‘Let any man try to board this ship and he’ll get a knife in the guts,’ he said grimly.
‘Go and join my lord,’ Mara said to the bodyguards. ‘Give me one of those knives and I’ll guard your prisoners. For pity’s sake, Conor,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Get up off that deck; seasickness is purely imaginary. Forget it.’ And then she swung around rapidly as O’Brien of Arra made a half attempt to stand up. ‘Stay where you are, my lord, and you, too, Donán. Any attempt to move and I’ll feed you to the fishes.’
The two English ships from Aran were travelling fast, but the
pucán
, she judged, was going faster still. They were out in the open sea and felt the full force of the west wind; the ships were still in the lee of the island.
‘Faster,’ she muttered. All of the English ships had more sail and presumably that meant a faster speed; they had to get well ahead in the next five minutes or so. She gave a hasty glance at the prisoners and then back out to sea again. The lone English ship was the danger now. Would it try to accost them or would it wait for the other three ships? That might be more deadly, she thought, and tried to remember the accounts of naval battles described by the Roman author Tacitus. Grappling irons, she thought, and quickly picked up a pair of oars from beside the mast and handed them to Conor who had staggered to his feet and stood swaying uncertainly.
‘Use these for pushing away the ship if it gets too near,’ she said encouragingly, but spoke loudly enough to be heard by the king’s bodyguards. Turlough also heard and he gave her a grin, but then once more the air was split by the thunderous explosion from the cannon. This time it was fired towards them and something hit the sea and a sparkling jet of water shot upwards.
‘Missed by a mile!’ yelled Turlough shaking his fist at the island. ‘By God, if I ever get a chance to catch hold of Brian the Spaniard I’ll strangle him with my own pair of hands, cousin or no cousin.’
Turlough’s other cousin, O’Brien of Arra, looked startled at that, Mara was glad to see. He thrust his hands into the comfort of his warm cloak, hunched his shoulders and stared apprehensively over his shoulder at the bulk of the island with its castle perched halfway up the slope.
Strangling or knives, neither was a weapon that would avail against cannon and handguns. Turlough was living in the past, thought Mara. If only they could get back to Doolin, reunite him with his men-at-arms, and then get everyone in behind the wooden door of Ballinalacken Castle. An iron cannon would be too difficult to move by road, too slow, too cumbersome with its escort in continuous danger from the lightly clad Irish, armed with their throwing knives. But by sea was different; a cannon could have been shipped across from England and landed at the safe, sandy harbour of Aran and then dragged by islanders up the short, steep slope to the castle.
‘Brehon, that ship, the one that’s been out there all the morning, that’s holding off deliberately.’ Setanta had decided that his boat was safe and had joined Mara, casting a curious eye on the knife in her hand and on the two men huddled on the bench before her.
‘Holding off deliberately,’ repeated Mara and her heart sank. Her eyes went to the two ships, now out of the lee shore of the island, now moving faster, blown by the west wind. The third boat had to tack in order to make the best of the wind, but each long diagonal movement was bringing them nearer and nearer to the
pucán
.
‘They’re going to try to surround us,’ she said, half to herself but half to Setanta. ‘Now let me think of the battle of Actium; what did Tacitus say? What did Octavius do?’
‘Never heard of either of them,’ said Setanta firmly. ‘My lord,’ he called. ‘These three ships will have you surrounded before the sun moves away from the cliffs of Moher.’
‘Let them try anything,’ growled Turlough. ‘I’m ready for them. I have my son by my side . . .’ He cast a quick look at the pallid Conor, his
tánaiste
, and added hastily, ‘And two good bodyguards at my back.’
‘With respect, my lord, that is not enough,’ said Setanta firmly. ‘The sea is no place to be fighting three against one battles and these ships are probably packed with armed men, wearing metal jackets, too. I’ve seen the sun glint on them. No, what you must do is to get the sea to work for you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Turlough sounded annoyed. ‘Don’t you go dictating battle strategies to me, young man; I was fighting battles when you were in your cradle.’
‘My cradle was the sea,’ said Setanta with a grin. He jerked his thumb at the helmsman. ‘Does that fellow there speak any decent Irish?’
‘Tell me what you want and I’ll translate for you,’ said Mara quickly. She herself could see how the ships advanced like a pack of dogs about to bring down a wolf.
‘This is a chance – just a chance, my lord,’ said Setanta. ‘See over there where the gulls are rising and the water is a different colour.’
Mara’s eyes followed his outstretched hand. She could see what he meant. One patch of the water was not a deep greeny-blue but was translucent with white spray rising from it. As she watched a wave approached, shuddered and broke.
‘There are rocks there,’ she said with alarm.
‘That’s right, Brehon, a whole line of them, stretching from that spot almost on to the shore. Many’s the time that I sailed over them. You can find great lobsters, lurking there.’
‘Sailed over them?’ queried the king.
‘That’s right, my lord, they’re further down than you think. Ask that man what sort of keel he has, is it smaller than a hooker’s keel?’ he said urgently to Mara and she quickly translated his question.
‘He says not as deep as a hooker’s but he doesn’t want to risk the rocks.’
‘He’ll risk it or I’ll put a knife into him.’ In an instant Setanta produced a wicked-looking knife, all stained with blood, from his pouch and held it menacingly at the man from Connaught. ‘It’s our only chance, my lord,’ he said to the king. ‘We go that way, they follow us. These ships have deep keels; I saw one a couple of days ago when I and two other boats went out far after a shark.’
‘You mean that they will go on the rocks? Good man.’ Turlough hugged his son’s thin shoulders with glee and then punched Setanta on the arm.
‘I’ll stand beside you and translate,’ said Mara. ‘Conor, you watch these men. Take this knife; don’t hesitate to use it if necessary.’
The knife wavered in Conor’s hand, but it would probably serve to keep his mind off the seasickness. Both Donán and O’Brien of Arra looked quite cowed and the king was flanked by his two bodyguards. Mara moved across to where the boat owner was standing, tiller in his hand and his eyes fixed stubbornly ahead.
‘To the right,’ said Setanta. ‘Just a little. Don’t want the ships to take too much notice.’
Mara translated and the
pucán
altered course very slightly.
‘Just a bit more,’ said Setanta indicating with his hand and nodded with satisfaction when his order was obeyed. Now the boat was pointing slightly away from the harbour at Doolin. The three white-sailed ships followed discreetly.
‘Bit more,’ said Setanta. Now he put his own hand on the tiller for a minute and nodded with satisfaction. ‘Nice boat,’ he said admiringly. ‘Answers to a touch.’
Mara translated, but there was no change in the boat owner’s surly expression. He had been in the plot, she thought, he and his comrade who had no doubt been heavily compensated for the hole in his boat. She glanced over her shoulder and then stiffened with alarm. The English ships were no longer sailing three abreast. One had shot rapidly towards the south, the centre boat remained behind them but the third boat was sailing directly towards the harbour.
‘The pincer movement,’ said Mara aloud. ‘You remember your Livy, my lord, and you, Conor, from your studies. Livy wrote about Hannibal using the pincer movement in his battles – one detachment to the back and two on the flanks of the enemy.’
Both men gave her a look of total incomprehension and Mara half smiled to herself. She would have to tell her scholars about this. Their knowledge of the classical writers was fresh and profound, but she had always found that a practical analogy was what made the knowledge stick firmly. She would have them make small models of the
pucán
and of the three English ships and they could reconstruct the sea and the rocks in the pond beyond the orchard. It would be a fun activity for the last day of term next Monday.
Mara felt quite confident now in Setanta. He knew what he was doing. By now she no longer needed to translate. The young fisherman had his hand on the tiller and, inch by inch, was nudging the
pucán
towards the ominous pale patch in the sea. And where the
pucán
went, the three English ships followed – one to the back and now one on either side.
The man from Connaught was looking more and more worried. It was understandable that he did not want to risk his boat and the lives of all upon her, but Mara was cheerfully secure in her belief in Setanta. She could see now that this was their only hope. Those three English ships had so much more sail and the west wind still blew hard. They would, by now, have caught up with and surrounded the
pucán
if Setanta had not changed its course.
‘Take it easy, take it easy!’ suddenly shouted Setanta with alarm as the boat owner rudely pushed him aside and took over the tiller himself. ‘Don’t jerk it like that! Slow and easy – that’s the way to do it.’
Mara translated rapidly, struck by the note in Setanta’s voice.
‘Should you take over the boat?’ she asked him in a low voice. ‘I can easily get one of the king’s bodyguards to put the man under arrest. I’m sure that he was part of the plot.’
Setanta shook his head. ‘No, a man knows his own boat. I wouldn’t like anyone to take my boat. He’ll know the feel of it.’
The boat owner gazed straight ahead, but Mara had an uneasy feeling that he might have understood what she said. Perhaps in his dealings with Aran he had picked up more Munster Gaelic than he pretended.
‘That’s it,’ Setanta was saying, breaking up his phrases in order to give her time to translate. ‘Straight ahead, now . . . Let’s keep them guessing . . . We don’t want one to be stuck on the rocks and the other two free to make mischief . . . Turn a little to the right . . . Take it easy . . . Don’t wheel too suddenly . . . Just a few inches at the time.’ He seemed quite at ease, quite confident, this fisherman’s son with the lives of the king, the king’s wife, and his
tánaiste
in his hands. A man who lived by the sea, for the sea and on the sea. He was the only one on the
pucán
who did not hold on to something when the boat wallowed in the shallows or climbed the waves. His balance was perfect and the slight movements he made to retain it were almost imperceptible.
‘We’re right over the rocks now, my lord, and the
pucán
is sailing beautifully,’ he called.
‘Good man,’ returned Turlough while Conor paled and Donán half stood up and then sat down again, shivering violently.
The three English ships held off for a moment, but then the ship on the right began to close in on them.
‘This run of rocks is about half a mile wide,’ said Setanta to Mara. ‘We’ll be able to go most of the way to the shore on it, but hopefully the ships will get stuck on it before then.’
‘Tell him that I’d like to send a lump of lead down just to test the water,’ said the boat owner abruptly to Mara.
‘Don’t let him do that!’ exclaimed Setanta with alarm. ‘These fellows are not stupid. They’ll know that he is sounding the depths if they see him doing that. It’s only if they see us sailing confidently along that they’ll follow us. They probably don’t know what a shallow draught the
pucán
has.’
The man shrugged fatalistically when Mara had translated. ‘A woman at a fair in Connemara told me that I would die in my bed,’ he observed. ‘Let’s hope that she was right.’
‘Could we go a bit faster here? Put up some more sail. I’ll hold the tiller steady.’ Setanta gestured and the man understood, leaving his position and altering the sail slightly to the right.
‘That’s it,’ said Setanta with satisfaction as the boat leaped forward. ‘I thought there was a bit of a change in the wind a minute ago. A touch of north into it. Now we’re catching every breath of it.’
Setanta was enjoying this immensely, thought Mara, despite all his pretended disdain for bigger boats. She began to plan a splendid sailing boat as a wedding present for Setanta and Cliona. She looked over her shoulder. His manoeuvre had worked. The
pucán
had drawn well ahead of the three English ships. The one at the back accelerated and then slowed down and stopped.
‘Stuck!’ shouted Setanta.
There were shouts from the rear ship, shouts of warning, probably, but the wind was very loud and the waves were crashing. The men in the other ships would probably take them as encouragement. Mara found herself crossing her fingers and endeavouring to pray at the same moment.
‘It’s working, my lord,’ called Setanta. ‘It’s working! Watch!’
Mara’s head turned first in one direction and then in the other. Both events happened almost simultaneously. The ship on the left struck the rocks first. There was a slight lull in the roar of the wind at that moment and they heard the dull boom and then the ship on the right lurched violently and then stayed very still. One of its masts cracked and the sails tumbled to the deck.
‘We’ve done it, by God!’ yelled Turlough and at the very same instant, the boat owner, the man from Connaught, handed over the tiller to Setanta. He went forward towards the central mast. He seemed to be fiddling with something and then opened a box there.
He’s trying to put up more sail, thought Mara vaguely, and concentrated on looking ahead towards the harbour at Doolin. She could see the figures on the shore; they had looked tiny the last time that she had looked, but now they could almost be recognized. She was sure that she could see the small, slight figure of Ulick Burke standing amongst the tall figures of the burly men-at-arms.
Setanta was still at the tiller, whistling a dance tune as he looked ahead with a lively anticipation on his face. He had slightly altered the course of the
pucán
and now they were heading directly for the harbour. No doubt they would soon be off the rocks, but this course was taking them more in the direction of the English ship on the left, still securely stuck on the rocks. Its men were leaning over the deck’s bar and as Mara looked suddenly a hail of arrows flew from the ship, aimed directly at the
pucán
.