Dublin (72 page)

  It didn't take Una long to see the good in young Ruairi O'Byrne. After the first night's sleep at the hospital he appeared well enough in the morning, and she had supposed he would leave. But by the middle of the day he was still there. Indeed, he was quite content to talk to the inmates, who seemed to like his company. Fionnuala was not there, and seeing Una in need of assistance, he more than once stepped over to help her with her tasks. The Palmer's wife thought him a very pleasant young man. The Palmer himself, though not unfriendly, muttered that a young man of that age ought to have better things to do, for which his wife rebuked him.

  Ruairi showed no desire to move on that day, but said he would be glad to sleep in the men's dormitory. The next morning he told Una that he must buy a horse in Dublin so that he could return to the O'Byrnes. Fionnuala was due in, but he left early before she arrived and did not return until after she had left. When he came back, he was looking a little pale. The trader he had been dealing with had tried to sell him a horse that was unsound, but he had spotted the weakness just in time. He seemed irritated at not being able to leave, but spent another night at the hospital.

  The next morning Ruairi seemed to be depressed. He sat in the yard looking gloomy and it wasn't clear if he meant to go anywhere. When she could spare a little time from her duties, Una came and sat with him. For a while he didn't say much, but when she gently asked him why he seemed sad, he confessed that he was trying to make a difficult decision. "I should go back." He indicated southwards towards the Liffey valley and the Wicklow Mountains, so she assumed he meant back to the O'Byrnes. "But I have other plans."

  "Is it another voyage you'll be making?" she asked, thinking to herself that he had only recently returned from one.

  "Perhaps." He hesitated, and then said quietly, "Or a greater journey."

  "Where would you go?"

  "It's a pilgrimage I'm thinking of," he confessed. "To Compostela maybe, or the Holy Land."

  "By all the saints!" she exclaimed. "That's a long and perilous way to go walking the world." She looked at him carefully to see if he was serious.

  "Would you really go, like the Palmer, all the way to Jerusalem?"' "It would be better," he muttered, "than going back there." And once again he indicated the direction in which his family lived.

  She couldn't help feeling sorry for him and wondered why he should be so unwilling to be with his family.

  "You should stay here a few days," she counselled.

  "This is a quiet place in which to rest your mind as well as your body. Have you prayed about it?" she asked, and when he seemed uncertain, she begged him:

  "Pray and your prayers will surely be answered."

  Secretly she already intended to pray for him herself.

  So he stayed another day. When she told the Palmer about poor Ruairi's troubles and his plans, he only gave her a wry glance, and remarked, "You can waste a lot of time with a young man like that."

  She was surprised that so good a man, and a pilgrim himself, would say such a thing, and she could only conclude that he didn't understand. She bridled also, a little, at his tone which she thought was patronising. The Palmer, seeing her annoyance, quietly added,

  "He reminds me of a boy I used to know."

  "And perhaps," she said testily, "you didn't know that boy so well either." She had never spoken to the Palmer in such a tone before and she wondered if she had gone too far. But to her surprise, he gave no sign of anger.

  "Perhaps," he said, with a sudden sadness for which she could find no explanation.

  The next morning, Fionnuala was back. She greeted Ruairi politely, but she did not seem particularly interested in talking to him. When Una remarked on this Fionnuala gave her a look and said quietly, "It's Brendan I'm interested in, Una." So they discussed the matter no further.

  But in the afternoon, while Fionnuala was speaking to one of the inmates, Una came upon Ruairi sitting gloomily in the yard. It had occurred to her since their conversation that it must be different being part of a princely family like the O'Byrnes, especially when you had to measure yourself against the reputation of a man like Brendan. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land would certainly have the effect of making Ruairi a notable figure. But was it, she wondered, what he truly wanted to do?

  "They torment me! They despise me!" he suddenly broke out. Then he relapsed into gloom.

  "Ruairi's a poor thing! That's what they say.

  'Brendan's the man." He is. It's true.

  And what have I ever been doing all my life?"

  "You must have patience, Ruairi," she urged.

  "God has a plan for you as he does for us all.

  If you would pray and listen, Ruairi, you'll discover what it is. I'm sure you have it in you to do great things. Is that what you desire?" she asked, and he confessed that it was.

  She felt honoured as well as touched that he should have shared such intimate thoughts with her. At that moment, with his long body stooped and his handsome young face sunk in sadness, he seemed to her so noble and so fine that her heart within her swelled at the thought of what he could become. If only he can find himself, she thought, he will do greater things than people imagine. Hardly thinking what she did, she took his hand in hers for a moment. Then she heard Fionnuala calling her, and had to go.

  If only she had not spoken to Fionnuala. If only she had kept Ruairi's confidence to herself, as indeed she should have done. She could never forgive herself, afterwards, for her foolishness. But so it was. For while they were working together, didn't she like an idiot have to tell Fionnuala that young Ruairi was thinking of going to the Holy Land, and that she was worried about him.

  Yet even then, she asked herself, what could have possessed the stupid girl to blurt out to him that very evening: "So it's to Jerusalem you are going, is it Ruairi? And will there be plenty of drinking along the way?" Then she had laughed, and Ruairi had said nothing to Fionnuala, but he'd given Una a look of reproach that almost broke her heart. The next morning, he was gone.

  And as if all this wasn't bad enough, who could ever have supposed the reaction of Fionnuala when Una rightly rebuked her for treating poor Ruairi so shamefully. She laughed in Una's face.

  "You're in love with him, Una," she cried.

  "Don't you know?"

  "You're a liar! Are you mad?"

  "No more than you, Una, for falling in love with such a poor useless fellow."

  "He is not. I am not!" Una was so flustered and angry that she could hardly speak. And Fionnuala was still laughing, which made Una hate her even more.

  Then the foolish girl ran off and Una could only wonder, in her fury, how it was possible for people so completely to misunderstand.

  She did not see Ruairi again until December.

  It was the day after Father Gilpatrick had gone down to Cashel for the big council there. Many of the royal camp had also left and Dublin was quieter than it had been recently. The Palmer's wife had gone into the market. Just before Fionnuala was due to return home, she and Una were surprised to see the Palmer's wife returning with a young man. It was Ruairi.

  "I met him in the market," she explained. "I wasn't going to let this good young man leave us without coming to see our two girls here."

  If Ruairi had not particularly wanted to come, he had the good grace not to show it. He went to greet one or two of the inmates, which gave them pleasure; and he explained that he had been with his family recently. Una wanted to ask him about his plans for going on pilgrimage, but she didn't like to. It was Fionnuala, after a few moments' awkward pause, who made the conversation.

  "Have you seen your cousin Brendan?" she asked.

  "He's not been here this last few weeks."

  "I have." Did he look a little uncomfortable?

  Una thought he did; and when she glanced at Fionnuala it seemed that she had thought so, too.

  "He's keeping well, then, is he?"

  Fionnuala pursued.

  "Oh. Ah, he is, indeed. Always well is

  Brendan."

  "Is he getting married yet?" Fionnuala continued boldly. And now it was clear that Ruairi was truly embarrassed.

  "There is talk of it, I believe. One of the O'Tooles. But I couldn't say if the thing is definite. No doubt," he added wryly, "I'll be one of the last to know."

  No, Una thought, it's Fionnuala who'll be the last to know; and she looked at her friend with compassion. But Fionnuala was putting a brave face on it.

  "Well he's a fine man to be sure," she said.

  "His wife may not have cause to laugh very often; but so long as she's of a serious disposition she'll be happy I'm sure." She smiled brightly. "Are you going back into Dublin, Ruairi?" 1 was.

  "Then you can walk with me, as I'm on my way home."

  Fionnuala never mentioned Brendan after that. As for Ruairi, Una didn't see him again. She heard once or twice that he'd been in Dublin and asked Fionnuala if she'd seen or heard of him; but Fionnuala said that she hadn't.

  The rock of Cashel. It was seventy years since an O'Brien king had granted the ancient Munster stronghold, with its dominating views over the countryside, to the Church for the use of an archbishop.

  It was certainly a magnificent place to hold such a council, and appropriate, too, thought Gilpatrick: for a number of the Munster churchmen he knew were as keen reformers as he was. It was to be a great gathering. Most of the bishops, many abbots, and a papal legate were to be there. Yet even so, as he approached its grey stone eminence, he had felt a sense of unease.

  It had been interesting to watch King Henry.

  For the most part, though he had convened the council, he had asked the papal legate to take the chair, outwardly deferring to him in everything and sitting quietly to one side of the great hall where they met. Most days he dressed without ceremony in the simple green hunting tunic he favoured. His hair, which he cut short, had a faint reddish tinge, reminding one of his Viking Norman ancestors. But his face was sharp, devious, watchful; and Gilpatrick couldn't help thinking that he was like a fox watching so many ecclesiastical chickens.

  As well as the legate, there were several distinguished English churchmen present, and it was one of these, on the first day of the proceedings, who gave Gilpatrick and Lawrence O'Toole some interesting information.

  "You have to understand," he told them quietly, during a break in the proceedings, "that King Henry is very anxious to make a good impression. This business with Becket…" Here he dropped his voice. "There are bishops in England, you know, who think Becket just as much to blame as Henry. And I can tell you, for reasons of statecraft if nothing else, it is inconceivable that Henry would have ordered the murder.

  Howsoever that may be," he continued, "the king is anxious to display his piety-which I assure you is genuine," he added hastily, "and he is most determined that the Pope should see him making every effort to aid the Irish Church in the reforms we know you both wish to make. Of course," he went on with a faint smile, "not all Irish churchmen are as dedicated to purifying the Church as you."

  The legate desired them first to compile a report on any present shortcomings of the Irish Church.

  As in previous councils of this kind, the bishops were generally keener to bring Irish practice closer to that of the rest of western Christendom, where power resided in bishoprics and parishes rather than in the monasteries. The hereditary abbots, not unreasonably, argued that the old monastic and tribal arrangements were still better suited to the country as it was. Gilpatrick was fascinated to hear Archbishop O'Toole, an abbot as well as a priest, and a prince like many of them, give the abbots a qualified support. "There is still room, I think, for both systems, depending on the territory." As for the demand that there should be no more hereditary churchmen, he again was kindly. "The real issue surely," he pointed out, "is whether a churchman is qualified for his post. If he is unsuited, then he must give it up; but the fact it has been passed down his family should not be a disqualification. In ancient Israel, all priests were hereditary. The spirit comes from God, not from the making of arbitrary rules." He pressed them further on other matters, however: on reform within their houses; the ordering of parish priests, who were often lax; the extension of parishes; and the collection of tithes. It was wonderful to see how amongst these men, many of whom came from families as noble as his own, this saintly and unworldly man could command such respect through his spiritual authority alone. In due course they produced a report which, it was generally felt, would suit the case.

  It was the English priest who took the archbishop and Gilpatrick aside.

  "The report is promising," he said, "but incomplete. It lacks," he searched for a word,

  "conviction." He looked seriously at the archbishop. "You, of course, Archbishop, are a reformer. But some of your colleagues… The report as it stands could be used by the legate, or even by King Henry were he so minded-and I do not say

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