The Princes of Ireland

by Edward Rutherfurd

  The prehistoric mounds above the River Boyne had not greatly altered since the time of Patrick. Here and there a further subsidence had occurred. The entrance doorways were all hidden now; but in front of them, a quantity of white quartz stones were still strewn across the ground, glistening when the sunlight caught them. In the River Boyne below, the salmon and swans went about their quiet business as if they themselves had been there when the Tuatha De Danaan had gone to their bright halls within the ridge. But something had evidently displeased the eye of Goibniu. Unlike his distant ancestor, Goibniu had the use of both his eyes. But when he was considering something, he had a trick of closing one eye and squinting through the other, which seemed in the process to become unusually large. Men found his gaze disconcerting. And not without reason. He never missed anything.

  “Look at the top, Morann.” Goibniu held his son’s arm in a vicelike grip, as he pointed impatiently.

  And now the young man saw that the top of one of the mounds had been disturbed. Near the middle of the grassy dome, several ragged piles of stone indicated that someone had tried to break into the tomb from above.

  “Barbarians! Heathens!” the craftsman cried. “It was the cursed Ostmen who did that.”

  About a century ago, a party of Vikings, curious to discover how the great tombs were constructed and whether they contained any treasure, had spent several days trying to break into one of them. Unaware that there was an entrance hidden in the side, they had tried to come in through the top.

  “Did they get anything?” Morann asked.

  “They did not. The stones are huge as you go farther down. I looked. They gave up.” He relapsed into silence for a moment and then burst out, “How dare they touch the gods!”

  Strictly speaking, this was inconsistent. Though the craftsman’s family, like many others, had held out for several generations after Patrick’s ministry before they grudgingly took the new religion, they had been Christians for nearly four centuries now. On feast days, Goibniu went to the church of the little monastery nearby and solemnly took communion. His family had always supposed that the smith was a faithful son of the Church—though you could never be sure with Goibniu. But like most of the faithful on the island, he still felt an affection and a need for the ancient ways. Paganism never dies entirely. Most of the pagan rites of seedtime and harvest, of course, had already been incorporated under new names into the Christian calendar; and even some of the old inauguration rites of the kings, including that of mating with a mare, were still a fond memory. As for the old gods, they might not be gods anymore—“idols and lies,” the priests declared. They might be only myths, to be recited by bards. Or they might, with the Church’s blessing, be accounted for as ancestral heroes, extraordinary men, from whom dynasties like the mighty O’Neill could claim descent. But whatever they were, they belonged to Ireland, and it was not for the Viking pirates to profane their sacred places.

  Morann said nothing. His father had dismounted, and together they walked round the tombs in silence. In front of the largest stood the great stone with its strange carved spirals, and the two of them paused to stare at the mystical object.

  “Our people used to live near here,” the smith remarked moodily. It had been an ancestor two centuries ago who had moved two days’ journey away, to the north-west, into the region of small lakes which the family presently occupied. Evidently, for Goibniu, the stone with its cosmic spirals represented a kind of homecoming.

  And it was only now that his son ventured to ask the question which had been puzzling him since his father’s outburst began.

  “If you hate the Ostmen so much, Father, then why are you taking me to live with them?”

  It seemed a natural question; but in answer, the smith looked at him bleakly, muttered, “It’s a fool I have for a son,” and relapsed into silence. Only after a long pause did he deign to explain himself further.

  “Who is the greatest power on this island?” the smith asked.

  “The High King, Father.”

  “He is, indeed.” He nodded. “And isn’t it true that for generation after generation, the High Kings have tried to kick the Ostmen out of Dyflin?” He pronounced the Norse name sullenly.

  “They did, Father.”

  “But last year, when the High King won a great battle at Tara and came down to the Liffey—when he could have kicked them out, and they could have done nothing about it at all—he let them stay and took tribute instead. Why would he do that, do you think?”

  “I suppose because it suited him,” his son suggested. “He’d be better off taking their tribute than kicking them out.”

  “That is true. A port is a valuable thing. The Ostmen’s ports bring in wealth. You’re better off keeping them than destroying them.” He paused. “I will tell you something else. Is the power of the O’Neill as great today as once it was?”

  “It is not.”

  “And why is that?”

  “They quarrelled amongst themselves.” Up to a point this was true. Long ago, the mighty royal house had split into two branches, known as the Northern and Southern O’Neill. Generally these two had skilfully avoided dissension by alternating the High Kingship between them. But in recent generations there had been bickering. Other powers on the island, especially the kings of Munster in the south, had been chipping away at the authority of the O’Neill in the time-honoured manner. One young Munster chief, named Brian Boru, seemed ready to stir up trouble with scant respect for any of the settled kingships. The O’Neill were still strong—hadn’t they just defeated the Vikings of Dyflin?—but the lesser Irish kings were watching. Like a huge bull, the great power in the north was showing signs of age.

  “Perhaps. But I will suggest to you a deeper cause. The O’Neill are not to be blamed. They could not have foreseen the consequences of their actions. But when the Ostmen first began to attack our shores, the O’Neill were so strong that the Ostmen could not establish a single port on the coasts of their land. Not one. All the Ostmen’s ports lie farther south. Yet that strength may have been a curse. Can you tell me why?”

  “The ports bring wealth?” his son offered.

  “And wealth is power. How do you imagine Niall of the Nine Hostages became so mighty before Saint Patrick came? By raiding Britain. He had treasure and slaves to reward his followers. The Ostmen are pirates and heathens, mostly. But their ports are rich. The more ports a king has, if he can control them, the more riches and power he has. That is the weakness of the O’Neill now. The ports are not on their lands. That’s why they need Dyflin, the richest port of all.”

  “So that’s why you want me there?”

  “It is.” Goibniu looked at his son seriously. Sometimes he thought the boy was too cautious, too careful. Well, if so, it might be for the best. He gestured to the tomb and its broken roof again. “I’ll never like the Ostmen. But Dyflin is the future, Morann, and that is where you’re going.”

  She was dancing. Such a slim, dark little thing—white legs like sticks and a tangle of black hair tumbling down her back—a shuffle it was, she danced, this way and that; and he, watching her all the time, the child in the street. Caoilinn was her name; his, Osgar. And as he watched her, he wondered.

  Was he to be married that day?

  Wherever you looked in the Viking town of Dyflin, you saw wood. The narrow streets that rolled up and down the uneven slopes were made of split tree trunks; in the winding alleys and footpaths you walked on planks. All the lanes were lined on both sides with blank-faced wattle or picket fences behind which, in their narrow plots, could be seen the thatched roofs of the rectangular wicker-walled dwellings or timbered halls of the Norsemen. Some tenements contained pens for pigs, hens, and other livestock, some were given over to workshops; and the wooden walls around them were to deter thieves or attackers or, like the sides of a ship, to keep out the winter wind from the wide, grey estuary and the open seascape beyond. Enclosing this twenty-acre wooden village was an earth rampart topped with a wood
en palisade. Beyond the palisade, on the waterfront, was a stout wood quay, against which several longships were tied. Just upstream was the long wooden bridge and past that the Ford of Hurdles. The Irish people still mostly called the place by its old name, Ath Cliath, even if they often crossed by the Viking bridge instead of the Celtic ford. But though Caoilinn was Irish, she called the wooden township Dyflin, because she lived there.

  “Shall we go over to the monastery?” She suddenly turned her green eyes on him.

  “Do you think you should?” he said. She was nine and he was eleven. He had a better sense of what was fitting.

  “Come on,” she cried; and, with an amused shake of his head, he followed her. He still didn’t know if he was to be married.

  The little monastery stood on the slopes just south of the ridge where the old rath of Fergus had overlooked the dark pool of Dubh Linn. It had been there when first the Vikings came—a small religious house protected by the Ui Fergusa descendants of the old chief. In the centuries after the death of Fergus, other small chiefs had set up raths here and there in the broad plain of the Liffey’s estuary and their names had survived. Rathmines, Rathgar, Rathfarnham all lay within a few miles’ distance. The old rath of Fergus now lay within the walls of Dyflin, but the little clan of the Ui Fergusa were still recognised as chiefs in the area, and they had a farmstead nearby.

  As he gazed across to the dark pool and the walled Viking settlement beyond, Osgar felt a comforting warmth spread through him. This was home.

  When the Norwegian Vikings first arrived, his ancestor, the Ui Fergusa chief of the day, had wisely decided not to put up a futile resistance. It was also fortunate that, like Fergus long before him, this master of the rath had been an excellent cattleman. The Vikings had no sooner arrived on the Liffey than they began to look for supplies. Having dispersed his livestock to places where they would be hard to find, the cattleman made himself useful to them in every way, supplying them with grain, meat, and cattle at prices which were fair. The Vikings might be pirates but they were also traders. They respected him. Despite his Christian religion, this descendant of Fergus had still proudly preserved the family’s ancient drinking skull. The Vikings could relate to that. He soon learned enough of their language to conduct business and made sure that none of his people gave them trouble. He became quite a popular figure. There was open land all around: there was no need to throw the old chief off his territory. And if he wanted to keep the little monastery, whose only object of value they had already taken, the pagan Norsemen had no objection. The monastery paid them a small rent. The monks often had skill in medicine. Vikings from the settlement would trudge over there for cures from time to time. And so it was that the family of Osgar had held on, by ancient Ath Cliath, down the centuries.

  The two children were nearing the monastery gate, from which an elderly monk was emerging, when Caoilinn declared her intention.

  “I think,” she said, “I should like to get married in church today.” And approaching the old monk, she asked politely, “Is the abbot in, Brother Brendan?”

  “He is not,” came the gruff reply. “He’s gone fishing with his sons.”

  “We can’t use the chapel, then,” Osgar told her firmly, “or we’ll be in trouble with my uncle.” The abbot was strict about such things. If he allowed the children into the little chapel when there was no service, well and good. But if they sneaked in there without permission, they could expect to feel his strap across their backsides.

  The fact that Osgar’s uncle the abbot was a married man with children was not an indication of moral laxity at the monastery. Ever since, about two centuries after Bishop Patrick’s visit, the Ui Fergusa had allowed a party of monks from a great religious community to the south to settle near their rath, the family had associated itself with the monastery. From time to time down the generations, if some member of the family felt a desire for the contemplative life, what could have been more natural than for him to enter their own religious house? Indeed, it even added to their prestige: for just as their ancestors had sometimes become druids, so the greatest families in the island would often have one of their number in holy orders at any given time. And it was only natural, also, that the Ui Fergusa should think of themselves as guardians of the monks.

  Not that the little monastery was in need of much protection. Some of the great monasteries on the island had grown so rich that the chiefs in the region, for whom cattle raiding, after all, was an ancient and honourable tradition, could not resist the temptation to plunder the religious houses upon occasion. In the last two centuries, the Viking raiders had also plundered some of the monasteries when they came upon them near the island’s coasts and navigable rivers. There had even, on some memorable occasions, been pitched battles between the monks from rival monasteries, over their possessions, precedence, or other matters. But the little religious house above the dark pool had suffered few of these troubles for the simple reason that it was too small and possessed no great treasures.

  Nonetheless, it suited the family’s pride that they should be its guardians, and in recent generations the chief of the family or one of his brothers had generally taken the position of lay abbot, which allowed the family to benefit from the modest living afforded by the place as well as giving it their protection. Such arrangements were quite common, both on the island and in many other parts of Christendom.

  “Well,” said Caoilinn crossly, “if we can’t use the chapel, then it’ll have to be somewhere else.” She thought for a moment. “We’ll go to the mound,” she then announced. “Have you got the ring?”

  “I have the ring,” he replied patiently, and reaching into the leather pouch hanging from his belt he pulled out the small ring, made of deer antler, with which he had already wed her at least a dozen times.

  “Come on, then,” she said.

  The game had been going on for almost a year now: the game of getting married. She never seemed to tire of it. And still he did not know—was it just a little girl’s game, childish and without meaning, or was there some serious intention behind it? He was always the one she chose to be the bridegroom. Was that just because he was her cousin and he played along, and she was afraid the other boys might have laughed at her? Probably. Wasn’t he embarrassed? Not really. He could shrug it off. She was just his little cousin. Anyway, Osgar might be slim, but he was taller than most of the other boys of his age, and he was sinewy. The other children treated him with a cautious respect. So he usually indulged her. Once when he was busy, he’d refused, and seen her face fall and watched her grow silent. Then, with a defiant toss of her head, she’d come back at him.

  “Well, if you won’t marry me, I’ll have to find someone else.”

  “No, I’ll marry you,” he had relented. Better himself, after all, than another.

  The mound wasn’t far off. It stood on a grassy platform a little way back from the mudflats that lay downstream of the dark pool’s inlet. When the Vikings first saw it they had named the place Hoggen Green, which meant “graveyard”; and as the Nordic people often did when they found a sacred place near a settlement, they used Hoggen Green for their assemblies where the freemen of the town came together to hold counsel and elect their leaders. And so it was that while the graves of his descendants, including Deirdre, Morna, and his children, gradually sank down until they were level with the rest of the grass at the Viking meeting place, the mound that was the last resting place of old Fergus was built up to be used as the platform on which the Viking headmen would stand to conduct their assemblies. The assembly was called the “Thing.” Old Fergus’s grave, therefore, had nowadays acquired a new name. It was known as the Thingmount.

  Before the Thingmount, the two children stood and prepared to get married. The marriage, they both knew, was appropriate. They were second cousins: Caoilinn’s grandfather had become a craftsman and moved into Dyflin, while Osgar’s had remained at the family farmstead by the monastery.

  The stately old Thingm
ount by the quiet river was also an appropriate place. For both knew that it was from under it that their ancestor Fergus had emerged to be baptised by none other than Saint Patrick himself. And both Osgar and even nine-year-old Caoilinn could recite with familiar ease the twenty-five generations that joined them to the old man.

  As he always did, Osgar had to act the part of both bridegroom and priest. He did it very well. Since his father had died four years ago, his uncle the abbot had taken charge of his education. To the great joy of his mother, who went down on her knees in prayer four or five times every day, he not only knew his catechism and many of the Psalms by heart, but he could recite large parts of the Church services, too. “You have a talent for the spiritual life,” his uncle informed him. He could also read and write, haltingly, in Latin. Indeed, his uncle told his proud mother, young Osgar had shown more aptitude for these things than his own sons.

  Standing beside Caoilinn, but also just in front, he rather convincingly intoned the priest’s part and gave the bridegroom’s responses. The antler ring was fitted, the bride duly but chastely kissed on the cheek, and Caoilinn, delighted with herself as always, walked about with her arm linked in his and the ring on her finger. She would wear it until the end of their games when, upon parting, she would give it back to him, to be put safely in the pouch until the next time.

  What did it all mean? She might not know herself, but Osgar supposed that indeed, one day, they would marry in earnest.

  You could see they were cousins. They had the same dark hair and good looks that had usually run in the family. But whereas Osgar’s eyes were deep blue, hers were a startling green. He knew that green eyes ran in the family, but of all his cousins, she was the only one to have them, and that had made her seem special to him, even when she was only an infant. There was something about a cousin, too. Their shared ancestry seemed to form a strange bond between them—familiar, yet magical. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he felt as if they were destined to be together in a world from which other families were somehow excluded. Yet even if they hadn’t been cousins, he would have been fascinated by her wild, free spirit. The grown-ups, his uncles and aunts, had always considered him the most responsible of all the children of the extended family. The boy who was most likely to lead. He wasn’t sure why, but it had been so even before the death of his father. Perhaps that was why he felt a special protectiveness towards his little cousin Caoilinn, who always did what she wanted, and climbed the tallest trees, and insisted that he marry her. For in his heart he knew that he could not think of marrying anyone else. The bright little spirit with her green eyes had long ago enchanted him.