evading comprehension and memory."

Emer snuggled up to her husband and sighed:

"Yes, my love, I know well the elusiveness of dreams.  In mine I have caught glimpses of you through two tall windows.  In another recurring dream you were unconscious, as though injured or ill. Each time I tried to talk to you, but no sooner were words at the threshold of utterance than I would awake."

Cúchulainn studied her troubled face and the glitter of tears in her eyes. His mind was scrabbling frantically at elusive shreds of mental symbols. Her face, he had seen it before in a strange setting, was it in a dream or had he simply passed in a crowd someone resembling her? Emer pressed her body against him again.

He felt her shudder briefly then pushing herself away from him abruptly she smiled brightly.

"Enough of this nonsense about dreams! We are together again. Come, you are just in time for our midday meal. I'm sure you are hungry."

He thought about the cockles and the burnt hare. "Hungry, yes, I'm starving!"

They entered the great hall arm in arm.

The King, seated at the head of the Table of the Knights, rose to greet Cúchulainn delightedly, and signalling to his trumpeters, they played a welcoming fanfare.  Cúchulainn took a bow in three directions and Emer smiled and curtsied. Conor motioned to him to come and sit at his right hand, so with Emer by his side, the travel-weary warrior took his seat beside the King.

All through the meal the King listened with great wonder as Cúchulainn recounted the astounding adventures he had had and the strange people and their wonders he had encountered in the distant future.

"All these marvellous adventures befell you, and you performed all these wondrous feats yet you have been gone scarcely two days and a night! How can that be?" asked Conor, wiping his beard and moustache in his linen napkin.

Cúchulainn took a sip from his goblet.

"Well Majesty, I beg you to believe the stories we have been hearing so long about Amtashtalee.  It was mainly through him that we were able to survive and to accomplish so much in so short a time."

Cúchulainn pointed out the old man.

"Look over there beside Homofeeb. He really lives up to his name, Am Taistilí, Time Traveller."

Conor frowned, folding his napkin.

"But Laoghaire and Conal. Did they not set out for Connacht some twelve hours ahead of you and here you are, back before them?"

Cúchulainn looked into his foster father's eyes, noting how old and tired he had become.

"I will leave it to Amtashtalee to explain how time and space can be manipulated. After all, he is the expert."

Conor brightened and nodded enthusiastically.

"I look forward to entertaining him in my chambers later. But you have not yet mentioned the most important issue of all, the judgement of Aillil and Maeve as to which of you is to receive the honour of the Champion's Portion."

Cúchulainn reached under his cloak and touched Maeve's goblet. Drawing it out slightly from under the table he surreptitiously looked into its golden depths.

"Yes, the Champion's Portion, that is something to which I have given much thought, my recent travels have done much to mellow my heart and prompt me to take stock of my old value system."

Conor, with arched eyebrows, stared at the pensive warrior.

"Whatever are you trying to say, my son?"
   
Cúchulainn, wistfully looked the old King in the eye.

"It touches me deeply when you address me as 'Son'. I mean no disrespect to the mighty Lú, but I would have preferred a fully human father like you to an unapproachable deity such as he."

Conor reached out and placed his hand on Cúchulainn's.

"Tell me, my most beloved son, what is weighing so heavily on your heart."

"What I have learned, is that Love, Truth and Beauty are an indivisible trinity, without these, human existence is no more than a shadow. I feel that for too long the criteria by which we appraise a champion are sorely inadequate, his physical strength, his prowess with weapons, his skill at games, his endurance and resourcefulness in the face of his enemies and nature, the number and market value of his belongings."

Conor squeezed Cúchulainn's hand and shook it eagerly, urging him on.

"I hope you will not misunderstand this: that there are two genders within us all. I mean, are we not born of a man and a woman? And is the woman's role more spiritual?"

Conor responded with just a hint of a frown but nodded encouragingly.

"Yes, I think I follow what you are saying. Please go on."

Cúchulainn turned making bold eye contact with the King.

"Does it not follow that if a person is fully female or fully male, he or she is only half a human person?"

Cúchulainn noted a look of apprehension in the King's eyes and followed his slow, searching gaze around the hall until it came to rest on Homofeeb.

"I sense that you are about to make a connection between this and the question of the Champion's Portion," said Conor.

"Yes, my father, I am not for a moment saying that the King's Champion should not be indecisive in dealing with armed marauders; or that he should not be strong and skilled in weaponry.  I'm saying he should also be gentle with children and animals, loving and tender with women, compassionate to the old and the sick. Even, betimes he could be merciful to his enemies. Which is more profitable to a kingdom, two groups of ten thousand strong men killing each other, or one group of two thousand strong men tilling, rearing cattle, weaving, hunting and fishing, caring for the young and the old and the sick? Why cannot we invest the same energy in the pursuit of peace and stability as we do in the waging of war?"

Conor began to smile.

"Am I to understand you to mean, that women should be recognised as equal to men?"

"Yes, but let us not lose sight of the converse: that men should be recognised as equal to women. Yet, I don't mean that men and women are interchangeable."

The King tapped the table with his forefinger and, with a slow smile said:

"Let us pursue this discourse of yours some other time, when you are not tired and I have not drunk so much wine. I am eager to discuss with a clear head these questions of making peace with our enemies and uniting men and women. Meanwhile there are questions more pertinent to the present moment. Like the question of the Champion's Portion."

Cúchulainn coughed and wriggled briefly in his seat.

"That's what weighs most heavily on my heart. Maeve has adjudicated in my favour."

Conor's face lit up with delight.

"And this weighs heavily on your heart, you say?"

"Her assessment was based only on my courage in facing up to the Fir Bolg's giant demon and my strength and skill in slaying him. The qualities we have been discussing were never considered."

Cúchulainn was gazing into his wine, nodding ambiguously.  Conor, stretched his shoulders and shifted in his seat.

"Anyway, what had Maeve to say, rightly or wrongly?"

"She gave me a token of her decision and asked me not to reveal it until I returned here."

"She gave you a token of some kind?"

"Yes, it is Maeve's way."

Cúchulainn took the gold chalice from under the table and placed it before Conor.

"This is her token .."

Conor's eyes widened with pleasure as he noted the exquisite beauty of the chalice. He touched it tentatively with his forefinger and smiled with delight at its significance.

"My congratulations Cúchulainn, i'm pleased, most of all for you. I'm pleased also that this business that was so devilishly complicated by Bricriú of the Poison Tongue has at last been satisfactorily resolved."

"If you will forgive me Majesty, I do not think the matter has been resolved to my satisfaction. You must know that Maeve, to her shame, has tricked us."

"Tricked us?"
   
"Yes, my father.  She has proved herself to be just as deceitful and mean-spirited as Bricriú. You see, she secretly and separately gave a chalice to each one of us, telling each of us in turn that it signified her choice of him whom she deemed worthy of the Champion's Portion. There can be no doubt, she has thereby rendered her judgement invalid."

Conor's face darkened into a deep scowl.

"Well, in that case, my own judgement has been put in question, for was it not I who judged her the most reliable adjudicator in all of Ireland? In what direction can we look now if the great Maeve of Connacht has failed us?"

Cúchulainn, looking into the almost empty silver goblets of wine on the table said half to himself:

"In the absence of a legitimate, more orthodox judgement I now feel some obligation to look to the outcome of that foolish drinking bout instigated by Farbeg at Bricriú's treacherous feast. I have serious reservations of course, as to the validity of that verdict."

"I don't quite understand Cúchulainn, please explain."

"As I've been trying to explain, the beginning of worthiness of the Champion's Portion should be repentance of selfishness, arrogance and vanity. There can be no honour without beauty, love and truth. I may not like Conal and Laoghaire for their ignoble behaviour. Indeed I do not like myself for the times I have behaved with as much guile and conceit as they; but if I am to be an honourable man, a truthful man, I am bound to forgive them, to love them. Similarly, I love old Farbeg and I respect his declaration for me as the winner of that foolish wine-drinking competition. If he declares for me then I fear I am honour-bound to accept ...."

"You mean, you would rather be released from Farbeg's obligation? Look, my son, let me speak to Farbeg. Where is that little, drunken old gnome anyway?"

Farbeg's head appeared from under the table between the King's knees.

"You called, your Majesty?" he asked airily.

Conor glared at the jester.
   
"Because of the result of a drinking bout you recommend Cúchulainn as the recipient of the Champion's Portion."

Farbeg nodded but Cúchulainn put up his hand.

"I will decline the Champion's Portion and reserve it, subject to the approval of His Majesty, King Conor of Ulster, for a man whom I may recommend as standing tall and firm in wisdom, honour and integrity."

Decline The Champion's Portion after all that! Cúchulainn's motives are of the best intention, but will the King accept his decision without a trick up his sleeve? Log on every Sunday for further chapters.