FIVE

BRIAN BORU

999

I

AT FIRST, when he had warned them, his neighbours had laughed at him. Everyone in Dyflin knew that Morann Mac Goibnenn didn’t like taking chances, but surely his fears were unjustified. “We’re in no danger at all,” the King of Dyflin had announced. How could the craftsman still doubt? Some people even called him a traitor.

“He’s not an Ostman,” an elderly Dane remarked. “What can you expect?” And though, given the situation, this reasoning was completely illogical, there were plenty of people to nod their heads wisely in agreement. Not that Morann cared much, whatever they thought. But it was not long before all Dyflin was in a state of panic. The question was: what to do? One thing could be agreed upon, and soon the entire Liffey Plain was empty of livestock, which had all been driven to places of safety on the high ground. But what about the human population? Some went with the cattle and took refuge in the Wicklow Mountains; some remained on their farmsteads; others came into Dyflin to seek the protection of its walls. Osgar’s uncle and his sons retired into the little monastery and closed the gates. Meanwhile, a huge force was gathering. Eager sons of chiefs from all over Leinster were arriving to camp in the orchards near the city walls. Longships were arriving from other Viking ports, the men drinking heavily and roaring cheerful battle cries down on the quay. King Sitric of Dyflin, in a splendid cloak, his long beard and red face making him look very jolly, rode around the town with a retinue that grew larger every day. Finally, when the first frost of winter was on the ground, the King of Leinster arrived and, with King Sitric beside him, they all set off towards the south with the happy assurance that the enemy would never even get close to the Liffey Plain.

The next day, as Morann was walking through the streets, which seemed very quiet now after the previous busy weeks, he saw one of the town’s senior craftsmen walking along with a handsome, dark-haired woman who looked vaguely familiar. Pausing to greet him the craftsman remarked, “You remember my daughter, Caoilinn, who lives out at Rathmines.”

Of course. He did not know the family well, but he remembered the dark, green-eyed girl who married a man from Rathmines, of the royal house no less. She smiled at him.

“My father tells me you had doubts about this business of the king’s.”

“That may be so,” he answered.

“Well, my husband’s gone away with them. He’s very confident.”

“He would know, then, I should say.”

“But my father wanted myself and the children to come into Dyflin.” There was now a hint of uncertainty in her eyes, he noticed. “We’re safe enough in Dyflin, I suppose,” she remarked. “I see that you’re still here.”

“You do,” he said. “You do.”

He loaded the wagon that night. Early the next morning, the wagon, containing his family and all their valuables, lumbered across the long wooden bridge over the Liffey and disappeared into the mists on the other side. Morann was gone.

His first objective was not far away. Across the Plain of Bird Flocks lay the farmstead of Harold.

Though he had no reason to doubt that his friend was happily married, Morann couldn’t help wondering whether Harold’s wife, Astrid, might sometimes regret encouraging him to go to sea. It had brought them wealth, of course. Harold the Lame, as he was called, had already become a notable sea trader; but his voyages sometimes kept him away for weeks at a time. More than a month had passed since he had set out on a voyage that was to take him to Normandy and England. Since his father had died in an accident three years ago, Harold and his wife had taken over the running of the farmstead as well. But as Harold’s wife and children came out to greet him that morning, Morann’s message was blunt.

“You must leave the farm,” he told them, “and come with us.” And when Astrid was unwilling, and remarked, “They have come here before,” he shook his head and urged her to pack up at once.

“This time,” he said, “it will be different.”

It was six centuries since Niall of the Nine Hostages had founded the mighty dynasty of O’Neill, and in all that time, despite the ebbs and flows of power amongst the island’s Celtic chiefs, no one had ever dislodged the O’Neill from the High Kingship. Until now.

Brian: his father’s given name was Kennedy, so he was properly called Brian, son of Kennedy. But like Niall of the Nine Hostages many centuries earlier, Brian was so well known for the tribute he collected that he was called “Boruma,” the cattle counter, or Brian Boru. He had astounded all Ireland by his rise.

His people, the Dal Cais, had only been a small and unimportant Munster tribe in his grandfather’s day. They lived on the banks of the Shannon just upstream from where it opens out into its long western estuary. But when the Vikings founded their settlement nearby at Limerick, Brian’s grandfather had refused to come to terms with them. For three generations, the family had conducted a guerrilla war against the Vikings’ river traffic. The Dal Cais had become famous. Brian’s grandfather had called himself a king; Brian’s mother had been a princess from Connacht; his sister had even been chosen as a wife by the king at Tara—though this hadn’t done the family much good after she was executed for sleeping with her husband’s son.

The Dal Cais were ambitious. They had a hardened fighting force. Brian’s brothers had already tested their strength against several of the other rulers in the region. But no one could have imagined what they did next. All Ireland gasped when the news of it came.

“They’ve taken Cashel.”

Cashel—the ancient stronghold of the Munster kings. True, the Munster kings were not what they were. But the cheek of it! And when the King of Munster got the Vikings of Limerick to join him to punish these insolent upstarts, the Dal Cais beat them all, and plundered Limerick, too. A few years later Brian Boru took over as King of Munster.

A minor chieftain’s family had taken one of the four great kingships of Ireland—where the Celtic royal dynasties went back into the mists of time. And indeed, to go with their new position, the Dal Cais decided to improve their ancestry. Suddenly it was discovered, and declared in the chronicles, that they had an ancient, ancestral right to share the old Munster kingship with the previous dynasty—a claim that would certainly have surprised Brian’s grandfather. But these alterations to the record were not as rare as might be supposed: even the mighty O’Neill had falsified large parts of their genealogy.

Brian was in his prime. The tides of fortune were with him. He was King of Munster. Where else could ambition take him? Only gradually did it become clear that he had decided to aim at nothing less than the High Kingship itself.

He was bold, methodical, and patient. One year he moved against the nearby territory of Ossory; another, he took a great fleet into Connacht; a dozen years after becoming King of Munster, he even moved into the island’s central heartland and camped by the sacred site of Uisnech. He had taken his time, but the message to the O’Neill was clear: either they must crush Brian Boru or give him the recognition he asked for. Two years ago the High King had come to meet him.

It was fortunate for Brian, and probably for Ireland, that the O’Neill High King at this time was of a noble and statesmanlike mind. The choice was clear, but not easy: either he must challenge the Munster man to a war, which could only involve a huge loss of life, or he must swallow his pride and come to terms with him, if the thing could be done with honour. He chose the latter course. And reviving the ancient division of the island into two halves, the upper Leth Cuinn, and the lower Leth Moga, he declared, “Let us rule jointly: you in the south, and I in the north.”

“I should rule Leinster as well as Munster then, while you keep Connacht and Ulster,” Brian solemnly agreed. “Which means,” he pointed out to his followers afterwards, “that I shall control all the chief ports, including Dyflin.” Without having to strike another blow, he had just gained all the richest prizes in Ireland.

Or thought he had.

Morann stayed two days at the farmstead. He tried his best, but nothing that he or his wife could say would persuade Astrid to come with them. She did agree to bury some of their valuables. “Leave some for the Munster men to find,” he advised her grimly, “if you don’t want the farm burned down.” Morann stayed there as long as he could in the hope that Harold might return; but when he could stay no longer, he begged her a last time at least to seek a place of sanctuary.

“There’s Swords nearby,” she remarked. This was a fine little monastery with stout walls and a high round tower, which might have offered sanctuary. “But we aren’t Christian. Or there’s Dyflin. That’s where Harold will be coming. I don’t mind going there.”

Morann sighed.

“Dyflin will have to do then,” he answered. And it was agreed that the family would occupy Morann’s house in the city.

The following day, he continued on his way. They passed the monastery at Swords—secure enough, but too close to Dyflin for his liking—and headed north. They did not stop until that evening, when they slept below the Hill of Tara.

The High King might have meant well, but when he gave the overlordship of their kingdom to Brian, the proud men of Leinster were unimpressed. Nobody had asked them. The king and the chiefs in particular were incensed. The new overlord, you could be sure, would be wanting tribute and taking their sons as hostages for their good behaviour, in the usual way.

“Give our sons to the man from Munster?” they cried. The upstart? “If the O’Neill can’t defend us, what right have they to give us to this fellow?” they demanded.

Whatever the Leinster men might have felt about the Vikings of Dyflin when they first arrived, the two communities had been living together for generations now. They’d intermarried. Indeed, King Sitric of Dyflin was actually the King of Leinster’s nephew. True, many of the Vikings were still pagan, but even religion had to take second place where matters of honour were at stake. As for the Vikings themselves, they had been stubbornly resisting the control of the High King for a long time. They were hardly likely to submit to Brian Boru just because the O’Neill High King, who was too weak to fight, told them that they should.

So it was that autumn that the King of Leinster and the King of Dyflin had decided to refuse to recognise the Munster man. “If he wants a fight,” they declared, “he’ll get more than he bargained for.” And now the Munster man was coming, and they had gone out to meet him.

The sky was overcast the next morning when Morann and his family crossed the River Boyne; it was still dull grey at noon. Their spirits were not high. To the children, the journey seemed long; and he suspected that his wife would secretly have preferred to remain inside the walls of Dyflin with her neighbours and Harold’s wife. More than once she had asked him doubtfully about the place to which they were going. Could it really be any more secure than Dyflin? “You’ll see. We’ll be there before nightfall,” he promised them. The afternoon wore on, the horse pulling the wagon seemed to plod more slowly, and though his children dared not say so, they were wondering whether they would be spending another night out in the empty landscape when, as the darkness was closing in, a shaft of vivid evening sunlight suddenly pierced the cloud and they saw, illuminated upon a hill some way ahead, the great walled sanctuary that was their destination.

“The monastery of Kells,” Morann announced with satisfaction.

If the journey had been gloomy, the effect of the great monastery upon his family made up for it now. The children gazed at it with awe. Even his wife turned to him with a look of respect.

“It looks like a city,” she remarked.

“It is a city,” he said. “And a sanctuary. You can sleep easy tonight,” he added, pleased by the impression he had made. “It’s almost as big as Dyflin, you know,” he said. Soon, while it was still light, he would give himself the pleasure of showing them around.

But they had only gone a hundred paces when they heard the sound of horse hoofs cantering behind them, and turned to see a man wrapped in a cloak, his face pale as a ghost, his horse all in a lather, about to overtake them on his way to the monastery. He hardly seemed to see them as he came past, but in answer to Morann’s calling out to ask him if he had news, he cried back, “We’ve lost. Brian Boru has smashed us. He’s on his way to Dyflin now.”

The room was silent. Looking at the monks in their woollen habits, sitting stooped over their desks, you might almost have taken them for five huge mice trying to burrow into the vellum before them.

Vellum—skin of the newborn calf—pale and smooth; for the hair had been removed by soaking it in excrement or lime before scraping it with a sharp knife. Everyday documents and accounts were written on ordinary cattle skins, which were plentiful and cheap on the island. But for copying sacred texts like the Gospels, only costly vellum would do. And they could afford the finest vellum here, in the scriptorium of the great monastery of Kells.

Glancing outside now, Osgar saw flakes of falling snow; swiftly, with only a faint scratch, his hand moved to and fro. It was nearly two months since he had come to Kells; soon he’d be leaving.

But not just yet. Not if he could help it. He stared at the snow outside. The weather had changed abruptly that morning, as if in reaction to the news of the night before from Dyflin. But it was not the snow that concerned Brother Osgar, but the person who was waiting for him out there. Perhaps the snow would be a deterrent. If he waited in the scriptorium until the bell for prayers, he could make his escape without getting caught. At least, he hoped so.

He had changed in the last decade. There were some grey hairs now, a few stern lines on his face, a quiet dignity.

His eyes went back to his work. The pale vellum had been neatly ruled into lines with a stylus. He dipped his pen in the ink. Most scribes used a quill pen, made from the tail feather of a goose or swan; but Osgar had always favoured reeds and he had brought a good supply with him, cut from the edge of the lake at Glendalough. The ink was of two kinds: either a brownish colour, made from oak apples and sulphate of iron; or a jet-black, made from holly.

Osgar was a skilful calligrapher. Writing in the clear, rounded script of the Irish monasteries, he could copy a text at roughly fifty lines an hour. Working six hours a day, which was certainly the maximum possible during these short winter days—for good calligraphy needs natural daylight—he had almost finished copying the book of the Gospels for which he had come there. Another day and it would be done.

He paused to stretch. Only those who had tried it understood—the calligrapher might seem only to be moving his hand, but in fact the whole body was engaged. It was hard on the arm, the back, even the legs.

He settled back to his task. Another dozen lines, a quarter-hour of silence. Then he looked up again. One of the other monks caught his eye, and nodded. The light was fading; it was time to stop work. Osgar started to clean his pen.

On the floor at his side were two bags. One contained a small, workmanlike text of the Gospels, another of the Pentateuch. The Psalms, of course, he knew by heart. There were also two little devotional books that he liked always to have with him. The other bag, into which he now dipped his hand, contained his writing materials and one other item. And it was upon this object that his fingers fastened.

His secret sin. Nobody knew about it. He had never even mentioned it in the confessional. Oh, he had confessed the sin of lust itself, a hundred times. He was rather proud of it—the pride was a sin, too, of course. And yet, wasn’t his concealment of the secret in a way even worse for having been repeated so many times? Was there anything else, his confessor would ask? No. A lie. A hundred lies. Yet he had no intention of confessing his secret, for the good reason that if he did, he would be told he must part with it. And that he could not do. His talisman. Caoilinn’s ring.

He had always kept it. There wasn’t a day when he didn’t take it out and look at it. Each time, he would give a little smile and then, with a sweet sadness, put the ring away again.

What did she mean to him now? She was the dark-haired child he had planned to marry; the girl who had shown him her nakedness.

He wasn’t shocked anymore. If, for a little while, he had thought of her as a crude woman, a vessel of sin, her marriage soon afterwards had obliterated the idea. She was a respectably married woman, a Christian matron. Her body would have thickened now, he supposed. Did she sometimes think of him? He felt sure she did. How could she not, when he thought of her every day? The love he had given up.

The ring was not just a sentimental mascot though. In a way it helped to regulate his life. If at times he thought of leaving the monastery, he had only to look at the ring to remind himself that, since Caoilinn was married to another, there was hardly any point. If, as had happened once or twice, he found himself attracted to a woman, the ring reminded him that his heart was given to another. And if perhaps some monk—like the young novice who had first shown him round Glendalough—if such a one seemed to be drawing too close, and if he, out of kindness, was drawn to return a gentle look or a touch, he had only to take out Caoilinn’s little memento to relive the feelings he had experienced for her all those years ago, and to know that he would not be going down that other road which some of his fellow monks were travelling. So if he had first denied her by entering the monastery, and she had then made herself unavailable through marriage, it seemed to him that in this impossible relationship he had been granted a protection against greater evils; and he even dared to wonder whether, in his present small disobedience and sentimental lust, he might perceive the hand of providence itself gently helping him, poor sinner that he was, along his sometimes lonely way.

There was still an hour before the bell for prayers. The other monks were shuffling towards the door, but he did not follow them. For he knew exactly how to employ the time. In the corner, on a lectern, lay a large volume. It was kept in the sacristy of the big stone church normally, but it had been brought into the scriptorium for the time being. It was encased in a silver cover which was set with gems. Taking up a candle from a table now, he advanced towards it.

As he did so, he noticed with pleasure that one of the gems caught a glow from the candle’s flame.

The greatest treasure in the monastery of Kells: the Gospel book. It was the chance to spend time with the magnificent illuminated text that had brought him to Kells two months ago. His skill in calligraphy had advanced so rapidly at Glendalough that he had branched into illustration, at which he had shown talent also. In return for two months’ work copying texts, he had been granted leave to study the treasury of illustration in the Kells collection, and in particular the great Gospels, which he normally did for two hours every morning. This extra hour was a bonus, therefore. He reached the lectern and was just stretching out his hand when he heard a hiss at his ear. It was the elderly brother in charge of the scriptorium.

“I’m locking up now.”

“I could lock up later and give you the key afterwards, if you like.”

The old man treated this suggestion with silent contempt. Osgar knew better than to argue. He sighed and, after lingering hopefully a few more moments, went outside.

Silence. The light wind had stopped. The snow fell softly, caressing his face. The last remains of daylight gave the pale scene an eerie glow. His eyes scanned the street and peered down the slope towards the monastery gateway. There was no sign of Sister Martha. Nobody about at all. He sniffed. The air wasn’t very cold. Perhaps instead of returning to the dormitory where he was staying, he’d stretch his legs and go down to the gateway. Pulling his hood over his head, more to hide his face than to protect it from the light snow, he began to walk down the street.

There was no doubt that it was comforting, in these dangerous times, to find oneself safe within the great walls of Kells. Even in the snow shower, it was an impressive place. Extending all over the low hill, with its stout buildings, stone churches, and well-laid streets, not to mention the market and suburbs that lay just outside its high walls, the monastery was not only a walled sanctuary, like Glendalough, but like several of the other great religious houses, it was really a medieval city.

As Osgar knew, this idea went back to the early days of the Christian mission on the island. For when Saint Patrick had begun his mission, he had come as a bishop. All over the crumbling Roman Empire, the pattern was the same: Christian priests and their flocks were guided and led by a bishop, who would be based in the nearest important Roman town. It had been vaguely assumed, therefore, that even in the distant western island, matters would be organised in a similar way. The trouble was, of course, that the island, never having been part of the empire, did not possess such things as towns; and though the first missionary bishops tried to attach themselves to the tribal kings, these Celtic chiefs were always moving about their territories. It didn’t suit the Roman priests at all.

But a monastery was a permanent, year-round centre. You could build a church, living quarters, even a library there. It could be protected with walls. It was self-sustaining, providing workers, priests, and leaders from within the community. The abbot could act as the local bishop himself, or provide a house for a bishop within the safety of the monastery’s walls. For a long time the bishop who oversaw Dyflin had kept his house up at Glendalough. Craftsmen and traders were attracted to settle by monasteries. Markets appeared; whole communities grew up in suburbs around the walls. No wonder that within a century of Patrick’s mission, these monasteries were rapidly becoming the main centres of the Christian community on the island. Until the first Viking coastal settlements, centuries later, the larger monasteries were the only towns in Ireland. Kells had been built upon this pattern.

He went through the gateway into the marketplace. It was empty. Near one side, like a priest at a snowbound offertory, stood a handsome stone cross, and behind it several covered wagons, already white. He looked around. All the stalls and workshops were closed. A solitary lamp shone from a cowshed, but the only signs of human life were the wisps of smoke from the thatched roofs of the surrounding cottages, shuttered against the snow and the dying day. Osgar turned round, took three deep breaths, decided this was enough exercise for the present, and would have been gone in another moment if he hadn’t noticed, just then, a figure emerging from one of the wagons. It wasn’t Sister Martha, yet the figure looked vaguely familiar.

It was Morann, the goldsmith from Dyflin. It had been years since he’d seen him, and he’d only known the man slightly, but his face wasn’t one you’d forget. The craftsman was surprised but seemed glad to see him and explained his own reasons for seeking sanctuary there.

“I supplied the abbot with some fine candlesticks last year,” he added with a grin, “so they’re glad to give me shelter.”

“And you really think Brian Boru will destroy Dyflin?” Osgar asked.

“He’s too clever for that,” Morann answered. “But he’ll teach them a terrible lesson.”

“You think the religious houses are safe, don’t you?” Osgar asked, thinking of the little family monastery.

“He has always respected them in the past,” said Morann.

They had paused now, in front of the great market cross. Kells had several of these elaborately carved stone crosses which, like the round towers, had become a feature of the island’s monasteries. The arms of the cross were set in a ring of stone—an arrangement which, though known as a Celtic cross, went back to before the time of Saint Patrick, to the Roman wreaths of triumph, and echoed the symbol of the sun god earlier still. But the truly remarkable feature of the island’s crosses was their carving. Some were incised with the interlaced patterns and swirling spirals of the ancient days. But the crosses at Kells were typical of the finest work: arranged in panels, every surface, even the plinths on which they stood, seemed to be covered with sturdy reliefs: Adam and Eve, Noah and his Ark, scenes from the life of Christ, angels and devils; the base of the market cross showed a striking scene of warriors going into battle. Like the statues and carvings inside the churches, the figures on these great ornamental crosses were brightly painted. The spears of the warriors were even tipped with silver. Morann looked at it with approval. Though on a much bigger scale, the arrangement of its parts was not unlike the jeweller’s art.

They were about to return when they saw her, standing in the gateway. Sister Martha. Osgar cursed under his breath.

He liked her. With her broad face and kindly grey eyes, the middle-aged nun was a good soul. Sister Martha, the nun from Kildare. The Abbess of Kildare had given her permission to visit Kells to attend to an aunt who was thought to be dying there. But the old lady in question had recently made an unexpected recovery, and Sister Martha was now anxious to return. If only, in a moment of weakness some time ago, he hadn’t promised that he would accompany her back.

There was certainly every reason why he should do so. He had almost finished his own work at Kells; he could, without going much out of his way, travel back to Glendalough by way of Kildare; and it was unquestionably his duty to accompany the single nun across the countryside in troubled times like these. He had originally expected to be ready to leave by now, but his work had taken a little longer than he had thought. When he had explained this, she had accepted it cheerfully enough, but he knew very well that she was anxious to be gone, and she had been gently asking him for some days when he thought he might be ready to depart. He suspected that she knew he would complete his copying the following day, so she must reasonably be expecting to go the day after that.

The trouble was, he didn’t want to go. Not just yet. For when he had completed his task, he had been looking forward to spending a week alone with the treasures of the Kells library, especially, of course, the great Gospel book. A week of blissful private study, undisturbed. He had worked hard; it was a treat he had well deserved. And now the thought of warding off her enquiries and keeping her waiting for days longer filled him with a thoroughly tiresome sense of guilt. Yesterday, with the latest turn of events disrupting the countryside, he had suggested that she might want to wait for a while before setting out. But unfortunately she had given him a shrewd look and then answered gently, “I’m sure that God will protect us.” He’d been trying to avoid her ever since.

Hearing his muttered curse, Morann asked him the reason; and as they walked towards the gateway, Osgar briefly told him.

So it was with delight, after introducing the craftsman to the kindly nun, that he heard Morann remark: “I hear you are both travelling down to Kildare, Sister Martha. I should tell you that the countryside may be a little unsafe at the moment, but if you could wait, I shall be going down that way myself in five days, and we could all travel together.” He smiled at her. “There is safety in numbers.” It was hardly an offer that anyone would reasonably refuse; and after the nun had accepted, and the two men had walked on, the craftsman turned to him. “Will that give you enough time?”

Three clear days in the library. Morann’s company across what might, indeed, be dangerous terrain. “I can’t believe my luck,” Osgar replied with a smile.

Morann’s own plans, he learned, were to settle his family at Kells and then return to Dyflin where he wanted to check on the safety of Harold’s family. “But I have a piece of business I’d been meaning to do in Kildare,” he explained, “and so I may as well go down that way first.” Osgar remembered the big farm in Fingal where he had encountered Harold’s father after being attacked by the robbers years before, and he was impressed by the craftsman’s loyalty to his friend.

“Are you not afraid of the danger at Dyflin?” he asked.

“I’ll be careful,” Morann replied.

“If you get to Dyflin,” Osgar remarked, “you might see my uncle and cousins at the monastery. I hope they are safe. You could give them my greetings.”

“I will, certainly,” Morann answered. “By the way,” he added, “I saw another cousin of yours, I believe. She was coming into Dyflin just before I left, to be safer while her husband was away at the fighting.”

“Indeed? And who was that?”

“She’s married to a rich man out at Rathmines. Wasn’t her name Caoilinn?”

“Ah.” Osgar stopped and looked at the ground. “It was,” he said quietly. “Caoilinn.”

It was the last day before leaving. For the first hour of the day, Osgar liked to practise his illustration. If calligraphy was painstaking, illustration was even more intricate. Of course, there was the design first. That could be simple or complex. Only those skilled in geometry should even attempt the making of a Celtic pattern. But once the design was made in rough, then carefully fair copied and transferred onto the vellum as a drawing, the intricate business of choosing the colours and of slowly painting them in with needle-thin brushes required extraordinary patience and skill.

The pigments themselves were rare and valuable. He dipped his brush in a red, to colour part of the scalloped design of an eagle’s feathers. Some reds were made from lead, but this came from the pregnant body—it had to be pregnant—of a certain Mediterranean insect. He checked a proportion on the design with a pair of dividers. Purple next, from a Mediterranean plant. The greens were mostly from copper. You had to be careful. If the page got wet afterwards, the copper could eat through the vellum. The whites were usually made with chalk. Cleverer were the golds. The pigment for gold was actually a yellow—arsenic sulphide—but when applied it would develop a metallic shine so that it looked like gold leaf. Most precious and rare of all was the blue lapis lazuli. That came from the farthest Orient, from a place, it was said, where the mountains, higher even than the Alps, rose into the blue sky until they touched it. A country without a name. Or so he had heard.

The greatest art of all, in Osgar’s opinion, was the delicate layering of colours one on top of the other so that one achieved not only subtle gradations of tone but even a relief, like a landscape as it would be seen from above, as by the eye of God Himself.

But when he entered the scriptorium that morning, Osgar did not trouble to practise his own poor art. He went straight to the great book on the lectern. It was, after all, his last opportunity to do so.

The wonder of it. As he stood before the masterpiece, it was hard for Osgar to believe that he might not see it again. For two months now he had explored its creamy vellum pages and discovered its wonders so that, like a pilgrim to a holy city who has come to know all its byways and secret places, he felt almost as if the great treasure belonged to him personally

And indeed, wasn’t the book laid out like a celestial city? Four Gospels: four points of the compass, four arms of the holy cross. Hadn’t Ireland four provinces? Even the mighty Roman Empire, in the later days when it was Christian, had been divided into four parts. At the start of each of the Gospels came three magnificent full-page illuminations: first the winged symbol of the evangelist—Matthew the man, Mark the lion, Luke the calf, and John the eagle; second came a portrait page; third, the first words of the Gospel were worked up into a huge design. A trinity of pages to start each of the four Gospels. Three and four: the seven days of the week. Three times four: the twelve apostles.

There were other full-page illuminations at appropriate places, like the eight-circle double-cross design, the Virgin and Child, and the great Chi-Rho symbol that began Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus.

The splendour of the pages was in their colour: deep, sumptuous reds and mauves, the purples, emerald greens, and sapphire blues; the pale tinctures of the saints’ faces, like old ivory; and everywhere the gleaming yellow that made them look like gold enamelled screens.

But their magnificence was in their construction. Trefoil spirals enclosed in discs, borders of interlacing ribbons and knots, and motifs from the island’s most ancient past were joined to Christian symbols—the eagle of John; the peacock, symbol of Christ’s incorruptibility; fish, snakes, lions, angels and their trumpets—all stylised into geometric patterns. There were human figures, too, grouped in spandrels in the corners, or round the bases of golden letters, men with arms and legs lengthened and interlaced so that human body and abstract design became one and the same in this Celtic cosmos. And these patterns were endless: repeating interlacings of such Oriental complexity that the eye could never unravel them; discs of spirals set in clusters like jewels, circle and stipple, snakelike forms and filigree—the rich riot of Celtic decoration seemed likely to run completely out of control were it not for the massive, monumental geometry of the composition.

Ah, that was the thing. That, Osgar thought, was the wonder of it. For whether it was the great cruciform image of the four evangelists, or the mighty sinuous curve of the Chi-Rho, the message of the illuminated pages was unmistakable. Just as, in its later days, the stolid empire of pagan Rome had tried with its numbered legions and massive walls to stem the tides of barbarians, so now the Roman Church, with the still greater power and authority of the true religion, was imposing its monumental order on the anarchy of the heathen, and building not just an imperial but a celestial city—timeless, eternal, comprehensive, and bathed in spiritual light. He would gaze at the pages by day and, sometimes, dream of them at night. Once he had even dreamed that he had come into the monastery church and found the book open. Two of its pages, having detached themselves, had grown huge: one a gold mosaic on the wall; the other, like a great Byzantine screen of gold and icons across the choir, barring his way towards the altar. And as he had approached it the golden screen had glowed, as though burnished by a dark and holy fire; and he had softly touched it and it had sounded, harshly, like an antique gong.

But now he had to leave with Morann and Sister Martha. He would accompany the nun to Kildare, then make his way into the mountains and back to Glendalough. And Morann would go to Dyflin and perhaps see Caoilinn. Well, he shouldn’t complain. This was the life he had chosen.

“The hand of Saint Colum Cille.”

Osgar started at the voice behind his shoulder. It was the old monk who was in charge of the scriptorium. He hadn’t heard him come up.

“So they say,” he replied. Many people ascribed the Kells Gospels to Saint Colum Cille. The royal saint, direct descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages himself—his name meant the Dove of the Church—who had founded the famous island monastery of Iona off the coast of northern Britain, was a noted calligrapher, certainly. But Colum Cille had lived only a century after Saint Patrick, and it seemed to Osgar, who had examined a number of books in the monastery library, that the great book was of a later date. Two centuries ago, Kells had been founded as a refuge for some of the monks of the Iona community after the island monastery had been attacked by Vikings. A few of the illustrations were incomplete; so perhaps the great book had been prepared in Iona and the Vikings had interrupted its completion.

“I have been watching you, you know.”

“You have?” In the two months since he’d been there, the keeper of the scriptorium had hardly said a word to him beyond what was necessary, and when once or twice he had seen the old man looking at him severely, he had the feeling that the Kells man probably disapproved of him. He wondered what he’d done wrong. But to his surprise, when he turned his head, he saw that the old monk’s mouth was drawn into a smile.

“You’re a scholar. I can see it. The moment I saw you I said to myself, ‘Now there’s a true scholar of our island race.’ ”

Osgar was as pleased as he was surprised. Ever since his uncle’s lectures to him on the subject when he was a child, he had felt a justifiable pride in the achievements of his countrymen. For with barbarians occupying much of the world, it had been the missionary monks from the western isle who had gone out into the old Celtic areas of the ruined Roman Empire to reassert Christian civilization. From Colum Cille’s Iona they had established other notable centres, like the great western monastery of Lindisfarne, and converted most of the northern part of England. Others had gone to Gaul, Germany, and Burgundy, and even over the Alps into northern Italy. In due course, the founders of monasteries had been followed by Celtic pilgrims, in remarkable numbers, making their way southwards down the pilgrim routes that led towards Rome. Not only had the Celtic Church carried back the torch of truth; it had become one of the greatest guardians of classical culture. Latin Bibles and their commentaries, the works of the greatest Latin authors—Virgil, Horace, Ovid—even some of the philosophers: all these were copied and treasured. English princes sent their young men to study on the western island, where some of the monasteries were almost like academies; the island’s scholars were known in courts all over Europe. “These island Celts,” it was said, “are the finest grammarians.”

Personally, Osgar thought this proficiency owed much to the great tradition of the island’s complex but poetic Celtic tongue. Indeed, he privately doubted whether the speakers of Anglo-Saxon could ever really appreciate classical literature. And he remembered how another of the monks at Glendalough had once remarked, “Anglo-Saxon: that’s how a thatched house would talk if it could.” And he was glad that the monastic chroniclers had also taken care to record the old Celtic tradition in writing. From the ancient brehon law codes of the tribes and the druids to the old oral tales sung by the bards, the island’s monks had set them down with their chronicles of past events. The stories of Cuchulainn, Finn mac Cumaill, and the other Celtic heroes and gods were now to be found in monastic libraries, alongside the classical texts and scriptures. Not only that. A new literary tradition had arisen as the Irish monks, steeped in the sonorous tradition of their Latin hymns, had taken the rich alliteration of the ancient Celtic verse and transformed it into a written Irish poetry more echoing, more haunting than even the pagan original had been. Admittedly, the stories had often been changed a bit. There were things in some of those old tales, Osgar thought, that no Christian would want to commit to writing. You couldn’t leave them as they were. But the grand old poetry was still there, the Celtic soul of the thing.

One thing he regretted: the old druidical tonsure of the island monks had been given up. Two centuries after Saint Patrick, the Pope had insisted that all the monks in Christendom should shave just the tops of their heads, in the Roman manner, and after some protest the Celtic Church had gone along with it. “But we’re still druids underneath,” he liked to say, only half in jest.

“And tomorrow you’re leaving?” the old monk asked him.

“I am.”

“When there’s so much trouble in the world.” The old man sighed. “There’ll be Brian Boru’s men wandering all over Leinster and God knows what they’ll be up to. You should stay here awhile. Wait until it’s safe.” Osgar explained to him about Sister Martha, but the old man shook his head. “It’s a terrible thing for a scholar such as yourself to be out in the world, on account of a nun from Kildare.” Then he turned and moved away. A few moments later, he came back.

He had a small piece of parchment in his hand, which he laid on the table in front of Osgar.

“Look at that,” he said.

It was a design, traced in black ink. Osgar had never seen anything quite like it before. It was a trefoil of three loosely connected spirals, reminding him somewhat of the trefoils to be seen in some of the great illuminations. But unlike those, in which the spirals were arranged into a completed geometric design, the swirling lines seemed to wander away towards the edges, as if they had been caught in the midst of some endless, unfinished business.

“I copied that,” the old monk said proudly.

“From what?

“A big stone. By the old tombs above the Boyne. I used to walk over there sometimes.” He looked at his handiwork with satisfaction. “That’s how it is carved. The copy is exact.”

Osgar continued to gaze at it. The wandering design seemed ancient.

“Would you know,” asked the old monk, “what it means?”

“I wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Nobody knows.” The old monk sighed, then brightened. “But it’s a curious thing, wouldn’t you say?”

It was. And strangely enough, after he had left the library that evening, it was the curious design, even more than the magnificent Gospels, which seemed to remain, haunting his imagination, as if the wandering spirals contained an undeciphered message for those about to set out on journeys as to their fate.

They left at first light. The snow had already vanished the day before; though it was cold, there was no frost and the ground was damp. They travelled in a small cart which Morann had provided. They met nobody else travelling. Each time they came upon a farmstead, they would ask for news of the forces from Munster, but nobody had seen or heard anything. It seemed that this part of the country, at least, was still quiet. Early in the afternoon, they reached the Boyne at a point where there was a ford. Once past the Boyne, they continued southwards, under a leaden sky.

The day passed quietly. They kept a careful lookout for raiding parties, but saw none. As dusk was drawing in, they saw smoke coming from a farmstead by an old rath, and found a shepherd and his family. Glad of the warmth of a fire and shelter, they stayed the night. The shepherd told them that Brian Boru, together with a huge force, had all gone to Dyflin and were camped there now. “It’s said he means to stay through Christmas,” the shepherd reported.

Had there been any other trouble? “Not around here,” he told them.

The next morning, when they set off again, the weather was overcast. Ahead of them stretched a large, flat terrain. On their right-hand side, to the west, began a huge area of bog. To the east, two days’ journey away, lay Dyflin. Ahead, to the south, the plain consisted of woodland interspersed with large open spaces. By late afternoon, if they travelled at a reasonable rate, they would come to the largest of these open spaces, the bare tableland of Carmun where, since time out of mind, the people of the island had gathered for the pagan festival of Lughnasa and the racing of horses. And it was only a short distance from the ancient racing grounds to their destination, the great monastery of Kildare.

The afternoon was almost over and darkness nearly falling when they reached the edge of Carmun. A strange greyness pervaded the sky. The huge, flat, empty spaces seemed eerie and vaguely threatening. Even Morann was uneasy, and Osgar saw him looking anxiously about. It would be dark before they arrived at Kildare. He glanced at Sister Martha.

The kindly nun had certainly been an excellent travelling companion. She did not talk unless someone indicated that they wished to, but when she did talk, she gave evidence of a fund of cheerful good sense. She must be very good, he thought, at tending the sick. Was she a little nervous now? He was quite ready to admit, at least to himself, that he was. But she gave no sign of it. A few moments later she smiled at him.

“Would you like to recite something with me, Brother Osgar?” she suddenly asked.

He quite understood. It might help them all not to be nervous.

“What would you like?” he asked. “A Psalm, perhaps?”

“ ‘Patrick’s Breastplate,’ I think,” she replied.

“An excellent choice.” It was a lovely poem. Tradition said it was composed by Saint Patrick himself, and it could have been so. It was a hymn of praise but also of protection, and it had not been composed in Latin but in Irish—which was fitting, for this great Christian chant, so full of a sense of the wonder of God’s earthly creation, had a druidical character that recalled the poets back to Amairgen from the ancient Celtic tradition.

Osgar took up the first verse, chanting it firmly:

Then Sister Martha took up the second:

Her voice had a cheerful strength. It was almost musical. She was a good companion, thought Osgar, as they went across the open space together. And as they came to the great druidical centre of the poem, they found themselves naturally taking turns, line by line, alternating the chant between them:

The evening air was growing cold; but as they chanted the stirring poem together in that echoing place with the harsh green turf all round, and feeling the cold air raw on his reddening cheeks, Osgar experienced a quickening of the spirits; there was a boldness and manliness in his voice, and Sister Martha smiled. And they did not finish their hymn until, in the gathering darkness, they saw the walls of Kildare looming ahead of them.

The following morning, having said goodbye to the nun, the two men prepared to go their separate ways. The weather had changed. It was cold, but the sky was clear and the day was crisp and bright. The journey from Kildare to Glendalough was not a difficult one, and as they had encountered no trouble upon the way, Osgar was happy enough to continue alone. First he would go to a small religious house that nestled below the western slopes of the Wicklow Mountains, not a dozen miles away. By good fortune, the monks there had recently lent a horse to one of the abbey’s servants, and it was agreed that Osgar should return it. After a night there, he proposed to take the mountain path that led up to Glendalough, a familiar path that would easily bring him there by the next afternoon.

Morann, meanwhile, intended to spend the morning conducting his business at Kildare, then leave on the road that went past Carmun. He, too, would break his journey, and arrive at Dyflin the following day.

As there was no need to hurry, Osgar spent a pleasant couple of hours looking around the monastery town of Kildare.

The place had always been a holy site. Osgar was aware that, before Christianity came to the island, there had been a shrine there, in an oak grove, sacred to Brigid, the Celtic goddess of healing, whose festival was Imbolc, at the start of February. A patron of crafts and poetry, Brigid had also protected the province of Leinster, and to make sure of this favour, the priestess at the shrine kept a sacred fire always alight, night and day. The exact details had never been clear, but it seemed likely that, a generation or so after Saint Patrick’s activities in the north, the then high priestess of the shrine, who would have been known by her title, the priestess of Brigid, had taken the new Roman religion. In the centuries that followed, not only had the shrine acquired a new name—Kildare, Cill Dara, the church of the oak—but the nameless priestess had been transformed into a Christian saint with the same associations as the old pagan goddess, and a life story and attendant miracles on the usual pattern. As a learned man, Osgar knew that the chroniclers always had such biographies preprepared for the necessary manufacture of the lives of saints. But that did not take away from the essential point, which was that Saint Brigid, the patron saint of poets, blacksmiths, and healing, had entered the Christian calendar, along with her saint’s day, February 1, the ancient pagan festival of Imbolc.

It was a great place nowadays, bigger even than Kells. A large township—with a sacred centre, an inner ring of monastic buildings, and outer secular quarters—it contained a double monastery, one for monks and another for nuns, under the rule of a single head. Rich and powerful, Kildare even had its own retinue of armed men for its protection.

It was while he was inspecting one of the town’s fine crosses that Osgar decided to change his plans.

The idea had first occurred to him while he was still working at Kells, but he had dismissed it as unnecessary. During the journey, it had once or twice come into his mind again. But now, perhaps because of the sun shining so cheerfully on the frosty ground, and doubtless also because Morann was already going there, he suddenly felt an urge to visit Dyflin.

After all, he reminded himself, it wasn’t as if he was expected on any particular day at Glendalough. If he hadn’t gone down to Kildare on account of Sister Martha, he’d probably have been returning to Glendalough through Dyflin anyway. It was surely his family duty, with all the present troubles going on, to check on the well-being of his old uncle. Moreover, since the little family monastery was nominally under the auspices of Glendalough, he could imagine that the Abbot of Glendalough would be grateful for a report on the state of things there. And if he should happen to see Caoilinn, whom Morann had told him was staying with her father in the city now, there could surely be no harm in that. So when Morann emerged from his meeting, Osgar asked the surprised craftsman if, instead of going to Glendalough, he might ride in his cart with him into the city.

The craftsman gave him a cautious look.

“It could still be dangerous out there,” he warned.

“Yet you are going.” Osgar smiled. “I’m sure I shall be safe with you.”

They set off an hour before noon. For the first two hours, their journey was uneventful. There was a sheen of frost on the ground, and as they passed across the huge open spaces of Carmun, the terrain was sparkling green in the reflected sun. Osgar felt a strange happiness and a sense of tingling excitement that grew with every mile they passed. And though at first he told himself that this was because he was going once again to see his family at the monastery, he finally gave up and admitted, with an inward smile, that it was because he might be seeing Caoilinn. By early afternoon they had started up a wide track that led northwards, with the sweeping slopes of the Wicklow Mountains rising up some miles away to the west.

It was Osgar who spotted the first horseman. He was riding along a track about a mile away to their right. Even as he pointed him out to Morann, he saw that there were others not far behind. There were men on foot as well. Then he saw a cart in the distance, and more horsemen. And gazing southwards he realised that they were about to encounter a great stream of people flowing raggedly up the edge of the plain below the Wicklow Mountains. It wasn’t long before they came close enough to hail one of them. He was a middle-aged man, with a blanket wrapped round him. One side of his face was streaked with dried blood. What had happened, they asked.

“A big battle,” he called out. “Down there.” He waved towards the south. “At Glen Mama, by the mountains. Brian smashed us. We were destroyed.”

“Where is Brian now?” asked Morann.

“You’ve missed him. He and his men would have passed this way long ago. He’d have been riding like the devil,” he cried grimly. “He’ll be in Dyflin already by now.”

Morann pursed his lips. Osgar felt a little stab of fear, but said nothing. The horseman moved away. After a short pause, Morann turned to Osgar.

“I have to go on. But you’ve no need to. You could walk back to Kildare now and be there before dark.”

Osgar considered for a moment. He thought of his uncle at the family monastery. He thought of Caoilinn.

“No,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”

As the afternoon went on they found themselves merging into a stream of men returning home. Many were wounded. Here and there were carts carrying those who could not walk or ride. There was not much talking. Those who did speak all told the same story. “We left more dead than living down there at Glen Mama,” they said. The short afternoon was drawing to a close when they came in sight of a small religious house beside a stream. “That’s where we’ll stop,” Morann announced. “If we leave early from here tomorrow, we’ll be in sight of Dyflin before the end of the morning.” Osgar could see that there was already a large collection of people resting there.

Morann was worried. He hadn’t really wanted to bring the monk with him. Not that he didn’t like him; but he was a complication, an additional responsibility, possibly a risk.

What lay ahead? A conquering army after battle is a dangerous animal. Looting, pillage, rape: it was always the same. Even a king as strong as Brian would not necessarily be able to control his men. Most commanders let their troops do what they wanted for a day or two and then reined them in afterwards. The religious houses with their walled compounds would probably be safe. Brian would see to that. But going into the area round Dyflin would be perilous. How would the quiet monk cope with these things? What use could he be? Was he just going to get in the way and need to be looked after? There was another consideration, too. Morann’s first objective would be to find Astrid and her children and, if necessary, help them escape. He certainly didn’t want the monk taking up valuable space in the cart. He wished that Osgar hadn’t come.

And yet you couldn’t help admiring him. The religious house where they had broken their journey was a small place, with less than a dozen inmates. The monks there were accustomed to giving shelter to travellers, but by nightfall, their resources were completely overwhelmed. There must have been fifty or sixty tired and wounded men, some of them close to death, camped in the little yard or outside the gates; the monks were giving them what food and bandaging they could. And Osgar was aiding them.

He was impressive. Moving about amongst the wounded and the dying, giving food and water to one, bandaging the wounds of another, sitting quietly talking to some poor fellow whom food and bandages could no longer help, he seemed to possess not only a quiet competence but an extraordinary, gentle grace. During the night—for he appeared to be able to do without sleep—he sat with two men who were dying, praying with them and, when it was time, giving them the last unction. And you could see from their faces that he brought them peace and comfort. It was not only what he did, Morann concluded, but something in his manner, a quietness that radiated from his elegant, spare body, of which he himself was probably not conscious. “You have a gift,” the craftsman remarked to him once during a break in his vigil, but Osgar only looked surprised.

When morning came, the monks would obviously have been glad if he remained. A number of the men resting there were unfit to go on and others were still arriving.

“There will be raiding parties about this morning,” Morann pointed out to Osgar. “Are you sure you would not do better to stay here?”

“No,” said Osgar, “I’ll come with you.”

The morning was crystalline. The sky was blue. There was a dusting of snow, shining in the sunlight on the tops of the Wicklow Mountains.

Despite the sad scenes of the night and the possible danger ahead, Osgar felt a sense of excitement mixed with a glow of warm joy. He was going to see Caoilinn. The first part of their journey was quiet, and he allowed his mind to wander a little. He imagined her in danger; he imagined himself arriving, her look of surprise and joy. He imagined himself saving her, fighting off assailants, bringing her to safety. He shook his head. Unlikely visions, boyish dreams. But he dreamed them all the same, several times, as the little cart bumped along below the gleaming mountains.

Then he felt Morann nudge him.

There was a small rise ahead. Just below it was a farmstead. And by the farmstead there were horsemen.

“Trouble.” Morann was looking grim.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t, but I suspect.” He narrowed his eyes. “It’s a raiding party.” He glanced at Osgar. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. I suppose so.”

As they went forward, they could see what was happening. The raiding party consisted of three horsemen. They had come to collect cattle, and finding only a few at the farmstead had evidently decided to take them all. Osgar could see a woman standing at the entrance to the farmstead. There was a child behind her. A man, her husband presumably, was trying to argue with the raiders, who were taking no notice of him.

“Osgar,” Morann’s voice was low, “reach down behind you. There’s a blanket there with a sword underneath it. Put the blanket over your knees and keep the sword between your legs.”

Osgar felt for the sword and did as Morann had asked.

“Let me know when you want it,” he said quietly, as they drew closer.

The man at the farmstead was shouting now, as the cattle were being driven out of their pen. Osgar saw the man run forward and catch one of the riders by the leg, remonstrating with him. He was tugging at the leg, wildly.

The movement was so swift that Osgar never saw the horseman’s hand move at all. He saw the blade though, a single, sudden flash in the morning sun. Then he saw the farmer falling, saw him crumple on the ground.

The horseman did not even cast an eye upon him, but rode on, driving the cattle, as the woman with a scream ran forward with the child.

He was dying when they reached him. The raiders were already moving away. Osgar got down. The poor fellow on the ground was still conscious, aware that Osgar was giving him the last rites. Moments later, with the woman and the child weeping on the ground beside him, he died.

Osgar slowly rose and stared down. He did not speak. Morann was saying something to him, but he did not hear. All he was conscious of was the dead man’s face. A man he did not know. A man who had died for nothing, in a foolish moment, in a foolish way.

And then it came back to him. The same ashen face. The same staring eyes. The blood. The horror. It was always the same. The endless human cruelty, and the violence without a cause. The uselessness of it all.

The memories that had troubled him once, after the killing of the robber in his youth, had long ago subsided. They had returned once in a while, but as recollections, as things that belonged in the past. And up in the safety and quiet of Glendalough, there was little enough reason why it should be otherwise. But now, as he stared suddenly at the terrible, bloodied flesh and human waste before him, his old horror came upon him with all the fresh, raw urgency that he had experienced long ago.

And I, too, have killed a man, he thought. I have done this, too. Whether in self-defence or not still seemed to make no difference. And just as he had then, all those years ago, he felt a huge need to turn away, to take no more part in these evil and tragic things. Never again, he had vowed to himself. Never again.

He realised that Morann was pulling at his arm.

“We must move on,” the craftsman was saying. “There is nothing we can do here.”

Osgar was almost in a daze as he found himself sitting in the cart again, with the sword between his knees. Morann was driving along the track. The raiders were a little way off on their left, but seemed to be watching them. For after a few moments, deserting the cattle, the three horsemen came towards them. He heard Morann telling him to stay calm. He felt his hand involuntarily tightening on the sword, still concealed under the blanket between his legs. The horsemen reached them.

Of the three of them, two wore heavy leather jerkins and carried swords. These were obviously soldiers. The third, a thin, broken-toothed fellow with a cloak wrapped round him, didn’t look as if he belonged with them. The soldier who had struck down the farmer spoke.

“We shall be needing that cart.” It was an order. But as Osgar was reluctantly starting to move, Morann placed his hand on his arm and prevented him.

“That’s impossible,” he said.

“Why is that?”

“The cart’s not mine. It belongs to the monastery.” He indicated Osgar. “The monastery in Dyflin to which I’m taking this good monk.” He gazed at the soldier calmly. “I don’t think King Brian would be wanting you to take the monastery’s cart.”

The soldier considered. His eyes appraised Osgar carefully and seemed to conclude that he was indeed a monk. He nodded slowly.

“Have you any valuables?”

“No.” Morann’s face was confident. Apart from some silver concealed in his clothes, he hadn’t.

“They lie!” It was the broken-toothed man who had cried out. His eyes seemed a little wild. “Let me search them.”

“You’ll do as you’re told and help drive the cattle,” the soldier ordered him curtly. He nodded to Morann. “Drive on.”

They continued along the track. The horsemen and their cattle receded. Morann smiled grimly. “Just as well I had you along,” he grunted. They went over a small rise and were just pausing at the top when, in the distance, they saw a grim sight. Smoke was rising into the sky. Smoke that must be coming from a large fire, perhaps many fires. Judging by the direction, it could only be coming from Dyflin. Osgar saw Morann shake his head and glance a little doubtfully at him. But he continued driving forward.

The sound of a galloping horse behind them came just moments later. Osgar turned. To his surprise he saw it was the thin fellow with the ragged teeth. He seemed to be making straight towards them. Evidently he had broken away from the soldiers. To his horror, as the fellow drew close, Osgar realised that he was brandishing a sword. The fellow’s eyes seemed even wilder than ever. “Pull out the sword,” he heard Morann’s voice say, quietly but firmly, beside him. But though he understood Morann perfectly well Osgar remained motionless. He seemed to be frozen. Morann nudged him impatiently. “He’s going to swing at you. Pull out the sword.”

And still he did nothing. The fellow was only paces away now. Morann was right. He was preparing to strike. “For God’s sake defend yourself,” Morann cried out. Osgar could feel the sword in his hand. Yet his hand did not move.

He wasn’t afraid. That was the strangeness of it. His paralysis was not one of fear. He scarcely cared, at that moment, if the fellow struck at him. For if he struck this fellow himself, he would probably kill him. And all he knew, just then, was that he was determined not to kill another man. He wanted no part of it. None.

He hardly felt it as Morann seized the sword out of his hands. He was only conscious, for a moment, of Morann’s strong left arm banging against his chest as, throwing his body across Osgar’s, the craftsman thrust at their assailant. He heard the clang of steel on steel, felt Morann’s body twist violently, and then heard a terrible cry as the thin fellow tumbled from his horse. A moment later, Morann clambered over him, jumped down from the cart, and plunged his sword into the wounded man’s breast.

The thin man lay on the ground. Blood was frothing from his mouth. Morann was turning. And now the craftsman was cursing.

“What were you thinking of? You could have had us both killed. Dear God, you are useless to man or beast. Are you the greatest coward that was ever born?”

“I’m sorry.” What could he say? How could he explain that he had not been afraid? What difference did it make anyway? Osgar hardly knew himself.

“I shouldn’t have brought you,” the craftsman was crying. “I shouldn’t have done it, against my judgement. You’re no use to me, Monk, and you’re a danger to yourself.”

“If it happens again …” Osgar heard himself saying weakly.

“Again? There’ll be no again.” Morann paused, and then declared with finality. “You’re going back.”

“But I can’t. My family …”

“If any place in Dyflin is safe, it’s your uncle’s monastery,” Morann told him.

“And Caoilinn … She’ll be in the city, probably.”

“Dear Heaven,” Morann burst out, “what in the world can a useless coward like yourself do for Caoilinn? You couldn’t save her from a mouse.” He took a deep breath, and then, a little more kindly, went on reasonably. “You are wonderful with the sick and dying, Osgar. I have watched you. Let me take you back to the place where you are needed. Do what God made you for, and leave the saving of people to me.”

“I really think—” Osgar began, but the craftsman firmly stopped him.

“I’m not taking you any farther in my cart.” And before Osgar could say anything more, Morann jumped in, turned the cart round, and headed back the way they had come before.

They saw no one along the way. The cattle raiders had disappeared. The people at the farmstead had already dragged the corpse of the farmer back inside. They could see the little religious house where they had spent the night in the distance when Osgar asked the craftsman to stop.

“I suppose you are right,” he said regretfully. “The place ahead is where I should go. They seem to want me. So put me down and I can walk from here. The sooner you get to Dyflin, the better.” He paused. “Would you promise me one thing? Would you call in at Rathmines. It’s on your way. Call in and make sure that Caoilinn isn’t there, in need of any help. Would you do that for me?”

“That,” Morann agreed, “I can do.”

Osgar had just got down, when a sudden thought occurred to him.

“Give me the blanket,” he said.

With a shrug, Morann threw it down.

“Good.” And removing his monk’s habit, Osgar wrapped the blanket around himself. Then he tossed the habit up to Morann. “Put it on,” he called. “It might help you get into Dyflin.”

The flames and smoke arising before Dyflin had been growing greater by the hour; but they were not the result of destruction: they came from the huge bonfires that the Munster men had built in their camp on the open ground between the town ramparts and the open spaces by the Thingmount.

Caoilinn was looking anxiously towards them and wondering what to do when she saw the two men appear. She wondered if they could help her.

She had gone to Rathmines the evening before. As soon as she had heard the news of Glen Mama, she had decided to ride out to the farmstead, leaving her children with her brother in Dyflin, to wait for her husband in case he should come that way. She had seen Brian’s men pass by, and a few of the defeated army, seeking their homes. Though the huge camp of the Munster men lay outside the walls, the gates of Dyflin were open. People were going in and out. But for a long time there had been no sign of Cormac.

She had expected to find some of her people at the farmstead, but fearing Brian’s men, presumably, they had all disappeared, and she had found herself quite alone. The farmstead stood at some distance from the main track, at the end of a lane of its own, so nobody had come by. She had gathered her courage, however, and stayed the night out there by herself, all the more anxious that, if her husband should come that way, he would find someone at the place.

And it was as well that she had.

He had arrived half an hour ago, alone. If she had not recognised his horse, she would not have guessed, until he fell at her feet, that the ragged, bloodstained figure who was approaching was the man she loved. His wounds were terrible. It seemed to her that he probably would not survive. God knows what effort of will had kept him on his horse at all as the animal walked slowly back. She had managed to prop him up just inside the gateway, and bathe and bandage some of his wounds. He had groaned softly and let her know that he knew who she was and that he was home. But he could scarcely speak. And having done what little she could, she had been wondering how to get him to her brother’s in Dyflin, or whether she should leave him here alone while she went for help, when she saw the two men approaching the farmstead up the little lane.

They were soldiers. From Brian’s army. They seemed friendly and came into the farmstead with her. One of them took a look at Cormac and then shook his head.

“I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“No,” the other agreed. “He hasn’t a chance.”

“Please,” she cautioned them, “he may hear you.”

The two men looked at each other. They seemed to be considering the situation. One of them, who appeared to be the senior, had a large, round face, and had been the most smiling and polite of the two. It was he, finally, who spoke.

“Shall we finish him off, then?” he genially enquired.

“If you like,” said the other.

She felt her heart sink.

“We could kill him after we’ve had her. He might like to watch.” The round-faced man turned to her. “What do you think?”

A terrible fear overcame her. She could scream, but would anyone hear her? Not a chance. If she’d had a weapon, she’d have tried to use it. They had swords and they’d kill her, but she’d rather go down fighting. She looked about.

Of course. Her husband, Cormac, had a sword. He was staring at her from his position by the gate, as if he were trying to tell her something. That he had a weapon? That he’d sooner they both went down fighting? That he wasn’t prepared to watch her raped? Yes, she thought. That was the only way. She lunged towards him.

But they had her. They had her by the waist. She couldn’t move. She heard a cry from the lane. She screamed.

And a moment later, to her great astonishment, a monk appeared. He had a sword in his hand.

It was Morann’s idea to take Caoilinn and her husband to the little family monastery. “That’s a place where he will be well looked after, and you would be safer under the protection of the monks than anywhere else I can think of.” He wished he could hunt Caoilinn’s second assailant down. The man with the round face he had wounded mortally, but he was sorry the other fellow had managed to run away. However, first things came first.

Osgar’s uncle had been delighted to take them in, and was full of praise for his nephew when Morann tactfully told them all that it had only been thanks to the monk that he had come there. The abbot had also been full of information. Though he was getting very old and frail now, the excitement of the events of recent days seemed to have made him quite lively. Yes indeed, he confirmed, Brian was staying within the ramparts of Dyflin. “He means to spend the whole Christmas season there.” The battle of Glen Mama had been a catastrophe for Leinster. The death toll had been heavy; wounded men were still coming in all the time. The King of Dyflin had fled north into Ulster; but search parties had been sent out after him. Brian hadn’t taken a bloody vengeance on the people of Dyflin, but he had taken a huge tribute.

“He stripped them,” the old man said, with the grim satisfaction of a bystander at a good fight. “Dear God, he has stripped them. Not less than a cartload of silver from every house.” And though this was clearly an exaggeration, Morann was doubly glad that he’d removed his own valuables. The Munster king had also lost no time in impressing his political authority on the province. “He’s already holding the King of Leinster, and he’s taking hostages from every chief in the province, every church and monastery, too. He’s even taken my own two sons,” the old man added, with some pride. It was not unusual for kings to take hostages in this way from the great religious houses. For even if these monasteries were not in the hands of a powerful local family who needed to be controlled, they had the wealth to hire fighting men, and might even possess regular armed retainers of their own. Taking both the old abbot’s sons as hostages, however, was to accord the family and its little monastery an importance that would have made his ancestor Fergus proud.

The old man asked Morann if he was intending to go into the town, and the craftsman replied that he was.

“It’s the Ostmen who are seen as the real enemy,” the abbot remarked. “But though you’re not an Ostman, you’re a well-known figure in Dyflin—even dressed in a monk’s habit!” he added wryly. “I don’t know what the Munster men will feel about that. I’d stay out if I were you.”

Morann thanked him for the advice, but couldn’t take it. “I’ll be careful,” he promised; and leaving his cart at the monastery, he walked down into the town.

The streets of Dyflin were much as he had left them. He had expected to see fences down, perhaps some thatched roofs burned; but it looked as if the inhabitants, wisely, had accepted their fate without resistance. Groups of armed men lounged here and there. The Fish Shambles was crowded with carts of provisions, and the presence of pigs and cattle in many of the little yards indicated that the occupiers meant to feast well over Christmas. Many of the houses had obviously been taken over by the Munster men, and he wondered what had happened to his own. He had told Harold’s wife to take her family there in his absence; so that was his first destination.

When he reached his gate, he saw a couple of armed men leaning on the fence, one of them apparently drunk. Turning to the other, he asked if the woman was in there.

“The Ostman’s woman, with the children?”

Morann nodded. The fellow shrugged.

“They took them all away. Down by the quay I think.”

“What are they doing with them?” Morann asked casually.

“Selling them. Slaves.” The fellow grinned. “Women and children. It’ll make a change to see some of the Ostmen being sold, instead of selling us. And every one of us that fought for King Brian will get a share. We’re all going home rich this time.”

Morann forced himself to smile. But inwardly he was cursing himself. Had he brought this on his friend’s family, by persuading them to go into Dyflin from the farmstead?

His first impulse was to go down to the wood quay to try to find them, but he quickly realised that this might be unwise; nor was it yet clear how he could help them. He needed to find out more. Next, therefore, he went to the house of Caoilinn’s father, and told him where his daughter was.

“Brian’s men have already been here,” the old merchant declared. Caoilinn’s husband, he explained, had already been fined in his absence. “He’s to pay two hundred cattle and give his eldest boy as a hostage,” he said gloomily. “I’ve already lost half my silver and all my wife’s jewellery. As for you,” he cautioned the craftsman, “if these Munster men discover who you are, you’ll suffer like the rest of us.”

When Morann told him about his problem with Harold’s family, the older man was not encouraging. There were already several hundred, mostly women and children, being kept in a big compound under close guard down by the quay. And they were bringing in more each day. He advised Morann not to go near the place for the moment.

A short while after leaving the merchant, Morann was moving carefully down towards the wood quay. Though he was shocked by what had happened to his friend’s family, he knew he shouldn’t be entirely surprised. The slave markets were always being fed with people who had lost battles or been caught in Viking raids. Hard though it was, King Brian was simply making a point that the whole northern world would understand.

The craftsman’s first objective was to discover where Harold’s family was being held. If possible, he would try and make contact with them, at least to give them a little comfort and hope. The question then would be how to get them out. It was unlikely that he would be able to sneak them away from their captors. To make things more difficult, it was possible that Astrid had been separated from her children, if they were to be sold in different markets. He might, of course, be able to bribe the guards; but he thought it unlikely. He stood a better chance of buying them outright from the Munster men at the full market price. But then he’d have to explain who he was, and that could prove to be troublesome. He could even finish up, he thought grimly, in the slave market himself.

The quay was in front of him now. It was crowded with ships. Nobody took much notice of him as he started to make his way along. A group of armed men came swinging down from an alley on his right. He paused to observe them as they went past.

But they didn’t go past. Hands suddenly seized his arms. He struggled, tried to protest, but realised at once that it was useless. Immediately, therefore, he became very calm.

“What is it you want, boys?” he enquired. “Where are you taking me?”

The officer in charge was a swarthy figure, with a look of quiet authority about him. He came to stand in front of the craftsman and smiled.

“What we want, Morann Mac Goibnenn, is the pleasure of your company. Where are we taking you? It’s to King Brian Boru himself.” He turned. “And you wouldn’t want to keep the man waiting, now, would you?”

It was Morann who was kept waiting. He was kept waiting all afternoon. Whatever his fate was to be, he was curious to see the Munster king, whose talent and ambition had raised him almost to the pinnacle of power; and while he waited, he went over what he knew about him.

He’d been born the youngest son of his father, Kennedy, beside the River Shannon by a ford. Morann had heard somewhere that quite early in his life, Brian had been told by a fili that he was a man of destiny and that, having been born by a ford, he’d die by a ford also. Well, he was by Ath Cliath now, but he was very much alive. “He likes the women.” They all said that. But then who didn’t? He’d had three wives so far. The second had been a tempestuous woman, the sister of the King of Leinster. She had already been married to both the Viking King of Dyflin and the O’Neill High King. But she’d given Brian a fine son before he’d discarded her.

There were many people, Morann knew, who thought that this divorce had led to the bad feeling behind the revolt of the Leinster and Dyflin kings against Brian; but a chief who knew the King of Leinster well had assured Morann that the rumour wasn’t really correct. “He may not have been pleased, but he knows his sister’s trouble,” he’d told the craftsman. And God knows, divorce was common enough amongst the royal families of the island. More likely, in Morann’s opinion, the bad feeling against Brian was the inevitable jealousy against a man who rises so far and so fast. What nobody denied was the Munster king’s prowess. “He’s as patient as he’s daring,” they acknowledged. He would be in his late fifties now, but full of vigour, it was said.

And so it proved to be. It was nearly dusk when Morann was finally brought into the big hall of the Dyflin king, which Brian had taken over. There was a fire in the centre, where several men were standing. One of these, he noticed, was the rich merchant who imported amber. Beside him, turning to look at him, was the figure he guessed must be Brian Boru.

The king was not a tall man, hardly above middle height. He had a long face, thin nose, intelligent eyes. His hair, where it was not greying, was a rich brown. The face was fine, almost intellectual; he might have been a priest, Morann thought. Until Brian took a few steps towards him. For the southern king moved with the dangerous grace of a cat.

“I know who you are. You were seen.” He wasted no time. “Where have you been?”

“To Kells, Brian, son of Kennedy.”

“Ah, I see. And you hope your valuables will be safe from me there. They tell me you left nothing much in your house. Those who rebel have to pay the price, you know.”

“I didn’t rebel.” It was the truth.

“Did you not?”

“That man could tell you.” Morann indicated the amber merchant. “I told the Dyflin men that it was a mistake to oppose you. They were not pleased. Then I left.”

King Brian turned to the amber merchant, who nodded his confirmation.

“So why did you come back?” the king demanded.

Morann related the exact details of parts of his journey, how he had set out with Osgar and the nun, and his discovery that Harold’s wife and children had been taken. He discreetly omitted the incident at Rathmines and his flight with Caoilinn and her husband to the monastery, and hoped that Brian was unaware of it.

“You came back for your friends?” Brian turned round to the others and remarked, “As this man’s not stupid, he must be brave.” And then, turning back to Morann again, he coolly observed, “You are a friend to Ostmen, it seems.”

“Not especially.”

“Your wife’s family are Ostmen.” It was said quietly, but it contained a warning. This king was not to be deceived. “That must be why you came to live here in the first place: your love of Ostmen.”

Was King Brian playing with him, like a cat with a mouse?

“In fact,” Morann replied evenly, “it was my father who brought me here, when I was little more than a boy.” For a moment he smiled at the memory of that journey down, past the ancient tombs above the River Boyne. “My family were craftsmen, honoured by kings since before Saint Patrick came. And my father hated the Ostmen. But he made me come to Dyflin because he said that Dyflin was the place of the future.”

“Did he now? And is he alive, still, this man of wisdom?” It was hard to tell whether this was sarcastic or not.

“He’s long dead.”

King Brian was silent. He seemed to be thinking to himself. Then he moved close to the craftsman.

“When I was young, Morann Mac Goibnenn,” he spoke so softly that Morann was probably the only person who heard him, “I hated the Ostmen. They had invaded our land. We fought them. I once even burned down their port of Limerick. Do you think that was wise of me?”

“You had to teach them a lesson, I should think.”

“Perhaps. But it was I, Morann Mac Goibnenn, who needed to learn a lesson.” He paused, and then he took a small object from his hand and placed it in Morann’s. “What do you think of this?” It was a small silver coin. The King of Dyflin had started minting them just two years ago. In Morann’s opinion, the workmanship was not especially fine, but passable enough. Before waiting for his reply, Brian continued. “The Romans minted coins a thousand years ago. Coins are minted in Paris and in Normandy. The Danes mint coins in York; the Saxons have mints in London and several other towns. But where do we mint coins on this island? Nowhere, except in the Ostmen’s port of Dyflin. What does that tell you, Morann?”

“That Dyflin is the island’s greatest port, and that we trade across the sea.”

“Yet even now our native chiefs still count their wealth in cattle.” The king sighed. “There are three realms on this island, Morann. There is the interior, with its forests and pastures, its raths and farmsteads, the realm that goes back into the mists of time, to Niall of the Nine Hostages, and Cuchulainn and the goddess Eriu—the realm from which our kings have come. Then there is the realm of the Church, of the monasteries, of Rome, with its learning and its riches in protected places. That is the realm our kings have learned to respect and love. But now there is a third realm, Morann, the realm of the Ostmen, with their ports and their trading across the high seas. And that realm we still have not learned to make our own.” He shook his head. “The O’Neill High King thinks he is a great fellow because he holds the right to Tara and has the blessing of Saint Patrick’s Church. But I tell you, if he does not command the Ostmen’s fleets and make himself also the master of the sea, then he is nothing. Nothing at all.”

“You think like an Ostman,” the craftsman remarked.

“Because I have observed them. The High King has a kingdom, but the Ostmen have an empire, all over the seas. The High King has an island fortress, but without ships of his own, he is always vulnerable. The High King has many cattle, but he is also poor, for the trade is all in the Ostmen’s hands. Your father was right, Morann, to take you to Dyflin.”

As Morann considered the implication of these words, he looked at Brian with a new curiosity. He had realised that, by taking the southern half of the island, the Munster king had already taken control of all the major Viking ports. He was also aware that, on some of his campaigns, Brian had made extensive use of water transport on the River Shannon. But what Brian had just said went far beyond the sort of political control that kings had exercised up to now. If the High King without Viking fleets could be dismissed as “nothing,” then this was confirmation that Brian, as many people suspected, did indeed intend, sooner or later, to take over as High King. But more than that, it sounded as if, once he had made himself master of the island, he meant to be a different sort of king. Dyflin seemed to interest him more than Tara. Morann suspected that the Ostmen of Dyflin would be seeing more of this new kind of ruler than they had been used to, and that this foolish revolt had probably given Brian just the excuse he was looking for to assert his authority in the place. He looked at the king respectfully.

“The Ostmen of Dyflin are not easy to govern,” Morann remarked. “They are used to the freedom of the seas.”

“I know that, Morann Mac Goibnenn,” the king replied. “I shall need friends in Dyflin.” He watched the craftsman shrewdly.

It was an offer. Morann understood at once. He could hardly believe his luck. After his arrest down at the quay, he had not known what to expect. And now here was Brian Boru offering him friendship in return for his loyal support. No doubt there’d be a price to pay, but it would surely be worth it. He couldn’t help admiring the vision of the Munster king as well. Just as Brian looked beyond his present position, to the time when he would be master of the whole island, so even here, when he had just crushed the opposition in Dyflin, he was already laying the groundwork for a peaceful and friendly rule of the port in the future. Perhaps, Morann thought, he even meant to base himself there one day.

And he was just about to assure the king of his loyal friendship, when there was a disturbance at the entrance, the sound of raised voices, and then the leader of the armed guard who had brought him there burst into the hall. His face was covered in blood.

“I have been attacked by an Ostman, Brian, son of Kennedy,” he called. “I ask for his death.”

Morann saw the king’s brows close and his eyes grow dark.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

And now, at the entrance, Morann saw the men drag in a figure who looked familiar; and as they pulled back his red hair to raise his head, he saw by the firelight that it was Harold.

Morann had not caught the dark fellow’s name, but evidently he was well known to King Brian; and at a curt nod from the king, he related his tale. Despite the fact that his head was bleeding quite a lot, he was brief and to the point.

Harold’s ship had entered the Liffey estuary just after dark. It seemed the crew had seen the bonfires by the Thingmount, but had assumed they must be connected with the celebration of the Christmas feast. They had tied up at the wooden quay and immediately been held by the watch, who had taken Harold’s name and sent for their officer who had gone up to the royal hall.

“As I came down onto the quay,” the dark fellow explained, “my men told the Ostman,” he indicated Harold, “to stand forward. But the moment I got close, he turned round and grabbed a spar that was lying there; I put my hand to my sword, but before I could get it out, he caught me in the face with the spar. He’s very fast,” he remarked, not without respect, “and strong. It took three of my men to hold him down.”

It was obvious that they’d done more than hold Harold down. They’d clubbed him over the head and given him a severe beating. He’d been unconscious when they brought him in, but now he groaned. The king went over to him, took him by the hair, and raised his face again. Harold opened his eyes, but they were glazed; he stared at the king dully. It was evident that he did not see Morann, or anyone else in the place.

“It is the king who speaks to you,” Brian said. “Do you understand?”

A mumble indicated that Harold did.

“It’s my own officer that you’ve attacked. He wants you dead. What have you to say?”

“I’d kill him first.” Harold’s voice was slurred, but the words were unmistakable.

“Are you defying me?” the king cried.

By way of answer, Harold suddenly twisted himself free of the two men holding him. God knows, Morann thought, where he finds the strength. He caught sight of the officer now and made a lunge towards him. It was Brian himself who caught him, before the two surprised guards seized him again and pushed him to the ground, while one of them pulled out a small club and brought it down heavily on Harold’s head. Reflexively, Morann started forward to intervene; but at this moment, Brian held up his hand and everybody froze. It was obvious that the king was furious.

“Enough. I’ll hear no more. It seems that some of these Ostmen still haven’t learned their lesson.” He turned to the officer. “Take him away.”

“And?” the dark fellow enquired.

“Kill him.” King Brian’s face was set, hard and implacable. Morann realised that he was now looking at the man who had destroyed the Viking port of Limerick and won a score of battles. When such a man had lost patience, it would be a foolish person who started to argue with him. However, there seemed little other option.

“Brian, son of Kennedy,” he began. The king rounded on him.

“What is it?”

“This man is my friend. The one I told you about.”

“The worse for you, then. And for him. And his cursed family in the slave house.” The king’s eyes stared at him angrily, daring him to say more. Morann took a deep breath.

“I’m only thinking that this isn’t like him at all to do such a thing. There must be a reason.”

“The reason is that he is a fool, and a rebel. He gave no other. And he is going to die. If it’s my friendship you want, Morann Mac Goibnenn, you will speak of this no more.”

The guards were starting to drag Harold out. After the blow from the club, he was unconscious again. Morann took another deep breath.

“Would you not let me speak with him? Perhaps …”

“Enough!” Brian shouted. “Do you want to join him in death?”

“You will not kill me, Brian, son of Kennedy.” The words came out, cold and hard, almost before he had time to think what he was saying.

“Will I not?” The king’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“No,” said Morann quietly, “because I am the best silversmith in Dyflin.”

For a moment, Morann wondered if he was about to discover that he was wrong. The hall had fallen very silent. The king was looking at the ground, apparently considering the matter. After a long pause, he murmured, “You have nerves of iron, Morann Mac Goibnenn.” Then he looked up and eyed him coldly. “Do not presume upon my friendship. My rule is to be respected.”

“That is not to be doubted.” Morann bowed his head.

“I will give you a choice then, Morann Mac Goibnenn. Your friend may keep his life and join his family in the slave house; or he may lose his life, and I will set his family free. Let me know which you prefer before I sit down to eat tonight.” Then he turned away. Morann knew better than to say anything more. They dragged Harold out of the hall and Morann followed sorrowfully behind.

It was a terrible choice, thought Morann; a cold, Celtic dilemma, as subtle and cruel as anything in the stories from the ancient days. That was why Brian had done it—to let him know plainly that he was dealing with a master of the kingly craft. He did not think that there was any hope of the Munster king changing his mind. A hard choice: but who should make it? If Harold came round, Morann had no doubt what his friend would choose. Freedom for his family, death for himself. So if Harold did not come round, was that the choice he should make for him? Or should he save his life and leave them all in slavery? The latter course might be preferable, if he could buy them out afterwards himself. But what if the king refused to let him do that, or they were shipped over the seas to the foreign markets. Would Harold ever forgive him for that?

As they left the hall, the officer went off to tend to his wound while they were led across the yard in silence to a small wooden building. Morann had hoped that perhaps the cold night air might bring his friend round, but it did not. They were pushed into the room and a guard placed at the door.

There was a single taper in the room and a small fire. Morann sat by the fire. Harold lay on the floor with his eyes closed. Time went by. Morann asked for water, and when it came, he dashed a little on Harold’s face. It had no effect. After a while, Harold groaned. Morann raised his head and tried to get some water through his lips. He thought he got a few drops in, and Harold groaned again; but though his eyes flickered, he did not come round.

After perhaps another hour, one of the guards arrived and announced that King Brian was waiting for his answer. Morann told him that his friend had still not come round.

“You’re to bring an answer regardless,” the fellow said.

“Dear God, what am I to say?” Morann burst out. He looked down at Harold. He seemed to have fallen into a restful sleep. Thank God at least that the Norwegian was so strong. Morann had a feeling that he might come round if he could only wait a little longer. He still wasn’t sure what answer he was going to give the Munster king. “I can’t make any sense of the business at all,” he said in exasperation. “Why would he attack your man anyway?”

“I don’t know,” the fellow replied. “But I can tell you this: Sigurd did nothing to him. Come on.”

“If I must,” Morann muttered absently, and started to follow. And he had already walked halfway across the yard to the big hall when he stopped and turned to the man. “Just a moment,” he said. “What did you say his name was—the officer that my friend attacked?”

“Sigurd. Officer of the watch.”

Sigurd. A Viking name. The dark fellow wasn’t a Viking, as far as Morann knew; but then it wasn’t uncommon these days, especially around the ports, to find Vikings who had taken Celtic names and vice versa. Sigurd. Until this moment it had never occurred to him that the officer’s name could be significant. He tried to imagine it—the confusion on the quay, the swarthy figure suddenly advancing …

“Were you there on the quay when it happened?” he asked the guard.

“I was.”

“Did someone call out a name?”

The fellow considered.

“Sigurd arrived. We said to the Ostman, ‘Step forward. Our man wants to see you.’ Then I called out, ‘Here’s your man, Sigurd.’ And then as Sigurd got close, the Ostman took one look at him and …”

But Morann was no longer listening. He was already striding into the hall.

“I know, Brian, son of Kennedy,” he called out. “I know what happened.”

He ignored the king’s look of irritation when he began his story. He did not obey when the king told him to be quiet. He continued even when it looked as though the guards would remove him. And by this time, in any case, the king was listening.

“So he thought my fellow Sigurd was this Dane who had vowed to kill him?”

“I have no doubt of it,” cried Morann. “Imagine it: in the darkness, a similar-looking fellow, he hears the name called out—and in the very place, remember, where they had met before …”

“You swear that this story is true?”

“Upon the Holy Bible. Upon my life, Brian, son of Kennedy. And it is the only explanation that makes sense.”

King Brian gave him a long, hard look.

“You want me to spare his life, I suppose.”

“I do.”

“And free his wife and children, too, no doubt.”

“I would ask it, naturally.”

“They have a price you know. And after all that, you would be my loyal friend, would you, Morann Mac Goibnenn?

“I should indeed.”

“Even to the death?” He looked Morann in the eye.

And just for a moment, because he was honest, Morann hesitated.

“To the death, Brian, son of Kennedy,” he answered.

Then Brian Boru smiled.

“Will you look at that,” he called out to the company gathered in the hall. “Here’s a man, when he swears to be your friend, who really means it.” He turned back to Morann. “Your friend’s life, Morann, I will give you if you vouch for his future loyalty also, and if he pays five of those silver coins you mint here to my man Sigurd, who never did him any harm. His wife and children you may buy from me yourself. I shall be needing a silver chalice to give to the monastery at Kells. Could you make me such a thing by Easter?”

Morann nodded.

“No doubt it will be a fine one,” the king said with a smile.

And it was.

II

1013

There was no doubt about it, at the age of forty-one, with her dark hair and brilliant green eyes, Caoilinn was still a very striking woman; and it was also generally agreed, by summer’s end, that she was looking for a new husband.

She had earned some happiness. Nobody would have disputed that. She had looked after her sick husband devotedly for more than a dozen years. Cormac had never recovered his health after the battle of Glen Mama. With one arm missing and a terrible wound in his stomach, it was only thanks to Caoilinn’s nursing that he had lived at all. But worse even than his physical disabilities had been his melancholy. Sometimes he was depressed, sometimes angry; increasingly, as the years went by, he drank too much. The last years had been difficult indeed.

To get through them, Caoilinn had clung to her memory. She did not see before her the broken man that he now was. She managed instead to see the tall, handsome figure he once had been. She thought of his courage, his strength, his royal blood. Above all, she had wanted to protect his children. Their father was always presented to them as a fallen hero. If he lay idle for weeks on end, or suddenly burst out in a rage over nothing, these were the tribulations of his heroic nature. If his mood in the last days descended into a morbid darkness, it was not a darkness of his own making but one created by the evil spirits who had surrounded him and were dragging him down. And from what quarter did these spirits come? Who was the evil influence behind them, and the ultimate cause of all this misery? To be sure, it could only be one person: who else but the instigator of the trouble, the upstart who had come deliberately to humiliate the old royal house of Leinster to which her husband and her children were proud to belong. It was Brian Boru who was to blame. It was not her husband’s weakness but Brian’s malevolence that was the cause of their misery. So she taught her children to believe. And as the humiliations gathered with the passing of the years, she even came to believe it herself. It was Brian who had caused her husband’s sickness, his sadness, his rage, and his dissolution. It was Brian who was the evil presence in their family life. Even when their father started a drinking bout, it was Brian Boru who drove him to it, she told them. It seemed the Munster king had a personal animus against the family at Rathmines. So perfect was her belief that, in the course of time, it had transformed itself into something that was almost tangible, as though King Brian’s enmity had solidified into a stone. And even now, when she was a free woman again and her children grown, she still carried her hatred of Brian like a flint in her heart.

Cormac had died at midwinter. It had been a relief. Whatever painful memories she had, her conscience was clear. She had done her best. Their children were healthy. And thanks to her good stewardship—for in fact, if not in name, she had been running his estate for years—she and the children were now almost as rich as they had been before the battle of Glen Mama. By spring, the wound of her sadness had begun to heal. By early summer, she felt quite cheerful. By June, people were telling her that she was looking younger than she had for years. And after a careful private inspection of her own body, she concluded that some confidence was justified. As the long, warm days of August saw the harvest ripen, she began to feel that perhaps one day she might think of marrying again. And as the harvest was gathered in, she began, in a calm and cheerful way, to look about.

Osgar hardly knew what he felt, that October, as he approached the family monastery at Dyflin. Samhain was approaching, an appropriate time he supposed for his uncle to have departed for the world beyond. The old abbot had taken his leave very peacefully; there was no need to feel pain on that account. As he had descended the path from the mountains on that clear autumn day, Osgar had felt only a gentle melancholy as he thought affectionately of the old man. But as he came to the monastery gates, there was another thought on his mind. For he knew very well what they were going to ask of him. And the question, which he had not yet answered in his own mind, was what he was going to do?

They were all there. His uncle’s sons, friends, and family he had not seen for years. Morann Mac Goibnenn was there. And Caoilinn, too. The wake was just ending when he arrived, but they asked him to conduct the final ceremonies as they placed the old man in his grave. It was kind of Caoilinn, afterwards, to have invited him to visit her at Rathmines the following day.

He arrived at midday. He had asked for only the simplest meal to be provided. “Remember I am only a poor monk,” he had told her. He was rather glad to find that she had arranged for the two of them to eat alone. Looking at the handsome, dark-haired woman opposite him he realised with a slight shock that he had not sat alone with a woman for twenty-five years. It wasn’t long before she came to the main issue on everybody’s mind.

“Well, Osgar, are you coming back?”

That was what they all wanted. Now that his uncle had gone, it was obviously Osgar who should come and take his place. His uncle’s sons wanted it, since neither of them had any real desire to take on the role. The monks wanted it. He would probably be the most distinguished abbot the little place had had in generations. Wasn’t it his duty? Probably. Was he tempted? He wasn’t sure.

He didn’t answer her question just yet.

“It is strange to be back,” he remarked. “I suppose,” he went on after a thoughtful pause, “that if I had remained here, I might be sitting in the monastery now with a brood of children and my wife opposite me. And I suppose,” he added with a smile, “that the wife in question might have been you.” He glanced at her. “But then, perhaps you would not have married me.”

Now it was her turn to smile.

“Oh,” she said, reflectively, “I would have married you.”

She looked at the man before her. His hair was grey. His face was thinner, and rather severe. She studied the way the lines on his face ran: ascetic, intellectual, but not unpleasing.

She remembered how close they had been when she was a little girl. He’d been her childhood playmate. She remembered how he’d saved her from drowning. She remembered how she had admired his fine, aristocratic ways and his intelligence. Yes, she had always supposed he would marry her. And how shocked she had been, she remembered, how hurt and furious when he had turned away from her. And for what? For a monastery in the mountains when he already had one at home. She couldn’t understand it. That day when she had met him on the path, she had wanted to shock him, attack his choice of life, show her power over him was greater even than the religious vocation that was so humiliatingly stealing him away. I’d have been happy at that time, she realised with wry amusement, if I’d seduced him into denying God Himself. She shook her head at the memory. What a devil I was, she thought.

She almost asked him if he regretted his decision now, but decided she had better not.

After their meal, they went for a short walk. They talked of other things. She told him about the improvements she had made to the estate and about her children. It was only as they were returning to the house that she pointed to a place and casually remarked, “That’s where I was nearly killed. Or worse.”

Osgar stared at the spot.

“You know about that, I expect?” she asked. “It was Morann who saved my life. He was wonderful. Brave as a lion. Dressed in your habit, too, I might say!” And she laughed.

But Osgar did not laugh.

How could he even smile? It had been a while before he had heard all the details of the events of that fateful day. It was his uncle who had sent him a long and glowing letter on the subject of Morann Mac Goibnenn’s valiant rescue of his cousin and how she and her wounded husband had been brought to the little monastery. And it was thanks to Osgar’s concern and foresight, his uncle had been careful to add, that Morann had gone to Rathmines at all. But for that, he pointed out, Caoilinn would have been raped and probably butchered. They were all very grateful, he assured his nephew.

Such praise. Such a role he’d played. It had been like a knife through his heart. Caoilinn had been saved. But by Morann, not him. His own monk’s habit, even, had attended her rescue, but it was Morann who had been wearing it. Morann, who was a better man than he.

He could have been there to rescue her himself, of course, if he hadn’t shown what the craftsman took to be panic. Perhaps Morann had been right and that was all his hesitation had been—mere cowardice. He could have been there if he had refused when Morann sent him back, if he’d insisted on accompanying him whether the craftsman liked it or not. If he’d been a stronger man. If he’d been a man at all. For weeks after receiving the letter he had felt a sense of shame and self-disgust. Humiliated, he had gone about his daily tasks at Glendalough like a person with a guilty secret he cannot share. And in the end, he had decided that there was nothing more to do except admit to himself that his love for Caoilinn, the little ring he kept, and all his thoughts about her were nothing but a sham.

When it came to the one time that he should have gone to her, he had failed, shamefully, to do so. Involuntarily, he shook his head.

He had not even realised that she had been speaking. She was talking now of something else. He tried to pay attention. She was speaking of her marriage.

“I was very angry at the time,” she was confessing, “but as the years passed, I came to see that you were right. We are all happy enough now, I dare say. You did what you had to. You made your choice.”

Yes, he thought, that was it. He had had his chances down the years and each time, he had made his choice. His choice to leave. His choice to desert her in her hour of need. His choice. And once such choices were made, you could not go back. You could never go back.

“I shan’t be returning to Dyflin,” he said. “I can’t go back.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shall miss you.”

Not long afterwards, he took his leave. As he did so, he enquired, “Do you think you’ll marry again?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “I hope so.”

“Have you someone in mind?”

“Not yet.” She smiled again, confidently. “I shall please myself.”