The Emerald Isle

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  “They are fools, then, and haven’t I said so?” Murchadh looked around the room for any who would dispute him, then quickly brought his hand to his temple, shielding his eyes from the living lump in the tapestry. He could have sworn that the spy had given the wall hanging an emphatic thump.

  Rian, the king’s distant cousin, lifted his hand. “Richard’s last letter,” he said, his blue eyes shooting sparks in all directions, “invited the men of Rathcroghan to participate in tomorrow’s tournament. I must confess, I am certainly of a mind to accept—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Felim interrupted, absolute finality in his voice. “Think you that we should go down there and assure Richard that we are not as skilled with the sword as his men?” He swept his audience with a piercing glance. “Faith, let us not deceive ourselves! We are mighty warriors all, men of valiant hearts, and I know full well that you would defend your homes and your king with your last breath. But you are Irishmen, born free to work the land God has given you, and ’tis not your fault the land demands your sweat and blood. Let these Normans and their knights spend the livelong day playing at swords and horses. We have more important things to do.”

  A sudden soft sneeze broke the stillness, and Murchadh drew himself up, swallowing to bring his heart down from his throat. The king would look toward the back of the room; he would see the mountain in the tapestry and know the imp had ventured into yet another place where she did not belong… But Felim kept his eyes on the floor, his brow creased in concentration. More important things pressed on his mind; the noise escaped his notice entirely.

  Murchadh glanced around the circle. None of the other men had noticed either. Perhaps only his nerves were attuned to such soft sounds. Sure, and none of the others had trained themselves to think like the imp, to be ready for anything, any time, any place.

  He lifted his chin on the pretext of scratching the soft hair at his neck, then let his gaze drift toward the back wall. Below the tapestry’s bottom edge, in full view of any man bold enough to turn and look, the mud-spattered hem of Cahira’s gown was clearly visible, along with two feet, short and slender in their soft leather pampooties. Murchadh felt his stomach tighten when he saw one foot nervously tapping the stone floor.

  Always moving, she was, continually darting from the garrison to the stable to the courtyard. Murchadh turned from the sight of her impatient foot and sank slightly in his chair. Though her father had never minded that Cahira did not keep to the house or the kitchen like a proper maiden, she would be the death of Murchadh if her father found her hiding in his council hall.

  Utterly miserable, Murchadh closed his eyes and prayed that for once his niece would remember to keep still.

  Pressed into the narrow space between the heavy tapestry and the wall, Cahira turned and leaned against the cool stone, hoping that her slipper-shod feet weren’t too obvious. She wasn’t likely to be discovered, for most of the men sat facing her father, and he seemed to have a firm grip on their attention.

  His topic certainly gripped hers. For days now the men had done nothing but murmur about Richard’s company of Norman knights, and Cahira’s curiosity extended far beyond the horizon. She had never seen a Norman; had never heard French, their language; had never beheld one of their bloody tournaments. Her world at Rathcroghan, which consisted of the family rath and the hedge-bordered fields beyond, had never even had a Norman in it. But now a flock of them had descended upon Athlone!

  Cahira crossed her hands behind her back and leaned upon them. Someone in the room beyond asked whether her father ought to attend the tournament on the morrow merely to appear interested in maintaining the peace with Richard, but her father immediately bellowed out his refusal.

  She had learned many things from her father, but Cahira always found his indirect lessons far more meaningful than his demonstrations. He had taught her how to string a bow, nock an arrow, and hit a target, skills that she found useful when she went out to rid the fields of jackrabbits. But from him she had also learned that he who roars loudest wins the argument, and he who rushes unexpectedly with a sword usually lands an effective blow.

  Imitating her father, last week she had surprised Murchadh with a sudden lunge while they were playing at swords. After wiping a stream of blood from his bare arm, the old warrior congratulated her on her audacity.

  “Audacity?” The word was English, and new to her.

  “Bold courage,” he explained in Gaelic. “Lorcan the brehon taught me.”

  Cahira smiled at the memory, knowing the brehon would certainly admire her audacity if he knew she was hiding ten feet behind his chair. Not even he, one of those revered personages who had absorbed the annals of Irish lore and law, royal genealogies, and a forbiddingly large number of magic spells and incantations, would dare to eavesdrop on a king’s council meeting. Lorcan sat in the room now at the king’s invitation.

  Someone in the chamber beyond interrupted with a question about cattle, and Cahira let her head fall back to the stone wall. The tapestry sighed with her movement, then settled upon her forehead and the tip of her nose. She caught her breath, repressing another sneeze as the smoky scents of last winter’s fires filled her nostrils.

  The dull debate about cattle and the autumn slaughter continued, so she closed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to drift into more interesting channels. What were the Normans truly like? Some of the men said they were bloodthirsty savages; others claimed they were dreamy-eyed fools, compelled to honor a code of behavior that valued poetry and dancing and sighing for love from afar. The traveling poets, the filid, told of Normans riding huge horses that clanked with colorful and useless metal trappings. “They pray devoutly,” one poet recently told Felim’s household as he entertained after dinner, “though some say they are more loyal to their masters than to God.”

  Cahira lifted her eyes and studied the woven lining before her eyes. How much of her acquired knowledge about the Normans was false and how much true? She would never know unless she ventured to Athlone and studied them herself.

  A tickle threatened her nostrils again, and Cahira automatically lifted her finger to her nose, accidentally batting the tapestry. As the fabric shuddered, she held her breath and prayed her father would not be distracted by the movement, then exhaled in a long, silent sigh as the heavy curtain came to rest.

  Her father was a brave man, but apparently he lacked curiosity and audacity. The Normans had camped less than an hour’s ride away, and yet her father had no desire to see them. Part of her marveled at his strange lack of interest, while another part entirely understood his reasons. Time and history had proven one fact over again: Bad things happened to O’Connors who ventured away from home.

  Cahira’s grandfather, the great Cathal O’Connor, had signed a treaty with King John of England guaranteeing the rights o’ the Connors to rule Connacht for as long as their line continued, but Cathal had scarce been put in his grave before the English court at Dublin voided those rights. Richard de Burgo, who had long coveted the fertile fields to the west of the River Shannon, then claimed that the people of Connacht were no longer loyal to the English Crown, worn by a gangly seventeen-year-old Henry III. The charge was utterly baseless, for the people of Connacht had continued to send their tributes to England, but Richard de Burgo’s uncle, Hubert, just happened to be young Henry’s chief counselor….

  And so, on paper if not in practice, the O’Connors lost the royal position they had occupied since the beginning of recorded Irish history. Shortly after this unjust judgment, Aedh, Connacht’s king and Cahira’s uncle, was summoned to Dublin by agents of the English Crown and murdered in a so-called petty dispute among gentlemen.

  Few accurate details about Aedh’s death ever reached Rathcroghan, and Cahira’s father accepted the kingship reluctantly. Felim, who had never ventured far beyond the hilly fields of Rathcroghan, found himself responsible for defending a tuath, or kingdom, whose borders stretched to the sea. Though Cahira had been only ele
ven at the time, she was wise enough to realize that a family who claimed the kingship of Connacht involved itself in a mysterious and dangerous business.

  Her father’s voice, hearty and robust, echoed through the great chamber and thundered above Cahira’s thoughts. “What do you mean he refuses to send tribute to the English king? Has he no honor? Has he no sense?”

  Surely the man who had brought this unfortunate news quailed before the king’s wrath. A small smile crept to Cahira’s lips as she imagined the scene in the room beyond—someone, probably one of her uncles or some other kinsman—now stared at her father, his face bright with embarrassment. He had undoubtedly suggested that they withhold their tribute of cattle in light of Richard de Burgo’s unwelcome presence, but her father would not hear of disloyalty. Despite the present English king’s deficiency, the O’Connors of Connacht had been allies of the English crown ever since that fool Dermont MacMurrough brought the Anglo-Norman invaders to Ireland’s southern shores. The O’Connors had kept their land because they kept the peace, but if one upstart freeman thought he could ignore his duty to send tribute to the English King—

  “Have you forgotten that even now, at this very moment, Richard de Burgo covets our kingdom?” Her father’s voice echoed through the stone chamber in a low rumble that was at once powerful and gentle. “Now that de Burgo is no longer the king’s representative in Dublin, he may find himself able to possess Connacht. We must remain on good terms with the English king.”

  “Surely Richard would not move against us.” Another man spoke up, and Cahira did not recognize the voice. She inched closer to the edge of the wall hanging, determined to peep out and see who spoke.

  “Like you,” the man continued, “Richard de Burgo is descended from an Irish king. He would not dispossess any of us from the lands we have held for generations.”

  Cahira slid one eye into the open, then squinted until she placed the man who had spoken. It was Rian’s father, a wealthy, pleasant fellow who enjoyed a comfortable life on his family’s rath.

  Her father looked blandly at his kinsman, with only a slight twitch of the eye to indicate that the man was treading on shaky ground. “His father married the daughter of an Irish king, in truth, but the blood that flows through de Burgo’s veins is more Norman than Gaelic,” the king answered, a hair of irritation in his voice. “And Norman blood is ambitious. It seeks what it cannot own. It demands what it cannot use. It requires what it cannot afford. And yet, through the power of Norman steel, it obtains all it desires.”

  Cahira ducked behind the tapestry as an aged and quavering voice called for the king’s attention. The chamber beyond the tapestry swelled with respectful silence as the venerable brehon began to speak.

  “Felim o’ the Connors,” Lorcan said, “we have not forgotten that your brother, Connacht’s past king, was treacherously murdered and his claim to kingship denied. But look to the land and see what God teaches us through nature. A turtledove, which only appears in summer, can threaten the wood pigeon with every breath, but nothing can change the fact that the wood pigeon has the forest to himself nine months of the year. De Burgo and his kind cannot possibly occupy this vast kingdom, nor will they. So let your heart be at peace, and think only of your people.”

  A flicker of apprehension coursed through Cahira. Though spoken in fondness and affection, the brehon’s words were the closest thing to a rebuke her father had heard since becoming king.

  “Thank you, learned Lorcan.” Her father’s tone was velvet, yet edged with steel. “I value your advice and wisdom. But I will be on guard against the Normans nonetheless. I also look to nature, and I see that it is not wise to let the cat play with the canary. Though the cat may seem friendly and gentle, its avaricious nature will eventually reveal itself.”

  His chair creaked as he lowered himself into it. “You, Donal, will go to your reluctant brother and tell him to double his tribute. What was his due—two calves? See that he brings four by the next full moon, or I will send my men to see that he recalls his duty. We have had no trouble with the Normans in these parts, and I will do nothing to rouse their ire. See to it.”

  “My king.” Another voice joined the conversation, and Cahira bit her lip as she recognized it. Her kinsman Rian spoke now, and she would have known without looking that he sat at her father’s right hand. No one had officially confirmed her suspicion, but she strongly believed Rian saw himself as the most likely candidate to inherit her father’s position.

  “Rian.” Her father’s voice brimmed with affection. “What have you to say?”

  Cahira heard the sound of wooden soles scraping the floor, and knew Rian had stood.

  “My king, increasing numbers of these Norman knights have been encroaching upon our lands. We have heard reports of knights riding near Clonmacnois and Athlone, even near Tulsk.”

  “Have they harmed any of our people? Stolen our cattle?”

  “No, Felim. But they grow as thick as flies around a dead man. As I journeyed here, I myself saw a pair of them riding north along the river.”

  A soft gasp escaped Cahira at this news. Normans here, near her father’s own fortress?

  “If they harbor no ill intent toward us, why should they not ride through our lands?” her father asked. “We will do nothing to displease them.”

  “But, my king!”

  “They are the enemy!”

  “Let us keep the peace!”

  A dozen different voices lifted in entreaty, and Cahira inched toward the edge of the tapestry, ready to take flight. Her father would dismiss this gathering before pandemonium broke loose, and she did not want to be found anywhere near this chamber when the men scattered in all directions.

  “Steaphan, you have not spoken.”

  Cahira paused as a mantle of silence fell upon the room. She would have to leave in the next hubbub; her father would be less likely to look up in a sea of confusion.

  “My people have complaints, sir.” Steaphan’s voice, though quiet, rang with an ominous quality that lifted the hair at Cahira’s neck. “Last week a father came to me in great distress for his daughter’s sake. The girl was alone in the fields when a pair of Normans came upon her—apparently they were two of Richard’s knights.”

  The silence thickened, and Cahira shuddered faintly, knowing all too well what had happened to the farmer’s daughter. Any woman who ventured outside the walls of her home without an escort risked being affronted by a passing stranger, just as a horse allowed to roam the countryside would almost certainly be claimed by another. And if these Norman knights were as depraved as the naysayers said…

  “Did the girl belong to your house?” Her father’s voice deepened in concern. “And was she harmed?”

  “She is naught but a betagh, a food provider. And she is none the worse for the encounter, though her father will have a hard time finding the girl a proper husband.”

  “Well,” Cahira heard her father hesitate, then push through the thickness in his voice, “ofttimes these things cannot be helped. Have the girl work close to her father from now on, and bid your women keep to their homes. This is unfortunate, but these are perilous times. Nothing further need come of this.”

  Confusion reigned for a moment as others lifted their voices in protest and argument. Cahira leaned forward, ready to dart for the doorway, but a tiny premonition lifted the hairs at the nape of her neck. Her father’s men were all brave fighters, yet they spoke of the Normans as if they were some breed apart, some race of warriors that would prove invincible should they choose to engage in battle.

  Why were they so different?

  She leaned forward, tuning her ears to follow the younger men’s voices. “Sure, and I’ve never seen such heavy horses! One beast alone wore a king’s ransom in silver!”

  “How they fight in such rubbish, I could never guess. If you upended one in a bog, he’d surely sink to the bottom until spring.”

  Cahira jumped as her father brought his hands together in a sharp
clap. The roar of absolute silence followed.

  “Thank you for your service, my good lads.” His voice echoed with regal dignity. “I thank you for your wisdom and your opinions, but I am resolute in this. As long as we are faithful in sending tribute to the English king, Richard cannot say we are disloyal. So I will not respond to Richard’s requests for a meeting, nor will any of you provoke his knights. ’Twill be impossible for Richard to find fault with us if we deny him an opportunity to meet with us. This is my decision. Now I send you forth with the blessing of God.”

  As the family priest began the benediction, Cahira caught her breath and slipped from her hiding place, not daring to glance over her shoulder as she fled the room. Her father would doubtless be standing with his head bowed and eyes closed, but Murchadh, that wily old buzzard, missed nothing. He’d scold her like the devil himself if he knew she’d been in the hall, but she had never feared her uncle’s scoldings.

  Safe outside the chamber, Cahira brushed the wrinkles from her gown, then bowed her head and followed the echoing words of the priest’s prayer, adding a silent and heartfelt amen to the request for blessings upon the king and kingdom of Connacht. The brehon’s belief that the Normans were no threat reassured her somewhat, but the knowledge that her father was not completely at ease sent chilly tendrils of apprehension spiraling through her body.

  She glanced up at the soft sound of a woman’s footsteps. Her maid, Sorcha, came through the outer room, doubtless on a quest for her missing mistress. Despite the fact that the girls were the same age, she would soon be scolding Cahira like a cranky old biddy unless—

  “There you are!” Cahira threw her hands in the air and sighed heavily in pretended frustration. “Did you remember my cloak?”

  Sorcha’s round face crinkled in confusion. “Your cloak, lass?”

  “I’ll need it if we’re going out.” Cahira placed one hand on her hip, then lifted a brow. “Don’t tell me you want to stay in the house and work with my mother. I thought we might go for a walk, but unless my fingers and toes deceive me, the wind has grown cold enough for a mantle.”