Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [108]
If these lectures were intended to encourage his sons in the paths of piety and learning, however, they had no effect. His uncle’s boys had little interest in the family monastery. They constantly found excuses to avoid lessons. And while Osgar had enjoyed memorising the hundred and fifty Psalms in Latin—a feat which any illiterate novice had to master—they could only pretend to mouth the words on the occasions when they joined the monks at their prayers.
But one thing was very clear: the monastery and its Ui Fergusa patrons grew out of the sacred dawn of Irish Christianity. This was a tradition which the family had a duty to uphold. And Osgar did so. When he was twelve, his mother had died, and thereafter he had gone to live in the little monastery with his uncle. It had been Osgar who had organised the monks to refurbish the inside of the monastery chapel; Osgar who had persuaded some Dyflin merchants to donate a new cross for the altar. It was Osgar who always seemed to know exactly what was due from the monastery’s tenants, who sold the cattle or bought the things they needed; Osgar who knew how many candles they had in stock, and which Psalms should be sung on any given day. On these, as on all issues, he was both businesslike and very precise. Even his uncle, secretly, was slightly nervous of forgetting something in front of him. And a year ago his uncle had taken him to one side and told him, “I think it’s you who should take my place at the monastery one day, Osgar.” And then, as an afterthought, he had added, “You could marry, you know.”
Not only could he marry, but with a prospective position that carried such respect, he would be a very attractive catch for the daughter of his kinsman in Dyflin.
He could marry Caoilinn. How wonderful that had felt. For days he had gone about in a state of such happiness that it had seemed to him as if the whole of Dyflin and its bay was bathed in a divine and golden light.
They had grown up together. Even during the awkward years of adolescence, there had never been a day when they hadn’t been friends. There had been times when they had seen less of each other, but she had never been far away. If he was in Dyflin, it was natural that he should call in at her father’s house. She was family. The lively girl he had known as a child had never entirely disappeared. If they were walking together, she would suddenly point to the clouds and see the strangest comic shapes in them. Once, standing on the southern headland of the bay, she had insisted that she had just seen the old sea god Manannan mac Lir out in the waves; and for half an afternoon she had periodically cried, “There he is!” Caught off his guard, he had several times looked out, while she collapsed into peals of laughter.
But on one occasion, she had gone too far. They had been walking along the estuary’s northern strand and they had wandered far out onto the sands which at low tide stretched for hundreds of paces into the bay. When the tide had started to come in, he had told her they must turn back, but she had refused. Impatiently he had started back, and with equal obstinacy, she had remained where she was. But even he had not foreseen the swiftness and strength of the tide that day. The sea had come in with the speed of a running horse. From the shore, he had seen her standing defiantly on a sandbar, laughing at first as the incoming water swirled round her, then trying to wade her way back and finding that the waters were already deeper than she thought. Suddenly he, too, realised that the water was moving with a powerful current; the surface was frothing with choppy little waves. He saw her lose her balance; her arms were thrown up; and he had run forward through the shallows and dived into the flowing current. It had been fortunate that he was a strong swimmer. The current had almost swept him along, too. But he had managed to reach her and, swimming for both of them, with her slender