CHAPTER SIX
A Race Against Time

Back in the palace at Eamhain Macha King Conor was pacing again.

"Where the blazes can Cúchulainn have got to?" He fumed, glowering at his two knights Laoghaire and Conal who stood to attention, resplendent in their scarlet tunics and purple cloaks.

"He could not have known about Bricriú's feast," ventured Laoghaire in a calculating pretence of loyalty to his great rival.

"No, he could not," shouted Conor, his anger unassuaged, "but has he forgotten it is the sacred feast of Baal Teine? Has he no fear of the Otherworld? Or maybe he is no longer a believer. While the whole of Ulster's nobility throng the courtyard of Eamhain Macha waiting for my daydreaming nephew and foster son to join the procession to Bricriú's palace at Dunrodraige, he is off disporting himself in his usual, light-headed, reckless, irresponsible way, oblivious of the needs and expectations of others."

Conor, scrubbed and immaculately attired, continued to pace agitatedly. His studded deer hide boots, rasping on the intricate marble mosaic of the council room floor, echoed from the high vault of the roof,

while Conal and Laoghaire struggled to suppress their smirks of glee at the King's diatribe.

"Does he not know I am to speak to you three about the Champion's Portion today, the greatest honour Ireland can offer to a warrior knight? In his absence we cannot inform him of my decision to go to Bricriú's feast and have the Chieftain of Dunrodraige arbitrate in choosing the Champion of Champions. Does he not understand that his unpunctuality, his unexplained absences, his absent-mindedness, can militate against him?"

"Well? Am I talking to myself? Am I asking these questions of the wind? Am I merely thinking aloud and expending great gouts of my heart's energy to no avail? Answer me!"

Behind his head, Conor heard a slight grating sound. Then Farbeg hidden beneath his throne said in an urgent whisper:

"Con my friend, you have lost your temper again in front of your men who look to you for example. Your way out of this is to apologise. Not too abjectly, mind. But an apology will make the best of a bad situation."

Conor closed his eyes, a slight, quivering smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Good and faithful Farbeg, squeezed into his tiny prompter's box on the back of the throne, had slid back the hidden aperture.

"I'm sorry for my unseemly outburst, noble warriors. I hope you will forgive me."

The two knights exchanged glances and turning to Conor, nodded gravely as the King settled into his composure again.

"Well, now, since our valiant knight, Cúchulainn seems to have been detained on his latest mission I have decided to proceed with today's business without him. Go therefore and tell the Captain of the vanguard to fall in and have him order his officers to assist the knights and their retinues to form ranks of four and follow the vanguard to Dunrodraige. We should be ready to move at noon!"

Meanwhile back inside the strange cave ........

Cúchulainn tiptoed cautiously along the tunnel, sword in hand, retracing his steps to the entrance. Laeg followed several paces behind, leading the horse and chariot. Every few steps Cúchulainn paused, signalling to Laeg to halt so that he could listen for any sounds of the enemy outside.

He could hear nothing but the gentle sighing of the wind as it funnelled into the cave. As the entrance came in sight Cúchulainn signalled Laeg to halt. This time, crouching in readiness for any sudden attack and keeping close to the cave wall, he tiptoed ahead to the entrance straining to hear and read the sounds outside.

Almost at the entrance, again he listened to a background of breeze and birdsong, the barking of a dog far away, the lowing of a cow and the croak of a crow, a blackbird broke into loud, sweet song nearby. Had there been a lurking enemy the bird would have streaked away, its loud alarm cry echoing among the rocks.

A pair of young rabbits appeared in the mouth of the tunnel, chasing each other playfully and leaping and hopping to and fro. This meant there was no one close to the entrance. Yet the signs did not rule out the possibility of concealed observers at a distance. What puzzled Cúchulainn most of all was why the Fomorians had not pursued them into the tunnel.

Having closed in from all directions until they converged they would have searched every possible hiding place, beating the bracken like grouse hunters and probing every nook and cranny in the rocks. But a retreat as large and as obvious as the pink cave ....

Somewhere in the twilight of his consciousness a faint datum was trying to get through to him. For a second he shut out all external distractions to try and grasp this delicate wisp of intelligence.

Yes of course, the sea! There was no sound of the sea breaking on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. There was no sound of gulls. It was not simply the absence of these sounds that alerted him, it was the absence of something else. There was no scent of the sea. Like all people who spend their waking hours out of doors, Cúchulainn had learned to smell rain as the final sign of its imminence. For one so acutely attuned to his native territory as Cúchulainn, the missing clue to the presence of the sea was almost as momentous as a change in the landscape. He wrestled with the conclusion that thrust itself insistently against common sense: either he was somewhere else or the sea had dried up.

In the absence of any sane explanation, a suspicion took hold of him that there was some kind of Fomorian devilry afoot. He tiptoed back to Laeg.

Lifting his bronze-clad shield from the chariot he spoke quietly to Laeg:

"Turn the chariot around facing back down the tunnel. I'm going to show myself at the entrance. If the Fomorians come against me they will only be able to enter three abreast at most. That gives me a chance to hold them off as I fight on the retreat. When I gain the chariot I will leap in. As soon as I'm aboard whip the horse to a gallop. If we gain the crevice leading to the inner cavern we can hold them off easily. Maybe we'll be able to get back into that strange place where Bricriú is."

"But .... " began Laeg.

"Yes Laeg, there are many 'buts', I know. Hope is all we have left now, so let's hope."

Without waiting for Laeg's response he turned and made for the mouth of the tunnel. After every dozen steps he stopped, head inclined, listening for sounds and signs. When he was within a few feet of the entrance the two rabbits appeared again.

They paused abruptly in their play and sat upright, ears erect.

They regarded him for a moment with their large, dark eyes, their noses twitching enquiringly, then they bolted from view. Reading this as a sign that there was nobody within striking distance of the entrance, he strode boldly out into the sunlight.

His eyes widened and bulged in amazement at what he saw. He wheeled around and yelled to Laeg:

"Come quickly Laeg. You'd never guess what's out here!"

Laeg, leaping from the chariot and taking the bridle, turned horse and chariot around and hurried to Cúchulainn's side. His mouth agape, eyes wide in disbelief, Laeg stared out at the scene. They were looking out through a grove of trees on the edge of a low knoll.

There in the middle distance was King Conor's palace at Eamhain Macha with its steep, green earthworks and its towering palisade of weathered pine trunks.

"I can't believe it," gasped Laeg. "This spot where we're standing, I know it well. But .... "

He wagged his head, spread his hands and hunched his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness, his mouth working silently as he searched for words.

They walked hesitantly out into the dappled morning sunlight under the trees and continued to gaze in disbelief at the scene.

"I don't understand this," muttered Laeg, "I have often come here to hunt rabbits and gather mushrooms, but that cave, I ...."

They both turned to look at the entrance to the pink cave. To their astonishment it was no longer there! There was nothing but the knotty boles of the ancient oaks with clusters of young alder and ash reaching out of their shadows for the sunlight.

The nearest thing to a cave was a freshly excavated rabbit hole.

"It must surely have been a Poll a' Phéiste after all," said Cúchulainn, "and it has surely saved our lives."

"But where have we been?" Laeg asked. "Those strange people, their strange speech, their odd clothes. They were not speaking Gaelic as we were. Yet we could communicate?"

Cúchulainn put an arm around Laeg's shoulder and gave him a comforting hug.

"Prebabelian," he said enigmatically.

"Prebab what?"

"The language Prebabelian. The ancient one-and-only language of all mankind. Its loss was a cataclysmic punishment of the gods for man's divisiveness, his stubborn pursuit of ego against the evolutionary currents of humanisation."

Laeg gave a short laugh.

"That old sage Cathbhad certainly did a job on you!"

Cúchulainn, staring across the green sward towards the fort didn't seem to hear the charioteer's remark.

"Occasionally it is granted to men of good will to have the knowledge of the primeval language restored so that they can communicate across barriers of time, space and culture."

"A gift of tongues?"

"A neat definition indeed!"

Turning to look at the charioteer he added.

"Though you may not realise it, today you and I have had one such dispensation, one such gift of tongues. Perhaps it is a sign from the gods that one day mankind's evolution, or re-evolution, towards total unity, unanimity and peace will get back on course."

As they drove across the lush grassland towards the fort road, Cúchulainn's eyes began to blur as though to remind him that his pains, the dreaded, debilitating Cess Noínden Uladh, were afflicting his brain as well as his body.

Physical pain was something his training had taught him to master. Pain, his tutors explained, is triggered in the brain by muscular contraction, and muscles, however involuntarily contracted, can be voluntarily relaxed. Easier said than done, they admitted, but with persistent practise, they maintained, pain can be decisively mastered by the will.

Before the child Setanta became the man Cúchulainn, his power struggle against pain began with one tiny pebble in his bed. At first it was an effective sleep-depriving irritant. After a week he had learned to reverse the natural reflex. Instead of tensing when the pebble dug into his flesh the pain triggered a relaxation, not just at the immediately affected point, but all over.

He soon became aware of even the wince contractions of the little muscles of the face, in the eyebrows and eyes, in the nose and around the mouth. For the first time he became acutely conscious of the complex network of muscles in his scalp, in the back of his neck, even in his tongue and glottis, which contracted without the sanction of his will.

Gradually his will took charge and his reflexes became reordered. Week two: add another pebble. The pain and challenge grew apace. By the age of ten Cúchulainn was fully attuned to the relaxation response. He could sleep soundly on the gravel of a dry river bed. By the age of fifteen he could command a scattering of shattered flint to behave like a tick of oaten chaff. He hardly noticed the bruises and abrasions of the playing field or the gaping wounds sustained in combat.

But his tutors could not put pebbles inside his head, much less within his mind or his spirit. The special pain, a dark melancholy of the soul, remained to be conquered. It was his deadliest enemy. Human enemies, he was convinced were merely the allies of that element of the diabolic Cess Noínden, the agents of Macha the witch and of whatever abysmal spirit was her consort.

Now it was the numbing agony of mind that defies description that was taking hold of him. Through the fog of his affliction he spotted a tiny, white-robed figure in the distance running towards them, long auburn hair and flowing white mantle streaming behind her. It was his beloved Emer. Laeg altered course and drove to meet her but Cúchulainn commanded him to stop.

"Laeg," he said through bared teeth. "I am sorely stricken with the Cess. Please don't question my wish now. Farroch has whispered an urgent word of advice in my heart. Go quickly and bury those Fomorian heads."

"But Cúchulainn, they are your, our trophies. They represent ...."

"Yes, they represent an increase of royal regard for both of us; but I suspect, for the first time, don't ask me why, that they will knock a mighty dent in Emer's expectations of me."

"But they represent your valour, your love of Ulster, your aversion to the King's enemies and your loyalty."

"Laeg, do what I ask for love of me!"

"All right, all right, for love of you!"

Laeg frowned deeply, compressed his lips, and with a slow shake of his head, he brought the chariot about. Cúchulainn touched Laeg on the arm and with a faint smile that said thank you, then he leaped nimbly from the already speeding chariot to land lightly on the grass. Lightly or not, the impact jarred his ailing brain, sending barbs of pain through his body.

When he looked again in the direction of the approaching figure, the fog in his head had grown denser but his heart leaped for joy as she flung herself into his arms with a ringing laugh. Her face registered a curious mixture of joy, exhaustion and fear.

"Oh, my beloved, mo chéadshearc, mo mhuirnín, (my first love, my darling)," she sobbed, "I was so ...."

Cúchulainn stifled her laboured words of endearment with kisses and groans of elation and relief. He held her for a long time, counting her breaths until they slowed and he could no longer hear them.

"Cúchulainn, my precious husband, there is so much I have to say and so little time in which to say it, I pray you will be silent until I have finished."

Cúchulainn caught her shoulders and leaned backwards to look at her face. He simply nodded his assent and he began to speak quickly but articulately.

"Let me get my foolish fear out of the way first. Last night I dreamed I saw you through the window of a strangely menacing building. You were dancing and talking with a peculiarly attired man. He was wearing a long red gown so tight that it most immodestly revealed the, the, the contours of his body. There were other people of equally frightening aspect there too.

I recognised a group of them, twelve I counted them, all seated in a row with their legs sprawled out in front of them. They were Fomorians, red-haired, freckled. They stared balefully at me through half-closed eyes, I thought they were dead. Their faces, they had the greenish black pallor of death; yet they were moving, breathing, alive. I had a terrible conviction that they were bent on killing you."

Cúchulainn felt his neck hairs prickle as he visualised Emer's frightening dream. What kind of supernatural quagmire had he blundered into? He interrupted Emer as soon as he recovered his speech and marshalled his wits. He gently slipped his arm around her shoulder.

"Come I have the most incredible story to tell you. When we discuss your dream I think you will begin to believe my tale."

As they walked slowly together towards the fort, Cúchulainn, with a playful squeeze, prompted her:

"So you have much to tell me, little one, and all I've heard so far was that you dreamed about me. I would expect you to dream about me every night. So what about some fresh news?"

Emer paused and turned her auburn head to look up at Cúchulainn.

"There is something else," she whispered with a slight tremor in her voice, as though she had felt a cold draft. Her shiver was transmitted to Cúchulainn. "What's the matter, little Emer, has someone walked on your grave?"

"I want to ask you to make a promise that you will, no doubt, find very difficult to keep."

Tears suddenly filled her eyes. A large, shining droplet rolled down her cheek. Cúchulainn gently brushed it away with the palm of his hand. She sniffled loudly before continuing.

"I beg of you not to go to Dun Rodhraighe," she said, pronouncing it in the Ulster manner: 'Doon Rory' with the d and the g totally aspirated. "Bricriú has. ...."

"Yes I know all about Bricriú and his feast and about his skill as a divider of men and a destroyer of friendship."

"Then promise me you will not go."

"You know about magic, your father, Forghall, being of the Tuatha De Danaan, dear Emer."

"Yes, my gentle hound of Culainn, I know about magic and dreams and evil self-worshiping gods and their human agents. I know that they are the irreconcilable enemies of all humankind and will stop at nothing to reverse truth and honour and integrity and courage and turn them into the vices that make monsters of men and women. I know that I am as vulnerable to their evil power as anyone else. Suppose they turn me into a self-interested, shrewish ...."

Cúchulainn placed a finger gently against her lips and whispered:

"Emer, you must understand the meaning of the geas. (A solemn obligation). I am under Bricriú's geas, just as Conor is; and as such we are obliged to accept his invitation. Whatever evil powers come against us we must face them bravely."

Emer looked searchingly into Cúchulainn's face.

"Yes, I understand the power of the geas; but how could you know about Bricriú's feast? His invitation came in your absence."

"How do I know? You say you understand magic, little daughter of the Tuatha chieftain, Forghall. Then you understand dreams and visions and the reality of benign spirits who are said to be the servants of the God of gods, servants like Farroch who, through the goodness and kindliness of his earthly agents, brought me safely home."

Cúchulainn turned Emer around towards the fort, his arm around her shoulder again. They began to walk. He remained silent, allowing her to process her thoughts. It gave him time too to try and read those thoughts and to anticipate her reply. They were almost at the entrance to their Tig, their quarters off the courtyard of the fort. She stopped again, turned and looked up into her husband's face. She was smiling.

"All right, the wife of Ulster's mightiest and wisest warrior knows better than to gainsay him. You are honour-bound by a geas. You are, worse, perhaps, under threat of evil consequences if you break the geas. So you, we will go to Dún Rodhraighe."

He embraced her suddenly as he felt the threat of conflict dissolve. He buried his face in her faintly scented hair, eyes closed, deeply inhaling its subtle emanations. She pulled away from him abruptly and laughed:

"You'd better get a move on, mighty warrior. The King and all the warriors and courtiers of Eamhain Macha have already left for Dún Rodhraighe."
"What, and I've dismissed Laeg! We'll have to walk!"

"First you will get into a hot tub. You stink like a lathered horse."

"But, we'll never ... "

"No buts. You will be late, but you'll be clean. And think of our entrance! The others will enter in anonymous procession. We will command more notice than the royal guests of honour. It will be as if we'd had a fanfare!"

As Emer spoke, Cúchulainn closed his eyes and shook his head vigorously. Emer's smile faded. She looked intently into his face, frowning anxiously.

"What is it my love?"

"Emer, your voice. It's fading. And my eyes are clouding over. I feel a growing weakness in my limbs. There's a ringing of bells, a hissing of serpents, a fire in my skull."

"Is it the pains, love of my heart?"

Above the turbulence of fevered dreaming Cúchulainn heard Emer's voice coming from a long way off.

"Cú? Are you back with us?"

Yes, he was back from wherever he had been. But back to where? He felt wet and cold with only the pain to offer him a dim memory of what had gone before. The pain made another savage assault on his viscera and he cried out. He commanded his body to relax but his mind lacked authoritative force. The Cess was winning another round. He tried to speak but managed only a short grunt. He tried to open his eyes but his eyes refused to comply. She was fussing with his feet, his legs.

"Naughty Cú," she said, "you've done it again. I warned you about those dandelions."

Now she was tugging at his arms, turning him over on his face, pulling, tugging, tut-tutting. He managed to open one eye for an instant.

It was semi dark. He could not remember where he was but it was comforting to see that Emer was there. He framed some questions and tried to speak but only a moan came. Then he tried again with a new question:

"What on earth are you doing to me?"

His own voice startled him, it was so thick and low-pitched."

"I'm changing your nappy, naughty Setanta," she laughed ever so softly. "And I'm changing your bedclothes."

Then: "You smell like a lathered horse."

Hadn't she said that before?

"But the feast?"

He tried to sit up but his limbs would not respond.

"We'll be late for Bricriú's feast. You must summon Laeg. Have him ...."

"Steady on there my boy."

It was another voice, a man's voice. He opened his eyes for a painful second.

It was Amtashtalee, his long wispy hair and beard, all frizzy and white, defying the darkness.

"Amtashtalee," Cúchulainn moaned. "We'll miss the feast and the judgement, the Champion's Portion, I'll not be in time!"

"Time? Steady on old chap," the old man whispered, "Amtashtalee is here. You're right. There is no time," he chortled ambiguously. "Yet there is plenty of time. It stretches ahead for ever without end; and it beckons backwards through eternity without beginning."

Cúchulainn's heart leaped. He smiled through his distress.

"Yes, I had forgotten! Time is no object. Time is of the essence. No. Time is the very essence, the essence of the past, the present and the future! Time is a stream whose flow you can stem, hurry forward or even reverse."

He relaxed and the pain subsided in response. He felt dry and warm again and drifted into a deep, dreamless, timeless sleep, but before he closed his eyes he thought he saw Ginger Rogers in his red, strapless gown, grinning over the old man's shoulder. Emer was there too, smiling. And Cathbhad.

"What is Cathbhad doing here? Why has he shaved off his beard and cropped his hair? Why?"

All the questions were suddenly engulfed and extinguished in sleep. As he drifted down into oblivion a faraway voice told him that it didn't matter. There was plenty of time and there was no time, for time is but a human perception. Amtashtalee was in charge and so he could sleep on and on and on, and still be in time for Bricriú's feast and the great adjudication of the champions.

Laeg's voice commanded. "You must get up to wash and dress in your finery. We are off to Bricriú's feast."

Amtashtalee interrupted their conversation. "Come now Cú my lad. If we are to surprise Bricriú."

"But Bealtaine is long past and the feasting is done and the Champion's Portion awarded to ....?"

Cúchulainn, in his confusion had forgotten Amtashtalee's reassurances about the time factor.

"Yes the fires of Baal have long since died and the feasting is done, but not for everybody."

"Who has the Champion's Portion? Laoghaire? Conal?"

"Come now Cú my friend. Drink this."

He felt the cool neck of the flask against his lips as he drank.

"Drink it. Then it'll be Laeg's turn."

"Ugh!" said Laeg as Ginger guffawed.

And from far, far away he heard Emer calling his name...

Love knows no boundaries of time or space, but can Emer's love pull Cúchulainn back to the palace of Eamhain Macha? Log on every Sunday for further chapters.