Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

The great gathering at the foot of the hill of Tlachtga was a spectacle that surpassed anything I had anticipated. The bustle and flamboyance of the Irish who came to the High King's festivities made a lively impression. There were several thousand participants, and they arrived in their kin groups, with each chieftain trying to impress his equals. Their retinues swaggered through the crowds, flaunting the expensive finger rings, tores and brooches which their leaders had awarded them. By regulation long-bladed and long- handled weapons had to be set aside during the festivities, but daggers were permitted and were worn to show off their workmanship or decoration. There were displays of horses and hounds, and even a few chariots came bouncing and swaying in behind their teams of shaggy war ponies; the wheels of these old-fashioned contraptions were brightly painted in contrasting colours so as they spun they looked like children's toys. In the presence of the Irish, wherever there are horses and dogs in any number, there will be racing and contests and gaming. By the time Eochaid and I arrived, a wide circle of wooden posts had been driven in the ground to create a race track, where crowds of spectators jostled each morning and afternoon to watch the contests.

Sometimes just two riders settled a personal challenge by racing their mounts. More often it was a general match with an honour prize to the winner, a wild stampede of a score of lathered, sweating horses thundering round the course, urged on by the shouts of the crowd and the flailing whips of their riders, usually skinny young lads. On my second day at Tlachtga I also came across an event which, to an outsider, might have seemed like a mock battle. Two squads of wild-looking men were milling together and striking at one another with flat clubs. Occasionally a man fell to the ground, bleeding from a head blow, and it seemed that the fighters were hitting out with unrestrained viciousness. Yet, the object of their attention was only a small hard ball which each side was trying to propel into the opponents' territory and then through an open mark. The blows to the head were accidental, or allegedly so. The reason for my fascination was that I had seen a similar sport being played - though with less riot and fervour - by my youthful companions in Iceland and I had once played it myself.

I was standing on the sidelines, watching the contest closely and trying to detect the differences from the Icelandic version of the game, when I received a shattering blow on the back of my own head. It must have been a harder stroke than anything being dealt on the games field because everything went dark.

I awoke to the familiar sensation of lying on the ground with my wrists tied together. This time the pain was not as bad as it had been after the battle of Clontarf because my bonds were leather straps, not iron manacles. But the other difference was more serious. When I opened my eyes, I knew my captor: I found myself looking up into the face of the treasurer of St Ciaran's.

Brother Mariannus was gazing down at me with an expression in which distaste matched satisfaction. 'What made you think you would get away with it?' he asked. I shook my head groggily. I had a violent headache and could feel the large bruise swelling up where someone had struck me with a weapon. I wondered if I had been hit with a games stick. A clout on the head with a heavy crozier would have done the job just as well. Then I remembered Eochaid. While I was watching the Irish at their sports, he had gone in search of other brithemain and he probably did not know what had happened to me. He had important business to attend to and when I failed to show up would probably surmise that I had departed in search of strong drink or female diversion. I had left my cloak and travelling satchel in the hut where we were staying, but he might even think that I had taken the chance to part company with him altogether.'You'll discover that it's both a sin and a crime to steal Church property,' the treasurer was saying grimly, 'I doubt you have any respect for the moral consequences of the sin, but the criminal repercussions will have more impact on someone of your base character.'

We were in a tent, and two of the monastery servants were standing over me. I wondered which of them had hit me on the head. The younger man had the stolid gaze of an underling who would do unquestioningly as he was told, but the older servant looked as if he was positively enjoying seeing me in trouble.

'My men will take you back to the monastery, where you will be tried and receive punishment. You'll start out tomorrow,' Brother Mariannus went on. 'I presume that you have disposed of the property you stole, so you can expect the maximum penalty. Would you not agree, Abb?'

I turned my head to see who else was in the tent, and there, standing with his hands clasped behind his back and looking out of the tent flap as if he wished to have nothing to do with this sordid matter of theft and absconding from his rule, was Abb Aidan. The sight of him brought to mind something that Eochaid had once explained to me about the laws of the Christians. The monastery abbs, he said, had created most of their statutes and regulations as ways of raising money locally. Shrewdly they had adopted the brithem principle that whenever a rule was broken, then the transgressors had to pay a fine. So their cana, as they called their laws, were only valid within the territories the abbs controlled. Farther afield, Eochaid had stated, it was not monastery law which applied, but the king's law.

'I claim my right to trial before the king's marshal,' I said. 'Here at Tlachtga I am not subject to the cana of St Ciaran's. I am outside the monastery's jurisdiction. More than that, I have the right to protection from the king's law because I am a foreigner, a fact acknowledged when I was first interviewed for admission into the community at St Ciaran's.'

Brother Mariannus glowered at me. 'Who taught you anything about the law, you impudent puppy . . .' he began. 'No, he's right,' Abb Aidan interrupted. 'Under the law he is entitled to a hearing before the king's marshal, though that will not make any difference to the verdict.' I felt a faint stir of satisfaction. I had judged the abb correctly. He was such a stickler for custom and correctness that I had avoided being transported back to St Ciaran's and within range of Brother Cainnech, whom I knew was my real foe.

'Take him outside and tie him up securely, feet as well as hands, to make sure he doesn't disappear a second time,' Abb Aidan ordered and then, addressing the treasurer, 'Brother Mariannus, I would be obliged if you would contact the officials of the royal household and ask if the case of Thorgils or Thurgeis, known sometimes as Thangbrand, can be heard at the first opportunity, on a charge of theft of Church property.'

So, late the next day, I found myself at a legal hearing once again. But this time I was not an observer. I was the accused. The trial was held in the mead hall of the local ri, a modest building that could scarcely hold more than a hundred spectators, and which that afternoon was far from full. Of course, the High King himself was not there. He was represented by his marshal, a bored-looking man in late middle age, with a sleek, round face, straggling moustache and large brown eyes. He reminded me of a tired seal. He had not expected an extra case to be brought before him so late in the day and wanted it to be dealt with quickly. I was pushed into the centre of the hall and made to stand facing the marshal. He sat at a plain wooden table and on his right was a scribe, a priest, making notes on a wax tablet. Farther around the circle from the penman were about a dozen men, some seated, others standing. They were clearly clerics, though I could not tell whether they were there as advisers, jury, prosecutors, or merely onlookers. Opposite to them, and fewer in number, were a group of brithemain. Among them, to my relief, I could see Eochaid. He was standing in the rear of the group and made no sign that he knew me.