Conall’s voice echoed in the gatehouse tunnel. “Nice night.”
“It is,” the guard said.
With a blast of insight, Dai realized the guard thought Iona was a whore and Conall had hired her for the night, which was why he didn’t blink twice at a sailor walking to the dock with a woman on his arm.
After giving Conall a hundred foot lead, Vigo sauntered up to the guard, who nodded at him in acknowledgment. “Merchant Vigo.”
“Dorn. How are you tonight?” Vigo sidled close, and the two men exchanged a few pennies hand-to-hand before Vigo walked on.
Dai hustled to catch up. “You gave him money?”
Vigo snorted. “Of course.” He lifted his chin to point to Conall and Iona. “They must be new, because they didn’t.” His eyes narrowed.
Dai had a sudden sick feeling in his stomach, which was alleviated slightly when Conall headed towards the shadows of one of the boats at the dock—now completely stranded on the sand—and stood talking quietly with Iona, rather than heading off to the end of the pier like Dai and Vigo were doing. He reminded himself that before Conall had become the ambassador to Dublin from the Kingdom of Leinster, he’d been a spy—and apparently a good one to have lived so long.
It was full dark, but the moon was bright, and it was easy to see the crossing of the Liffey. During high tide, the channel was easily deep enough for shipping, but during low tide, even though it was a freshwater river, the water receded enough to allow passage across the riverbed. The River Poddle entered the main channel to the east of their location, so its flow didn’t affect the crossing of the Liffey at the dock. While there were at least a dozen narrow rivulets snaking their way through the sands, few were more than a foot wide—easily hopped across—and the widest one at the center point had a board placed across it so the travelers’ feet would not get wet.
Here, Dai’s boots did sink into the soft, water-soaked soil, but after a few quick steps, he was out of the worst of it and back on somewhat more solid ground. The total distance to cross was a hundred yards, nothing like the three-mile journey from Aber to Llanfaes across the Lavan Sands.
For the first time, he wondered how they were supposed to get back without being remarked upon. They weren’t going to be able to return the same way. The next low tide would be twelve hours from now when it was full day.
“Don’t worry about it,” Vigo said.
Dai had been focused on his feet, but he looked at his companion. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t have to cross back this way.”
“The guards don’t mind letting so many people back into the city before dawn?”
“That’s what the money I gave the guard was for.” Vigo spoke matter-of-factly, and then he shrugged. “Besides, we won’t return all at once. Many will sleep here and there, and some will attend mass at the abbey.”
Dai hadn’t known there was an abbey north of the river. He hadn’t realized there was much of anything north of the river, but he’d clearly been wrong. Here was a village in and of itself, and as they came up the bank onto the wharf, he got a strong whiff of leather workings to the east.
Vigo seemed to have a disconcerting ability to read Dai’s mind, because he laughed. “Takes some getting used to. We’ll be meeting in a glen half a mile north of here, so by the time we get there we’ll have left the smell behind.”
They continued on, encountering more people the farther they walked, more than a dozen in front of and behind them. A few more strides and they caught up with Sitric, who greeted Vigo courteously.
“Are you going to try your hand tonight?” Vigo asked him.
Sitric lied outright. “I better not. I wrenched my shoulder yesterday. I’d lose. Badly.”
Vigo laughed, as undoubtedly Sitric meant him to, and then he looked past Sitric to Aron, the fellow Dragon. “Who’s your friend?”
“Aron.” It was a name from a Bible, rendered similarly in Welsh and Danish.
“Where are you from, Aron?” Vigo said.
“South. Near Wexford,” Aron said in excellent Danish. It just so happened Vigo had asked him one of the few questions for which he’d practiced.
Sitric then clapped Aron on the shoulder. “My cousin is visiting for the week.”
“Do you have a coin?” Vigo asked, his eyes still on Aron.
Aron held out one of the coins they’d found.
“Where did you get it?”
“Found it on the street,” Aron said, with an insouciance Dai found both admirable and terrifying. “Thought I’d see what this was all about.”
Vigo grunted. “Welcome.”
They went back to walking, though now Dai found himself shaking inside. He’d been foolish and naïve. He’d misunderstood who and what Vigo was. He wasn’t just another attendee of the fights. He was an organizer.
And as they left the road for the clearing where the fights were to take place, Dai couldn’t help thinking he’d entered the lion’s den.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Day Three
Conall
Conall had allowed Dai and Vigo to pass him, which in retrospect had been a wise decision, even though it had been impulsive at the time. He’d glanced back as they’d left the gate, seen Vigo pass money to the guard, and realized he’d made a terrible mistake: the participants in the fighting ring were supposed to bribe the guards on the way out. For one, it was a means of ensuring their silence, but it was also a way of co-opting them into the conspiracy. By not doing so, Conall had revealed himself to be not only a newcomer but possibly someone who hadn’t been properly incorporated into the conspiracy.
Bribery had always been an option, but Conall hadn’t wanted to risk being exposed if the guard reacted badly. He couldn’t risk Fergus the Sailor being revealed to be the ambassador to Dublin. He hoped his mistake wasn’t irredeemable. He definitely needed to stay well away from Vigo, so he allowed four or five groups of people to enter the Liffey crossing before joining them with Iona.
He was also starting to think Gwen was right that what they were doing here smacked of Shrewsbury. With Godfrid on their side, they’d had the option of simply descending on the fights with a company of men and arresting everyone they could get their hands on.
But Gareth was right that while this would stop the fights (possibly), it wouldn’t get them any closer to their murderer. Secrecy aside, until Conall had seen Vigo bribe the guard, he hadn’t been convinced the participants were actually doing anything wrong.
Bribery was a sin, of course, but the throne of Dublin wasn’t the Church. Sins weren’t Brodar’s purview. When Godfrid had finally told Brodar what was going on and what they planned to do tonight, the king had looked favorably upon the idea of more of his people learning to fight like the Danes of old.
If that’s what they were really doing.
Brodar had encouraged them to find out what was really going on, but not to call attention to themselves if they could possibly avoid it. That had been their intent, but Brodar’s particular concern was that he still had to entertain Rory O’Connor and the representatives from the other kingdoms of Ireland, who’d started trickling into the city over the course of the day in advance of the wedding tomorrow. Brodar didn’t want anyone to wonder if Dublin was in disarray. Everything was to appear entirely normal.
“I am not overly fond of the sea.” Iona had allowed Conall his silence for the initial fifty yards of the crossing, picking her way through the sands beside him.
“I forgot for a moment that you’re Welsh. You didn’t think to return home after you were freed?” Even this soon after Dai and Vigo had crossed, the water was running a little more freely, and Conall increased his pace.
“That had been my initial plan.” Iona hopped over another rivulet that within a count of five had widened from six inches to a foot and a half. “But when it came down to it, I have lived my entire life in Dublin. If I still have family in Pembroke, they don’t remember me.” She looked at him quizzically. �
�It is my understanding they are ruled by Normans now.”
“That is likely,” he said.
She snorted as they came up the bank and caught their breath. “That was well done.”
“What was?”
“Distracting me from my fears.” She wagged a finger at him like his mother used to do. Dressed as Fergus the Sailor, he thought perhaps it was easy to forget who he really was.
He grinned. “We made it. That’s what’s important.” Then he offered her his arm again.
She tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow, and they began to stroll down the lane. Dai and Vigo were somewhere up ahead, but even in the bright moonlight, Conall couldn’t see where. The herd of people coming with them knew where they were going, however, and Conall reflected again on the extent to which the fights were a secret only to those in authority.
It irked him that he hadn’t known before yesterday. He used to be better than this.
Iona nudged him. “You’re frowning.”
He blinked. “Am I?” He rearranged his face. “Just out for a lovely evening watching a bunch of Danes hacking at each other. What could be better than that?”
Iona laughed, a little louder than he was comfortable with, but he’d meant her to, and those around them smiled at their camaraderie.
The fights were taking place less than a mile northwest of the crossing place, on a patch of lower ground in a clearing within a grove of trees. Conall really wanted to know whose land they were on, though some of these tracts hadn’t been farmed since the attack by the men of Meath that had killed Godfrid’s father two years ago. Anything north of the Liffey was exposed to raids by the Irish. It could also be that only a handful of people knew in advance where the fights were actually being held at any given meeting and the rest just followed, as Conall and Iona had done.
Though it had seemed like a great army of people were walking with them, the number in attendance was a hundred at most. Iona was one of the few women, but she didn’t seem to mind, and many of the men knew her, calling her by name. Someone had set up a makeshift entrance to the site to the west of the road, and everyone passing through had to show their wooden coin.
Conall had his at the ready, and he was glad Iona was on his arm, because the man barely glanced at him in favor of looking at Iona. Though her hair was streaked with gray, and she was a few years older than he, she was buxom with a deliberately saucy smile and a glint to her eye. Conall didn’t know if that was usual for her when facing the world, but he guessed it might be. She hadn’t directed her wiles at him, for which he was grateful.
Then they were making their way around the edge of the crowd. Already in the center of the ring, which was no more than a circle etched in the dirt with a stick, two men with wooden swords and shields were hammering away at each other. While the men might get splinters or bruises, they were unlikely to be seriously injured.
“How is the winner determined?” he whispered to Iona.
She shook her head, not able to answer, but then a tall man, also with red hair, on Conall’s other side said, “One man has to yield.”
That was an eminently reasonable approach but, in practice, it turned out that Danes are extraordinarily stubborn (not that this should have been surprising) and many refused to yield long past the point when they had clearly lost. The organizer—the man Iona had referred to as Goff—kept motioning for his underlings to throw sand on the blood that had spilled on the dirt of the ring. Conall felt a grumbling in his belly and hoped Iago, whose task it had been to follow Goff, was nearby.
To keep the conversation going, Conall decided to question his neighbor again, even if Conall already knew the answer. “Who is that?”
“You don’t know?”
Iona leaned forward. “I brought him. He’s new.”
“He captained a ship, back in the day. Now he works on the dock. His name is Goff.”
The desire for Danish pre-eminence was something Conall could understand. But it was also a way of living in the past. Ireland was never going to accept an independent Danish Dublin again. If they weren’t going to be ruled by Leinster, then it would be a different kingdom. Either that, or they would be driven out of Ireland entirely.
Now, with the latest fight ended, Goff stepped again into the center of the ring, arms outstretched. “My friends! Today is a glorious day!”
The crowd’s roar of approval was so loud it made Conall want to cover his ears. The sound had seemingly come out of nowhere, and if he were the organizer, he might have feared it could be heard all the way to the palace. Perhaps he didn’t care.
Goff went on. “Every time a man steps into the ring, he fights not only for himself, but for his ancestors!” He beat both fists on his bare chest, and his golden armbands glinted in the torchlight. “We are their direct descendants!”
Now he lowered his voice. “For years, I feared they would be ashamed of us, that the mead they drank in Valhalla would be bitter with disappointment and defeat. But today!” He spread his arms wide again. “Today, we are reborn! It is here.” He stamped a foot. “Here where we become as our ancestors once were.”
He swung a finger as if searching for a particular person in the crowd, but it was merely a rhetorical technique. “Some of you remember those days of glory, before we were cowed by the kingdoms around us. Before we licked Leinster’s boots.” He clenched his hand into a fist. “I swear to you on the blood of our ancestors that things are going to change. It will not forever be this way. And it is here—” he stamped his foot again, “—our renewal begins.”
The roar of the crowd was deafening, which prevented Conall from noting that he and Iona were no longer on the outskirts, but right in the middle of it, and some very large Danes were crowding up behind him.
Suddenly, a hood came down over his head, leaving him able to see only through two slits near his eyes, and someone said into his ear, “The cost of admission is a bit higher for you, Irishman.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Day Three
Godfrid
Godfrid had agreed with Gareth that the situation before them called for gentle handling. Rather than swooping down on the fighters, they would watch, learn what they could, and leave the decision to close them down to Brodar. His people had a right to their training. Godfrid thought they had a right even to their gambling.
What they didn’t have a right to was murder. Or treason.
And as he and Gareth approached the ring of men from the west, able finally to hear what the leader was saying, he was feeling far more concerned about the latter than the former. Goff wasn’t openly saying that Brodar and his family were to blame for their submission to Leinster, but Godfrid was marrying Cait tomorrow, forever tying the throne of Dublin to that of Leinster. And the marriage wasn’t necessarily bringing with it a loosening of the reins of power on Diarmait’s part either.
Leinster was still going to be ruling over Dublin, even if the Danes were allowed their own king. Brodar and Godfrid could pretty up the truth with fine words about cooperation against mutual enemies, but nobody was going to forget any time soon that if Leinster hadn’t come when they did at the Battle of the Liffey, the Danes of Dublin might have lost everything.
They still could, especially if this fool had his way.
Gareth crouched beside Godfrid. “What’s he saying?”
“Nothing good.”
“That’s Goff, is it?”
Godfrid nodded. “He fought well at the Liffey. And to think he was already heavily involved in this. I wish I’d known.”
They’d left their horses a hundred feet back, and they themselves were a good five hundred feet from the fight, crouched on a rise above the draw in which the fights were taking place. It was a good situation for them, because they could see over the top of the spectators’ heads. The organizers of the fight had chosen well too, since the rising earth all around the ring masked some of the light and noise. The two friends had caught sight of a patrol a quarter of a
n hour earlier and had been moving as silently as possible since then. Godfrid could admit Gareth was better at it than he was, having grown up in rural Gwynedd. These days, most Danes, including him, were city dwellers.
“We shouldn’t have split up,” Godfrid said. From the start, Godfrid had tried to pair each Welshman with men who spoke Danish, at least in passing, but had needed to split everyone up in order not to call attention to themselves.
Gareth gave a shake of his head. “We talked about this. Trust our friends.”
“If anything, it’s my fault we don’t have more men, but I don’t know who of mine I can trust, and Sitric wasn’t sure either.”
Gareth gave a low growl. “Wasn’t sure or didn’t want to say? I’m not convinced letting him slide by without giving up the names of his fellows was the best idea.”
“When this is over, I will beat it out of him if I have to.” He side-eyed Gareth. “In a manner of speaking.”
They were good enough friends by now for Godfrid to be sure Gareth knew he didn’t mean it literally. A commander who flogged his men inspired fear but no loyalty, and that was precisely the kind of behavior that led to what they were witnessing now.
Brodar was a good commander, and Godfrid had been impressed by the job he was doing as king. But circumstances—and Leinster—had placed him in an impossible situation. He couldn’t keep both King Diarmait and his own people happy. So he ended up pleasing one more than the other in most things and no one some of the time. Now, with Cait joining the family, Godfrid was adding to his brother’s burden. They could bad-mouth Leinster all they wanted when she wasn’t around but, in effect, they were allowing an enemy into their midst.
Or at least that was how the men before them would see it.
Godfrid himself was well-used to the idea of being friends with Irish people. He numbered Cait and Conall among the closest friends he’d ever had. Somehow, he was going to have to reconcile these two halves of his new reality.
The Irish Bride Page 20