She did not see him. She seemed still to be looking for someone. She came towards the gateway to look outside. And then he saw her staring towards him.

He waved. She stared blankly.

He frowned, then smiled. Of course, a bedraggled figure in a monk's habit, carrying an axe: he must look a strange sight. She probably hadn't recognised him. He called out.

"Caoilinn. It is Osgar."

Still she stared. She looked puzzled. Had she understood? Then she pointed at him. He waved again.

She shook her head, pointing once more, urgently, to something behind him; so he stopped and turned.

The horse was only ten yards away. It had stopped when he did. It must have been walking behind him, but in his excitement at seeing Caoilinn, he had not heard its hoofs on the grassy track.

Sigurd was riding it.

"Well, Monk, we meet again." The pirate gazed at Osgar, apparently considering what to do with him.

Instinctively, clutching the axe, Osgar started to back away. Sigurd moved his horse slowly forward, keeping pace with him. How far was he from the gateway to the farmstead? Osgar tried to remember.

He dared not look behind him. Could he make a run for it? Perhaps Caoilinn was closing the gate, trapping him outside with Sigurd. Suddenly he realised that the pirate was talking to him.

"Run away, Monk. It isn't you I'm interested in." Sigurd grinned. "The person I want is in that farmstead." He waved him away.

"Go on, Monk. Run."

But Osgar did not run. For Caoilinn was there. The memory of that miserable day when he had let Morann go into Dyflin alone to save her flashed into his mind with bitterness. He had failed to strike a blow then. He had chosen his monk's vocation over her, just as he had been doing for most of his life. And now this devil, this monster was going to take her. Rape her?

Kill her? Probably both. The time had come.

He must kill. He must kill this Viking or die in the attempt. Terrified of Sigurd though he was, the fighting spirit of his ancestors stirred within him, and calling loudly to Caoilinn behind him, "Close the gate," he took a step back and raising the axe over his head, barred the way.

Slowly and carefully, Sigurd got down from his horse. He did not trouble to cram the helmet back on his head, but he drew out his double-edged sword. He was not going to argue with the monk, but Osgar was in the way. Would the fool really strike?

The monk did not know it, but his stance was all wrong. His weight was so distributed that one of two things might happen. Sigurd would make a feint, Osgar would swing down and, meeting only thin air, probably cut off his own leg. If he didn't swing then, Sigurd would take one nimble step to the right and plunge his sword straight into the monk's side. It would be all over before the axe was halfway down. Osgar was about to die, but didn't know it. If he tried to fight, that is.

But would he? Sigurd took his time. He slowly raised the blade of his sword, showing it to Osgar as he had done before. The monk was trembling like a leaf.

Sigurd stood two paces away from him.

Suddenly he let out a roar. Osgar quivered.

He almost dropped the axe. Sigurd took one more step forward. The poor fool of a monk was so frightened that he had closed his eyes. In the gateway behind, Sigurd could see a dark-haired woman with a pale face. Handsome, whoever she was. He measured the distance. No need even to make a feint. He gripped his sword for the thrust.

And just at that moment, coming round the outside of the farmstead fence, he saw Harold. What luck.

Osgar struck. He had sent a single, fleeting prayer to heaven, half opened his eyes, seen the pirate, just for an instant, shift his gaze elsewhere and known that God, for all his sins, had granted him one chance. He struck with all his might. He struck for Caoilinn whom I; he loved, he struck for his hesitating life, his chances lost, his passion never practised. He struck to end his cowardice, and his shame. He struck to kill Sigurd.

And he did. Distracted for an instant, the pirate did not heed the If blow until it was too late. The unexpected blade bit through the bone, cleaving the skull with a sickening crunch and a splatter of brains, shattering the bridge of his nose and smashing the jaw before it buried itself with a thud in the neck bone. The tremendous force of the blow drove the body onto its knees. It knelt there for a moment, like a strange creature with an axe for a head, the haft sticking out in front like a yard-long nose, while Osgar stared in disbelief at what he had wrought. Then it keeled over.

Harold, who had come in from a nearby field, unaware that he had any visitors, gazed at the scene before him with great surprise.

Three weeks later, Harold and Caoilinn were married in Dyflin. At Harold's suggestion, it was a Christian ceremony, the bridegroom, with great good humour, having allowed himself to be baptised beforehand by the bride's cousin Osgar, who also officiated at the marriage. Just before the ceremony, Osgar silently handed the bride a little antler ring. Despite many renewed requests, Osgar did not take up the position of abbot at the family monastery but preferred to return to the peace of his beloved Glendalough. There he produced another book of illustrated Gospels, which was very fine; but it lacked the genius of the one which was lost.

The Battle of Clontarf is rightly regarded as the most important of Celtic Irish history. It has often been depicted as the decisive encounter between the Celtic Gaedhil and the Nordic Gaill: Irish Brian Boru against the invading Vikings, by which Ireland was triumphant against the foreign aggressor. Such was the foolish propaganda of romantic historians. Although it may well have deterred further Viking raids at this unstable time in the northern world, Dyflin itself was left in the hands of its Viking ruler, just as before. The Nordic element in Ireland's ports remained strong and the two communities, the Hiberno-Norse as they are often called, became indistinguishable.

The real significance of the Battle of Clontarf was probably twofold. First, Clontarf and the events surrounding it made clear the strategic importance of the island's richest port. Never a tribal nor a religious centre, its trade and ramparts meant that, while the holding of ancient Tara was symbolic, to rule all Ireland, it was Dyflin that was crucial.

Secondly, and sadly, far from being a triumph, Clontarf was Ireland's great missed opportunity. For though Brian Boru had decisively won the battle, he had also lost his life. The descendants of his grandchildren, the O'Briens, would earn high renown; but his immediate successors were unable to unite and hold all Ireland as, for a decade, the old man had briefly done. Twenty years later, the High Kingship would pass back to the O'neill kings of Tara; but it was and remained only a ceremonial shadow of the kingship of Brian Boru. Disunited Ireland, like the fragmented Celtic island of ancient times, would always be vulnerable.

So Brian Boru won, but lost; and Harold the Norseman and Caoilinn the Celt, who were not in love, married and were very happy; Morann the Christian craftsman, having received a pagan warning, died like a warrior in battle; and Osgar the monk killed an evil man, even if he did not understand why.

SIX.

STRONGBOW.

I.

The invasion that was to bring eight centuries of grief to Ireland began on a sunny autumn day in the year of Our Lord 1167. It consisted of three ships which arrived at the small southern port of Wexford.

Yet had anyone told the two young men who eagerly disembarked together that they were part of an English conquest of Ireland, they would have been most surprised. For one was an Irish priest returning home, while his friend, though he owed allegiance to the King of England, had never called himself English in his life. As for the purpose of the mission, the soldiers in the ships had come because they had been invited, and were led by an Irish king.

Indeed, many of the terms found in reports of these events are misleading. Irish chroniclers of the period refer to the invasion as the coming of the Saxons-by which they mean the English- notwithstanding the fact that for three centuries, much of the I northern half of England had been settled by Danish Vikings. I Modern historians refer to it as the coming of the Normans. But that is also inaccurate. For although the kingdom of England had been conquered by William of Normandy in 1066, it had since then passed, through his granddaughter, to King Henry II'-WHO belonged to the Plantagenet dynasty from Anjou, in France.

So who were these people-apart from the Irish priest-who were arriving in three ships at Wexford on this sunny autumn day? were they Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Frenchmen? Actually, they were mostly Flemish; and they had come from their home in south Wales.

The young priest was enthusiastic.

"As soon as this business is done, Peter, you'll promise to visit my family, I hope. I know they'll be pleased to welcome you," said the handsome young priest.

"I shall look forward to it."

"My sister must be twelve now. She was a pretty, lively child when I left."

Peter FitzDavid smiled to himself. It was not the first time his Irish friend had mentioned his sister's charms or indicated that she would receive a handsome dowry.

Peter FitzDavid was a pleasant-looking young man. His light brown hair was cut short and he wore a small beard cut into a chiselled edge.

His eyes were blue and set wide apart. His chin was square and strong. A pleasant face, but a soldier's face.

Soldiers need to be brave, but as he prepared to step ashore, Peter could not help feeling a little apprehensive. His fear was not so much that he could be killed or maimed, but that he might somehow disgrace himself. There was, however, an even greater fear lurking in the background, and it was this fear which, in the times ahead, would drive him on. It was because of this fear that he had to succeed, to catch the eye of his commander and win fame. Even as the shore drew closer, his mother's words were echoing in his mind. He understood her very well. The last penny she could spare had been spent on his horse and equipment. There was nothing else left. She loved him with all her heart, but she had no more to give.

"God be with you, my son," she had said to him as he left. "But do not come back empty-handed." Death, he thought, would be better than that. He was twenty.

To call Peter FitzDavid a knight in shining armour would not quite be correct. His chain mail, a hand down from his father that had been altered to fit him, was free of rust and if it did not shine, at least it gleamed. In short, like many of the mounted men of that age, Peter FitzDavid, who owned little more than what he carried, was a young fellow in search of his fortune.

And he was Flemish. His grandfather Henry had come from Flanders, that land of craftsmen, merchants, and adventurers which lay on the rich flatlands between northern France and Germany. He had been just one of a stream of Flemings that had flowed across to Britain after the Norman Conquest and had settled not only in England but in Scotland and Wales as well. Henry was one of many Flemish immigrants who were granted land in the southwestern peninsula of Wales which, because of its rich mines and quarries, the new Norman kings were anxious to control. But the settlement in Wales had not gone well. The proud Celtic princes of that land had not submitted easily and now the Norman Flemish colony was in trouble.

Several castles were taken; their lands were under threat.

Peter's family had been especially hard hit.

They were not important tenants in chief-vassals of the king himself-with holdings in many of the Plantagenets' wide domains. They were vassals of his vassals.

Their modest lands in Wales were all they had. And by the time that Peters father, David, had died, they had lost two- thirds of those. What remained was only enough to support Peter's mother and his two sisters.

"You'll have nothing to support you, my poor boy," his father had told him, "except your family's love, your sword, and the good name I leave you."

By the time Peter was fifteen, his father had taught him every thing he knew about the arts of war, and Peter was an accomplished swordsman. The love of his family was not in doubt. As for his name, Peter had loved his father and so he loved that, too. For just as in Celtic Ireland, the term "Mac" implied "the son of," so in Norman England, the French term "fitz" had a similar meaning. His father had thus been known as David FitzHenry; and he was proud to be called Peter FitzDavid. Now it was time to seek his fortune as a fighting man for hire.

Warfare has always been an expensive and specialised business, conducted on a temporary basis, and so the instruments of war have always been for hire. Arms and equipment were traded. Transport in particular was hired for the occasion. Only two years earlier, the men of Dublin-as the merchants of Dyflin were usually calling the big port now-had offered their great fleet to King Henry of England for a campaign against the Celtic princes of Wales, a deal which fell through only when Henry changed his mind.

But above all, across the huge patchwork of tribal lands and dynastic lordships that, since the fall of the ordered Roman Empire, now made up most of Christendom, it was armed men who were for hire. When William the Conqueror came to England, it was not just his Norman vassals that he led but a whole collection of armed adventurers from Brittany, Flanders, and other places, and who were granted estates in the conquered country. After their defeat, a large contingent of English warriors travelled right across Europe and formed what was called the Saxon regiment in the service of the Emperor of Byzantium. Adventurers from England, France, and Germany had already gone on Crusade to get land in the kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader colonies in the Holy Land. Celtic kings in Ireland had been hiring Vikings to fight for them for generations. It was not strange, therefore, that any young man from Wales in search of his fortune should have gone to the Plantagenet King of England to see if that mighty monarch needed some hired help.

When Peter FitzDavid first set out, it was to the great English port of Bristol that he had travelled. His father had once had some acquaintance with a merchant there.

"After I'm gone," his father had advised Peter, "you could pay him a visit. He might be able to do something for you."

Bristol lay more than a hundred miles away, across the huge estuary of the mighty River Severn which traditionally separated Saxon from Celtic Britain. It had taken Peter five days to reach the Severn, and another half day riding up its western bank to a place where there was a horse ferry across. When he arrived at the ferry, however, he was told that on account of the Severn's swift and complex currents, he would have to wait some hours.

Looking about he saw that on the slopes just above there was a small fort and, set in an oak grove nearby, there seemed to be some ancient ruins.

Making his way up to these, he had sat down to rest.

It was a pleasant place with a fine view over the river. Without particularly thinking about it, he sensed that the ruins had a religious air. And indeed they had, for the site he had come upon was the old Roman temple to Nodens, the Celtic god of healing.

Christianity had long since submerged the god as well as his temple: in England he had been quite forgotten, and across the sea in Celtic Ireland, under the name of Nuada of the Silver Hand, he had long since been converted by the monkish scribes from a deity to a mythical king.

And as he was sitting there, gazing across the river to the distant shore, it had struck Peter with a terrible force, that when he crossed the River Severn, he would be leaving everything he knew behind. For whatever his family's troubles, Wales was his home. He had never lived anywhere else. He loved the green valleys, the coastline with its rocky outcrops and sandy coves. Though he spoke French to his parents, the tongue of his childhood was the Celtic Welsh of the local people with whom he had grown up. Once across the Severn, however, the people would speak English, of which he knew not a word. And after he got to Bristol and encountered the English, would he stay in that country or go farther away, across the seas, never perhaps to see his native land again? For a while he felt so sad he almost turned to go home again.

But he couldn't go home. They loved him, but they didn't want him. And late that afternoon, with a heavy heart, he had led his charger and his packhorse onto the big raft that would take them across the river.

Entering Bristol the following evening came as a revelation. He had seen some impressive stone castles in Wales and several great monasteries, but never before had he encountered a city. After London, Bristol was England's greatest port.

He walked through its busy streets for a while before he found the house he was looking for and entered it with some trepidation, for the place had its own stone gateway, a cobbled court surrounded by timbered, gabled buildings, and a handsome hall with a high roof. His father's friend, he saw at once, must be a man of great wealth.

And it was still more disconcerting when, on being ushered into the hall by a servant, it was immediately clear to him that the merchant was not entirely sure who he was. Some anxious moments passed while the merchant asked him not once but twice to repeat his father's name. At last, while Peter felt himself blushing, the man seemed to recall who his father was, if not with great interest, and asked him how he could be of help.

The next two days were interesting, but not enjoyable. The merchant was a swarthy man. His father had been an Ostman, a Dane who had come from Ireland. With him he brought a Celtic name Dubh Gall-"the dark stranger"-which in Bristol they pronounced as Doyle. Though born in Bristol, the merchant had been given neither an English nor a Norman name, but instead had been I.

christened Sigurd. No one used his first name, though.

All Bristol referred to him as Doyle.

The dark stranger: he was certainly that. Dark and silent. He was hospitable enough: Peter even had an entire chamber to himself beside the hall. To Peter, as he would to any nobleman or substantial merchant, he spoke in the courteous tongue of Norman French. But he spoke little, and smiled not at all. Perhaps it was because he was a widower, Peter thought. Perhaps when his married daughters visited, or his sons returned home from their business in London, he would show a better humour. But for the two days that Peter was there, conversation was minimal. And since the numerous servants, grooms, and underlings spoke only English, he felt rather lonely.

The first morning, Doyle took him round the port.

They visited his countinghouse, his warehouse, two of his ships down by the slave pens on the waterfront.

Doyle was certainly still in full possession of his vigour; his dark eyes seemed to be everywhere; he spoke very quietly, but men watched him apprehensively and jumped to obey his orders when he gave them. By the end of the day, Peter had learned a good deal about the business of the port, the organisation of the town with its courts and aldermen, and its trade with other ports from Ireland to the Mediterranean. But he had also decided that Doyle was rather frightening.

This feeling was reinforced by a small incident that evening. He and the merchant had just sat down in the big hall and the servants were about to bring the food, when a young man of about his own age entered and, after bowing respectfully to them both, seated himself at some distance from them. Doyle, having given the young man a curt nod and grunted to Peter, "He works for me," took no further notice of him. The young man, who was wearing a hood which he did not remove, was served a goblet of wine, which was not refilled; and as his host continued to ignore him, and the young man himself never once looked up, Peter did not know how to address him. As soon as he had eaten, the young man left; he looked depressed. I should think I'd look depressed, too, if I worked for Doyle, Peter thought.

It was later that evening, when he had retired to his chamber, that he heard their voices out in the courtyard. At least, it was certainly Doyle's voice, low and menacing, that murmured something he could not catch, and then: "You're a fool." It was said in French. "You can never repay."

"I'm completely in your power." The voice was that of a young man, urgent and plaintive. It must be the fellow he had seen that evening. This was followed by a harsh murmur from Doyle. The words were indistinct, but the tone was threatening. "No!" the young man cried.

"Don't do that, I beg you. You promised."

They moved away after that and Peter heard no more. But one thing was very clear to him: Doyle was sinister, and the sooner he left the better.

The following morning, without warning, Doyle told him to saddle his horse, take his weapons, and accompany him to an exercise yard near the eastern gate. There he found several men-at-arms practising swordplay, and after some words from Doyle, he was invited to join them. The dark merchant watched him for some time and then quietly departed, leaving him to make his own way home later on. Peter did not see him again until the evening.

It was that evening, however, that Doyle remarked to him, in his usual saturnine way, "There is talk of an expedition. To Ireland."

If nobody had succeeded in dominating all Ireland since the days of Brian Boru, it was not for lack of trying. One after another the great regional dynasts had tried to gain supremacy; Leinster and Brian's grandson from Munster had both had their turn. The ancient O'neill were always watching for a chance to regain their former glory. At present, the O'Connor dynasty of Connacht claimed the High Kingship. But no one had truly achieved mastery, and the chronicles of the time adopted a telling formula to describe the position of most of these monarchs: "High King, with Opposition." So while the rulers in the huge patchwork of Europe began to amalgamate territories into ever greater holdings-the Plantagenets now controlled a feudal empire consisting of most of the western side of France, as well as Normandy and England-the island of Ireland continued to be split between ancient tribal lands and rival chiefs.

The latest Irish dispute concerned the kingdom of Leinster.

For some time now, the ancient province of Leinster had been controlled by an ambitious dynasty from Ferns in the southern, Wexford part of the territory.

But ambitious King Diarmait of Leinster had made enemies. In particular, he had humiliated a powerful king, O'Rourke, by eloping with his wife.

Now this cheated husband, together with others, had turned on Diarmait of Leinster and forced him to flee.

It was a considerable surprise to Plantagenet King Henry, who was down on his domains in France, when they told him: "King Diarmait of Leinster has arrived here to see you."

And it was with some curiosity that he answered, "An Irish king? Bring him to me."

The meeting was certainly strange: the Plantagenet monarch, sandy-haired, clean-shaven, quick and impatient in his movements, dressed in tunic and hose, sophisticated, French in language and culture, face-to-face with the provincial Celtic king, with his thick brown beard and heavy woollen cloak. Henry actually spoke some English-an achievement of which he was rather proud-but no Irish. Diarmait spoke Irish, Norse, and some French. But there was no difficulty in communicating. For a start, Diarmait had brought with him his interpreter-Regan by name-and failing that, the clerks employed by both sides spoke Latin, as did every educated churchman in western Christendom.

The two men also had things in common: both had eloped with another man's wife; both had uncertain relationships with their own children; both were self-centred and cynical opportunists.

King Diarmait's request was simple. He'd been driven out of his kingdom and he wanted to get it back. He needed to raise an army. He couldn't pay them much, but there would be property and land to be distributed if he was successful. It was the usual deal, upon which the present aristocracy of many parts of Europe, including England, had been founded. He also knew, however, that he couldn't raise men in any of the Plantagenet dominions without getting Henry's permission.

King Henry II was a very ambitious man. He had already built up an empire and his main occupation now was in taking territory away from the rather ineffectual king of France, whom it amused him to bully. As it happened, a dozen years earlier, he had briefly considered the possibility of annexing Ireland as well, though he had dropped the idea and had little interest in the island now. But he was also an opportunist.

"Are you offering to become my vassal?" he gently enquired.

His vassal. When an Irish king recognised the supremacy of a greater monarch and submitted to him, he "came into his house," as the expression was.

He gave hostages for his good behaviour and promised to pay tribute. When a French or English feudal lord became the vassal of another, however, the obligations were more comprehensive. Not only did he owe military service, or payment in lieu, but when he died, his heirs had to make payment to inherit their land, and if the inheritance was in dispute, the overlord decided it. In conquered England, moreover, the Normans had been able to take an even stronger line. For if any vassal there gave trouble, the English king could take his lands away and give them to another. A feudal vassal could not, theoretically, fight or travel without his overlord's permission. Beyond even this, Henry Plantagenet was constantly extending the royal power. In England, he wanted to give ordinary freemen the right to go past their own lords and appeal directly to his royal courts for justice. It was the start of a centralised administration undreamed of in the informal world of the Celtic Irish kings.