The Irish Bride

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Do you?”

  Hywel tipped his head. “I can say to you what I couldn’t say in the hall. Diarmait is a dangerous man, far more dangerous than I think you realize. Brodar spoke pretty words, but do you really think you can trust him?”

  “It isn’t a matter of trust. He is our overlord.”

  “Yes, he is, and as your overlord, as Leinster goes, so goes Dublin.”

  “That’s what we agreed at the table,” Godfrid said. “I don’t much like the thought of being beholden to another master, however, if that’s what you were going to suggest. The O’Connors are no better.”

  “And very likely worse, in fact,” Hywel agreed.

  “My brother spoke the truth as well when he said that, while Dublin longs to be independent, we are too few in number these days with fewer fighting men than we should have.”

  Hywel raised his eyebrows. “There are ways to remedy that.”

  “It never used to be something we had to remedy. Becoming a fighting man was all every man wanted.” Godfrid pursed his lips. “But you’re right. As you Welsh train every boy in bow and spear from a young age, we need again to do the same in Dublin, especially since so many fathers and uncles never came home from the Liffey.”

  “You might not mention such a program to Diarmait. Nobody wants to go back to a time when hordes of Danes descended upon our coasts every summer. The problem with creating fighting men is that, in order to keep them sharp, you have to go to war.”

  “I suppose that will never be an issue for you with the Normans on your doorstep.”

  “Sadly, no.” Hywel eyed him. “And now you are marrying Caitriona, the niece of the King of Leinster.”

  Godfrid could understand his skepticism. “It isn’t just Cait, of course. Conall is a friend too.”

  Hywel nodded. “Befriending one’s traditional enemies comes at a price.”

  “As has become clear to me, we have turned into merchants, not warriors. We need warriors to throw off Leinster’s yoke.” Godfrid made a disgusted grunt. “In truth, it matters little. The reality of our current situation is such that Brodar’s and my aspirations for ruling over an independent Dublin once again are as ephemeral as the clouds.”

  “And I imagine this wouldn’t be a friendly topic of conversation over the breakfast table in your household, would it?”

  “Cait and I have talked about it.” Godfrid took in a breath. “It is true my bride is content with the current relationship with her uncle, but she understands why I am not, and why Brodar and I can never be.”

  “She sides with you?”

  “She says she chooses me, come what may.”

  “I’m glad for you.” Hywel made a dismissive gesture. “That isn’t what concerns me the most, however.”

  The comment put Godfrid completely at sea, and he supposed it showed on his face, because Hywel muttered something in Welsh under his breath and turned again to face outward. “I am far more concerned about the future—not tomorrow, but five or ten years from now. You must have noticed Diarmait is restless, always.”

  “I have.”

  “More power. More land.”

  “It is the way of kings.”

  Hywel blew out a puff of air. “My concern is what he might choose to do as part of that quest, and particularly with whom he might ally.”

  Godfrid finally understood where this was going. “You’re afraid he’ll reach out to the Clares again.”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Neither that he would nor that you are concerned surprises me. But what is your concern? Gilbert is dead, and Richard is a boy.”

  “I wasn’t a boy at eighteen.”

  Godfrid pressed his lips together. “I suppose you weren’t. I suppose I wasn’t either.”

  Hywel shook his head, not to deny, but in what appeared to be a combination of disbelief and frustration. “You here in Ireland don’t know the Normans like we do in Wales. They have never seen a land they didn’t want to conquer.” He eyed Godfrid for a moment. “Your people used to be like that. It is my understanding that you and the Clares might even share blood, in fact.”

  “As I’ve said, we’ve grown soft.”

  “Men like Clare, no matter his age, have not. They have spent the last eighty years attempting to consolidate their hold on South Wales. Kings like Cadell of Deheubarth now must cater to them.”

  Godfrid’s eyes narrowed. “As we do Leinster.”

  “Like that, yes. Someday the conflict between Stephen and Maud will end, and then Norman eyes will turn to Ireland. If Diarmait seeks to keep O’Connor at bay—or overthrow him—he must not look to Clare or Prince Henry or any of these other Normans for help, not if he wants to keep his kingdom. It would be a huge mistake.”

  “I don’t think he’ll listen to me. He might listen to Conall. Maybe.”

  “Eighty years we’ve been fighting them.” Hywel was looking out at the countryside again, but Godfrid didn’t think he was seeing it. “There are too many, and they just keep coming. I don’t know how long we can keep them at bay.” Even though the sun was out, a shadow passed across the face of the Welsh prince.

  Godfrid wasn’t superstitious. His people had left premonitions and portents behind when they’d converted to Christianity. But even so, he shivered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Day Two

  Conall

  When Gareth and Conall left the scriptorium, they found Llelo loitering in the yard, his back against the stone wall and his face upturned to the sun. At Gareth’s arrival, he straightened and came forward, immediately apologetic. “I’m sorry for sleeping so long—”

  Gareth cut him off with a gesture. “I was awake, and you were not. I’m sure there will be some aspect of this investigation which will require one of us to stay up late, and you will be the one to do it.”

  From Conall’s perspective, it was typical of Llelo to apologize rather than be irate at not being woken, and he was glad Gareth rewarded him for it. Conall was not a father, but seeing his friend with his eldest son made him want to be.

  The thought brought Conall up short. He had never wanted to be a parent before. Children were ... troublesome. And inconvenient. Certainly they got in the way of doing what needed to be done, and small children, like Gareth also had now, were serious work. He probed the notion again, and then laughed to himself: in order to be a father, he would have to find a woman willing to tolerate him, which so far had not happened.

  Meanwhile, apparently mollified, Llelo nodded. “Mother has gone off with Cait.”

  Conall raised his eyebrows. “Are we worried about what they’re up to?”

  Gareth glanced at him. “Should we be?”

  “With Cait, definitely so. I’m hoping Gwen will temper her more terrifying impulses.” Conall laughed.

  Gareth smiled in response. “Gwen wanted Cait’s thoughts on the investigation.”

  Now Conall was genuinely concerned about where the women would take their quest and what they would be doing when they got there. But he reminded himself that Gwen was Gareth’s wife and had long experience with investigations, and, in another two days, Cait would be entirely Godfrid’s to rein in—or not. Conall had best get used to it.

  “What have you discovered so far?” Llelo asked, unconcerned about the vagaries of women.

  As they walked to their next stop, Gareth told him about what the armarius had said and added, “Conall or I spoke to every monk in the scriptorium, and none could tell us anything useful regarding who Harald was, what he did in his spare hours, what the coin signified, or anything else relevant to his death.”

  “Other than the armarius himself, I would add my overall impression that they were resentful of the questions. They were not forthcoming and not interested in being so.” Conall glanced at Arnulf, who was walking a few paces away. They’d been speaking in French so as not to shut him out. “Would you agree, Arnulf?”

  The priest turned up one hand. “I suppose.”

&n
bsp; “Do you have a suggestion as to why that might be?” Conall added.

  “I really couldn’t say.” As always, Arnulf’s response was vague. It was really starting to irritate Conall.

  “Is it because Gareth is Welsh, and I am Irish?” He didn’t think that was the reason, but he wanted to give Arnulf a place to start.

  Under the gaze of all three men, Arnulf wilted slightly and relented. “No, I don’t think that’s it. We have many people of all origins here. All men are equal in the sight of God.”

  Llelo gave a little tsk. “Then why wouldn’t they tell Father and Conall anything? They are trying to discover how and why Harald died. Why wouldn’t everyone want to help?” He spoke with the innocence of a man unused to intrigue, despite having lived these last four years with Gareth and Gwen and growing up in Gwynedd’s court. Conall could have kissed him for being so blunt.

  Arnulf sighed. “It’s because they’re angry to think Harald committed suicide and blame you for bringing the idea to the fore.”

  “I’m concerned how they even know we’re considering it,” Gareth said. “Who told them because we didn’t bring it the fore?”

  Arnulf put up both hands as if Gareth was accusing him. “I couldn’t say.”

  “Would that really make them keep information from us?” Llelo asked. “Wouldn’t they want to prove Harald didn’t kill himself?”

  “I tried to explain that any little thing might be helpful, and it may be they truly don’t know who and what Harald was,” Arnulf said. “As I don’t.”

  “I found the note,” Llelo said. “Perhaps it’s just as well I wasn’t there.”

  “I don’t think it would have made any difference to them, in truth,” Gareth said. “Nor will it to the healer, who’s the next person we’re going to see.”

  Llelo kicked a small rock out of his path. “I don’t understand why the note is such compelling evidence anyway. Christ prayed to the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. So what? How does that translate to suicide? Christ died on the cross, put there by other people.”

  “That is the implication. Yes,” Arnulf said.

  “I still don’t understand.”

  Conall gestured to Arnulf to elaborate further. The priest was actually looking a little brighter now that the conversation had turned to theology.

  “We can’t know exactly what Harald was thinking when he wrote those words, but he may have viewed his death as a parallel to Christ’s in some way, or an act of reparation for Christ’s suffering, or even misguidedly believed it was God who instructed him to die.”

  “He’d gone mad, then?” Llelo said.

  “Yes, essentially.”

  “But if he were mad, then he wouldn’t really know what he was doing, right? He wouldn’t be in his right mind, so then how could what he did be a sin?”

  Gareth’s hand came down heavily onto Llelo’s shoulder. “Enough, son. Leave it for now. We will speak of this later with Abbot Rhys.”

  Llelo subsided, somewhat resentfully, Conall sensed—and understandably so. Llelo had always been thoughtful, and he had been asking genuine questions from the heart. But Conall felt bad now in encouraging the boy to speak his mind. His questions were ones many men before him had asked, and a man had a right to his questions.

  But now wasn’t the time to ask them, and Conall didn’t think it would further the investigation to have it get out that Gareth allowed his son such freedom of thought. Both the Welsh and Irish churches had a long history of doctrinal irregularities, which the pope was encouraging Gregory, as the Bishop of Dublin, to stamp out within his jurisdiction.

  Arnulf made yet another gesture with one hand, however, seemingly unfussed by Llelo’s questions, which was a relief because stricter priests might have warned him against heresy. “Just to let you know, Brother Godwin, our healer, speaks nothing but Danish.”

  “Then I suppose you will earn your keep with him,” Conall said, trying to lighten the mood and further distract from Llelo’s questions. At first Arnulf didn’t appear to understand, since he frowned. But then his expression cleared, and he laughed. “My French is perhaps not as good as I thought.”

  “You understood eventually,” Conall said. “You know you are fluent in a language when jests don’t pass you by.”

  The healing house was a long room with eight simple wooden beds in a dormitory style arrangement. Three of the eight were occupied. In the nearest, an aged man slept. Two beds down from him was a younger man with bright red hair and a matching nose, indicating he had a respiratory illness. In the last bed, a boy of eight or nine lay curled on his side with a bowl next to his face. Conall supposed the monks were lucky to have only three ill members in a community of thirty. Both the two younger patients looked to have easily-spread illnesses, which could lay low half of Dublin. Not a sight Conall wanted to see this morning.

  But such was duty that he didn’t immediately turn around and leave the room. Gareth, for his part, appeared to take in the scene and then dismiss everyone but the healer, who greeted them as they entered. He was taller than Conall by several inches, but thinner, with a yellow pallor to his skin that implied either illness or lack of sunlight. According to Arnulf, Godwin had come to Dublin from Downe Priory, located between Wexford and Dublin, a house founded by the Danes after their conversion to Christianity.

  Either because he was irked by Gareth’s comments about their lack of success with the scribes or inspired by the experience, Arnulf appeared to want to take charge of the interview. He began by introducing them and explaining in detail what they were here for and the kind of information they wanted to know. But before the secretary wound down, the healer was shaking his head. “Harald never came to me, if that’s what you’re asking. I spoke with him only once or twice since he arrived.”

  Even working through a translator, Gareth was very attentive to the healer, and Llelo with him, seeming to want to make up for his earlier absence. But Conall had his eye on the healer’s assistant, who’d looked at them welcomingly when they’d entered but had found something to keep his hands busy and his back to them the instant Harald’s name was mentioned.

  Conall drifted over to where he was rolling bandages at a nearby table and said in an undertone. “What’s your name, son?”

  The assistant looked startled to be so addressed, but Conall found that his Gaelic accent made any oddities about his Danish speech quickly forgiven. “My name is Tod, my lord.”

  “Well, Tod, do you have something to tell us?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”

  “I think you do.” Conall picked up a vial from the worktable and pretended to inspect it.

  Tod rolled another bandage, clearly hoping Conall would give up and leave. When Conall merely set down the vial and picked up another, Tod finally had to answer. “Not here. Please, my lord.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Conall pursed his lips, pretending to study the writing on the label. “Meet me in the privy by the dormitory. Count to one hundred after we leave the healing house. Say you have an upset stomach. That will be credible, seeing as how you have a fellow sufferer in your last bed.”

  The assistant reached for another bandage to roll. At first Conall thought he was going to refuse, but then he gave a single nod of his head.

  Feigning a casualness he was genuinely trying to feel, Conall returned to Gareth’s side and attempted to look interested in the continuing denials coming from the healer. Gareth, being the trained investigator he was, hadn’t missed Conall’s interaction with Brother Godwin’s assistant and had been stalling to give Conall time to finish his conversation. In short order, he made his goodbyes, and they left.

  Up until now, Arnulf had walked with a pronounced strut, but the failure to elicit any information from the healer had him stopping in the cloister walkway and asking with true humility. “Where can I take you now, my lords?”

  “Rather than disturb your community any further,
we will pursue other inquiries this afternoon,” Gareth said. “I appreciate your service. We can see ourselves out.”

  “Of course, my lords.” Arnulf tucked his hands inside his wide sleeves and progressed back to the bishop’s office.

  Once he had retreated around the corner, Gareth turned to Conall. “What are you up to?”

  “I have a rendezvous with the healer’s assistant, who has something to tell me.” As they walked outside into the churchyard, Conall gestured with his head towards the far corner of the church compound. He had never before availed himself of that latrine, but he’d lived in Dublin for a year and often cut across Christ’s Church’s grounds to get from his house to the palace, so he knew where it was.

  Gareth pressed his lips together before saying, “I assume you’re thinking Llelo and I should stay away?”

  “That’s probably best. Perhaps the women have returned, or Holm has learned something from Harald’s mother. He doesn’t trust me anyway.”

  Gareth waved his friend away, laughing under his breath. “For good reason, I imagine.”

  Conall put on a mask of beleagueredness. “I am much maligned.” Laughing too, he turned away.

  It was a logical division of labor, and Conall appreciated Gareth’s willingness to apportion tasks to others besides himself. In truth, these days Gareth had a small army of helpers with some degree of experience with investigating death and murder. It would be a shame to waste any one of them. And while Holm spoke no French or Welsh and Gareth no Danish, likely he could find someone to translate—Cait or Godfrid at a minimum.

  Conall approached the entrance to the latrine, which, thankfully, hardly smelled, a result of the skilled builders of the church. Christ’s Church wasn’t a hermitage or saint’s hut tucked away in a hidden valley in western Ireland. The cathedral was the seat of the Bishop of Dublin, who had always looked to England for inspiration. The monks in that country had learned from Rome—and the Romans had built magnificent buildings in England long before the coming of the Normans.

  The River Poddle flowed north towards Dublin and circled around the city to the east before it met the Liffey. Near the cloister, a channel ran from the Poddle north through the city until it emptied into the Liffey on the other side. In so doing, it provided fresh water to the residents of Dublin. A branch diverged off the main line directly into the church compound, splitting several more times as it progressed underneath the buildings. One line went to the kitchen, another flowed to the washroom, while a third went to the bishop’s quarters. All three lines converged again at the main latrine, washing away the waste accumulated there, before flowing out of the compound headed back into the River Liffey.