Back then, in the thick blackness of that musty room, there was a purity in the certainty of what I was about to do. I was very young at the time, and that probably helped—the certainty of youth, the call of duty. It is chilling to think of it now, that at that tender age, I was ready to kill my beautiful brothers. But under those circumstances, it would have been the right thing to do, putting an end to it.
A grunt and the metallic ring of a weapon hitting the flagstones. Just outside the door now. A dark red pool seeped under my feet. I leant my weight against the door, my feet slipping in the blood. I held my brothers to me, their heads buried in my skirts. Two swift upward jabs under their rib cages to the heart was all it would take. I remember I could taste my tears.
Then the heavy, lurching thumps which shook through my body as they tried to force the door. The screaming as the battering heightened. The cracking as the boards strained and hinges loosened; I leant back with all my weight.
It had to be now. Holding them in a final, tight embrace, each face pressed into my young bosom, I gripped my short sword two-handed, the point at Eanna’s back. I screamed my fury to the gods and filled my lungs, ready to deliver the first thrust cleanly.
The heavy door behind me shattered in a cloud of wood splinter and iron rivets. Knocked to the floor, the sword spun from my hand and my brothers fell from my grip and tumbled across the room. Recovering from the shock, I saw my blade lying close to my outstretched hand, returning in my time of need, as always—Fáinleog, my short sword.
Seizing the grip, I spun and struck wildly, driving the blade upward into the belly of the dark shadow of the warrior moving towards me. There was a jar as I felt the light blade stop abruptly on a thick mail coat. The weight of the man drove me back. I twisted the sharp point viciously, trying to work through small chain links to the flesh beneath, as I had been taught.
Light flooded the room. I stared up into the bloodied face of my father, Diarmuit MacMurrough. His sunken dark eyes shone with a cold battle-madness. The whites of his eyes blazed bright against his thick black beard and smoke-charred face. There was, for a moment, no hint of recognition from him. I thought he would cut me down.
Staring blankly, he seemed to emerge from the humanity-draining bloodlust where men go in their minds during battle.
‘Gods.’ He slapped the sword from my hand, seeing me afresh.
‘Where are your brothers, Aoife,’ he snapped as Donal, my older brother, stumbled into the room over the broken remains of the shattered door. His helmet bore the scar of a hard blow, probably from an axe. His battered willow shield was barely held together by the tight band of iron on its edge. Bright red blood glistened, smearing his sword, the edges nicked and dulled from the fight.
‘They’re here,’ I said. Conor and Eanna scrambled from the debris and ran to my side, whimpering. ‘I’m keeping them with me.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She’s waiting with the horses, hidden at the back of the stables.’
‘What?’ he snarled.
‘The horses,’ I said. ‘We have a chance, Father!’ I pleaded, knowing he was loath to run from Ferns, the seat of power in Leinster of his father and forefathers for generations. He would not be the one to lose it, chased away like a diseased dog. He stared at me with cold venom.
‘Father, please! I beg you. We must leave immediately. Ferns is lost. They are attacking from the west, but the eastern gate is still free. We must go now!’ I knew my father’s dangerous rage, but there was no time.
‘She’s right, Father,’ Donal said now. ‘They are through the palisade and swamping the lower town. It’s a slaughter now. They’ll reach the palace soon enough. We don’t have the swords to hold them.’ He looked exhausted from the day’s long fighting as wave upon wave of O’Rourke’s army stormed the wooden palisade of the town. I think he was relieved that I had been blunt with our father.
Turning on him, my father growled. ‘We’ll never make Wexford, and what when we get there? They’ll have us cornered.’ Slamming his shield into Donal’s chest, he shouted, ‘You! You should have held them at the wall and driven them back.’ Lifting his sword, he levelled it at Donal’s chest. There was a madness on him—a battle-madness that takes some men beyond fear and most beyond reason. It was not bravery; bravery is feeling the fear and riding on. To lead in battle, you must be brave, but also clear-headed. He was neither now.
His eyes remained fixed on Donal, who didn’t move. I could see his clenched teeth through the grimace of his beard. This was dangerous. My father could be a violent, unforgiving man, unpredictable in a fit of rage—a rage heightened now by the fury of battle. I quickly stepped in front of Donal. Facing my father, I reached out and held his sword hand. He stared fixedly at Donal with a raging, silent intensity. I could feel the pent-up fury in his iron grip.
‘Father, please, I sent the pack horses with everything we need to a ship yesterday. The ship’s master has it waiting on the quay at St Kieran in Bannow Bay.’
He looked at me, hesitating.
‘Father, you’re right!’ I tried. ‘Wexford is too dangerous. They won’t be watching St Kieran. The ship can take us all. But we must go now. Please, Father!’ I knew it had to be now, but only he could decide. Donal would not take his orders from me.
‘You must listen, Father,’ Donal said evenly.
Still my father didn’t move, his gaze scorching Donal’s face.
Nothing.
The fighting edging close.
I exploded. ‘You will have us all killed! And for what? All is lost here!’ I screamed. ‘I am taking the boys and Mother to the boat with what men will accompany us. You can stay and die if you wish. Wallow in your stupidity. You have lost us everything, but we will not die for you now!’
Stunned from his stupor, my father turned on me, but the allowance a father will often give a daughter but deny a son stopped him. He groaned deeply and eased the sword from Donal’s chest, dropping it to the ground by his side. The loud metallic clash on the stone floor bounced off the chamber walls. Sitting heavily on a bench, he buried his head in his hands.
‘No, no! I have never run.’ He shook his head. ‘If I go now, I lose everything—my crown, my lands, Leinster. Everything!’ I could see the battle-madness seeping from him as his despair grew.
‘Father?’ Donal said. ‘Father? Please, you must decide!’
Exasperated, I picked up my father’s sword and slammed it on the table in front of him and gripped his face in my hands, staring into his eyes. ‘Father, you are Diarmuit MacMurrough, king of Leinster. You will return to take our family’s rightful place here. Today your duty is to survive.’
He dropped his head. A strained silence held us frozen, waiting in death’s certain shadow as time slowed. In what seemed an eternity but was only an instant, he slowly raised his head and, with a distant look, nodded faintly. That was all I needed.
‘Donal, bring the household troops to the east gate. We leave immediately,’ I said as I helped my father rise to his feet.
My father leapt onto his horse and made to break for the gate before it was taken. It was our only hope.
‘Stop! We don’t have enough horses; you must take Eanna and Conor,’ I insisted. ‘I’ll bring Mother and the others.’
He hesitated. ‘Gods,’ he said. Roughly placing both boys before his saddle, he made to leave. Then, turning, he ordered the man on his right to have the guards put the town to the torch as they fled. ‘Leave nothing standing. Everything must burn,’ he spat. ‘The bastards will win a pile of ashes.’ He lashed his stallion, which, already maddened by the din of battle, surged forwards through the narrow street, scattering the fleeing townspeople caught under its thundering, iron-shod hooves.
My mother, Mór, clung tightly to my waist as we galloped through the close lanes and alleyways trying to catch him. The thatch on the low houses was burning on every side, sending showers of fire and choking smoke into the reddening dark sky. The attackers had reached this side of the town as I had feared. I only hoped they hadn’t taken the gate.
My heart sank as we emerged from the smoke-filled alley into a small, open square in front of the large gates embedded in the wooden palisade walls. More than the height of two men, the trunks of oak trees were buried deep into the ground to form a strong defensive barrier. The wall was erected and had expanded around the town as it had grown over the centuries. It was half castellated by cutting the trunks at regular places. Here the guards watched over the approaches to the town from the timber platform which skirted the inner side.
I pulled my horse to a fast stand, feeling the heat from the chasing flames as the wind swept the fire in sheets across the tinder-dry thatch of the houses, lighting the night. Through the thickening smoke I saw mail-clad warriors struggling to close the gates. They heaved their bodies against the stubborn weight, which responded slowly, closing our escape. They were on the walls too, firing arrows into the townsfolk fleeing the fire and slaughter. I knew that meant they commanded the other gates; this was our last chance.
