The second time the gates of Dublin opened, a small bunch of horsemen came out escorting a cart. Some sheepskins had been cobbled together to roof the man who was lying inside but it was open back and front and somewhat dirty. Behind it rode the superior of St Mary’s Abbey of Hogges Green. Occasionally she leaned forward to hiss sentences at the figure tucked up in the straw on the cart’s floor.
Magnanimous as ever, the High King of Ireland rode around the siege lines to greet the cart at Rathfarnham. He was shocked. ‘Jesus God, Abbess,’ he said, ‘Let the man die in peace.’ After all was said and done, it was the greatness of Leinster lying on that straw.
She smiled up at him with a pleasure which made the crystalline day warm by contrast. ‘Make way, O’Conor,’ she said, ‘Make way for Dermot on his road to hell.’ She whispered again to the body in the cart and Ruairi saw it try to raise its black, gangrenous hands to its ears to shut out the things she was saying. He stood back and stared after the cart as it bumped and swayed over the iron-hard ruts of the road to Ferns.
Back in Dublin, Strongbow hadn’t even bothered to watch it go.
Later an Irish chronicler recorded with satisfaction of May, 1171: ‘Dermot Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, who had spread terror throughout Ireland, after putting the English in possession of the country, committing excessive evils against the Irish people and churches, died this year of an intolerable and uncommon disease. He became putrid while living, by the miracles of God. He died at Ferns without making a will, without penance, without the Eucharist and without Extreme Unction, as his evil deeds deserved.’
It’s doubtful if the loving monks of Ferns refused absolution to their king. But nobody else cared whether they did or not; Dermot of Leinster had become irrelevant.
* * *
A long way away, at Bures in Normandy, it was snowing and bells rang out over muffled rooftops. In the castle where he was about to celebrate Christmas, another king received yet another despatch telling him of the latest piece of arrogance perpetrated by his archbishop who had now returned to his See in England by an agreement between them, which he had broken. The king fell down as he read it, and rolled around on the floor, biting the rushes, and he shrieked out words that out-rang the bells of the churches, that reverberated through the castle, through his future and for centuries after his death. They formed a question. ‘Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?’
Four of his knights, who had their own grievances against Thomas Becket, slipped quietly away and rode for England to answer it.
* * *
Raymond Le Gros and his unofficial quartermaster stood together in the white, brittle orchard of the Swan Inn and looked at the cow standing in the byre.
‘She’s got to go, Finn.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’
Le Gros tightened his belt; it kept slipping. ‘I mean, she’ll die soon anyway with nothing to feed her on…’
‘I know.’ Finn fought down the exasperation which came easily. Perhaps, she thought, it’s because there’s no fat to absorb them that extreme emotions erupt and then die away like this. Within the space of an hour she could experience anger, deep grief, even spurious exhilaration. The next stage would be inertia and that would be the finish. She patted the cow’s bony rump. ‘You did us proud,’ she told it.
Le Gros said, ‘She can have a couple more days to fatten up on the last of the hay, then she must go.’
They turned away and walked slowly – they could do nothing very fast – towards the turnip pile, counting the twenty roots on it in case by some miracle they might have multiplied in the night.
‘My gums keep bleeding.’
‘So do mine.’
The Norman put his arm round her and dragged her out of the way as the branch of an apple tree, petrified by the cold, cracked off from the trunk and fell down, splintering as it hit the ground. The tiny sounding of a bell in the city had sent out a vibration which had been too much for it. They listened to its separate, slow rings, as if whoever pulled the bell rope was very tired.
‘Good God,’ said Raymond Le Gros, ‘It’s Christmas. May our sins be forgiven for the blood of the Saviour born to us this day.’
‘Merry Christmas, Raymond.’
‘Merry Christmas, Finn.’ He still had his arm round her.
On the bitter air, wafting from over the hill, came the beautiful, warm smell of roasting oxen. Le Gros looked down at his quartermaster. ‘You’re bloody torturers, you Irish.’
He let her go and tightened his belt another notch. ‘Well, better go and cheer the boys on the hill. Tell them Christmas will be late, but there’ll be a Christmas feast. Will you get Gorm to see to the slaughtering?’
‘I will.’
His breath steamed down at her. ‘It won’t be long now, Finn. The siege is getting slacker every day. I had no trouble getting to and from De Cogan’s outpost yesterday. Well, a stone and an arrow or two, but they missed. Once we’ve got some meat in our bellies we can attack.’
She was irritated again. ‘What do you want me to do? Wish you luck?’
But as he climbed the hill to his look-out posts, he heard her shout, ‘Take care.’
Take care, take care, thought Finn. What a ridiculous thing to say to an enemy. That young fat man, who was fat no longer, puffing up the hill today could tomorrow be puffing down the other side of it in a charge at her people; he could kill her friends – there might be Partraige in that section, Nessa, Niall, Iogenán. But the thin fat young man wasn’t the enemy any longer either. He was an uneducated, ambitious man, who was enduring hardship without complaint and with humour, who put himself on the same pitiful rations as his men, who tolerated her bossiness, who was allowing Perse’s baby to grow into what looked like monstrous proportions in Perse’s belly.
The ironies involved in living were nearly as wearing as the walk across the orchard; she had to lean against the kitchen door jamb to let the spots clear from her eyes. Elfwida was in the kitchen, with Perse.
‘You’re too thin,’ Finn told her, still irritable. Like everybody else, Elf was giving Perse some of her ration.
‘Look who’s talking.’
‘It’s Christmas Day. Happy Christmas. Raymond’s having the cow slaughtered soon.’
‘Yum, yum,’ said Perse. Unworried, she ate everything they gave her. She was like an enormous cuckoo being fed by exhuasted blue tits.
‘Finn, it’s Jacques,’ said Elfwida, ‘He wants me to marry him when this is all over.’
‘When what’s all over?’ She recovered herself; she had been expecting it. ‘I’m glad for you both.’
‘It’s not fraternising with the enemy is it, Finn? He’s got a wife in Normandy, but he likes Ireland, he wants to stay.’ The girl always wanted reassurance.
‘Become enamoured of Irish cuisine?’ She leaned over and rubbed Elfwida’s thin knees. ‘There isn’t any enemy, just organisations. Be happy. You deserve it.’ She got up. ‘I must go and speak to Gorm.’
‘Ow,’ said Perse, ‘Got a pain in my turn. Ow.’ She breathed in. ‘It’s gone now. Think it was indigestion?’
* * *
It was an unexpectedly terrible labour; somehow they’d all expected it to be as easy as a sow farrowing. It was dreadful to see Perse, who had ambled with such amiable indifference through the vicissitudes of her life, sharpened by the pain. Between the contractions and the untempered screams, she kneaded Finn’s hand. ‘I’m not going to die, am I?’
‘You dare.’
But after twenty-four hours of agony for all of them, it was obvious that she was getting weaker. Finn put on her cloak while Elfwida, very pale, took her place at the bedside.
Le Gros was at the door. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve got to get to the convent. There might be somebody there who can help her.’
‘You’re not. It’s snowing and you’d be a target.’
She pushed him with all her
strength. ‘Get out of my way. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do. They’ll die, the two of them.’
For the first time to his knowledge she was showing vulnerability. He held her close and shouted down the steps over her head. ‘Anybody know anything about babies?’
One of the men shouted back. ‘Dai might. See what you can do, Dai.’
Dai was small, middled-aged, agricultural, competent, comforting. ‘Know more about cows, really. Put your hand in and turn; I suppose it’s the same isn’t it?’
She studied his hands. ‘Not until you’ve washed it isn’t.’ She was better with something to do and she scrubbed his hands until they were raw, then turned back the covers to expose the massive mound of white, contracting flesh. He spat on his palms. ‘Right now. Hang on, girl.’
Finn and Elf held Perse’s arms as she screamed. Dai’s head nestled against her thigh and he looked towards them with unseeing eyes. ‘Feels like a breach to me.’
The candles round the bed flickered in the draught that came down the steps from the upper room where snow was blowing in through the eastern light. I know I have worried you too much, prayed Finn, but I never will again. Intervene just this once. It is the season for it. Let just one lovely thing happen on this special night.
‘Turn, you little bugger now,’ said Dai.
‘It’s all right, Perse.’ Turn, you little bugger. Please God, just one lovely thing.
‘Now then,’ said Dai.
* * *
He had a small triangle of a nose which was firm to the touch of her lips. She carried him out onto the steps of the parlour. ‘Perse’s compliments to you all and she’s going to call him Raymond or Dai, probably both. And oh, boys, Merry Christmas.’ She sat down and wept into the baby’s shawl while they crowded round her and sent word to the guards up on the hill.
* * *
She was too exhausted to sleep and she clambered up the far staircase to the pigeon loft where Gorm lived to tell him the news. Then she sat down beside him, her knees up to her chin, and looked out at the snow, hypnotically white and whirling against the dark grey of the sky. ‘Poor Molling,’ she said. It was a time to be alone, and up here was as alone as you could be; Gorm never talked.
He spoke now: ‘Pigeon.’ He showed it to her. It had come in that morning. He’d already wrung its neck and begun to pluck it. ‘For Perse.’ In his other hand was the membrane it had carried in its leather pouch, black with writing. ‘Muirna.’
With the bad light and her eyesight failing from starvation, it took a long time to decipher the cramped, angry scrawl of Muirna’s scribe and then she sat and looked out of the gable at the sky for even longer. When the hand of God opened, it opened with a vengeance. Have mercy on us all. But it could save the Pilgrim.
‘Gorm, go and slaughter that cow.’ She tucked the membrane in her sleeve, and went downstairs, the pigeon dangling from her hand.
Like herself, the men were too hungry and too exhausted to sleep. Their eyes went to the pigeon. ‘Feast tomorrow,’ she told them, ‘We’re slaughtering the cow.’
It was today they needed food. Their eyes were deep-sunk and there were starvation sores round their mouths. Dai said, ‘Just what a nursing mother needs, pigeon pie.’ The others nodded.
They had sacked and raped Dublin. There might be men in this room who had torn Pinginn to bits. If she hadn’t been so bloody tired, she would railed against the torture of human complications; as it was, she was crying again.
* * *
She and Elfwida fed the Magi in the common parlour; beef a bit tough, but who cared, dumplings a bit suety – she’d never been a hand at dumplings – but they said they were wonderful, turnips a bit stringy, but who cared, who cared. They heaped their own plates and hers. ‘Who’s a clever little quartermaster, then?’
Raymond said, ‘Medicinal purposes?’
‘Definitely.’
Toasting Dai-Raymond, Perse, all mothers, God, the mother of God, herself, the Normans, the Irish, Elfwida and Jacques, bless them and send them happiness, Wales, Flanders, change the guard and more food, more toasts, Dai-Raymond suckling at Perse’s gorged breast, all gods, God of all mothers.
She poked a finger into Le Gros’ arm. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. Alone.’
‘Definitely.’
They climbed up the tower room while the Magi cheered them like a honeymoon couple.
‘I love you, Finn.’
‘No you don’t. We’ve got to talk.’
He was fairly drunk; she’d never been drunk, she wasn’t drunk now, though she was having a hell of a lot of trouble lighting the brazier. But if she waited until they were both sober, she wouldn’t know how to attempt the difficulty of putting it to him.
‘You’re beautiful.’
‘I’m old. Listen to me.’
She cracked the ice on his wash basin, laved her face and made him do the same.
‘You’re still beautiful.’
She shook him. ‘Becket’s murdered.’
That sobered him. It was sobering the whole world. She helped him get his chair nearer the fire. ‘Read this.’
He looked at the membrane. ‘I can’t read.’
‘I forgot. “This infamous day was our lord Archbishop of Canterbury murdered on the steps of his own cathedral. Woe to the…”’ She couldn’t see. ‘It was four knights of Fitzempress’ entourage. They hacked the top of his head off and stirred his brains onto the floor. They say Fitzempress ordered it, whether he did or not…’ The king of sixteen years ago had run his hands down his wife’s pregnant stomach, like Perse’s. He was capable of anything, that joyful, cunning young man, but too cunning to bring Christendom down on his own head. He couldn’t have really wanted it, but they’d crucify him just the same.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘A friend of mine in England sent it by pigeon. She’s my spy. I am a spymaster… mistress, for Ireland. I can read, I can do anything, except protect my country from you.’
She wasn’t beautiful to him now. She saw his small blue eyes go blank and she wondered why it was that devious men were clever but devious women were unnatural. ‘Why tell me, you bitch?’
To reassure him, she went down on her knees.
‘My lord, because there’s no point in concealment any more. Ireland, my Ireland is doomed. This affects you and me, both in different ways; we can help each other. My friend, my spy, says all hell’s broken loose. The Church may excommunicate Fitzempress and put an interdict on his realm.’ There would be no dead buried, no marriages, children going to hell through lack of baptism, the dying fearing hell through lack of last rites, no God from the Tweed to the Pyrenees. As if a Church could remove God. But it could if people believed it could, and they did.
He needed time to encompass it all so she went downstairs for another jug of wine and two cups. It was going to be a tricky night. When she got back he was looking out at the snow and didn’t turn round. ‘So you’ve been a traitor all this time.’
Dear Lord, they always got deflected by side issues; they never kept their mind on the point. ‘No,’ she said patiently, ‘I’m Irish. I’ve been a patriot, but I’m trying to give it up. Do you want some more wine?’
‘Not from you.’
‘Oh for God’s sake…’ Keep calm; you’ll only get what you want by using every wit you’ve got. ‘My lord, if I’m your enemy I’m a singularly unsuccessful one. Physically, I’m in no position to betray you and, anyway, I wouldn’t want to now. I admire you and I’m grateful for your kindness to me and mine.’
That was better, more feminine. And it was true. He turned round and let her pour him wine.
‘You see, I’m in a position to know what will happen. I promise you, I know.’
‘What?’
‘Fitzempress will buy the Church off. He’ll do penance and he’ll give the Church the one thing it hasn’t got. He’ll give it Ireland.’
He was sober now, by God, and he sat down while she told h
im who she was, what Fitzempress had said to her, how importantly the cardinal had regarded the acquisition of Ireland for the Church, Laudabiliter, what had happened. She didn’t care how exposed she was any more: she could save the Pilgrim – though him she didn’t mention.
‘Fitzempress knows the Church wants Ireland brought into its fold and he’s kept it, you see. Stuffed it up his sleeve for later when he’d need it. Well, he needs it now.’
She could see she was persuading him of the likelihood which to her was a certainty. Like another Norman had done once, he reassessed her because of her connection with great people and great events; he might not like her as much, but he respected her more. She would never understand men.
Apparently it went both ways: ‘You never cease to amaze me, Finn.’
‘My lord, he is going to invade this island one way or another. You know better than I do what that will mean to you and Strongbow and the others when he does.’ They would be pygmies overwhelmed by a massive eruption. He’d grind them until they disappeared from history with no prowess nor achievement for their sons to boast of, no riches with which to build churches to buy off the God they had sinned against while amassing those riches in the first place. If they were allowed to live, it would be as no better than peasants. Worse, they would be humiliated for having chosen wrong.
She went to the window to give him some privacy while he absorbed it all. The snow was settling on the sill in a long, perfect cushion and formed a speckled blind between her and the view.
‘So?’ he said after a long time, and she turned round to find an older man facing her – and reality – in the place of the young magician who had sat there before and who, by waving his sword, had thought he could make the world do what he wanted.
Daughter of Lir Page 49