‘He’s calmed down a lot lately,’ said Bevo fondly, ‘and, well, with me chucking him out so many times it’s formed a bond between us. My share of the profit will be my dower. I won’t be his first wife, of course, but he’s fond of me and he’s got a nice little property up Swords way.’
‘I wish he’d got a nice little property out of Ireland altogether,’ said Finn.
‘Is it going to be as bad as all that?’
‘Yes.’ Finn kissed her friend. ‘I’m so pleased. Be happy. Have lots of babies.’
It was a fruitless business trying to persuade Brother Pinginn and Lief to leave her, but she did get Lief to agree to accompany Tailltin to Lough Mask and bring back an assurance that all was well there. Besides, the country was dangerous to travel through with more and more Norman bands roving deeper and deeper into it.
The only people for whom Finn had not thought to make arrangements were Perse and Elfwida, because she honestly did not know what arrangement they wanted. As it turned out, Perse had made her own.
‘I’m getting married and all,’ she said.
Finn was beyond surprise by now. Obviously a lot had been going on while she’d been away. ‘Who to?’
‘Miller Molling.’ Perse smirked while everybody congratulated her; from her point of view it was a marvellous match. But Finn reckoned that the miller, who was a widower, wasn’t doing too badly either; Perse was one of the world’s workers and Molling was getting a first-class cook, laundress, seamstress, and general dogsbody as well as a bed-fellow considerably younger than himself. When he came over a couple of days later and asked Finn formally for Perse’s hand she ensured that some of Perse’s share of the profits were safeguarded for Perse’s own use, and not his.
‘And what about me?’ shouted Elfwida jealously, as the plans for Perse’s wedding went ahead. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Finn, ‘you’ve got money of your own now. You can go to Lough Mask with the others, if you like, or you can go back to England.’
‘I want you to care what happens to me,’ screamed Elfwida, and Finn shouted back, ‘I do care. I just don’t know what you want.’
It was true that she did care about the girl, but never so much as when the Elf was out of her sight or asleep. In the girl’s presence, she always felt that more was being asked of her than she could give.
‘I’ll stay here then,’ grumbled Elfwida, and Finn took the easy way out by agreeing, telling herself that she was bound to get warning of the Norman approach when it came, and that they could both escape then in plenty of time.
Molling’s and Perse’s wedding was celebrated sedately at the Swan. Perse took her pitifully few belongings over to the mill, and as a quid pro quo, Gorm brought his pitifully few belongings over to the inn to take Art’s place in the pigeon loft.
Two days later, and much less sedately, Ragnar’s and Bevo’s wedding wrecked two shutters, four settles, most of the crockery and a frying pan in a party that ended with Ragnar and Bevo together throwing most of Dublin’s nobility into the Stein. In a dawn made hazy by hangover, the Swan staff cheered and threw wheat as Bevo, clinging onto Ragnar’s ample waist, rode off on Finn’s wedding present to them, a descendant of Fitzempress’ mare and the only horse for miles around strong enough to bear the weight of them both.
There was no hangover to mist the distress the next day when Blat, Tailltin and Lief rode off to Lough Mask.
Finn and Brother Pinginn stood on the tower roof for a long time after they had disappeared into the trees of the north bank. ‘I can’t bear it we’re not a company any more and I’ll miss them so much and I hate it when you cry,’ sobbed Pinginn. Finn snivelled as she shook him. ‘Stop being silly.’ She tore her eyes away and looked around at the orchard, speckled with the geese that had been Blat’s genius suggestion, but now was so lonely. She spotted a figure up on Lazy Hill talking, as usual, with the lepers. ‘What are we going to do about Censellach?’ She had suggested to the boy that he go to Lough Mask and told him all about the Academy. She didn’t see why Scathagh shouldn’t take him in and train him; God knew he was damaged enough. She described it, told him where it was, and then made the mistake of telling him that Slaney was already there.
He screamed. ‘I won’t have her see me!’ So that idea had been abandoned.
Pinginn cheered up at the thought of responsibility. ‘I’ll look after him, the poor dear,’ he said, ‘and he’s getting ever so sweet. You know that lovely arm bracelet of his? Well he gave it to the worst of the lepers – you know, the suppurating one. Wasn’t that a lovely Christian thing to do?’
But, as it turned out, Cennsellach was another one who made his own arrangements. That night a party of pilgrims on their way to Lough Derg and Croagh Patrick stopped for a drink at the inn, and the next morning Finn discovered that Censellach had gone with them, without saying goodbye.
* * *
Miller Molling agreed to allow Perse to become temporary cook-in-charge at the Swan on the understanding that he ate two free meals a day at the Swan and had his washing done by the inn’s skivvies. Finn accepted gratefully, partly because Perse was a good cook and partly because she had hardly any money left to hire extra staff with. Besides, the custom at the Swan had diminished to the point where her staff, small as it now was, could cope sufficiently.
News that Strongbow was about to invade with a strong force had gone round like wildfire, and rumour had it that he would land at Dublin. Besides, the advance of Dermot and his Normans and the weakness of the High King in not stopping it had persuaded many Dublin citizens who had homes elsewhere that elsewhere was a good place to be just now. The thought of what Dermot might do to a city that had allied itself with his enemy caused a steady daily exodus of carts from Dublin’s gates, while fewer and fewer entered them. Trading ships still came up the Liffey but these were mostly from the furthest foreign parts which had not yet been apprised of Ireland’s invasion by the Normans; Welsh, Bristolian, Scottish and Manx merchants were more careful and decided not to risk valuable cargoes being seized as booty. They began sending their ships round to Galway instead, on the premise that hazards of the seas were still safer than a possible surprise attack by mercenaries who, as everyone knew, werre little better than pirates.
One of the few from Bristol that ventured up to Dublin brought a message from Muirna. Most of it was an account of the latest atrocity in the war of denunciation between Henry II and his Archbishop of Canterbury. Finn was glad to see that England and the Continent were still in turmoil over the Becket business – it would keep Fitzempress busy. He was still the greatest threat to her country; given time Ireland might absorb the freebooting invaders, however much it suffered in the process, as it had absorbed the Vikings, after all. But Fitzempress with his codes and constitution and common law could, and would, alter it forever.
‘…this threat to our Mother Church. Moreover, my lady and yours wishes me to inform you that she is well and happy and has come under the kind patronage of the Bishop of Salisbury in whose palaces she now makes her home when she is not in attendance on the queen. She further wishes me to write that the aforementioned queen has had the scales ripped from her eyes with regard to the king’s liaison with the adulteress, Rosamund Clifford, and is likely to vent her fury on the aforementioned king should he return to England, as is the nature of a woman scorned…’ (Jesus, Fitzempress would be busy.) ‘…She has news of the pilgrim of whom you enquired and sends word that he is in Erin and that he may be in jeopardy with these adventurers to the end of the world, since it is common talk among us here that he is a king’s man and that his interest is with the king and not the aforesaid adventurers for which shame should attend him since it will not profit any man that he should throw in his lot with the devil…’ The letter went back to villifying England’s king and ended on the same note.
Her sleeve was tugged by the sailor who’d brought the letter. ‘The lady said I’d get a free
meal and a bed.’
‘So you shall. Did she look well? Did she say anything else?’
The sailor pulled his earring as an aid to memory. ‘Something about Wales. She said the news from Wales, that’s it, the news from Wales was Waterford. Make any sense to you?’
‘I’m afraid it does.’ She was ashamed of her relief that it was to be Waterford and not Dublin which was to receive Strongbow’s onslaught. She’d send word to the High King to warn him to get his army into position… why the hell did she still put faith in the O’Conor doing anything to protect his High Kingdom? Because he was all there was.
So Muirna had become the mistress of a bishop? Well, if it suited her… He’d better be kind to her. Suddenly she was enraged at the hyprocisy of a Church that condemned the Irish for immorality in allowing their churchmen to marry when practically every high prelate in Europe was known to have a beautiful ‘housekeeper’ keeping his bed warm.
Underneath everything was a nagging anxiety for the Pilgrim. She must warn him. But where was he? Her spy work system was breaking down as travel became increasingly difficult and more and more of her agents in areas which had fallen under Norman control were, ominously, no longer reporting. Supposing that by warning the Irish side of Strongbow’s impending invasion she was putting the Pilgrim in danger? On the other hand he was in danger already. And so was Ireland. She glared at the sailor: ‘Have you ever thought how lucky you were not to be born a woman?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘What about that meal?’
* * *
As if it could not digest so many, the sea spewed a thousand moving iron fragments onto the beach of Dun Domhnaill. They formed themselves into patterns which flowed towards Waterford, four miles away, like massed black insets all crawling in the same direction. At their head was that most dangerous of all creatures, a man who is determined not to show weakness. Strongbow was going to live up to the name won by his father. He would be forceful, terrifying, he would make an example of the first to oppose him so that nobody would oppose him again.
Waterford’s leader, the lord Sitric, had news of the Norman’s coming. What had happened to his fellow Norsemen at Wexford, where they had given in to Dermot and FitzStephen, and been dispossessed for their trouble, had reawakened the old Viking spirit in him and his people. They resolved to fight. As the Normans breached their city wall and poured through the gap, that’s what they did.
As was usual in such cases the churchmen intervened and asked for a truce. When Strongbow refused to accede to one, they were at a loss and so was Waterford. This wasn’t what the Irish were used to; one clan always stopped short of annihilating another when it asked for terms. It was at once the strength of their civilisation and its weakness in that it preserved the clans to fight another day. But that day total warfare came to Ireland. Sitric was beheaded in his own hall. Waterford, its men and many of its women and children died to provide a lesson to the rest of Ireland.
With the smoke of his example still staining the sky behind him, Strongbow marched away – heading for Dublin.
Chapter Thirteen
Slaney missed the woman Finn; their brief relationship had seemed significant in a way she had been unable to define. In the woman’s absence she visited Swan Island frequently and pestered the funny old man Art with questions he rarely answered. They got on, despite his insistence on playing gooseberry when Cathal happened by, as if he were some hideous, self-appointed, chaperoning guardian angel. On this evening he’d nodded off to sleep as he frequently did, and she was still sitting on the island’s beach, watching the sun down, when a voice called her name.
‘Yes?’ She was unnerved; the boat was between her and the sunset and the two figures in it were mere two-dimensional shapes against the strong light.
‘Slaney.’
‘Yes?’ She stood up. She couldn’t see which of the shapes was calling her, but she knew the voice. ‘Is it you, Censellach?’ The girl had loved him; the woman she now was wished him well.
‘Your father wants you, Slaney. He’s asking where his daughters have gone.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘He needs you.’
‘Are you all right? Why don’t you come here? What’s happened to you?’
Lough Mask was always eerie but she had never known it threaten her as it did this evening with its water like oiled silk and the voice echoing over it, the same but different. Unless it was her that was different.
‘Slaney,’ called the voice again, ‘Give your father a present I have for him. Will you do that for me, for the old days?’
The boat came nearer but she still couldn’t see him properly; although he looked in her direction she had the feeling he wasn’t seeing her either. Closer, his voice whispered across the reeds. ‘It’s my present to him, Slaney, gold, the finest. Give it to him as if it came from you. Let him wear it and be admired and then, one day, I’ll tell him it was my gift. It will help him look more kindly on me.’
So complicated, so un-Censellach-like. ‘Why don’t you give it yourself? Censellach, come and talk to me.’
‘Let him think it’s your gift. Please, Slaney. For the old days.’
She would do anything to compensate him for not loving him any more. ‘All right.’
The man at the boat’s oars stood up and threw a heavily-wrapped parcel across the reed bed.
‘And Slaney. Don’t touch it. Give it to him in its wrapping. There’s a geasa on it that no woman must hold it.’
‘Censellach, this is so silly.’
‘Swear.’
‘I swear. Don’t go. Where are you going?’
Her eyes watered so that the figures in the boat had rays about them. It had begun to drift away from her. She had a precise vision of him as he had once been; he was hunting, yelling with joy at the speed of his horse, ahead of everybody else and everything beautiful waiting to happen to him. Conviction came over her; Censellach was dead. His shape and voice had been impelled from the underworld to obey some frantic wish of his soul which she, too, must obey.
A skein of geese passed overhead crying like musical squeaking doors. Art was still asleep. Sobbing, Slaney picked up the parcel and put it in her curragh. She must go back to the hags and tell her sisters that a ghost, which could not lie, said their father needed them. They had to go back.
When the party from Dublin, which had been badly delayed on the road, arrived at Lough Mask it was to find that the daughters of Dermot had said their goodbyes and gone without anybody being able to stop them.
* * *
Although they each carried a dagger and sword beneath their cloaks, the girls were cautious on their journey home; they would never be incautious again. They rode from convent to convent, getting an escort from each one to take them on to the next.
As they rode through Leinster the landscape reflected back their own loss of innocence; whole woodlands through which they had once hunted and knew like the back of their hand had disappeared, taking with them light and shadow and in their place were naked acres of stumps. The trees had gone for assault machines, scaling ladders, battering rams and other requisites of war, or they had been transformed into scaffolding and cranes on which men worked around the untidy, skeletal props of other trees, incorporating them into the erections which would be castles dominating a ruined countryside. Time and again the girls had to make wide diversions to avoid them, warned by the chop of axe into wood, a sound more common than birdsong. It was as if a giant breed of termites had been introduced into the country and was gnawing Ireland into the shape of its own environment.
‘But why doesn’t Father stop them,’ Dervorgilla kept saying, ‘why doesn’t he stop them? He must stop them.’
It still didn’t occur to her that he couldn’t, but Slaney heard Finn’s voice in her head. ‘They won’t go away again.’
At Ferns there was the same febrile activity. The castle Dermot had burned down to stop anyone else having it was being rebuilt bigger and more Norman. Th
ere were only men about and these were too busy to give the girls much greeting. So was their father. ‘Good, you’re back,’ he said, ‘Did you learn to kill?’ In a way it was a relief; they had been afraid of what he would say if he discovered they’d been sojourning all this time in Connaught, but it was odd that he kept his eyes away from them.
He didn’t look the same at all; his arms were bare like a young warrior, though the exposed upper flesh on them was old and sagging. He wore the crown of Leinster and was decorated with torques and bracelets and brooches as if he were grabbing at the authority given by royal jewellery. On the wall behind him a suit of mail was on a hanger topped by a helmet like those worn by the rapists. Eyeless, it stared in their direction.
‘What’s happening, Father?’
‘We’re off to Dublin. Strongbow’s coming.’
‘Do you need him now? You’ve got Leinster back.’
‘Leinster. I’ll have more than Leinster.’ He calmed down and became dismissive. ‘I’m not discussing it with you. Get ready to ride.’ Except for the time in Aquitaine when they had been looking for Fitzempress, he had always been solicitous for them; now he didn’t enquire whether they were tired or not. The love for the person he had once been turned to pity for this abstracted, pathetic old man and Slaney knelt before him. ‘Accept this, Father, before we go.’
She held out the mysterious parcel, waiting to give some explanation, but Dermot took it impatiently, tore it open and just slid the beautiful snake bracelet it contained up his arm to join the horde of gold already on it. He frowned. ‘It scratches. Go and get ready.’
They were heavily guarded by Hy Kinsella on the journey to keep them safe from the Norman troops who marched with them, though there was a moment when Slaney felt oppressed even by these men she’d known since childhood. She felt Aoife looking at her and saw the same panic in her sister. ‘You don’t think…?’ ‘He wouldn’t.’ They smiled reassurance at each other.
Daughter of Lir Page 43