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and sudden stench as bowels opened in death or terror, the skirling of the war pipes, the thunder of fist-beaten shields. And worst of all, the sickening, unforgettable thud of the axe.
    Used by warriors on both sides, the battle axe had turned the meadows between the Tolka and the Liffey into a bloody quagmire and made a nightmare of Tomar's Wood.
    When the battle was over a few men were so appalled by the slaughter in which they had taken part that they hurled their weapons into the sea. Most, however, kept them to pass down from father to son, encrusted with legend. Someday old men would boast, "--I was at Clontarf with Brian Boru," and those words alone would be enough to draw an audience.
    But that was in the future. On Easter Sunday 1014 it was enough to have survived.
    What remained of the Irish combined forces waited in dazed disarray for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do next. But their surviving officers were incapable of leadership. The loss of the Ard Ri had unmanned them.
    In life, Brian Boru had dominated Ireland as no man before him. He was more than the High King, an overlord claiming tribute from five provincial kings and two hundred tribal kings. He was a lover and Ireland was his grand passion. Throughout his life he had courted her with all the talents he possessed, including ferocious energy and a questing, complex intellect.
    Although in his youth he tried to slaughter every Viking he could, in time he had recognized the permanence of the Scandinavian presence in Ireland.
    After two hundred years, Viking colonists simply could not be plucked out like a sore tooth.
    When he accepted this truth, Brian changed his approach and set out to win the allegiance of Norse and Dane and incorporate them fully into Irish life.
    The breadth of his vision and the audacity of his ambition shocked some and infuriated others.
    He entered into political negotiations with various tribal chieftains who had long enjoyed warring upon one another, forcing peace upon them with a canny mixture of bribery and intimidation. He encouraged alliances between Viking and Gael through trade, marriage, and the fostering of orphans.
    Through his own children he developed a network of dynastic marriage that extended beyond the shores of Ireland to intertwine with foreign royalty. To win ecclesiastical support for his schemes he rebuilt churches and endowed monasteries. With an unprecedented grasp of military strategy--
    stimulated by an education in monastic schools that included studying the careers of Caesar and Charlemagne--he built a navy, trained a cavalry, and planned perimeter defenses for the island to be a deterrent to any other foreigners attracted by Ireland's riches.
    Those defenses were not yet in place at the time of his death, however. Murrough had been entrusted with their realization ... in the future.
    The influence of Brian Boru permeated every aspect of Irish life. He had overthrown traditions, reinterpreted laws, reformed society, and reshaped the people's image of themselves.
    In so doing he had become the Irish Charlemagne.
    His enemies, and they were many, accused him of being an opportunist and a usurper.
    In the Book of Armagh he called himself Emperor of the Irish.
    The Ireland of 1014 was a dream Brian Boru had dreamed and brought inffbeing. His death was beyond comprehension.
    Particularly to his son; to me.

Chapter Six
    The captain of the honor guard gazed up at Donough's pale face, in which the freckles stood out alarmingly. The youngster was swaying on his horse.
    "Are you all right?" the Dalcassian wanted to know.
    Donough could not answer him; could not even hear him. All he heard was the wind. The ban shee wind. Cold, so cold, with himself in its vortex and nothing beyond but a vast and terrible emptiness.
    The Dalcassian stepped forward and seized Donough's horse by the bridle. Thank God at least one of them is alive! he thought to himself.
    "This has been a shock for you," he said aloud.
    "Had no