Princes of Ireland

  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.