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Years later, on a balmy night that seeps into and swirls within his sleeping mind like peat smoke in his lungs, Cú Chulainn dreams of that day.
The scream of the horses, wheeling and kicking in the chaos and confusion—had their masters not been brothers, once?
The slide of river mud under foot, churning into a frothing crimson paste as the combat rages on, hard fought and hard won and over much too soon for him to comprehend.
The flesh of his friend, sliding apart under the blade of that terrible spear as easily as an oar cuts through water.
Wide, clear eyes—eyes that he had thought of every day since he left Dún Scáith—staring up at him, forgiving him.
Then the light goes out of them, and a part of him goes with it.
Not right, not right, not fair—
He awakes, snarling and sweating and fighting back the rising desire to rip and tear—always looking for a fight, even when he knows it cannot alter what has already come to pass.
Cú Chulainn thinks that there is little he hates more than feeling vulnerable—threatened. It is something that he has so little cause to feel that when he does he is preoccupied with the wrongness of it, struggling to make sense of the foreign emotion.
There in his bed, it is as though a blade has been pressed to his exposed jugular, biting into the place where life flows the strongest. His pulse flutters at his wrists and thunders in his chest like the unceasing wheels of his chariot over Emain Macha’s hills.
Emer is beside him, as she always is. She rises up to place cool hands on his arms, one on each bicep, and says nothing—she does not have to. He knows of no one more silver-tongued and sharp-witted, but her light touch alone is enough to ground him.
Cú Chulainn sinks back into their shared cot with a sigh, spitting strands of wild hair from between his lips as the bitter taste of rage and grief claws a jagged path up his throat.
That he who has slaughtered whole armies and fed Ulster’s soil with invader’s blood should still be haunted by one death among countless others is beyond belief.
He says as much to his wife, and her sad smile and soft murmur sets a stinging behind his eyes that he cannot blink away.
“You know why it is so.”
Emer leans in to place a kiss to the fine dusting of hair over his heart. Her tongue darts out to taste salt there, seeking to draw a different sigh from his mouth. “You know why.”
✧
Láeg considers himself to be more perceptive than most—in his line of work it is a necessity. He must be able to choose the best path ahead and keep a keen eye out for danger, which is never in short supply where his master is concerned.
His place at Cu Chulainn’s side has also honed his insights in subtler ways. Láeg has learned to notice when his master wants to give the impression of being in fair form, though it could not be further from the truth.
They are on their way south for the Aonach Tailteann where they will celebrate Lughnasadh with the rest of the Ulaid, but Cú Chulainn seems in no mood for a festival—even with his back to him as he drives the horses along, Láeg can feel the tension rolling off him in waves.
He misses the constant stream of spirited conversation that usually passes between them on journeys such as this, but for once the boisterous Hound is subdued.
When the day is almost at its end, they stop to make camp for the evening. After Láeg is done tending the horses he pulls out the game board that comes everywhere with them—his master had never denied him a game of fidchell, and today is no exception.
It is perhaps unfair of him. He cannot say he is surprised that Cú Chulainn is not playing his best—he keeps making obvious mistakes and moving the pieces with sharp motions that threaten to send them all tumbling to the ground.
Láeg can see that his mind is not on the game. There is a ripple under his skin like the ghost of his battle frenzy, but there is no violence behind it, only restless dissatisfaction.
Láeg knows exactly with whom his master’s thoughts reside.
His own memories of Ferdiad mac Damán are dominated by that fateful occasion—a young man as tall and broad as his master was small and lean, curling golden hair that glowed in the ford’s reflection as he took his place with resigned determination, and a smile that had made Cú Chulainn flinch in a way that Láeg had never seen before.
Ferdiad had also elicited something from the Hound that Láeg has rarely seen since: restraint.
Theirs had been a rare match the likes of which was not to be seen again for many lifetimes. Equals in all things, not least in their esteem for one another.
It may not have taken someone as keen-eyed as he to see that Cú Chulainn had loved the Connachtman fiercely, and that cutting him down had left him broken, not only in body but in spirit.
But Láeg sees more than most.
At the ford, he saw Cú Chulainn ignore the bloody mess of his own body to gather Ferdiad in his arms and haul him from the water as if he weighed nothing, his touch far gentler than necessary for one who could no longer feel it.
In the years since, he has seen his friend’s gaze drift off and hover in the middle distance, as though he may peer all the way into the Otherworld if he tries hard enough.
If anyone could do so, it would be him. But he never seems to find what he is looking for.
Láeg does his best to understand—he thanks the gods he has never known a loss of similar proportions, but it is his job to make Cú Chulainn feel less alone. Emer’s too, he supposes, in a similar sense.
He tries, and he mostly succeeds, but in unkind moments he wants to grab his friend by the roots of his hair and shout we are still here, do you not see us right in front of you, don’t you dare act like you have lost everything.
For all his faults, though, Láeg has never seen much of a point in jealousy. Cú Chulainn wants the entire world and everyone in it laid at his feet, but to his credit, he manages to deserve such devotion by making his connections with those around him feel inimitable—something all their own.
Emer was his in her own exacting and independent way, and he and Ferdiad’s bond had been forged during a fervent youth spent in Scáthach’s shadowed halls.
Deeply cherished, and irreplaceable.
But Láeg had been there through it all, the before and after, steadfast as a standing stone at Cú Chulainn’s side and shadowing his heels as though he were his own hound. The thought makes him smile.
“Stand up. I want to fight.”
While he had been caught up in his musings, his master had got to his feet, fists clenched tight as he glares down at the abandoned pieces on the board.
Láeg blinks up at him, unmoving. “Do you, aye?”
Cú Chulainn kicks at the dirt near his charioteer’s foot. “That’s an order.”
They are both long past giving and taking orders in such a manner, but Láeg knows what he needs, and this is the only way he knows how to ask.
And so the two young men spar in the summer twilight, circling each other like territorial wolves.
The charioteer is stronger than the average man, his arms and thighs corded with muscle from years of handling the horses and reins, but he could never hope to match Cú Chulainn’s strength—there are few who can.
They are both aware that he could easily tear Láeg asunder with the flick of a wrist, no ríastrad necessary, but he won’t—he cannot afford to lose another friend to his own wrath.
This is not about hurting, or winning.
They jab and lunge and kick at each other, as evenly matched in this as they are at fidchell.
There it is again, Láeg thinks. Restraint.
With the sweep of an ankle he knocks his master to the ground and scrambles to sit astride his thighs, pressing down on his taut stomach and one wrist to quell his half-hearted thrashing.
Láeg leaves Cú Chulainn’s other wrist untouched. He will not take away his option to free himself if he so chooses, but he does not think that he will.
The man lying in the dirt beneath him has, for the moment, ceased to be the Hound of Ulster, a hero with the weight of the world upon his shoulders. He has surrendered all pretence, all control, for the sake of having Láeg’s steadying pressure above him—just to feel him near.
His charioteer. His friend.
Constant, loyal, present.
He cannot be what Ferdiad had been to him, but he can be this.
“You’ll not leave me, Láeg.”
It is a statement of fact rather than a demand or question. Cú Chulainn speaks, proud as ever, as though he is not the one with his back pressed to the hard ground, perspiring and panting for breath.
In this moment he looks as close to his namesake as Láeg has ever seen him, and he cannot contain the smile that steals onto his face.
The charioteer cocks his russet head, of a like colour with the bronze torc about his neck—an Imbolc gift from his master—that catches the last rays of the sun as he leans forward to hold Cú Chulainn’s intense gaze.
“Ach sure, where else am I to go, little hound?”
✧
Emer loves looking at her husband, though she would never tell him such a thing.
When she wakes in an unfamiliar tent far from home he is sprawled out next to her, naked and snoring loud enough that she is surprised they have not had complaints.
She takes in his narrow hips and sloping waist, and the wispy dark hair—much softer than the wiry, coarse stuff on his head—that runs along his long, lithe limbs and low on his stomach.
When they had met Emer had the width of three fingers on him, but he has grown in the years since and now they are almost of a height. He barely has to tilt his head up to kiss her anymore, and she would be lying if she said she did not miss it.
Her gaze lingers on the soft swelling of his chest that he rarely took great pains to conceal. Had it not been this difference that had set him apart from the rest of the Ulstermen, afflicted as they were by Macha’s curse during Medb’s invasion? Had that which sets him apart not saved them all, in the end?
Cú Chulainn wears the reminder with the kind of pride reserved for a gift from the gods themselves. Emer has always been of the belief that that is exactly what he is.
Fondness blooms in her as she nudges forward, lashes brushing his warm skin as she presses her lips to his tanned and freckled shoulder.
When she wakes again their cot is half-empty, the warmth of him gone. Emer looks around the tent to find it equally vacant.
Discomfort pricks at her, as it always does when he is out of sight. Not because she distrusts him—though he has given her plenty of reasons to do so in their time together—but because Cú Chulainn has a knack for finding the exact kind of trouble that seeks desperately for him in return and running headlong to meet it, arms outstretched.
Her husband is a hero, both of this world and the Other—he must take his place within the stories before he takes his place beside her. She always knew what she was getting into, and it is one of the things she loves most about him.
That does not mean she has to like it all the time.
Emer contemplates sending one of her ladies to find him, but thinks better of it. She hates to see him go, but she knows he will always come back to her.
It is a comfort to know that at least he is never alone.
When Cú Chulainn had come to court her, Emer had made it very clear that she could not consent to marry a man that would only prove to be a child in need of looking after—motherhood has never held any appeal for her, something she had learned very early on within Luglochta Loga’s oppressive walls.
But no sooner had a burgeoning tenderness for the Hound began to kindle within her than she realised that it would not fall to her alone to care for him. His charioteer, as inseparable from him as his own shadow, had met her questioning eyes with his own level green gaze and an understanding had passed between them.
In taking the measure of Láeg mac Riangabra—forthright and faithful—Emer had taken the measure of his master. Surely a man in possession of such a devoted servant and friend couldn’t be half bad.
Her intuition had not failed her, in the end.
She soon learned that to be loved by Cú Chulainn is not a competition to be won, but the bestowal of something precious.
In turn, Emer is free to love him as she sees fit, secure in the knowledge that she need not pour all of herself into loving him alone when he has always required more than one person is able to give.
She is grateful, to Láeg.
Despite the heartache that had followed in the wake of their confrontation, she is also grateful to Ferdiad, for loving him as he did, and for his hand in shaping the man Cú Chulainn has become. She knows he still thinks of him, almost against his own will—a wound intent on reopening again and again.
Emer only wishes she could have known his beloved foster-brother better before he was lost forever, but since the war Cú Chulainn has not been at all forthcoming with memories of Ferdiad, and she will not push the matter.
She has had plenty of practice in being patient with him. They are still young yet, and have all the time in the world.
Emer turns her head to glance into the corner. Cú Chulainn’s hurl and sliotar are missing, and she smiles, the tension flowing out of her like the tide. She thinks of him running with inhuman swiftness across Tailteann’s emerald fields at the crack of dawn to release the pent-up energy that has accumulated since their arrival.
She has just begun to sit up, wondering whether he will have dragged poor Láeg from his bed along with him, when the tent flap is cast aside.
Cú Chulainn enters with high colour on his cheeks and flops down beside her, already tired out before the day has even begun.
Emer leans down to kiss his smiling mouth, hair black as the Morrígan’s wing hanging loose about her shoulders and veiling them from the world.
He tells her that a particularly powerful swing of his hurl had sent the sliotar flying into the tree line, and that Láeg is still out searching for it.
She makes a sound of disapproval. “First you won’t even let the man sleep on a bit after a long day at the reins, and now you have abandoned him to hunt for a tiny ball in a forest all by himself? For shame.” She pokes him in the ribs, and relishes the sharp exhale that leaves him as he squirms under her touch.
How many are privileged to know that Cú Chulainn, greatest of the Red Branch Knights and chief among the warriors of the land, is ticklish just there?
“Láeg offered on both counts, love, I swear to you,” he insists, sitting up to take her hands in his. “We were looking together, but I was put in mind of something that happened a long time ago and he did not care at all for what I had to say.” He looks so offended that Emer has to press her lips together to quell the laugh that bubbles up in her.
“He told me that he had heard the tale from me before, and that I should return here and tell you instead while he looks about without the distraction of my laughter, the miserable wretch that he is.”
Emer sits up a little straighter, intrigued by the mention of a memory. “And what is it that has amused you so?”
“When it went soaring off into the distance like that, and the look on Láeg’s face, I remembered…” Cú Chulainn pauses, mouth twisting into that grin she adores.
“Did I ever tell you about the time that I sent a sliotar flying into the side of Scáthach’s head so hard I thought it would crack like an egg?”
Emer shakes her head and keeps very still.
“Right, so, it happened that Scáthach had some business or other to attend to that day and told us not to bother her, so the group of us went off to entertain ourselves. Being the best with the hurl, I was showing the others how to improve their swing. It’s all in the wrists, you know, here—”
Never one to shy away from boasting of his own deeds once he gets going, Cú Chulainn leaps up to retrieve the stick from the floor and gives Emer a demonstration, his eyes shining with the light of reminiscence.
“Like that, see. But then who should round the corner into the courtyard but our teacher, and at that same moment I go to hit the sliotar against the wall before I realise she’s there and—oh Emer, you should have heard the sound it made.”
She is smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. He has a way of holding one’s attention, even when narrating some ridiculous anecdote—she finds it is difficult to look away when he is like this.
“At first she was stunned, eyes as large and round as wheels. Then she was livid—absolutely spitting mad. When she turned to look at us, it was like I had never really, truly known fear until just then.”
His shoulders are shaking with the effort of containing his mirth.
“Uathach was trying so hard not to laugh that I thought her face was going to be stained red forever. And Ferdiad…”
Cú Chulainn trails off. The name hangs between them in the quiet of the tent, its own tangible presence.
He draws a breath.
“Ferdiad grabbed the stick right out of my hand and took the blame for me. Not for the first time, and it was not the last.” A soft smile plays on his lips as he takes his place beside her again.
Thank you for allowing me this, Láeg, Emer thinks. Best of the Ulaid. Best of men.
“Tell me,” she breathes, slipping her fingers between his. “Of that first time, and the last, and all the others in between.”
They sit there for a long while as Cú Chulainn recounts how it had been between him and the champion of Connacht before allegiances and strife had been the ruin of them.
Emer knows that tales of her husband’s prowess and deeds will echo through this land and beyond for generations to come, passing into history, then legend, then myth.
But she is glad that there are some stories they get to keep all to themselves.
✧
The funeral pyre spits billowing plumes of smoke high into the dark sky, almost blotting out the stars winking down from above.
The newly deceased have been burned and the long dead honoured and remembered. A pleasant weariness drapes itself over Cú Chulainn like a mantle after a day spent partaking in the aonach’s funeral games and Lughnasadh festivities.
Though it is late, the place is alive with activity—the chanting of Druids and oration of bards provides a tempo for the dancing crowd, sorrow and joy and every emotion in between expressed through the rhythmic movement of bodies around the bonfire.
Cú Chulainn glances into the roaring flames and sees a mane of gold and the flash of a smile that he had buried at the ford and in his heart for far too long.
The dead cannot haunt the living if they are kept alive in the memories of those who love them still. And where better to remember them than here, at summer’s end, when the prevailing season is cast off and the world makes itself anew?
He and Láeg find Emer amid the throng, her motions elegant and unhurried. Cú Chulainn takes her hand in his, the other circling her waist where the delicate silver chain belt he had given her at their wedding feast lays cool against his palm.
His shoulder knocks against Láeg’s, sturdy and solid as a great oak.
Emer gives him a look as she squeezes his hand and he grins, exultant and feral. Before Láeg can protest he is pulled into the circle of their arms, their bodies forming a triskelion as they dance and spin in the light of the fire and the moon.
Láeg grumbles, but grips their hands tight. Emer laughs, and the sound pierces Cú Chulainn’s heart like a shot from Lugh’s sling.
Here, no one is looking at him with the usual heady mix of awe and fear. There is no one to be slain, no scores to settle or battles to be won—death and glory will come later, but this moment is sacred.
Here is where he understands that vulnerable and threatened are not as synonymous as he had once assumed—perhaps the difference is that sometimes a weapon designed to kill placed in the right hands shall be cast aside, never to be used.
It is true that a hound will roll over for those it trusts not to take advantage of the show of soft flesh.