SEVEN

Dalkey

1370

THE FALCON flapped its wings and tried to rise; but Walsh’s gloved hand held it fast. Its great, curved beak struck down at the hand, but John Walsh only laughed. He loved the bird’s fierce, free spirit. A fitting companion for a French or English lord. Its eyes were marvels, too: they could pick out a mouse at a thousand paces.

Walsh stared out from his castle wall. Like most of his family, he had a strong, soldier’s face. His blue eyes were keen. They had to be, here in the borderlands. And they narrowed, now, as they fixed upon something. It was a small moving object, of no significance at all. Quite ordinary. Too ordinary. It struck him as odd. Nothing was ordinary in the borderland.

Carrickmines Castle. Carrickmines meant “Little Plain of Rocks.” And certainly there were rocks enough, strewn around over the terrain nearby. But the real character of the place derived from the stately slopes of the Wicklow Mountains that rose just in front of the little castle and, behind it, the six leagues of road that led northwards across the rich coastal strip up to Dublin.

The moving object was a young girl. The last time he’d seen her, he remembered, some cattle had gone soon afterwards.

The castle was built of stone; it had already been reinforced several times. Most of the motte and bailey mounds of the original colonists were sturdy stone strongholds now, and they were to be found scattered over huge tracts of the island. Three of the best in the Dublin region lay at the northern and southern ends of the broad bay: there was one on the northern peninsula of Howth; a little way above that lay the stout castle of Malahide; and here at Carrickmines, just below the high headland that marked the bay’s southern extremity, the Walsh family guarded their farmlands and the approaches to the great, green centre of the English power.

The territory around Dublin was a huge patchwork of estates. The greatest landowner, by far, was the Church. The Archbishop of Dublin held numerous huge tracts. His big manor of Shankill lay just south of Walsh’s castle; below the city, taking in the old lands of Rathmines, was his even larger manor called Saint Sepulchre. But nearly all the religious houses of Dublin—and there were many of these now—had their rich estates in the region: the monks of Christ Church, the nuns of Saint Mary, the knights of Saint John; Ailred the Palmer’s hospital had two handsome estates; even the little leper house of Saint Stephen had some rich farmland not far from the Walshes, and known as Leopardstown. Some of the land on these ecclesiastical estates was managed directly by the church landlords themselves; mostly it was let to tenant farmers. The rest of the territory was held by men like Walsh.

“And a great comfort it is,” a Dublin merchant had once remarked to him, “to know that the countryside around is safely in the hands of loyal Englishmen.”

Was that true, Walsh wondered? Up in Fingal, it probably was. There was a tiny residual element of the ancient Celtic aristocracy still in the region—though a small family called O’Casey was the only example that came into his mind. The former Viking families had almost all been pushed out of Fingal. In their place were Norman and English names—Plunkett and Field, Bisset and Cruise, Barnewall, and the Talbot lords of Malahide. They were all stout Englishmen; they married among themselves or other English families. But elsewhere, the situation was less clear-cut. If the Norsemen were no longer in Fingal, what about the old suburb on the north bank of the Liffey? Oxmantown, people often called it nowadays, but the origin of the name—Ostmanby, the town of the Ostmen—was not forgotten. There were plenty of people of Norse descent around there. And making the great curve round to the west and south of the city, one encountered local lords with names that were anything but English. There were the Harolds, descendants of Ailred the Palmer’s son. They were Norse. So were the powerful Archbolds. As for the Thorkyll family, they descended from a former Norse king of the city—loyal to the English Justiciar, no doubt, but hardly Englishmen. And finally, there were the families like his own. There was a cluster of them in the territory south of the city, living on rich, fortified farms. Howell, Lawless, and the several branches of the Walsh family: their names might or might not make it obvious, but they all had come over from Wales. Were they, too, loyal to England? Of course they were. They had to be.

All the same, life down in the southern farmlands was rather different from that above Dublin. Because of the wild Wicklow Mountains which rose close by, and where the old Irish clans still held sway, the area was more of a frontier. John’s mother had come from the settled conditions of Fingal, and it had worried her that he was allowed to run wild with the local Irish children, but his father had taken a different view. “If he is going to live beside these people,” he would say cheerfully, “then he’d better know them.” And know them he did. Even at the Walsh farmstead, a harpist or an Irish bard would sometimes arrive and offer to entertain his father in his hall—an offer his father never refused, and for which he always paid generously. And as for young John, there was hardly a month when he didn’t go out with the fishermen at the nearby coastal village of Dalkey, or go up into the Wicklow Mountains and run with the O’Tooles and the O’Byrnes. They all knew who he was, of course: he was a Walsh, one of the colonists who had taken their best land from them. But children have a passport into places where their parents may not go, and for a number of years the boy was only dimly conscious of the barrier that lay between himself and his companions. He spoke their language, he usually dressed and rode bareback as they did. Once he discovered an even closer link.

A party of boys had gone up into the hills and ridden their ponies over to the lakes at Glendalough. The old monastery there was a shadow of its former self: the bishopric had long since been taken over by Dublin and only a small group of monks lived there now; but John had still been impressed by the quiet beauty of the place. They had stopped by the little settlement nearby when he had noticed the dark-haired girl watching him. She was about his own age, slim; he thought her rather beautiful. She was sitting on a grassy bank, eating an apple, and silently staring at him with a pair of bright green eyes. Feeling a little uncomfortable under her steady gaze, he had gone over to her.

“So what are you staring at?” he had demanded to know; though he had said it in a perfectly friendly way.

“You.” She took another bite out of her apple.

“Do I know you?”

She munched for a moment or two before replying, “I know who you are.”

“And who is that?”

“My cousin.” She watched his look of astonishment with interest. “You’re the Walsh boy, aren’t you?” He agreed that he was. “I could be a Walsh, too, if I wanted,” she declared. “But I don’t,” she added fiercely, taking another bite out of her apple. Then she had suddenly sprung up and run away.

Could this girl really be related? he had asked his father that night, when he got home.

“Oh she’ll be your cousin, all right.” His father had looked amused. “Though I’ve never seen her. Your uncle Henry was a great one for the women. You’ve more cousins in Leinster than you suppose. There was a beautiful girl once, up in the hills. That would be his daughter by her, I’ve no doubt. It’s a pity your uncle died when he did, but he certainly left a record of his passing.” He sighed affectionately. “Is she pretty?”

“She is,” John said, then blushed.

“Well, she’s your cousin,” his father had confirmed. “And I’ll tell you something more. Most of the land around here, and right up to Dublin, used to belong to the mother’s people. The Ui Fergusa they were called. We’ve been here since the days of Strongbow, when we were granted the estate. But they have long memories. As far as the descendants of the Ui Fergusa are concerned, we’re on their land.”

The memory of the girl had fascinated him for a long time. Once he had even gone over to Glendalough to ask after her. But they told him she had moved away, and he had never seen her again.

Indeed, a year later he had wondered if she might have died. For that had been the time of the terrible plague.

The Black Death had finally come to Ireland, as it had to all Europe. From 1347 onwards, for nearly four years, the plague, carried by fleas from the rats with whom, whether they know it or not, humans always share their dwellings, had swept across the whole continent. In its bubonic form, it afflicted its victims with terrible sores; in its even more deadly pneumonic form, it attacked their lungs and was passed, with terrible rapidity, from person to person on their breath. Perhaps a third of the population of Europe died. It had arrived on Ireland’s east coast in August 1348.

The Walshes had been lucky. John’s father had been going into Dublin on the very day that news came that the plague had arrived there. News of the Great Mortality, as it was called, had already reached them a little earlier from merchant ships coming into the port; so that the moment Walsh heard of a sudden sickness in the city, he had turned back. For more than a month the family had remained on their farm; and God, it seemed, had ordained that they were to survive. For though other farms were struck and the nearby fishing village of Dalkey suffered—they even heard there had been deaths up at Glendalough—the plague had passed them by.

But the effect on the Dublin region had been considerable. In the city and its suburbs, there were whole streets left almost empty. The Church estates had lost numerous tenants. There was a sense of desolation and disorder, as if the land had just been at war. And so it was hardly a surprise to the Walsh family if the O’Tooles and O’Byrnes up in the Wicklow Mountains, sensing the weakness in the plains below, began to come down to see what pickings there were to be had. There were certainly cattle with not enough men to guard them. Nobody familiar with the traditional life of the clans could be surprised if there were a few cattle raids. “They’ve been taking each other’s cattle since before Saint Patrick came,” John’s father calmly remarked, “so we needn’t be surprised if they extend the compliment to us.” To young John, and he suspected to his father, too, there was a certain excitement in the prospect of a raid. There was the thrill of the chase, the chance of a little skirmish with people whom, in all likelihood, one would recognise. It was part of frontier life. But the royal Justiciar in Dublin had taken a bleaker view. To him, and to the citizens of Dublin, these signs of disorder were to be deplored and must be dealt with firmly. Fortifications were needed. And so it was that the castle of Carrickmines—which had been neglected for years—had been repaired and strengthened, and John Walsh’s father had been asked to move out of his farmstead and take over as castellan of the place. “We need a good, reliable man,” the Justiciar had told him. And young John had been dimly conscious that the change also represented a social promotion for his father. In the eyes of the royal officials at Dublin, he was now one of the king’s officers, more of a knight than a farmer, nearer to the status held by his ancestor Peter FitzDavid who had first been granted the land.

It was a small incident at this time which had taught him what all this meant for his own identity.

The family had been installed at the castle only a few months when the officer from Dublin rode up. It was a fine morning and young John had just decided to ride over to see one of his Walsh cousins on a neighbouring farm. As usual when he went about in the locality, he was wearing only a shirt and tunic; his legs were bare and he was riding his little horse without a saddle. He might well have passed for one of the young O’Byrnes. The man riding up the lane from Dublin was as smartly dressed and turned out as any English knight, and John watched him, not without admiration. As the man drew up in front of the castle gate, he glanced at John and enquired curtly whether Walsh was within.

“Who shall I say is looking for him?” John asked.

The knight frowned, uncertain whether this young fellow before him belonged to the castle or not; and meaning only to be helpful, John had smiled and explained: “I’m John Walsh, his son.”

He hadn’t expected any particular response to this statement; so he was much taken aback by what happened next. For instead of merely nodding, the knight stared at him openmouthed.

“You are Walsh’s son? Walsh, the warden of this castle?” A look of disgust crossed his face. “And your father lets you ride about like that?”

John looked down at his legs and his bareback horse. It was already obvious to him that this young knight must be a newcomer, one of a company who had recently arrived from England to help the Justiciar in Dublin. All the same, under the contemptuous gaze of the nobleman, he felt a little shamefaced.

“I was only riding to another farm,” he said defensively.

“Dear God, man,” the knight cried out, “you don’t have to dress like a native.” And seeing the youth looking confused, he told him sharply, “Pull yourself together.” Then without another word to him, he rode in through the castle gate.

At first, John had intended to continue on his journey; but he had only gone fifty paces when he had stopped and turned back. The knight was rude—he obviously knew little about Ireland—but John did not like to be scorned by a man who was, after all, one of his own kind. A short while later, therefore, he was in his mother’s chamber, having his hair vigorously brushed and struggling into a clean white shirt and leather boots. By the time the knight was ready to ride out, he encountered in the yard a young man who might have been a handsome squire in any English castle.

“Better,” he remarked tersely as he strode past him; and having mounted, he signalled John to accompany him through the gateway. As they came outside, he pulled up his horse and pointed to the rich pastureland in front of them. “Tell me something, young Walsh,” he said in a voice that was more friendly. “Do you want to keep this land?”

“Yes, I do,” John replied.

“Then you had better realise that the only way you’ll do so is if you remember you’re an Englishman.” And with that brief advice, he rode away.

Standing on his castle wall today, twenty years later, Walsh would not have disagreed with the knight’s assessment. The King of England’s rule, in some shape or form, extended over parts of Ireland; but since the early days of colonial expansion in the time of Henry II and his son, there had been a gradual retreat. The island now was divided up between the native Irish and the colonists in a vast patchwork of territories, representing a series of accommodations or stalemates. The English rulers were on the defensive, not only against the Irish ruling clans but even against some of the settlers who, after five or six generations in the borderlands, were more like Irish chiefs themselves, and almost as hard to control. When the English administrators in Dublin looked out at the uncertain world around them, they could draw only one conclusion: “We’ve got to stiffen the backbone of our people here. Get some English order, or the place will degenerate into chaos. Remind our colonists that they are Englishmen.”

What did that mean, to be an Englishman? There was the matter of dress, of course. You didn’t go around with bare legs or ride without a saddle. You didn’t let your wife wear a bright saffron-coloured shawl like an Irishwoman. You didn’t speak Irish except to the natives; you spoke English. In his grandfather’s day, Walsh recalled, a gentleman would speak Norman French. It was still used for the more formal court proceedings. But if you went down to Dublin now, the merchants and the royal officials would usually be speaking the Frenchified English that was current in places like Bristol or London. And above all, you weren’t supposed to marry the Irish. “Marrying them,” one of his Fingal relations had declared to him, “that’s where the rot starts.”

Indeed, the English government had become so fixated by the subject that four years ago, at a parliament held down in the town of Kilkenny, a series of statutes had been promulgated which actually made all such intercourse between the communities illegal.

Privately, Walsh wasn’t impressed with the Statute of Kilkenny. The colonists had been marrying the Irish ever since Strongbow first obtained Leinster by wedding King Diarmait’s daughter; and just as the Norse and the Irish had been marrying before that. This attempt to force the two communities into separate worlds might be possible, but he thought it smelled of panic. Laws were no good when they couldn’t be enforced.

But even if he didn’t think much of the larger issue, Walsh understood perfectly well what it meant to be English here in his own locality. It meant guarding his and his neighbours’ farmlands from the O’Byrnes.

Most of the time, it had to be said, everything was quiet. But now and again, things got interesting. Ten years ago, the chief of the O’Byrnes at that time, an unusually ambitious man, had come down with a large force and surrounded the castle. “Do you really think you can hold the place if you take it from me?” Walsh had called down from the wall. But he had only received a volley of missiles in return for his pains. The siege had gone on for several days until the Justiciar, the Earl of Ormond, had come out of Dublin with a large party of knights and driven the invaders away. “Personally,” Walsh had told his wife, “I think O’Byrne is playing a game. He’ll make a nuisance of himself to see how much he can get out of the Justiciar.” And when some months later O’Byrne came to an agreement with Ormond, and the remarkable news came back—“That wild man of the mountains has been given a knighthood, no less!”—Walsh had laughed till he cried. All the same, the walls had been strengthened again, and from time to time troops of cavalry had been stationed there. For nearly ten years things had been quiet after that. But the underlying truth still remained. The farmlands south of Dublin were safe because the castle protected them; and the castle was there because the English ruled in Dublin.

As he had pointed out to one of his cousins just recently: “The English king gave us our lands and our position. He can also take them away. And you cannot suppose for a moment that the O’Byrnes and the O’Tooles would leave us in possession of them if the English power was taken away.” Yes, John Walsh thought, that was what, at the end of the day, it meant to him to be English.

So what the devil was that girl doing? On the eastern side of the little plain where the castle was set, the high hump of the bay’s southern headland rose, masking the fishing village of Dalkey from his view. Half a mile away, with the headland as a magnificent backdrop, he had set up a large rabbit warren. That was another useful custom the colonists had brought with them. The warren provided him with a constant supply of meat and fur. And it was by that warren that the girl was lurking. Was she planning to steal some rabbits?

He knew who she was, of course. She was the daughter of his beautiful, dark-haired cousin up in the mountains. His cousin had married one of the O’Byrnes, he’d heard, some years ago. This little girl looked just like her. The same brilliant green eyes. He smiled to himself. If she stole a rabbit, he was certainly going to pretend he hadn’t seen. He’d noticed her lurking about on his land once before though, some months back; and shortly afterwards he’d lost those cattle. That was a more serious matter.

But then another thought occurred to him, and he frowned. There had been trouble down in Munster recently, and the Dublin authorities had been concerned enough to send troops. There was a new O’Byrne chief now, and seeing the English forces occupied elsewhere, he had taken the opportunity to move into several small forts down the coast. It was cheeky, but Walsh reckoned that the Irish chief would probably get away with it. At least for the moment. Was this a prelude to another attack on Carrickmines? In Walsh’s opinion, that would be ill-advised. The people in Dublin were already nervous. A couple of weeks ago, they’d sent a squadron of horsemen over to camp at Dalkey, in case any attempts were made to sneak up the coast. At the first hint of trouble from the hills, there’d be further squadrons coming out to Carrickmines—quite apart from the fact that the place was far too strong now for O’Byrne to break into. All the same, you could never tell. Was it possible that his little cousin was lurking by the rabbit warren for a more sinister purpose? Was she looking for troops? Was she noting the state of the walls and the castle gate? If so, she hadn’t concealed herself very well. He would be sorry if his young kinswoman were careless about such things.

Or was there something else going on? His eyes searched the slopes. Were they up there already, waiting to sweep down as soon as the little girl ran back or gave a signal? He scanned the hills. He did not think so. The girl was moving away now. Which way would she go?

The falcon on his wrist was getting restless again. With a single sweep, he let her loose and watched her rise, magnificent and watchful, into the summer morning sky.

Tom was on his way to church when he passed her. He usually went there in the afternoon, but today he was an hour later than usual because one of the fishermen had insisted on talking to him until long after the Angelus had sounded farther down the valley.

She was a pretty little thing. Long black hair. He had never seen her before. She had been loitering by the track that led across the common from the shore. As he had passed her, she had stared at him with the strangest green eyes.

Tom Tidy was a small man. His sandy moustache and pointed beard made a little triangle which the slope of his shoulders thrust forward. There was a quiet determination about him, yet also a hint of melancholy, as though God had required him to plough a furrow which, as it turned out, had no end. Tom Tidy might not be impressive, but you could always rely on him. Everybody said so. Why only the other day, when he had been paying his rent at the diocesan office, the archbishop himself had come in and said, “If there’s one man I know I can trust, Master Tidy, then that man is you.” Master Tidy, he had called him: a title of respect. That had made him blush with pride.

Tom Tidy had always gone to church every day when he still lived in the southern suburb of Dublin. After his children were married and he had lost his wife of thirty years, and wanted a change, the archbishop’s bailiff, who was looking for reliable tenants, had offered him very good terms to move down to the fishing village of Dalkey.

And Dalkey was pleasant enough. Situated on a shelf of bare ground between the high hump of the bay’s southern headland and the sea, it consisted of a single street with a little church and plots of land on which homesteads and gardens were laid out. Such a homestead was known as a messuage. Tom Tidy’s plot was of average size—thirty yards of frontage, running back forty yards. But he also had the right to several strips in the communal field behind the plots and to pasture his livestock on the open common which lay on the seaward side. The town plot was known as a burgage, and the holder of such a property in a township—unlike the peasants and serfs who inhabited smaller cabins—was a freeman known as a burgess.

Though it looked and almost was a tiny town, Dalkey had no borough charter. It was a part of one of the archbishop’s great manors. The archbishop was the feudal lord; his bailiff collected the ground rents, the feudal prise tax on the fishermen’s catch, and certain other dues. For almost all offences, the inhabitants would be summoned to trial at the archbishop’s court, for which his bailiff would select the juries. In short, the Irish settlement of Dalkey was organised in a typically English manner.

Tom Tidy paid three shillings a year for his holding, which totalled three acres. From this base he operated a small carrying business, taking goods from the little harbour into the local farmsteads or into Dublin. His homestead was one of the larger ones. The thatched dwelling house was modest; but behind it was a substantial yard with a long barn where he kept several vehicles: the cart for carrying fish, the big wagon for the great casks of wine and barrels of salt, and another for bales of cloth and furs. He also brewed some ale which he sold in the locality and for which he paid the bailiff a small tax on each brewing. Business was occasional. Some days he worked, some he did not. The slow pace of Dalkey suited Tom, the widower, very well.

There were thirty-nine burgages in Dalkey, though as some of them had been joined, the number of burgesses was actually less. Most of the burgesses, however, did not live in Dalkey. Landowners and Dublin merchants took the burgages and then sublet, often in smaller parcels to lesser folk. Tom Tidy, therefore, was one of the more important people in the place. Indeed, the position of head man, or reeve, being open at present, the bailiff had told him, “Although you haven’t been in Dalkey long, Tom, we’re thinking of appointing you.”

It was the shoreline that had given Dalkey its name. Some way out from the beach, a small island and a line of rocks had suggested the Celtic name of Deilginis—which meant Thorn or Dagger Island—which Viking settlers had later converted to Dalkey. No great river from the interior came down there, so that for most of its life it had only been a fisherman’s hamlet. More recently, however, Dalkey had acquired a new significance.

The sandbars and mudflats of the Liffey estuary had always been a hazard to ships, but since the days of the Vikings, the activities of the port had added to the silting up of the river, while the squat medieval cogs, with their broad beams and deeper drafts, found it harder to negotiate the Dublin shallows, even though they usually hired pilots to guide them in. Nearby were other havens with deeper waters. The little port at Howth on the bay’s northern peninsula was one; down below the southern point of the bay, Dalkey was another. For the island acted as a natural harbour wall to protect any ships that came in, and the place had excellent deep water—eight fathoms even at low tide. Merchant ships with deep drafts would often unload there—sometimes all their cargo, sometimes just enough to lighten the vessel—so that they could then negotiate the Dublin shallows. Either way, it provided extra employment for the people of the settlement, including Tom Tidy.

After passing the girl, Tom went another fifty yards before he stopped. There was no vessel in the little harbour at present. The fishing boats, he happened to know, were all out. So why was that girl coming along the path from the water? There was nothing to see down there. What was she up to? He turned to take another look at her, but she had vanished.

The little stone church of Saint Begnet’s stood on the northern side of the street. Beside it was a graveyard and the priest’s house. The last priest had died that spring and a temporary curate had been coming over from another church to hold services on Sundays. In the meantime, Tom had been entrusted with the keys, both of the church, which he locked at night, and of the priest’s house, which was being used at present by the officer of the visiting squadron, whose men were encamped in tents in the garden behind. Two of these men were always posted down by the shore to keep watch for the approach of the O’Byrnes or any vessels that might contain them.

Tom entered the church and, after genuflecting, made his way towards the altar. A little to one side there was a wooden screen behind which a prie-dieu afforded a private place to pray. Here Tom sank down on his knees, and for several minutes he was lost to the world in prayer—so that he hardly heard the church door open. Nor did he look up. If someone else had come to pray in the silence of the little church, he had no wish to disturb them. He remained where he was. A few moments passed as he heard the faint scuffling of soft leather shoes on the floor. It seemed to him that there were two people near the door, but because of the screen he could not see them and, presumably, they could not see him either. Then he heard a voice.

“I was trying to find you down by the shore.”

“You saw the lookouts?”

“Of course.” This voice, it seemed to him, was a girl’s. The other belonged to a man. They were speaking in Irish, but he understood them well enough.

“You have a message for me from O’Byrne?”

“I have. He is not coming to Dalkey.” The girl’s voice again.

“I see. And if not Dalkey, where?”

“Carrickmines.”

“When?”

“In a week, there will be no moon. It will be then. In the dark. Towards midnight.”

“We’ll be ready. Tell him that.”

There was the sound of feet on the floor, and of the church door opening. Then the sound of its being closed.

Tom kept very still. As soon as he had heard the name O’Byrne he had felt a stab of cold fear. You never knew what those people might be plotting. And you didn’t want to know. People who heard too much, people who could turn into informers, had a way of disappearing. Ten years ago, he remembered, a fellow at Dalkey had got word of some trouble brewing and informed the authorities. One of the O’Bymes had died as a result. A week later, they had fished the informer’s body out of the sea—without a head.

So as the rest of the conversation reached him, he wished he could vanish into the floor. If they—whoever they were—moved farther into the church and discovered him, what would they do? He had felt a sense of panic running through him; a clamminess had spread across his brow. Even after the door had closed and the church returned to silence, he was still shivering. He remained for some time, still on his knees, listening.

At last however, he looked cautiously round the screen. The church was empty. He got up and went to the door. Slowly he opened it. No one was in sight. He stepped out. His eyes searched for a sign of the couple he had overheard. They seemed to have vanished. They were not in the churchyard, nor when he reached it did he see them anywhere in the street. He went back and locked the church door; then he started to make his way towards his house. Still there was no sign of them.

He was halfway along the street when, glancing at the track that led across the common towards the south, he caught sight of the girl, her long dark hair streaming behind her, running like a deer. That was her, the messenger, without a doubt, on her way back towards O’Byrne. He had a sudden, foolish instinct to rush after her, but realised it was useless. He looked around for a sign of her companion, but there was none at all. He must certainly have been one of the Dalkey men. But who? Was the man there, in one of the homesteads, watching him at this very moment?

Slowly and thoughtfully Tom Tidy went along the street. When he got home, he attended to his six cart horses. After they had been fed and closed in their stalls for the night, he went into his house, took a meat pie from his larder, cut a large slice, and put it on a wooden platter on his table. He poured ale from a pitcher into a pottery mug; then he sat down to eat. And to think. He did not leave his house that evening.

The next morning, Tom Tidy was up with the dawn and working in the yard beside his barn. He was a tolerable carpenter and he had decided to make a new tailboard for the fish cart. He chose a plank and for more than two hours he worked quietly, shaping it to his satisfaction. Nobody came by to disturb him.

He had gone over the business carefully in his mind the night before; now he reviewed it calmly. Tom Tidy was a loyal fellow who knew where his duty lay. But he wasn’t a fool. The dangerous information that had come into his hand had to be passed on; but if it was ever traced back to him, he wasn’t sure he could answer for his life. How should it be passed on then? And to whom? The obvious answer might have been to inform the officer in charge of the squadron; but that was too close to home. Any sign from the soldiers that they suspected the true state of affairs would be noticed by the village, and whoever had been in the church with the girl would probably guess that Tom was the one who had given them away. There was the bailiff over at the archbishop’s manor, but Tom had always thought the man was indiscreet. If he told the bailiff, it wouldn’t be long before the whole area knew. The wisest course, he considered, would be to speak to someone in Dublin, but this would require some careful planning. Who was discreet as well as powerful? Who would protect him? Whom could he trust? He wasn’t sure.

When he had finished the tailboard, Tom Tidy put his tools away, left his house, and walked up the street, glancing at the houses to the right and to the left as he did so. A breeze coming up from the harbour brought with it a sharp, salty tang that smelled good and invigorating. It was time to get some advice.

While the burgesses who owned the leases in Dalkey included significant gentry and Dublin families like the Dawes and Stackpooles, the tenants who actually lived there were a mixed collection. Several of the fishing families contained burly red-haired figures who were obviously of both Irish and Viking descent. Others derived from the modest English townsmen and smallholders who had come across in the decades that followed Strongbow’s invasion—men with names like Fox and White, Kendal and Crump. Most had been there a generation or two and were scarcely distinguishable from their Irish and Nordic neighbours. But in seeking advice, Tom ignored them all.

The homestead into which he finally turned was quite unlike the others. Indeed, it resembled nothing so much as a tiny castle. The main house, though not much bigger than its thatched and gabled neighbours, was three floors high, square, and made of stone. This fortified house belonged to Doyle, a prominent merchant in Dublin, who used it to store goods. And it was the man who lived in the house and worked for Doyle—Tom’s good friend and the one man in Dalkey he could trust—that Tom had come to see.

Nobody would have been surprised at his going in there. Tom and Michael MacGowan had been friends ever since Tom had arrived in Dalkey. Despite their different ages they had much in common. Both were Dublin men. MacGowan’s brother was a well-regarded craftsman in the city. He himself had been taken on by Doyle as an apprentice, and now in his twenties, he had kept the store for his master in Dalkey for nearly five years. The girl he was courting in Dublin was quite content to move to Dalkey if they married, so it was likely that he would be remaining there for a long time. Tom Tidy had come to regard him as a steady young fellow, with a wise head on his shoulders. He could trust him to be discreet.

He found MacGowan in the yard—a small, dark man with a mop of black hair and a face that seemed to look out a little quizzically at the world. He greeted Tom and, when Tom indicated that he wanted to talk, he led him to a pair of benches under an apple tree. He listened attentively while Tom told him what had happened and explained his dilemma.

When Michael MacGowan was thinking, he performed a curious trick with his face. He would throw back his head, close one eye and open the other, under its raised eyebrow, very wide. As he did this now, staring up at the sky, it seemed to Tom that MacGowan’s open eye had grown almost as big as one of the ripening apples on the tree. When Tom had finished, his friend was silent, but only for a short time.

“Are you asking my advice as to what you should do?”

“I am.”

“I think you should do nothing. Tell nobody. Forget what you heard.” He turned his single open eye upon the older man and stared at him disconcertingly. “There is danger here, Tom Tidy.”

“I had thought perhaps that Doyle … I thought you would say we should tell him.” The great merchant who owned the fortified house was not only one of the most prominent of the city fathers but was a man of awesome reputation, on close terms with the Justiciar himself.

One of the reasons why Dalkey had been especially popular as a landing place was that it had often been possible to avoid paying the customs which would have been due at the port of Dublin on all incoming goods. The customs tariffs were significant. A merchant who avoided them might easily increase his profits by a third. Taking the goods from Dalkey round the coast by lighter or overland by cart, it had not been too difficult to evade the customs inspectors. The problem had caused the government some irritation.

When the suggestion had been made to the royal servants in Dublin that they should give Doyle the appointment of water bailiff for Dalkey, it had seemed a good solution to this problem. And indeed, ever since he had held the position, a steady stream of revenue had come from the little harbour. No one down there would dare to do anything behind Doyle’s back. His reach was long. It was not surprising, therefore, that Tom Tidy should have thought of the powerful merchant as a possible solution to his problem.

“They say he can keep secrets and that he is cunning as well as powerful,” he ventured.

“You do not know him, Tom.” MacGowan shook his head. “Doyle is a hard man. If we tell him, do you know what will happen? He will make sure that O’Byrne and his friends walk into a trap that will kill them all. And he will be proud of it. He’ll tell everyone in Dublin that he was responsible. And where do you think that will leave me, out here in Dalkey? The O’Byrnes are a large clan, Tom. They will come and get me. And once they work out what happened, they’ll kill you, too. You can count on it. Even Doyle could not prevent that if he tried—which he probably wouldn’t,” he added bleakly.

“You’re saying that I should do nothing to save the Walshes and their people at Carrickmines?”

“Let their walls protect them.”

Tom nodded sadly. It was a hard thing that MacGowan had said, but he understood. He got up to leave.

“Tom.” MacGowan’s voice was anxious. His eye was staring now like that of a creature caught in a trap and in pain.

“Well?”

“Whatever you’re going to do, Tom, don’t go to Doyle. Will you promise me that?”

Tidy nodded and left. But as MacGowan watched him go he thought to himself: if I know you, Tom Tidy, and your sense of duty, you are going to find somebody to tell.

There was no doubting the fellow’s good intentions. Harold had looked at Tom Tidy with some admiration when he turned up at his house with a wagonload of goods and demanded to speak with him. That had been an intelligent ruse to avoid suspicion, and he had gladly bought a number of useful provisions to give Tidy his necessary cover.

“You have done the right thing,” he assured the carrier, when he learned the reason for Tidy’s visit, “and you have come to the right person.”

Tidy was correct in thinking that Harold was a man who could be trusted to act, as well as to be discreet. No one was a more staunch upholder of English rule in Ireland than Robert Harold. Two centuries had passed since his ancestor Harold had returned to his father, Ailred the Palmer; in that time, the family had come to be known as the Harolds, and as the Harolds they had prospered. They had acquired a large tract of land, beginning south of Dublin at a place called Harolds Cross and stretching south-westwards down the borderland of the Dublin territory—the March, as the English called it—beyond which the rule of the crown was shaky nowadays. Marcher families like the Harolds, with their broad acres, fortified houses, and armed men, were important in preserving the established English order in this part of the island.

It was ten years since he had been elected as head of his family. Several of the Marcher families, like the Celtic clans, had taken to choosing the head of the family by election. Sometimes they would even invite other families or an important figure like the archbishop to help them choose. That the Harolds had done this was just another sign of their determination to ensure that they had strong leadership in difficult times.

Robert Harold was only of medium height. Quite early in life his hair had gone grey. His eyes, which were a startling, Nordic blue, usually had a soft expression; but they could grow suddenly hard, and when they did, whoever had crossed him discovered Harold’s ruthlessness. He had proved himself an effective leader, cautious but tough.

As Tidy explained everything—from his sighting of the girl, to her conversation with the unseen man in the church—Harold watched him carefully. The fellow’s nervousness was plain to see.

Again and again, Tom stressed that he had come to him, rather than the archbishop’s bailiff or the Justiciar’s officials, so that no one in Dublin would connect him with the business. “Please do not reveal where you got this information,” he pleaded. Up to a point, Harold could reassure him. He couldn’t see any reason why he should need to mention Tidy by name.

Sometimes Harold thought that he was almost the only person who really understood what was going on in Ireland. The Justiciar did, probably. The men who kept the accounts at the royal Exchequer surely must have. But some of his fellow gentry, men like Walsh at Carrickmines, failed to appreciate the seriousness of the case. Privately, he considered them weak.

The rot had really started when his father was a boy. Two things had set the downward course of events in motion. There had been several years of bad harvests and famines. That hadn’t helped. Then there had been the English war with the Scots. King Edward I—Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots—might have destroyed the Scottish hero Wallace; but after Wallace, the Scots had struck back. Robert the Bruce and his brother Edward had defeated the English army at Bannockburn and given the Scots new heart. It was hardly surprising, then, if the great Irish clans had started to wonder if they, too, might be able to take on the English power. A deal had been struck. The O’Connors and the O’Neills had allied themselves with Edward Bruce, who had brought over a big force of Scots to Ireland. “That way we give the English a war on two fronts,” they judged, “and we may drive them out of Ireland as well as Scotland.” If they succeeded, the Irish chiefs had promised Edward Bruce the position of High King.

Could it have succeeded? Possibly. Bruce and his allies had made a big show up in the north and then advanced almost to the walls of Dublin. But the Dubliners had shut them out and the rest of Ireland had failed to rise for them. It was the old Irish problem: there was no unity across the island. The mighty and ancient O’Neills found they could only rally their friends. Before long, Bruce had been killed, and the Celtic military revival was over.

Yet something had changed. For a start, Ireland was poorer. English settlers were less inclined to come; some started leaving; the English government invested less. The Black Death had only made the existing trend worse. By the time Robert Harold came to manhood, England and France had become locked in that endless conflict known as the Hundred Years War, and the English king had little use for Ireland except to get what money he could from it—which was less and less as every decade went by. To Harold’s knowledge, the King of England nowadays received only around two thousand pounds a year from Ireland; back in the days of Longshanks, it had been three times that amount. The king sent out his Justiciars, his royal servants, and even once his son; but the royal interest in the island was halfhearted.

Some years ago, in a fit of panic when they had supposed, quite wrongly, that Dublin wasn’t safe, the royal Exchequer officials had decamped with all the accounts to a stronghold down in Carlow. It was the sort of feebleminded cowardice that Harold most despised. He had no great faith in the king’s men.

“If the English in Ireland want to keep order, then they must do it themselves,” Harold liked to say. They had their own parliaments, with considerable powers, which often met in Dublin. “But we haven’t enough leaders,” he would add. “That’s the trouble.”

It wasn’t only the crown which had suffered. Many great lords with estates in England as well as Ireland had decided that the western island with its disaffected native population was not worth the trouble. They left their Irish estates in the hands of stewards and remained, absentees, across the water. Just as bad, some of the greatest feudal holdings, like the huge inheritance of Strongbow himself, had been subdivided amongst heiresses, and in later generations split up yet again. So the magnates who might have formed a bulwark against the forces of disorder were largely missing. Recognising this weakness, the English king had enacted one important measure: he had created three great earldoms which could only pass down, without subdivisions, in the male line. The earldom of Ormond he gave to the mighty Butler family; the earldoms of Kildare and of Desmond went to two branches of the Fitzgeralds, who had come over with Strongbow. These earldoms dominated regions that lay beyond the king’s Dublin rule; but though they were certainly mighty enough to impose English order on large areas of the Irish hinterland, they were also more like independent Celtic kings than English noblemen and they were treated as such by the Irish chiefs. Their interests were all in Ireland. Privately, Harold suspected that if ever English rule collapsed in Ireland, the great earls would probably still be there, alongside the Irish kings.

No, it was up to the gentry, men like himself, to maintain English order, if not in all Ireland, at least in the broad arc of territory around the Dublin seaboard. Manor house, parish church, and village; market towns with their little town councils; English shires with their courts and royal justices. This was the settled order that Harold wanted to preserve, safe for himself and modest folk like Thomas Tidy. And it could be preserved, if only the English in Ireland themselves held firm.

But would they? Not long ago, down in the south, a descendant of bad old King Diarmait had proclaimed himself King of Leinster. Kavanagh, they called the fellow. It was an empty gesture, of course, just a native chief blowing his trumpet uselessly in the wind. But it was a reminder all the same. Show weakness now, and there would be other Kavanaghs. The O’Connors and the O’Neills could always rise again. This planned raid on Carrickmines might or might not be serious; but failure to deal with it would be seen as a token of the weakness of the English will, and be noted all over Ireland. It must be dealt with, and dealt with firmly.

Tidy was nearly finished.

“The essential thing,” he pointed out, “is that we give no hint to the O’Byrnes or their friends that they are expected. If troops are moved up from Dublin, it will need to be at the last moment, under cover of darkness.”

“I agree.” Harold nodded.

“And the squadron in Dalkey,” Tidy continued anxiously. “They’ll need to remain where they are. So as not to give the game away,” he explained.

And so as not to put yourself under suspicion, thought Harold grimly. Aloud he said, “Do not worry, Thomas Tidy. We shall be careful.” And he gave Tom a reassuring smile.

Did the poor fellow really imagine that they could afford to leave an entire squadron sitting uselessly at Dalkey while Carrickmines was attacked? Well, that would be up to the Justiciar, anyway. But Tidy had better realise one thing. If he wanted to live in a secure Ireland, then he would have to take some risks, like the rest of them. Harold had no wish to sacrifice Tom Tidy. But if necessary, he would.

The conference was scheduled for noon. Doyle’s dark eyes surveyed the quay with satisfaction. So far, things were working out very well.

If Ireland had suffered during the last century, you would not have known it from looking at Dublin quay. For a start, since the days of Strongbow, a steady process of land reclamation on both banks had altered the shape of the River Liffey so that, beside the town, it was only half its former width. A new stone wall now ran all the way along the waterfront from Wood Quay to the bridge, a hundred and fifty yards in front of the old rampart. Outside the city’s wall, straggling suburbs had grown up, especially along the road to the south so that, if you included Oxmantown across the river, there were nearly three people living in the suburbs for every one inside the walls. Parish churches as well as monastic buildings graced the suburbs. And to ensure an adequate water supply, one of the southern rivers had been diverted to flow through channels and aqueducts into the growing city in a fresh and constant stream.

And few men in the new Dublin had done better than Doyle. Even the Black Death had worked to his advantage: for though the trade of the city had been hit, two of his business rivals had died, and he had been able to take over their trade as well as buy up all their property at very reasonable prices. Twenty years after the terrible plague, much of Dublin’s trade had recovered. Wars no longer provided shiploads of captives and coastal raids were a thing of the past, so Dublin’s old slave market had ceased to function. But Ireland had plenty of goods to export to Britain, France, and Spain.

The greatest export from the English realms, for many generations, had been wool. The trade was regulated through a limited number of ports, known as the Staple Ports, where customs duties were levied. Dublin was one of them. “We have never bred sheep with the finest fleeces, like the best of the English flocks,” Doyle would readily admit. “But there’s a market for coarse wool, too.” Huge quantities of hides from the island’s great cattle herds and furs from her forest animals went out from the Dublin quays. The fishing catch from the Irish Sea was enormous. Fish, fresh or salted, were constantly being carried across the seas. Timber also from Ireland’s endless forest tracts was supplied to England. The roof timbers of some of England’s greatest cathedrals, such as Salisbury, came from Irish oaks.

Doyle had a hand in all these shipments. But he found himself more interested in the import trade. The stout cogs with their single masts and deep bellies brought in all kinds of goods: iron from Spain, salt from France, pottery from Bristol, fine textiles from Flanders. Italian merchants would arrive with loads of oriental spices for the great summer fairs outside the western gate. But the trade that he liked the best was the shipping of wine from southwest France. Hogsheads of ruby red wine from Bordeaux: he loved the look, the texture, the scent of the great sixty-three gallon barrels as they were lowered off the ships; though the shipments were so huge that they were usually reckoned by the tun—two hundred and fifty-two gallons each. It was the wine trade that had made Doyle, with all his ships, such a rich man.

The Justiciar had summoned Doyle to the castle the day before, soon after Harold had been there. Indeed, the king’s representative had called for the merchant even before he had informed the city’s mayor. Like most of the larger cities in England, Dublin had a council of forty-eight who governed its roughly seven thousand inhabitants. The inner council, from which the mayor was chosen each year, consisted of only twenty-four of the city’s most powerful men, and Doyle was one of these. It was because he was so impressed with Doyle that the Justiciar had let him collect the valuable prise on the imports through Dalkey and he knew that the merchant was extremely well-informed. “Doyle has eyes and ears everywhere,” the Justiciar would say. “He is powerful, but he is also subtle. If he wishes something to happen, he will make it happen.” The Justiciar had given him a full and private account of the news that Robert Harold had just brought, and Doyle had listened attentively.

“So if this information is correct,” the Justiciar had summarised, “they will strike at Carrickmines in a few days’ time. The question is, what should we do?”

If Doyle had not been entirely surprised, he did not say so. He considered carefully.

“Even if the information turns out to be wrong,” Doyle had carefully replied, “I don’t see how you can ignore it. I think you need to call in Walsh, and Harold, and some of the other men you can trust, as soon as possible for a council of war.”

“Tomorrow, at noon,” the Justiciar had said, decisively. “I shall want you, too,” he had added, “of course.”

As he made his way up from the quay towards the meeting, Doyle noted the scene around him with pleasure. Of the several streets leading down to the new river wall, the finest, which ran west of and parallel to the old Fish Shambles, was Winetavern Street, where the greatest wine merchants, including Doyle himself, had their houses. And some of these were truly splendid.

For the most striking change in the last two centuries in Dublin lay not so much in the area covered as in its architecture. It was the same across most of Europe. Instead of thatched-and-wattle dwellings behind wooden fences, the streets of Dublin were lined with stout, timber-framed houses now, two or three storeys high, with pointed gables and upper floors that jutted out to overhang the street. Some of the roofs were thatched, but many were covered with slates or tiles. The windows were mostly protected with shutters, though those of rich men like Doyle had glass panes as well. As he walked up Winetavern Street with an air of satisfaction, wearing his rich red robe and soft blue hat, Doyle looked exactly what he was: a wealthy city father in a prosperous medieval town. At the top of the street he paused by a stall and bought a little mustard. He liked the sharp taste of mustard with his meat. Yet though he looked well contented, his long, saturnine face still seemed to bring a hint of something dark to this clear and sunny morning.

He went through a gateway in the old wall, and thence up into the precincts of Christ Church Cathedral. He did not go inside to say a prayer, but skirted the great church, coming out at the crossroads above the Fish Shambles where the pillory stood. A short distance away to his right the city’s great High Cross, twenty feet tall, rose in the middle of the street opposite the big, many gabled town hall, the Tholsel, where the city’s greatest men would gather for a guild meeting four times a year. Symbols of order; symbols of stability. Doyle stood for such things.

And was all this order threatened by the Carrickmines affair? He knew that Harold would believe it was. The Justiciar, too. Good men, both. And possibly right, in the long term. But as Doyle stood in the centre of the high-gabled medieval city he alone of them had further, secret information. Only he understood the true nature of the danger to Walsh and to Harold, to Tom Tidy and to MacGowan down at Dalkey, and even to himself. Whatever action was decided upon at the meeting today, there were hidden risks.

He was prepared to take them. Doyle liked taking risks. He turned left and continued towards the castle.

As Doyle was making his way up from the quay, John Walsh had already reached the city outskirts. The summons from the Justiciar had come the evening before but without any explanation. Neatly groomed and wearing his best tunic, Walsh had left Carrickmines early to be sure he was in good time. He passed the looming Gothic mass of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and soon afterwards entered the city through one of its southern gates.

The castle sat in the city’s south-eastern corner. Where the old royal hall had once been, there was now a large courtyard separated from the rest of the city by a high curtain wall and a ditch. The entrance, across a drawbridge, was through a big gateway with two round turrets. Inside stood the Great Hall, the mint where coins were issued, and the numerous offices and residences of the royal officials. There was also a small chapel, dedicated to the former English king and saint, Edward the Confessor.

On arrival, Walsh was taken to a large, richly furnished chamber where, standing before the great fireplace, he found half a dozen men he knew, including Doyle and Harold. The Justiciar opened the proceedings.

“Nothing that is said in this meeting must be repeated outside,” he cautioned them. “Otherwise we could lose the essential element of surprise.” He paused. “Today, gentlemen, we face a very serious threat.” He outlined the expected attack on Carrickmines. “We have one week to prepare. That is all.” He turned to Walsh. “Had you any hint of this?”

Walsh was about to say that he had not, but then he remembered the dark-haired little O’Byrne girl. He briefly described the way she had been lurking about near Carrickmines. “I didn’t think it was significant,” he confessed.

“It was,” Harold interrupted. The others looked at him. “I’d prefer not to tell you how I know, but this girl is the message carrier. That is certain.”

“Do we have any idea of the size of this supposed attack?” Walsh asked. “I’m not sure the O’Byrnes would be strong enough to take Carrickmines anyway.”

He heard a grunt of impatience from Harold.

“We must take this threat seriously, Walsh,” the Justiciar reproved him. “That is our responsibility. And yours,” he added with a stern look.

“I can bring ten fully armed and mounted men,” Harold volunteered. “No doubt Walsh can come up with as many.”

Two of the other gentlemen indicated that they could bring small contingents. The Justiciar told them that he was awaiting news of what forces the city could produce. “But the important thing,” he pointed out, “is to collect our forces without being seen. I don’t want word getting out to the O’Byrnes that we’re expecting them. That of course,” he added, “may limit how many men we can pull together.”

“What about the squadron down at Dalkey?” Walsh asked. “That’s a valuable force of fully trained men.”

But to his surprise, the Justiciar looked doubtful and Harold also pursed his lips.

“We can’t be sure,” Harold pointed out, “that O’Byrne won’t strike Dalkey as well. We must also consider,” he glanced at the Justiciar, “that if we move the squadron from Dalkey to Carrickmines before the attack, O’Byrne is sure to hear of it. We don’t want to warn him off.”

There was an awkward pause. Though Harold’s point seemed reasonable enough, Walsh had the feeling that there was something he was not being told about the squadron at Dalkey. He also noticed that so far Doyle had listened, but said nothing. Now, however, the saturnine merchant spoke.

“It always seemed unlikely to me,” he quietly observed, “that O’Byrne would strike at Dalkey. If he wants to plunder the land around Dublin, then he must take Carrickmines first, because he cannot afford to have the fort operating behind him. As for Dalkey, the only thing of value there is my own house where, as it happens, I have few goods stored at the moment. But I would gladly sacrifice my house and a ship’s cargo, in any case, for a more important cause.” He looked around them all grimly. “The Justiciar has said that we face a serious threat. I beg to differ. If this information is correct, then this is not so much a threat as a great opportunity. By attacking Carrickmines, O’Byrne would give us all the provocation that we need. Let him come. Let us be waiting for him. Let him fall into a terrible trap. Then we smash him.” He pounded his fist into his hand. “We destroy him entirely. Kill his men. And let all Ireland hear of it.”

Even Harold looked a little shaken. Walsh felt himself grow pale at the Dublin man’s dark cruelty. But Doyle had not yet done.

“Fill Carrickmines with men the night before. Bring them up in darkness. Concentrate our strength. The Dalkey squadron should be brought back to Dublin straight away. This very day. Nobody will think anything of that. They’ve only been kicking their heels down there anyway. Then hide them in Carrickmines with the rest.”

“If we put all the troops into Carrickmines, there’s a risk that O’Byrne may spot them,” Harold pointed out.

“Hide them wherever you like,” said Doyle with an impatient shrug. “Hide them in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral for all I care. But you must be ready to bring them up decisively when O’Byrne arrives. That is what matters.”

“I agree,” the Justiciar said. “This is a chance to break these people once and for all.”

And despite his loyalty to the English crown, Walsh could not help feeling sorry for the O’Byrnes and their people.

The following day the squadron left Dalkey. Tidy had made anxious enquiries as to where they were going, but the soldiers assured him that they had been told there was no further need for them to be there, and that they were to return to Dublin. Since there had been no sign of the O’Byrnes since their arrival, these orders did not seem to surprise them. A much relieved Tom Tidy and Michael MacGowan watched them go.

Tom had not told MacGowan about his meeting with Harold; nor had MacGowan ever asked him whether he had passed on the secret. Tom imagined that he must be curious, however. While the troops were leaving, neither man said anything; but after they had gone and the two of them were walking up the street together, MacGowan asked, “Do you think they’ll be going to Carrickmines?”

“They say they’re going to Dublin.”

MacGowan didn’t ask anything else.

The next day was quiet. In the morning, Tom walked up to the high headland above the village and gazed out. The great bay of Dublin was a serene blue. Eastwards the sky melted into the sea. Looking down the coastline to the south, where beyond a green carpet of coastal plain the gentle cones of the hills rose in hazy tranquillity, it was hard to believe that, somewhere behind those hills, the O’Byrnes were preparing a terrible attack on Walsh’s castle.

That afternoon, a small ship came into the anchorage behind the island. It was a bright little vessel, broad in the beam; just below the top of its single mast, there was a wooden basket in which a lookout could stand. Many of the cogs had these crow’s nests. Above the crow’s nest a red-and-blue pennant fluttered jauntily in the breeze. The Dalkey men went out in their boats and unloaded five barrels of nails, five of salt, and ten hogsheads of wine. Thus lightened, the vessel continued on its way, while the goods were taken to Doyle’s fortified house where MacGowan carefully made up the tallies. That evening he asked Tom if he would cart the salt into Dublin the next morning.

When Tom came to load up at dawn, MacGowan announced that he would accompany him. “I’ve got to give the tallies to Doyle,” he explained, “and then I’m going to see my betrothed.” The morning was fine; the journey passed without incident, and the stalls were opening when they reached the High Cross and started down towards Winetavern Street.

Tom spent the day rather pleasantly in Dublin. The weather was fine. He visited the Palmer’s old hospital of Saint John; he walked across the bridge to Oxmantown; later on, he went out of the eastern gate, wandered over to Saint Stephen’s, and followed the little stream that led down to the old Viking Long Stone that still stood by the estuary beyond the Thingmount. By late afternoon, when he picked MacGowan up to take him home, Tom was feeling rather cheerful.

MacGowan seemed contented, too, though perhaps a little thoughtful as the cart rolled out past Saint Patrick’s.

The area around Saint Patrick’s had a particular character. Several religious houses had manors there whose privileges made them almost independent of the royal courts and administrators. Such independent feudal holdings were known as “Liberties” and the Dubliners had come to refer to the area by that name. It was just after they had passed the Liberties and taken the track eastwards towards the sea that MacGowan turned to Tom and remarked, “Someone was asking questions about you.”

“Oh, who was that? Someone in Dublin?”

“No.” MacGowan hesitated. “In Dalkey.” He paused again before continuing. “A fisherman. Never mind who. It doesn’t matter anyway. He came up to me yesterday and he asked me, ‘I saw Tom Tidy coming out of the church the other evening. Any idea why he went in there so late?’ I told him I didn’t know. Reckoned you’d been delayed. Then he said to me, ‘He didn’t say anything to you about it then? Nothing unusual?’ So I just looked at him a bit puzzled and I said, ‘Nothing at all. What would he have to say?’ And he nodded and told me, ‘Forget it. You’re all right.’ ” MacGowan stared ahead, not wanting to look at Tom, it seemed. “I wasn’t sure whether to tell you, yesterday. But this can only mean one thing, Tom. They’re wondering if you heard anything. I don’t know if you told anyone what you told me, but if anything goes wrong at Carrickmines, it’s you they’ll be coming after. I thought I ought to let you know.”

For a little while the cart rolled on in silence. Tom said nothing. MacGowan supposed that, when he had finished digesting this information, Tom would say something. But he didn’t. The cart took the lane that led southwards through a village called Donnybrook.

“Tom,” MacGowan said at last, “you’d better go back into Dublin for a time. You can stay at my brother’s house. He’ll be glad to have you. I told him today you might be needing to stay with him awhile—though of course I didn’t tell him why. He lives inside the wall. No one will trouble you there. I’ll watch your house in Dalkey for you. Maybe in a month you can come back. I’ll try to find out. But don’t run the risk of staying, Tom. There’s no need.”

Tom didn’t reply. Soon afterwards they went down the long track that led to the big strand of the bay, but even then, as they passed round the friendly headland at the bay’s southern end and came in sight of Dalkey island, still Tom Tidy spoke not a word.

If Doyle put a silver penny between two of his fingers, he could make it move across his knuckles from one finger to another with easy rapidity. This act of prestidigitation amused and relaxed him and he often did it when he was thinking. He was doing it now, as he sat in his countinghouse and thought about the situation in Dalkey.

Doyle’s house on Winetavern Street consisted of three floors above a cellar. The main hall and kitchen were at ground level. On the floor above, which jutted out to overhang the street, there were three chambers, one of which served Doyle as his countinghouse. It had a window with glass panes looking down onto Winetavern Street, and beside the window an oak table on which were several stacks of silver pennies. Also on the table lay a scattering of pennies cut in two, or into four, to be used as halfpennies and farthings for smaller transactions.

If the penny had now made its progress back and forth across Doyle’s knuckles a dozen times, it was because the question occupying his mind was by no means easy.

The arrangements for defending Carrickmines and dealing with the O’Byrnes had been carefully planned. Everything was working out very well. Their preparations had been so thorough that he did not think he could have improved on them had he made all the arrangements himself. There were only two days to wait.

There was just one problem: Tom Tidy. He knew that many people considered him a harsh man, but his secret discussion with MacGowan had left him in no doubt: Tidy must not remain in Dalkey. He had already served his purpose and done so very well; but if Tidy remained in Dalkey now, it seemed to Doyle inevitable that the carrier would be killed; he couldn’t see any way round it. While Doyle was ready to run big risks himself—and to be ruthless when necessary—he had no wish to see Tom Tidy sacrificed. With luck, after MacGowan had given him the chilling piece of information, Tidy would return to Dublin of his own accord. Doyle certainly hoped so.

Two more nights. When Tom Tidy had parted from Michael MacGowan he had managed, at least outwardly, to appear unruffled. He had still made no mention of the danger he might be in, and bade MacGowan good night, he was pleased to note, in the calmest way imaginable. Then, just as deliberately, he saw to the horses, exactly as usual. After that, he went into his house, cut two large slices from yesterday’s loaf of bread, two generous pieces of cheese, and poured himself a tankard of ale. All as usual. Then he sat down, very quietly, and began to consume them, staring straight ahead as he did so. Afterwards, although there were still some hours of summer daylight left, he decided to go to bed.

But he could not sleep. Try as he might, his tired brain would not give itself up to unconsciousness.

What was he to do? Was MacGowan right? Should he return to Dublin? The question in its various forms kept reasserting itself, a voice in his head that would not be stilled. After a while he got up and went out into the yard.

The sun was sinking behind the hill. Usually this was a time when the rock-strewn common between the village and the shore would be illumined by great gold-and-orange streaks and the fleeces on the scattered sheep would glisten warmly; but this evening a crowd of clouds had forgathered along the western horizon, blocking out the sunset. Past Tom Tidy’s yard, under the harshly fading light, the fields which were nearly ready for harvest seemed to have turned a sullen bronze; and beyond, the common now looked strangely desolate. The air was warm. Tom remained there, silently watching as the common imperceptibly changed from deepening green into grey.

The dusk was setting in when he noticed the first moving shadow. He realised what it was, of course. He had been staring at a small rock for so long that it had seemed to move. A trick of the imagination. Nothing more. Sure enough, before long, other rocks were seeming to move about in the twilight. He continued to gaze. Were they rocks, though? Or sheep? Or other shapes? Could there be ghosts, or even people, moving out there? Were they watching him? Waiting to come to the house? Would there be a battering at the door in the middle of the night, a forced entry? And then? He found that his heart was beating fast. He took a deep breath and told himself not to be foolish.

Still he remained there as the darkness grew deeper. Above him and eastwards, over the sea, the glimmering night sky was clear.

Soon, the last sliver of the waning moon would hang like a silver sigh amongst the stars. One more night and then … Blackness. The night of the attack. The night of whatever terrible trap it was that Harold and the Justiciar had prepared. Doyle, too, no doubt. Darkness, now, was everywhere. The shadows on the common had all gone. There could be a hundred men out there, coming towards him, and he would not see them.

He knew he must sleep. Yet still he could not. A wave of fatigue would oppress his brain; but then his fear, like a pale dagger, would strike through the darkness at his heart. Dalkey was usually such a pleasant place. The high headland behind him with its views over the bay was like a friendly companion. But not anymore. The dark shape of the hill seemed like a huge, threatening mound from which, at any moment, the ghostly forces of vengeance might issue forth. The O’Byrnes were not far away. All around him in Dalkey, there were probably fishermen who were in league with them. Which of his neighbours could he trust? He had no idea. Their faces came before him one by one, in his mind, familiar faces suddenly transformed into masks of rage and hatred, until at last even his dear friend MacGowan seemed to be among them, gazing at him in his curious way, with one eye closed and the open eye growing larger and larger, terrible, cold, and malevolent.

Why was he staying here? Why wait? Let them burn his house and his carts if they wished, reduce him to poverty. Why should he await his own destruction?

In the end, however, fatigue overcame even his fear, and Tom Tidy wearily went back inside and got into bed. But before he did so, he did something which he had never done before: he barred the door.

The next morning Tom went straight to MacGowan and told him he was leaving for Dublin.

“You’ve no need to worry at all,” MacGowan told him. “I’ll be round at your house every day. I’ll keep an eye on the place.” He’d bring Tom’s remaining horses to his own house, he promised. “You’re doing the right thing, Tom,” he assured him. Tom could see that his friend was quite relieved. Back at his house, he harnessed his two best horses to the big cart and took one more horse on a lead rein behind. Then he set out to Dublin.

He couldn’t help feeling a welcome sense of relief as he came down the long, straight line of Saint Francis’s Street, where the high-gabled houses pressed close together and came out onto the open crossroads where he turned right to enter the city. A hundred yards behind him stood Ailred the Palmer’s old hospital; on his right, the green where the big summer fairs were held; and in front of him, the great western gate—more splendid than ever since it had been rebuilt with its two bulky towers and a little gaol. Through the western gate he went, therefore, with a shade more confidence than he had felt before, and was soon at MacGowan’s brother’s house.

“How long will you be staying?” MacGowan’s brother asked. “Michael told me you might be coming,” he added, without further comment. No doubt he was glad to see his brother’s friend, if not overjoyed.

“Perhaps a week or two,” Tom said, suddenly feeling that he was imposing on the other’s good nature too much.

The craftsman’s house was quite spacious, with a big backyard. His wife and children looked a little surprised to see Tom, but made him welcome and insisted that he sleep in the house beside the kitchen rather than in the loft over the stable as he had offered. A good Irishman would have known how to sink comfortably down on a bench and pass the time of day for a few hours without worrying himself; but although he had lived in Ireland all his life, Tom Tidy’s English nature would not allow him to rest so easy. True, he did sit for an hour, and it was all as friendly as could be; but somehow after that, he felt he was in the way, and making an excuse he went out for a walk.

The house was only a short step from the fine old church of Saint Audoen, which lay just within the former riverside wall. Below the wall, the ground descended a short, steep slope, past some cookhouses and bakeries, to the level area of the land reclaimed from the river. There were views of the Liffey from the old wall by the church, and with the pleasant smell of the bakeries below it should have been considered a pleasant place. But to Tom Tidy in his present mood, its grey stones were gloomy, and even the tall shape of Saint Audoen’s seemed oppressive. After walking about there for a while, he felt no more at ease and, not wishing to return to the house yet, he wandered off in the direction of the crown of the city’s ridge and the precincts of Christ Church.

Perhaps it was sunnier up there than on the lower part of the ridge, but as he entered the precincts, Tom felt better. The thickset mass of Christ Church seemed solid and comforting. He went inside.

There was no doubt that Christ Church was the Christian heart of Dublin. Saint Patrick’s, with its soaring Gothic vaults, was high and magnificent and seemed to have every intention of staring down old Christ Church or any other church that dared to raise its head. For a long time, indeed, the canons of Saint Patrick’s and the monks of Christ Church had been frequently at loggerheads with each other. But that rivalry had finally worn itself out, and the two cathedrals were friendly enough now.

But it was in the quietness of Christ Church that one felt the presence of the ancient Celtic tradition of Patrick and Colum Cille. Its pillars and arches seemed to Tom to be as protective as a castle. The stained-glass windows, like pages from an antique Gospel book, gleamed softly with a mysterious light. From time to time, a monk would pass in the shadows.

Tom wandered there contentedly. He looked at the piece of the True Cross and the other holy relics. He walked amongst the tombs. The most impressive of these was the big raised slab and carved effigy of Strongbow. It was typical of the Plantagenets to have ensured that their vassal should have been given his final resting place and monument in one of the island’s holiest places. Strongbow’s tomb was the emblem of their rule over Ireland. But the greatest treasure of Christ Church, more venerated even than the True Cross, was the Staff of Saint Patrick himself.

It was nearly two centuries now since the monks of Christ Church, during the rule of Archbishop O’Toole, had secured this great treasure from its former sanctuary up in Ulster. It had been a triumph for their own prestige, of course. But the presence of the Staff in Dublin had a subtler significance also.

For if the English had failed to impose order on the whole of Ireland, the Church itself reflected a similar split. As far as the Pope was concerned, the King of England was the patron of the Irish Church and the Irish bishops owed him the allegiance proper to a feudal monarch. If the English king had increasingly insisted on having Englishmen as bishops in his Irish realm, the Pope might sometimes demur, but he mostly went along with it. In practice however, this English domination was only really effective in the areas under royal control. Most of the priests up in the north and west were Irish, preaching to Irish-speaking populations. Indeed, so great was the split that the English archbishop of Saint Patrick’s own Ulster see of Armagh did not even reside in Armagh, where he was not very welcome, but in an English-speaking area to the south. It was ironic in a way, therefore, that the great Staff of the Irish patron saint should be in the heart of English-administered Dublin.

The Staff was magnificent. The great golden case which enclosed it was encrusted with gems. Tom knew that the saint had received it from the hand of Christ himself, and that it was often referred to as the Staff of Jesus, the Bachall Iosa. He gazed at it with awe.

“The staff of a hero.” He had not noticed the priest come up beside him. He was a fair young man with an open, rather simple-minded face and he had addressed Tom in a local English dialect that suggested he had only recently arrived in Ireland.

“Indeed,” said Tom politely.

“Nothing could frighten him,” the young priest said. “Not the High King. Not the druids. He was fearless.”

In the centuries since the beginnings of the Irish Church, the legends about its leaders had continued to grow. Like everyone else, Tom knew and believed in them all. He knew how Saint Patrick had confronted the High King and challenged his druids, in the manner of an Old Testament prophet, to see whose god could make an unquenchable fire; he knew how Saint Patrick had performed many miracles and even banished the snakes—a legend that would have come as a great surprise to the saint himself.

“Yes,” he agreed, “he was fearless.”

“Because he trusted in God,” said the young priest, and Tom bowed his head in acknowledgement. The priest, however, had not finished his reflections. He gave Tom an engaging smile. “It is a fine thing for you and me that the tomb of Strongbow and the Staff of Saint Patrick should be there in this cathedral,” he remarked.

“Indeed,” said Tom again. And then, a little curiously, “Why is that?”

“They were both English,” said the young man triumphantly. “That’s us,” he added. “Stout of heart,” and having declared this great truth, he gave Tom Tidy a friendly nod and went upon his way.

Tom Tidy was aware of enough history to see the funny side of this. British Saint Patrick was, no doubt; but could one really call him English? As for Strongbow, did he think of the great Anglo-Norman lord as an Englishman like himself or like this simple priest? He scarcely knew. But there was one thing the young man had said that was not so funny. “Stout of heart.” Strongbow and Saint Patrick, in their different ways, were certainly that. He gazed at the gleaming Bachall Iosa. Was he stout of heart? Not on his present performance, running in a panic from Dalkey to Dublin, forcing himself as a guest upon a family he hardly knew, and all on account of a threat that might not even be real. He shook his head sadly. He could not take much pride in himself today. Indeed, he began to think his behaviour was rather contemptible.

Half an hour later the Dublin MacGowans were surprised when Tom Tidy returned and informed them that he would not be staying after all. By late afternoon his wagon was trundling back past Harold’s Cross. And there were still some hours of daylight left when, to his horror, Michael MacGowan saw Tom Tidy coming up the street and, running out towards him, received from his happy face the news.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m staying here.”

“You can’t,” MacGowan blurted out. But Tom had already driven past.

That evening, as the dusk was falling, Michael MacGowan did all he could to persuade his friend to leave again. “What is the necessity,” he demanded, “of putting yourself in danger for no reason at all?” But he got nowhere. Tom was adamant. As a result, MacGowan spent a sleepless night. Before dawn, he went to his yard, mounted his horse, and rode out of Dalkey. As he rode through the grey predawn, the words of a secret conversation he had recently had were echoing, coldly, in his ear.

“He must leave, MacGowan. Or else …”

“I realise that,” he had replied, “but I’m not going to kill him, you know.”

“You will not be asked to do it, though the O’Byrnes might,” the voice of the other had calmly replied. “Make him leave.”

They came into Carrickmines during the night. It was cleverly done. They did not come in groups, but singly, leading their horses through the darkness with sacking on their hoofs, so that they should neither be seen nor heard. Nor were they, for even the stars were hidden behind a blanket of cloud. In this manner, at dead of night, the Dalkey squadron, Harold’s men, and all the rest—a total of sixty horsemen and as many foot soldiers—passed through the gates of Carrickmines and vanished inside like so many ghostly warriors into a magic hill.

When dawn arose, Carrickmines looked exactly the same as before. The gate was shut, but that was not unusual. Corralled inside, the horses sometimes made a little noise, but the thick stone walls trapped these sounds within. In the middle of the morning, Walsh appeared on the walls with his falcon. He loosed it into the sky where it flew for some time before returning. That was the only movement seen that morning at the castle of Carrickmines.

It was in the afternoon, when he had gone up onto the wall alone, that Walsh thought he saw the girl concealed amongst some rocks a little way to the south. Unless she had been there the night before, he was sure she could not have any idea that Carrickmines was full of soldiers. After a short while he went down again. To make everything seem normal, he opened the gates and let a cart, driven by one of his men, leave the castle and creak across to a neighbouring farm, returning later with some provisions. In the meantime, the gate was left casually half open, and two of his children went out to play. They practised hurling until the cart came back, jumping on it as it went in through the gate, which was still left ajar for some time after it was inside. He knew that the dark-haired girl must have observed all this, because when he went up onto the wall as the children came in, he had seen her watching carefully from another vantage point some way farther up the slope.

In the early evening, however, when he went up again, he could not see her and concluded that she had gone.

“I am sure,” he said to Harold when he had descended, “that they will attack tonight.”

There was something strange about Dalkey today. Tom felt it from the first moment when he went out into the street. Was it just his imagination? A case of nerves? He considered that, of course. But he didn’t think so. Yet it had been a perfect Dalkey morning. The dawn mist had given way to a light, salty haze. As the sky cleared to a soft blue, little clouds came floating in, white as the spume from the sea. Tom had even felt a sense of cheerfulness as he came out of his house and began to walk down the street. Seeing one of his neighbours, he had wished him good morning, just as he would on any other day. But though the man had answered something, it had seemed to Tom that there was an awkwardness in his manner. A few moments later, he had seen one of the fishermen mending nets in front of his cottage give him a strange look; and as he went farther, he had the distinct impression that he was being watched from both sides of the street. It was an eerie sensation, as if he had suddenly become an unwelcome guest in his own village.

Then he had gone into MacGowan’s house and found that his friend had disappeared. He had looked around Dalkey and asked several people, but no one seemed to have any idea where MacGowan had gone. It was very strange. After a while Tom had returned to his home and stayed there for the rest of the morning. At noon, he went round to MacGowan’s again, but there was still no sign of him. On his way back this time, he met a couple of men and a woman in the street. Though they acknowledged his greeting, he noticed the same awkwardness. One of the men tried to avert his eyes, and the woman said, “I thought you were in Dublin,” in a tone of voice that suggested she thought that Dublin was where he belonged. By the time he reached his house again, he was in a sombre mood.

There were only hours to go: a warm afternoon, a long summer evening, the slowly gathering dusk, and then, at last, blackness. And in the middle of that blackness, the terrible trap at Carrickmines. The thought of it oppressed him. He wished he could put it out of his mind. More than once, as he sat in his house alone, Tom wondered whether he had been wrong. MacGowan had vanished; was it because he was afraid? His neighbours seemed to be no longer his friends; did they know something he did not? Should he go back to Dublin, after all? But two things prevented him. The first was shame. If he turned up at MacGowan’s brother’s house again now, wouldn’t he look like an idiot? The second might have been bravery, or it might have been obstinacy. But hadn’t he taken a decision to stay here in Dalkey and face the danger, he reminded himself? He wasn’t going to back down now.

The afternoon passed slowly. He tried to keep himself occupied. He washed down the horses and found chores to do indoors. Nobody came by. He paced about restlessly in the yard. By mid-afternoon he felt like going to the little church, but he forced himself to wait. He’d go at the usual time, not before. He went into the barn and cleaned out all the carts, not because it needed doing but to fill some more time, until, at last, he felt the hour approaching. And he was standing in the yard, gauging the light and just about to leave, when glancing out towards the common, he caught sight of something by one of the rocks. It was hard to tell what it was. A dark sheep, perhaps—many of the Dalkey sheep had dark fleeces. A trick of the light?

Or something else. A girl’s black hair?

The dark-haired girl. Why should she have come into his mind? It was absurd. His imagination was playing games with him, and he knew it. He shook his head impatiently.

She would have a good view of his yard from out there. She’d have seen all his movements. Was there someone watching the other side of his house? Anybody in Dalkey could be doing that. He stared at the dark patch beside the rock, seeing if he could discern a face. He could not—and the reason he couldn’t, he told himself firmly, was that there was no face there to be seen. He took a deep breath and turned away, refusing to let himself look at the spot anymore. He began to walk out of the yard. It was time to go to church. As he passed into the empty street, he looked back, and saw the dark-haired girl spring up and run swiftly from her hiding place towards the far end of the village.

The church was quiet. The shafts of afternoon sunshine falling from its small windows bathed the interior in a warm and gentle light. Nobody else was there. He went to his usual place behind the screen and, trembling, knelt down to pray. He said a paternoster, and several Ave Marias. Then another paternoster. The words seemed to coil themselves around him, soothing, healing. He accepted their protective power, gratefully.

He had been in quiet prayer for some time when he heard the church door opening.

There were two of them. One had a soft footfall; the other sounded heavier, as if he was wearing stout boots. There was no reason why two people shouldn’t have entered the church, of course. But his mind raced back to the previous week. He couldn’t help it. Was it the girl again? And her unknown companion? He felt himself go cold.

“You are sure he is here?” A deep voice. A voice he didn’t know.

“I am sure.” It was said softly, yet the voice sounded familiar. He froze.

“Where is he, then?”

If there was an answer, it was inaudible. But it made no difference. The footsteps were coming straight in his direction.

They were coming for him. There was nothing to be done. What a fool he’d been, when he could have stayed in Dublin. But now it was too late. He hadn’t even a weapon with which to defend himself. They were going to kill him: he knew it for a certainty. Would they kill him there, in the church? No. This was Ireland. They wouldn’t do that. They’d be taking him to a quiet place somewhere. Then he’d disappear. Perhaps he’d soon be out there, buried under Dalkey common. He hesitated whether to stay on his knees in prayer or get up and face them like a man; the footsteps were coming very close. They stopped. He turned and looked up.

It was MacGowan. And a tall, saturnine man, whom he recognised as Doyle. He frowned. His friend? And the Dublin merchant? Surely they could not be in league with O’Byrne? His mind reeled at the thought of such a betrayal. Then Doyle spoke.

“You must leave, Tidy. You must come with us now.” And as Tom stared uncomprehending, the merchant’s dark face broke into a kindly smile. “MacGowan has told me everything. You’re a brave man, Thomas Tidy. But we can’t let you stay here.” He reached out his long arm and took Tom gently but firmly by the elbow. “It’s time to go.”

Tom got up slowly. He frowned. “You mean …?” he began.

“I mean that I’m taking you to Dublin,” Doyle said quietly. “You’ll be staying in my house for a little while, until this business is over.”

“You think they know? They might suspect,” Tom pointed out, “but they may not know.”

“I’m sure they know.” It was said with finality.

Tom considered.

“Harold must have talked,” he said sadly. “There’s no one else.” He sighed. “Though even so,” he added, “I don’t know how it would have got to the O’Byrnes.”

He saw Doyle and MacGowan exchange glances. He couldn’t guess what they might know, but he realised that Doyle had informants everywhere.

“There are no secrets in Ireland, Tidy,” the merchant said.

They led him out, and he didn’t argue anymore. Doyle had a cart waiting with a servant holding the reins. “MacGowan will see to your house,” the merchant said, as he manoeuvred Tom into the cart.

A dozen people had gathered outside to watch. Tom glanced at them. But though they were watching him, it was really Doyle they were looking at. As the merchant got into the cart after him, he stared round them all with a stern, dark scowl, and they bowed their heads. Tom couldn’t help admiring the man: his power was palpable. As the cart rolled out of Dalkey and took the lane towards Dublin, he had to admit that he felt a secret sense of relief.

It was nearly midnight. Far above, high clouds obscured the stars; the black shadow of the moon hung, unseen, in another world.

To Harold, standing beside Walsh on the castle wall, the surrounding blackness was so silent, so intimate, that it seemed as if Carrickmines were enclosed within a huge oyster shell. In the castle yard below, the sixty horses were crowded together; their soft grunts and snorts, and the occasional scraping of hoofs pawing the ground, were the only sound within the walls.

Harold peered out towards the rock-strewn plain. Though his eyes were well accustomed to the dark, and he could sometimes make out vague shapes in the distance, he could not detect any sign of movement. He strained his ears, but heard nothing. It seemed almost unnatural, this smothered, black silence. He waited tensely.

Yet despite the tension, he could not help it if his mind strayed once or twice. He found himself thinking of his family. It was for them he was doing this, after all. Even if I am killed tonight, he thought, the sacrifice will have been necessary. It was worth it. He remembered the meetings with the Justiciar, and with Tom Tidy. The fellow from Dalkey had been brave enough, in his way. Harold was glad that the Justiciar had not made him disclose the source of his information, so that he’d been able to protect the Dalkey man. He’d been very discreet. He hadn’t even mentioned Tidy to his wife. So unless Tidy had told his secret to someone else, he should be safe.

He felt a nudge at his elbow.

“Listen.” Walsh’s voice, very low, beside him.

Horses. Somewhere out there in front of the gate. Harold heard them now: a faint sound of hoofs, a snort. How many? Impossible to know. Not less than a dozen, he thought; but it could be a hundred. This was it, then. O’Byrne had come. “Get the men mounted,” Walsh whispered. “I’ll keep watch.” Harold turned and hurried down from the wall. As he did so, he thought he heard the sound of footfalls coming towards the gate. Were they bringing ladders to scale the walls? A moment later he was running round the castle yard, hissing the order to mount, while one of his men called out softly, “Torches.”

They were well prepared. Nobody spoke. Even the horses seemed to know that they must be silent. The men on the gate had their orders. The foot soldiers had been waiting in Walsh’s hall. Each carried two torches which they would now be lighting at the big brazier in there. On the order, they would rush out, handing a torch to each rider; then they would either race up to defend the walls or stream out of the gate after the cavalry. Walsh would make that call.

Harold waited as the moments passed. He was at the head of the mounted men, and he’d be the first man out of the gate. He felt his horse quiver, and patted its neck softly. He was still trying to hear what was happening outside, but the castle walls did not let through much sound. He looked up to where Walsh had been standing. He thought he could make out his shadowy form up there, but he wasn’t sure.

Bang! The sudden crash at the gate took everyone by surprise. Harold’s horse reared and he almost came off.

“Battering ram.” Walsh’s voice, quiet but distinct, from the wall. “Get ready.”

“Bring torches,” Harold called quietly. A moment later the lights appeared on his right and came streaming towards the riders.

A second crash. The gate shuddered, and there was a sound of splintering wood.

“One more,” called Walsh, and Harold signalled to the men on the gate. All the riders had torches now, including himself. “Walls are clear,” called Walsh. There was a brief pause.

And then came a third, shuddering crash at the gate.

“Now!” cried Harold.

The attackers outside did not have a proper battering ram, which would have been suspended on rope slings. All they had was a large, thick pole with which they had been taking cumbersome runs at the gate. And they had just started back to make a fourth run when, instead of remaining barricaded, the gates suddenly opened and a stream of cavalry with blazing torches came charging out and bore down upon them. It was a terrifying sight. Dropping the battering ram, they scattered into the darkness.

Harold rode forward. The torches were everywhere, swooping in the air, darting hither and thither on the ground. The attackers were like fleeting shadows in the flashing and flickering light. Swords were slashing; there was the sound of metal meeting metal. Somewhere ahead he heard a voice cry out, “We are destroyed.”

They’d caught them by surprise all right; but the business wasn’t going to be so easy. The terrain was uneven. His horse had already nearly stumbled. The torch he carried gave light, but it also used his free hand. After a few moments, Harold pulled up and looked around. He heard Walsh’s voice approaching from behind. He could see the running forms of the men on foot, but where were the horsemen? While the torch illuminated everything that was close, it was hard to see far beyond its bright light. A little way ahead, though, he thought he could make out the vague shapes of mounted men. With a single, sweeping motion of his arm, he hurled the torch into the air, in a high arc towards the shapes ahead.

The first flicker had come just before midnight. A tiny pinpoint, a glimmer across the water. A candle in a glass-fronted box—modest but effective. The light came from the tip of Dalkey island. Almost at once, an answering light came from the first of the three ships. Another light shone out now, from the boat anchored just past the last of the rocks. They were useful, these glass-fronted lamps. Nobody in Dalkey possessed such a thing; they’d been supplied from Dublin. Two more lights appeared now, from the other ships. So deep was the night that, had it not been for these little intimations across the water, their silent shapes would scarcely have been seen in the blackness. There was just enough breeze to bring the ships into the anchorage under sail. As they came in, the boats from the shore came swiftly to their sides. Ropes were thrown; more lamps appeared. Voices called out softly. On the shore, carts were waiting. The whole town of Dalkey was up and busy that night; for the hours of darkness were brief and there was much work to be done.

Walsh rode beside Harold. The riders all kept close together. Their torches had gone out, but the sky overhead had cleared and the stars gave enough light to see the track.

In the first dash out of Carrickmines, O’Byrne had managed to pull away from them; but he had not been able to increase his lead. As they followed the track up towards the Wicklow Mountains, he was occasionally out of sight, but never for long. Sometimes Walsh would hear the sound of the hoofbeats ahead, sometimes not. At first he had supposed that the Irish riders would scatter in order to lose them; but they had kept to the track instead, and it soon became clear that they intended to use the bridges over the two rivers they had to cross before they could reach the wild high ground beyond.

And that was what had happened. Nearly an hour had passed since they had clattered over the second bridge, and here they were riding amongst the hilltops, under the gleaming stars, on the great plateau that stretched all the way to Glendalough. The stars were making a faint sheen on the dark heath as the two parties of ghostly horsemen passed across it. For the most part they rode in silence, but after they had been riding across the plateau for some time Walsh remarked, “There are woods farther on. They’ll probably scatter and try to lose us there.”

“We’ll run them down first,” Harold replied.

Walsh was not so sure. There was an implacable force in Harold that he could not help admiring; but that didn’t mean that he was going to catch the clever Irishman. He had already noticed that whenever they increased their pace, O’Byrne did the same, and when they had to walk to rest their horses, the Irishman did likewise. If O’Byrne let them keep in sight, he never let them get close. He might have been caught by surprise down at Carrickmines, but ever since, he had been coolly calculating. Indeed, Walsh thought uneasily, it was almost as if O’Byrne was playing a game with them.

This uncomfortable idea had been with him for some time, and he had considered carefully, before he spoke again.

“I think he’s leading us a dance,” he finally remarked.

“What do you mean?”

“O’Byrne. He wants us to follow him.”

Harold received this news in silence. They rode on for another quarter mile.

“We’ll hunt him down,” he growled.

They continued their progress as before. O’Byrne kept his distance; they never got any closer. Ahead, the dark shape of the wood came into sight and slowly grew more definite. They drew closer. The men ahead entered the wood and were instantly swallowed up. They were nearly at the wood themselves now. Another moment and they’d be in. Walsh was still beside Harold, and Harold was pressing forward strongly.

“Stop!” Walsh called out. He couldn’t help it. An overwhelming instinct, a certainty born of years living on the frontier made him do it. He pulled up his horse. “It’s a trap,” he cried.

The other riders brushed past him. He heard Harold curse. But they did not pause. A moment later they were swallowed up in the darkness ahead, pressing on regardless.

It was a trap. He knew it in his bones. In this deserted wood up on the high ground, miles from any kind of help, they made a perfect target for an ambush. O’Byrne undoubtedly knew every yard of this woodland; he could probably ride through it with his eyes shut. It would be easy for him to double round in the blackness and slaughter them all. They were doing exactly what he wanted. Walsh listened. At any moment he expected to hear the cries of anguish ahead as his friends were ambushed. He heard nothing; but it was only a matter of time.

He sighed. So what was he doing, waiting out here? Was he going to turn back? Leave the others to their fate? Of course not. He couldn’t do that. However foolish, and whatever the consequences, he had to go in after them. He drew his sword, and walked his horse forward, into the darkness of the wood.

The track was like a tunnel. The branches overhead closed out the stars. The trees on each side were tall presences, felt rather than seen in the blackness. He strained to hear the sound of hoofbeats ahead or of any movement in the surrounding woods, but there was nothing. Only silence. The track made a turn. Still nothing. His horse almost stumbled, but he caught him. He wondered how far ahead the others could be and whether to call out.

The movement from his right was so sudden that he hadn’t even time to think; a crash from the undergrowth as a horse and rider sprang forward onto the track and almost collided with him. Automatically, he slashed with his sword towards where the rider seemed to be, but his blade met nothing. He wheeled to strike again. But how do you fight in the pitch dark, when you might as well be blind? You fight by instinct, he realised, because there is nothing else to do. He raised his sword and struck again. This time the blow was met. There was a ringing bang of metal on metal, and a wrenching shock down his arm. He winced; there was a red-hot pain in his wrist. The sword in his hand felt suddenly heavy, but he started to swing it up to strike again.

A crash. The blow smashed into the base of the blade so hard that it drove the sword clean out of his hand. He gave a gasp of pain. His wrist was bent over at a crazy angle and he did not seem to be able to move it. He heard his sword strike the ground. He had just time to wonder where his assailant was and if he could somehow see in the dark when, to his horror, he felt a hand seize his foot and heave it up, toppling him from his saddle and sending him down to fall with a heavy thud on the ground. Half winded, his wrist now sending hot daggers of pain up his arm, he groped with his free hand for his sword, which had to be lying near, but couldn’t find it. Then a voice spoke, above him.

“You’re beaten, John Walsh.” The words were spoken in Irish.

He tried to look up, and answered in kind. “You know my name. But who are you?”

“Not a name that will do you any good.”

Walsh didn’t need any further telling. It was O’Byrne himself. He couldn’t see his face, but he knew it all the same. His left hand was still trying to locate his sword.

“You’re done for, John Walsh.”

It was true enough. Walsh took a deep breath.

“If you’re going to kill me,” he said, “you’d better get on with it.”

He awaited the blow, but none came. Instead he thought he heard a quiet chuckle.

“I’ll be taking your horse. It’s a fine horse you have. You can walk home.” Walsh heard his horse move as O’Byrne took the bridle. “What’s his name?”

“Finbarr.”

“A good Irish name. Are you hurt?”

“I think I broke my wrist.”

“Ah.” O’Byrne was already starting to move away. Walsh got up painfully. He’d have some bruises in the morning. He could make out the shadows of the two horses moving down the track. He stared after them. Then he called out.

“What’s the game?”

But the only reply he thought he could discern was a soft laugh.

Dawn would soon be breaking over the sea. The sky was still dark, but a faint hint of lightness was just perceptible along the eastern horizon, and soon Dalkey island would turn from a shadow into a shape.

Michael MacGowan gazed across the water. The last of the three ships was already well out to sea. The business had been accomplished.

The organisation had been brilliant—there was no question about the fact and he was proud of it. The whole town of Dalkey had been busily employed that night in what was probably the biggest single unloading of cargo that the little harbour had ever seen. Hogsheads of wine, bales of fine cloth, barrels of spices. And not a single load dropped in the water. A miracle, really.

Everything had been stored away by dawn. Some of the goods were in Doyle’s fortified house; but there were other, secret hiding places that MacGowan had prepared. Every cart and barrow in the town had been brought into service. Tom Tidy’s transport had come in useful there; indeed, his unexpected return from Dublin the day before had meant that there was another large wagon available that MacGowan had not originally been counting on. All in all, things could hardly have gone better. But it had been a nerve-racking business dealing with Tidy, all the same. His presence there could have spoiled everything. For needless to say, though he had been living in Dalkey some time now, Tom Tidy knew nothing about Doyle’s business.

When Doyle had contrived to get himself appointed as water bailiff, there had been little doubt in anybody’s mind what the true nature of the arrangement would be. Indeed, the feudal world was largely constructed upon such accommodations. True, the obligations which a feudal king and his officials could exact from the lords and landholders were a good deal more thoroughgoing than the rough-and-ready tribute payments of old Celtic Ireland, but especially in the great feudal Liberties, where the lord was almost like a petty king, and in the Marcher borderlands, where law and order only existed if the local lord could impose it, the feudal landholder essentially paid the crown a ground rent after which he was free to make what he could of the place. In a similar fashion, collectors of royal taxes were often in practice and sometimes in name, tax farmers. The royal officials in Dublin, with modest manpower and falling revenues, were glad enough to get in what taxes they could. So if Doyle could bring them a reasonable stream of revenue from the customs due at Dalkey, they were unlikely to trouble him too much over the details of his accounting. If certain discrepancies and irregularities may have existed, if a certain percentage of the shipments was imperfectly accounted for, well, that was the merchant’s profit from his office. It might not be quite legal, it might not be quite moral, but given the circumstances on the island at the time, it was surely the most intelligent way to proceed. Entrepreneurial talent, in government as in trade, thrives on profit.

This was what Doyle had done. The accounts he submitted were always thorough, and seemed to be complete. And they were, nearly. But the tallies which MacGowan kept differed from Doyle’s official records by about ten percent. The goods which left Doyle’s strong house all bore his official stamp stating that customs dues had been paid. And so they had: but one shilling in ten had gone to him instead of to the Exchequer. An interesting variation on a theme, and even harder to check, was to stamp the goods and send them on at cost price to Bristol, where they could be landed duty free. The procedure was a little cumbersome, but he had used it once or twice as a favour to kinsmen or friends with whom he did business at the English port.

Perhaps it was inevitable that one day he would be tempted to go further. The thought had occurred to him in the past, of course, but he probably would not have attempted it if MacGowan had not shown himself so skilled at managing the people at Dalkey. By the time that the opportunity—a truly splendid opportunity—had presented itself, MacGowan had convinced him that he could pull the business off successfully and safely. Yet even so, the powerful merchant had hesitated. The risks were large. Had he been caught in his usual skimming of the customs dues—and proving this would have been difficult anyway—he risked little more than a reprimand and a payment to the authorities. He might not even have lost his office. But this wholesale smuggling was another matter entirely. For a start, it meant involving not just his own man, but the whole of Dalkey. Discovery would have serious consequences: loss of office, a hefty fine, perhaps worse. The profit, the customs due on three entire shiploads of valuable goods, would be huge, but he was a rich man anyway and had no need of the money. So why did he do it?

He’d asked the question of himself, and he thought he knew the answer. It was the risk. The difficulty and the danger of the thing were what really appealed to him. No doubt his distant Viking ancestors would have felt the same way. It was a long time since the powerful, saturnine merchant and city father had had any real excitement. This was an adventure on the high seas.

The planning and logistics had been formidable. The three ships had to come from different ports, meet off the southern coast of Ireland, and proceed together. The goods had to be unloaded with incredible speed, in the dark; and then they had to be hidden and later on distributed for sale in several markets, without arousing suspicion. It was only after all these complex problems had been provided for that the huge difficulty had arisen—the sudden appearance of the squadron in Dalkey, to keep watch on the coast. As soon as he had reported this, MacGowan had assumed that the plans would have to be aborted.

“I suppose it’s over,” he had said to Doyle sadly, and had been surprised when the merchant had calmly responded, “Not at all.”

In fact, Doyle had rather enjoyed the extra challenge. How could he persuade the squadron to leave Dalkey? By convincing them that the enemy they were seeking was actually going to strike somewhere else. The castle of Carrickmines had been the obvious choice. But the merchant’s genius lay in the way it was done. It had been MacGowan who had put Tom Tidy into his mind originally, when he had warned him that the carter was the one person in Dalkey who would not be a party to the smuggling. “If he even guesses what’s going on, he’ll go straight to the authorities,” he had warned Doyle. “I’ve got to get him out of Dalkey for a while.”

“Let us use Tidy to do our work for us then,” Doyle had told the astonished young fellow. It had been Doyle’s idea that Tidy should be followed when he went into the church to pray, and that he should overhear the conspirators planning the attack on Carrickmines. “You must pretend to dissuade him from telling anyone, if he comes to you for advice, as he probably will,” Doyle had instructed MacGowan. “That way, he’ll never dream that you’ve set him up. And if what you tell me about his character is correct, then our friend will go to the authorities anyway.”

So it had proved. Both MacGowan and Doyle himself, when he had been called by the Justiciar, had played their parts to perfection. The plan to raid Carrickmines had been believed; the squadron had been withdrawn; the coast was clear again for the landing. But Doyle had not stopped there. In order for the thing to look convincing, he explained to MacGowan, “We’ll need a raid upon Carrickmines.”

Only a man with the long reach of Doyle could have arranged such a thing—even MacGowan was not told how it was done—but word was carried to O’Byrne and a deal was struck. The Irish chief would lead a convincing-looking raid upon the castle in the middle of the night and make sure that his men drew the defenders well away from Dalkey. It seemed the plan had amused O’Byrne, and he had been well paid. Indeed, a fair amount of the profit of the operation had had to be sacrificed, but Doyle was too far in now to pull back. The Irishman had been warned of the danger from Harold and the squadron, but the risk of the operation had only added to its appeal. “In any case,” he had remarked, “my boys will melt into the night.” It was he himself who had sent the dark-haired girl to hang around at the castle and the harbour. “I’ve told her,” he promised Doyle, “to make sure that she is seen.”

And so it had all been arranged. Doyle, of course, would never be seen. From Dublin, he could even deny any knowledge of the business at all; as for MacGowan, he knew very well that should things go wrong, Doyle would have him safely into hiding, and if necessary across the sea, before the Justiciar’s men ever got their hands on him.

There had been only one problem. He had not realised how difficult it would be to get Tom out of Dalkey. He had done everything to frighten him back into Dublin, exactly as Doyle had suggested, with invented stories of danger and the calculated hostility of the Dalkey people; but when Tom had turned up again on the very eve of the landing, MacGowan had been in despair. In the end, Doyle himself had come to pull him out. The merchant had not been too pleased about that.

However, MacGowan thought now, as he surveyed the successful completion of the night’s work, Doyle would probably forgive him before long for that one error in his calculations.

It was three weeks later that John Walsh, riding up into the foothills, encountered the girl.

Life had been relatively quiet at the castle of Carrickmines since the night of the raid. The plan to inflict a massive defeat upon O’Byrne had not succeeded. Several of his men, undoubtedly, had been wounded. But somehow, in the darkness, every one of them had managed to get away, although the search in the foothills had gone on well into the day. As for Harold and his party, they had finished up wandering around in the dawn, empty-handed, in the woods above Glendalough. The business had been a failure. Yet it was not long—less than a week—before it was accounted a success. “We gave them a fright. We sent them flying. That was a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry.” These were the verdicts that were soon on the Dublin people’s lips, such is the history of warfare.

Walsh said nothing. He knew it had been a trick, a scam of some sort; but he hadn’t quite worked out of what kind. Obviously, O’Byrne had known what was going to happen. If he knew the troops would be waiting for him, then he must have wanted them to be there. As he considered the business further, however, it seemed to him that if O’Byrne, or whomever he was working with, wanted all the available military forces at Carrickmines, it could only mean that they did not want them to be somewhere else. So where had the troops come from? Dublin, Harold’s Cross, and Dalkey. Nothing that he knew of had happened at any of those places, but the more he thought about it, the more his suspicions centred on Dalkey. Perhaps he would never know, but he would remember and watch with interest in the future. Life on the frontier, he reflected with satisfaction, was never dull.

She was lying on a rock in the sun. She must have fallen asleep; he’d never have come upon her like this otherwise. Her long, dark hair had cascaded down the side of the stone. She sprang up and flashed an angry glance at him, at which he only smiled. It amused him to remember that this fleet little figure was actually his cousin. She turned to run away, but he called after her.

“I’ve a message for you.”

“You’ve nothing to say to me,” she cried back defiantly.

“You’ll take a message to O’Byrne,” he answered. “Tell him,” he thought quickly, “tell him that my wrist is healing, but that I’ve nothing to show for my trouble.” He hadn’t planned any such message—he’d thought of it on the spur of the moment—but he was pleased with it. Then, before the girl could make any further response, he turned his horse’s head and rode away.

It was a week later that, coming out of the castle soon after dawn, he found half a dozen kegs of wine had been left during the night just outside the gate.

He smiled to himself. So that was the game. Dalkey was only just down the road from Carrickmines. Perhaps it was time, he thought, that the Walsh family started to take more of an interest in the place.