A Game of Sorrows (40 page)

‘Who have you taken? Who is it? Tell me who you have brought here!’

The door was wrenched open, and an angry face leered at me out of the darkness. ‘Hold your tongue and your noise while you still can: you’ll get to sing your song soon enough.’ He shoved me backwards into the storeroom and I heard the bolt brought to again.

And so I waited through the night, as the castle settled in on itself again, and it waited too. The servants in the kitchens, the dogs in the hall, returned to their sleep, but like the guards that walked the parapets above us and the curtain wall around us, I did not sleep. There was no attack, or sound of attack; no noise of skirmishing or fighting, no sounds of fire or panic from the town. Who had they brought in?

Perhaps two hours later I heard Sir James’s voice in the kitchen, and soon my door was opened again and the light brought in. Sir James took the candle, but ushered the guard away. He sat down on a flour sack and, with little ceremony, got to his point.

‘What do you know of Cormac O’Neill?’

Cormac? I had not thought it would be Cormac.

‘Cormac O’Neill … I … he is the son of Murchadh O’Neill.’

‘Murchadh, yes, who held you against your will, and pursued you to my home, which he then set alight.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Cormac, his eldest son, pursued your cousin Deirdre to my home, and begged that we should turn her over to him.’

‘Yes.’

‘This same Cormac who, I am informed, given the death of your cousin Sean, is designated leader of the planned rising.’

I did not ask him how he knew. Andrew: Andrew had told him everything.

‘If you know it all, there can be no need to ask me.’

‘Can there not? Then there is no need to ask why Cormac O’Neill should take pains to exonerate you from any wrong-doing in the death of Henry Blackstone?’

I was dumbfounded. There was nothing sensible I could say. The words that came to my mind were ‘Cormac wasn’t there,’ but some sense of self-preservation stopped me.

‘Well, have you no answer?’

I shook my head. ‘I have none. I do not know why Cormac would do that.’

‘But he has. He has sworn this night before the constable and myself and the governor’s deputy that you and Andrew Boyd played no part in the murder of Henry Blackstone; that when they reached Coleraine with your grandmother’s false accusations, you left the town to come back here and clear your name, that you fell in with a Franciscan priest, a consort of the rebel Stephen Mac Cuarta, who caused Blackstone’s death and brought you to Murchadh O’Neill. Is this the truth?’

Almost, it was almost the truth. But why should Cormac have chosen to tell it? Why should he offer to myself and Andrew a way out of our predicament where before there had been none? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is the truth. Can I see him?’

‘The governor thought you might make such a request. You can see him, for ten minutes, and not alone. Come, we will do it now, before the dawn of a new day brings its own troubles upon us.’

The embers in the kitchen hearths still glowed. A kitchen boy, curled up with a hound before the hearth, stirred as we passed, but everyone else slept on. Out in the courtyard, guards were waiting for us and torches lit our way to the middle ward and then out towards the sea tower, jutting from the walls to the north and west, musket men guarding it. We entered by the guardroom at the basement, and a ladder was put up to the cell above. I heaved myself through the hatch and into a dank, foul-smelling room with little light or furnishing save a few sodden rushes on the floor. The place stank of seaweed and rot.

Cormac was in the corner, hunched, his feet shackled, his wrists bound. He did not look up, and I watched him a moment, feeling no triumph in the reversal of our roles.

‘Cormac.’

His handsome face broke into a momentary smile, then faded. ‘Have they taken you, too?’

‘I am not a prisoner, at least … I do not think so.’

‘Then I am glad of it.’

‘What happened?’

‘They took me last night, after I entered the town.’

‘Alone?’

‘My father and brothers have gone to Dun-a-Mallaght. Others of our men have gone to Tullahogue; we cannot wait any longer for Stephen’s help from abroad.’

‘Stephen is dead,’ I said.

‘I know. We found his grave.’

‘His great fear was that your father would be precipitate.’

‘My father has waited twenty years. Those who talked of helping us have had long enough.’

‘And you think Murchadh will come for you?’

Cormac laughed, a low laugh with little humour in it. ‘They will hang me before my father is halfway to his horse. I won’t see the sun reach its height in the sky today, nor go down in the sea again.’ It was a statement of fact, and I did not attempt to argue with him.

‘But why did you come into the town on your own?’

‘I was coming for her.’

For Deirdre. Of course.

‘Did you get as far as my grandmother’s house?’

‘I was in sight of it, almost within the shelter of the door, when the mob of Coleraine, with her husband and his father at its head, came on me. To be caught by such as these. It will be a wonder if the hangman gets his rope around my neck before I die of shame.’

‘Cormac, she will not go back to her husband.’

‘I knew that already. But who is there to protect her now? Your grandfather, Sean, both gone. You will leave this place as soon as you are able, I know that, and even the servant Boyd is dead.’

The words reached me from a nightmare. Andrew was dead. He could not be found, because he was dead. The knowledge sank like a stone on my stomach. ‘Was it you or the Blackstones?’

He looked at me strangely. ‘Was what?’

‘Was it you or the Blackstones that killed him?’

‘What are you talking about? He died at Bonamargy. We saw his gr—’ And then his face broke into a broad, unaccustomed smile. ‘By God. Well, by God! Were we taken in by that? You have Sean’s guile, Seaton.’

‘It was not I, but the friars who thought of it. They had the grave dug before I ever got there.’

‘And where did you hide him? We searched every inch of that place, apart from the old nun’s cell.’

I said nothing.

‘He was in there?’ Again he laughed. ‘My father said he would rather pass through the gates of Hell than cross that threshold. Well! The old woman has nerve. But I know it was Mac Cuarta we found at Ardclinnis. It is for the best. He would not have liked what he might have lived to see.’

I remembered Stephen telling me of the debacle of the planned rising of 1615, ended before it was begun by the drunkenness and swagger of its leaders. It had taken him and others thirteen years to persuade powers abroad that the Irish could be trusted again. With Sean, with Cormac, he might have been right, but with Murchadh? Cormac was right – it was as well Stephen had not lived to see what was going to happen now. But it was not Murchadh’s swagger that had ended it for them this time: this time the English had learned of their plans through Sir James Shaw. Through Andrew Boyd. Through me.

It was as if Cormac could read my thoughts. ‘And Boyd lives, you tell me?’

‘I do not know. I have not seen him since Ballygally. He came into Carrickfergus a few hours before me, but has not been seen since.’

‘He is not at your grandmother’s?’

‘Not when I was last there. But I cannot go back. She knows now I did not murder Sean, but I do not think she can forgive me that I live while he is dead.’

‘And you did not murder him? I am a dead man: you can tell the truth to me.’

‘It is the truth. Why should I have wanted Sean dead? That I might take his place? That I might have what is his? I
have
a life.’ My voice was rising and I could hear the guard at the ladder. ‘I had a life, and I do not want his.’

He tried to reach a hand towards me, but the bindings stopped him. ‘It is all right. I believe you, for what such credence is worth. And you do not know who murdered Sean?’

I was losing patience. ‘Cormac, who else could it have been but your father? Who else had cause to want him dead?’

‘It was not my father,’ he said quietly. ‘He never left Maeve’s house that whole night.’

‘Then who? Who did?’

‘Ach! How should I know? Half the country was in the house. How could anyone keep note of comings and goings?’ He grew angry in his frustration. He might as well have said, ‘How could I have noticed anyone else, when I could look at no one but Deirdre?’

‘And Deirdre did not come into any danger? She did not go after him?’

‘No! She did not go after him. Deirdre was unwell; she had been distraught since O’Rahilly’s appearance the night before. She left the hall only to rest. This has nothing to do with Deirdre.’ And then I began to see it, through his vehemence, through his anger, through his desperation; I saw the reason for his desire to believe that I had killed Sean, for his anger on being questioned on the events of that night, for his determination to get Deirdre away from Carrickfergus, to keep her hidden away: Cormac feared that my cousin, the woman he loved, had murdered her brother.

He looked directly at me. ‘You must take care of her now.’

‘You cannot think she murdered him.’

‘No. But she is so lost I … You must take care of her now. I have done what I could to clear your name over Henry Blackstone’s death. Keep yourself clear of further trouble.’ That was why he had done it: so that there might be someone to watch over her when he was gone.

He said something in Gaelic that I did not understand. I do not think he had meant me to hear, but I asked him to repeat it.

‘She is my Deirdre of the Sorrows. Did you never hear of Deirdre of the Sorrows?’

‘No.’

‘A long time ago, so the bards have it, a child was born whose name and fate had been decreed before she ever left the womb. She would be called Deirdre, and so great would be her beauty that it would be the ruin of Ulster, tearing the kingdom asunder and resulting in the death of three brothers, its finest warriors. As she grew, all that had been predicted came to pass – Deirdre was indeed beautiful; she was to marry a king, an older man whom she did not love, but she fell in love instead with Naoise, a handsome young warrior with whom, with the help of his two brothers, she eloped. The king pursued and harried them, and finally captured them by an act of treachery. The kingdom was ripped asunder by discord, and the girl’s lover and his two brothers put to death.’ He looked away from me. ‘Your cousin is my Deirdre of the Sorrows. She always has been.’

‘I will take care of her,’ I said. ‘But you should know: I would have done it anyway. There is something, though, that I want from you in return.’

He raised an eyebrow in question.

‘Tell me who laid the curse on my family.’

He was weary now, and longing, I think, for me to be gone. ‘Finn O’Rahilly laid the curse on your family.’

‘At whose behest?’

‘Does it matter, now?’

‘It matters to me.’ I asked him again. ‘Do you know who laid the curse on my family?’

‘What did the poet tell you?’

‘He told me nothing.’

‘He said nothing to you; he did not speak?’

‘He spoke to me, but he refused to tell me who had commissioned him in this work; he seemed to think he retained some remnant of honour in doing so.’

‘Then perhaps he did. You might follow his example.’

‘It was the curse that brought me over here, and before I leave this place – if, God willing, I ever leave this place – I will know who is behind it.’

‘And if such knowledge harms you?’

‘I must know it anyway.’

‘Then think on his words, if you must, but you will call down upon yourself whatever griefs may follow.’

I nodded and turned to the hatch, ready to descend from this freezing, miserable place to the world of free men.

‘Do one thing more for me, Seaton: tell her goodbye. And tell her I would have loved her better than any man who has walked this earth.’

Cormac O’Neill had finished with me now. And whatever dreams he might have had, they too were finished: he might have been a hero, in other times.

Sir James was waiting for me outside, talking with the guard. ‘The stench in that place would make a man vomit. You have finished your business with O’Neill?’

‘Yes, it is finished.’

‘A better man than his father, they say.’ He was awkward a moment, but it passed. ‘Ah well, we must run with the tide, and if we do not, we get caught. The constable wishes to see you. I have spoken up for you as far as I am able. For the rest, you must shift for yourself. Also, he has news for you of a sort you may not like. If that is the case, I counsel you to keep your misliking of it to yourself.’

The constable was waiting for us in a state of evident agitation.

‘He has been to see O’Neill? And?’

‘Nothing of substance. Some talk of the FitzGarrett girl, and their nonsense of poets, little more.’

We had kept our voices low, and the guard had been able to hear little.

The constable turned his eyes on me. ‘The matter of your cousin’s murder is unresolved, but witnesses at Armstrong’s Bawn have spoken for you, and of that, at least, you are clear now.’

‘I have always known I was clear of that atrocity.’

‘What you know and what you are called to answer for may not always be the same thing.’ He looked at me silently for a moment, before returning to his papers. ‘It is not usual, you understand, that I take the word of a professed rebel over that of a settled Englishman. And yet there are reasons why I am prepared to accord some faith to the words of Cormac O’Neill in the matter of the killing of Henry Blackstone. I have considered that it might be in O’Neill’s interest, if you are of his mind, to have you free to roam and communicate with his father, but the tale he tells seems likely enough. I have decided to allow you liberty, within the town but no further. Should you take it into your head to leave Carrickfergus there will be a patrol of my men on your tail with orders to show no leniency. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’ I had hardly known a moment’s freedom since I had set foot in this country. To be allowed the liberty of the town was an unimaginable boon.