The Celtic Riddle (14 page)

"And he'd say the same thing about the other gifts, one of which was
a magic cauldron belonging to the Dagda, the father god, that came from
the magic city of Murias. The Dagda's cauldron was supposedly never
empty, no matter how many people came to eat. Now there is no question
that there were Celtic cauldrons with ritual importance. There is one
called the Gun-destrup Cauldron, for example, a silver and gilt
cauldron from Gundestrup in Denmark, which is thought to date to the
first or second centuries B.C. It shows a horned or antlered deity of
some kind, possibly Cer-nunnos. So Da would say that there really was a
cult or ritual cauldron to be found in Ireland that could have been
believed in those days to be the Dagda's cauldron, without its magical
properties, of course."

"That's why he collected those iron cauldrons!" I said. "And the
other two magical objects?"

"The Spear of Lugh, who was the Tuatha de god referred to often as
Lugh the Shining, or Lugh of the Long Arm. His spear was supposed to
guarantee victory. Then there was the Sword of Nuada Argat-lam, Nuada
Silver Hand in Denny's story, from which no one ever escaped."

"Ah," I said. "Your father's sword and spear collection!"

"Yes," she said. "He was looking for the cult or ritual spear and
sword."

"Did he think he had found them?" Alex asked.

"No, he didn't. But he kept looking. It was his passion. There was
one sword, the one on the desk, that he thought might be the one, the
metal equivalent of the Stone of Scone. It dates to Iron Age Ireland,
so who's to say?"

"So are you saying that the treasure might be one of these things?
The cauldron or another sword or spear?"

"Maybe," she replied. "Or something else, of course. He studied the
myths for clues all the time, read all the ancient documents he could
lay his hands on. He was a little obsessed about it, there's no
question, and sometimes as his daughter, I felt as if he was more
interested in his search than in me. I found it intensely irritating
after a while, to be called Banba, instead of Breeta."

"Who or what is Banba?" Jennifer asked.

"One-third of the triple goddess of the Tuatha de Danaan: Banba,
Fotla, and Eriu. All three were names of Ireland at some point in time,
but Eriu, through an agreement with Amairgen, actually, won out in the
end. Erin is a form of Eriu."

"So you and your sisters were named-nicknames, of sorts-after three
goddesses."

She nodded. "It was nice at first, to be named for a goddess, but
after a while, I thought it was merely a mark of my father's obsession
with these mythological creatures. And who wants to be named after a
goddess associated with the pig, which Banba was, particularly when
you're the size I am? Anyway," she said, looking at her watch. "That's
enough ancient Irish history for one night. I have to catch the bus
back into Killarney."

"Why don't you stay at Second Chance?" Michael said.

"No thanks," she replied. "I'm not comfortable there anymore."

Michael had a "my place?" look in his eyes, which Breeta was
ignoring.

"Speaking of Second Chance," I said, "if I were you, I'd get the
tortoise, Vigs, out of there."

Breeta looked alarmed.

"I don't think your mother likes him," I said. Now that was an
understatement. I hoped we weren't already too late, and the family
wasn't slurping turtle soup even as we spoke. "Michael!" she exclaimed.
"Will you get Vigs out of there for me?"

"I will," he replied. "I'll take him to my place."

"Tonight!" she said.

"Yes, all right. Tonight," he agreed.

Alex and I walked them to the door. "Can I give you a lift?" I said.

"No, but thanks," she said.

"I'll walk you to the bus, Bree," Michael said.

She smiled at him. "Only if you promise me you'll go to the house
and get Vigs afterwards," she said.

"I promise," he said. "I'll go tonight for certain. I'll creep in,
so the family won't hear me, and spirit old Vigs away. I'm going to
start looking for the treasure tomorrow," he called back. "First thing.
It's my day off. Will you help us find it?"

I looked at Alex. He nodded. "Okay," I said. "Why not?"

"Do you promise?" Michael asked.

"Yes, I promise," I said.

He grinned. "Good. Let's get an early start. I'll be here at eight
tomorrow morning. Okay?"

"Okay," Alex and I said in unison.

The street was slick with rain, but only a light drizzle was now
falling. The air felt fresh and good after the heat and smoke of the
pub. Several people were out on the street, their collars turned up
against the damp. A few yards away, Fionuala was getting into her car,
and idly, I wondered where her husband, soon to be ex, was. It was
definitely, I decided, none of my business.

Alex and I stood watching Breeta and Michael until they were almost
out of sight, he walking his bicycle with one hand, holding Breeta's
hand with the other. It was the happiest I'd seen her, and him for that
matter, and I couldn't bring myself to tell them that Amair- gen's
clues led just about nowhere, that the second clue, retrieved with such
drama, contained the same old chicken scratches the first one did. It
could wait until tomorrow.

"Eight o'clock tomorrow," he called back again, just as they were
about to round a corner. "I'll be at your door at eight."

As I watched them disappear around the corner, I had this flash of
insight the way you sometimes do. It was hard to tell with that layer
of insulation about her, but I was pretty sure I knew who the all of us
that Michael had room for were. It was Michael, Breeta and her as yet
unborn child. Breeta Byrne was pregnant.

Chapter Seven

THE BEAUTY OF A PLANT

WE found Michael in his garden, among the roses, out of sight of the
house. Eight o'clock had come and gone; then eight-thirty; then nine.
He was lying facedown, and from the look of the tracks in the mud
behind him, he had dragged himself a hundred agonizing yards before he
died. There was not a mark on him that I could see. But if John Herlihy
had not fallen forty feet onto a pile of rocks, perhaps there'd have
been no mark on him either.

Better trained eyes than mine found the tiny tear in the fabric of
his jeans, the puncture in the skin behind his knee. "Poison," they
said. "If only someone had found him in time."

In his rigid hand, Michael held a torn piece of paper so tightly it
was as if he'd wrestled the Devil himself for it. EONB, it said, and
Second Cha. The ragged clue was marked as the seventh, 'The beauty o.' "

I remember two things about that horrible moment when we found him.
One is the light. The sun, preter-naturally bright, seemed to have
sucked the color from all the flowers, the blood from the roses, the
heart from the purple hydrangeas, the living breath from the ivy. The
other was the sound: Breeta, beside me, making small animal noises,
like a kitten being drowned or a child's pet strangled.

And then, some days later, I found myself in a churchyard. It was
raining, a bone-chilling drizzle, as it damn well should have been.
Michael's coffin, adorned with the flowers he had coaxed into life-a
bunch of white roses, a spray or two of tiny orchids- was lowered into
the ground. He was buried less than a hundred yards from where he was
born. The priest spoke of dust and ashes. I could taste both of them in
my mouth.

I looked about the churchyard. There were many among the mourners I
did not recognize, townspeople, Michael's friends. Breeta was there,
standing apart from the others. Her eyes were strangely opaque, and she
twisted her handkerchief over and over. Sometimes her lips moved, but
no sound came out. At some point, I edged over to try to comfort her,
but she turned away.

My friends were there: Alex with a look of inconsolable sadness;
Jennifer, ashen, realizing for the first time, perhaps, that people her
age can die. Looking at her, I remembered the feeling of suffocating
panic as I lost her for a moment in the cold sea. I looked at Rob who,
as a policeman should know sudden death, but whose face barely hid his
pain. I came to know as I stood there that it is not possible to be
inured to the death of anyone, let alone someone so young, so fine, as
Michael. I knew Rob was thinking of Jennifer too. Maeve Minogue was
there, in uniform, her face solemn and sad, but also watchful.

Padraig Gilhooly stood way to the back, dark, enigmatic, and
solitary. From time to time, he looked over toward Breeta, but made no
move in her direction. Ma-lachy, Kevin, and Denny clung to each other
as if together they could outwit death.

On the other side of the churchyard was the rest of the Byrne
family, all in black, protected from the rain by large black umbrellas
that reminded me of black sails on death ships. Deirdre of the Sorrows
stood with them, but alone. She looked as if her heart would break. I
saw Margaret, who reminded me of nothing so much as a large black crow;
Eithne, more tremulous than ever; Fionuala, a little startled somehow.
Conail O'Connor was not among them nor anywhere to be seen. Sean McHugh
was, though, looking bored, as if there from a sense of noblesse oblige
alone, the lord of the manor at the funeral of his vassal.

As I looked across at him, I had a stirring of memory of that
fateful morning, which was coming back to me slowly and in flashes,
under the careful prodding of Rob and Garda Minogue: Sean McHugh, who
appeared at the sound of our cries, tapping Michael's body with his
foot. In my head, I knew he was trying to see if he could wake him. In
my heart, I saw it as the most callous of gestures, one that ripped
open McHugh's soul for all to see, a shrivelled and blackened shell.

I looked at the Byrne family across the great gulf that was
Michael's grave and coffin, and I realized, that with the exception of
Deirdre, I hated them. He'd asked what there was to lose, looking for
the treasure, and now the answer was clear. I knew in that instant that
if I could bring every single one of them down, I would. I came to
terms with the fact that I was very, very angry. I would avenge him if
I could. But even more than that, I had a suffocating sense of a
creeping evil that threatened everyone I held most dear: Alex, who as
one of the recipients of Byrne's largesse, was surely a potential
victim; Jennifer, who might have drowned that day on the water, a
careless casualty in a vicious game.

Then I remembered I had made a promise to Michael Davis. I told him
I would help him find the treasure. I felt I would do anything to
fulfill that promise, not just because I had made it, but because to
find the treasure seemed the only way to put an end to the horror. But
even as I thought this, I knew I had no idea where or how to start. All
I had was a chant, an ancient spell, perhaps, recited by a Celt who
might or might not have existed, and two clues the poem had led us to,
clues that told me nothing, just scribbling, a cruel joke perhaps, of a
bitter, dying man.

The priest was talking about God, and I concentrated on that, and on
the ancient Celtic deities, the Dagda, Lugh the Shining, the triple
goddess, Banba, Fotla, and Eriu. And I thought whoever or whatever is
out there, I could use a little help.

Then the wind whipped the sea into whitecaps, and the rain swept in
undulating sheets across the land, like a lace curtain in the breeze,
and I had a horrible feeling that in looking for divine assistance I
had blasphemed, and the gods were warning me with this rain. The
service over, people headed for cover, some to the church, others to
their cars to steal away. Denny left with some people I took to be his
family. Rob walked Maeve to her car.

Alex, Malachy and Kevin, Jennifer and I ducked under some trees to
wait it out, hoods pulled over our heads, shoulders hunched against the
damp. It was inexpressibly dreary.

"Very bad day," I said to Kevin. It was all I could manage to say.

"The worst," he sadly agreed. Then, just as suddenly as it began, it
was over. The sun came out, and with it, not one, but two rainbows
arched across the sky. It was breathtakingly beautiful, almost
painfully so, the world's colors back again, huge drops of rain on the
large leaves of a plant nearby. I thought of Amairgen's ray of sun and
the beauty of a plant. I looked out across the little cemetery, the
headstones worn until the names on them could barely be deciphered, the
carved figures fading with time, now just a little clearer because of
the rain. At one corner of the graveyard, just a few feet away, stood a
single stone, a miniature and rough obelisk, about three or four feet
high. Carved on one face at the top of it, I could see a Celtic cross.
Below that a series of cuts, some straight, some angled, had been
slashed into the stone along one edge. I turned away, but then looked
back again. I knew my prayer had been answered. I saw that help had
come. Alex followed my glance across the graveyard. "Good heavens!" he
exclaimed.

"Ogham," Alex said, "an ancient Celtic script and the first known
written language in Ireland. Named for Og-mios, sometimes called Oghma,
the Celtic god of poetry, eloquence, and speech, and the supposed
inventor of the script. It's thought to have originated in this part of
Ireland and is apparently based on the names of trees. As I understand
it, it's a linear script composed of groups of lines, up to five of
them, either horizontal or angled from upper left to lower right,
across a vertical spine or stemline. In the case of the standing stone
we saw in the cemetery, the sharp edge on one of the front corners of
the slab was the vertical stemline. The slashes, if you'll remember,
went to either side of that edge of the stone.

"Now, each group of lines can be made to correspond to a letter in
the Roman alphabet. Some groups of lines cross the vertical stem,
others are restricted to either the right or left of it. The position
of the lines relative to the vertical is important. Do you understand
what I'm saying?"