Fin Gall (43 page)

             
One of the rí túaithe was standing, silver chalice raised. “Our noble king of Tara, who defeated the dubh-gall host and the traitorous army of Cormac Ua Ruairc one after another on the same field on the same morning! A feat never seen before, never to be equaled!”

             
The others cheered. Flann beamed, but solemnly, as the occasion required, and raised his cup. Brigit rolled her eyes. She was not sure if the man was referring to her father or Flann mac Conaing, and she guessed the ambiguity was purposeful. Already the rí túaithe were playing up to Flann the way they had to her father.

             
Damned sycophants,
she thought. Her food sat untouched before her. Her appetite was gone, had been since she witnessed Flann’s disposal of Cormac ua Ruairc. Máel Sechnaill’s death on the battlefield had not spared Cormac a disemboweling, the last of the Ua Ruairc line going out just as the penultimate had. Brigit had to admit she felt considerably less sympathy for her former brother-in-law, who had tried hard to cuckold his brother, than she had for her former husband, Donnchad.

             
Cormac had also shown considerably less bravery in the end than had Donnchad. Unlike Donnchad, who had gone grim-faced and silent to his death, Cormac had wailed and cried and pleaded for life, a pathetic sight that had accomplished nothing beyond wasting his final chance to be remembered as a man of courage.

             
The rest of Cormac’s army had been butchered, mostly, and those who were not were now the chattel slaves of Flann and the other rí túaithe, and soon they would wish they had met a quick end on the battlefield.

             
Flann was talking now, but Brigit did not listen. She glanced over at Morrigan, sitting at the far end of the table. There was something very odd about it all. Máel Sechnaill had come unscathed through so many battles, only to be cut down in what was really a minor fight. No one had seen him fall, they just found him dead, run though the throat.

             
Brigit thought back on the words Morrigan had made her learn. No words in any language she knew, she wondered if perhaps they were some magic incantation, a spell to bring about her father’s death. Certainly Flann and Morrigan had gained the most from the king’s passing.

             
What do you know of this, Morrigan?
She wondered. She jerked her glance away before Morrigan caught her eye. Brigit had to be careful, and she knew it. Flann had declared himself protector until the succession was worked out, but protectors had a way of turning themselves into kings. Any real threat to his power would come from her, or her children, and Flann and Morrigan would be watching.

             
Brigit looked out over the rí túaithe seated at the long tables, moved her eyes from man to man as they ate and drank like swine at the troth. They were mostly drunk already. She sighed.

             
She would have to marry one of them. She would have to do it soon. Conlaed uí Chennselaigh was blond-haired and blue-eyed and he was not the worst of them, so he would probably do.

             
Brigit was still fresh from the horror of her kidnapping and the sight of her brother-in-law dying his horrible death, and that was excuse enough for the nausea and puking every morning. Her chambermaids seemed to believe her ordeal was the cause of her sickness, but they would not for long, and then the rumors would start.

             
Brigit needed a husband. The heir to the throne of Tara needed a legitimate father, one who would look like a legitimate father, with the same blond hair and blue eyes as the baby. Particularly now that Flann was sure to try and keep the throne for himself.

             
No one, no one but Brigit nic Máel Sechnaill, would ever know that it was fin-gall blood that ran through that heir’s Irish veins.

             
Morrigan thought she saw Brigit looking at her, but the princess turned away before their eyes met.

             
What are you thinking, my dear?
Morrigan wondered. No doubt she was trying to figure out how Flann had so quickly consolidated power.

             
Certainly it would seem quick to her. She did not witness the years during which Flann mac Conaing had won the trust and love of the rí túaithe, the fear and mistrust of Máel he had planted in their hearts and made to grow to fruition with his tender ministrations. A few of the precious jewels plucked from the crown, some gold shaved from its base had won over the rest. Brigit herself had carried Morrigan’s word to Flann that the moment had come for them to act.
Let Tara fall and Flann rise in his place
. The daughter had given word to Flann that he should strike her father down.

             
Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid was an evil man. That was all there was to say about him. Rather than make war on the pagan Norseman he would fight his fellow Irish, sack monasteries, Christian churches, just because they were in the kingdom of another king, whom Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid deemed enemy.

             
No more. Brega was ruled by a just man now.

             
Morrigan thought about Brigit. Flann’s men, Patrick and Donnel, were carrying on with Brigit’s chambermaids, and through them Morrigan heard all about the princess’s morning sickness. The foolish girls attributed it to the suffering Brigit had endured, but Morrigan knew better. She looked out over the rí túaithe, wondering which of them was the father.

             
Then another thought struck her.
Harald?
It did not seem possible. Then again, Harald was a strong and handsome young man. He had stolen her away. Even if she had not given herself willingly he might have taken her by force.

             
Could it be?
Morrigan looked over at Brigit with renewed interest.

             
In the end, of course, it did not matter. In nine months there could be an heir to the throne of Tara, if Brigit gave birth to a boy. Nine months for Flann to establish himself in his protectorate, so that his rule would go on while the heir was still a child.

             
And then, when Flann’s rule over Brega was established, firmly established, then out would come the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. Then, Flann mac Conaing, king of Brega, would be king of Leinster, and of Mide as well.

             
Then Flann would be too powerful even for the grandson of Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid to challenge him, and things in Ireland would be different. Then they would make war on the right people.

             
Flann mac Conaing would not be stopped, not if Morrigan had any say in the matter. And she did.

Historical Note

Only your kin

will
proudly carve

a
memorial at the main gate.

                                  
Hávamál

              That part of the Irish coast where the city of Dublin now sits has seen human occupation for thousands of years. Prehistoric communities kept dogs, sheep and pigs, built great middens and crafted pottery and jewelry. But there was never anything that might be called a town until the Vikings came.

             
The first Norse settlement appeared in the summer of 837, when a fleet of sixty-five ships, manned by Norwegian warriors by way of Scotland and Orkney arrived at the mouth of the Liffey. They found there two small settlements, which possibly contained churches and monasteries, Ireland being by then solidly Christian. One settlement was called Ath Cliath. The other, named after the pond formed where the Poodle River met the Liffey, was called Black Pool, or, in Gaelic, Dubh-Linn.

             
The sixty-year history of the original Norse longphort, or ship fort, was as violent and contentious as any in Viking or Irish history.

             
Soon after the Norwegians settled Dubh-linn, they were driven out by a force of Danish Vikings, who recognized the importance of the longphort. Then, in 852 another Norwegian fleet under Olaf the White arrived to reclaim the town for Norway. That original settlement remained in Norwegian hands. Interestingly, of all the victims of Viking depredations, the Irish are the only ones who differentiated between Norwegians, whom they called fin gall, or “white strangers” and the Danes, whom they called dubh gall, or “black strangers.”

             
Considerable archeological evidence of Viking settlement has been unearthed in the center of modern Dublin, but all of it dates to the beginning of the tenth century, leading historians to surmise that there were in fact two different Viking settlements in the area. The original longphort appears to have been located farther up the Liffey from where the heart of Dublin is now located. In 902, the Norsemen in that settlement were driven out of Dublin by an Irish army, only to return seventeen years later. This second settlement, which lasted around two hundred years, is apparently the one upon which modern Dublin is built.

             
The Vikings came first to the coast of Ireland to raid, and they were devastating in that endeavor. But one aspect of Viking culture that would differentiate them from later sea raiders is that after raiding, the Norse came to stay.

             
There were a number of factors that led to the Vikings’ territorial aspirations, including a dearth of farmland in Scandinavia and political upheavals there. Whatever the reason, the Irish (as well as the English, who were also suffering Viking incursion) were horrified at the thought of the Norse moving in. As the Native Americans would do with the European colonists 800 years later, the Irish endured the first Norsemen on their shores, and only when it was too late did they realize those settlements were just the beginning.

             
Along with insinuating themselves into the Irish landscape, the Vikings inserted themselves into the volatile Irish political scene. Many modern Irishmen claim to be descendants of kings, and that claim is not too unlikely when one considers how many kings Ireland enjoyed. With a complicated structure of over-kings and subordinate kings, the country had generally around 150 kings at any given time between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

Of these, most were no more than minor
lords, while others ruled larger kingdoms such as the historic kingdom of Brega and Leinster. But during the period of Viking invasion, there was no one single ruler of Ireland, and no unified government capable of organizing a real resistance to the Norse incursion.With Irish kings constantly at war with one another, the Vikings represented powerful military allies. One Irish king after another, deciding that the Vikings were not so abhorrent as whomever of their countrymen they were fighting, made treaties of mutual aide with the Norsemen.

             
As the Vikings joined in the fighting in Ireland, expanded their settlements and increased their population, they became more and more entrenched. Vikings married Irish women and set up legitimate trade with the Irish, importing many of their skills from Scandinavia. It would be more than two hundred years after the founding of Dubh-Linn before the Irish king Brian Bóru united the country sufficiently to drive the Vikings out for good. But by that time the Norse influence, from crafts to language to blood, was so well established that it would never be eradicated from the Island, and, indeed, still exists today.

             
Most of the place names that appear in this book will be familiar to anyone who is acquainted with modern-day Ireland, as the names have not changed. One name which might not be familier is Brega. In medieval Ireland, the territory of Brega (which means “the heights”) constituted the modern county Meath along with some portions of Louth and north Dublin.

             
The Crown of the Three Kingdoms is fictitious. But if such a thing had existed, there certainly would have been as much intrigue and violence surrounding it as is portrayed in the book. It is how things were done in medieval Ireland.