by Wayne Grant
De Courcy had hired many a Welsh archer over the years and knew well the power of their longbows. To try to cross the river without shields would be suicide. He gritted his teeth in frustration and had to stifle an oath that would have been blasphemous. He’d never seen an Englishman use a long bow. It was the second time this man Inness had surprised him. He vowed it would not happen a third time. Without a word, he signalled for his men to turn back toward Carrickfergus and home.
***
On the opposite side of the river, Roland watched de Courcy and his men ride away and climbed back on The Grey. He clucked to the horse and the big gelding trotted effortlessly down the road to the south, its long strides eating up the ground. The boy had watched the skirmish at the ford with wide-eyes. He leaned forward and shouted above the wind and the pounding of hooves.
“I’ve not seen the like of yer bow, lord.”
Roland just nodded.
“Teach me to use it!”
Roland did not answer. He let The Grey run and tried to think.
What was he to do with this boy?
Down
The road south from the ford over the River Lagan was poor. Unlike in Britain, Roman legions, and the long, straight roads they built, had never reached as far as Ireland. This road wound around hillocks, ploughed into bogs and was little more than a trail when it passed through forested land. Roland let The Grey pick its own way along the rutted path. The horse hardly made a false step, but the going was slow.
As he rode, he tried to reason out what to do next. Everything depended on finding Declan, but he was uncertain where his friend would now be. As they rounded yet another bend in the road, they came upon a smaller trail that led off toward the west. Roland reined in The Grey and twisted around in the saddle.
“How well do you know the country to the west?” he asked Finn. “Do you know the way to Tyrone?”
Finn studied the new trail off to his right and furrowed his brow.
“I know it’s west from here, lord, but not much else. I’ve heard it’s beyond a river called the Bann, but I‘ve not seen that river. My people call it Tir Eoghain and say it is a big place full of bad people.”
Roland grimaced. He’d managed to get free of John de Courcy, but now found himself in a land he knew little of. He cursed his own lack of preparation for this journey. Declan and Finbar knew the route from Carrickfergus to the O’Duinne rath on the Blackwater River, but they were not here and he had not bothered to ask them the way. It was a careless mistake.
He knew Finn was right when he said Tyrone was a big place and while the people there might not be bad, they would not likely welcome strangers wandering aimlessly through their land. He had learned a good bit of Gaelic from Declan over the years, but not enough to pass as a local, even with the boy Finn in tow.
Then, there was the matter of time. Declan had pledged to return to fetch him in a fortnight and one week had already passed. He was certain that his Irish friend would have travelled first to Tyrone to see to his father. He also knew they would not risk returning to face John de Courcy without having paid their respects at Down Abbey. Brother Cyril would want to prepare a convincing report for the Prince and to do so would require a visit with the Abbot there.
He looked off to the west then back to the south. Declan and Cyril might even now be at Down or even on their way back north to retrieve him. He turned back to Finn and pointed south.
“Will this road take us all the way to Down, boy?”
Finn poked his head around Roland’s chest and looked ahead.
“I believe it will, sir. There’s only one road I know of that runs south from the ford on the Lagan and that goes to the Abbey at Down.”
Roland nodded.
Down it would be.
***
As the sun dropped low in the west, Roland guided the big gelding off the road and into a thick copse of trees nestled in a little ravine. A little ways on they found a small pool where rainwater still stood and a few patches of spring grass, enough for The Grey’s supper.
Roland sent Finn to gather wood. Wary of pursuit, he had watched his backtrail all afternoon, but had seen no sign of de Courcy or his men. He’d dropped two men at the river and wasn’t surprised that the Prince had abandoned the chase. However mad the man might be, he was no fool when it came to assessing his chances in a fight. It should be safe enough for a fire.
Shadows were long as he nursed a small flame into life and laid out his bedroll. Finn unsaddled The Grey and came to squat by the fire. He’d been looking keenly at the longbow ever since they had settled into camp and now with arrangements made, he pressed Roland to have a closer look.
Roland handed the rough yew staff to the boy who ran his hands along its length. The thing was a foot longer than the boy was tall.
“It’s not a pretty weapon,” Roland said, “not like a sword.”
“I never saw a sword kill a man at two hundred paces, lord, but this thing did!” he said in admiration as he held the unstrung bow in his left hand and pretended to draw it. “I’ve seen Welshmen with bows like this, but never saw them used.”
Roland walked over and took it from the boy.
“First rule is, don’t string it unless you expect to use it. Strings are near as hard to make as the bow and will lose strength if left taut for too long.”
“Show me,” Finn asked.
Roland pulled the loose string away from the wood.
“You step through with your right foot and use the left to anchor the bottom, like this,” he instructed. “Then grasp it as near the top as ye can, and lean yer hip into it.”
Finn nodded his understanding.
“Once you have it flexed, you slide the loop up over the notch, like this and it’s strung.” He completed the steps with a long-practiced motion and handed the strung bow to Finn.
“This is a warbow, Finn, and it’s been fashioned for a full grown man—one practiced in its use. You are neither, so you cannot expect to draw it, or even string it.”
Finn raised the bow and pulled gamely back on the taut string. It moved but a few inches as the skinny Irish boy grunted with the effort. He finally gave up and handed it back to Roland with a sheepish grin.
Roland couldn’t help but grin back.
“What is your clan name, lad?
“Mac Clure, lord.”
“If you will not go back to the Mac Clures, what am I to do with you, Finn?”
A sly smile played over the boy’s face.
“Yer a knight are ye not?”
“Aye, though a poor one.”
“Poor or not, a knight should have a squire.”
Roland sighed and raised his eyes to heaven.
***
Declan was first up on the morning of the Feast of the Ascension. They’d spent their second night on the road in this small patch of woods, near enough to Down Abbey to hear the bells calling the monks to prayer. The day dawned chilly and grey with the promise of rain later and he added fresh wood to the fire they’d built the night before, kneeling to blow on the white coals. They glowed red beneath the ash and flames flared back into life.
The movement woke Margaret Maelchallain, who threw off her cloak and rose, her dress wrinkled and her hair in tangles. The girl looked at the sky and frowned, then, taking a bundle under her arm, she slipped off to see to her morning toilet in the bushes. Brother Cyril rose next and trudged over to warm himself by the growing fire.
Only the three had made camp here. The young warrior from the Maelchallain clan assigned to escort Margaret back to Armagh had been left to wait for them in a thick stand of oaks five miles back up the road. As Cyril watched the girl disappear into the bushes, he hoisted the back of his robes to let some of the heat rising from the growing flames warm his backside.
“I must remind myself to occasionally thank God that he made me male,” the monk said, nodding toward where Margaret had disappeared from sight. “It makes the morning routine much simpler.”
>
He rose and went off to relieve himself behind a tree. A minute later, he was back.
“And, of course, there is child birth,” he said, adding to his list of the advantages of manhood.
“Amen to that,” agreed Declan.
He rose from tending the fire and took down a bag he’d secured to a low limb. He withdrew a small loaf of barley bread and a hunk of hard cheese. Walking back to the fire, he saw Margaret Maelchallain emerge from the bushes, transformed.
The girl was now clad in a long dun-coloured dress of undyed wool, with a brown scapula draped in front and back. Her raven hair was completely hidden beneath a tight-fitting white coif that framed her face. From her neck hung a simple chain with a wooden crucifix. She looked at the two men standing by the fire and smiled nervously.
“The Archbishop gave me these. He thought I would attract less attention as a nun,” she said, turning to the skinny monk.
“Do I look right, Brother Cyril?”
Cyril nodded eagerly.
“You look every bit the daughter of the church, Sister Margaret!”
His answer made her giggle. The laugh caught Declan by surprise and reminded him of the day they had walked back from the stables. He crossed his arms and refused to smile. She swung around to face him and did a slow turn.
“Will I pass, Sir Declan?” she asked sweetly.
He studied her for a moment and rubbed his chin.
No harm in being civil, he thought.
“The Benedictine sisters in Chester dress in black habits,” he said, which turned the girl’s smile to a frown. “But I’m certain Tomas O’Connor knows best,” he added, “and ye do look every inch a nun.” The smile returned to her lips.
“Thank you, Sir Declan!” she said brightly.
“Though there is the question of your comportment.”
Margaret furrowed her brow.
“Comportment?”
“Aye, my lady. While ye look the part, I wonder if ye can act it. The holy sisters I’ve known have all been women of a quiet and pious manner. Do you think you could affect such a pose for an entire day?”
For a moment she stared at him, her face reddening, then she heard Cyril cackle and broke into a laugh of her own. She brought her hands together in mock prayer.
“I shall ask the Lord’s help to bank my fires for at least one day, Sir Declan,” she said as she stepped near the fire.
“Divine help may be yer best hope,” Declan said, as he took out the knife he kept in a sheath on his belt and cut a slab of bread and one of cheese and handed it to her.
“Best fortify yerself for the effort with some breakfast.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He cut chunks of bread and cheese for himself and Cyril. Together they stood over the fire and broke their fast. The laughter had done them all good, but there was no escaping the fact that they were soon to be riding into peril and they ate their food in silence. Declan looked at the little monk who was wolfing down his bread and cheese. Much would depend on the quick mind of Brother Cyril. He’d fooled John de Courcy, but would he fool the Abbot at Down?
It was essential that he did. Declan had no doubt de Courcy would question them closely about their visit to Down on their return to Carrickfergus. For their own sake and for Roland’s they could not be caught in a lie, so a visit with the Abbot and to the gravesite of Saint Patrick was necessary. But best to keep both short, then get out.
Keep it simple, he thought.
There would be crowds at the abbey for the Feast of the Ascension. Cyril had said that was a good thing as it would preoccupy the Abbot and the monks. In that throng they would just be a few more pilgrims, though with the extra status afforded by de Courcy’s letter of introduction. That letter should get them an audience with Abbot Layton, even on a feast day. A quick interview with the Abbot, a visitation at the grave of the saint, then off.
That should be simple enough.
***
Three roads converged at the hill of Down where John de Courcy had endowed his abbey to honour Saint Patrick. One came up from the south, up from Dublin, through the port of Dundalk and on to Down. Another ran down from the north, crossing the River Quoile at a ford, then swinging west past the Mound of Down. There, men in the pay of John de Courcy manned a log palisade that sat atop the natural motte, providing security for the abbey and its village. The last road came from Armagh, passing over a ford on the River Bann, then running due east across flat and open pastureland to reach the abbey. It was on this road that Declan, Cyril and Margaret Maelchallain now rode toward the abbey amidst growing crowds of pilgrims.
The feast day had dawned grey and dreary, but the threat of rain was banished as the sun burned away the morning mists and breezes blew away all but a few white clouds. Declan looked up at the blue dome of the sky and thought it a good day for a parade and a celebration. The first sign that they were nearing the abbey was the top of a slender stone tower visible above the trees.
As they came around a bend in the road they saw a prominent hill nearly encircled by marshes to the west and a broad river to the north. The stone tower was fully visible now and beside it a large church stood, nearly finished, but with scaffolding on one side for stone masons to complete their work. All around the base of the hill was a low, earthen berm meant to define the grounds of the abbey and village more than for defence. FriarTuck had once explained to him that these low ridges marked the boundary between the church’s domain and the King’s.
“Separating the sacred from the profane,” the monk had observed.
Inside the enclosure were huts and buildings of various sizes comprising the village that existed to support and profit from the abbey. The road they were on swung just south of the marshland and entered the abbey grounds from the southwest. As they approached the entrance, Declan could see entire families of local Irish trooping in from every direction, come to celebrate Christ’s ascension into heaven.
“A good turnout,” observed Brother Cyril admiringly.
Declan grinned at that and glanced over at Margaret who was paying no attention to the gathering crowds. She had her eyes fixed on the church at the top of the hill, the church where the bell of Saint Patrick—her bell—was said to be kept in a vault. Declan marvelled again at the power that these sacred relics held for those who venerated them.
He himself believed in the one God with utter conviction, but wondered if the shinbones of saints and the like really held miraculous powers. When King Guy of Jerusalem marched out against Saladin on the field of Hattin, his priests had carried the One True Cross ahead of his army. Years later, on a moonlit night, he and Roland had ridden over the bones of the Christian soldiers who’d been slaughtered on that field.
He glanced once more at Margaret and saw how her eyes shone as she looked longingly up at the church. Perhaps a shinbone was nothing but a shinbone and a bell nothing more than a bell, but men—and women it seemed—believed they could produce miracles. True or not, that gave these relics great power.
Declan reined in his chestnut mare and dismounted outside the earthen berm that encircled the hill. There were two armed sentries on either side of the gap in the berm that served as the entrance to the abbey grounds, but they looked bored and disinterested in the crowds that were streaming past them and up the hill. Sitting atop the berm was a small group of boys entertaining themselves by watching the crowd pass by. He motioned to the biggest among them. With a coin for a deposit and another promised upon return, he arranged for the safekeeping of their mounts.
Together, the knight, the monk and the false nun joined the crowd marching up the hill toward the church.
***
Roland was up at first light and shook Finn awake. Thin tendrils of fog swirled among the trees as they broke camp. Hours before dawn, he had heard the faint sounds of church bells to the south. He’d grown familiar with the schedule of the bells during the siege of Chester when, despite the bombardment of the town, the monks
of Saint Werburg’s Abbey had not once failed to mark their calls to prayer.
In late spring, they rang the bells for Matins hours before dawn. As he saddled The Grey, he reckoned that if the bells were from Down Abbey, they were only an hour or so from the place. He swung into the saddle and hoisted Finn up behind.
“I heard bells in the night, my lord.”
Roland smiled. Finn looked to be a light sleeper, a useful habit for an orphan trying to survive in a hard world.
“Aye, lad. I expect they’re the Abbey bells at Down. We should reach there by mid-morning and I hope to find my friends there, the ones who paid you to mind our horses. They will be traveling to Down, if not this day then soon.”
“The Irishman and the monk?” Finn asked.
“Aye, the very same. I need to find them.”
“How’ll ye do that, my lord? Will ye ask the Abbot if they’ve seen ‘em?”
Roland shook his head.
“I don’t think that would be wise. My friends have a letter of introduction for the Abbot from the Prince, but I do not. To question him about my friends might be viewed with suspicion.”
“I could see it might, sir. I’ve heard these English monks at Down are entirely de Courcy’s creatures. I wouldn’t trust ‘em.”
Roland shrugged.
“I don’t.”
“Then how will ye find yer friends, lord? I’ve heard there are soldiers at Down as well as monks and they’ll want to know yer business if yer just pokin’ about the place.”
Roland frowned. The Irish boy had a point. He reined in The Grey and twisted around in the saddle to look at the boy.
“Alright, Finn, out with it,” he ordered.