Paper had been invented long before, but fine white paper of good quality was extremely expensive and, compared with wooden tablets and vellum, very fragile.
It had not caught on and remained a luxury that only a few well off scholars could afford for writing verse and painting.
For Aisling these should have been the easiest technologies to develop, and she understood them better than most.
But she could not reveal them now, for it would make her an enemy of the noble houses.
The noble houses sat at the top of society because they monopolized its learning.
They held the house handed down classics, the scholarly canons, philosophy, and more.
Ordinary folk, and even those from lesser families, had no access to such knowledge.
The great houses dominated the ideas and the very language of public life.
If the day came when everyone could read and write, their hold on knowledge would be broken and they would face a crisis like none before, something they would never allow.
For now, Aisling was only having her people test whether the processes were feasible.
Even if they produced paper, it was in tiny amounts and for internal use only.
As for printing, not a word of it had leaked.
She simply hoped that one day she could bring these arts into the open without fear of backlash.
Aisling soon finished going through the account books and had a firmer picture of what she owned.
“Half the silver earned from the businesses in Dunmore will still go back to Ardmore.
The supply line through Seamus Quirke must keep running smoothly, and he should keep buying grain.
As for the ventures in Ardmore, I’ll have my third cousin oversee them, and all the silver they earn will go to my grandfather to fund the Ardmore army.
As for Dunmore, I’m thinking of entrusting it to Uncle Tomás.
He’s a longtime member of the household and has worked with us for years.
He knows the ins and outs…”
Aisling laid out her arrangements in one breath, but she noticed Aunt Bríd’s hesitant look and asked, “What is it?
Did I overlook something?”
Aunt Bríd sat down beside her.
“My lady, you’re forever thinking of others.
Why not think more of yourself?”
Her gaze fell on the open account books, each entry the fruit of years of her lady’s labor.
“You’re going to a barbarian clan hundreds of leagues away.
If you don’t bring more coin and resources, how will you settle in there?”
Aisling shook her head.
“You can’t get by on money alone.”
“But money would make things a good deal easier.”
“I’m not saying I’ll take none.
The cellars and the silversmiths alone bring in tens of thousands of coins a month.
Better to leave them where they are and earn more.”
“Besides, I only said I wouldn’t bring the businesses, not the know how!” Aisling’s last remark was plainly a tease, and she smiled playfully at Aunt Bríd.
Aunt Bríd realized she had worried too quickly and been caught by the joke, though it was only because she cared so much.
Even now, her lady had the cheek to tease her.
Aunt Bríd was tempted to roll her eyes, but remembering who she was speaking to, she held back.
The two of them pored over the account books and rosters by candlelight, discussing the final details and settling how they would keep in touch.
They also picked out some names from the various workshops for Aunt Bríd to choose among the next day.
By the time they finished, it was nearly midnight.
Aunt Bríd felt guilty for forgetting how delicate her lady’s health was and that she should not stay up late.
She quickly urged her to wash and go to bed.
The next day, Aunt Bríd set out early to see to the tasks her lady had given her.
Aisling went to the pavilion at Willowmere to ask her father for two favors.
“You want Lorcan Doyle to lead the wedding procession?”
“Yes.”
King Ruairí looked uneasy and searched his daughter’s face, trying to work something out.
“You don’t…
do you…?” King Ruairí stammered, growing more uneasy as a certain possibility crossed his mind.
Aisling raised her eyes, her gaze clear and direct.
“Don’t what?”
King Ruairí looked into his daughter’s eyes.
Their clearness made him feel a little guilty, but he was truly worried.
He gathered his courage and asked bluntly, “You’re not fond of him, are you?”
His daughter’s face stayed blank.
So she didn’t fancy Lorcan Doyle after all, King Ruairí thought.
The silence was awkward.
He forced a strained smile, his tone turning pleading.
“Then why insist on him escorting you?
As you said yourself, he’s just an ordinary Royal Guard, nothing out of the common.
Why him?”
Because in the years to come, Lorcan Doyle would rise from a lowly Royal Guard to become a Captain of the Watch, then Warden of the Guard, and at last the Grand General of Munster, leading an army of a hundred thousand.
Five years from now, when Dunmore was sacked and the court fled south, they would be hunted relentlessly by the Skarrow cavalry.
That was when Lorcan Doyle would make his name.
Most of Kilmore’s generals were already dead when the Skarrow broke through the borders.
The soldiers who remained, frightened by the Skarrow’s ferocity and Bearach’s power, lost their nerve and fled in disorder.
After Ronan’s death, Bearach had no equal left. This story is hosted at g.com.
Wherever he went became his hunting ground.
Lorcan Doyle, a Royal Guard who had protected the palace, was charged with guarding the royal family during the flight south.
But as the army fell apart, he was thrown onto the front line.
Against all expectation, his guards managed to shield those nobles from Skarrow blades.
Within a year he was promoted several times.
By the time the noble houses had settled in Munster, he had risen from a lowly Royal Guard to one of the Nine Ministers, the Warden of the Guard, commanding the Ravenhelm Camp, the guards of the Northern and Southern Palaces, and the Left and Right City Guards.
But he was not content merely to defend Munster.
After setting up a defensive line along the River Barrow, he began raising armies to march north and win back the lost lands.
By then, however, Southern Kilmore had lost all will to fight and fled at the mere mention of the Skarrow.
Even the noble houses at court wanted only to settle in their own corner, unwilling to spend the vast resources required, and they gave him no support.
It was also the nobles’ hunger for comfort that in the end buried Southern Kilmore by their own hands.
For all Lorcan Doyle’s fervor, he alone could not stand against the relentless wheel of history.
He was another tragic figure of Southern Kilmore, alongside Eoghan Butler.
Compared with Eoghan Butler, he was at a greater disadvantage, for he came from humble stock with no family behind him.
And as he gained military power, the noble houses grew ever warier of him, which meant constant obstruction in his later years and made it hard for him to rally Southern Kilmore’s forces against Bearach’s cavalry.
The gulf between the noble houses and the commoners doomed not only the houses themselves but also the last southern kingdom of two centuries.
Lorcan Doyle of today was still far from his rise.
Aisling wanted to give him a push, but of course she could not say any of this aloud.
“I have my own arrangements.
Father, just tell me whether you’ll help or not,” Aisling said, her tone turning a little wheedling.
King Ruairí looked at his usually calm and composed daughter, now coaxing him like a child, and felt a lump in his throat.
He could not help shedding a tear.
He had believed that after sending his daughter to Kilmore, the rest of his life would be spent walking alone in darkness, never seeing light again.
Even when she came back to Dunmore two years ago, he had not dared show any closeness, only stealing glances at her grown up face through a drunken haze.
Seeing that she had turned out even better than he had imagined, he had felt no regrets.
Perhaps heaven had finally taken pity on his loneliness and let him enjoy this bond between father and daughter in his lifetime.
King Ruairí tried hard to swallow the sourness in his heart, wiped the corner of his eye, and nodded with a smile.
“All right, whatever you want, I’ll agree to it.”
Aisling, moved by his feeling, felt her own eyes grow damp, but she quickly steadied herself and raised the second matter, an official appointment.
“I also want the interpreter Padraig Nolan from the Office of Protocol to be chief envoy of the wedding procession.”
King Ruairí’s tears were instantly held back.
Another one?
How many men had his daughter met in places he knew nothing about?