Insurrection: Renegade [02] (2 page)

Despite this, Niall mac Edan held his ground, not bothering to draw his sword. He had denied Malachy entry to Armagh and its cathedral for ten months now and he was still standing. His eyes moved to the cart, which, even at this distance, he could see was piled with chests. The sight of it strengthened his confidence. Only a man, as fallible as any born of Adam’s line, would need to resort to a bribe to get what he wanted. He gestured his men to move aside as Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, approached.

Malachy watched the men before him part. Beyond, the doors of the cathedral were open into shadow. Ard Macha, encircled by mist, was as familiar as a friend. Born in this city almost forty years ago, he had grown to manhood with her green slopes in his view – upon which the blessed St Patrick had founded his church. The stone cathedral had changed in the years since he was a boy. It was only a decade since its ruined roof, struck by lightning in a time no one living could recall, had been replaced by Archbishop Cellach. The shingle still looked new. Malachy was pleased to see that although his friend and mentor had died his labours lived on. The thought of Cellach made him turn his attention to Niall mac Edan, at the head of the waiting company.

For almost two centuries, men of Niall’s clan had held sway over the cathedral, claiming to control the diocese by hereditary right, along with its wealth and the tributes of horses and cows from the people of the province. Few of these men who had stood as bishops had taken holy orders, or been consecrated in Rome. Most were married laymen, whose hands were more accustomed to weapons than scripture; men of avarice, lust and violence, whose control of Ireland’s Holy See was anathema in the eyes of the Church.

This evil had been uprooted by Cellach. A son of the clan, but a true man of God and a staunch reformer, he had elected Malachy to be his successor, but after Cellach’s death, Niall and other members of the family had defied this decree and kept Malachy out of the city. And so he had come to defend his right; first with an army, which resulted in bloodshed, now alone, with ten chests of coin. The payment was large, but the prize invaluable.

Malachy halted before Niall, wondering how such a brute could have sprung from the same womb as a devout man like Cellach. Cain and Abel, came the thought. ‘It is inside?’

‘As soon as I’ve seen my fee you can have it.’ Niall’s Gaelic was abrasive.

‘It is with my brethren.’

Niall motioned sharply to two of his men. ‘Go. Look.’

Moving warily past the archbishop, they headed down to the cart.

Malachy stood waiting while Niall’s men inspected the chests. It was not so many moons ago that the people of Ireland bartered with animals and goods. The plundering Norsemen had changed all that, bringing the tainted silver with them. How often these days it seemed a man’s worth was measured in such things, rather than in the fortune of his faith.

Once they were done, the two men hastened back up the slope. Both were grinning.

‘It’s all there,’ said one to Niall. ‘Ten chests.’

Niall’s eyes flicked back to Malachy. He gestured to the cathedral with a mocking sweep of his hand. ‘Enter then, your grace,’ he said, his voice biting down hard on the title as if it were a piece of gristle in his mouth.

The fires of hell cleanse your soul, Malachy thought as he moved past Niall and walked between the rows of armed men towards the doors of the cathedral. None of them lowered their weapons, but Malachy paid the barbed points and keen blades no heed. He paused at the entrance, his bare feet suddenly reluctant to take him from the dewy grass on to the flagstones beyond. He had not wanted this. Any of it. Now, more than ever, he missed the wild solitude of his beloved monastery, Ibracense. But Cellach had entrusted him with this position. It had been his mentor’s dying wish that he become Archbishop of Armagh. Moreover, the pope had commanded that he take control of his see and oust the men who continued to defy the laws of the Church.

Malachy stepped over the threshold and entered the shadows of the interior. The place had a smell of sweat and men about it. He didn’t look back as footsteps and triumphant voices faded behind him, Niall and his band swarming over their prize. Ahead, at the end of the nave, was the high altar. On the altar, where the flames of candles flickered, was a long object wrapped in white cloth.

Malachy dropped to his knees in front of it, resisting an overwhelming urge to seize the object; to hold in his hands what had once been held by Lord Jesus Christ. When the proper prayers had been said, he rose and carefully unwrapped the cloth. From out of the folds he drew a staff; a crosier, covered in an exquisite sheath of gold, encrusted with gems. All the candlelight and hazy morning sun filtering through the windows seemed caught in its precious length so that it blazed like a flame in his hands.

The staff had belonged to St Patrick who brought the word of God to Ireland seven hundred years ago. It was said that the saint had been given it by a hermit who received it from Jesus, although some heathens proclaimed Patrick stole it from the Druids. It was the holiest relic in Ireland. People would swear their most solemn oaths upon it; oaths that if broken would cause great plagues to sweep the land. It was the staff of the King of Kings, a symbol of righteousness and supreme authority.

It did not matter that Malachy had been chosen as Cellach’s successor, or that he had been consecrated in Rome. Until he was in possession of this relic his appointment would not be accepted by the people of Ireland. This was why he had agreed to Niall mac Edan’s demand for payment; for whosoever had control of the Staff of Jesus could claim to be not only rightful Archbishop of Armagh, but successor to St Patrick and spiritual ruler of all Ireland.

PART 1

1299–1301 AD

He was in suspense for some time, whether he had better continue the war or not, but at last he determined to return to his ships while the greater part of his followers was yet safe, and hitherto victorious, and to go in quest of the
island which the goddess had told him of.

The History of the Kings of Britain,
Geoffrey of Monmouth

Chapter 1

Armagh, Ireland, 1299 AD

(164 years later)

The frail glow from a single candle danced over the walls of the crypt, throwing monstrous shadows up the sides of the octagonal pillars and across the ribs of the vaulted ceiling. The light’s bearer slowed his footsteps, cupping a hand around the flame as it threatened to flutter out. Around him the voices of the others were breaths in the darkness.

‘
Hurry.
’

‘
There, Brother Murtough. The chest.
’

‘
I see it. Bring the light, Donnell.
’

As Donnell moved closer to the whispers, his flame illuminated a collection of chests and boxes stacked on the floor. There were many such items stored in rows down the length of the sixty-foot crypt: baskets of cloth, sacks of grain and barrels of salted meat. The cathedral and the city it dominated had suffered much violence over the centuries, from destructive raids by neighbouring Irish chieftains and pillaging Norsemen, to the determined, tide-like expansion of the English. Thirty years ago, when Archbishop O’Scanlon ordered a great edifice built in place of the original scarred structure, the underground chamber had formed the base of his new choir, granting the cathedral and the people of Armagh a safe for their treasures.

Donnell halted beside his four companions, the candlelight staining their faces. The chests here were decoratively carved and painted with biblical imagery. It was clear they belonged to the cathedral and no doubt contained its collected wealth: chalices and plates, vestments, jewels and coin. The chest Murtough and the others had spotted was larger than the rest. Inlaid with inscriptions in Latin, barely legible under a layer of dust, it was the only one that could store what they had come for.

Murtough negotiated his way to it. The shadows highlighted the scar that furrowed the left side of his face, cleaving right through his upper lip, in sharp relief to the pale, unblemished skin that surrounded it. He reached out to lift the lid. When the chest failed to open, his brow knotted.

On the stillness came an eerie moaning, drifting towards them as if flowing down a tunnel, rising and falling in pitch.

One of the men crossed himself. ‘Lord, spare us!’ His exclamation resonated in the vaulted space.

Murtough’s scar creased with his scowl. ‘
Matins, brother. The canons are singing the matins!
’

The younger man let out a breath, but the fear didn’t leave his gaze.

Murtough rose and scanned the gloom until his eyes fell upon a pair of large silver candlesticks. He crossed to them and hefted one in his hands, testing its weight.

‘They will hear,’ said one of his companions, catching Murtough’s arm as he moved back, the candlestick brandished in his grip. The man’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, where the distant chanting continued.

‘
There
,’ murmured Donnell, the flame guttering in the rush of air from his lips. He pointed at a basket covered with cloth.

Seeing what he meant, Murtough went to it. Dust swarmed as he wrapped the cloth around the candlestick’s base. Returning to the chest, he rammed it at the lock. The muffled thud echoed like a drum. The chest shuddered, but although the wood was dented by the impact the lock didn’t break. Steeling himself, Murtough tried again, ears attuned for any change in the chanting descending from the cathedral choir. After three blows, the lock buckled. Murtough lifted the lid, sending shards of wood scattering. He stared inside at a neat collection of breviaries and Bibles.

As the others saw what it contained they began speaking in rapid whispers.

‘
We cannot search every chest here
.’

‘
We have lingered too long already
.’

‘I will not leave without it,’ replied Murtough grimly. ‘We were told beyond doubt that they are coming for it. I will
not let it fall into their hands.’

‘But if we are caught . . .?’

Donnell moved down the chamber, his eyes on something that shimmered up ahead. He had glimpsed it earlier, but had thought it the reflection of his candlelight on one of the many barrels or coffers. Now he was accustomed to the gloom he realised that the glow in his cupped hand was too feeble to penetrate that far. Whatever it was, it was standing in its own source of light.

Drawing closer he saw a stone plinth, like an altar, the top of which was covered with brocaded cloth. He could smell the smoky perfume of incense. The chanting of the canons was louder here, the psalms of the dawn office rippling down to him. Upon the plinth lay a slender, gem-encrusted crosier.

‘
Praise be
.’

Looking up, Donnell saw an aperture cut into the roof of the crypt, tunnelled through the rock right up to the floor of the choir. Beyond the bars of an iron grate he made out the pillars of the choir aisle stretching to the far ceiling, bathed in candlelight. The Staff of Jesus lay hidden at the cathedral’s heart, displayed only to the canons who worshipped above.

According to their abbey’s records, one hundred and sixty-four years had passed since St Malachy had wrested the staff from Niall mac Edan. In all the time since it had rested on this hallowed hill, the cathedral, the city and Ireland itself changing around it. If sentient the staff would have perceived the distant convulsions of war as the English had come, first as adventurers, then under the command of their kings. It would have smelled the fires of destruction and heard the marching footsteps of the conquerors as they took the east coast from Wexford to Dublin and Antrim; felt the hammer blows as the earth was quarried for stone to construct new towns and castles that were heaved up to dominate the country they now controlled. Would Malachy, their blessed founder, even recognise what had become of the land outside these walls? Donnell turned, his eyes shining in the candlelight, as his brothers emerged from the darkness he had left behind.

Murtough moved past him, slowing as he approached the plinth, his gaze going from the staff to the iron grate above. Cautious, but eager, he stepped forward and took hold of the crosier. One of the others opened a cloth bag for him to lower the relic into. With the staff secured and Donnell lighting the way, the men hastened through the crypt, leaving the psalms of the cathedral’s canons to fade behind them.