A Game of Sorrows (42 page)

But it was not yet time for me to enter back into that world, and I turned my steps up the narrow street behind my grandmother’s house and towards St Nicholas church. The slate-grey sky of the day was giving way to dusk, and so little light escaped from windows or doors in this part of town that I found it difficult to see my way once I entered the churchyard. A light breeze had got up, and dry leaves were swirling around the paths, paving and gravestones. I wondered if any of my own forebears were buried here, and if they watched me now. It was difficult to cast such superstition from my mind as I made my uncertain way between tombs and headstones that seemed to rise up from the ground and lean towards me. The nocturnal stirrings of the churchyard made my heart beat faster. Bats swooped from the trees and from the eaves of the roof. I pulled my hood up against them, these messengers of the coming darkness, manifestations of the night. The wind caused the occasional creaking amongst the near-bare branches, and I was glad to reach the portal of the church, where the merest sliver of light edged the not-quite-shut door within the porch. I hesitated now; for the last few days, churches had been places of sanctuary, places of hiding, places of brutality: I did not know what might await me here. For all his secretiveness, his duplicity, I could not believe Andrew meant me harm, but I think I knew then I had been foolish in telling no one of the contents of the note. It was too late for these thoughts – a bell nearby started to toll the hour of seven and I pushed open the door of the church.

Inside the porch, all was darkness, only the faintest glow of light emanating from the nave, allowing me to find my way up the steps and under the stone archway into the church proper. There was not a sound anywhere save my own footfalls echoing in the vast building, and the creaking, high above, of the roof beams in the wind. I called out his name, but my call found no response and, in the gloom, I could see no sign of Andrew anywhere.

I made my way up the nave towards the chancel. What shapes my straining eyes could make out were large, solid, inanimate – the preacher’s lectern, the stalls of the choir and, at the very far end, the altar itself. I reached the crossing where the transepts cut nave and chancel, and saw, through a gap in the carved wooden screen, that there was a light, a single candle, burning at the end of the aisle to my left. I called Andrew’s name again, and this time the silence that returned it seemed deeper. Slowly, I ascended the steps up to the aisle and began to walk towards the glimmering light. The sound of my boots on the tiled floor was unnaturally loud in my ears, and I could hear my own clothing rustle as if the wind were blowing through them. Every stirring, every noise in the place was emanating from me, and yet I knew that I was not alone. And I knew now where I was going: up ahead of me, rising out of the darkness in marble and alabaster, was the monument above Chichester’s tomb, that ornate manifestation of man’s earthly pride. I had been called to the altar upon which my cousin’s life blood had run and his dream of Ireland perished.

I reached out my hand and touched the creamy stone: it was pure and smooth and clean. Sir Arthur Chichester, late governor of Carrickfergus and Lord Deputy of Ireland, and his wife, Letitia, praying in effigy over the body of their baby son. I read the epitaphs carved into the stone beside them, of how Chichester had made the land flourish in peace, how he had subdued the wildest rebels, and through justice, gained an honoured name. ‘Now though he in heaven with angels be, Let us on earth still love his memory.’ I remembered what Sean had told me of Chichester’s justice, his road to peace – that he had burnt the homes of the Irish, destroyed their crops to render them starving, and slaughtered the people, without regard for age, sex or quality. I felt within me a quiet fury that my cousin had had to die with this man’s image before his eyes. I spoke again through gritted teeth, quietly at first.

‘Andrew, are you here?’

Nothing.

Louder, then. ‘Andrew? This is no time or place for games. Andrew, I …’

Even as my words were echoing, unfinished, about me, I saw it: a flash of movement, of something shining out of something white. And then before I could understand it there was the sharp, cold tip of the knife in my neck and slicing to the bone. I grabbed out with my left hand, clutching fruitlessly at the sarcophagus as I fell. There was shouting, Andrew shouting my name; his voice was distant but coming closer. He was thundering down the nave, shouting out my name. I was helpless to do anything other than watch my own blood trickle down the creamy marble to the floor, and see the knife fall from the girl’s hand as she ran.

I thought he was bringing me home. There were no carvings, jewelled staffs or candlesticks here: no distraction from the worship of the Lord; no kaleidoscope of colours in the glass, enticing thoughts of understanding that were beyond the capacity of man. Here were just bare walls and floors, plain windows and simple benches, and the sound that rose out of the near-darkness around me was a call to God.

But my arrival, as Andrew staggered through the door with me in his arms, disrupted that moment of pure worship. Words faltered and stopped as the notes fell away. Women’s voices exclaimed in shock, the men quickly turned to organisation, and a way was cleared for us to the preacher’s dais. One man went for the sergeant, another for the doctor. A cloth was pulled from the altar and strips torn for my throat. An old woman bent towards me to do the work while the strong arms of the preacher bore me up beneath the shoulders. The old woman drew back slightly, just a moment.

‘He has the look of the debauch, the merchant Richard FitzGarrett’s grandson, but he is dead.’

‘It is the other grandson. A Scot, and one of our faith.’

‘Then what is this in his hand?’ asked the precentor, forcing open my fingers to reveal the crucifix gripped between them. I looked in confusion at my own palm, bloodied, where I had put my hand up at the last second to grab at the knife and had clutched instead at the crucifix, causing Margaret’s knife to slip from the place where it should have entered my neck. I tried but failed to speak, and the women hushed me.

‘There will be time for that later,’ said Andrew, and then to the precentor, ‘Believe that he is no Papist. Now I must go and find the girl before she brings harm on herself.’ He paused a moment to look at me, but where I could make no words heard, he could not find the right ones. He left me to the ministrations of the Presbyterians of Carrickfergus in their meeting house, and went out into the night to hunt for Margaret.

It was morning before they moved me from the meeting house. One of the congregation, not knowing of my relations with my grandmother, had sent word to let her know I lay gravely injured in their care, but that I could be brought to her home when the doctor had finished with me. The messenger returned in a very short time, with the comforting words from Maeve that if they would do her some service, they might tell her when I was dead. But he also brought with him a note, secretly penned by Deirdre, telling them precisely when to bring me to the back entrance of my grandmother’s house, what they were to say, and who they were and were not to speak to when they got there.

And so it was that a little before ten the next morning, I found myself once more in the backyard of the FitzGarrett town house, seeking secret entry as I had done only two weeks ago, newly arrived from Scotland. I had been borne on a litter and helped to walk the last few yards. At precisely ten, one of my escort knocked hard three times on the door, and it was opened at once by Deirdre. She brought me quickly inside and shut the door, putting her finger to her lips in warning. Then she started up the back stairs, indicating that I should follow her. But I was weak from loss of blood and unsteady on my feet, and after the first two steps swayed to the side and slumped down the wall. I tried to stand up again but the effort was beyond me: I could only crawl. She struggled as best she could to help me, but it was almost fifteen minutes before we reached the safety of Andrew’s chamber.

Deirdre encouraged me to lie back so that she might examine my bandages. ‘I cannot trust any of the women, and the arrival of the doctor would attract too much curiosity. I will have to change them myself.’

And so she did, lifting the wrappings as gently as she could from my neck, but it was still an agony when she came to the last, where the dried blood had fused the fabric to my skin and the gaping flesh below. I clamped my mouth tight shut to stifle the pain. She cleaned the wound, dried and dressed it. ‘You were fortunate, thank God. A little to the left and you would have bled to death before Andrew had ever got you out of the church. But if her aim had been better …’

‘Her aim was true enough,’ I said. ‘I was saved by a …’ I could not call it a trinket, as once disparagingly I had done. ‘I was saved by this.’ I held towards her the crucifix that had caused Margaret’s knife, at the last moment, to slip.

She lifted it to her lips and kissed it. ‘Your faith is stronger than the curse. Promise me you will keep this.’

I promised her. I would have promised her anything in that moment.

‘I cannot stay long: I have sent the servants on errands in the town and at the quayside. They will be back soon. Maeve is at mass in the priest’s room with Macha; Eachan is guarding them.’

‘And Andrew?’

Her words came slow, as if she feared invoking some misfortune by uttering them. ‘He has not yet returned.’

The effort of the last half-hour had been almost more than she was equal to, and I saw that she had little more strength than I had myself. I did not attempt to keep her longer, and I think I was asleep before she had left the room.

Images of the poet, of his circle and the ancient cross at Kilcrue came to my dreaming mind and I tried to push them away. Finn O’Rahilly was talking to me, but in Irish, and I did not want to hear it. I tossed and turned through many hours in my efforts to throw him off, until a cold hand was placed on my forehead, water began to run down my face, and I woke up.

It was not my grandmother’s priest, but Andrew who stood above me now, a dripping cloth in his hand; he pressed it to my dry and cracked lips.

‘Did you find her?’

His face was grey; he looked as if he had not slept in two days.

‘I found her.’

‘Where was she?’

‘On the road to Glenoe.’

He sat down and put his head in his hands. They were grazed, and burnt on the palms, as if he had been working, struggling desperately at something. They were like the burns from a rope. He spoke blankly. ‘It was dawn before I came upon her. I had searched through the town, places where people might know her, but no one had seen her. And then I thought that, despite the night and the darkness, she might have tried to get home. I was lucky at the first gate. A young girl, distracted and wild-looking, had left the town not long after seven. They had warned her of the darkness and the dangers, but she told them she had more to fear from the light. They let her go; they had been given no instruction to prevent a Scots girl passing out of the town on her way homewards. But she did not go home – I don’t think she had ever intended to go home. She just wanted to be with her brother. So she did it herself.’

I did not ask him how he had found her at last, if she had already been dead before he had managed to cut her down, whether he had carried her home, what he could have said to her mother. Neither of us would have been the better for talking of those things, but there was one thing I could not help but ask him.

‘Did she … did she give any explanation? Was there any message? A letter?’

He understood what I meant. ‘There was a message: coins in a leather pouch suspended from her neck, and a portion of scripture, along with a note. Ten words: “Tell the O’Neills: we do not want their blood-money.”’

‘Blood-money?’

‘When her brother David was murdered, at first it was treated like any other such killing by the kerne. But when I heard of it, I lost my control and let rage get the better of my judgement. Even then, I had some suspicion of what Sean was, what Murchadh planned for him, though I did not know for certain and I did not know then that neither Sean nor Cormac rode with the kerne. I took my rage and poured out my disgust to Sean. He swore he had not known of it. He took my report to Cormac, who dealt with those responsible – his own brothers among them. Then Sean took money to her mother, in compensation.’

‘Sean?’

‘I never knew that until we were at Ballygally and she told me so herself. Say what I might, she would not dissociate him in her mind from those who had murdered her brother. And then I began to wonder if it had been Margaret who paid Finn O’Rahilly to lay the curse on your family.’

‘It never occurred to me,’ I said. ‘Not for one moment. But how did she pay for it, if she refused Sean’s money?’

‘She did not – pay for it, I mean. She laughed when I suggested it. She said she knew nothing of the poet or his curse, that she had better things to do than traipse through bogs looking for half-mad Irish seers. I believed her; I still believe her. But once my mind had started running down that path, it would not stop. Do you recall, Alexander, when we arrived at Ballygally and found Margaret there? Do you remember we learned she had gone to Carrickfergus in search of work on the very day we visited her mother’s cottage, the very day of your grandfather’s funeral?’

I remembered. So she had been there the night Sean had been murdered. ‘And yet it might have been little more than coincidence.’

He nodded. ‘Perhaps. That is what I told myself. I might have believed it, too, had it not been for her bible.’

‘Her bible?’

‘Not long after I had brought Macha in to town, the Blackstones arrived at the safe house, searching for me.’ He looked up at me, evidently uncomfortable. ‘It has been me, all along, that they have pursued, not you.’

‘I know; the constable told me,’ I said. ‘Go on.’