Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [148]
For some weeks she made further observations and enquiries. And as she satisfied herself as to the Norseman’s suitability, she also took care to make herself desirable.
When Harold looked at the handsome, green-eyed woman who was taking such an interest in him, he had to admit that he was flattered. Though he had been attracted to her from the moment they met by the Thingmount, it was a small incident the next week which had really caught his attention. They had just arrived at the farmstead, and he had reached up to lift her down from her horse. As he took her in his strong arms, he had hardly known what to expect. Unconsciously, he had braced his crippled leg to take her weight.
And she had floated down, light as a feather. Before her feet touched the ground, she had half turned in his arms, smiling, to thank him, and as well as her lightness, he had become instantly conscious of her wiry strength. So strong, yet so light in hand: such a woman promised many sensual delights.
As the weeks went by, her attraction grew. He soon discovered the strength of her intelligence: he respected that. She was proud: her pride did him honour. She was also cautious. It was not long before he noticed that if she offered to spend time in his company, it was partly so that she could observe him. Sometimes she would start seemingly innocent conversations. She might say, “I felt sad last night and the sadness would not leave me. Do you ever feel like that?” And only afterwards would he realise that she had been testing him to find out if he was subject to moods. When he visited her at Rathmines, she had the servants bring him wine repeatedly, to see if he would drink too much. He did not mind these little traps she set for him. If she was careful, so much the better. And it was gratifying that, beyond the cautious enquiries, she let him see that she was starting to care for him.
He, of course, knew all about her. He hadn’t needed to make his own enquiries; his friend Morann had seen to that, and the silversmith’s investigations had led to only one conclusion.
“You could hardly do better,” Morann told him. It would certainly look well to have such a wife at his side; and though Harold was too sensible to be much swayed by such things, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t cut a handsome figure in the world.
In fact, there was only one obstacle to their marriage. It did not appear until halfway through June, when he proposed to her. For after the usual expressions, instead of answering at once, she told him that she must first ask him a single question.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Would you mind my asking, what religion it is you follow now?”
The question was not strange. She had known that, at the time of his marriage, Harold had been a pagan, but it was harder than ever to know, nowadays, what religion people followed in Dyflin. Though some of the Vikings in Dyflin had remained faithful to Thor, Woden, and the other gods of the north, since her childhood the old Norse gods had been in steady decline. There had been too many marriages with Christians. The King of Dyflin was the son of a Christian Leinster princess. Besides, if the pagan gods protected their own, people might ask, then how was it that every time the men of Dyflin had challenged the High King, they had lost? And Brian Boru, the patron of monasteries, was their master now. The old wooden church had been rebuilt in stone, and the Viking King of Dyflin had openly worshipped there. So it was not surprising if the Ostmen nowadays were often vague about their religious beliefs. Harold, for instance, wore a talisman round his neck that might have been taken for a cross or a symbol of Thor; and certainly few of the varied folk who came into the busy port would have pressed him as to which it was.
In truth, like most middle-aged men, Harold no longer had any strong feelings