It was a metal plate of polished steel. Strongbow had given it to him. It was so highly polished that you could see every pore of skin on your face in its reflection. The magnate used it as a mirror. Peter held it, keeping its polished surface towards him. He did not want to risk giving his position away. He looked eastwards and smiled. The sky was clear. Time passed. The eastern sky grew lighter, then red, then gold: it began to shimmer. And then, over the distant bay, he saw the fiery orb of the rising sun.
Everything was ready. There was a risk, of course, that when he sent the signal he would give himself away. If the Irish besiegers caught him, they would surely kill him. He’d have done the same in their place. But that was a small risk compared to the favours he could expect from Strongbow if the operation succeeded. He was excited, but he waited patiently. It grew warmer. The sun was rising over the bay.
The High King’s patrols would be out now. He had seen some of them leaving the royal camp. Midmorning passed and there was no sign of activity. The patrols were out later than yesterday. Perhaps they would not bathe after all. He cursed under his breath. Another hour went by; it was nearly noon. Then, at last, he saw that something was happening at the camp. Above the riverbank, he saw a group of men appear, bearing a large object; but he couldn’t decide what it was. They set their burden down at the top of the slope. Now more men were coming. It looked as if they were carrying buckets. They kept coming and going, swarming round the big object. And now he understood what they were doing. It was a huge tub they were filling. He knew that the Irish liked to have a bath in a tub whose water had been heated with hot stones. The setting up of this great tub, therefore, could only mean one thing.
The High King of Ireland was about to take a ceremonial bath.
So it proved. Before they had finished filling the tub, the first patrols started to return. There seemed to be even more of them this time. Peter guessed that at least two hundred were going down into the river, and others were still arriving. And as soon as everything at the top of the slope was ready, he saw a single figure emerge from the camp, accompanied by about a dozen men, who lifted the figure into the great bathtub. While his men splashed about in the river below, the O’Connor king, surrounded by his companions, was performing the royal ablutions.
It was perfect. Peter couldn’t believe his luck. He turned the steel reflector over, carefully judging the angle. He started to rotate it, back and forth.
On the roof of Christ Church, the waiting sentry saw the tiny flash of light, greenish from the tree, reflecting the brightness of the burning sun. And moments later, the southern and western city gates burst open; a hundred lightly armed horsemen, with five hundred more foot soldiers running behind them, made for the ford, while two hundred armoured knights thundered at a gallop across the wooden bridge.
The sudden breakout of the English from their trap in Dublin that summer’s day proved to be the pivotal event in the history of England and Ireland. The Irish besiegers, perhaps complacent after the weeks of inaction, were caught completely off guard. As the English forces burst through the Irish lines and stormed along the Liffey towards where the High King was bathing, the O’Connor king had only time to gather his clothes and make a dash for safety to avoid them. The Irish foot soldiers round his encampment were slaughtered. Within hours, all the besieging forces knew that the High King had been humiliated and that Strongbow’s army was out in the open. The English war veterans now moved with the utmost speed. The approaches to the city were secured. Spearhead attacks by the armoured cavalry devastated each of the various encampments. The Irish were unable to cope with the highly trained European fighting machine once it was free to operate in the open field. Opposition melted away. For the time being at least, the High King wisely withdrew. Leinster, its rich farmland, its cattle, and its great harvest lay in Strongbow’s ruthless and capable hands.
For Peter FitzDavid, it seemed the future would be bright. That very night, Strongbow had rewarded him with a small bag of gold. No doubt still better things would follow. He was not a public hero. After all, he had only been a secret scout. It was the bold breakout of Strongbow and the humiliation of the High King caught bathing in the Liffey that would be everywhere reported and engage the attention of the chroniclers.
But if the role of Peter FitzDavid was to be quickly forgotten, the part that Fionnuala played in these great events was never to be known at all. Peter never referred to it once, not even to Strongbow. It was only the next day, as the rumour of Peter’s role reached her, that she guessed some of what had happened. After half an hour spent in tears, she also understood that she could never tell anyone, not even Una, of his infamous conduct, since it would also implicate herself. Indeed she realised, with a terrible coldness, he had the power to do her terrible damage if he ever chose to reveal what she had done.
Two days later, she caught sight of him in the market. He came towards her smiling, but she could see the embarrassment in his eyes. She let him come up to her, then, mustering all the dignity she could, she said with quiet coldness: “I never want to see your face again.”
He seemed to want to say something, but she turned her back on him and walked away. He had the good sense not to follow her.
In his calculations of the likely benefits that would accrue to him from Strongbow’s triumph, there was one thing that Peter FitzDavid forgot.
One month after the defeat of the High King, Peter happened to be walking past the king’s hall when he saw Strongbow coming out. He bowed his head to the great man and smiled, but Strongbow didn’t seem to see him. He looked distracted, almost haggard. Peter wondered what the reason could possibly be. The next day, he heard that Strongbow had gone. He had taken a ship during the night. Where had he gone, Peter asked one of the commanders, who gave him a strange look. “To find King Henry, before it’s too late,” the man replied. “Strongbow’s in trouble.”
King Henry Plantagenet was the most dynamic ruler of his age. His genius for exploiting situations to his own advantage, his success in expanding his sprawling Plantagenet empire, his highly aggressive administration—all these made him feared. Henry also had one other, devastating ability. He moved with incredible speed. All medieval kings had peripatetic courts which moved about their domains. But the itineraries of Henry were dizzying. He would move to and fro across the English Channel several times in a season, seldom stopping anywhere for more than two or three days. He would race from one end of his empire to the other just when you least expected it. And anyone who imagined that this ruthless and mercurial monarch would tolerate one of his vassals setting up a rival power base anywhere within his empire would be in for a shock.
For some time Henry had been watching the progress of Strongbow in Ireland. While King Diarmait was alive, the English magnate remained effectively a mercenary, no matter what Diarmait might have promised. Hard on the heels of Diarmait’s death came news that Strongbow was trapped in Dublin. But now, suddenly, Strongbow had a kingdom in Leinster and obviously the possibility to conquer the whole island. It was both a threat and an opportunity.
“I did not give Strongbow permission to become a king,” he announced. He’d already had enough trouble from one subordinate after he’d made Becket Archbishop of Canterbury. “He is my vassal. If Ireland is his, then it is mine,” he judged. And soon the word reached Strongbow: “King Henry is not pleased. He is coming to Ireland himself.”
With the ending of the siege, Una received word of her father. It made her sad. The continual fretting over the loss of the strongbox, it seemed, was taking a toll on his health; and she knew he was not robust. The fact that she blamed herself for the business and that they were separated made her still more distressed. The message he sent had, once again, asked her to remain where she was. She considered disobeying and going to see him in Rouen, but the Palmer told her she should not. She did, however, send word that, depending how events turned out, it might be possible for him in a few months to return and that she and th
e Palmer would surely be able to help him make a start again. So she worked hard at the hospital and waited to see what would come.
One thing that pleased her was the change in Fionnuala. There’s no doubt, she thought, that visit from the priest did her good. In the days that followed, Fionnuala had looked so sad and thoughtful. A new quietness and seriousness seemed to have descended upon her. “You have changed, Fionnuala,” she once ventured with a gentle approbation, “and I was thinking it would be the long time you spent with the priest that was the cause.” And she was so glad when Fionnuala murmured, “That would be it.”
It was during this time that two new people came into her life. She had heard from Fionnuala that the two O’Byrnes were making a second visit and had been to see her father, but she had not somehow expected them to call in at the hospital. They did so, however, one morning and were conducted round by the Palmer, who showed great respect to Brendan O’Byrne and, it seemed to Una, slightly less to his cousin Ruairi. At the end of the visit, since it was time for Fionnuala to leave, the two O’Byrnes were going to accompany her when she turned to the Palmer and asked whether Una could be spared a little while to walk with them. “Of course, she may,” cried that kindly man. And so the four of them set off. The day being fine, they decided to walk some way along the Slige Mhor.
Una had a chance to observe them all. Fionnuala was behaving beautifully. She was demure, serious, her head down, but looking up to smile pleasantly at Brendan from time to time. Una felt so proud of her. Brendan himself she found impressive. Dark-haired, with an early touch of grey, good-looking, he had an air of serious solidity about him that she liked immensely. He talked quietly but well. He considered before uttering an opinion. He asked thoughtful questions about the hospital. If Fionnuala could just get him for a husband, she thought, wouldn’t that be a wonderful match?
His cousin Ruairi was very different. He was taller than Brendan, longer boned. His hair was light brown and trimmed short. He had a few days’ growth of light stubble on his face, which made him seem manly, like a young warrior. He did not appear to be as heavy and serious as Brendan; but rather than ask questions as they went round the hospital, he had seemed content to listen and watch with a half smile on his face so that, after a time, one became curious about what he was thinking. Though his pale eyes sometimes seemed unfocussed, as though he was engaged in an interior dialogue with himself, Una also had a sense that he had noted everything he saw. She wondered what he had noted about herself and Fionnuala.
At first they walked as a group, side by side, along the track, talking easily. Ruairi said something about one of the hospital inmates he had observed which made them all laugh. Then they fell into two pairs, Brendan and Fionnuala walking ahead, Ruairi and Una behind.
For a while Ruairi seemed content to walk along, making the occasional chance remark. Una, who still felt a little shy, was glad to find everything so easy. When she asked him some questions about himself, however, he did begin to talk, and then he talked well.
He appeared to have been everywhere, and done everything. She was amazed that anyone of his age—he surely wasn’t twenty-five—could have done so many things, even for a short time. He told her about the horse traders and cattlemen he knew in Ulster and Munster, and some of their tricks. He described the coasts of Connacht and the islands there. He told her about his voyages with the merchants “from the time I was down in Cork.” He’d been to London and Bristol, and France, too. She asked him eagerly if he had been in Rouen. He hadn’t, but he told her a good story about a merchant from there who was caught in a shady deal.
“Does your cousin Brendan travel so much, also?” she enquired.
“Brendan?” A look she could not read crossed his face. “He prefers to stay at home and tend to his affairs.”
“And you? Do you not tend to your affairs at home?”
“I do.” He stared ahead of him as if he were thinking of something else for a moment. “But I’ve another voyage to make shortly. I’ll be going to Chester.”
For some reason Una was sorry to learn this. It seemed to her that, for all the wonders he might see upon his travels, there was something missing in the life of this fine young man with his restless soul.
“It’s by a warm fire in your own home that you should be,” she said. “At least some of the time.”
“It’s the truth,” he said. “And perhaps when I return that’s what I’ll do.”
Brendan and Fionnuala were turning round now. It seemed that they still wished to walk together, and Una was anxious to encourage this, so she quickly turned round herself so that she and Ruairi would be walking in front of them for the journey back. Ruairi talked less during the return, but she didn’t mind. Though she hardly knew him, it was strange how comfortable she felt in his company. She had never known such a feeling of ease, not even with the Palmer. And he was a good man, none better. She couldn’t account for it at all. Exchanging a few words now and then, they made their way back to the hospital; and although it was a considerable distance, she had no sense of time passing. As they parted, she couldn’t help wishing, though she knew it was foolish, that they might meet again someday.
On the seventeenth day of October in that year of 1171, King Henry II of England arrived in Ireland, the first English monarch ever to do so. He landed at the southern port of Waterford with a large army. His intention in coming was not at all to conquer Ireland, in which he had little interest, but to take away the power of his vassal Strongbow and reduce him to obedience. To an extent, he had achieved his object before he arrived, because a worried Strongbow had already managed to intercept him in England and had offered him all his Irish gains. Now, however, Henry meant to inspect the place and see to it that Strongbow’s submission to him was made good.
The army that King Henry brought with him was truly formidable: five hundred knights and nearly four thousand archers. With this, let alone with the addition of Strongbow’s already large forces, the English king could, if he chose, have swept across the entire island and devastated any and all opposition in open battle. Henry knew this very well. But as his subsequent actions were to show, the ruthless Plantagenet opportunist intended to proceed cautiously, and with limited objectives. Try to subdue an island whose native population are against you? He was far too clever. Would he watch, though, for signs and situations that might be of advantage to him? Of course he would.
Gilpatrick stood with his father and gazed at the extraordinary scene before him. He didn’t know what to think. There, on the edge of the ancient Hoggen Green, between the city’s eastern gate and the Thingmount where their ancestor was buried, a huge wicker-walled hall had been erected. It was the sort of great hall that would have been put up for the High King in days of old, but it was bigger. “It makes the Thingmount look like a pimple,” he had heard a workman remark. And in that huge hall was the King of England.
He hadn’t wasted any time. Twenty-five days after he had landed at Waterford, he had settled all the affairs in southern Leinster and arrived at Dublin. Now he was holding court there in perfect safety, surrounded by an army of thousands. Even Gilpatrick’s father was awestruck.
“I didn’t know,” he quietly confessed, “there were so many soldiers in the world.”
And the kings and chiefs of Ireland had all been coming to submit to him, ever since he arrived on the island. The High King and the great men of Connacht and the west held aloof, but from every other province, willingly or unwillingly, the chiefs of the great Irish clans were seeking him out.
Gilpatrick’s father was contemptuous, but fatalistic.
“They’ll come into his house now, even quicker than they did to Brian Boru, because he has an army to compel them. But once he’s gone, they’ll forget their pledges quick enough.”
Gilpatrick, however, had noticed a subtler process at work. Henry, he realised, was a canny statesman. As soon as he arrived in Ireland, he had announced that he personally would take over Dublin and a
ll its territories, Wexford, and Waterford. Strongbow was allowed to hold the rest of Leinster as his feudal tenant; but another great English magnate, the lord de Lacy, whom Henry had brought with him, was to remain in charge of Dublin as Henry’s personal representative or viceroy. So on the face of it, any Irish chief looking to the eastern part of the island would see a traditional Irish arrangement: a king of Leinster, a king of Dublin, and some partly foreign ports. Behind them, however, would be a rival High King—far more powerful even than Brian Boru—a High King across the water. And if they wanted protection against the O’Connor High King in Connacht, as they might, or if Strongbow, or even de Lacy, started to behave as they themselves had always done and tried to encroach upon their territory, then wouldn’t it be wise to come into the house of King Henry and have him as a protector against their neighbours, Irish or English? That was how things had always been done on the island. You paid tribute in cattle; you got protection. He’s using his own lords to keep an eye on each other and to frighten the other chiefs into his camp as well, he thought.
“The man’s very clever,” Gilpatrick muttered. “He’s playing our own game even better than we do.”
Then there was the question of Dublin city. It was being given to the merchant community of Bristol, apparently, but no one was quite sure what that would mean. The Bristol men would have the same trading rights in Dublin as they had at home. The mighty city of Bristol had ancient privileges, huge fairs, and was one of the great gateways to the English market. Its merchants were rich. Did this mean that the port of Dublin would enjoy a similar status? The word was that the king also wanted the merchants and craftsmen who had left to return.
“It’s very hard to know at this stage,” the Palmer had remarked to him the day before, “but if the Bristol men bring in extra money and trade, this could actually turn out to be good for Dublin.”