Princes of Ireland

by Edward Rutherfurd

  But what if she didn’t. What was he going to do? Did he really intend to give her up on account of her god? If he did, and she married someone else, wouldn’t he regret it? Each time he went over the matter in his mind, he found that it came down to the same thing. It’s not what she asks for, he thought, that I care about, but how she asks for it. What matters is her attitude.

  It was late in June when he rode back again to Rathmines. He had no definite plan, even then. He did not know whether he was going to offer to be baptised, and whether he’d be married or not. As he approached the big earth wall and palisade of her rath, he had no other plan than to watch, and listen, and follow his instincts, and see what happened. After all, he told himself as he rode up to the entrance, I can always leave and come back again another day. Only one thing worried him a little: how was he going to open the conversation on such a delicate subject? He still didn’t know when he saw her coming to the gateway. I’ll just trust, he supposed, to luck.

  She met him with a smile. She led him inside. A slave brought him mead. She told him how glad she was that he had come. Was there something new, something almost respectful in her manner? It seemed to him there was.

  “Oh, Harold, son of Olaf,” she said, “I am so relieved that you have come. I have been feeling so embarrassed by my impudence—truly impudence—to you when we last met.”

  “It was not impudence,” he said.

  “Oh, but it was,” she cut in earnestly. “When you had done me the honour—the honour—to make the offer you did. And I never expect it to be repeated now. But that I should have dared to impose conditions on a man I respect so much …”

  “Your god is important to you.”

  “It is true. Of course. And because I believe He is the true God, I was anxious to share … I certainly won’t deny,” she allowed her hand lightly to touch his arm, “that if you were ever to come to the true faith, I should rejoice. But that is no excuse for what I did. I am not a priest.” She paused. “I was so anxious to say this to you and to ask for your forgiveness.”

  It was admirably done. He might not be entirely deceived, but it was agreeable, very agreeable, to be so flattered.

  “You are kind and generous,” he replied with a smile.

  “It is the respect you are owed, nothing more,” she said, placing her hand on his arm again. She waited a few moments. “There is something else,” she said. She led him towards a trestle table on which there was an object of some kind, covered with a cloth. Supposing this might be a platter of food, he watched as she carefully pulled away the covering. But instead of food, he saw an arrangement of small, hard objects that glinted in the weak, interior light. And coming closer, he stared in surprise.

  It was a chess set. A magnificent chess set, the pieces carved of bone tipped with silver and set on a polished wooden board. He had seen it before, in Morann’s workshop.

  “It is for you,” said Caoilinn. “A token of my respect. I know,” she added, “that the Ostmen like to play chess.”

  It was perfectly true that the marauding Viking traders had developed a liking for the intellectual game, though this may partly have been because the carved chessmen were often objects of great value. Though Harold seldom played the game himself, he was touched that Caoilinn should have gone to such trouble on his account.

  “I wanted you to have it,” she said, and he scarcely knew what to reply.

  He realised, of course, that she had outmanoeuvred him. He guessed that she was betting that sooner or later he would convert to the faith of the Christians to please her. And he supposed that he probably would. By raising the issue, moreover, and then giving way so graciously, she had placed him in her debt. He saw through her, understood, but didn’t mind. For hadn’t she also signalled clearly that she knew when she had gone too far? That, he reckoned, was good enough.

  “I have only one request,” she continued, “though you may refuse it if you wish. If ever you should wish to marry me at some future time, I should ask if there could be a ceremony conducted by a priest. Just for my sake. He would not be asking you what you believe, you may be sure.”

  He waited a few more days, then he came back to ask her, and was accepted. Since she wanted to complete the harvest at Rathmines before she left that estate, it was agreed that they would marry, and she would come to his house in the autumn.

  For Harold, the days that followed began a period of both anticipation and contentment. Rather to his own surprise, he had already started to feel younger; and he looked forward to the autumn eagerly.

  For Caoilinn, the prospect of marriage meant that she was ready to fall in love. Although, when she had first asked him to be baptised, she had fully intended that Harold should give in, she realised afterwards that she was glad that he had fought her. She respected him for it, and she had rather enjoyed the challenge of bringing him round. The vigorous, red-haired Ostman was like a spirited horse that one could only just control, she thought. Yet at the same time, he was a sensible man. What could be better? He was safe and he was dangerous and he was where she wanted him. By July, as the fields were ripening in the summer sun, she enjoyed some very pleasant fantasies about the times they would spend together. By the time he next came to call, her heart was quite in a flutter.

  And it was just then that she had another happy thought.

  “I shall ask my cousin Osgar to marry us,” she told Harold. “He’s a monk at Glendalough.” And she explained to Harold about Osgar and their childhood marriages, though she left out the incident on the path.

  “Does this mean I have a rival?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Yes and no,” she answered, smiling. “He probably still loves me, but he can’t have me.”

  “He certainly cannot,” said Harold firmly.

  She sent a message to Osgar the very next day.

  The blow fell two days after that. It fell without warning, from the summer sky.

  The northern headland of the Liffey’s bay, with its lovely view down the coast to the volcanic hills, was a pleasant place to hold a quiet conference. As well as its Celtic name of Ben Edair, the Hill of Edair, it had acquired a Norse name also nowadays, for the Ostmen called it Howth. Often as not, therefore, the local people mixed the two languages together and referred to it as the Ben of Howth. And it was on a warm day in early July that Harold and Morann Mac Goibnenn met upon the Ben of Howth to discuss the situation.

  It was Harold, in his genial way, who summed it up when he remarked, “Well, Morann, I think we may say that the men of Leinster have finally proved that they are insane.”

  “It cannot be doubted,” Morann wryly replied.

  “Thirteen years of peace, thirteen years of prosperity, put at risk for what? For nothing.”

  “And yet,” Morann added sadly, “it was inevitable.”

  “Why?” The Leinster men had never forgiven Brian, of course, for daring to be their master. But why, after years of peace, should they have decided to challenge him now? To Harold it made no sense.

  “An insult was offered,” said Morann. The rumour was that the King of Leinster and Brian’s son had fallen out over a game of chess, and that Brian’s son had taunted the king with his humiliation at the battle of Glen Mama more than a decade before. “That could start a war,” the Celtic chiefs of Leinster cheerfully agreed. “That would do it.” Worse, the Leinster king had left Brian’s camp without permission and struck the messenger Brian had sent after him. “And then,” Morann added, “there was the woman.” Brian’s ex-wife, the King of Leinster’s sister, longing to see Brian humbled: like a vengeful Celtic goddess, like the Morrigain herself, she was reputed to be stirring up trouble between the parties.

  “Why is it,” the Norseman burst out, “that the men of Erin allow their women to make so much trouble?”

  “It has always been the practice,” said Morann. “But you know very well,” he added, “that it’s your own Ostmen who are behind this as well.”

  Harold sighed. W
as he getting old? He knew the call of the high seas; he’d sailed them half his life. Those adventures were past though. All he wanted was to live on his farm at peace. But around the seaborne settlements of the Norsemen, a restlessness had arisen that year, and now it had come to Dyflin, too.

  The trouble had begun in England. More than a dozen years ago, at the very time that Brian Boru had crushed the Dyflin men at Glen Mama, the foolish Saxon king of southern England, known to his people as Ethelred the Unready, had unwisely attacked the Vikings of northern England and their mighty port of York. He had soon paid for his foolishness. A fleet of Viking longships had crossed the sea from Denmark and returned the compliment. For the next decade, the southern English had been forced to pay Danegeld—protection money—if they wanted to live in peace. And now, this year, the King of Denmark and his son Canute had been assembling a great Viking fleet to smash poor Ethelred and take his English kingdom from him. The northern seas were echoing with the news. Every week, ships had come into the port of Dyflin with further reports of this adventure; small wonder, then, if some of the Dyflin men were growing restless. Ten days ago, in the middle of a drinking session by the quay in Dyflin, Harold had heard a sea captain from Denmark call out to a crowd of local men, “In Denmark, we make the King of England pay us. And now we’re going to throw him out. But you Dyflin men sit around paying tribute to Brian Boru.” There had been some angry murmurs, but nobody had challenged him. The taunt had hit home.

  Because of the excitement caused by the English business, every Viking troublemaker and pirate in the northern seas was on the lookout for an adventure.

  And now the men of Dyflin were going to get their chance. If the Celtic King of Leinster wanted to revolt, his Viking kinsman the ruler of Dyflin was ready to join him. That, at least, was the word in the port. Had they learned nothing from their defeat at Glen Mama? Perhaps not; or perhaps they had.

  “They won’t try to fight Brian in the open again,” Morann told Harold. “He’ll have to take the town, which won’t be so easy.” He paused thoughtfully. “There may be a further consideration.”

  “What is that?”

  “The north. Ulster hates Brian. The O’Neill King of Tara was forced to resign the High Kingship and swear an oath to Brian, but the O’Neill are still powerful, and just as proud as they ever were. If they could get back at Brian …”

  “But what about the old king’s oath? Would he break it?”

  “He would not. He’s an honourable man. But he might allow himself to be used.”

  “How?”

  “Suppose,” said Morann, “that the men of Leinster attack some of the O’Neill lands. The old King of Tara asks Brian for help. Brian comes. Then Leinster and Dyflin and others too perhaps, combine to destroy Brian, or at least to weaken him. Where does that leave the old King of Tara? Back where he was before.”

  “You think the whole business is a trap?”

  “It may be. I do not know.”

  “These devious tricks don’t always work,” the Norseman remarked.

  “In any case,” Morann pointed out, “there will be fighting and looting all around Dyflin, and your farm is one of the richest.”

  Harold looked grim. The thought of losing his livestock at his time of life was deeply depressing. “So what should I do?”

  “Here is my suggestion,” the jeweller replied. “You know that I have sworn a personal oath to Brian. I cannot fight against him, and the King of Dyflin knows that. I can hardly fight against my own people in Dyflin either. But if I were to go to the O’Neill king, who’s also bound by oath to Brian, then my obligations are fulfilled.

  I avoid,” he smiled wryly, “embarrassment.”

  Yes, thought Harold, and if a trap had been set for Brian as his friend suspected, he would still finish up with the winning side.

  “You are a cautious and a devious man,” he said admiringly.

  “I think therefore that you should stay on your farmstead,” Morann advised. “Do not let your sons join any raiding parties that go to attack Brian or the O’Neill King of Tara; since I have vouched for your loyalty to Brian, you can’t do that. Keep your sons with you. The danger to you will be when Brian or his allies come to punish Leinster and Dyflin. And I will tell them that you feel bound by the oath I made on your behalf and that you stand with me. I can’t guarantee that this will work, but I think it’s your best chance.”

  It seemed to Harold that his friend was probably right, and he agreed to do as he suggested. There was only one other thing to consider.

  “What about Caoilinn?” he asked.

  “That is a problem.” Morann sighed. “Her estate at Rathmines will undoubtedly be at risk; and I don’t know what we can do for her.”

  “But I could help her,” Harold said. “I could marry her at once.”

  And he set off for Rathmines that afternoon.

  It was a pity that Morann’s knowledge of Caoilinn had been imperfect. But then it was scarcely his fault that, when he had told his friend Harold about her, he could not see into all the secret places of her heart. As for Harold, during their courtship he had avoided any discussion about her former husband; he had no idea of the handsome widow’s passionate fixation with the person of Brian Boru. It was a pity, also, that instead of talking outside in the daylight, where he might have gauged the expression on her face, they had gone into the privacy of the thatched hall in whose penumbra he could hardly tell what she was thinking.

  He began by remarking in a cheerful way that there was a good reason why they should marry at once. She had seemed to be interested. Remembering how careful and practical she was, he set out his case in a businesslike way.

  “So you see,” he concluded, “if we marry now and you came across to Fingal, you could bring at least some of the livestock and keep them with me until the trouble is over. I believe there’s a good chance that we could save them. With luck, thanks to Morann, we might even be able to protect the estate at Rathmines, too.”

  “I see,” she said quietly. “And by marrying you, I’d be giving my loyalty to Brian Boru.” If there was a new coldness in her tone, he missed it.

  “Thanks to Morann,” he answered, “I think I can guarantee it.” Knowing the misfortunes she had suffered when her husband had opposed Brian before, he imagined she’d be glad for a way of staying out of trouble now. In the shadow, he saw her nod slowly. Then she turned her head and glanced into a dark space near the wall where, on a table, the yellowed old drinking skull of her ancestor Fergus glimmered like a savage Celtic ghost from a former age.

  “The men of Leinster are rising.” Her voice was faint, almost distant. “My husband was of royal blood. And so am I.” She paused.

  “Your own Ostmen are rising, too. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “I think they are very stupid,” he said, frankly. He thought he heard a little intake of breath from her, but he wasn’t certain. “Brian Boru is a great war leader.” He said it with admiration. “The Leinster men will be crushed, and they deserve to be.”

  “He is an impostor.” She spat the word out with a sudden venom that took him by surprise.

  “He has earned respect,” he said soothingly. “Even the Church …”

  “He bought Armagh with gold,” she snapped. “And a despicable thing it was, to be bought by such a man.” And before he was quite sure what to say next: “What were his people? Nothing. River raiders no better than the pagan savages of Limerick they fought with.” She seemed to forget that these insulting expressions about the pagan Norsemen in Limerick might have been applied to Harold’s antecedents, too. Perhaps, he thought, she didn’t care. “He is a pirate from Munster. Nothing more. He should be killed like a snake,” she cried with contempt.

  He saw that he had touched upon a raw nerve, and that he must tread gently, though he could not help feeling a little annoyed.

  “Whatever may be said of Brian,” he said quietly, “we have to consider what to do. We both have our est
ates to protect. When I think,” he added, hoping to please her, “of all that you have done, so splendidly, here at Rathmines …”

  Had she heard him? Was she listening? It was hard to tell. Her face had become hard and pale. Her green eyes were flashing dangerously. He realised, too late, that a rage was upon her.

  “I hate Brian,” she cried. “I’ll see him dead. I’ll see his body cut to pieces, I’ll see his head upon a spike for my sons and daughters to spit upon; I’ll have their children drink his blood!”

  She was splendid in her way, he thought. And he should, he knew, have waited for her rage to subside. But there was, he sensed, a disregard for him in it which displeased the powerful Norseman.

  “I shall protect my own farm in Fingal, anyway,” he said grimly.

  “Do what you like,” she said contemptuously, turning her head away from him. “It has nothing to do with me.”

  He said nothing, but waited for some word of concession. There was none. He rose to go. She remained as she was. He tried to see in her face whether she was angry and hurt, waiting perhaps for some word of comfort from him, or whether she was merely contemptuous.

  “I am going,” he said at last.

  “Go to Munster and your friend Brian,” she replied. Her bitter voice fell like death in the shadow. She looked at him now, her green eyes blazing. “I have no need for traitors and pagans to be limping into this house again.”

  With that, he left.

  The events of the weeks that followed fell out very much as Morann had supposed they would. The men of Leinster made a raid into the O’Neill king’s territory. Soon after this, the King of Tara came down to punish them and swept across Fingal to the Ben of Howth. Thanks to Morann, however, who came with the old king, Harold and his big farmstead were not touched. Within days, more parties, reinforced by men from Dyflin, struck back. The King of Tara sent messengers south to ask Brian for help. And by mid-August the frightening rumour was spreading through the countryside.

  “Brian Boru is coming back.”