Cathedral (4 page)

The churchyard was unkempt, and vines grew up the gravestones. Whitehorn plants-which gave the abbey its name and which were omens of good luck or bad luck, depending on which superstition you believed-clogged the narrow path. A small side gate in a high stone wall led into the abbey's cloister. Flynn pushed it open and looked around the quiet court. "Sit on this bench. I'll find the brothers' dormitory."

She sat without answering and let her head fall to her chest. When she opened her eyes again, Flynn was standing over her with a priest.

"Maureen, this is Father Donnelly."

She focused on the elderly priest, a frail-looking man with a pale face.

"Hello, Father."

He took her hand and with his other hand held her forearm in that way they had of claiming instant intimacy.' He was the pastor; she was now one of his flock. Presto. Everyone's role had been carved in stone two millennia ago.

"Follow me," he said. "Hold my arm."

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The three of them walked across the cloister and entered the arched door of a polygon-shaped building. Maureen recognized the traditional configuration of the chapter house, the meeting place of the monks. For a moment she thought she was going to face an assemblage, but she saw by the light of a table lamp that the room was empty.

Father Donnelly stopped abruptly and turned. "We have an infirmary, but I'm afraid I'll have to put you in the hole until the police and soldiers have come round looking for you.

Flynn didn't answer.

"You can trust me."

Flynn didn't trust anyone, but if he was betrayed, at least the War Council wouldn't think him too foolish for having trusted a priest.

"Where's this hole, then? We don't have much time, I think."

The priest led them down a corridor, then opened the door at the end of the passage. Gray dawn came through stained glass, emitting a light that was more sensed than seen. A single votive candle burned in a red jar, and Flynn could see he was in the abbey's small church.

The priest lit a candle on a wall sconce and took it down. "Follow me up the altar. Be careful."

Flynn helped Maureen up to the raised altar sanctuary and watched the priest fumble with some keys and then disappear behind the reredos wall in back of the altar.

Flynn glanced around the church but neither saw nor heard anything in the shadows to signal danger. He noticed that the oppressive smell of incense and tallow was missing, and the church smelled like the outside air. The priest had told him that the abbey was deserted. Father Donnelly was apparently not the abbot but served in something like a caretaker capacity, though he didn't seem the type of priest that a bishop would exile to such a place, thought Flynn. Nor did he seem the type to hide members of the provisional IRA just to get a thrill out of it.

The priest reappeared holding his candle in the darkness. "Come this way." He led them to a half-open door made of 34

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scrolled wrought iron in the rear of the altar. "This is the place we use."

He looked at the two fugitives to see why they weren't moving toward it.

"The crypt," he added as if to explain.

"I know what it is. Everyone knows there's a crypt beneath an altar's sanctuary."

"Yes," said Father Donnelly. "First place they always look. Come along."

Flynn peered down the stone steps. A candle in an amber glass, apparently always kept burning, illuminated a wall and floor of white limestone. "Why is it I've not heard of this abbey as a place of safety before tonight?"

The priest spoke softly, evenly. "You had no need of it before tonight."

Typical priests' talk, thought Flynn. He turned to Maureen. She looked down the stairway, then at the priest. Her instincts, too, rebelled against entering the crypt. Yet her conditioned response was to do what the priest urged. She stepped toward the stairway and descended. Flynn glanced at the priest, then stepped through the doorway.

Father Donnelly led them along the limestone wall past the tombs of the former abbots of Whitehorn Abbey. He stopped and opened the bronze door of one of the tombs marked Fr. Seamus Cahill, held up his candle, and entered the tomb. A wooden casket lay on a stone plinth in the middle of the chamber.

Father Donnelly passed the candle to Flynn and raised the lid of the casket. Inside was a body wrapped in heavy winding sheets, the linen covered with fuzz of green mold. "Sticks and straw," he said. He reached into the casket and released a concealed catch, and the coffm bottom swung downward with the bogus mummy still affixed to it. "Yes, yes. Melodramatic for our age, but when it was conceived, it was necessary and quite common.

Go on. Climb in. There's a staircase. See it? Follow the passageway at the bottom until you enter a chamber. Use your candle to light the way. There are more candles in the chamber."

Flynn mounted the plinth and swung his legs over the 35

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side. His feet found the top step, and he stood in the casket. A dank, almost putrid smell rose out of the dark hole. He stared at Father Donnelly questioningly.

"It's the entranceway to hell, my boy. Don't fear. You'll find friends down there."

Flynn tried to smile at the joke, but an involuntary shudder ran up his spine. "I suppose we should be thanking you.

"I suppose you should. But just hurry on now. I want to be in the refectory having breakfast when they arrive."

Flynn took a few steps down as Father Donnelly helped Maureen up the plinth and over the side of the casket onto the first step. Flynn held her arm with one hand and held the candle high with the other. She avoided the wrapped figure as she descended.

Father Donnelly pulled the casket floor up, then shut the lid and left the tomb, closing the bronze door behind him.

Flynn held the candle out and followed the narrow, shoulder-width passageway for a distance of about fifty feet, grasping Maureen's hand behind him. He entered an open area and followed the wall to his right. He found randles in sconces spaced irregularly around the unhewn and unmortared stone walls and lit them, completing the circuit around the room. The air in the chamber was chilly, and he saw his own breath. He looked around slowly at the half-lit room. "Odd sort of place."

Maureen wrapped herself in a gray blanket she had found and sat on a footstool. "What did you expect, Brian-a game room?"

"Ah, I see you're feeling better."

"I'm feeling terrible."

He walked around the perimeter of the six-sided room. On one wall was a large Celtic cross, and under the cross was a small chest on a wooden stand. Flynn placed his hand on the dusty lid but didn't open it. He turned back to Maureen. "You trust him?"

"He's a priest."

"Priests are no different from other men."

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"Of course they are."

"We'll see." He now felt the fatigue that he had fought off for so long, and he sank down to the damp floor. He sat against the wall next to the chest, facing the stairway. "If we awake in Long Kesh . . ."

"My fault. All right? Go to sleep."

Flynn drifted off into fitful periods of sleep, opening his eyes once to see Maureen, wrapped in the blanket, lying on the floor beside him. He awoke again when he heard the casket bottom swing down and strike the wall of the passageway. He jumped up and stood at the entrance to the passage.

In a shaft of light from the crypt he could see the coffin floor hanging, its grotesque mockery of a dead

stuck to it like a lizard on a wall.

The torso of a man appeared: black shoes, black trousers, the Roman collar, then the face of Father Donnelly. He held a tea tray high above his head as he made his way. "They were here and they're gone."

Flynn moved down the passageway and took the tray that the priest passed to him. Father Donnelly closed the coffin, and they walked into the chamber, Flynn placing the tray on a small wooden table.

Father Donnelly looked around the chamber the way a host examines a guest room. He stared at Maureen's sleeping figure, then turned to Flynn. "So, you blew up a sixer, did you? Rather daring, I'd say."

Flynn didn't answer.

"Well, anyway, they traced you as far as the McGloughlin farm up the lane.

Good, loyal Ulstermen, the McGloughlins. Solid Presbyterians. Family came over from Scotland with Cromwell's army. Another three hundred years and they'll think this is their country. How's the lady?"

Flynn knelt beside her. "Sleeping." He touched her forehead. "Feverish."

"There's some penicillin tablets and an army aid kit along with the tea and bacon." He took a small bottle from his pocket. "And some Dunphy's, if you've the need of it."

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Flynn took the bottle. "Rarely have I needed it more." He uncorked it and took a long drink.

Father Donnelly found two footstools, pulled them to the table, and sat.

"Let her sleep. I'll take tea with you."

Flynn sat and watched the priest go through the fussy motions of a man who took food and drink seriously. "Who was here?" asked Flynn.

"The Brits and the RUCs. As usual the RUCs wanted to tear the place apart, but a British army officer restrained them. A Major Martin. Know him, do you? Yes, he's quite infamous. Anyway, they 0 played their roles wonder-fully.1f

"I'm glad everyone had a good time. I'm only sorry I had to waken everyone so early."

"You know, lad, it's as if the participants in this war secretly appreciate each other. The excitement is not entirely unwelcome."

Flynn looked at the priest. Here was one man, at least, who didn't lie about it. "Can we get out of here?" he asked as he sipped the hot tea.

"You'll have to wait until they clear out of the hedgerows. Binoculars, you understand. Two days at least. Leave at night, of course.

"Doesn't everyone travel at night?"

The priest laughed. "Ali, Mister

"Cocharan."

"Whatever. When will this all stop?"

"When the British leave and the northern six counties are reunited with the southern twenty-six."

The priest put down his teacup. "Not true, my boy. The real desire of the IRA, the most secret dark desire of the Catholics, no matter what we all say about living in peace after the reunification, is to deport all the Protestants back to England, Scotland, and Wales. Send the McGloughlins back to a country they haven't seen in three hundred years."

"That's bloody rubbish."

The priest shrugged. "I don't care personally, you understand. I only want you to examine your own heart."

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Flynn leaned across the table. "Why are you in this? The Catholic clergy has never supported any Irish rebellion against the British. So why are you risking interm-nent?"

Father Donnelly stared down into his cup, then looked up at Flynn. "I don't involve myself with any of the things that mean so much to you. I don't care what your policy is or even what Church policy is. My only role here is to provide sanctuary. A haven in a country gone mad."

"To anyone? A murderer like me? Protestants? British troops?"

"Anyone who asks." He stood. "In this abbey was once' an order of fifty monks. Now, only me." He paused and looked down at Flynn. "This abbey has a limited future, Mr. Cocharan, but a very rich past."

"Like you and me, Father. But I hope not like our country.19

The priest seemed not to hear him and went on. "This chamber was once the storage cellar of an ancient Celtic Bruidean house. You know the term?"

"Yes, I think so."

"The House of the Hostages, it was called. A six-sided structure where six roads met. Coincidentally-or maybe not so--chapter houses are traditionally polygons, and the chapter house we passed through is built on these foundations." He gestured above. "Here in the Bruidean a traveler or a fugitive could shelter from the cold, dark road, protected by tradition and the king's law. The early Celts were not complete barbarians, after all." He looked at Flynn. "So you see, you've come to the right place."

"And you've taken it upon yourself to combine a bit of paganism with Christian charity."

The priest smiled. "Irish Catholicism has always been a blend of paganism and Christianity. The early Christians after Patrick specifically built their churches on Druid holy spots such as this. I suspect early Christians burnt this Bruidean down, then constructed a crude church on its foundations. You can still see the charred foundation stones. Then the Vikings destroyed the original monastery, and the next one was destroyed by the English army when

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Cromwell passed through. This is the last abbey to be built here. The Protestant plantations took all the good land in Ireland, but the Catholics held on to most of the good church sites."

"What more could you want?"

The priest regarded Flynn for a long time, then spoke softly. "You'd better wake the lady before the tea gets cold."

Flynn rose and crossed the floor to where Maureen was lying, knelt beside her, and shook her. "Tea."

She opened her eyes.

He said, "Hold on to me." He stood her up and helped her to his stool. "How are you feelingT'

She looked around the candlelit room. "Better."

Flynn poured the tea, and Father Donnelly extracted a pill from a vial.

"Take this."

She swallowed the pill and took some tea. "Did the British come?"

The priest felt her forehead. "Came and went. In a few days you'll be on your way."

She looked at him. He was so accepting of them, what they were and what they had done. She felt disreputable. Whenever her life was revealed to people not in the movement, she felt not proud but ashamed, and that was not the way it was supposed to be. "Can you help us?"

"I am, dear. Drink your tea."

"No, I mean can you help us get out of this?"

The priest nodded. "I see. Yes, I can help you if you want. It's rather easy, you know."

Flynn seemed impatient. "Father, save souls on your own time. I need some sleep. Thank you for everything."