THE IRISH PRINCESS.
PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER 1

At dawn the women came to tell Diarmait his new wife had borne a daughter.

He grunted at the news for he had been hoping for another son to grow tall and strong and join the spears in his warband – although sons, like spears could be dangerous. He knew how to handle both, but he was always watchful, never off his guard.

The youths were eyeing him now as they sat round the fire, drinking bowls of foamy fresh milk.  He sensed their relief at the birth of a girl. Môr, their stepmother was united in lawful Christian wedlock with him, but their mothers had been hand fasted in the old way, and their own legitimacy was tenuous.

Diarmait studied them with knowing amusement and wiped milk from his beard.  His two bear cubs. Enna and Domnall.  Sturdy, strong lads of fourteen and eleven who, God willing would make fine warriors and cleave to each other as he and his own brother had not.  Love your kin to their very bones, but never trust them. He turned to the women. ‘Bring me the child, I would see her.’

They curtseyed and hurried away.

‘Well now,’ Diarmait fixed his sons with a piercing stare, his voice harsh from a lifetime of bellowing commands and forcing others to his will. ‘You have a new sister to protect, see that you do for it is your duty, even as it is your duty to bind yourself to each other and to me.’

‘It shall be so, father, I swear it.’ Enna met Diarmait’s gaze squarely with his clear, light eyes, and Domnall swiftly followed his brother’s lead.

‘You shall so  promise in church before all when she is baptised.’

‘What will you name her?’  Enna asked.

‘I will know when I see her.’ Môr had been chattering of names for weeks now, but most of it had swept clean through his ears because she changed her mind more often than he drank horns of wine at a feast.

The women returned, Môr’s own former nurse Ainne, cradling a bundle of blue blanket. The sounds emerging from the folds, reminded Diarmait of a little crow.  Babies were women’s business. He had no interest except as proof of his virility, but still, the rituals must be observed and the child acknowledged.  Although she had seen her mother’s eyes first, he would be her imprint, and she would belong to him for life.

He received the baby from Ainne and parted the blanket with his calloused forefinger to look at her and make sure she was whole and perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes. A fluffy crown of dark hair. So tiny a scrap to hold a beating heart.   She continued to snuffle and squeak as he rose and carried her from the smoky hall and stood on the threshold to examine her in the light of the rising sun.

Falling suddenly silent, she gazed into his eyes and his breathing snagged, for he saw in her a fathomless wisdom that knew everything he had forgotten.  She was so small and delicate, so intricate and fine. Knowing he could crush her skull with one squeeze of his fist made him feel raw and vulnerable. He found himself smiling foolishly into her solemn little face, while a glow of protective love expanded his chest.

‘Well then, daughter,’ he rumbled softly, ‘what shall we name you?’  He watched the sun broach the horizon and hem the sky with gold.  He was forty-two years old, battle-scarred, cynical, ruthless, but in this moment, holding his new-born daughter, he felt half that age – as though through her, he had drunk from a chalice of hope and renewal.  His eyes prickled with the power of his emotions; and now he knew her name. Tenderly folding the blanket around her he kissed her forehead.  ‘Aoife,’ he said. ‘I name you Aoife.’

Chapter 1

Pembroke Castle, South Wales

November, 1154

The messenger arrived at noon when everyone was eating in the great hall.  Already the light was fading as low rain clouds swept in from the Irish Sea, veiling the castle in a dull grey mizzle.

Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke and Striguil listened with dull resignation to his mother and his sister Basilia discussing the cost of the candles, how many were left in the stores and what they could afford to order. Most of their funds were spent on maintaining the fabric and defences of their castles. What remained had to be husbanded against an uncertain future.  There had been peace for a year now, but it was fragile.

In Richard’s childhood before the war, money had mattered less, but now it dominated his thoughts.  He was twenty-four years old.  His father had died when he was eighteen and the entire burden of an embattled earldom  had landed on his shoulders, catapulting him from a youth under tutelage straight into manhood. It was like being hurled against a wall. He had picked himself up, stunned, disbelieving, but knowing there was no one else, had set out to honour his father’s memory and to survive.

He knew and trusted every man sitting at this table eating his bread, drinking his wine and keeping warm at his hearth. Their clothes, their weapons, their wages. It was his responsibility to provide and provide well.  To fail would be shameful, but it was often a struggle.

He dipped his spoon into the mutton pottage – a basic staple of the season, although the cooks had added pepper and cumin to make it more appetising.  His hand was halfway to his mouth when he saw his usher escorting a mud-spattered messenger towards the dais – Alard, a groom from Striguil, who often carried news.

Alard stumbled as he reached the dais and folded to his knees, white with exhaustion. ‘Sire, King Stephen is dead –  at Faversham of a belly gripe four days ago.’

The words stayed on the surface of Richard’s mind; if he let them sink in they would have to be true and their recent stability would be torn asunder again.  He did not ask Alard to repeat the news. Once was enough.  Once was too much. And four days ago, meant everything had changed while he dwelt here unaware, enclosed in the sea-mist at Pembroke.

He dismissed the exhausted messenger, telling him to eat and find a bed for the night, and pushed his bowl aside, his appetite destroyed.

‘Dead,’ his mother said with a sniff. ‘He made a folly of his rule and now he cannot even end his life successfully.’ She too had stopped eating, but her jaw moved from side to side, chewing on what they had just heard. ‘What will this mean for us?’ She turned a gimlet stare on Richard, clearly expecting him to have an answer.

He didn’t have one.  He hadn’t bargained on this. After fifteen years of battling over the English throne with his cousin Matilda, King Stephen had made peace last year with her upstart son, Henry. It had been agreed that the crown would pass to Henry on Stephen’s death.  For those who had fought staunchly to uphold Stephen’s rule and been rewarded for it – in his father’s case with an earldom, the future was suddenly precarious.  Richard suspected Henry would not be open-handed.

‘I do not know, Mother, save that we should prepare ourselves and husband our resources.  Henry FitzEmpress has a bold reputation, but who knows what he will decide to do?’  He recovered his bowl and forced himself to begin eating again to restore a semblance of normality.  Henry would be king, and all they could do was stand firm and face whatever came at them.

He had met Henry FitzEmpress during the peace negotiations last year, but it had not been cordial. Richard knew Henry saw him as someone to be put in his place, preferably with a foot over his neck.   They were of a similar age, but Richard was slightly older and a full handspan taller; Henry had disliked having to look up at him.  ‘The new King is in Normandy. He will have to cross the Narrow Sea first and then come to Westminster.’ He grimaced. He had been intending to spend Christmas at Pembroke, but this changed everything.

‘You must make sure our castles are fully provisioned and garrisoned,’ his mother said. ‘Recruit men if you must.’

He answered her with silence.  She had little idea of the harsh truths beyond their domain. She wanted to believe they were more powerful than they were and commanded their own destiny. She would belabour Richard with tales of what a great man his father had been and how Richard must live up to his reputation, but it was easier said than accomplished and his father’s death had polished a reputation not always as bright in life. What also lay in the silence between them was that kings could give, and kings could take away. She was afraid, and so was he.

‘We will come through this,’ his uncle Hervey intervened in his rich, soothing voice, ever the peacemaker. ‘We can do nothing until we know more. It is fruitful to plan, but wasteful to worry.’ He picked up his spoon and deliberately attended to his mutton pottage.

Richard gave his uncle a grateful, if slightly wry look. Hervey frequently peddled such wisdoms. He meant them sincerely even if they were sometimes trite or obvious, and Richard appreciated his calming influence in the household, especially where his mother was concerned. ‘Yes, Uncle,’ he said. ‘A timely reminder for us all.’

Later Richard climbed to the battlements, but the sea mist was as thick as wool and he could barely see a handspan beyond his face and it seemed like a reflection of his future.  If he put his hand into the fog, it would disappear, and if he followed it, he might disappear too.

‘Richard?’

He turned at a gentle touch on his arm and faced his mistress.  Two years ago, he had given Rohese refuge when her husband, a minor knight owing him service, had died in a skirmish with the Welsh. Matters had developed from there and they had become lovers.  Five months ago, she had borne him a daughter, Matilda.

‘You are troubled my love.’ Her breath was fine vapour twirling into the fog.

‘I cannot see my way forward,’ he said bleakly.

‘Will it make such a big difference, having Henry FitzEmpress as king?’

‘I fear so.  I was hoping Stephen would live a while longer, but you should never put your trust in kings.’  He leaned against the hard, grey stone and sighed. ‘When I was a boy, I saw some enemy soldiers trapped in a castle ditch and slaughtered because there was no escape.  Even though they meant me harm, I pitied them and I knew from that moment I never wanted to be the one in the ditch. And now I find myself scrabbling up the sides, trapped.’

She slipped her arm around his waist inside his cloak. ‘Come within and I will give you hot wine and rub your feet.  It is pointless standing out in the cold, and there is nothing to see until this fog has cleared.’

Making an effort, he turned to her and seeing the anxiety in her soft hazel eyes managed a smile for her sake.  ‘Where would I be without your wisdom and common sense?’

‘Lost in the mist?’ She kissed him, and he tasted the cold of her lips and the warmth of her mouth.

‘You do not know,’ he said and followed her down the steps through the biting grains of frozen cloud to his private chamber in the room above the hall. The central hearth sent out welcome streamers of charcoal heat and his face and hands began to tingle.  A cradle stood near the fur-piled box bed, and he went to gaze at his daughter.  She was awake, but content, cooing and gurgling to herself.  He leaned over to chuck her under the chin and thanked God for such gifts in trying times.