Strongbow by Morgan Llywelyn Page B

de Montmorency and those who thought like him, and the other was spared to balance the scales. I wanted these strangers to know that I could show mercy.
    Waterford was ours. The first step was taken, there was no going back.
    Dermot Mac Murrough arrived with the first of my rewards, the one that would assure me of the others. ‘Strongbow!’ he called as he came striding towards me through the ruined town.
    Beside him was a very young woman, with heavy red hair and Dermot’s own wilful expression. She was surely the daughter he had promised me as a wife. I liked the look of her. Her mouth was shaped for laughing.
    She was not laughing now, however. She didn’t look happy, shelooked more like a shy child. For a moment she put me in mind of my sister Basilia, though they were not in any way alike.
    I smiled at her gently, as I would have smiled at Basilia.
    A spot of colour came into her cheeks then. She raised her chin and drew a deep breath. Her fists were clenched, but she held them down at her sides as if hoping I wouldn’t notice. I watched her put on her courage like a cloak, and meet me with her head up.
    ‘This is the princess Aoife of the Red Hair,’ said Dermot Mac Murrough.
    He was proud of her. His eyes told me.
    There was soot on her face and her clothing was stained with mud and cinders, but Aoife was like a bright light in that dark place. She was tall and strongly built for a girl, and in her face was the pride of kings.
    I was very pleasantly surprised. In marriage a man takes what he gets, because marriage is arranged to unite powerful families or to make new allies, and the daughters of important men are often plain. I hadn’t expected anything more of this one.
    But one thing was more important to me than her beauty.
    Dermot had told me I would be his heir, I would succeed him as King of Leinster. Under English law, my marriage to his daughter made that certain. His crown would pass to me, I thought, and he had given me Aoife just as he would give me the crown. The two went together. Or so I thought.
    I didn’t know anything yet about Irish law.
    Having seen and admired my bride-to-be, I began talking with Dermot Mac Murrough. The tall red-haired girl stood between us for a few moments, then added her voice to ours. Her Latin was just as good as mine, I was startled to discover.
    ‘Why are you discussing my marriage as if I weren’t here?’ she wanted to know. ‘I haven’t yet said I would marry this man, Father.’
    ‘Of course I’ll marry her,’ I told Dermot over her head.
    Aoife stamped her foot. ‘But I mightn’t marry you!’ she said directly to me.
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could a woman refuse to marry the man her father selected for her?
    I looked at Dermot Mac Murrough. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘What is this?’ I asked.
    My uncle coughed. ‘Ah … there’s something you should know, Richard. About these Irish.’
    ‘What is it?’ I asked impatiently. My men were staring at us.
    ‘A woman must give permission to the marriage, you can’t force her,’ my uncle told me.
    I was astonished. That was like asking a cow’s permission before you bought it!
    Raymond le Gros snorted with laughter. I turned to glare at him. Then I looked back at Aoife. She was watching me very closely. I felt as if she was weighing me in her mind.
    I was in a strange country, among people with strange customs. It would be so easy to make a mistake and not even know I had done so.
    If it was the custom among the Irish, it would surely do no harm to ask Aoife to marry me, I decided. It would be just a formality, of course. The marriage had long ago been agreed between her father and myself.
    Or so I had thought. Watching her, I wasn’t sure. She had a mind of her own, her eyes told me. She might well refuse me. This was a young woman who might well turn on her heel and walk away from me, leaving me alone with the men laughing at me.
    I had never been in such a position before,