Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [150]
It was a chess set. A magnificent chess set, the pieces carved of bone tipped with silver and set on a polished wooden board. He had seen it before, in Morann’s workshop.
“It is for you,” said Caoilinn. “A token of my respect. I know,” she added, “that the Ostmen like to play chess.”
It was perfectly true that the marauding Viking traders had developed a liking for the intellectual game, though this may partly have been because the carved chessmen were often objects of great value. Though Harold seldom played the game himself, he was touched that Caoilinn should have gone to such trouble on his account.
“I wanted you to have it,” she said, and he scarcely knew what to reply.
He realised, of course, that she had outmanoeuvred him. He guessed that she was betting that sooner or later he would convert to the faith of the Christians to please her. And he supposed that he probably would. By raising the issue, moreover, and then giving way so graciously, she had placed him in her debt. He saw through her, understood, but didn’t mind. For hadn’t she also signalled clearly that she knew when she had gone too far? That, he reckoned, was good enough.
“I have only one request,” she continued, “though you may refuse it if you wish. If ever you should wish to marry me at some future time, I should ask if there could be a ceremony conducted by a priest. Just for my sake. He would not be asking you what you believe, you may be sure.”
He waited a few more days, then he came back to ask her, and was accepted. Since she wanted to complete the harvest at Rathmines before she left that estate, it was agreed that they would marry, and she would come to his house in the autumn.
For Harold, the days that followed began a period of both anticipation and contentment. Rather to his own surprise, he had already started to feel younger; and he looked forward to the autumn eagerly.
For Caoilinn, the prospect of marriage meant that she was ready to fall in love. Although, when she had first asked him to be baptised, she had fully intended that Harold should give in, she realised afterwards that she was glad that he had fought her. She respected him for it, and she had rather enjoyed the challenge of bringing him round. The vigorous, red-haired Ostman was like a spirited horse that one could only just control, she thought. Yet at the same time, he was a sensible man. What could be better? He was safe and he was dangerous and he was where she wanted him. By July, as the fields were ripening in the summer sun, she enjoyed some very pleasant fantasies about the times they would spend together. By the time he next came to call, her heart was quite in a flutter.
And it was just then that she had another happy thought.
“I shall ask my cousin Osgar to marry us,” she told Harold. “He’s a monk at Glendalough.” And she explained to Harold about Osgar and their childhood marriages, though she left out the incident on the path.
“Does this mean I have a rival?” he asked cheerfully.
“Yes and no,” she answered, smiling. “He probably still loves me, but he can’t have me.”
“He certainly cannot,” said Harold firmly.
She sent a message to Osgar the very next day.
The blow fell two days after that. It fell without warning, from the summer sky.
The northern headland of the Liffey’s bay, with its lovely view down the coast to the volcanic hills, was a pleasant place to hold a quiet conference. As well as its Celtic name of Ben Edair, the Hill of Edair, it had acquired a Norse name also nowadays, for the Ostmen called it Howth. Often as not, therefore, the local people mixed the two languages together and referred to it as the Ben of Howth. And it was on a warm day in early July that Harold and Morann Mac Goibnenn met upon the Ben of Howth to discuss the situation.
It was Harold, in his genial way, who summed it up when he remarked, “Well, Morann, I think we may say that the men of Leinster