The Princes of Ireland

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Una had certainly been busy in the hospital, as Fionnuala had not appeared again. Her father had sent word that he wished her to stay with him for the present; but Una suspected that there was an additional reason for her absence. She’s heard that I’m here, she thought, and she doesn’t want to face me.

  As she passed through the market by the western gate, she noticed that nearly half the stalls were open again and doing a quiet trade. Walking up towards the cathedral, she saw that most of the houses now had troops in them, and some had obviously been abandoned entirely by their owners. The Englishmen seemed strange. With their harsh accents, stout leather jerkins, and padded tunics, they somehow seemed tougher, more compact than the men she was used to. Some of them gave her looks which made her uncomfortable, but nobody molested her. In an open space by the cathedral, a group of archers had set up targets for practise, the arrows thudding into the packed straw with a precision that was almost mechanical. She found it disturbing. Passing down the slope of the Fish Shambles, she turned into the lane that led by her home.

  She hesitated. Why had she come here? To see what had happened to the house? What if it had been burned? It was sure to be full of English soldiers anyway. She felt suddenly miserable and had half a mind to turn back. But she couldn’t do that. For her family’s sake, she had to find out what had become of it.

  The lane was rather quiet. She could see behind the fences that most of the houses were being used as quarters for the soldiers. In one yard several of them were sleeping; another seemed to contain only an old woman. When she reached the fence in front of her own house, she glanced nervously at the gateway. It was open. As she drew level, she looked inside. There was no sign of damage, anyway, nor could she see any occupants. She stopped and glanced along the lane. No one was coming. She put her head through the gateway and looked round the yard.

  It was a strange sensation, to be peering furtively into her own home. From the wood glowing in her father’s brazier, which had been moved a little, and from the scattered possessions in the yard, it was clear that the place was being used. Perhaps the men were asleep inside the house. In any case, she had better move on. But she didn’t. Instead, after glancing down the street once more, she stepped into the yard. It was silent.

  The strongbox: what a chance! It was sitting there, waiting to be rescued; and no one was looking. If she could just slip through the yard to its hiding place. It would only take a moment. She knew she could carry it. The woollen cloak over her shoulders would cover it. How long would it take to walk up to Christ Church and bring it to safety? Moments. No more. And when might she get another chance like this? Perhaps never.

  But were there men in the house? That was the question. To get to the hiding place she would have to go past the open doorway. If anyone was awake in there she’d probably be seen. There was only one thing to do. She started to cross the yard, past the brazier, past the bread oven. She would have to look in through the doorway and see if anyone was there. If they caught sight of her, she’d have to run. She didn’t think they’d catch her. But if no one was there, she could get the box and be gone. Her heart was pounding, but she forced herself to keep calm. She reached the doorway.

  She looked in. It was hard to see anything, since the only light came from the doorway and the small opening in the roof. Were there eyes in there, watching her, hands reaching out? She strained to see into the shadows. There was no sound. After a few moments, she could make out the benches along the walls. There did not seem to be any human forms on them. Very cautiously, she stepped inside. Now she could see better. She looked at the place where her parents always slept, then at her own corner. No. Nobody was there. She felt a sudden urge to go over to her place, to feel its comforting familiarity again; but she knew she must not. With a sigh, she turned round and stepped back into the yard. She wondered whether to look outside the gate again and decided there was no need. Better not waste time.

  She went quickly to the hiding place under the bread oven. If you knew how to push the little stone panel aside and reach in, it was only the work of a moment. She pushed her arm in. Farther. She felt around with her hand. And encountered …

  Nothing. She couldn’t believe it. She felt again, frowning. Still nothing. Surely there must be some mistake. She pulled back her sleeve until her whole arm was bare and tried once more, moving her hand this way and that, pushing it through until she touched the end of the hiding place.

  There was no doubt about it. The hiding place was empty. The strongbox had been stolen. She felt a sudden, cold panic, then a sickening sense of misery: someone had found her father’s treasure. Her family’s entire wealth was gone. She pulled back, glancing around. Where would they have put it? Inside, perhaps? It was worth a try, at least. She glanced at the gateway, still empty. She ran back inside, into the darkness.

  She didn’t worry about the mess. There was no time to think of that. It didn’t even matter that the room was dark: she knew every foot of it with her eyes closed, every crevice and hiding place. With furious speed, she went round the walls, pulling benches back, throwing off cloaks, blankets, and even a chain mail shirt, scattering them on the floor. In her irritation, she even sent two metal bowls flying with a clatter across the room. She worked rapidly and thoroughly, and at the end of it all, standing with her back towards the doorway and gazing miserably around at the silent shadows, she knew for a certainty that the strongbox was not there. She had come too late. The cursed English troops had found it and she would never get it back. Her father had lost all that he had. Her head fell forward. She wanted to cry.

  And wasn’t there something even worse? She suspected there was. What if, instead of chasing after that stupid Fionnuala, she had watched on the wall and seen the English attack? What if she’d run, then, straight to her father? Mightn’t he have had time to get the box safely to Christ Church? Or at least, if she’d got home earlier, he might have felt safer taking the box with him down to the quay. It was waiting for her that had caused him to panic and make his disastrous decision. Even if her brain told her that all these suppositions might be false, her heart told her otherwise. It is my fault, she thought. My family is ruined because of me. She stood there in the quiet emptiness of her home, stunned by grief. And so, for a moment, she did not even feel the hand upon her shoulder.

  “Looking for something?”

  The voice spoke in English. She didn’t completely understand, but it made no difference. She whirled round. His grip shifted instantly to her arm and tightened.

  A studded leather jerkin, a jagged scrape on the right-hand side. A face covered with several days’ dark stubble; a large brutal nose, bloodshot eyes. He was alone.

  “Looking for something to steal, are you?” She didn’t understand him. He held up a silver coin in front of her face. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like one she had seen in her father’s strongbox. He chuckled as he put the coin away. She saw a strange, soft gleam in his eyes. “Well, you found me.”

  Holding her arm in one hand he started to loosen his tunic with the other. She might not understand the words, but there was no doubt about what he wanted. She struggled to get free. His hand was large and calloused. As he jerked her back, she felt how easily he did it and realised how much stronger he was. She had never known the fear of feeling physically powerless before.

  “The punishment for stealing’s much worse than what I’m going to do to you,” he said. He could see that she didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop him going on. “You’re lucky, that’s what you are. Lucky to be getting me.”

  Una had been so startled and frightened that she had forgotten even to scream.

  “Help!” she shouted, as loud as she could. “Rape!” Nothing happened. She shouted again.

  The soldier didn’t seem to be bothered. His jerkin was loose now. Una suddenly realised that, even if they cared, no one would be taking notice of her cries. The nearby houses were probably all taken by English troops, and they wouldn’t
even understand her. She took a deep breath, to scream.

  And then he made one mistake. Stripping off his jerkin, just for a moment, he let go of her arm. It was only a moment, but that was all she needed. She knew what she must do. She had never done such a thing before, but she wasn’t a fool. He saw her opening her mouth to scream, but he didn’t see her kick until it was too late.

  She gave it everything she had. He felt a sudden, searing flash of pain in his groin. He doubled over, his hands clutching his stomach in agony.

  She fled. Before he could even straighten up, she was through the gate. She started to run down the street, hardly knowing which way she went. She saw a group of soldiers in her path. It seemed they were parting to let her through. She heard his voice behind her.

  “Thief! Stop her!”

  Powerful arms were holding her. She tried to get free, but they lifted her off the ground. There was nothing she could do. The soldier was coming along the street now. He was limping and his face was contorted with fury. She didn’t know whether he was going to try to rape her again, but he obviously meant to get even. He had come up with them now. He was thrusting his face into hers.

  “What is this?” Another voice. Peremptory. From behind her. The men were drawing apart.

  “A thief.” Her accuser’s voice, shaken but surly. She saw a dark robe, looked up.

  It was Father Gilpatrick.

  “Rape.” It was all that she could say. She indicated the man with the unshaven face. “He tried … I’d gone into our house …” It was enough. The priest turned on them furiously.

  “Villains!” he shouted. She did not understand all of what he said, because he was speaking in English. But she heard several things she recognised. Hospital of Saint John. Archbishop. King Diarmait. The men were looking confused. Her attacker, she saw, had gone very pale. Moments later, Father Gilpatrick was leading her away.

  “I told them you’re under Church protection at the hospital. I shall complain to the archbishop. Are you hurt?” he gently enquired. She shook her head.

  “I kicked him in the groin and got away,” she told him frankly.

  “Quite right, my child,” he said. Then she told him about the missing strongbox and the coin in the soldiers hand. “Ah,” he said sadly. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done about that.”

  He accompanied her all the way to the hospital, talking to her quietly as they went, so that by the time they got back, she was not only feeling better but even had the chance to observe, which had never struck her before, how uncommonly handsome the young priest was. When they arrived at the hospital, the Palmer’s wife put her straight to bed and brought her warm broth and comfort.

  By the next morning, Una was over her fright and seemed to all the inmates at the hospital to be her usual self. But she wasn’t. Nor in the weeks and months that followed would she ever feel easy with herself again. It was not the near escape she had experienced that troubled her: that was soon enough forgotten. It was another thought, insidious as it was unfair, which would not leave her.

  My father has lost everything he has. And it is all my fault.

  III

  1171

  Peter FitzDavid smiled. A summer’s day. The soft, warm light seemed to be rolling down from the Wicklow Mountains and drifting in from the wide blue curve of the bay. Dublin at last.

  He’d been waiting a long time to come to Dublin. Last autumn, when Strongbow and King Diarmait had come up here, he’d been left down south guarding the port of Waterford. Peter had performed his tasks well, but by the time Strongbow had retired to Waterford in the winter he seemed to have nearly forgotten who Peter was.

  The port of Waterford stood on a handsome site overlooking a large river mouth. The original Viking settlement there had been nearly as old as that of Dublin and traders came there from the south-western ports of France and even farther away. Strongbow had set up extensive winter quarters there but the very size of the camp had only reminded Peter of his next problem. The English lord had so many knights—relations, followers, friends, and sons of friends—to look after that it was going to be a long time, or take some extraordinary deed on his part, before his own turn came to share the rewards. By late spring, moreover, some of the young men like himself were wondering what the future of the expedition was going to be. There were two opinions in the camp.

  “Diarmait and Strongbow are going to take the whole island,” said some. Peter thought it quite likely that the Irish king hoped to do this; and with Strongbow’s well-equipped army, he probably could. The Irish chiefs, fine fighting men though they were, had nothing that could withstand the devastating effect of an armoured cavalry charge; nor had they anything like the massed archers. Even the High King, with all his followers, might have difficulty stopping them.

  But equally there were others who thought that the mission might be near completion. If so, then most of them would be paid off and sent home. And I’ll be sure to be sent back, Peter thought, with little enough for myself or to give to my mother. He wondered where he’d find employment after that. But then, in the month of May, an unexpected change occurred.

  King Diarmait of Leinster, having regained his kingdom, suddenly fell sick and died.

  What would happen next? It was true that when he gave Strongbow his daughter, the Leinster king had promised to make him his heir. But was that promise worth anything? Peter had learned enough of the customs of the island by now to know that any new king or chief in Ireland was chosen by his people from amongst his close kin. Diarmait had left a brother and several sons, and under Irish law there should be no question of their sister’s foreign husband taking their inheritance. Yet it soon became clear that Diarmait’s sons, at least, were going along with the idea.

  “They’ve no choice,” a Waterford merchant had remarked to him. “Strongbow has three hundred knights, three hundred archers, a thousand men. He has the power. Without him they’re nothing. If they stick with him, they’re still in with a chance of keeping part of what they lost.”

  “But I can see another difficulty,” Peter had replied. By the feudal law of Plantagenet England, a great lordship like Leinster would pass to the eldest son; or if it devolved upon an heiress, there would be no question of her marrying without the king’s permission—and kings usually made a point of giving such heiresses to their faithful friends. Since Diarmait had actually acknowledged King Henry of England as his overlord, and Strongbow was in any case a vassal of the Plantagenet king, the English magnate would be placing himself in a dangerous legal position by taking up this Leinster inheritance. “He would really need King Henry’s permission,” Peter had explained to the Waterford merchant. “And I wonder if he has it.”

  Just at that moment, however, King Henry II of England had other things to worry about. Indeed, it seemed to Peter that the English king would scarcely dare to show his face.

  The shocking news from England had come quite early in January. By the following month it had spread all over Europe. The King of England had killed the Archbishop of Canterbury. No one had ever heard of such a thing before.

  The quarrel between the English king and Archbishop Thomas Becket had been the usual one over the Church’s power and jurisdiction. Henry had insisted that those in religious orders should answer to regular courts if they committed crimes like murder or theft. Becket, his former friend and Chancellor, who owed his position as archbishop to King Henry, had obstinately set his face against the king in a bitter and long-running dispute. Some of the senior English clergy actually thought that Becket had let his new position go to his head. But after years of strife, a group of Henry’s knights, supposedly hearing the king burst out in irritation “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest!” thought it was an order to kill him and went and did so in front of the high altar in Canterbury cathedral.

  All Europe was scandalised. Everyone blamed Henry. The Pope denounced him. People were saying he should stand trial and that Becket should be made a saint. Pe
ter supposed that the English king was far too busy dealing with this crisis to pay much attention to events in a place as far away and marginal as Leinster.

  Strongbow had wasted no time. He had gone straight to Dublin. But Peter, once again, had been left behind. The news from Dublin had sounded exciting. The ousted King of Dublin had returned with a fleet from the northern isles, but the Norsemen had botched the whole business: as they started to attack the eastern gate, the English had raced out of the southern gate, caught them in the rear, and cut them to pieces. They’d killed the King of Dublin, too. But though the former Dublin king might have failed to grab his city back, nobody imagined that the High King of Ireland was going to stand by and see this English intruder take over a quarter of the island and its greatest port.

  “The High King won’t be long coming,” the messenger from Dublin had told him. “All possible reinforcements are to go to Dublin right away. And that includes you.”

  So here he was at last, on a sunny summer day, coming into Dublin. And as soon as he had reported to Strongbow and quartered his men, he knew what he would do.

  He would call upon his old friend Gilpatrick and his family. Did his friend still have a pretty sister, he wondered?

  It was not often that Gilpatrick’s mother had to find fault with her husband; but sometimes she knew it was necessary to put pressure on him. When Gilpatrick failed to come to his brother Lorcan’s wedding, she had been as angry as her husband. It was a public insult and a humiliation for the entire family. If her husband wouldn’t see Gilpatrick after that, she didn’t blame him. But at some point the rift had to end. After a year she had finally decided that it was better for everyone if the priest allowed his son to visit the house again; and following some weeks of judicious coaxing and tears, she had persuaded her husband, somewhat grumpily, to allow him to visit once more. “And you’re lucky,” she had told Gilpatrick firmly, “that he does.”