Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [179]
Osgar struck. He had sent a single, fleeting prayer to heaven, half opened his eyes, seen the pirate, just for an instant, shift his gaze elsewhere and known that God, for all his sins, had granted him one chance. He struck with all his might. He struck for Caoilinn whom he loved, he struck for his hesitating life, his chances lost, his passion never practised. He struck to end his cowardice, and his shame. He struck to kill Sigurd.
And he did. Distracted for an instant, the pirate did not heed the blow until it was too late. The unexpected blade bit through the bone, cleaving the skull with a sickening crunch and a splatter of brains, shattering the bridge of his nose and smashing the jaw before it buried itself with a thud in the neck bone. The tremendous force of the blow drove the body onto its knees. It knelt there for a moment, like a strange creature with an axe for a head, the haft sticking out in front like a yard-long nose, while Osgar stared in disbelief at what he had wrought. Then it keeled over.
Harold, who had come in from a nearby field, unaware that he had any visitors, gazed at the scene before him with great surprise.
Three weeks later, Harold and Caoilinn were married in Dyflin. At Harold’s suggestion, it was a Christian ceremony, the bridegroom, with great good humour, having allowed himself to be baptised beforehand by the bride’s cousin Osgar, who also officiated at the marriage. Just before the ceremony, Osgar silently handed the bride a little antler ring. Despite many renewed requests, Osgar did not take up the position of abbot at the family monastery but preferred to return to the peace of his beloved Glendalough. There he produced another book of illustrated Gospels, which was very fine; but it lacked the genius of the one which was lost.
The Battle of Clontarf is rightly regarded as the most important of Celtic Irish history. It has often been depicted as the decisive encounter between the Celtic Gaedhil and the Nordic Gaill: Irish Brian Boru against the invading Vikings, by which Ireland was triumphant against the foreign aggressor. Such was the foolish propaganda of romantic historians. Although it may well have deterred further Viking raids at this unstable time in the northern world, Dyflin itself was left in the hands of its Viking ruler, just as before. The Nordic element in Ireland’s ports remained strong and the two communities, the Hiberno–Norse as they are often called, became indistinguishable.
The real significance of the Battle of Clontarf was probably twofold. First, Clontarf and the events surrounding it made clear the strategic importance of the island’s richest port. Never a tribal nor a religious centre, its trade and ramparts meant that, while the holding of ancient Tara was symbolic, to rule all Ireland, it was Dyflin that was crucial.
Secondly, and sadly, far from being a triumph, Clontarf was Ireland’s great missed opportunity. For though Brian Boru had decisively won the battle, he had also lost his life. The descendants of his grandchildren, the O’Briens, would earn high renown; but his immediate successors were unable to unite and hold all Ireland as, for a decade, the old man had briefly done. Twenty years later, the High Kingship would pass back to the O’Neill kings of Tara; but it was and remained only a ceremonial shadow of the kingship of Brian Boru. Disunited Ireland, like the fragmented Celtic island of ancient times, would always be vulnerable.
So Brian Boru won, but lost; and Harold the Norseman and Caoilinn the Celt, who were not in love, married and were very happy; Morann the Christian craftsman, having received a pagan warning, died like a warrior in battle; and Osgar the monk killed an evil man, even if he did not understand why.
SIX
STRONGBOW
1167
I
THE INVASION that was to bring eight centuries of grief to Ireland began on a sunny autumn day in the year of Our Lord 1167. It consisted of three ships which arrived at the small southern port of Wexford.