A MASS FOR THE DEAD (26 page)

“Aye, you were saying something of the sort, back there, were you not Muirteach? You are mistaken if you are thinking that is why I killed your father.”

“Was it not for Sheena? She was your lover, was she not?”

“Indeed, and she was, but I would not kill your father over her. Whyever should I, since I was already tupping his own mistress, and him none the wiser for it. No, now, that was not the way of it at all, Muirteach.”

“Then why?” I saw that his hold on the rope had lessened, just a little, and felt a faint glimmering of hope. “Why, Seòras? For I confess I am not understanding this.”

“For what he did to me. When I was at the Priory.”

“But you were just a young boy.”

“Indeed, Muirteach, and were you thinking that women were the only thing your father lusted after? I am surprised he was not buggering you, for all that you were his own son. But he liked well favored boys, and you were not so well favored as all that, were you? Not with your shriveled leg, and your limping, and your sniveling. He always liked my voice, like an angel’s he said it was. He used to have me sing for him, after.”

His face contorted in a grimace, and I saw the wetness of tears on his cheeks. But I also saw he had dropped his hold on the rope. And from the change in Mariota’s expression, I knew that she had felt that slackness. I stepped closer, hoping to keep him speaking, and Seòras, intent on his own emotion, did not notice at first.

“And it was for that you killed him,” I said, as Mariota shifted her weight a little, edging away from him.

“Aye, indeed. For that. I was leaving Sheena’s that night. I would sail from the Nave Island to Colonsay, to visit her from time to time. I had known her since she was a girl. And we had your own father in common, for he used her poorly, as he had her brother, Columbanus, before her. And that is when I saw him, coming to her on the path in the moonlight. He had already crossed the strand, and the light glimmered on his footsteps in the sand. They looked like molten silver there.

“I had not seen him in years, since I had left the Priory, but he still had that look to him, like a satyr or some lustful demon. And Sheena had been saying that she did not like it that he liked little Sean so, she would see him, fingering the boy’s hair, and him his very own son. But that was not why I was killing him.”

“And why did you, then?”

“I saw him, there, and he came towards me in the dark, and it was as though I was a child again. I stopped to speak with him, for he did not know who I was, I am thinking. After he had used me in that way as a child, he did not even recognize me, the now. And I remembering it, every day of my life.”

“And so you killed him.”

“Yes. I waited, and when he returned I spoke with him again. I took down my harp, and said I would play for him, but took a string from it, and sat down close to him, and played, the same song he had had me sing all those times so many years ago.”

“And so then he knew you.”

“Yes. He knew me at the last. I said to him, ‘It is the last music your ears shall hear,’ and I took the string out and made to put it around his neck, but he ran from me, coward that he was, across the strand back towards his Priory. He tried to claim sanctuary, and nearly reached the great cross standing there. But there was no sanctuary for him, just as there had been none for me there so long ago.

“I took a rock, and threw it at him, and brought him down. I strangled him there with my harp string and stuffed his mouth with sand, to choke him even more. And then I took the rock, and pounded him with it as he lay there, until he did not move again. He died with his hand touching the cross,”

“And Sheena saw you.”

“Aye. She saw, and so she had to die as well, for all that I did not like the killing of her. She had been kind to me, but he had used her, too. I had to kill her, you see, I had no choice. He had used her, and so I could not let her live. She would have suffered from it, as I have. I had to kill her, to save her from that suffering. I killed her gently, for all that.”

“Gently enough,” I said, horrified at his words.

“She was not expecting it, nor did she suffer overmuch. But it had to be done.”

“What of Padraic, on the island?”

“My uncle. Oh, it was your sharp eyes that killed him, Muirteach. He told me of your visit. I feared what you might have told him.”

“And Alsoon? Your own mother?”

“Och, she spoke of you as well. And I told her, finally, after all these years, why it was that I ran away from the Priory those fifteen years ago, of what had happened to me there. And of what I had done to your father, and to her own brother, and to Sheena. She had wanted her son to be a priest,” he added. “After I ran away, I was not that welcome at her home, I am thinking. But she did not know the why of it all, not until that last day.”

“And so she killed herself, when you finally told her of it. And you did not stop her from it.”

“No, I did not. She had not saved me, why should I be stopping her? I watched her as she opened her veins, with that sharp silver pin. A fine lot of blood she had in her, my mother. But I took her arms and laid her out nicely, with the brooch on her chest, before I left her lying there and went on to Mull, where you were finding me.”

I shuddered, and noticed that Mariota had moved even farther away from him, away from the edge of the cliff. And I saw that some of the men from Dunyvaig had come closer, listening to the tale. I jerked my chin to them, as Seòras came out of his reverie and went to take the rope in his hand again. But Mariota had picked up the end of it first.

“Mariota, run-” I cried, fearing she would not move quickly enough, but she darted away from him before he could get his hands on the rope. I ran towards him, but he took another step backwards, laughing with that wild laughter. He took yet another step, over the edge, and vanished, and then my eyes saw only empty air before them, and my ears heard only the pounding of the waves against the black rocks.

Chapter 22

“S
odomy!”

The Shepherd of the Isles was in a fine temper the next day, after I had told him of it all. He paced in his inner chamber, at Dunyvaig, and I stood by, awkwardly, watching. I had asked to see him alone, to tell him of what had happened. Although with so many of the local folk watching, most of the events of that night were known. Yet Seòras’s last confession had not been heard by most of the people there, and it seemed, from what I heard him say now, that His Lordship would insure it remained secret.

“The damned Priory full of sodomites! Your father as well. And that was the motive for it all—”

I nodded.

“Well, at least he is gone, the now.”

I was not sure if His Lordship meant my father or Seòras.

“Now, Muirteach,” he considered, stopping his pacing and sitting down in a richly carved chair, “I will be needing you to write again both to the King and to his Holy Father. But I do not think you will need to be mentioning all of that to them. Just be telling them we found the murderer, and he took his own life, from the guilt of his misdeeds, perhaps, but that he confessed before he did so. Yes, that will do nicely, I am thinking.”

He drank deeply from a goblet that sat on the table nearby, then paused, putting his drink down. His favorite hound looked up at his master a moment, then put his large grizzled head down and went back to sleep.

“Now that is a fine thing indeed, Muirteach,” His Lordship continued, after another drink. “There need be no trial, and the story need not come out. And no honor price to pay, either. For you cannot be demanding restitution from the dead.” He smiled, displaying even, wolf-like teeth, and stood up.

“So sit you down, then, and write the letters for me.”

He turned and left the withdrawing room for the great hall, followed by his dog, as I seated myself at the table with parchment before me and took up the quill.

I could have predicted that His Lordship would wish the true motive for my father’s killing to remain secret. It was not the kind of scandal so cagey a politician as His Lordship would want the King or the Holy Father to know of.

Although the knowledge of that irked me, it seemed the shocking knowledge of my father’s worst misdeeds had not hardened my heart. Paradoxically, the horror of that last evening on the Oa seemed to have softened it. Seeing the suffering that Seòras’s crazed revenge had left in its wake had cured me of my own bitterness, and the hatred and anger I had so long felt towards my father had evaporated, like mist when the sun burns through it.

You cannot demand restitution from the dead.
I thought over His Lordship’s words. His Lordship, of course, had been speaking of the honor price, of cattle and gold. Yet, in another sense I felt my father somehow had made restitution, at least to me.

I had dreamed of him again, that night after Seòras had leaped to his death. My father sat sorrowful, chained in stone. Immobile he rested, imprisoned in his strange rocky dungeon, in the deep, cold, heart of the earth, as it seemed to me in the vision. He raised his hand to me, and quoted again from the bard, and then he smiled at me despite his chains. I felt myself smile back at him, in my dream, until he wavered, like smoke from a fire, and vanished.

The crystal I had found by me after that first vision I planned to have mounted in silver, to wear as a charm. I hoped I would find it in me to remember the giver of it with kindness, and to forgive all the suffering he had left in his wake, and the hurt he had done to so many, even to Seòras, who had lashed out and killed him in return.

I finished the letters and put them aside in a casket for His Lordship to sign, then entered the Hall. A harper stood singing a song about a deerhound and the heroes of the past. I told His Lordship what I had written, and he counted himself pleased with it. And so I joined the feast, in progress already.

“Here,” said the seneschal, pointing with his staff to a seat between the Beaton and his daughter. “Your place is here, this evening.”

I sat down, feeling suddenly shy. Mariota looked a bit the worse for her ordeal, her eyes had a shadowed look to them that I longed to ease, but I fancied they brightened and relaxed when she saw me. She was dressed in a fine blue gown that brought out the color of her eyes, while the high neck of it hid the bruises on her throat. Her hair fell loose down her back like a river of white gold. Her father stood and embraced me, before we all sat down again at the feast.

“And so you have returned my treasure to me,” Fearchar said. “I must be thanking you for it. And,” he added, looking sidewise at his daughter, “I am thinking she herself will be wanting to thank you in person.”

I nodded, in what I hoped was a matter of fact way. For what of her betrothal to the MacNeill? Although, from what His Lordship had said yesterday, she had broken it off, it irked me that Mariota herself had not once mentioned it to me. But we did not speak of this, and commenced eating the good venison, frumenty, manchet bread, and fresh cheeses, all washed down with mead and His Lordship’s claret. In addition there was salmon, and a fine blancmange, along with numerous other dishes.

Mariota was uncharacteristically silent, and I spoke more with her father. He professed himself curious to hear how the sad affair on the Oa had ended, although, for myself, I could not believe that Mariota had not told him of it.

“She was asleep most of the day, Muirteach. I gave her some poppy juice, and she slept until just a short time ago, when she awoke. There was no stopping her then, but she must change and come down to the feast.”

“And why was that?” I asked Mariota, who was delicately reaching for some salmon at the time.

“There was someone I was needing to see,” she answered, her eyes downcast.

I looked curiously around the hall, thinking to see her mysterious MacNeill, but I could not be sure who he might be.

“And who was that?” I asked her. “Your MacNeill, then?”

She looked at me, laughed and rolled her eyes a little, like the old Mariota, and it was good to me to see her face lighten and to hear that sound. “Och, no, Muirteach. You were hearing of it from your cousin, were you not?”

I nodded.

“Well, she is not knowing all of it. We were never betrothed, at all. It was just thought we might become so.” She blushed, then added, “Or well, we almost were, but I put an end to it.”

I felt confused, for that was not exactly what I had heard from His Lordship, when he had spoken of it that day before.

The moment felt awkward, and to avoid further conversation I concentrated on eating my meat tile, nicely spiced as it was. I could swear I heard the Beaton chuckle softly, but then a fit of coughing seized him, so perhaps I was mistaken, as noisy as the hall was with the servants running here and there, bringing more food and drink, and seeing to the feasters.

The meal wound to a close, and the bard began to play. A new song it was, one I had not heard before. At first I did not listen too closely, but suddenly Mariota nudged me with her elbow, hard, and whispered “Muirteach, it is yourself that they are singing of.”

Dogged as the black hound, that does not loose the scent of his prey.

To revenge his own father he followed the crazed one,

Through the wild jaws of the old hag herself, and even onto the precipice.

Where evil found its own swift path to the justice of Our Lord.

“I was not thinking that it was happening quite that way,” I muttered to the Beaton, sure that even my ears were crimson. Yet I felt some pride in the song the bard had written, and was glad when Mariota shook her head to disagree.

“It is a fine song Muirteach, indeed. And close enough it is to the way that things were happening. As I should know.”

The song ended, and His Lordship stood to silence the musicians and gain some quiet, which took some time in coming, as the hall was crowded. Then His Lordship spoke.

“You are all knowing of the thing that came to pass on the Oa, yesterday. And how the wicked murderer of the good and saintly Prior Crispinus met death at his own hands, after confessing his sin.”