Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [220]
“Dear God, what sort of people are these English? No wonder Diarmait liked them.”
“An oath is not so much a personal matter with them,” Gilpatrick said. “It’s more a legal form.” He searched for a characterisation that would convey the spirit of Plantagenet feudalism. “You might say, I suppose, that they are more interested in land than in people.”
“God forgive them,” murmured the archbishop as he and the O’Connor king exchanged looks of horror.
“Do you think that if he had Leinster and the ability to reward all his armed men, and any others he might import, that Strongbow could be trusted not to attack the other provinces of Ireland?” the O’Connor king asked. And before the saintly archbishop could even formulate a reply, he continued: “We have him safely walled up in Dublin, Lorcan. There’s nothing he can do. Let him stay there until he accepts our offer to keep the ports. It’s either that or starvation. We’ve no need to bargain with him or to accept these English oaths that are not made with the heart.”
For Fionnuala, the heady weeks of summer had been a revelation. She had never realised how boring her life had been before.
She had known she was bored, of course: bored by her parents, bored by her brothers—not that she saw so much of them, thank God—bored by her life in Dublin and at the hospital. Bored by the kindly Palmer and his wife. She was even bored with Una, who meant well but was always trying to restrain her. In Una’s company, she felt like a horse, bred to race, that is being forced into pulling a sturdy little cart.
What was it she wanted? She hardly knew. Something else: a bigger sky, a brighter light.
What did a girl do when she was bored? Stealing apples wasn’t much fun. There were the local boys to flirt with. She knew it would annoy her parents. But the truth was, the local boys bored her. And those old men in the hospital had just been a joke. More recently there had been the English soldiers to think about. The men mostly seemed coarse; she was more afraid of being raped than seduced. Some of the knights were quite handsome, but they seemed too old and she was a little afraid of them.
But when Gilpatrick’s friend, the knight from Wales, had appeared in their house, she thought he was the most beautiful young man she had ever seen in her life. And she knew at once that it was he who could be the one to open the gates to life’s next great adventure. The result had been beyond her wildest dreams.
“Welshman,” she called him as her father had done. “My Welshman.” She knew every curl of his hair, every inch of his proud young body. She was almost lost in wonder, sometimes, that she could be in possession of such a thing.
Was she in love? Not exactly. She was too excited, too pleased with herself even to be in love. The sexual awakening, of course, was wonderful, quite the best thing, she told herself, that had ever happened to her. But the adventure, the game was the greatest thrill. It was knowing that she was deceiving them all that aroused her excitement as she made her way towards her assignations. It was knowing she had just come from his bed while Una went about her serious business that made the mornings in the hospital seem full of light and life. It was knowing that what she did was dangerous and forbidden that made her tremble with anticipation as her young lover came to her and which brought the fire and climax to her passion.
There was the other risk, too, beyond being discovered. Even in medieval times women knew of barriers to conception, but they were imperfect, permeable, uncertain. She knew the risk, yet tried not to know. She would not give it up. And so the affair continued. It was love, it was passion—it was something to do.
It was three days after her brother’s unsuccessful mission to the High King that Fionnuala, standing by the hospital entrance, saw Una hurrying from the city’s western gateway. It was nearly noon. Fionnuala had spent the night before with Peter by the quay, arriving as usual at the hospital in the early morning. An hour ago, Una had gone