Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [119]
Astrid had waited three weeks before, out walking one day, she had turned and casually enquired, “Does your leg hurt you?”
“No. Not really,” he had answered, then shrugged. “I wish it was straight, but it isn’t,” he had added, before falling silent.
“It doesn’t worry me,” she replied simply. “To tell you the truth,” and now she allowed herself to gaze into his eyes for a moment, “I like you the way you are.”
But perhaps her wisest move was the one she made in the third month of their courtship. They were standing on the wood quay, beside the site where work had already commenced on a new, smaller ship, and looking towards the river where the great ship Harold had built was now moored. What, she had asked him, would he most like to do in his life? What was his dream?
“I think one day,” he confessed, “of sailing in that vessel.” He pointed to the ship, which was soon to leave on a voyage to Normandy.
“You should,” she said, and gave his arm a squeeze. “You should do it.”
“Perhaps.” He paused, almost glanced at her, but didn’t. “The voyages are long. The seas are dangerous.”
“A man must follow the call of his spirit,” she said quietly. “You should be sailing away over the horizon on an adventure and returning to find your wife waiting for you on the quay. I can see you doing that.”
“You can?”
“You can do that,” she said frankly, “if you marry me.”
It had not taken long after this for Harold to realise he should marry Astrid, and so her courtship of him was brought to its conclusion. It had been a very successful courtship. For him, the discovery that he was respected and loved opened the floodgates of his passion. For her, though she did not tell him so, the process of overcoming his hesitancy had produced a transformation: at the start, he was the man she had decided to love; by the end, he was the object of an intense desire.
The marriage also had the happy effect of reuniting Harold with his family. To say they were delighted with his bride was an understatement; and if, on Harold’s part, there was any lingering resentment, he was far too happy to worry about it now. The marriage was celebrated at the family farmstead in the old pagan way and the couple received his father’s heartfelt blessing.
Only one person at the wedding was not smiling. Morann Mac Goibnenn, God knew, was pleased enough at his friend’s happiness. His present to the couple had been a silver bowl, beautifully inlaid and decorated by his own hand; he and his family were there to eat and to dance at the wedding feast. But all the time, as the fires burned high outside and the guests went in and out of the Viking hall, Morann stood quietly apart, watching. He watched the late arrivals to the feast; he looked down the lane and across the Plain of Bird Flocks towards Dyflin; he scanned the horizon eastwards towards the sea. He felt the long knife, concealed in his cloak, ready for use if the dark-haired Dane should come.
Morann did not like taking chances. Unknown to Harold, as soon as his marriage had been decided, the craftsman had made some careful enquiries about the Dane. He learned that he had become involved in a fight in Waterford and soon afterwards had left with a crew of fellows like himself and sailed northwards. The rumour was that they had gone to the Isle of Man. Did he know about the wedding of Harold? He might have heard. Would he come now to disrupt it? Morann kept up his watch until after dusk had fallen; and after that, inside the hall, his eyes continually moved to the doorway until late into the night. But at last, when they departed in the morning, there had still been no sign of Sigurd.
A week after this another marriage took place, in Dyflin, which also gave the families concerned great pleasure. For some time now, Caoilinn’s father had been in negotiation with the family of a young man from the nearby settlement of Rathmines. Not only was his family prosperous, but he was descended, by only four generations, from the kings of Leinster. “Royal blood,” Caoilinn’s