Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [95]
“Look at the top, Morann.” Goibniu held his son’s arm in a vicelike grip, as he pointed impatiently.
And now the young man saw that the top of one of the mounds had been disturbed. Near the middle of the grassy dome, several ragged piles of stone indicated that someone had tried to break into the tomb from above.
“Barbarians! Heathens!” the craftsman cried. “It was the cursed Ostmen who did that.”
About a century ago, a party of Vikings, curious to discover how the great tombs were constructed and whether they contained any treasure, had spent several days trying to break into one of them. Unaware that there was an entrance hidden in the side, they had tried to come in through the top.
“Did they get anything?” Morann asked.
“They did not. The stones are huge as you go farther down. I looked. They gave up.” He relapsed into silence for a moment and then burst out, “How dare they touch the gods!”
Strictly speaking, this was inconsistent. Though the craftsman’s family, like many others, had held out for several generations after Patrick’s ministry before they grudgingly took the new religion, they had been Christians for nearly four centuries now. On feast days, Goibniu went to the church of the little monastery nearby and solemnly took communion. His family had always supposed that the smith was a faithful son of the Church—though you could never be sure with Goibniu. But like most of the faithful on the island, he still felt an affection and a need for the ancient ways. Paganism never dies entirely. Most of the pagan rites of seedtime and harvest, of course, had already been incorporated under new names into the Christian calendar; and even some of the old inauguration rites of the kings, including that of mating with a mare, were still a fond memory. As for the old gods, they might not be gods anymore—“idols and lies,” the priests declared. They might be only myths, to be recited by bards. Or they might, with the Church’s blessing, be accounted for as ancestral heroes, extraordinary men, from whom dynasties like the mighty O’Neill could claim descent. But whatever they were, they belonged to Ireland, and it was not for the Viking pirates to profane their sacred places.
Morann said nothing. His father had dismounted, and together they walked round the tombs in silence. In front of the largest stood the great stone with its strange carved spirals, and the two of them paused to stare at the mystical object.
“Our people used to live near here,” the smith remarked moodily. It had been an ancestor two centuries ago who had moved two days’ journey away, to the north-west, into the region of small lakes which the family presently occupied. Evidently, for Goibniu, the stone with its cosmic spirals represented a kind of homecoming.
And it was only now that his son ventured to ask the question which had been puzzling him since his father’s outburst began.
“If you hate the Ostmen so much, Father, then why are you taking me to live with them?”
It seemed a natural question; but in answer, the smith looked at him bleakly, muttered, “It’s a fool I have for a son,” and relapsed into silence. Only after a long pause did he deign to explain himself further.
“Who is the greatest power on this island?” the smith asked.
“The High King, Father.”
“He is, indeed.” He nodded. “And isn’t it true that for generation after generation, the High Kings have tried to kick the Ostmen out of Dyflin?” He pronounced the Norse name sullenly.
“They did, Father.”
“But last year, when the High King won a great battle at Tara and came down to the Liffey—when he could have kicked them out, and they could have done nothing about it at all—he let them stay and took tribute instead. Why would he do that, do you think?”
“I suppose because it suited him,” his son suggested. “He’d be better off taking their tribute than kicking them out.”
“That is true. A port is a valuable thing. The Ostmen’s ports bring in wealth. You’re better off keeping them than destroying