"Will I not?" The king's eyes flashed dangerously.

"No," said Morann quietly, "because I am the best silversmith in Dyflin."

For a moment, Morann wondered if he was about to discover that he was wrong. The hall had fallen very silent. The king was looking at the ground, apparently considering the matter. After a long pause, he murmured, "You have nerves of iron, Morann Mac Goibnenn." Then he looked up and eyed him coldly. "Do not presume upon my friendship. My rule is to be respected."

"That is not to be doubted." Morann bowed his head.

"I will give you a choice then, Morann Mac Goibnenn. Your friend may keep his life and join his family in the slave house; or he may lose his life, and I will set his family free. Let me know which you prefer before I sit down to eat tonight." Then he turned away. Morann knew better than to say anything more. They dragged Harold out of the hall and Morann followed sorrowfully behind.

It was a terrible choice, thought Morann; a cold, Celtic dilemma, as subtle and cruel as anything in the stories from the ancient days. That was why Brian had done it-to let him know plainly that he was dealing with a master of the kingly craft. He did not think that there was any hope of the Munster king changing his mind. A hard choice: but who should make it? If Harold came round, Morann had no doubt what his friend would choose. Freedom for his family, death for himself. So if Harold did not come round, was that the choice he should make for him? Or should he save his life and leave them all in slavery? The latter course might be preferable, if he could buy them out afterwards himself. But what if the king refused to let him do that, or they were shipped over the seas to the foreign markets. Would Harold ever forgive him for that?

As they left the hall, the officer went off to tend to his wound while they were led across the yard in silence to a small wooden building. Morann had hoped that perhaps the cold night air might bring his friend round, but it did not. They were pushed into the room and a guard placed at the door.

There was a single taper in the room and a small fire. Morann sat by the fire. Harold lay on the floor with his eyes closed. Time went by.

Morann asked for water, and when it came, he dashed a little on Harold's face. It had no effect. After a while, Harold groaned.

Morann raised his head and tried to get some water through his lips. He thought he got a few drops in, and Harold groaned again; but though his eyes flickered, he did not come round.

After perhaps another hour, one of the guards arrived and announced that King Brian was waiting for his answer.

Morann told him that his friend had still not come round.

"You're to bring an answer regardless," the fellow said.

"Dear God, what am I to say?" Morann burst out. He looked down at Harold. He seemed to have fallen into a restful sleep. I Thank God at least that the Norwegian was so strong.

Morann had a feeling that he might come round if he could only wait a little longer. He still wasn't sure what answer he was going to give the 1 Munster king. "I can't make any sense of the business at all," he said in exasperation. "Why would he attack your man anyway?"

"I don't know," the fellow replied. "But I can tell you this: Sigurd did nothing to him. Come on."

"If I must," Morann muttered absently, and started to follow. 1' And he had already walked halfway across the yard to the big hall when he stopped and turned to the man. "Just a moment," he said. "What did you say his name was-the officer that my friend attacked?"

"Sigurd. Officer of the watch."

Sigurd. A Viking name. The dark fellow wasn't a Viking, as far as Morann knew; but then it wasn't uncommon these days, especially around the ports, to find Vikings who had taken Celtic names and vice versa. Sigurd.

Until this moment it had never occurred to I him that the officer's name could be significant. He tried to imagine it-the confusion on the quay, the swarthy figure suddenly advancinga "Were you there on the quay when it happened?" he asked the guard. 1 was.

"Did someone call out a name?"

The fellow considered.

"Sigurd arrived. We said to the Ostman, "Step forward. Our man wants to see you." Then I called out, "Here's your man, Sigurd." And then as Sigurd got close, the Ostman took one look at him anda"

But Morann was no longer listening. He was already striding into the hall.

"I know, Brian, son of Kennedy," he called out. "I know what happened."

He ignored the king's look of irritation when he began his story. He did not obey when the king told him to be quiet. He continued even when it looked as though the guards would remove him. And by this time, in any case, the king was listening.

"So he thought my fellow Sigurd was this Dane who had vowed to kill him?"

"I have no doubt of it," cried Morann.

"Imagine it: in the darkness, a similar-looking fellow, he hears the name called out-and in the very place, remember, where they had met beforea"

"You swear that this story is true?"

"Upon the Holy Bible. Upon my life, Brian, son of Kennedy. And it is the only explanation that makes sense."

King Brian gave him a long, hard look.

"You want me to spare his life, I suppose."

I do.

"And free his wife and children, too, no doubt."

"I would ask it, naturally."

"They have a price you know. And after all that, you would be my loyal friend, would you, Morann Mac Goibnenn?"

"I should indeed."

"Even to the death?" He looked Morann in the eye.

And just for a moment, because he was honest, Morann hesitated.

"To the death, Brian, son of Kennedy," he answered.

Then Brian Boru smiled.

"Will you look at that," he called out to the company gathered in the hall. "Here's a man, when he swears to be your friend, who really means it." He turned back to Morann. "Your friend's life, Morann, I will give you if you vouch for his future loyalty also, and if he pays five of those silver coins you mint here to my man Sigurd, who never did him any harm. His wife and children you may buy from me yourself. I shall be needing a silver chalice to give to the monastery at Kells. Could you make me such a thing by Easter?"

Morann nodded.

"No doubt it will be a fine one," the king said with a smile.

And it was.

There was no doubt about it, at the age of forty-one, with her dark hair and brilliant green eyes, Caoilinn was still a very striking woman; and it was also generally agreed, by summer's end, that she was looking for a new husband.

She had earned some happiness. Nobody would have disputed that. She had looked after her sick husband devotedly for more than a dozen years. Cormac had never recovered his health after the battle of Glen Mama. With one arm missing and a terrible wound in his stomach, it was only thanks to Caoilinn's nursing that he had lived at all. But worse even than his physical disabilities had been his melancholy. Sometimes he was depressed, sometimes angry; increasingly, as the years went by, he drank too much. The last years had been difficult indeed.

To get through them, Caoilinn had clung to her memory. She did not see before her the broken man that he now was. She managed instead to see the tall, handsome figure he once had been. She thought of his courage, his strength, his royal blood.

Above all, she had wanted to protect his children. Their father was always presented to them as a fallen hero. If he lay idle for weeks on end, or suddenly burst out in a rage over nothing, these were the tribulations of his heroic nature. If his mood in the last days descended into a morbid darkness, it was not a darkness of his own making but one created by the evil spirits who had surrounded him and were dragging him down. And from what quarter did these spirits come? Who was the evil influence behind them, and the ultimate cause of all this misery? To be sure, it could only be one person: who else but the instigator of the trouble, the upstart who had come deliberately to humiliate the old royal house of Leinster to which her husband and her children were proud to belong. It was Brian Boru who was to blame. It was not her husband's weakness but Brian's malevolence that was the cause of their misery. So she taught her children to believe. And as the humiliations gathered with the passing of the years, she even came to believe it herself. It was Brian who had caused her husband's sickness, his sadness, his rage, and his dissolution. It was Brian who was the evil presence in their family life. Even when their father started a drinking bout, it was Brian Boru who drove him to it, she told them. It seemed the Munster king had a personal animus against the family at Rathmines. So perfect was her belief that, in the course of time, it had transformed itself into something that was almost tangible, as though King Brian's enmity had solidified into a stone. And even now, when she was a free woman again and her children grown, she still carried her hatred of Brian like a flint in her heart.

Cormac had died at midwinter. It had been a relief. Whatever painful memories she had, her conscience was clear. She had done her best. Their children were healthy. And thanks to her good stewardship-for in fact, if not in name, she had been running his estate for years-she and the children were now almost as rich as they had been before the battle of Glen Mama.

By spring, the wound of her sadness had begun to heal.

By early summer, she felt quite cheerful. By June, people were telling her that she was looking younger than she had for years. And after a careful private inspection of her own body, she concluded that some confidence was justified. As the long, warm days of August saw the harvest ripen, she began to feel that perhaps one day she might think of marrying again. And as the harvest was gathered in, she began, in a calm and cheerful way, to look about.

Osgar hardly knew what he felt, that October, as he approached the family monastery at Dyflin. Samhain was approaching, an appropriate time he supposed for his uncle to have departed for the world beyond. The old abbot had taken his leave very peacefully; there was no need to feel pain on that account. As he had descended the path from the mountains on that clear autumn day, Osgar had felt only a gentle melancholy as he thought affectionately of the old man. But as he came to the monastery gates, there was another thought on his mind. For he knew very well what they were going to ask of him. And the question, which he had not yet answered in his own mind, was what he was going to do?

They were all there. His uncle's sons, friends, and family he had not seen for years. Morann Mac Goibnenn was there. And I Caoilinn, too. The wake was just ending when he arrived, but they asked him to conduct the final ceremonies as they placed the old man in his grave. It was kind of Caoilinn, afterwards, to have invited him to visit her at Rathmines the following day.

He arrived at midday. He had asked for only the simplest meal to be provided. "Remember I am only a poor monk," he had told I; her.

He was rather glad to find that she had arranged for the two of them to eat alone. Looking at the handsome, dark-haired woman opposite him he realised with a slight shock that he had not sat alone with a woman for twenty-five years. It wasn't long before she I came to the main issue on everybody's mind.

"Well, Osgar, are you coming back?"

That was what they all wanted. Now that his uncle had gone, it was obviously Osgar who should come and take his place. His uncle's sons wanted it, since neither of them had any real desire to take I on the role. The monks wanted it. He would probably be the most caret distinguished abbot the little place had had in generations.

Wasn't it his duty? Probably. Was he tempted? He wasn't sure.

He didn't answer her question just yet.

"It is strange to be back," he remarked. "I suppose," he went on after a thoughtful pause, "that if I had remained here, I might be sitting in the monastery now with a brood of children and my wife opposite me. And I suppose," he added with a smile, "that the wife in question might have been you." He glanced at her. "But then, perhaps you would not have married me."

Now it was her turn to smile.

"Oh," she said, reflectively, "I would have married you."

She looked at the man before her. His hair was grey. His face was thinner, and rather severe. She studied the way the lines on his face ran: ascetic, intellectual, but not unpleasing.

She remembered how close they had been when she was a little girl. He'd been her childhood playmate. She remembered how he'd saved her from drowning. She remembered how she had admired his fine, aristocratic ways and his intelligence. Yes, she had always supposed he would marry her. And how shocked she had been, she remembered, how hurt and furious when he had turned away from her. And for what? For a monastery in the mountains when he already had one at home. She couldn't understand it. That day when she had met him on the path, she had wanted to shock him, attack his choice of life, show her power over him was greater even than the religious vocation that was so humiliatingly stealing him away. I'd have been happy at that time, she realised with wry amusement, if I'd seduced him into denying God Himself. She shook her head at the memory. What a devil I was, she thought.

She almost asked him if he regretted his decision now, but decided she had better not.

After their meal, they went for a short walk. They talked of other things. She told him about the improvements she had made to the estate and about her children. It was only as they were returning to the house that she pointed to a place and casually remarked, "That's where I was nearly killed. Or worse."

Osgar stared at the spot.

"You know about that, I expect?" she asked. "It was Morann who saved my life. He was wonderful.

Brave as a lion. Dressed in your habit, too, I might say!" And she laughed.

But Osgar did not laugh.

How could he even smile? It had been a while before he had heard all the details of the events of that fateful day. It was his uncle who had sent him a long and glowing letter on the subject of Morann Mac Goibnenn's valiant rescue of his cousin and how she and her wounded husband had been brought to the little monastery. And it was thanks to Osgar's concern and foresight, his uncle had been careful to add, that Morann had gone to Rathmines at all. But for that, he pointed out, Caoilinn would have been raped and probably butchered. They were all very grateful, he assured his nephew.

Such praise. Such a role he'd played. It had been like a knife through his heart. Caoilinn had been saved. But by Morann, not him. His own monk's habit, even, had attended her rescue, but it was Morann who had been wearing it. Morann, who was a better man than he.

He could have been there to rescue her himself, of course, if he hadn't shown what the craftsman took to be panic. Perhaps Morann had been right and that was all his hesitation had been- mere cowardice.

He could have been there if he had refused when Morann sent him back, if he'd insisted on accompanying him whether the craftsman liked it or not. If he'd been a stronger man. If he'd been a man at all. For weeks after receiving the letter he had felt a sense of shame and self-disgust.

Humiliated, he had gone about his daily tasks at Glendalough like a person with a guilty secret he cannot share. And in the end, he had decided that there was nothing more to do except admit to himself that his love for Caoilinn, the little ring he kept, and all his thoughts about her were nothing but a sham.

When it came to the one time that he should have gone to her, he had failed, shamefully, to do so.

Involuntarily, he shook his head. -; He had not even realised that she had been speaking. She was talking now of something else. He tried to pay attention. She was speaking of her marriage.

"I was very angry at the time," she was confessing, "but as the years passed, I came to see that you were right. We are all happy enough now, I dare say.

You did what you had to. You made your choice."

Yes, he thought, that was it. He had had his chances down the years and each time, he had made his choice.

His choice to leave. His choice to desert her in her hour of need. His choice. And once such choices were made, you could not go back. You could never go back.

"I shan't be returning to Dyflin," he said. "I can't go back."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shall miss you."

Not long afterwards, he took his leave. As he did so, he enquired, "Do you think you'll marry again?"

"I don't know," she said with a smile. "I hope so."

"Have you someone in mind?"

"Not yet." She smiled again, confidently. "I shall please myself."

It was years since Harold had thought about Sigurd the Dane. It was not as if, even back at the time of Glen Mama, the man had actually appeared; and the embarrassment that his delusion had caused on that occasion made Harold even less willing to trouble himself by thinking about the fellow again. He assumed that, as the years had passed, the Dane had probably forgotten about him anyway.

And the years had been good to Harold. Dyflin and Fingal had been at peace. Brian Boru had succeeded in all his ambitions. Two years after the submission of Dyflin, the head of the proud O'neill had acknowledged him as High King of the whole island, though, as the head of the mighty O'neill, he was still usually referred to as the King of Tara. The northern chiefs in Connacht and Ulster had been grudging about the business, but Brian had gone up and made them submit. Cleverly, he had also made a pilgrimage to the great church of Saint Patrick at Armagh and secured the blessing of the priests there with a huge present of gold.

Meanwhile, in the peace of Fingal and the busy port of Dyflin, Harold had enjoyed an ever- increasing prosperity.

It was not until after a decade that Harold's happiness had been marred by a loss: in 1011 Astrid, his wife of more than twenty years, had died. The blow had been great. Though, for the sake of his children, he had forced himself to go about his business as usual, the heart was gone out of him. He had continued almost like a sleepwalker all through that year, and it was only thanks to the affection of his children that he had not fallen into a worse state than he did. Not until the next spring did his spirits begin to rise again. Late in April, he went into Dyflin to stay with his friend Morann.

Caoilinn first caught sight of him one April afternoon. She was visiting her family in Dyflin.

Her father having died some years before, her brother and his family occupied her old home now. She and her brother's wife had gone for a walk to the Thingmount, and they had just started across Hoggen Green when they caught sight of two figures riding towards them from the direction of the Long Stone out on the mudflats.

One she recognised as Morann Mac Goibnenn. The other was a tall figure, splendidly mounted. She asked her sister-in-law who he was.

"That's Harold the Norwegian. He has a big farmstead in Fingal."

"He's handsome," Caoilinn remarked. She remembered hearing about the Norseman in the past.

Though he was middle-aged, she saw that his hair was still red, with only a few streaks of grey, and that he had a pleasant air of vigour and health about him.

"He has a limp. A childhood accident, they say," her kinswoman remarked.