She took a drink herself. Now then. Better kneel at his feet again. ‘It’s not too late to placate him, my lord, if you are in Ireland on his behalf, not anyone else’s, not your own. You can still be the great earl you should be, but Fitzempress will be your king and not Strongbow.’
He chewed his lip. ‘Bloody difficult.’
‘Not if you get the… the man who’s in prison in Dublin castle on your side. You said he was Fitzempress’ man and that the king would be angry if anything happened to him. Make him your ally. Get him released so that he goes back to Fitzempress and puts your case.’
‘Strongbow won’t let him go.’
That was the difficulty. In fact, Strongbow was even more vulnerable to Henry II’s wrath than Raymond, having set himself up as a rival king. He might see the wisdom of crawling to Fitzempress and begging his forgiveness, but then again, he might not.
‘But it’s a thought,’ said Raymond. He’d got some confidence back, ‘Give me some more of that bloody wine.’
She wanted to go down to the middle room and go to bed and leave him to work on it, but he wouldn’t let her. ‘Oh no you don’t. There’s a lot I want to know yet.’
They went over the same ground, then he asked question after question, who she was again, what she’d done in Ireland, why she’d worked against Dermot, why she’d set up the inn, what she’d done there, why she’d done it.
When they ran out of wine, he fetched more. ‘There’s not much left, but, by God, if ever there were medicinal purposes they’re with us this night.’
They went over it all again. And then she went into error. He asked if she knew the Fitzempress spy and she said, ‘Yes,’ and because she was tired and not completely sober and she’d been so lonely for the Pilgrim for so long and so frightened for him, she said it with love and didn’t expect him to notice.
His eyes flicked down at her. ‘Was he the man trouble?’
‘We’ve been on different sides.’
‘Was he the man trouble?’
‘Part of it.’
‘Does he love you or hate you?’
‘He doesn’t even know where I am, for God’s sake. I’m going to bed.’
He grabbed her shoulders. ‘He loves you, doesn’t he? I remember FitzStephen telling me about it. There was this nun and John let her escape. That was you.’
‘Young man,’ she said, ‘you are getting away from the point. This is not a romance and love has nothing to do with it.’
‘It explains why you want him freed. It’s not for the sake of my skin, is it?’
‘I told you, we can help each other.’
He poured himself some more wine. ‘Happy Christmas, Irish. Perhaps we can.’
* * *
The Normans counter-attacked the Irish in a snow storm. Miles De Cogan and Raymond Le Gros each headed a detachment with Strongbow bringing up the rear, as usual. They led their scarecrow horses over the Liffey Bridge without anyone seeing or hearing them, scarcely able to see or hear themselves, so thick was the snow.
Knowing that nobody but the mad would venture out on a day like this, let alone fight in it, the main Irish army had retired deep into the woods of Finglas to continue celebrating the birth of its Lord. They were singing round their fires; Ruairi O’Conor had ordered a sweat house to be built and was actually having a bath in it.
The white element around them solidified into white shapes. White-crusted horses reared above them. They were killed by snowmen like the ones they had built in play as children so that afterwards their dead faces were found to have frozen into a rictus of horrified recognition. Like enormous metal flakes the enemy kept falling on them, as relentless as the snow and more fatal. Within fifteen minutes, the huge Irish army was either killed or running away from a force one sixth of its size. Ruairi O’Conor just made it, only just, by escaping naked.
He took what was left of his people back to Connaught. He could have borne being defeated, what he couldn’t bear was the embarrassment.
On plundering the Irish camp, the Normans found it to contain enough corn, meal and pork for a whole year. Raymond Le Gros took his share back to his inn so that he could feed up his victorious men, his servents and his woman.
* * *
As they brought him into it, the lord of Llanthony blinked at the light in the Dublin Castle tower room; actually, it was dim because the sky outside was still grey and there was only one candle, but it seemed strong to him. He squinted around him. ‘Hello, Miles, Hello, Le Gros.’
‘Hello, old chap. No hard feelings.’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’ They’d set out a tureen of stew for him, as big as a cartwheel and he fell on it, but after a few minutes’ eating he began to retch. ‘Eyes bigger than my belly.’ Le Gros poured him wine; in case he was cold they’d brought him an ermine cloak and put it round his shoulders with the care of a mother. ‘Like a wash, old man?’ They took him into the anteroom where a bath had been prepared. There were clean clothes and there was a barber to shave him. He took his time and made them scrub his back. Let the bastards sweat.
‘Strongbow well, I hope?’
‘Fine, fine,’ De Cogan assured him. ‘Gone down south to secure the Leinster bridgehead.’
‘Oh, good.’
They took him back to the stew and he did better this time, then he went to the window and looked out of it for a bit, examined his nails, found them unsatisfactory, pulled a Viking chair with horns on it close to the fire and toasted his feet. The news that Becket was dead had been like the snow, it had permeated everything, his cell included. Well, Becket had it coming, had wanted it. No tears for the blessed martyr Becket. But he’d cried for Fitzempress.
These two lads were about as subtle as horseshit and he was way ahead of them; what puzzled him was how they’d had the brains to work out the prognosis. They couldn’t know about Laudabiliter. They were the sort who’d think that because Fitzempress was down, he was also out. Strongbow didn’t think at all. The way they’d work it out, left to themselves, they could become kings of Ireland while Fitzempress’ back was bowed under the clerical lash. Somebody had done their thinking for them.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘It’s like this, old chap…’
He eyed them while they went through their rehearsed routine. It was all a mistake… hadn’t meant to upset him… doing it for King Henry… glory Fitzempress’, the country Fitzempress’… king had given them permission, after all… itching to do the king homage for it… welcome the king to Ireland to lay it at his feet… if he, John, would just put their case for them… grateful forever and show it in material fashion… always liked him, comrades-in-arms in Aquitaine, did he remember… jolly old times.
De Cogan was sweating with the effort of verbal crawling, but Le Gros, thinner now, but not as fucking thin as he was himself, had something at the back of his eyes.
‘Is Strongbow in on all this?’ he asked them abruptly.
They wavered. He saw them weighing it up. Abandon Strongbow? Better not; if one went down, they’d all go.
‘The earl is as eager to recognise Fitzempress king of Ireland as we are ourselves.’
‘How do you know I won’t sell you out once you let me go?’ Actually, Fitzempress would probably have to confirm them in their lands – he wouldn’t want to fight them and the Irish – but they’d be bigger fools than even he thought they were to let him sail to England on the pious hope that he’d recommend it.
‘As we are Norman knights, we accept your word as a Norman knight that you will speak well on our behalf to the king,’ said Le Gros, ‘And we’ve got your surety.’
You’ve no surety of mine, you bloody Welsh half-breed. ‘What surety?’
‘My quartermaster.’
‘I don’t know any quartermasters.’ They’d gone bloody mad. Too much Irish air. Who the hell were they opening the door to?
‘This one’s rather special,’ said Le Gros, smiling.
And Loon walked in.
He was weaker than he thought. It had got very dark. Time must have passed while he’d looked at her. Too skinny as always, skinnier than ever, hair getting grey in it, nothing to write home about, eyes… oh, fuck it… nobody else had eyes like that.
He said, ‘Can I speak to her alone?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Le Gros was more triumphant than ever.
He said in Irish, ‘Are you all right?’
She used the same tongue: ‘Say anything, but get out as fast as you can.’
‘I’ll take you with me.’
‘They won’t let you. Just go.’
‘We’d prefer it if you spoke in French,’ said De Cogan. ‘We are prepared to accept this surety…’
‘Hostage.’
‘…surety, for your favourable representation to the king on our behalf.’
‘I told you my quartermaster was special,’ said Le Gros.
The bastard was proprietorial toward her. He’d probably even had her. And she’d bargained with that skinny body of hers for his safety. She’d got nothing else to bargain with. Why couldn’t she leave him alone? Why had she entered his sodding life at all? He was jealous of the conferences she must have had with them. He was jealous that she was saving him, not him saving her. Jesus Christ, what a mess.
‘I see.’ It was an effort to stand up. ‘When’s the next boat?’
He saw her take it all in; she’d always been too clever by half, the whore. It was her who’d done these bastards’ thinking for them. As he passed her in the doorway, he said, ‘Bit young for you, isn’t he?’
She’d always had spirit as well. ‘Get out of here,’ she said, ‘And don’t come back.’
He went, and he didn’t mean to come back.
* * *
Henry II showed his genius on many occasions – in warfare and even more in peace, in the institution of a Common Law and the jury system – but he never displayed it better than by coming to Ireland as its saviour.
He was at the lowest ebb of his career with his enemies calling for his blood and his allies wavering. The Church everywhere condemned him as a murderer. But by scolding and apparently punishing the Norman adventurers who were making their life hell, he made the Irish forget all that. He made them grateful. In effect, he said to them, ‘Look on me as an instrument of cohesion. Recognise me, an outsider, as your High King – it’s just a title – and your clans will not feel that one has triumphed over another. I suppose we’ll have to confirm this upstart Strongbow and the others in some of their lands to keep them quiet, won’t we, but they’ll be answerable to me and, by God’s eyes, I’ll keep them in check, and preserve your ancient liberties.’
Behind him, just in case, he’d brought the biggest Norman army yet seen, but it was unnecessary. He had Laudabiliter in his hand, and the backing of the incumbent Pope. The reforming bishops of Ireland, who wanted to see their church abandon its peculiar individuality and come under the Church of Rome, were behind him and recommending him to their people.
To the men of Meath and Leinster and Ulster, and all the other clans outside Connaught, Ruairi O’Conor had been a foreigner, just as MacLochlainn had been a foreigner to all the clans outside Ulster. So here was just another foreigner passionate for the title of High King which didn’t mean that much anyway.
Sick of war, the Irish lined his route from Wexford to Dublin and cheered him, thinking his titular reign would be just a passing phase like all the others.
* * *
‘God is at once male and female and more than both,’ wrote Finn, ‘a Being of limitless power that has chosen to be represented in vulnerability. For, as men were the only ones to write the words of the Bible, they were unable to see the femininity of God but recognised only the masculinity.’
That was telling them.
‘Yet, in that Jesus came to us not in strength but in the weakness of a poor human baby, not to experience the power of the world but its pain, he was partaking of the common lot of its women. Nor can I find any condemnation of women in his teaching such as are heaped on our heads by the bishops. Indeed, he understood the body of a woman so well as to cure it of the bloody flux. In that he loved and forgave prostitutes and adulteresses and rejoiced at marriages as at Cana, and frequented the company of women, he reflected the womanly nature of God as much as the manly. Therefore the saints who have regarded Eve and her daughters as evil, like St Kevin, who cast women from him, have done violence to God who is both their father and their mother.’
She stopped. She’d filled up the skinside of the membrane and would have to go over on the other because this was the last of the membranes Pinginn had prepared for her and she doubted her ability to make more, even if she had any skins, which she didn’t, and the energy, of which she had less.
She felt she ought to have been harder on St Kevin but the torpor of one who has experienced too much in too short a span had left her unable to feel indignation about anything. Even her pleasure was in small, ordinary things, this lovely spring day, the baby, discovering the right words for her manuscript.
Leaving the ink to dry in the sun, she went over to watch Dai-Raymond sleeping in his cradle and gloat over the weight he’d put on and the curl of his hands and his little nose, she loved his nose. ‘Time waster,’ she said to him. Still, for the first time in her life she had time to waste. She looked down over the parapet of the tower at the Liffey which today had the colour of clear ale. Out towards the bay a school of dolphins leapt in and out of the water, a spectacle that stayed on the mind in curves. More time wasters.
She’d nearly finished the Word of Woman – just the matter of Pinginn to deal with. She wasn’t completely satisfied with it, but it spoke up for herself, for Dervorgilla, for all voiceless women, for the female-ness of God. It had become the most important thing in her life, next to Dai-Raymond.
The inn had been put off limits for the Dublin garrison. Raymond’s men, her Magi, were encamped on the north shore ready for what was being called ‘a peace-keeping mission’ into Meath. Shipping was beginning once again to come up the Liffey, but most of it was military and went straight to the city wharves. At least it was bringing grain and some of it was being milled by Perse and her new husband, Dai, over at poor Molling’s mill. Poor Molling, buried at last.
Few locals had survived the invasion and the siege. With so little left to steal at the inn, even the damned lepers were leaving her alone.
She strolled over to the west parapet to look towards the fantastic structure that now stood between her and the city below the Thingmount. Since the castle was still under repair, the Irish had built Fitzempress a mansion of wattles to stay in during his visit and its woven walls had a white sheen under the thatch, like the stalks of a mushroom cluster. He’d charmed them by saying it was the most comfortable and beautiful of his palaces. They’d never seen Chinon.
Tiny figures swarmed around it, in and out of its doors, getting everything ready for when the clans arrived to do homage to Fitzempress for their lands.
One of the biggest misunderstandings in Irish history, thought Finn. To them land is a share of a river, a forest and plain for their herds to run in, an immortal paradise. To Fitzempress, it’s property. They think he’ll let them have their quick sweeping of the stream without having to pay him for it, and that he will disappear into the past with other kings. He knows Ireland belongs to the English empire for ever.
If she’d had any tears left, she would have wept for the lovely thing that was passing.
One of the figures detached itself from the rest and rode towards the Stein bridge. She went over to the inn side of the parapet and called down to Gorm who was hanging out washing in the orchard: ‘Le Gros is coming. Take Dai-Raymond back.’ It was time for the baby’s feed. She could only have him for about three hours at a time, but even that much was a help to Perse while she was busy at the mill. She took the cradle downstairs and handed it over. She didn’t give it to Elfwida because Elfwida was jealous of the c
hild, now that she’d lost Jacques. One of the few Normans to have been killed during the assault on the Irish camp at Finglas had been Raymond’s second-in-command. An Irish axe had severed his leg and he’d bled to death in the snow.
She returned to her manuscript. ‘Not in the victory of one idea or one army over another is God to be found,’ she said, ‘but only in love. We are interconnected in that love and must recognise in each other the brightly-burning flame of God. When Brother Pinginn, whom men reviled as effeminate, gave his life for his friends, he was the incarnation of God.’
That was the important thing Lief had said that night as she’d pleaded to know where God was. He’d been holding onto the boat, looking back to the little bundle at the feet of men who were piercing it with spears, and he’d said, ‘I think that’s Him.’
She was lonely for Lief, for all of them. She felt too ill to make the journey to Lough Mask, even if the Normans allowed her to leave. But she’d sent them word that she had survived and had heard back that they were well. She’d asked Le Gros to try and find out what had happened to Bevo, but apart from discovering that Ragnar’s farm out in Swords had been destroyed, he could get no news of her. No more pigeons came from Muirna in England and none of the Normans knew, or cared, about some damned bishop’s mistress. Every time she looked out at the Liffey she hoped to see Aragon’s ship but so far none had come sailing up it with a black-haired woman captain ululating from its deck.
She heard Le Gros shouting for her and went down to greet her landlord. They sat down in the empty nobles’ parlour, facing each other over a small oak table that Gorm had made out of the wreckage from the old one.
He was still proprietorial towards her and refused to allow any other troops to come to the Swan. He kept it just for himself and a few friends. It was somewhere he could relax and get away from his new wife, who was, he said, as old as Finn and not nearly so interesting to talk to.
Daughter of Lir Page 50