Strongbow's Wife

Prologue

1152, Kingdom of Meath, Ireland

Dervogila shivered. She shuffled her feet and moved sideways to mould her body into a concave section of the tree’s trunk. She was not seeking concealment so much as protection from the wind whose strength had increased whilst she waited. Again she questioned the wisdom of her planned action. If Dermot came it would mean that he had won the battle and she would be safe. If he did not it could only mean that her husband had won. How long should she wait? Too long and she would not have time to return to the family home before her husband. Leave the rendezvous too soon and she would lose her chance to escape from his abuse.

She dreaded the possibility of her husband winning this latest battle. She doubted her ability to withstand the consequences. Every time that he came home victorious the celebration was more extreme than the last. She wondered how many other women endured the kind of celebration that Tiernan indulged in after every successful foray into enemy territory. Did his lieutenants behave in the same way? Did their women have to endure the same degree of humiliation?

More terrifying still was the thought that Dermot might be inclined to similar behaviour.  She had known him since childhood, a close family friend who had assisted her father and brother in their recent defeat of her husband. Now the final chapter in that plan was about to be enacted. Dermot had assured her that there was only one woman that he was interested in adding to his household.

Mor O’Toole was the sister of Laurence O’Toole whose family controlled the district adjacent to Dermot’s homeland. Although the two families had battled each other in the past and Laurence had been taken hostage by Dermot, they had since become close. Dermot had sponsored Laurence for the post of Abbot of Glendalough and was keen to take his sister as his bride.

Dermot had agreed to Dervogila’s proposal only for the humiliation it would inflict upon the man who had been an arch-enemy since long before her marriage to him twenty four years ago. Those twenty four years had aged her. No-one seeing her today would believe she was only forty four. The tension between Tiernan and the rest of her family had increased year on year.  In response he had inflicted repeated humiliations upon his wife. Now she had had enough and Dermot was bringing salvation.

Or so she hoped. She had waited since mid-afternoon and now the sun was low in the western sky. At any moment either Tiernan or Dermot would appear from among the trees that crowned the hill behind which the sun would soon disappear. Either would be accompanied by a party of warriors one of whom would lift her onto his horse and carry her away. Which would it be?

At last she heard shouts. Pounding hooves heralded the arrival of the victorious band. In the failing light it was not possible to see the colours carried by the leading horsemen. The men were already reining in their horses when she finally recognised the McMurrough banner and, behind the front man, Dermot. Now she must conceal her relief; exercise all her acting ability in the pretence that her capture by Dermot’s party was uninvited.

As the leading horseman grasped her arms and began to lift she screamed. She kicked, she writhed. The man lost his grip. She fell. The rider brought his horse to a halt and, jumping nimbly to the ground, grasped her by the hair. This time there was no mistake, she was thrown across the horse’s neck. Now her screams were real, her scalp burned as if scalded.

The remainder of Dermot’s party wheeled away, heading towards the pasture where they would round up her cattle and lift her furniture from the abandoned homestead.

Over the following days, as she and Dermot made their way south across the central plain of Ireland, both had time to contemplate the possible consequences of their subterfuge. Neither could have imagined how their actions would change not only their own lives and that of Tiernan but the future of Ireland and its neighbours.

Chapter 1

1166, Ferns, Ireland.

The heat and humidity of that summer night was not what kept me awake. As I lay there, my sleeping cloak clinging to my damp skin, I could not silence the voices. Neither those in my head nor those that came to me from beyond the screen that separated my sleeping alcove from the main part of the hall. I could not understand why so many of my father’s former friends had turned against him, why they had joined with our enemies to take our land and steal our cattle. I had no idea what was to become of us. The future filled me with dread.

There was one thing of which I could be certain: the future would be nothing like the life we had lived until the week of my thirteenth birthday. That was when it all began: before then we were the most powerful family in the region with equally powerful friends in neighbouring provinces. My older brothers and sisters had married into those families and it seemed that my father was destined to become High King.

Then the raids began. My mother said that it was all the fault of a man called O’Rourke who was king of a distant province called Brefni.

There’s no need for you to worry, Aoife, she had said. Your father will find a way to make things alright again.

Was it the tone of her voice, or the way her brow creased in a frown, that made my heart beat faster in my chest? I could see she wanted to believe her words. I sensed that she was as fearful for the future as was I.

As I struggled to sleep on that hot and humid night I could still smell the acrid aroma of the burned timbers that had once been the homes of our servants and the men who cared for our horses and cattle. This wasn’t the first time they had been burned. That time the fire had started accidentally in the bake house and spread quickly from roof to roof. My father had them rebuilt with more space between. But the most recent fire was set by men with torches setting fire to each building they passed as they galloped through.

The houses could be rebuilt again but what would the people in them eat this coming winter now that our cattle had been stolen and our crops burned? I remembered how we had often exchanged cattle for dried fruit and other foreign delights brought from over the sea by the merchants of Dublin. As well as being king of Leinster my father was lord of Dublin, too. Not any more though. We had lost our house there when their own king had joined all the other former friends who had turned against us. There would be no help from that quarter.

I wished they would speak louder, my father and mother, his brother and mine. Then I might gain some inkling of what the future held. Whatever it was I was sure it would not be good. I kept twisting and turning, trying to sleep. My gown got stickier and rolled itself into a hard ball under me.

I think I must have dozed off because I was woken with a start by the sound of my mother’s voice raised in anger. I only caught the last few words: ... pay his price, Dermot. I had no idea what she meant but it drew an equally angry response from my father: Never! I will die first. Then he lowered his voice but I was listening intently now and heard most of his next words: Mor, you know she wanted to come away. ... had her back soon enough.

Then someone, I think it was Maurice Regan my father’s secretary, mentioned the law and Father raised his voice again: What does O’Rourke care about the law? He will never have gold from me, law or not.

There was a long silence before anyone spoke, then the low mumble of indiscernible words resumed. Eventually I must have fallen asleep for the next thing I remember is hearing a great commotion outside: men shouting and the clatter of horse’s hooves on the cobbles. I clambered from my bed and drew back the curtain. Sunlight was streaming in through the openings in the south wall making it difficult to see across the hall. Dust motes danced in the brightness and I had to screw up my eyes to see anything.

The same five people whose voices had kept me awake through most of the night were already sat around the table. I sensed that their silence now was not just because they did not wish to waken me. Most of their heads were silhouetted against the light but I could see my uncle’s face. It was a face filled with anger. No-one spoke as I slid past unseen. I was desperate to see what was happening outside. I peered around the side of the open doorway, careful not to let anyone outside see me in my night attire.

It was as well that I took that precaution for a large group of men had gathered in the yard. Some were busy loading panniers onto asses and others were preparing horses. My shadow in the doorway must have alerted my family to my presence because my mother broke the silence, admonishing me for allowing men to see me in such a state.

Get washed and dressed as quick as you can, Aoife. We are going on a journey.

I dared not ask where we were going until I had complied. Then it was my father who explained: You and your mother are to accompany me on a journey to England.

England?

It is our only hope, Mother added. Your father has friends in Bristol that he has helped in the past. Now we are going to seek their help.

With the fighting men my friend Fitz Harding knows, we can defeat O’Connor and O’Rourke and restore Leinster to our people. I remember the look on my uncle’s face as my father uttered those words. He said nothing, however; just thrust his knife into the grain of the table top, stood up from the bench and stomped out of the hall.

Father must have seen the puzzled look on my face.

Don’t worry about your uncle Murchad, he said, and I saw that half smile of his, the one that meant he knew he was going to get his own way whatever anyone else said or did. He’s in a sulk now because he can’t offer an alternative plan, yet he refuses to co-operate with the only one that has any hope of success.

To be fair, Mother said, he is worried about being left to take care of things here whilst you are away.

He is worrying unnecessarily. O’Rourke will not be able to raise raiding parties when their men are occupied with the harvest; and O’Connor has enough problems of his own. They will not raid again before spring, by which time I shall be back with a party of men who have learned their skills in combat with the wild men of Wales.

O’Connor had recently been declared High King, the position my father had once thought he would take. Now O’Connor was in league with our enemy O’Rourke.

When do we leave? I asked as I chewed on an oat cake before washing it down with a mouthful of milk.

As soon as you have finished eating we will set out for the Kennedy’s place. Then we go to Lismore where I need to confer with the Bishop before we embark for Bristol.

I wondered why he needed to speak with the bishop of Lismore. If he needed the Church’s blessing for our journey why was the abbot of our local monastery not good enough? He was a good friend. I realised that going to Dublin to see my mother’s brother, the Arch-Bishop, was out of the question in the circumstances. But why did Father need a bishop anyway?

There was no time to ask then because as soon as he finished speaking my father went outside to supervise the preparations. I supposed my uncle had returned to his own home; seeing him still here when I rose had surprised me. I imagined him complaining to his family about the wasted night trying to make his older brother see sense. My brother had gone back to his family too.

Domnal was the older of my brothers. The youngest, Enna, was the reason for our visit to the Kennedy’s. When my father was a boy he had lived with that family as one of their own and throughout his adult life he had treated the Kennedy men as his brothers. When Enna was about twelve he was sent to the Kennedy’s, to, as Father put it at the time, complete his training. I was never sure what he would learn with the Kennedy’s that he couldn’t learn with Father and Domnal, at home. Of course, once the decision was made to go to England, it was necessary to call on the Kennedy’s to ask them to keep an eye on things at Ferns and to allow Enna to return.

Those things made sense. The need to consult the bishop of Lismore didn’t. I made up my mind that as soon as I had the chance I would ask Maurice.

Maurice Regan was my father’s secretary. He was also a very close friend and advisor to my father and a wonderful teacher to me, as he had been to my older siblings. It is only because he kept a written record of everything that happened to our family that I am sure of the accuracy of this account. Whenever I struggle to remember the details of some event I can turn to Maurice’s record which I keep beside me as I write. It is almost as if he is still here with me. Back when I was a child it was always Maurice I relied on to explain things I didn’t understand. My father was too impatient to be a good teacher. It occurs to me now that my father’s decision to send Enna to the Kennedy’s was because he realised by then that he was not the best person to pass on the important things Enna needed to know if he was to succeed him as leader of our clan.

You see, Irish leaders were always elected by and from the men of the family. Leadership did not automatically fall to the oldest son. Instead it went to the one the others agreed was the most able. And I know from what happened later that many more than just my father believed Enna to be a natural leader.

But I digress; I was telling you about Maurice. He and my father were about the same age. Which means of course that they were already quite old by then. I am the youngest of my father’s children; most of the others were even then grown up with children of their own. Mother was Father’s second wife and much younger than him. Maurice had white hair above his ears. They reminded me of a duck’s wings. The top of his head was shaved like that of a monk, I suppose because he had spent a lot of time in a monastery when he was young. His face was free of hair, too. Thin red veins decorated his puffy cheeks.

My father, on the other hand, had a thin face with a crooked nose and a livid scar under his left eye, the result of wounds received in battles when he was young. His beard and hair were no longer red but neither were they white like Maurice’s hair. He was taller and thinner than Maurice. When they were together they were like a stick and a bladder of the kind boys use in their silly games.

Maurice was a great debater and he and I often spent many a happy hour discussing matters of law and religion and the differences between the old laws of the Brehons and the teachings of the Church. So I was sure he would know why we were going to Lismore. I hoped, too, that he would be able to tell me more about Fitz Harding and my father’s friends in Bristol.

As our train got underway, my father leading with Maurice beside him and my mother and I behind, I couldn’t help noticing how different this journey was from some others I remembered. There were no banners at the head of our procession this time, no one playing music at the rear. From the outset my father had been determined not to attract attention. He stressed the need for stealth as we made our way through the forest, taking a route that avoided other settlements and keeping our voices low. No amount of furtiveness could prevent the birds from sounding their warning cries as they rose into the sky ahead of us. We had to hope that anyone observing such disturbances would not be disposed to reveal their suspicions to our enemies.

It was so different from other times. When we had travelled to Dublin to see my uncle Laurence inaugurated as Arch-Bishop the line of people accompanying us had been huge, getting longer as people joined us from every settlement we passed near. The McMurrough banners were fluttering proudly, alongside the O’Toole’s, at the head of the procession that day. We were accompanied by a band of musicians and poets proclaiming our pride that one of our own was to be elevated to so high a position within the Church.

I did not realise it then, I was much too young, but in time I came to understand that it was all part of my father’s grand plan, an important step on the road to becoming High King. Now that plan had fallen apart and he was leading a disconsolate party of fifty or so of his most trusted subjects in a desperate last bid to bring it back on course.

I knew my mother either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the questions I needed to ask. I was sure she hadn’t meant me to hear that argument about the price and the woman who came willingly and then went back so there was no point in asking her what it meant or what it had to do with our present circumstances. Her main concern was to ensure that I was protected from the worst that men like O’Connor and O’Rourke and their followers might do. In her mind that meant she had to keep me in ignorance. Maurice had always done his best to help me understand things and lately he had begun to regard me as the adult I believed I was.

My chance came when Father pulled up his horse in a small clearing. All four of us halted our horses and followed his lead in taking a draft from our water containers whilst we waited for those on foot to catch