CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Cú Roí's Bloody Solution

Scowling at the rafters, the King sighed heavily. Cúchulainn shook his head sadly.

"Farbeg, I fear I have not proven myself to be the man you could describe as standing tall and firm in wisdom, honour and integrity."

The jester looked into the warrior's eyes again as he whispered earnestly.

"Are you, really serious?"

Cúchulainn's eyes misted over suddenly and he nodded solemnly. Then he became aware of a disquieting hush as a tall, elderly man in robes of the court elders entered the hall.  He approached the royal table and bowed to the King.

"Please, your Majesty, the great champions Conal and Laoghaire have returned from Connacht and are preparing to enter the hall."

The King nodded in kindly acknowledgement to Sencha, and Laoghaire and Conal entered side by side. Their tanned freshly washed faces shone like polished walnut; but their tunics, cloaks and boots still bore the dust of a long journey. Looking studiously grave, they set off with a swagger up the centre of the hall towards the King's table but when they spotted Cúchulainn they fell out of step and stopped, mouths agape, their shock ill-concealed.

"Well my tardy heroes," boomed Conor, not waiting for them to come within conversational earshot, "held up by the traffic again? Or did your horses throw a shoe or two? Or perhaps you ran out of oats? Or was it a broken chariot wheel? Or better still, you ran into a Fomorian raiding party and you stopped to garner their red and freckled heads to hang upon Ulster's boundary markers?"

The two discomfited warriors exchanged furtive looks and Laoghaire replied.

"Why, none of these Your Majesty, we had already used our monthly thought travel quota and we found no trace of Amtashtalee whom we sought to help us."

"So we were confined to terrestrial travel," ventured Conal sheepishly.

The King glared at the two men:

"Might it not have been that your thought travel failed you because you were attempting to use it to an unworthy end?"

The two knights exchanged searching looks, at once accusatory and shamefaced. Conor shifted his stern gaze searchingly from one man to the other.

"And were you not being less than chivalrous towards your fellow Red Branch Knight, Cúchulainn?"

Conal ventured in a strangled whisper.

"With respect, your Majesty, we took but one day to get here. Is that not some kind of a record?"

The king leaned back into his chair,

"Yes, yes, but then you left in rather a hurry. Cúchulainn had his chariot and horse stolen, yet here he is, home in time for his meal and destined to receive the Champion's Portion by all accounts."

The two men started, eyes flashing with challenge, their embarrassment suddenly quenched. Laoghaire jutted his chin defiantly at Cúchulainn, his eyes blazing:

"I am quite sure he is not destined for the Champion's Portion, and I can prove it!"

As he fumbled in the folds of his cloak the King extended his arm and wiggled his fingers as he hissed.

"Before that grand dramatic flourish of producing Maeve's trinket, have you told Conal about it? Has Conal told you about the similar bibelot and empty accolade she accorded him also?"

The two warriors looked at each other, dumfounded; and sheepishly producing their chalices, they compared them.

"Silver?" gasped Conal as Laoghaire triumphantly brandished his chalice

Conor calmly placed Cúchulainn's gold chalice on the table in front of Laoghaire and Conal.

The two champions stared in disbelief.

"I say Maeve tricked all three of us! She tricked his majesty no less," Conal cried.

Cúchulainn cleared his throat nervously.

"Majesty, with respect I agree with Conal that all three of your majesty's knights and, by implication, your majesty himself, have been shamefully served."

The King held up his hand, palm outward, signalling for silence while he pondered these revelations. He scratched his beard, then fingered the great scar on the crown of his head where the brainball of Mes Gegra, fired from the sling of Cet the cattle raider had entered and was for ever stitched shut by Finden the physician. Then his expression softened and he motioned the two knights to sit at his left hand.

"You must be weary after your journey. And hungry too. Come and sit near me.

Sencha looked at the King, and Conor leaned across Cúchulainn to address him gravely.

"Sencha, my honoured judge, what say you about all this?"

Sencha, stood to reply to the King, but clutched the table for support as though he had taken suddenly ill. The others quickly discerned the cause of the old man's behaviour. The tables began to tremble as a faint rumbling like distant thunder, began steadily to grow louder until it became a heavy pounding. Dishes crashed to the floor, women screamed in the kitchens and outside in the grounds children began to wail.

Suddenly the pounding stopped, and all eyes turned towards the gloom created by the gathering evening shadows at the end of the hall, even the dogs became silent.

Gradually they could discern a monstrous shape standing erect on hind legs in the darkness up among the rafters. The creature's breath surrounded its body with a dark reddish, luminous vapour and filled the hall with a sulphurous stench

The temperature plummeted to freezing, hoar frost formed on the walls, rafters and tables right before their eyes while a chill mist rose and swirled around them in blue-white wraiths. The Ulstermen and their ladies hugged themselves shivering with cold and with fear.  Everywhere could be heard the uncontrollable chatter of teeth.

Then a terrible, grating voice like thunder rattled the roof timbers.

"Someone wants to prove his honour and integrity?"
   
"Who, you ask, can give you a definitive judgement in such a matter? Well I, Cú Roí, offer my judgement."

Hackles rising with fear, the hounds were all barking furiously, and outside a lone wolf in the hills responded with a mournful howls to the full moon.

A chorus of gasps arose at the mention of the dread demigod's name.  As it emerged from the shadows all the men of Ulster caught their breath, recoiling fearfully from the sight that assailed their eyes.

It was a fearsome, giant figure, a gross parody of a man, fully armoured and festooned with a bristling array of weapons. He advanced a few paces out of the shadows to reveal a titanic, shaggy, bearded head towering up to the roof. In one hand he carried a wooden block, and a great axe in the other.

Farbeg, under the table and oblivious to the terrifying spectre, called out merrily.

"Here, doesh anyone want some o' this whiskey?"

He dozed off again, still unaware of the situation in the hall.

King Conor, with an air of stern dignity, rose and faced down the giant Cú Roí.

"You are welcome to Eamhain Macha, Cú Roí, uninvited though you are. Now that you are here, how do you propose to assist us? And how, within reason, can we serve you?"

As Cú Roí drew himself to his full height, his head bumped against the roof and he gave a terrifying laugh. More crockery crashed to the floor and a wolfhound growled uncertainly.

"I have travelled the whole world in search of a man of perfect honour and perfect integrity, I have one sure and simple test, so far no man has passed it most refuse even to take it."

Cú Roí glared at Cúchulainn, Laoghaire and Conal.

"My test would afford these three of all the men in Ulster an opportunity to be absolved of all past indiscretions as well as qualifying for the Champion's Portion."

Laoghaire rose to his feet and made bold eye contact with the giant as he hissed a reply.

"Waste no more of our time, Cú Roí, and tell us of what this test of yours consists. I will take your test, there is no man in Ulster, no man in the world, more ready to prove his honour and integrity than I."

Not receiving any response to his earlier comment, Farbeg peered out from his refuge, trying to focus on his surroundings. Catching sight of Cú Roí he retreated, emitting a howl of terror.

An unearthly rumble of the giant's belly laughter filled the hall and when it died away, his crooked smile darkened into a contemptuous scowl. Leaning down towards Laoghaire he spoke slowly and quietly.

"We shall see how ready you are. Listen carefully, I want you to take this axe."

The huge weapon glinted dully in the candlelight.

"Take it, and cut off my head."

"In combat?" asked Laoghaire, undeterred.

"Not in combat, I will meekly lay my head upon this block, and you do the rest."

Laoghaire laughed in disbelief.
   
"So, I chop off your head and you mess up our dining hall.  What then?"

Cú Roí leaned closer, looming over the tables, casting a huge shadow like an abysmal cloak of darkness. His ominous whisper sounded like the hiss of a monstrous serpent about to strike as he said with a devilish leer.

"Then you will then allow me to chop YOUR head off."

Laoghaire laughed again, but there was no supporting laughter from the gathering.

"That is a pact I will enter into with any man, or giant."

Without hesitation the giant knelt, placed his neck on the block and laid the axe on the floor. In heavy silence Laoghaire jumped down from the table and with little effort, picked up the gigantic axe.

As he did so, a white dove fluttered up in the rafters, one of its feathers floated down gently.  Laoghaire, holding the great axe, stood stock still as though considering whether the bird might be an omen and whether it might be for good or ill.

Like a sudden gust on a still night, a gasp went up from the assembly as the feather, landed soundlessly on the glinting edge of the axe blade and was cut cleanly in two.

Cú Roí stirred.

"Well then, must I wait until tomorrow!"

Laoghaire raised the axe and struck. A strangled cry arose from the company as the severed giant's head skidded along the floor in a great gout of blood.

Throwing down the axe the warrior brushed his palms together, but his bravura was short-lived as the huge body of the giant stirred and rose from the floor. Stooping, he picked up his severed head and replaced it as casually as a man donning his hat, leaving not so much as a speck of blood, a splinter of bone or a single hair.

Gathering up the axe and the block he lurched back into the shadows at the back of the hall, the walls and floor quaking ominously under the assault of his footsteps.

Laoghaire, scarcely able to conceal his terror took several slow paces backwards.

"I, er, I must see to my horse, he has not been fed since we left Connacht."

Are Conal and Cúchulainn going to stand up to Cú Roí, and can this giant be destroyed? Log on every Sunday for further chapters!