Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [265]
“Fill Carrickmines with men the night before. Bring them up in darkness. Concentrate our strength. The Dalkey squadron should be brought back to Dublin straight away. This very day. Nobody will think anything of that. They’ve only been kicking their heels down there anyway. Then hide them in Carrickmines with the rest.”
“If we put all the troops into Carrickmines, there’s a risk that O’Byrne may spot them,” Harold pointed out.
“Hide them wherever you like,” said Doyle with an impatient shrug. “Hide them in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral for all I care. But you must be ready to bring them up decisively when O’Byrne arrives. That is what matters.”
“I agree,” the Justiciar said. “This is a chance to break these people once and for all.”
And despite his loyalty to the English crown, Walsh could not help feeling sorry for the O’Byrnes and their people.
The following day the squadron left Dalkey. Tidy had made anxious enquiries as to where they were going, but the soldiers assured him that they had been told there was no further need for them to be there, and that they were to return to Dublin. Since there had been no sign of the O’Byrnes since their arrival, these orders did not seem to surprise them. A much relieved Tom Tidy and Michael MacGowan watched them go.
Tom had not told MacGowan about his meeting with Harold; nor had MacGowan ever asked him whether he had passed on the secret. Tom imagined that he must be curious, however. While the troops were leaving, neither man said anything; but after they had gone and the two of them were walking up the street together, MacGowan asked, “Do you think they’ll be going to Carrickmines?”
“They say they’re going to Dublin.”
MacGowan didn’t ask anything else.
The next day was quiet. In the morning, Tom walked up to the high headland above the village and gazed out. The great bay of Dublin was a serene blue. Eastwards the sky melted into the sea. Looking down the coastline to the south, where beyond a green carpet of coastal plain the gentle cones of the hills rose in hazy tranquillity, it was hard to believe that, somewhere behind those hills, the O’Byrnes were preparing a terrible attack on Walsh’s castle.
That afternoon, a small ship came into the anchorage behind the island. It was a bright little vessel, broad in the beam; just below the top of its single mast, there was a wooden basket in which a lookout could stand. Many of the cogs had these crow’s nests. Above the crow’s nest a red-and-blue pennant fluttered jauntily in the breeze. The Dalkey men went out in their boats and unloaded five barrels of nails, five of salt, and ten hogsheads of wine. Thus lightened, the vessel continued on its way, while the goods were taken to Doyle’s fortified house where MacGowan carefully made up the tallies. That evening he asked Tom if he would cart the salt into Dublin the next morning.
When Tom came to load up at dawn, MacGowan announced that he would accompany him. “I’ve got to give the tallies to Doyle,” he explained, “and then I’m going to see my betrothed.” The morning was fine; the journey passed without incident, and the stalls were opening when they reached the High Cross and started down towards Winetavern Street.
Tom spent the day rather pleasantly in Dublin. The weather was fine. He visited the Palmer’s old hospital of Saint John; he walked across the bridge to Oxmantown; later on, he went out of the eastern gate, wandered over to Saint Stephen’s, and followed the little stream that led down to the old Viking Long Stone that still stood by the estuary beyond the Thingmount. By late afternoon, when he picked MacGowan up to take him home, Tom was feeling rather cheerful.
MacGowan seemed contented, too, though perhaps a little thoughtful as the cart rolled out past Saint Patrick’s.
The area around Saint Patrick’s had a particular character. Several religious houses had manors there whose privileges made them almost independent of the royal courts and