Around the house, she seemed placid and content. Two of Harold’s sisters were married and away by then, but his remaining sisters got on with her well enough. No one had any complaints. His own duties, apart from joining in whatever entertainments the girls devised for themselves in the evenings, were to take her riding from time to time. Once he had shown her round Dyflin. More often they would ride out or walk along the sandy shore. On these occasions, she would talk to him in her strangely detached yet easy way about the farmstead, the cheese they were making, the shawl that she and his mother were weaving for his aunt. She would ask him his likes and dislikes, nodding calmly and saying, “Ja, ja,” as she elicited each piece of information so that, he began to think, if he had told her his favourite pastime was cutting people’s heads off, she would probably have nodded and said, “Ja, ja,” just the same. But the process was still very pleasant.
When he questioned Helga about her own life, she told him about her uncle’s farmstead and also her early life in the north. What did she miss, he asked. “The snow and the ice,” she told him, with a hint of real enthusiasm greater than any he had seen before. “The snow and ice is very good. I like to fish through the ice.” She nodded. “And I like very much to go in boats on the sea.”
Once, in order to take her in a boat, he had rowed her out on a sunny day from the beach to the little island with its high, cleft rock, opposite the headland. She had been pleased. They had sat on the beach together. And then, to his great surprise, she had calmly remarked, “I like to swim now. You also?” And stripping off all her clothes as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she had walked into the sea. He hadn’t followed her. Perhaps he was shy, or ashamed of his body. But he had looked at her slim body, and her small, high breasts, and thought to himself that it would be a pleasant business indeed to possess them.
It was a few days afterwards that his father and mother had called him into the house when the girls were all busy outside, and his father with a smile had asked him, “How would you feel, Harold, if Helga were to be your bride?” And before Harold could formulate an answer he continued: “Your mother and I think she would do very well.”
He stared at them hardly knowing what to say. The idea was certainly exciting. He thought of her body as he had watched her coming back out of the sea, and of the water running down her breasts in the sun.
“But,” he stammered at last, “would she want me?”
His father and mother gave each other a warm, conspirational smile, and it was his mother who answered, “She does indeed. She has spoken to me.”
“I just supposed …” He thought of his leg. His father cut in.
“She likes you, Harold. This all comes from her. When her uncle asked me to have her here, I dare say he may have desired a match with our family; but you’re young and I hadn’t considered it was time to think of such things for you yet. But we like this girl. We like her very much. And so when she came to talk to your mother …” He smiled again. “It’s up to you, Harold. You’re my only son. This farmstead will be yours one day. You can have the pick of the girls, and you certainly shouldn’t marry one you don’t like. But this one, I have to say, isn’t bad.”
Harold looked at his happy parents and felt a great warmth run through him. Could it really be that this girl had chosen him? He knew that he was physically strong, but with this wonderful knowledge, he experienced a new, thrilling sense of strength and excitement unlike anything he had ever known before.
“She has asked for me?” They nodded. His infirmity was not of consequence, then? It seemed not. “You think I should?” What would it mean to be married? He wasn’t sure. “I think,” he began, “I think I should like it.”
“Splendid,” Olaf cried, and was about to get up and put his arm round his shoulders; but it was his wife, now, who gently laid her hand on his arm, as if to remind him.
“He should wait a few days,” she said quietly. “We discussed this.”
“Oh.” His father looked a little disappointed, but then smiled at her. “You are right, of course.” And then to Harold: “you have only just heard of this, my son. It’s all very new to you. Consider the whole thing for a few days. There’s no hurry. You should do that in fairness to yourself.”
“And to the girl, too,” his wife gently reminded him.
“Of course, yes. Her, too.” And now his father did rise and put his arm round him, and Harold felt the great warmth of his loving presence. “Well done, my son,” he murmured. “I’m so proud of you.”
And had it not been for the merest chance, Harold supposed, he would have been married by that very winter.
It had been two days later. He had just left his father out in the field and was coming in a little earlier than expected. He had seen his sisters disappearing into the big wooden barn some time ago. Apart from a slave making a basket by the woodshed, there was no one about as he came to the entrance of the high, thatched house. And he was about to stoop under the doorway into the shadowy space inside, when he heard his mother’s voice.
“But Helga, are you sure you will be happy?”
“Ja, ja. I like this farm.”
“I’m glad you do, Helga. But perhaps liking the farm is not enough. Do you like my son?”
“Ja, ja. I like him.”
“He is my only son, Helga. I want him to be happy.”
“Ja, ja. I make him happy.”
“But what makes you think so, Helga? Marriage is about many things. It’s about companionship. About love …”
Was there a hint of impatience, a hardness in the girl’s voice that he had not heard before, as she answered?
“It was your husband who came to my uncle, ja? When he hears my uncle has a niece he wants to get out of the house, to make more room for the four daughters he have of his own? He pays my uncle to bring me here. Because he wants to marry his son, who is a cripple? This is true, ja?”
“That may be, but …”
“And I have come, and I do all that you want, and then your husband three days ago say to me, ‘Will you marry him?’ and I say, ‘Ja, ja?’ Because he wants grandchildren from this only son and he is afraid nobody want to marry his cripple son.”
There was a pause. He waited for his mother to deny all this, but she did not.
“Do you find my son …”
“His legs?” It was as though he could hear her shrug. “I thought I would marry a boy with both legs straight. But he is strong.”
“When two people marry,” his mother’s voice was anxious now, almost pleading, “there must be truth between them.”
“Ja? You and your husband say nothing. My uncle say nothing. But I hear my uncle tell my aunt that your husband is afraid someone coming to kill your son before he gives you grandchildren, and that is why your husband wants to buy me quickly from my uncle. Is that true? We speak of truth, ja?”
“My son can defend himself.”
Harold turned away from the doorway. He had heard enough.
The next day he had gone into Dyflin. Because of his work about the farm, he was a tolerably good carpenter. He had been able to get a job in the boatyard. And by late afternoon he had found temporary lodgings in the house of a craftsman. On his return to the farmstead that evening he had told his astonished parents, “I’m leaving.”
“But what about this girl? Your marriage?” his father had demanded.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want her.”
“In the name of all the gods, why?” Olaf roared.
There are so many things that children cannot say to their parents. Could he really tell his father that he knew the truth, that the trust between them was broken, that he was humiliated? If he was ever to marry, and he doubted now that he would, he’d find the girl for himself—that was for sure. “I don’t want to marry her. That’s all,” he said. “It’s my choice. You said so.”
“You don’t know what’s for your own good,” his father snapped. His frustration was so vis
ible that his son was even sorry for him. But it was no good.
“You don’t have to leave,” his mother urged.
But he did, even if he neither then nor ever afterwards said why.
And so he had come to Dyflin. He had lodged for a year with Morann Mac Goibnenn. He had made himself so useful in the boatyards that he was nowadays a foreman. It was known that he was heir to a big farmstead out in Fingal; but he seldom went there, and it was said that his father and he were on poor terms. He worked hard, was a good companion, but though he seemed comfortable enough with women, he was never seen out walking with one.
The sunset was already sending a red glow over the water when Harold and Morann left the great Viking ship and began to stroll along the wooden quay. Several other longships were tied up there. One, the ship that had brought the slaves from Bristol, had just finished loading with huge bales of hides and wool. The turning to the Fish Shambles was just ahead.
“Remember me?”
Morann looked at the black-haired young man who was leaning casually against some bales that lay almost in their path. He was wearing a dark leather jacket that came down to his knees. His leather belt was drawn tight so that the jacket hugged what was evidently a lean, muscular body. His dark beard was trimmed to a jagged point over his chest. The craftsmen wondered who he was.
“Still a cripple I see.”
Harold had stopped and Morann stopped with him.
“I just happened to be in Dyflin.” He hadn’t moved. He just stayed there, leaning casually against the crates, apparently unguarded, as if the man he was insulting could be of no more danger to him than a passing fly.
“Good evening, Sigurd,” said Harold, with a calmness that surprised the craftsman. “Have you come about our business then?”
“I considered it,” said the stranger coolly. “But I think I’ll wait.”
“I supposed I wasn’t in danger as soon as I saw you in front of me,” Harold remarked. “They tell me the men of your family only attack from behind.”
Just for a moment, it seemed to Morann, the stranger winced. His hand moved, perhaps unconsciously, to the dagger on his belt. But though his long fingers briefly clasped it, they then slowly stretched out, and his hand went back to rest on his leg.
“I made enquiries about you,” he remarked. “And I was very disappointed. It seems you haven’t a woman at all. Would that be on account of your being a cripple, would you say?”
Morann had had enough.
“I can’t imagine any woman but a whore looking at you, you dirty black creature,” he snarled.
“Ah, the jeweller.” The stranger made a slight bow with his head. “A man of respect. I’ve no quarrel with you, Morann Mac Goibnenn. Does he know,” he asked Harold, “who I am?” And seeing Harold shake his head, “That is what I thought.”
“I could fight you now,” Harold said easily. “It’s no use my saying I’ll fight you in the morning; when we last agreed that, your grandfather ran away.”
“And yet,” the dark fellow said musingly, as though he had not heard this last remark, “it seems to me that I should be happier to kill you when you’ve a family to grieve for you. Children to be told that their father has been defeated and killed. Perhaps in time, then, we would be killing them, too.” He nodded thoughtfully, and then in a brighter tone, “Do you not think there’s a chance of your marrying?”
Harold had a knife in his belt. He took it out, flicked it expertly from hand to hand, and motioned for Morann to stand away to one side.
“I will kill you now, Sigurd,” he said.
“Ah.” The dark man straightened himself, but instead of moving forward, he took a step to one side. “I’d rather you had time to think about it though. Like on your wedding day.” He took a step backwards now, with the crates to one side of him. As he never looked behind him, Morann assumed he already knew where he was going. And sure enough, a moment later, “Goodbye for now,” he said, and quick as a flash, he was behind the crates, to the side of the quay, and with an easy leap he was in a small boat which, until that moment, the craftsman had not noticed.
“Row, lads,” he called out to the two men already in the boat; and as Harold and Morann watched from the side of the quay, the boat raced swiftly out into the waters. From the dark man there came a contemptuous laugh, and then, from the reddening waters, as the black shape of the boat slipped away downstream, his voice came calling again. “I’ll try to come to your wedding.”
For some time the two men stood there.
“What was that about?” Morann finally asked.
“An old family quarrel.”
“Does he really mean to kill you?”
“Probably. But I’ll kill him.” Harold turned. “So are we going to your house for supper?”
“We are. Of course we are.” Morann forced a smile.
But as they made their way up Fish Shambles in the lengthening shadows he wondered what to tell his wife. And the girl. If the black-haired fellow comes to the wedding, he thought, I’d better kill him myself.
It was early the following morning that Osgar received a visit from Caoilinn’s father. It had been made to seem like a casual encounter, but Osgar suspected that the craftsman had been waiting near the monastery wall for some time before he happened to walk by. Though his kinsman from Dyflin had similar aquiline features, he was shorter and more thickset than Osgar and, unusual for the family, he was balding. As he stood there before the aristocratic young man, it seemed to Osgar that he detected a trace of awkwardness in his manner.
But he was not the only one, thought Osgar, who is feeling awkward. There was nothing to be done, however. He must wait for the man to speak. They went through a few of the usual pleasantries which must precede any important matter. Then, as he knew it must, it came.
“We shall be thinking of finding a husband for Caoilinn soon.”
It had begun. He knew it couldn’t be avoided. He gazed at the older man, wondering what to say.
“She’ll have a good dowry,” his kinsman went on. It was more than two centuries since any father on the island had been able to secure the ancient bride price. Fathers had to find dowries for their daughters now, which was often a heavy burden—though an important son-in-law could always be a valuable asset.
Osgar certainly represented a good catch. There was no doubt about that. Twenty-one years old, he was a strikingly handsome young man. Sparely built but athletic, with his finely drawn face and natural elegance, Osgar also had a quiet dignity, almost a reserve, that impressed people. Many thought he would be the future chief of the Ui Fergusa. Not only to the family but to the monks at the monastery as well, he had become a figure to respect.
Osgar loved the family’s little monastery. He was almost as proud of it as his uncle. “Let us never forget,” his uncle would say, “that Saint Patrick came here.”
It was remarkable how, in the last few centuries, the legend of Saint Patrick had grown. Largely because the diocese in the north where he had been based—Armagh—wanted to be considered the oldest and most important bishopric in Ireland, a great medieval propaganda campaign had been launched, through the chronicles and other documents and records, to prove Armagh’s point. Earlier bishops and their communities were practically written out of the story; bishops from Patrick’s own time were turned into his disciples; the northern mission was now said to have covered the whole island. Even the snakes, who were never there, were supposed to have been banished by the saint. At Dubh Linn, one of the three ancient wells had been named after him and a chapel built at the site. “And let us not forget, either,” Osgar’s uncle would remind them, “that our ancestor Fergus received baptism from Saint Patrick himself.”
“He was dead at the time,” his eldest son had rudely remarked upon one occasion.
“Raised from the dead,” the abbot had roared. “The greater the miracle. And remember also,” he would admonish, “that there have been no better Christians and no finer scholars th
an those of this island. For it was we who kept the flame of the faith alive when all the rest of Christendom was in darkness, we who converted the heathen Saxons of England, and we who built monasteries with libraries when half of Christendom could hardly read or write.”
If these lectures were intended to encourage his sons in the paths of piety and learning, however, they had no effect. His uncle’s boys had little interest in the family monastery. They constantly found excuses to avoid lessons. And while Osgar had enjoyed memorising the hundred and fifty Psalms in Latin—a feat which any illiterate novice had to master—they could only pretend to mouth the words on the occasions when they joined the monks at their prayers.
But one thing was very clear: the monastery and its Ui Fergusa patrons grew out of the sacred dawn of Irish Christianity. This was a tradition which the family had a duty to uphold. And Osgar did so. When he was twelve, his mother had died, and thereafter he had gone to live in the little monastery with his uncle. It had been Osgar who had organised the monks to refurbish the inside of the monastery chapel; Osgar who had persuaded some Dyflin merchants to donate a new cross for the altar. It was Osgar who always seemed to know exactly what was due from the monastery’s tenants, who sold the cattle or bought the things they needed; Osgar who knew how many candles they had in stock, and which Psalms should be sung on any given day. On these, as on all issues, he was both businesslike and very precise. Even his uncle, secretly, was slightly nervous of forgetting something in front of him. And a year ago his uncle had taken him to one side and told him, “I think it’s you who should take my place at the monastery one day, Osgar.” And then, as an afterthought, he had added, “You could marry, you know.”
Not only could he marry, but with a prospective position that carried such respect, he would be a very attractive catch for the daughter of his kinsman in Dyflin.
He could marry Caoilinn. How wonderful that had felt. For days he had gone about in a state of such happiness that it had seemed to him as if the whole of Dyflin and its bay was bathed in a divine and golden light.