Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [248]
So he did his best to smile as the once familiar figure reached him and gazed down at him from his horse.
“It has been a long time,” Gilpatrick said, “since last we met, Peter FitzDavid.”
It had been a long time. Peter FitzDavid would not have denied it. A quarter century since he had first set out; twenty years and more that he had been hoping for his reward. Some of those years had been spent outside Ireland; but he had found himself back there often enough. He had fought in the west, in Limerick; he had organised garrisons, commanded under the Justiciar. He had become well known and well respected amongst the armed men on the island. Peter the Welshman, the Irish called him; and the English-speaking troops and lesser settlers similarly referred to him as Peter Welsh or, as it often sounded to the ear, Walsh.
Peter FitzDavid, better known as Walsh, had been kept hard at work down the years because he was trusted. He had learned to be patient and watchful. But at the right time, he had let it be known that a reward should be forthcoming; and now, when it had finally come, it was better than he had dared to hope. A fine estate, not on the borderlands where the angry Irish were always likely to raid in revenge for what had been stolen from them, but here in the rich, safe, coastal farmland of Leinster, close by the garrison of Dublin itself.
It was time to settle down. Time, late though it was, to marry and produce an heir. Years of service followed by a late marriage—it was not an uncommon career for a knight. He had already found a bride—a younger daughter of Baggot, the knight whose estate marched with his. He had every intention of enjoying the good fortune he had earned.
He had thought of Gilpatrick, of course, when he learned he was to be given the Ui Fergusa estate; but he wasn’t embarrassed to meet him. He had reached the point of middle age where he had no more time or emotion to waste. The land was his now. That was that. The fortunes of war. The business about Gilpatrick’s younger brother, however, was another matter. He knew perfectly well that this must be the reason the priest had asked to see him and he knew that, out of courtesy, he must listen to what Gilpatrick had to say. But perhaps there was an element of calculation in the fact that, on reaching his former friend, he did not dismount. Nor when Gilpatrick suggested they should walk a little did he do so, but allowed the priest to walk beside him.
Their route took them a short way eastwards, to the open common from which the stream ran down towards the old Viking stone at the estuary’s edge. Recently a second hospital, a small one for lepers, had been set up there and dedicated to Saint Stephen. It was past this little foundation beside the marshland that the two figures went, one still mounted, the other on foot; and Peter listened to the woes of poor Gilpatrick’s brother. And as he listened, he felt …
Nothing. He listened to the family story, the extenuating circumstances, the fact—the priest felt sure, he said, that Peter would understand—that his brother had not fully appreciated the new situation. Gilpatrick recalled to him his old father, and their friendship in the past. And still, almost to his own surprise, Peter still felt nothing. Or rather, after a while, he did begin to feel something. But that was contempt.
He despised Gilpatrick’s brother. He despised him because he had not fought, and yet had lost. He despised him for being as arrogant as he was weak. He despised him for being wilfully ill informed, for being unbusinesslike, and for being stupid. Hadn’t he himself had to fight, and to endure hardship, and to learn wisdom and patience? Success despises failure. Peter stayed on his horse.