A Game of Sorrows (26 page)

O’Rahilly himself sat in the doorway, looking outwards beyond the clearing into the darkness of the wood. I wondered what he was seeing, what he was remembering, the young boy who had sought sanctuary and training with the last of the poets when Phelim was in his prime and my mother in her bloom; what he had known before the cause was lost and the heroes fled, what trials had brought him here, to cling to the last remnants of his dignity in this desolate place. I wondered if he had ever had a family, loved a woman … For a while I had thought he might be sleeping, but his eyes were open, and every so often his lips moved in some silent speech. The last remnant of his race.

‘Tell me a poem,’ I said into the silence.

He did not move and so I asked him again.

‘Why do you want to hear a poem?’

‘Because I want to know the art of it, the life. I want to know what my forefathers knew, all those generations that will be lost now, in me.’

‘Hear then “The Downfall of the Gael”.’ And the same low, clear, powerful voice that I had heard on the night of my grandfather’s wake went out into the night.

My heart is in woe,
And my soul deep in trouble,
For the mighty are low,
And abased are the noble:

The sons of the Gael
Are in exile and mourning,
Worn, weary and pale,
As spent pilgrims returning,

Or men who, in flight
From the field of disaster,
Beseech the black night
On their flight to fall faster;

Or men whom we see
That have got their death-omen –
Such wretches are we
In the chains of our foemen!

Our course is fear,
Our nobility vileness,
Our hope is despair,
And our comeliness foulness.

From Boyne to the Linn
Has the mandate been given,
That the children of Finn
From their country be driven.

The Gael cannot tell,
In the uprooted wildwood
And red ridgy dell,
The old nurse of his childhood:

The nurse of his youth
Is in doubt as she views him,
If the wan wretch in truth,
Be the child of her bosom.

Through the woods let us roam,
Through the wastes wide and barren:
We are strangers at home!
We are exiles in Erin!

And Erin’s a bark
O’er the wild waters driven!
And the tempest howls dark,
And her side planks are riven!

And in billows of might
Swell the Saxon before her–
Unite, oh, unite!
Or the billows burst o’er her!

As his voice carried to me, the faces of my family – of those who were dead and gone and those who were now left, in distress and abandoned to fear – came before me. The face of the pilgrims Stephen, and Michael, came before me; Deirdre, with her vision of death; Murchadh and his sons came before me, with Maeve leading their decimated hopes and empty dreams. The memory of myself and Andrew, in our desperate flight to Dunluce, came to me with such force that I had to remind myself that that night was past. I wished I had never spoken.

After a moment, O’Rahilly came back into the church and went to a chest out of which he lifted some garment I could not see. Without so much as turning his head to look at me, he then went out of the door and walked through the circle, crossing himself as he passed the centre stone, and out into the woods. I laid my head down upon the rushes and prayed for that lost man and his lost brothers, and it was all I could do not to forget my religion and ask God’s mercy on those of my blood, of this race, who had gone to Him before me.

I closed my eyes and wished for sleep. If it came, it came only lightly, for there was not one moment when I was not aware of the rustling and scuttling of creatures on the ground, the beating and swooping of things in the air, and the creaking of the trees in the wind. And then, into it all, came a sound I had never heard before, but knew; a sound that should not have been in these woods: a howling. I stood up cautiously and quietly snuffed out the candle, which had burnt very low. Hardly daring to breathe, I pressed myself as far back against the wall of the church as I could, and waited. A cloud passed from the face of the moon at the top of the trees, and I watched in a kind of terror as the wolf slowly crossed the circle, pausing at the centre to sniff the air. It howled once again and, looking for a long moment in the direction of the church, walked on, in search of its brothers.

I did not sleep after that, but stood at the edge of the burial ground keeping watch for I knew not what. The bats swirled from tree to tree, an owl hooted somewhere in the woods. I was startled by a movement amongst the stones of the burial ground, but it was nothing more than a solitary fox. I tried to turn my mind from thoughts of what might have happened in this place before the Christianity of Patrick had claimed it for God, but the more I tried to find consolation amongst the scriptures I had by heart, the more my mind ran to the powers of the Devil, to the foul and dreadful deeds committed in his name, to the paganism, the baals, celebrated wherever the light of the gospel did not shine. My mind ran to what Sean had said, long ago now, it seemed, but in truth not so long ago, as I had mocked the superstitions of his people, of my people. He had told me of the attempt made on his life as he rode alone at night, and of his fear then, of the powers of darkness and the spirits of the world beyond, and I had scorned them. ‘These forces may have retreated from your land,’ he had said, ‘but they have a home yet in ours, and they are not ready to be vanquished.’ I wished I could have told him now that I understood.

Where Finn O’Rahilly had gone, and if he had encountered the wolf, I did not know. He had had no light with him, taken no staff for travelling, no food or drink that I could see. As my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, and my ears to the natural sounds of the night, my body began to relax a little, and I could see perhaps how a man for whom the world has little further use might eke out his days in a place such as this. But surely that fate would not be mine; surely my grandmother’s madness could not take hold in the minds of reasonable men? I wondered if Finn O’Rahilly had gone to report me to the authorities – whatever authorities there were that would take the word of one such as he – but I saw that the pouch of money lay still on the ground, unopened, where he had left it.

Gradually, I became aware of a new sound in the night, the sound of horses. Not many horses, not the great wolf-hunt that had pursued me from Coleraine, but perhaps two or three beasts and their riders, moving cautiously through the wood, coming closer. I moved quickly and quietly back into the church, found candle and flint again and got myself some light. There was nothing amongst Finn O’Rahilly’s few belongings with which I might defend myself, and so I committed myself to prayer.

At last the riders emerged from the forest and came to a silent halt at the edge of the circle. What little I could see of the outline of their forms against the trees told me that these were not the Blackstones, the men of Coleraine. The horses were different, somehow; the set of the men, their clothing different; all three were dressed as Sean had been the first time I had seen him. I was not left long to wonder, for a strong voice rang out, demanding in Irish,

‘Show yourself, O’Rahilly. Step out of your sanctuary and meet your fate.’

I emerged from the church into the darkness and held up my light to look into the faces of three men. The two younger sons of Murchadh O’Neill, and another, who by the look of him was a kinsman. For a moment there was silence, even the creatures of the night seemed to stop in their movement, hold their breath. And then the youngest of the three cried out in terror, startling his own horse and those of the others.

‘Holy mother of God,’ said the lead rider slowly, crossing himself. He regarded me for a long moment and then spoke.

‘What are you?’

‘I am a man.’

‘It is the spirit of Sean risen. Let us leave this place. Ciaran, let us go, before we are damned.’

‘This is no spirit.’ Ciaran O’Neill turned his eyes once more on me. ‘I ask again. What are you?’ He edged his horse forward, but those of the two others shied back from the stones and would come no nearer.

‘I am Alexander Seaton.’

‘You are Sean O’Neill FitzGarrett risen from the dead!’

Again Ciaran chided his young kinsman. He spoke once more to me. ‘Whatever your name, you are of the O’Neills. What are you to the O’Neills?’

And so once again, slowly, in English and in a clear voice, I told my lineage.

‘Grainne died.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she died. When I was seventeen years old, and she had been safe landed in Scotland eighteen years.’

‘And she told no one of your birth?’

‘My grandmother…’

‘That would be right. The old bitch. And now?’

‘Now?’

‘Who knows of you now?’

‘What is that to you?’

‘This is not a game, Scotsman, and if it were, the cards would be in my hand. You would do well to answer what you are asked.’

I said nothing and held firm to my staff, as if guarding the church. Beneath my priest’s robes, my heart pounded in terror.

Ciaran got down from his horse and the others did the same, careful to keep a pace behind him, casting me glances as if to ascertain that I truly was corporeal. ‘You do better to trust me than to make an enemy of me,’ he said, venturing a smile at me for the first time. ‘I am Ciaran O’Neill, son of Murchadh. We have come for the poet. Stand aside and let us pass.’

‘He is not here.’ I was glad for a moment for their attention to shift from myself.

‘Where is he hiding?’

‘I do not know. He left a few hours ago and has not returned.’

It did not take them long to make a search of the ruined church. They cursed their frustration in Irish, and then reverted to English, to treat with me. ‘And what are you doing here? Who has sent you?’

‘There were things I wished to know from him, information I wished to have.’

One drew a knife from the sheath round his neck, and stepping closer to me slowly raised the blade to my throat. Ciaran did nothing to stop him. ‘What is your business with O’Rahilly?’

‘I came here to find out who paid him to curse my family.’

‘Who brought you here?’

‘To Kilcrue?’

‘To Ireland.’

‘Sean.’

‘Safe enough in saying that now, for he is dead.’

I ground out my words. ‘He was sent by my grandmother to fetch me from Scotland, with some idea that when he saw me O’Rahilly would lift the curse.’

Ciaran laughed. ‘He told you that, did he?’

‘Why else would they have brought me here?’

‘I would give much to know that, and I suspect my father would also.’

‘Our father will know well enough the minute he sees him,’ said Padraig, the younger brother. ‘Another Franciscan.’

‘I am not.’

‘Of course not. None of you ever are. But I see the hand of Stephen Mac Cuarta in this.’ He had evidently heard enough. ‘Come on, we are wasting our time here. The clouds are gathering. We should get out of these woods.’

‘You are right,’ said Ciaran, turning also from me. ‘But first we must find O’Rahilly. Donal, bind him.’ And within seconds, before I fully knew what was happening, my arms had been pulled behind my back and my hands bound together with rope. A shove in the back sent me in the direction of the waiting horses, but the shock of it made me stumble, and I caught the side of my face on the centre stone as I fell to the ground. There was nothing I could do but struggle to my feet again and go where they bade me, and I was soon heaved up on to the back of Padraig’s mount.

After a short debate they urged their horses not southwards, back to where they had come from, but eastwards, to the part of the wood that I had come through myself a few hours earlier. We had not travelled far on the moonlit paths before the lead horse, under Ciaran, brought us to a halt. It whinnied and tried to turn back, refusing to continue. He dismounted, and proceeded cautiously on foot.

‘Damn him to every torment.’

‘By God, he did our job for us.’

‘Do you think? He will never tell his mysteries now.’

And then I saw it: a few yards ahead of us, arrayed in the magnificent robes of white and gold given to him by my grandmother, hanging by its neck from an ancient hawthorn tree, was the dead body of Finn O’Rahilly. The three men crossed themselves.

‘Will we cut him down?’

Ciaran shook his head. ‘Let the crows have him. He was a traitor to his race, and his words an outrage to ours. Let his rotting corpse serve as warning to others who might think to do the same.’

He turned to me. ‘Think not to pray over him, priest. Save your prayers for us and yourself when we bring you and not O’Rahilly to our father.’

‘I have told you, I am no priest.’

They merely laughed in scorn. ‘Well, you had better find some God to appeal to before you find yourself before Murchadh.’

‘At Carrickfergus?’

‘Carrickfergus?’ Ciaran smiled grimly. ‘No, my friend, he is not at Carrickfergus; we are taking you to Dun-a-Mallaght.’

Within an hour we were out of the woods and riding hard towards the coast once more, trying to outrun the storm which had broken over the hills and was pursuing us down towards the sea. As we approached I saw, encompassed by unbreachable headlands at either end, the broad sweep of a bay, where the sea came in increasingly powerful waves to the shore. I chanced to look back once, when I thought I could keep my balance, and saw a huge bolt of lightning strike right where I imagined Kilcrue to be. In my mind’s eye I saw it strike to the heart of the stone – the priest’s stone, O’Rahilly had called it – before the storm moved on to seek out the poet himself.

On the headland to my left, watching over the bay, rose a castle. Below, nearer to the shore, was a small town, huddled in darkness from the advancing storm. Further along the bay was another settlement, structured, more formal, but ruined in part. My heart lifted a little when I saw it, and the lights burning in some of its windows. It was a religious house, a church. ‘What is that place?’ I called in Padraig’s ear.