Dublin (82 page)

  There was just one problem: Tom Tidy. He knew that many people considered him a harsh man, but his secret discussion with MacGowan had left him in no doubt:

  Tidy must not remain in Dalkey. He had already served his purpose and done so very well; but if Tidy remained in Dalkey now, it seemed to Doyle inevitable that the carrier would be killed; he couldn't see any way round it. While Doyle was ready to run big risks himself-and to be ruthless when necessary-he had no wish to see Tom Tidy sacrificed. With luck, after MacGowan had given him the chilling piece of information, Tidy would return to Dublin of his own accord. Doyle certainly hoped so.

  Two more nights. When Tom Tidy had parted from Michael MacGowan he had managed, at least outwardly, to appear unruffled. He had still made no mention of the danger he might be in, and bade MacGowan good night, he was pleased to note, in the calmest way imaginable. Then, just as deliberately, he saw to the horses, exactly as usual. After that, he went into his house, cut two large slices from yesterday's loaf of bread, two generous pieces of cheese, and poured himself a tankard of ale. All as usual. Then he sat down, very quietly, and began to consume them, staring straight ahead as he did so.

  Afterwards, although there were still some hours of summer daylight left, he decided to go to bed.

  But he could not sleep. Try as he might, his tired brain would not give itself up to unconsciousness.

  What was he to do? Was MacGowan right? Should he return to Dublin? The question in its various forms kept reasserting itself, a voice in his head that would not be stilled. After a while he got up and went out into the yard.

  The sun was sinking behind the hill. Usually this was a time when the rock-strewn common between the village and the shore would be illumined by great gold-and-orange streaks and the fleeces on the scattered sheep would glisten warmly; but this evening a crowd of clouds had forgathered along the western horizon, blocking out the sunset. Past Tom Tidy's yard, under the harshly fading light, the fields which were nearly ready for harvest seemed to have turned a sullen bronze; and beyond, the common now looked strangely desolate.

  The air was warm. Tom remained there, silently watching as the common imperceptibly changed from deepening green into grey.

  The dusk was setting in when he noticed the first moving shadow. He realised what it was, of course. He had been staring at a small rock for so long that it had seemed to move. A trick of the imagination.

  Nothing more. Sure enough, before long, other rocks were seeming to move about in the twilight. He continued to gaze. were they rocks, though? Or sheep? Or other shapes? Could there be ghosts, or even people, moving out there? were they watching him? Waiting to come to the house? Would there be a battering at the door in the middle of the night, a forced entry? And then? He found that his heart was beating fast. He took a deep breath and told himself not to be foolish.

  Still he remained there as the darkness grew deeper.

  Above him and eastwards, over the sea, the glimmering night sky was clear.

  Soon, the last sliver of the waning moon would hang like a silver sigh amongst the stars. One more night and then… Blackness. The night of the attack. The night of whatever terrible trap it was that Harold and the Justiciar had prepared. Doyle, too, no doubt. Darkness, now, was everywhere. The shadows on the common had all gone. There could be a hundred men out there, coming towards him, and he would not see them.

  He knew he must sleep. Yet still he could not. A wave of fatigue would oppress his brain; but then his fear, like a pale dagger, would strike through the darkness at his heart. Dalkey was usually such a pleasant place. The high headland behind him with its views over the bay was like a friendly companion. But not anymore.

  The dark shape of the hill seemed like a huge, threatening mound from which, at any moment, the ghostly forces of vengeance might issue forth. The O'Byrnes were not far away. All around him in Dalkey, there were probably fishermen who were in league with them. Which of his neighbours could he trust? He had no idea. Their faces came before him one by one, in his mind, familiar faces suddenly transformed into masks of rage and hatred, until at last even his dear friend MacGowan seemed to be among them, gazing at him in his curious way, with one eye closed and the open eye growing larger and larger, terrible, cold, and malevolent.

  Why was he staying here? Why wait? Let them burn his house and his carts if they wished, reduce him to poverty. Why should he await his own destruction?

  In the end, however, fatigue overcame even his fear, and Tom Tidy wearily went back inside and got into bed. But before he did so, he did something which he had never done before: he barred the door.

  The next morning Tom went straight to MacGowan and told him he was leaving for Dublin.

  "You've no need to worry at all," MacGowan told him. "I'll be round at your house every day. I'll keep an eye on the place." He'd bring Tom's remaining horses to his own house, he promised. "You're doing the right thing, Tom," he assured him. Tom could see that his friend was quite relieved. Back at his house, he harnessed his two best horses to the big cart and took one more horse on a lead rein behind. Then he set out to Dublin.

  He couldn't help feeling a welcome sense of relief as he came down the long, straight line of Saint Francis's Street, where the high- gabled houses pressed close together and came out onto the open crossroads where he turned right to enter the city. A hundred yards behind him stood Ailred the Palmer's old hospital; on his right, the green where the big summer fairs were held; and in front of him, the great western gate-more splendid than ever since it had been rebuilt with its two bulky towers and a little gaol. Through the western gate he went, therefore, with a shade more confidence than he had felt before, and was soon at MacGowan's brother's house.

  "How long will you be staying?" MacGowan's brother asked. "Michael told me you might be coming," he added, without further comment. No doubt he was glad to see his brother's friend, if not overjoyed.

  "Perhaps a week or two," Tom said, suddenly feeling that he was imposing on the other's good nature too much.

  The craftsman's house was quite spacious, with a big backyard. His wife and children looked a little surprised to see Tom, but made him welcome and insisted that he sleep in the house beside the kitchen rather than in the loft over the stable as he had offered. A good Irishman would have known how to sink comfortably down on a bench and pass the time of day for a few hours without worrying himself; but although he had lived in Ireland all his life, Tom Tidy's English nature would not allow him to rest so easy. True, he did sit for an hour, and it was all as friendly as could be; but somehow after that, he felt he was in the way, and making an excuse he went out for a walk.

  The house was only a short step from the fine old church of Saint Audoen, which lay just within the former riverside wall. Below the wall, the ground descended a short, steep slope, past some cookhouses and bakeries, to the level area of the land reclaimed from the river.

  There were views of the Liffey from the old wall by the church, andwiththe pleasant smell of the bakeries below it should have been considered a pleasant place. But to Tom Tidy in his present mood, its grey stones were gloomy, and even the tall shape of Saint Audoen's seemed oppressive. After walking about there for a while, he felt no more at ease and, not wishing to return to the house yet, he wandered off in the direction of the crown of the city's ridge and the precincts of Christ Church.

  Perhaps it was sunnier up there than on the lower part of the ridge, but as he entered the precincts, Tom felt better. The thickset mass of Christ Church seemed solid and comforting. He went inside.

  There was no doubt that Christ Church was the Christian heart of Dublin. Saint Patrick's, with its soaring Gothic vaults, was high and magnificent and seemed to have every intention of staring down old Christ Church or any other church that dared to raise its head. For a long time, indeed, the canons of Saint Patrick's and the monks of Christ Church had been frequently at loggerheads with each other. But that rivalry had finally worn itself out, and the two cathedrals were friendly enough now.

  But it was in the quietness of Christ Church that one felt the presence of the ancient Celtic tradition of Patrick and Colum Cille. Its pillars and arches seemed to Tom to be as protective as a castle. The stained-glass windows, like pages from an antique Gospel book, gleamed softly with a mysterious light. From time to time, a monk would pass in the shadows.

  Tom wandered there contentedly. He looked at the piece of the True Cross and the other holy relics. He walked amongst the tombs. The most impressive of these was the big raised slab and carved effigy of Strongbow. It was typical of the Plantagenets to have ensured that their vassal should have been given his final resting place and monument in one of the island's holiest places.

  Strongbow's tomb was the emblem of their rule over Ireland. But the greatest treasure of Christ Church, more venerated even than the True Cross, was the Staff of Saint Patrick himself.

  It was nearly two centuries now since the monks of Christ Church, during the rule of Archbishop O'Toole, had secured this great treasure from its former sanctuary up in Ulster. It had been a triumph for their own prestige, of course. But the presence of the Staff in Dublin had a subtler significance also.

  For if the English had failed to impose order on the whole of Ireland, the Church itself reflected a similar split. As far as the Pope was concerned, the King of England was the patron of the Irish Church and the Irish bishops owed him the allegiance proper to a feudal monarch. If the English king had increasingly insisted on having Englishmen as bishops in his Irish realm, the Pope might sometimes demur, but he mostly went along with it. In practice however, this English domination was only really effective in the areas under royal control.

  Most of the priests up in the north and west were Irish, preaching to Irish-speaking populations.

  Indeed, so great was the split that the English archbishop of Saint Patrick's own Ulster see of Armagh did not even reside in Armagh, where he was not very welcome, but in an English-speaking area to the south. It was ironic in a way, therefore, that the great Staff of the Irish patron saint should be in the heart of English-administered Dublin.

  The Staff was magnificent. The great golden case which enclosed it was encrusted with gems. Tom knew that the saint had received it from the hand of Christ himself, and that it was often referred to as the Staff of Jesus, the Bachall Iosa. He gazed at it with awe.

  "The staff of a hero." He had not noticed the priest come up beside him. He was a fair young man with an open, rather simpleminded face and he had addressed Tom in a local English dialect that suggested he had only recently arrived in Ireland.

  "Indeed," said Tom politely.

  "Nothing could frighten him," the young priest said. "Not the High King. Not the druids. He was fearless."

  In the centuries since the beginnings of the Irish Church, the legends about its leaders had continued to grow. Like everyone else, Tom knew and believed in them all. He knew how Saint Patrick had confronted the High King and challenged his druids, in the manner of an Old Testament prophet, to see whose god could make an unquenchable fire; he knew how Saint Patrick had performed many miracles and even banished the snakes-a legend that would have come as a great surprise to the saint himself.

  "Yes," he agreed, "he was fearless."

  "Because he trusted in God," said the young priest, and Tom bowed his head in acknowledgement. The priest, however, had not finished his reflections. He gave Tom an engaging smile. "It is a fine thing for you and me that the tomb of Strongbow and the Staff of Saint Patrick should be there in this cathedral," he remarked.

  "Indeed," said Tom again. And then, a little curiously, "Why is that?"

  "They were both English," said the young man triumphantly. "That's us," he added. "Stout of heart," and having declared this great truth, he gave Tom Tidy a friendly nod and went upon his way.

  Tom Tidy was aware of enough history to see the funny side of this. British Saint Patrick was, no doubt; but could one really call him English? As for Strongbow, did he think of the great Anglo- Norman lord as an Englishman like himself or like this simple priest? He scarcely knew.

  But there was one thing the young man had said that was not so funny. "Stout of heart." Strongbow and Saint Patrick, in their different ways, were certainly that.

  He gazed at the gleaming Bachall Iosa. Was he stout of heart? Not on his present performance, running in a panic from Dalkey to Dublin, forcing himself as a guest upon a family he hardly knew, and all on account of a threat that might not even be real. He shook his head sadly. He could not take much pride in himself today.

  Indeed, he began to think his behaviour was rather contemptible.

  Half an hour later the Dublin MacGowans were surprised when Tom Tidy returned and informed them that he would not be staying after all. By late afternoon his wagon was trundling back past Harold's Cross. And there were still some hours of daylight left when, to his horror, Michael MacGowan saw Tom Tidy coming up the street and, running out towards him, received from his happy face the news.

  "I've changed my mind. I'm staying here."