Cnogba, Mag Breg – 742 AD

Her pale fingers delicately traced the outline of the clovers that surrounded her as she knelt amidst the funeral mounds of the great men and women that had come before her. Hair – a shade of fiery red waves somewhat reminiscent of the dying embers of the wooden hearth in the palace’s kitchen – draped across her shoulders, slivered and swayed around her melancholic, porcelain features. An air of disinterest, of isolation, surrounded the young woman clad in a regal gown as green as the fields from which she had been born, or the emerald situated in diadem that rested in the circlet of aurum at the epicentre of her forehead. The same was to be said for her eyes – green. Yet, they weren’t the same wholesome shade as her gown or the familiar fields. Her eyes, albeit every bit as beautiful as the young Irish princess, were somewhat colder, paler and disenchanted. Life had been long and hard, death had followed swiftly on the wings of defeat in South Brega. The mighty Uí Chonaing clan was not as powerful as it had once been, power slipped through the fingers of her aged father and – as a repercussion of that particular reality – the crimson-haired princess, Áoife* Ní Conaing, suffered a loss of the security she had so desperately clung too.

*just as an aide, Áoife is an Irish name pronounced as EE-FA. It is the Irish word for “beauty”. – Gavin

Áoife was a woman – royal and respected as she was, she was a woman nonetheless – and her role would never been involved in matters of state. Her mind was deemed unaccustomed to that world, but Áoife – for all of her faults and flaws – was a keen-minded and observant individual. Blood had run freely in the coastal county of Brega. The Romans had invaded Ireland – renaming it Hibernia – and an onslaught of war and strife had followed in their wake. Mythical epics of wars had been a way of life for the young woman, as it was for all the educated of Ireland, and she had long known that there was a code to live and die by. Her father, Conaing mac Amalgado, may have been the King of Cnogba but she was no more sheltered from the harshness of war than any of the peasants she crossed in her daily life.

She had left the high-walled castle to escape the overpowering mustiness of seclusion. In the days since word had reached them that the Uí Chernaig had planned a second attack on their lands, Áoife and her brothers – the dim-witted Congalach and battle-hungry Diarmait – had been hidden from sight. They were the future of their clan, the heirs to the throne should King Conaing not survive the raging war and, as such, more valuable to the man than any of the jewels of Ireland. Her hand lifted from the clover, drawing a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and revealing the lightly freckled cheeks that had been heightened by her extended days in the watchtowers of the castle, bathed in the sun.

It was then that she saw him. He was unlike any man she had ever witnessed before. His dark hair was unmanageable, arcing in every impossible and unruly angle, and his beard of the same shade wasn’t much more tamed. His smooth, muscular chest was readily shown to her as a dirty, soiled loincloth held tightly around his weight. In his right hand was a bloodied sword. Áoife furrowed her brows and pouted her lips as she moved into an upright position, unlike most women she had never handled a weapon. The princess had all of her battles fought for her by a guard but she had slipped from their watch and now stood alone with the battle-ready stranger. It was apt that she was hidden between the funeral mounds of her people as she faced who she suspected to be a harbinger death.

His words were loudly spoken but unfamiliar to her. Áoife merely looked at him with the innocent expression of a doe.

“Ah,” he said as he moved closer. “I’ll assume you’re Gaelic.”

Áoife nodded. “Yes.”

He spoke in her words but his accent made it hard for her to understand. The princess was aware that he was a foreigner from a world beyond her own and that confirmed one thing in the beauty’s mind – he was an invader in the lands of her father and thus, no friend of hers.

He shrugged, twisting the blade in his hand as he took a step towards her. “Ye look mighty fine for a Hibernian wench.”

“I’m no Hibernian.”

He gave a curt scoff.

Áoife was uneasy with the silence. She cleared her throat, allowing her husky tones to fill the voice as she held her ground. The princess would be a fool not to be afraid at the sight of the invader but she refused to disgrace herself, her family, or her clan by whimpering as a child would. “What is it ye want?”

“Does a man have to want somethin’ to stand in yer field?”

Her lips formed a smirk. “A man is always in want of somethin’.”

“Spoken like a woman who knows her way around a man?” he moved closer, his oaken eyes resting on the glittering diadem partially obscured beneath her red hair. “Not just any woman though, are ye?”

“I could ask the same of ye.”

He nodded. “I’m just a humble Brythonian on an adventure. We do as we must to protect the ones that we love, don’t we?”

Áoife nodded.

“I’d ask who ye were but I’m sure we already known.” She noticed the malice in the Brythonian invader’s voice.

“The Brythonians are aiding Uí Chernaig.”

Áoife, the sole princess of Cnogba, realised the situation she was in as the man’s mouth snaked into a look of much contentment. During the war, the Uí Chernaig sept of South Brega had enlisted the insistence of some invading tribes from the shores of Ireland – those who had started their invasions but made little headway. The Brythonians were a tribe that had long lived on the shores, even holding some land towards the coastal regions of Brega but nothing compared to the Gaelic clans that ruled the strikingly emerald island. Áoife, for all of her wealth and privilege, was staring into the face of a man who could slay her in a moment – an enemy of her father and she was unarmed. Her hope had been to maintain her identity but even if he hadn’t yet become aware that she was the daughter of Conaing mac Amalgado, he knew that she was a woman of importance given her silk gown and jewellery.

In that moment she considered the idea that her fate was sealed. The cold wind from the Boyne flowed towards her, washing over her with a sense of dread and frustration.

“Aye, it suits us.”

Her tone was sharp. “I’m sure.”

“Don’t be like that, lass. This needn’t be hard.”

Áoife stood firm.

The Brythonian moved towards the princess until his face was right before her own. Áoife attempted not to flinch as his hot breath or putrid odour assaulted her nostrils. His left hand lifted from his side, grazing her limp hand as she shrugged it away from him. He attempted to make contact again but she rebuffed his touch. Forcibly, the Brythonian grabbed her right hand and brought his own – with the point of the sword – to her throat. His eyes danced with malevolence as his eyes surveyed the “spoils” of his presumed victory. They both knew that he could overpower her whether she wanted him or not, Áoife had ceased to be capable of making decisions – she was now a pawn, a doll, to be used the plans of the Brythonian man who threatened to end her life should she present him with any reason to do so. One more dead Irish princess was no great loss to the man. It was as normal to him as if it were a rite of passage. He had claimed many beauties against their will, but none had lived.

“No.”

He slapped her for her insolence. The Brythonian was not a man who had ever been refused, or if he had been, he’d never willingly accepted it. He was a force of nature, descended from warriors who travelled the world in search of something more to claim as his own. Áoife gave it a moment, as her eyes bore into the soul of a man determined to destroy every aspect of her – not just her maidenhood, and then she made a move. If he claimed her through a victory, Áoife would know that she fought. Hindered by her long emerald gown, Áoife struck out with her free hand. She knocked him in the stomach and bent backwards as the sword swung. Áoife turned on her heel as he was crouched over, her hands hiked the dress high as she started into a run. The Brythonian wasn’t held back for long, he’d dropped the sword in shock but he was a man skilled in death – he had other methods.

In less than ten steps, the Brythonian caught the princess by the waist and hoisted her into his arms. Áoife grunted as his arms tightened around her but in sheer determination, she refused to scream or cry. His breath burned against her neck as he leaned into her fiery mane of waves and sniffed deeply. Shivers danced along her spine as she struggled against him, his invasion of her space as well as her land allowed an uneasiness to slip over the princess. In every other excursion, Diarmait had come in hunt of her but now she was well and truly isolated. Áoife would admit that she was terrified of the fate that rested ahead of her.

The Brythonian threw her to the ground, placing his sweaty, foul body atop of her own as he pressed her face further into the clumps of grass and clovers. Áoife grunted, tasting the metallic taste of her blood as it seeped from her lip after the slap. The Brythonian lifted her dress and tore through her undergarment and dress slip, drawing his own ragged loincloth from his body. It felt as if he were stabbing her, tearing through her, and she tried not to cry but as the pain continued – seemingly in endless waves – she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Silently, Áoife sobbed. Several minutes past since he had mounted her like a mere horse, and he stood. Drawing her to her feet so that she faced him, Áoife was dazed. She noted the tingling sensation of the blood on her inner thighs, and her fear was replaced with shame and hatred.

“Thank you.”

The Brythonian’s words had barely reached her ears as he took the sword and drove it through her chest, adding fresh waves of blood to the injuries she had already sustained. Áoife didn’t speak, instead she fell.

TEMPERANCE

By Gavin McMahon

Áoife lay in a pool of her own blood, her eyes flickering as the pale green focused on the blinding sun above her. Cnogba seemed colder to her now, unfamiliar and damaged much like her own body. She was certain that she had died, that she was trapped in the immortal plain but unable to reach the promised fairylands of Tír na nÓg. It was with as much strength as she could gather that the Gaelic princess lifted herself from the soft, welcoming earth and met the eyes of the peculiar creature that sat cross legged ahead of her. In her life she had heard tales of magical entities and mischief makers but she had never had much reason to believe them and she had certainly never witnessed them. Yet, ahead of her sat what was certainly a leipreachán. His red hair was slicked back from his large forehead and his beady eyes watched her with an intent interest. Perhaps the fairylands would welcome her into their arms yet. It was with a slight amusement, despite her otherwise sombre demeanour, that she noticed him toying with the clump of clovers that she had herself played with before the tragedy.

“Ah,” he smiled broadly. “It’s finally awake that ye are. I was worried there for a second that ye’d been too far gone, princess.”

“Ye know who I am?”

“All the creatures of Cnogba know their princess,” he continued jovially. “Ye see, whilst the princes and kings be runnin’ to and from wars and invasions, it’s the women – the princesses and queens – that provide for our land. In their own way, of course.”

“I suppose,” she said dreamily. “Am I dead?”

His eyes darkened. “Not unless ye want to be.”

Áoife pondered the concept for a moment. In the stories, although mischievous rascals, there had always been a warm friendliness to the leipreachán. She didn’t feel that emanating from the creature ahead of her. In fact, she found him to be quite calculated and insensitive in the happiness he portrayed. The faerie folk were a peculiar species, oft unseen and unknown, but Áoife found herself overcome by a now familiar uneasiness as she stared into the youthful complexion of the ruddy nosed little creature. His soft, rounded features seemed suspiciously stern and the darkness that had arisen in his eyes frightened her. She looked at him, not with awe, but with frustration and then she remembered her situation. Áoife was reminded of the Brythonian laying hands on her, the sensation so real it felt as if it was being repeated and she broke contact with leipreachán.

“What are ye really?”

He smiled. “Aren’t you the clever girl, Áoife of the Uí Chonaing?”

He tore the clovers from the earth and brushed him over his face as the humanoid creature shifted into something entirely new. His body twisted and elongated, hues of red spilling through every pore on his body until what could only be described as a monster stood ahead of her. In appearance, aside from being entirely red, he wasn’t entirely unlike the Brythonian. He lacked the beard but his heard was unruly, and his chest – muscular – exposed to her beneath a similarly red cloak. His nose and teeth stuck her as slightly more pointed. Áoife wasted no time in rising to her feet before the creature – still much taller than the princess – and clenched her jaw, her eyes focused intently on him and she silently feared that he would harm her as the now disappeared Brythonian invader had.

“They call me, Mephistopheles.”

“And what is a Mephistopheles?”

He smirked. “A concept your people haven’t yet come to understand. I’m a bringer of chaos, a lord of lies, and I’m here to help you.”

The imposing figure was a far different being than the petite leipreachán that had stood before her only seconds beforehand.

Áoife spoke. “How can ye help me?”

“I can help you make things right. I can help you get vengeance.”

She paused, considering his words carefully.

“Ye said I wasn’t dead if I didn’t want to be. What does that even mean?” There was a hint of accusation in her words.

Mephistopheles, also known as Mephisto, moved towards her with arms wide in a gesture of welcoming her into his world. Áoife flinched, after her ordeal she was less inclined to allow others to touch her but Mephisto placed his arm across her shoulders regardless of her preferences.

“I can bring you back, my dear. I can offer you that closure.”

Her heart raced. “Through vengeance.”

“Exactly.”

Áoife’s eyes narrowed. Again, that hint of cold, accusation laced every word she spoke. “And what do ye need of me in return?”

“I simply need you to accept.”

The Irish beauty was suspicious of the red monster. Her life had been very secluded from the outside world, she had known her clan and kingdom and relied on nothing else. In her first experience with a stranger, he had snatched her maidenhood and apparently killed her until a faerie lord – or something along those lines she assumed – had come to her with an offer of life and revenge. Aoife, concerned about the shame she would carry in life, wanted to end it all with a refusal. She didn’t know if the words Mephistopheles spoke to her where true and, by his own admission, he was a lord of lies. Yet, the wrathful emotions that boiled inside of her made her want to scream. The Brythonian had taken from her without a moment’s thought of the repercussions, and he had abandoned her to die. Áoife was conflicted about the path she should choose.

“So, princess, do you accept?”

She nodded, her voice cracking. “Yes.”

Áoife moved in a daze. It felt like days had past but she had awoken from the fairylands the moment she had accepted the offer of the red faerie lord, Mephistopheles. He had healed her, made her whole, and she marched with a steadied determination that vengeance would be hers – on the assurance of the red faerie. Mephistopheles had been gone when she had come around. The sun had begun to set and it was slowly growing colder, she could feel the chill rising in the air as she marched from between the large funeral mounds of Cnogba and across the fields and valley that shielded the River Boyne from her vision. Ireland was a beautiful country, although she hadn’t seen much to compare, with its rustic forests on every side of the kingdom’s corners. Drawing back the overarching leaves of a tree, she walked on before she could notice them falling to the ground in flames.

The hem of her long emerald gown, tattered and torn, trailed behind her. Her bust tightened and encased beneath the lace bodice, breathing was a labour but as she marched with poise, yet her face didn’t betray her discomfort. Áoife had spent her entire life beneath the watchful eyes of men, she had been both a pawn and a token, but she had never once rebelled the system that confined her. Now, the innocence in her icy doe eyes was gone. Áoife was more than a shell of her former existence but as the camp fire’s billowed ahead of her, there was an uneasiness that overcame her. She had a moment of doubt. It was fleeting but still, present.

Her brow furrowed as she watched from the safety of the bushes. She didn’t immediately focus on him, she was caught off-guard by the general boisterousness of the invading clan. Áoife found them all to have a general appearance of dark hair and swarthy skin, unlike the fair men who had surrounded her for her entire life. The Brythonian was in the centre of them. He was cheered on by all those who surrounded him, the dribbles of ale running through his unkempt beard. Hatred burned every core of her being as she watched him living a jovial existence without a second thought for the foreign princess that he had claimed and murdered amidst the burial mounds of Cnogba. Her life had been so inconsequential to him that he hadn’t given her a second day.

Áoife felt a rustle to her left as she turned and stared into the long, sombre features of a oaken hued doe.

“Shoo.”

It remained unmoving. The doe watched her with a sense of curiosity, its large eyes lingering on those of fragile, broken young woman lurking in the shadows.

“I said leave.”

Áoife reached out her hand, delicately placing it on the cheek of the creature and pushing it away from her. Panicked, she stepped back as flames burst from the cheek of the animal and spread over its sinewy body. The pale brown coat shimmered and crackled into an inferno of orange and charcoal. Her confusion and fear quickly subsided as she remembered that the red faerie Mephisto had spoken of her transforming into a vessel of vengeance. In a split-second decision, the Irish princess pulled herself onto the back of the doe and settled into a side-saddle position. Áoife underwent a transformation similar to the animal, but this time she was unafraid. Her gown sparked and tore, a trail of green and black flames, as the red mane twisted and burned into a raging inferno ponytail. Her face was gone, only a skull – with the diadem, now with a ruby instead of an emerald, still intact – remained.

She made herself known.

The Brythonian army stopped their riotous behaviour and looked to her. In their travels they had faced off against the monsters at the edge of the map but she could see in their now contorted faces that they had never before witnessed a creature such as her. The doe flared it’s nostrils as they approached. The skeletal structure of her face no longer portrayed the emotions that she felt welling inside of her. Áoife appeared calm and controlled as the men reached for their weaponry.

“I know ye.”

She nodded. “Ye do.”

His lips formed a smirk. “Ah. The princess?”

“One and the same.”

Without hesitation, the Brythonian warrior gestured towards the man sitting closest to the flaming spectre. He reached for a mace and swung with a wild fervour, it crashed into the taut jaw of the unflinching animal on which she rode. Áoife’s attention lingered for a moment on the bulbous face of the assailant. Her fiery mane shifted in the wind as she looked away, her arm extending with the elegant grace of a woman deserving of her prior position in life, and drew a flaming arc in the air. Her fingers roughly clasped around the flames as a bow formed between them. Without a moment’s hesitation, she drew a line of flame from the bow past her cheek, exhaled, and released. It struck the man in the chest, his skin melted and bubbled before her as he collapsed to the ground. Unmoving, she witnessed the flurry of activity amongst the invaders.

The cowards ran from the wrath of the rider. Yet, the Brythonian and a few of his men remained. Had she been capable, the princess would have smiled at the sight of the man before her – he had played into the plans she had made in her mind, and he would fall beneath her fuming vengeance before the winds came to change. Áoife, toying with those ahead of her, loosed a second arrow into the green earth that stood between them. It set alight the rustling grass and exploded in a ring of fire around them, capturing them. Then, she descended from her mount as the doe bowed and removed itself from her sight.

“I do not fear ye. We are men of war.”

She waltzed through the flames. “Even men of war can die.”

Another, bravely following the lead of the Brythonian, spoke. “Bring yer worst, wench. We’ll send ye back to the burning lands.”

“The burning lands?” Her voice was melancholic. “I am no longer fit for any lands worth noting, a remnant that stands before ye, a certainty of yer death. Now, come.”

As if unable to refuse her command, the man who had spoken rushed towards her. He had the frenzied motions of a pig, his hand reached for a lance that he failed to grasp and he collided into the burning woman without a weapon to protect himself. Slowly, she leaned in and looked into his eyes as he screamed for mercy, but she didn’t understand the meaning of the word. She felt only hatred for all who surrounded her. Áoife felt the souls of his victims, the murdered men and women and children that he had claimed on his many voyages, and she watched as his hazel eyes darkened to charcoal and burned from existence. His body fell limply as the princess turned towards the four men that remained, an entire army disappeared over the river behind them and she saw fear forming on their sunken features.

The Brythonian roared. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Vengeance.”

Loosing two more arrows, Áoife downed two of the remaining men before they could even reach for their weapons. In a swift swing, the bow elongated into the pointed shape of a spear and she launched it through the hair into the final invader that flanked her intended victim. Áoife understood that all the men had needed to die, she had seen the evil that resided within their souls from their auras, but she only had need to strike down one. Her true target. It was as if a moment of tranquillity overcame him and she returned to a form in which he would have fully recognised her, if Áoife had lingered in his mind at all. His fallen expression told her that she had as she approached him. He had landed on his knees, not to beg for life but in acceptance of his fate.

“Ye have brought this on yerself.”

“Consumed by anger and hate,” he smiled. “Are ye much better than me, princess? I made you everything that ye are now.”

She paused. The wind bristled around her smooth features as she leaned towards him, cupping his hairy face within her delicate hands. The bodies of those she had killed still smouldered around her. Áoife understood his word, in making her deal with the red faerie she had vanquished the humanity of her own rearing. The genteel manners of a princess had become submissive between the cool fury that rested within her darkened and tainted heart. The Brythonian was not a man that deserved to live but she could choose not to remain a victim at his hands, changed and marked by the damage that he had dealt to her. The princess backed away as her features shifted to the flaming skull and again drew his face close to hers.

“Ye have been judged guilty.”

He spat. “Do yer worst.”

“This is no longer a case of vengeance, but retribution. I harbour no anger towards what you have done,” her words were deafening. “I am at peace. Yet, there are those who have lost the opportunity to taste the sweetness of forgiveness and for that, ye must be punished.”

The Brythonian, like his comrade before him, relived the truth of his miserable existence in a series of images reminding him of the faces of every victim. Every murder replayed within his mind as he roared for her to stop, to spare him, the begging of a weak man beneath the hand of a once unstoppable fury. His charred corpse fell at her feet as she returned to her human form. Áoife’s objective lay completed yet she didn’t feel the freedom that she had imagined, still as a woman with a renewed morality, she had understood that her choices had been made and the silence seemed to envelope her.

Áoife Ní Conaing stood alone, enduring.

PENCIL OF VENGEANCE

This is it. The beginning of the second miniseries – the first of which began in 2009 and ran to 2010 over seven issues. The first series dealt with the Seven Deadly Sins as an inspiration for the stories but this time round we’re going to flip the concept and run with the Seven Christian Virtues. As you should now be aware, the first of these is Temperance.

The challenge was telling a story that essence of temperance, and told a traditional story about a wronged Spirit of Vengeance whilst also showing the character as possessing the virtue. That was the majority of the struggle given that by definition, the traits of a temperate individual include self-restraint, forgiveness and justice. I wanted to make it very clear that although this is a Spirit of Vengeance, in the end, Áoife’s temperate personality overcomes her need for vengeance. Her reasoning for her actions was not revenge, but an informed decision that anyone involved in the law or jurisprudence would have made – although punishment was a tad harsher, this is a Ghost Rider after all.

I suppose a bit about the story, detailed below, is that a lot of it is actually based on fact. Behind the supernatural aspects, the majority of information in the issue is an account of factual happenings in what would become the area of Knowth in County Meath.

In creating the character of Áoife, I went with the basic premise that I wanted an Irish princess as the main character of the story. Ireland didn’t appear in the previous miniseries and I wanted to make sure that this time, it did as it is my home country. I made those broad strokes and then I began to plan a bit deeper. I chose a period of time, 742 AD, and went from there in terms of story ideas. I did a bit of research, and the Romans were invading, meaning there were many settled tribes beyond the Irish. I knew I wanted a county that was currently considered part of the Republic of Ireland, so I chose County Meath – more specifically, I chose Knowth in County Meath as it’s the site of Neolithic burial mounds that are actually older than the Egyptian pyramids. In 742 AD, Knowth was known as Cnogba. I also learned that King Conaing mac Amalgado was in power (fun fact, he died in this year but it happens after our cut off point) so in the Irish tradition, the character became Áoife Ní Conaing, or Áoife, daughter of Conaing (as Áoife translates to beautiful, her name is also beautiful daughter of Conaing). Congalach and Diarmait mac Conaing (mac meaning descendant of) are also real people. Only Áoife and the Brythonian are fictional. Conaing had no daughters. The Brythonian was chosen because two tribes lived in the area – the Brythonians and the Menapii. Finally, there were continuous wars in these years between the two tribes – Uí Chonaing and Uí Chernaig – so most of the basis for the story was in fact real and could fit into Irish folklore.

This was a lot of fun to write and I hope everyone can enjoy the tale of Áoife Ní Conaing as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Gavin McMahon