Chapter 12; The Wayward Prince
1378, Ulaid's Wayward Prince
“As you likely know, the lineage of Ulster's Royalty could have been entirely different, if was not for a certain event. The line and indeed the path of the nation, could have been entirely different. The Ríocht na Ulaid may have ended up being annexed by it's powerful neighbor England, or any other number of things.”
The teacher's voice was an almost drone, and it was all some of the more bored students could do from sleeping. One or two couldn't even stop that, and most had the sense to act as if they were reading their textbook. One boy wasn't so lucky, and the teacher saw him slobbering on the desk. With a roar of “McDonald!” from the teacher, the student; a boy named Aed McDonald, to be exact, leaped from his sleeping position, slamming his knee into the top portion of his desk, and ending up sitting down in it rubbing it.
“Is the history of our nation that boring, Mister McDonald? Or did you just spend time researching the next test so late you can't bear to get up?”
“It's not that, Professor.”
“Really, then? If it's not either, then you can surely tell me who the catalyst of this all was. Why November of 1378 was so important to Ulster history. Tell our class, perhaps you'll get their attention more.”
“The catalyst? I think that depends on your point of view, haha...” the boy gulped, realizing the teacher didn't find his joke very funny, and then went on. “The two catalysts, in my opinion, two catalysts, were a distant cousin of Niall O'Niall, -whom was the Ri of Ulaid of that day-, by the name of Niall Mac Aodh, and a daughter of the Ri of Connacht, Turlough the Fourth, by the name of Ailbe. A tryst the two had during a welcoming feast for Turlough the fourth, and a tryst that happened again and again for the two weeks he was there. By the end of it, Ailbe was pregnant, and by the time her father and his coterie returned to Galway, she was beginning to show it quite visibly. Turlough the Fourth took great offense to this, and more so because his daughter should have been virtuous! Her name was white after all.”
About half the class broke into giggles or snorts or open laughter, and when it died down the testy and still quiet sleepy high school student continued.
“After months of inquiring, the truth of the father of this bastard came out, and Turlough took Ailbe with him back to Ulster. Demanding both that Niall's cousin Niall marry Ailbe, but that Ulaid give Turlough a dowry of 500 pieces of gold of no less than than a half pound of gold per coin, because Niall Mac Aodh had decide he should get to sample the product before buying it.”
More giggles and snorts and open laughter, and a few steely glares of offense at the somewhat chauvinistic way the boy had spoke.
“And so it came that they were at an impasse. The gold that Turlough wanted was an impossible amount for the time, and was extortion even if it wasn't impossible. When Niall O'Niall told Turlough such, Turlough demanded Niall Mac Aodh's head, and Niall Mac Aodh took the initiative, kidnapping Ailbe, quickly marrying her without her father's permission, but in front of his cousin Niall, and then asking to simply be exiled for a number of years, feeling that Turlough would either soften in time, or would simply not have the power to do a thing. With Niall O'Niall sure he'd have a war on his hands, he did so, sending his cousin on a trip with the newly dubbed Ailbe Mac Aodh. The newly married couple traveled Europe, learning of the other cultures and living as Pilgrims at first, and when their son came in the beginnings of Spring in the next March, Niall Mac Aodh turned himself from a wandering pilgrim and petty knight for hire towards being a merchant, and as he began to become better at bartering, he began doing something other than simply becoming a merchant. He formed a mercenary army, with his influence as being a prince [His maternal grandfather being the grandfather of Niall O'Niall], was able to do so even with the taboo against it. He took his mercenary army from land to land, building it's numbers and it's wealth, and decided that he would simply carve himself a name and his son a legacy by cutting a swath through the Muslim nations within the Holy Lands, perhaps using the Papal Favor this would eventually gain him as a tool to allow himself and his bride to return home to Ulaid. It was aurdous work, but he eventually built his army, and carved his child into a skilled successor to himself or to his cousin Niall, teaching him classical studies, several languages, mathematics, and the martial arts.”
The bell of class's end rang, and the teacher chuckled. “Apparently Mister McDonald knew more than I thought, class dismissed. Remember to review Chapter 12 and 13, we'll be discussing Chapter 13 in the next class.”
