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By Root 2258 0

was part of her childish charm. But she was no longer a child; she was almost a young woman. Yet still she looked at them, and it was no longer the wide-eyed gaze of a child. It was a hard, challenging stare. She stared at young men in the street; she stared at old men in the hospital; she stared at married men in the market in front of their wives, who were ceasing to be amused. But it was a visiting merchant who was residing in the hospital after breaking his leg who first complained to Ailred. “That girl’s making eyes at me,” he said. “Then she came and sat on the end of the bench where I was sitting and opened her shirt so I could see her breasts. I’m too old to play games with girls like that,” he told the Palmer. “If I hadn’t got a broken leg, I’d have reached over and slapped her.”

Last week there had been another complaint, and this time Ailred’s wife had heard about it. Una had never seen that kindly woman so angry.

“You ought to be whipped!” she cried.

“Why?” Fionnuala had answered calmly. “It wouldn’t stop me.”

She had nearly been sent home there and then, but Ailred had given her one more chance. “There must be no more complaints, Fionnuala,” he told her, “of any kind. If there are,” he had promised, “you will have to go home. You cannot come here anymore.”

That had shaken Fionnuala. She had been very quiet and thoughtful for a day or two. But it hadn’t been long before her usual spirits returned; and though she took care not to cause any complaints from the men they encountered, Una could see the flash of mischief back in her friend’s eyes.

The market where the two girls now found themselves lay just inside the western gateway. In recent generations, the old ramparts from the days of Brian Boru had been extended westwards and they had all been rebuilt in stone. Besides the cathedral rising over the thatched roofs of the city’s busy clusters of timber-and-wattle houses, there were now seven smaller churches. Across the river on the north side of the bridge an extensive suburb had also arisen. The Norse-Irish kings of Dublin now ruled over a walled city quite as impressive as most others in Europe.

Though not as big as the market where the slaves were sold down by the waterfront, the western market presented a lively scene. There were food stalls of every kind: meat, fruit, and vegetables. And there was a colourful collection of people crowding the place. There were merchants from northern France: they had their own church, called Saint Martin’s, that overlooked the old pool of Dubh Linn. There was an English colony from the busy port of Chester that lay due east across the Irish Sea. The Chester trade had been increasing in recent generations. They had a Saxon church in the middle of the town. The Scandinavian sailors had their chapel, called Saint Olave’s, down by the waterfront. And there were often visitors from Spain or even farther off adding brightness and colour to the marketplace. Even the native population were a very mixed people now: huge burly fellows with Nordic red hair and Irish names; Latin-looking men who would tell you they were Danish—you could speak of Ostmen and Irishmen, Gaedhil and Gaill, but the truth was that you could hardly tell one from the other. They were all Dubliners. And they were proud of it. There were at this date between four and five thousand of them.

Fionnuala was standing by the fruit stall. Una watched carefully as she followed after her. Was Fionnuala flirting with the stall holder, or the people close by? She didn’t seem to be. A handsome young French merchant was strolling towards the stall. If Fionnuala made eyes at him, Una supposed it wouldn’t matter. But as the young man came close, it seemed to her that for once Fionnuala wasn’t taking any notice. Una gave a little prayer of thanks. Perhaps Fionnuala was going to behave herself today.

For several moments after she saw what Fionnuala did next, Una didn’t understand. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. All that Fionnuala had done was to stretch out her hand and take a large apple from the stall,