A MASS FOR THE DEAD (25 page)

“A great pity that is indeed,” observed His Lordship, hardly seeming affected by the news. “And an unwise woman she was, as well, to go running off to Colonsay as she did.”

“Your Lordship,” I protested, “she was a great help to me in solving the murders. Were it not for her bringing me this pin,” and I drew it from my pouch to show him, “we would not have known for sure that it was Seòras who committed the crime.”

“Her father will not be happy to hear of the news, when you are telling him, Muirteach,” responded His Lordship. “And the MacNeill she was to marry as well.”

The orator leaned forward and whispered something in the ear of the Lord of the Isles. The Lord paused, took another drink of his wine, and then added, “Oh, MacMhurich here is telling me that the betrothal was broken off. Recently, and by the woman herself. Now why, are you thinking, would she be doing such a thing?”

“I do not know, sir. Nor, am I thinking, does it matter much the now.”

“Well, you are no doubt right in that, Muirteach. But you will be having a sad thing to do, when the Beaton is returning from his doctoring. For I leave the telling of it to you, since it was your poor judgment that led her to this sad end.”

And he turned to speak with another of his retainers, and I surmised my interview was at an end. Miserable and bitter, I bowed to him, wanting nothing more than to crawl away, like some injured hound, to lick my wounds, or perhaps to try and drink myself to sick forgetfulness. Yet I sensed even there I would find no solace.

“Oh, and Muirteach,” he added, as I prepared to leave the hall, “just you be seeing my steward, there, and be writing a letter for me to the King, and one to the Holy Father in Rome, telling them of the solution to the murder. And then we will see about a reward for your labor on this matter.”

“None is necessary, sir. The man murdered my father.”

“Yes, but you will be wanting an honor-price. Or if you are not wanting it, the Priory should have one, I am thinking. Well, away with you, and be writing the letters the now. Then this matter will be ended, and good riddance to it.”

The steward led me to a small anteroom and brought writing supplies. I composed my letters by the light of the sun, shining through the tiny slit window in the wall, and wondered how I would tell Fearchar of his daughter’s death.

I had just about finished when I heard a commotion from the Hall. I stood up from my writing bench and stepped to the doorway to listen. A disheveled messenger stood before His Lordship. The man, obviously frightened, panted, and looked as though he had run a far ways.

“What is it?” demanded the steward. “What is this news that brings you here so suddenly?”

“A madman—” gasped the man. “A madman has killed the priest of the chapel at Port Asabuis, and now he has claimed Sanctuary in that same chapel!”

Chapter 21

“T
ell us of it,” demanded His Lordship, listening intently as the man repeated his story.

“What does this man look like?” I interrupted. “And how did he get to the Oa?”

I did not dare hope, and yet, how many such madmen could there be on one island?

“I do not know,” responded the man. “We were out working the fields, and heard a hubbub from the chapel, and then the women came running through the corn, saying that there was murder done. And the priest lay there, in front of the chapel he was, with his hand outstretched, just touching the cross, and blood all over the walk—”

“And so you were coming here?”

The man nodded, awed by his surroundings.

“When did all this happen?”

“This morning it was. I took a boat and came here, for it was known you were here at Dunyvaig. You must be helping us, Your Lordship,” cried the man. “It is the devil himself has got into our church.”

“I am thinking it is no devil,” said His Lordship, “but a man, although perhaps he is indeed a devil if the Cailleach herself is spitting him out. Well, let us be sending some men there to be seeing about it all, then.”

“You must let me go,” I demanded of His Lordship.

“Aye, Muirteach, I am thinking that I must.”

And so it was that a short while later a good galley, filled with sixteen strong men, along with the messenger and myself, set sail from Lagavulin Bay and crossed the short distance to the Oa Peninsula. We beached the boat along a short stretch of sandy beach, ringed on either side by high granite cliffs, and climbed the narrow path leading up the steep rocks to the chapel, dedicated to Saint Ailbhe, one of the boatmen had told me. At a distance things looked peaceful enough, but as we neared the site we saw a dark stain on the flagstones in the front of the church, before the great stone cross, and a cluster of men surrounding the chapel.

“He has claimed sanctuary,” one of the local men told us as we drew closer. “He is inside.”

“Was he alone?”

The man shook his head. “I am not knowing that. I was not here when it happened. Here,” he said, gesturing to the dark pool of blood which still lay on the stones, “is where he was killing the priest.”

“What led to this? Why did he kill the priest? Did the priest try to stop him?”

“Och, no. The priest was outside here, he had just finished the morning mass and had stepped outside, and everyone else had left. And then, I am thinking that the madman had hidden himself, somehow, behind the rock there, and came after the priest, demanding sanctuary. But perhaps the priest was not being fast enough with his answer, for it is said the madmen took out his
sgian dubh
and cut him, and the man bled to death while the lunatic took shelter in the church.”

“And so you are thinking he was alone.”

“No one was here to see it happen. We just found the priest here, when Rhodri came to bring him some eggs.”

“So then how are you knowing he is inside?”

“Look,” The man pointed to the trail of bloodied footprints leading to inside the chapel. But there was only one set of prints, not two, although there was a smear of blood as if something had been dragged inside with him.

The men from Dunyvaig milled around, while I thought about what to do. There was much discussion, with some of them all for rushing into the church and extirpating the devil, while others crossed themselves, unwilling to breach sanctuary and whatever demon had claimed it.

“Wait here,” I finally spoke, “and I will go into the church and see who is there. I am thinking it is Seòras himself, the harper, and if so it is no demon, nor devil, but a man only.”

The men stood back to let me enter the church. I tried to walk confidently, despite my limp. I went unarmed and entered the chapel.

“Seòras,” I cried into the darkness. “Is it you, then?”

The man stood, and indeed it was Seòras, returned from the dead.

“We were thinking the Cailleach had had you.”

He spoke, finally, “Aye, I saw you there, looking for me, and not finding me. And I watched as you sailed away, leaving me there, snug in my tiny cave high up in the rocks of the hills.”

“And how were you getting here from Jura?” I asked, approaching a little closer in the dim light of the chapel.

“Walked along the coast until I was finding a small boat. And then I took it, and left the hunters there on Jura, and sailed here to Islay. I thought of this small chapel, and needed a place of sanctuary.” He laughed, and the sound of it chilled me to the marrow.

“And what of Mariota?”

“And wouldn’t you just be wanting to know?” He laughed. “Well, I will tell you, after all. She is here, with me, the now.”

“Let me see her.”

He gestured to what looked like a bundle of rags lying against the wall of the chapel, near the altar. I saw that the bundle was tied by a rope to his wrist.

“Is she alive?”

“Aye, she is. She is mine, Muirteach, for it was I that saved her from the Cailleach.”

“Mariota!” I called. “Mariota, it is Muirteach here. Can you hear me?”

The bundle stirred, and the ice that had frozen around my heart seemed to melt a little as I watched the bundle move.

Mariota sat up. “Muirteach,” she said, and I felt the ice crack apart and my heart spring back to life like the stream does when the ice melts in the spring.

Seòras jerked roughly on the rope, pulling Mariota to her feet, and then dragged her towards him and held her up for me to see. “You must not be speaking with him, mind, for you are mine the now. Are you not, Mariota?”

Mariota nodded, a small, tight, motion, but I saw her eyes glance towards me.

“Do not be worrying, Mariota,” I told her. “We shall be getting you out of here.” And I prayed that I was not lying to her as I said the words.

“Do not try and speak with her again,” Seòras cautioned, tightening his grip on Mariota, “for I still have my knife, and will use it on her.”

“Give yourself up, Seòras,” I said, “For we have sixteen men outside and you will not prevail against us.”

“Ah, but I have Mariota, and my sharp knife as well.”

“You cannot win against us.”

“I have claimed sanctuary,” cried Seòras, “and none can gainsay that.”

“You gainsaid my father, as he claimed sanctuary.”

“He did not reach sanctuary, Muirteach, and he was deserving of none. So God punished him.”

“He was not punished by God, Seòras, but he was killed by man. As you, of all people should know. But I am not understanding the why of it. All that, over Sheena. Was she worth it, then, Seòras?”

Seòras laughed then, a wild laugh with the music of his harp in it. The sound of it echoed off the stone of the chapel, bouncing back and forth again over the rock walls until the last note of it died away. “Is that what you are thinking of it, Muirteach? Well enough, that is.”

“And then you killed Sheena, because she saw the first murder.”

He nodded.

“And then you killed Father Padraic, there on the island, and your mother killed herself.”

“I was not giving her much of a choice in it, after she heard what I told her.”

“About the murders?”

“That, and other things I had to say to her. She took the pin and opened her veins with that great sharp point of it, and I watched her as she did it.”

“Your own mother.”

“Aye.”

Seòras suddenly pulled Mariota closer to him. “Now away with you Muirteach.” I saw his dagger blade flash as he held it out, close to her. “It is tired I am of speaking with you. And you cannot be touching me here, for I have claimed sanctuary,” he taunted. “Away with you.”

I grew cold with the fear that he would use that bright blade against Mariota, and so I did as he asked me to. The light outside blinded me after the cool dimness of the chapel, but the sun did little to warm me and I shivered in the brightness of the light.

I spoke with the men, and we made our plan. We asked the villagers for green wood, wood that would not burn, but would smoke, and built fires in the front threshold of the church. We would smoke them out of their sanctuary, like foxes from their den.

And what if Seòras did not emerge? If that was the case, I told myself we would break into the chapel from the rear window, behind the altar, and in the smoke and confusion I swore I would free Mariota and let her captor burn to death in this Hell of his own making.

The wood was brought and the fires were kindled. The thick smoke filled the air while we waited. Some of the sixteen men from Dunyvaig surrounded the doorway to the chapel, while others waited in the back, near the narrow windows behind the altar, and threw more burning brands through the narrow windows. The breeze blew from the sea, and drove the smoke back into the dark interior of the church. We waited, while the sun sank lower over the western sea, a red ball through the haze of our smoke.

There came a noise, and the harper emerged from the doorway, looking like one of the demons from Hell, with the black smoke and the flickering light of the flames from inside the church surrounding him. The fire had caught on some of the altar cloths and the wooden rood screen within the chapel, and burned more strongly with each passing moment.

He held a burning brand before him as he came out of the church and pulled Mariota after him, still tied to him with the rope around her neck. She retched and coughed from the smoke.

Seòras, too, coughed, but his eyes gleamed white in the smoke smeared skin of his face, like a bright flash of lightening in the black storm of a sky, or like the flash of the blade of the dagger he still held against Mariota’s throat.

“You must let her go,” I said, trying to reason with him. “We are many against you. You cannot be winning.”

“Ah, but I can be using your own weapons against you,” he said, holding the burning torch before him like a sword and brandishing it into the faces of those men who tried to approach him.

Seòras edged closer to the edge of the circle, then struck like a viper with his knife, darting through the ring of men, and a cry rang out. One of our men lay on the ground, with blood staining his tunic.

“Where did they run?”

The man pointed in the direction of the high cliffs, behind the chapel. I looked in the direction he pointed, and could just make out through the smoky dusk Seòras, dragging Mariota behind him. She fell to her knees, and I feared she would strangle as he jerked on the rope to pull her up again, before he reached the cliff and turned to face us.

I gestured to the others to stand back, but I myself walked closer to them.

“Not so close now, Muirteach,” he said. “Or she will be going over the edge. Will you not,
mo
chridhe
?”

Mariota’s face looked a ghostly white blur in the dimness but she looked at me and nodded. “He will do it, Muirteach,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and cracked from the smoke and the fire. “You must be believing him.”

“I told you not to be speaking to him,” said Seòras, taking a step backwards, towards the edge of the cliff. The sound of the surf battering the rocks below pounded in my ears, and I had to raise my voice as I answered him.

“Seòras,” I asked, “what is the profit in this? You cannot win. We know you have done murder, but why? Surely the woman Sheena was not worth all this suffering.”