Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [259]
“Are you asking my advice as to what you should do?”
“I am.”
“I think you should do nothing. Tell nobody. Forget what you heard.” He turned his single open eye upon the older man and stared at him disconcertingly. “There is danger here, Tom Tidy.”
“I had thought perhaps that Doyle … I thought you would say we should tell him.” The great merchant who owned the fortified house was not only one of the most prominent of the city fathers but was a man of awesome reputation, on close terms with the Justiciar himself.
One of the reasons why Dalkey had been especially popular as a landing place was that it had often been possible to avoid paying the customs which would have been due at the port of Dublin on all incoming goods. The customs tariffs were significant. A merchant who avoided them might easily increase his profits by a third. Taking the goods from Dalkey round the coast by lighter or overland by cart, it had not been too difficult to evade the customs inspectors. The problem had caused the government some irritation.
When the suggestion had been made to the royal servants in Dublin that they should give Doyle the appointment of water bailiff for Dalkey, it had seemed a good solution to this problem. And indeed, ever since he had held the position, a steady stream of revenue had come from the little harbour. No one down there would dare to do anything behind Doyle’s back. His reach was long. It was not surprising, therefore, that Tom Tidy should have thought of the powerful merchant as a possible solution to his problem.
“They say he can keep secrets and that he is cunning as well as powerful,” he ventured.
“You do not know him, Tom.” MacGowan shook his head. “Doyle is a hard man. If we tell him, do you know what will happen? He will make sure that O’Byrne and his friends walk into a trap that will kill them all. And he will be proud of it. He’ll tell everyone in Dublin that he was responsible. And where do you think that will leave me, out here in Dalkey? The O’Byrnes are a large clan, Tom. They will come and get me. And once they work out what happened, they’ll kill you, too. You can count on it. Even Doyle could not prevent that if he tried—which he probably wouldn’t,” he added bleakly.
“You’re saying that I should do nothing to save the Walshes and their people at Carrickmines?”
“Let their walls protect them.”
Tom nodded sadly. It was a hard thing that MacGowan had said, but he understood. He got up to leave.
“Tom.” MacGowan’s voice was anxious. His eye was staring now like that of a creature caught in a trap and in pain.
“Well?”
“Whatever you’re going to do, Tom, don’t go to Doyle. Will you promise me that?”
Tidy nodded and left. But as MacGowan watched him go he thought to himself: if I know you, Tom Tidy, and your sense of duty, you are going to find somebody to tell.
There was no doubting the fellow’s good intentions. Harold had looked at Tom Tidy with some admiration when he turned up at his house with a wagonload of goods and demanded to speak with him. That had been an intelligent ruse to avoid suspicion, and he had gladly bought a number of useful provisions to give Tidy his necessary cover.
“You have done the right thing,” he assured the carrier, when he learned the reason for Tidy’s visit, “and you have come to the right person.”
Tidy was correct in thinking that Harold was a man who could be trusted to act, as well as to be discreet. No one was a more staunch upholder of English rule in Ireland than Robert Harold. Two centuries had passed since his ancestor Harold had returned to his father, Ailred the Palmer; in that time, the family had come to be known as the Harolds, and as the Harolds they had prospered.