Dublin (61 page)

  It was therefore with a sense of bitterness towards more than just his son that the old man now, standing in front of the Thingmount where Fergus himself lay buried, hotly declared, "You will come to Lorcan's wedding, Gilpatrick, because he is your brother and he will be hurt if you do not. You will come also because I order you to do so. Are you understanding me?"

  "Father, I cannot. Not if he marries his brother's wife."

  "Then you needn't trouble," his father shouted, "to enter my house again."

  "Surely, Father…" Gilpatrick began. But his father had turned on his heel and walked away. And Gilpatrick knew, sadly, that it was useless to follow him. A week later, the wedding was announced. In June it took place, and Gilpatrick was not there. In July, seeing his father by the entrance of Christ Church, Gilpatrick started towards him; but his father, as he saw him coming, turned away, and Gilpatrick, after a moment's hesitation, decided not to follow him. August passed and they did not speak. September came.

  And then there were other, more urgent matters to think about.

  It was still quiet when Kevin MacGowan awoke that September morning. The sky was grey. His wife was already up; from the oven I":- in the yard came the faint smell of baking bread. The slave girl was sweeping near the gate.

  The two boys were playing in the yard. Through the open doorway he could see the steam of their breath.

  Autumn had come to Dublin. There was a chill in the morning air. Automatically, as he always did, he reached under the bed and felt for the strongbox. It was reassuringly there. He liked to sleep with it close to him. There was another place, under the bread oven, where he usually concealed it.

  Only his wife and Una knew about that. It was a good hiding place. Not as secure as the cathedral perhaps, but cleverly disguised. You could look there a hundred times I and never guess there was a hiding place. But when he slept in the house, he kept the box under his bed.

  He looked across the room. In the far corner, in the shadows, he could see another form gently stirring.

  It was Una. Normally she I would have been at the hospital, but with all the recent events, she had preferred to remain at home with her family today. She was sitting up now. He smiled. Could she see his smile from over there in the shadows? He wondered if she knew what happiness her presence gave him. Probably not. And probably better if she didn't. One mustn't burden one's children with too much affection.

  He got up, went over to her, and kissed her on the head. He turned, felt a slight constriction in his chest, and gave a little cough. Then he walked to the entrance and looked out. It was certainly getting cold.

  His gaze went out towards the gateway. He saw a neighbour go past with a wooden bucket of water from the well. The fellow seemed in no hurry. He listened. Some sparrows were chattering in the branches of the apple tree in the yard next door. He heard a blackbird. Yes, everything seemed to be normal. There was no hint of any commotion. That was a relief.

  Strongbow. Nobody really thought that he would come. His uncle and the FitzGeralds had stayed down in the south all summer and the people of Dublin had reasonably assumed they would be there for the rest of the year. But then in the last week of August the news had arrived.

  "Strongbow is in Wexford. He's arrived with English troops. A lot of troops."

  Two hundred fully equipped mounted men and a thousand foot soldiers, to be precise. They were mostly drawn from the family's huge holdings in England. It was a force that only one of the greatest magnates in the Plantagenet empire could have collected. By the standards of feudal Europe, it was a small army. By Irish standards, the armoured knights, the highly trained men-at-arms, and the archers, who shot with mathematical precision, represented a disciplined military machine beyond anything they possessed.

  Within days, news came that the port of Waterford was in Strongbow's hands as well; then that King Diarmait had given Strongbow his daughter in marriage. And soon after this: "They're coming to Dublin."

  It was an outrage. The High King had allowed Diarmait to take Leinster; but Dublin was another matter, specifically excluded from the agreement.

  "If Diarmait wants Dublin, then he means to take all Ireland," the High King judged. "And didn't he give me his own son as hostage?" the O'Connor king continued. If Diarmait broke his oath under such circumstances, O'Connor had the right under Irish law to do what he liked with the boy, even execute him. "What kind of man is it,"

  O'Connor cried, "that sacrifices his own son?"

  It was time to put a stop to the ambitions of this turbulent adventurer and his foreign friends.

  There was no doubt about the feelings of the Dubliners either. Three days ago, MacGowan had watched the King of Dublin and some of the greatest merchants ride out to welcome the High King as he came down to the Lififey. It was said that even Diarmait's brother-in-law the archbishop was disgusted with him. The O'Connor king had brought with him a large force, and it was quickly agreed that the Dubliners would prepare to defend their city while the High King would march a day's journey to the south and block the approaches up the Liffey Plain. A day later, MacGowan heard that not only was O'Connor camped across the route but he had ordered trees felled to make every track in the region impassable. Dublin made preparations, but the consensus was clear; even with Strongbow and all his men, King Diarmait would give them no trouble. "They'll never get through."

  Except on the coldest winter days, when he might be forced to retreat indoors, Kevin MacGowan always worked in an open-sided shed in the yard. That way he had daylight to see what he was doing. To stay warm he kept a small brazier at his feet.

  He sat down at his workbench that morning with a contented smile. He never ate much, but his wife had given him fresh bread, piping hot from the oven and served with honey. The smell and the taste of it lingered in a delightful way as he set to work. His wife and Una were spinning wool in a corner by the oven. His two sons were busy with a wood carving. It was a perfect family scene.

  A merchant came in to talk about a silver brooch for his wife. Kevin asked him if all was quiet in the town and he said that it was. After a while the man left, and for some time Kevin went on with his work in silence. Then he paused.

  "Una."

  "Yes, Father."

  "Go to the south wall, by the main gate. Tell me if you see anything."

  "Couldn't one of the boys go? I'm helping Mother."

  "I should prefer it if you went." He trusted her more than the boys.

  She glanced at her mother who smiled at her and nodded.

  "As you wish, Father," she said. She put a saffron-coloured shawl over her head to keep out the cold and set off along the street.

  She was glad to be at home. Perhaps she had been spending too much time with the sick at the hospital, but it seemed to her that her father had not been entirely well recently. Normally she would have been busy at the hospital that day, but Fionnuala had agreed to take over her tasks. She believed that recently she had managed to persuade Fionnuala to adopt a more responsible attitude to life and she felt rather proud of that.

  She saw nothing unusual along the way. People were going about their business. She passed a cart carrying timber, and she had just reached the Saxons' church when, from the king's hall nearby, she heard a clatter of hoofs and a dozen riders came out towards her. In front rode the king himself. She noticed that none of the riders were dressed for battle, though one or two carried the Viking battle-axe that was a favoured weapon in most parts of Ireland now. The rest, including the king, only had daggers in their belts.

  As she drew against the wooden fence to let them pass, the king smiled down at her. He was a handsome, kindly-looking man. He certainly didn't appear in the least worried.

  When she went up onto the wall, she found herself quite alone. Although the sky was grey, the day was clear.

  Beyond the fields and orchards to the south, the rounded humps of the Wicklow I Mountains seemed to loom so close that you could almost touch them. She was a little surprised not so see any lookouts posted on : the wall, but there was certainly no sign of any enemy approach.

  The gateway nearby was open. Away on the left, she could see a ship coming in from the estuary. The port had been particularly active of late. Everything seemed to be normal.

  Kevin was busy at his work when she returned. A short while ago, he had felt a need to cough and had gone into the house; but that had passed. He smiled as she returned and told him all was well, and the household resumed its peaceful routine.

  It was late in the morning that the silversmith put down the piece he was working on and listened. He did not say anything, just sat there very still. Was something wrong?

  Nothing that he could put his finger on. Could he hear anything out of the ordinary? No, he could not. But still he sat there, puzzled. His wife glanced at him.

  "What is it?"

  "I don't know." He shook his head. "Nothing."

  He went back to his work for a short while, then paused. The feeling had come to him again. A strange sensation. A sense of coldness. As if a shadow had passed just feet away from him.

  "Una."

  "Yes, Father?"

  "Go up to the wall again."

  "Yes, Father." What a good girl she was. Never a word of complaint. The only one he could completely trust.

  Although the view at the wall was the same as before, Una did not return at once. There had been no need for words between her rather and herself. She understood him.

  If he was worried, she would take good care to check every possibility. For some time, therefore, she scanned the south-western horizon where the Liffey made its winding way towards the city. Was there any sign of dust, any glint of armour, any hint of movement?

  There was nothing. Satisfied at last, she decided to go back. She glanced towards the estuary, gave a last brief look at the Wicklow Mountains, and then she saw them.

  They were pouring out of the hills like a mountain stream.

  They were flowing down from a small valley that led up into the wooded hills to the south and spreading out onto the slopes above the hamlet of Rathfarnham, less than four miles away. She could see the glimmer of the chain mail of the knights, scores of them.

  Masses of men, marching in three columns, followed after. At that distance, the columns looked like three huge centipedes. Behind them came still more columns of men; from their slightly bobbing motion she supposed these must be archers.

  She understood what must have happened at once.

  Diarmait and Strongbow must have come over the mountains instead of up the Liffey valley. They had given the High King the slip entirely. In all likelihood, this was the whole army. In a quarter of an hour they would be at Rathmines. For several moments she watched in horrified fascination; then she turned and ran.

  There was no need for Una to raise the alarm. Others also had seen the army on the slopes. People were starting to run in the streets. By the time she reached her own gate, the family had already heard the shouting, and it only took a few moments for her to tell them all she had seen. The question was: what to do?

  The lane in which they lived ran into the Fish Shambles.

  They were not far from the quays. When Una went into the street again to see if there was further news, she discovered that their next-door neighbour was loading a handcart. "I'm going to get on a ship if I can," he told her. "I'll not be waiting here if the English come." On the other side lived a carpenter. He had already built a barricade around his house. He seemed to think that he could keep an army out by his own handiwork.

  The MacGowan household was hesitant. Her father had closed up his strongbox and her mother had wrapped some possessions in a cloth which she had slung over her back. The two boys and the apprentice were standing beside her and the English slave girl seemed more anxious to go with them than to be liberated by her fellow countrymen.

  Kevin MacGowan had never liked taking chances, and he had always tried to plan for every contingency that might threaten his little family. Faced by this crisis now he found himself well able to think rationally. The carpenter might be absurd, but surely his neighbour planning to go down to the quay might be panicking too soon.

  Even with his English allies, it seemed unlikely that King Diarmait would be able to penetrate stone-walled defences. That meant a siege-days or weeks of waiting, and plenty of time to leave from the quays if necessary. On balance, it seemed to the silversmith that it might be foolish to run down to the waterside now. Less easy was the question of what to do with the strongbox. He did not like to trouble the monks at Christ Church until there was good reason.

  If there were a siege, he'd probably continue working; so he'd need to keep some of the valuable pieces in the house anyway. If the family had to leave, he might want to take at least some of his silver with him, and perhaps leave the rest in the strongbox at Christ Church. It would depend on the circumstances.

  "Go to the Fish Shambles, Una," he instructed.