Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [340]
The previous month, he’d been able to do the alderman a good turn. Doyle had needed a new tenant on the estate he had taken over from the Walshes and the grey merchant had thought of the Brennan family who had once been on Sean O’Byrne’s land and had recently become unhappy with their subsequent tenancy. “You always know everything,” Doyle had said to him admiringly. That had given MacGowan great pleasure. The transfer of the Brennans had taken place just in time for them to get the harvest in—and since they had several strong children now, they had been the greatest help to Doyle. With his present commission, however, MacGowan had been having less success.
The siege of Dublin Castle had been a lacklustre affair. The feeble efforts in the street in front of him now were quite typical. But even on the better days, when they had brought cannon, troops, and ladders up, the task had been too difficult. For the castle was a formidable obstacle. From the outer wall there was a high, sheer drop down to the old pool, now almost silted up, of Dubh Linn. Its other walls, though they lay within the city, were tall and stout and easy to defend. If Fitzgerald had more ammunition he might have been able to destroy the gates or knock down a section of wall; but as he was still short of cannonballs, he couldn’t achieve this. Nor had he enough troops for a mass assault. Though he had sent a large force down into Butler territory to raid them and frighten them into submission, the Butlers were still ready to attack, and so he had forces dispersed in numerous different places. As for the people of Dublin, they obeyed his orders, but when it came to storming the castle, they did it without much conviction since many of them had friends inside.
It had been easy enough for MacGowan to send a message to Alderman Doyle. He had just wrapped it round a blunted arrow which he had fired over the wall. The message had asked if there was anything the alderman wanted. It was the sort of communication between the city and the castle that was happening every day. The reply had come attached to a stone dropped at his feet in front of the gate the day before. Doyle was concerned, he told the grey merchant, on two counts. Firstly, with the English probably on the way, he thought it possible that Lord Thomas might mount a more determined assault to try to secure the stronghold for himself. Secondly, his wife was unwell. He wanted to secure her a safe-conduct out of the castle so that MacGowan could escort her to the greater security of the house at Dalkey. And he was prepared to pay the besiegers handsomely for this privilege. This was what MacGowan had just been trying to arrange.
The trouble was, Doyle wasn’t the first person to enter a private negotiation of this kind. Rather to his surprise, the grey merchant had been taken into the presence of Silken Thomas himself, where the young aristocrat politely informed him: “I have given enough safe-conducts already. Unless, of course, the alderman cares to pay me with some of the cannonballs which earlier this summer I so unwisely left in the castle.”
And MacGowan was just wondering what to do next when he saw William Walsh and his wife approaching, and realised that this might be a stroke of singular good fortune. Moments later he had taken the lawyer to one side.
Fortunately, Walsh was quick to see his point of view. The lawyer and his wife had come into Dublin that day precisely to see for themselves how the siege was progressing. As a Fitzgerald adherent who had nonetheless disliked the treasonable oath, Walsh was anxiously watching events now that the English might be coming. If the Gunner were to prove too strong for Silken Thomas, it would do him no harm, MacGowan pointed out, to have helped Alderman Doyle. “And I should think,” the grey merchant tactfully added, “that you might be glad to do a good turn to Dame Doyle as well.” As a longtime adherent