Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [94]
“And they came?”
“Oh yes.” Olaf grimaced. “We beat them off. But it was an ugly business. My grandfather—he was a child at the time—lost his father in that raid.” He paused. Harold listened carefully. He hoped that his ancestor had not died dishonourably.
“He was killed after the battle was over,” his father went on. “A Dane came up and stabbed him in the back, then ran away. The Dane’s name was Sigurd, son of Sweyn. Even his own men despised him for that deed.”
“It wasn’t avenged?”
“Not then. They got away. But years later, when my grandfather was on a ship trading in the northern islands, he saw a longship in a harbour and was told it belonged to Sigurd and his son. So he challenged them to fight. Sigurd was an old man by then, though still strong, and his son was my grandfather’s age. So Sigurd agreed to fight on condition that, if he was killed, my grandfather would fight his son as well. And my grandfather swore: ‘I will have both your heads, Sigurd, son of Sweyn, and if you had more sons I would take those away with me, too.’ As it was evening then, they agreed to fight the next morning, as soon as the sun was over the sea. So at dawn my grandfather went to where their ship was; but as he came near, they pushed away from the shore and started rowing out to sea. And they laughed at him and shouted insults. Then my grandfather ran back to his own ship and begged them to follow Sigurd. They refused and as he was only a young man, there was nothing he could do. But they’d all seen what happened, and Sigurd and his son were known as cowards all over the northern seas.
“My grandfather got word of them from time to time down the years. They were on the Isle of Man, that lies between ourselves and Britain, for a while, then in England, in York. But they never came to Dyflin. And after my grandfather died, we heard no more of them. Until five years ago when a merchant told me that Sigurd’s grandson was in Waterford. I thought about going down there, but …” He shrugged. “It’s been too long. I thought that the grandson in Waterford mightn’t even know about the business. I put it behind me and I’ve never worried about it again—until today.”
“But Sigurd’s family didn’t forget.”
“It seems not.”
“If you choose to forget, why doesn’t this boy?”
“It’s his family who were disgraced, Harold, not ours. He seems to be prouder than his ancestors, at least. They never cared about their evil reputation, but he obviously does. So he must avenge their shame by killing you.”
“He wants to cut off my head and show it to everyone?”
“Yes.”
“So I’ll have to fight him one day?”
“Unless he changes his mind. But I don’t think he will.”
Harold considered. He felt a little frightened, but if this was his fate, then he knew he must be brave.
“So what should I do, Father?”
“Prepare.” His father looked down at him gravely for a moment. Then he smiled and clapped him on the back. “Because when you fight, Harold, you’re going to win.”
Goibniu the Smith glared at the mound. Then he grabbed his son’s arm.
“Will you look at that!”
The sixteen-year-old boy stared. He wasn’t sure what he was meant to see, but it was obvious that his father was furious about something. He tried, surreptitiously, to discover what point exactly his father’s eye was fixed upon.
The prehistoric mounds above the River Boyne had not greatly altered since the time of Patrick. Here and there a further subsidence had occurred. The entrance doorways were all hidden now; but in front of them, a quantity of white quartz stones were still strewn across the ground, glistening when the sunlight caught them. In the River Boyne below, the salmon and swans went about their quiet business as if they themselves had been there when the Tuatha De Danaan had gone to their bright halls within the ridge. But something had evidently displeased the eye of Goibniu. Unlike his distant ancestor, Goibniu had the use of both his eyes. But when he was considering something, he had a trick of closing one eye and squinting through the other, which seemed in the process to become unusually