A Game of Sorrows (43 page)

‘I managed to get away, through the back yards, to the Presbyterian meeting house where I knew I would be given shelter for as long as I needed it, as long as it took to clear my name of having killed Henry Blackstone.’

‘It is cleared already.’

‘How so?’

‘Cormac O’Neill cleared both our names of the charge.’

‘Cormac? I do not understand.’

‘His love for Deirdre is stronger than his concern for himself, or any petty jealousies he might have of you. He cleared our names that there might be someone left whom he could trust to care for her, as he could do no longer. Whatever you might think, he is an honourable man.’

Andrew was silent a few moments, not shame-faced but regretful. ‘He was an honourable man. He is no more; Cormac O’Neill was executed in the castle yard an hour before dawn.’

I had known it could not end for him any other way: he had chosen his path and that was what had lain at the end of it, and yet I wished it might have been different. A man who should have been a prince: at least he had had the dignity in death of not being made a public spectacle for the crowd.

‘And what has this to do with Margaret?’

‘Margaret? Yes. The Blackstones. I took shelter from them in the Presbyterian meeting house. Whenever the weather is too severe for me to walk out to Templecorran, and the Scots congregation there, I worship with our English brethren in the town. On my first night there, there was divine service. I felt sorely in need of hearing the Word, after our days surrounded by the trappings and practices of idolatry.’

‘Which saved your life,’ I sought to remind him, but he had stayed firmer than had I, and was quick in his riposte.

‘No, Alexander. Never that, only God, always God. The priests and the nun and all their places were but the instruments of God’s Grace to us: they were not the cause of it.’

I should have been ashamed that my own faith had been so easily swayed, but I could not be, and so said nothing in my defence.

‘Anyhow, I attended the service, and was glad to see Margaret there too, and to learn that she and you had found safe quarters in the castle. I had nothing with me – not so much as a change of clothes, and certainly no bible – and so we shared Margaret’s. Despite their poverty, she and her brothers were taught to read and write, and she has always prized her bible above all things. I wish I could have loved her.’

‘That might have come,’ I said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I will love only once.’ He breathed deep. ‘The psalms were strong that night, assured of God’s power in the face of all that might assault his people. They recalled the struggle of Israel with the Philistines, and gave much hope to the congregation, I think, for the days of danger to come. We shared her bible, Margaret and I, as the reader took us through the passages on which the minister was to preach. We followed him line for line as he intoned them for all the congregation. But as we turned the pages, I noticed that one was torn. It was in the Book of Exodus.
Chapter 21
had been torn out.’

‘“Now these are the judgements which thou shalt set before them.”’

He handed me a thin, crumpled piece of paper. Had I not been able to read it, I would have known instantly by the feel of it that it was a page from a bible.

‘This was the scripture you found in her pouch?’

He nodded.

I smoothed out the paper, and my eye was drawn instantly to the words scored under in ink: ‘“if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.”’

Andrew continued where the passage had also been marked. ‘“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”’

‘Brother for brother,’ I said.

He looked up. ‘It does not say that in the scriptures.’

‘No, but it might well have done. She killed Sean near the altar because she thought he was one of those who had murdered her brother, and she sought to murder me because I had told her I knew what it was to lose a brother, for Sean had been mine.’

He sat down, his face drained of what little colour it had. ‘When did you tell her this, Alexander?’

‘Yesterday, in the castle kitchens. I knew she had some great hostility towards me; I wanted to build some bridge of trust, of fellowship between us, and I believed that would do it.’

He rubbed his eyes and looked to the heavens. ‘I have been a fool, such a fool.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The very first time Margaret saw you, in her mother’s cottage – you remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘She thought for a moment you were Sean. She could not believe that I had brought him to their home. I assured her you were not, and tried to tell her he had had nothing to do with the murder of her brother. I thought I had convinced her, for she left that subject but told me I must be mistaken in you, that no two men could look so much alike who were not brothers. I laughed at her, Alexander, I was almost going to tell you, but I forgot about it soon after we left their place. And then when I heard what Stephen had told you of your mother, and Sean, and that you were his brother, I did not think of Margaret’s words but of what it meant for you. Even when I saw the torn passage in her bible, I did not realise what she was going to do.’

‘You could not have been expected to.’

‘But I should have done.’

‘Andrew, whatever else has happened between us, last night you saved my life.’

‘A moment later, and I would have been too late. I had been so certain that Murchadh had had Sean killed that I did not think to look elsewhere. I only followed Margaret last night because I was worried about her, her manner had become strange. I saw her enter the church, and thought perhaps she wished a moment’s quiet prayer. When I saw a man moving through the graveyard towards the door, I became anxious, and then when you stepped beneath the portal and I saw in the light from the door that it was you, doors began to unlock in my mind. It did not make sense that you should have an assignation, you who were so much like Sean, and she who hated him so much. Even as you walked through the door, your very walk was his. It was a moment before it came to me, a sight of something I had not seen – of Sean going through that same door on the night of his death. And then I knew. I ran through the churchyard, not caring whose bones I stood upon, and only just got to the door in time to see her lift her arm. I am sorry, Alexander. I could have stopped it if I had not been so slow.’

He was genuinely distraught that he had not prevented the attack.

‘Why did you stop her?’ I managed to say at last.

‘Alexander…’

‘Would it not have been better,’ I paused to gather my strength a little. ‘Would it not have been better to have let her kill me?’

He shook his head slowly, his face the image of incomprehension. ‘After all we had been through, even had I not been a Christian, why would I have let her kill you when I could do anything to stop it?’

‘Because you have doubted me for some time now, have you not?’

He looked away and then back at me. ‘Perhaps. Yes, I have doubted you. Since Ardclinnis; before that, even. Since they took you alone to Dun-a-Mallaght. I think that was why Sean brought you to Ireland.’

‘I think so too, but I was never for a moment tempted to take his place. This is not my world, and these are not my people.’

‘Are you certain of that?’

I had thought long and hard on this for the last few days. ‘Had I been born, raised here; had I been brought up in their faith, then yes, perhaps it would be different. But I was not; a man cannot live in two worlds; he must choose. You told me so yourself.’

‘And you have chosen?’

‘Yes, I have chosen. And I would leave here this very day, if I had the strength, but I have not yet the strength, and there is one thing I must know before I go.’

He looked at me expectantly, as if it was from him that I waited for my answer.

‘The curse,’ I said. ‘Pretext or no for bringing me over here, it was real enough, its intent real enough, and much of the harm predicted in it has come to pass. It was not Margaret who was behind it, nor Cormac. Finn O’Rahilly is dead, but his patron I believe is still alive, and I cannot leave Deirdre and Macha here until I have found that person out. I owe as much to Sean, and to the love that I bear them both, and to my nephew yet unborn.’

He laid a hand on my arm. ‘And I will be with you in that quest, Alexander. And when we have discovered who it is, and we have dealt with them, I will be here and look after those you love, long after you have returned to that other life you have chosen. But I must go to the sheriff, and tell them of Margaret, and bring these evidences to them, and then see what further orders they might have for me at the castle. Rest now, and gather your strength and your thoughts, for what it remains for us to do. Finn O’Rahilly can tell us nothing more than you already learned from him. When you are better recovered, we must plunder your mind for the answers he can no longer give.’

Andrew left me then, and left the FitzGarrett house, a servant no more.

‘Do not even consider walking through that door. I will have it bolted from the outside if you do not give me your word that you will stay in here.’

It was the following morning, and Andrew had found me standing at the end of my bed and with intent to go further. A night’s rest in sheets rather than straw had restored enough of my strength that I could walk a few steps unsupported without fear of falling. The pain from my wound was sharper, more insistent now though. Deirdre had done what she could, but it was clear some sort of infection was setting in. Remembering one of Jaffray’s methods, when all other means were lacking, I had asked him last night for a little
whisky
to clean the wound, but he had thought I was in jest, and had in a similar vein admonished me that I had been too much amongst my cousin’s associates and that abstinence from vice would do for me what drink and other things could not. I had had neither the energy nor the wit to explain to him properly, and I was paying for it now. I tugged at the bandages.

‘I think it has become infected.’

He lifted the dressing carefully, and this time it was he who winced when he saw what lay beneath. ‘I will send for the doctor.’

‘What about my grandmother? She will know I am here.’

‘Word of Margaret’s death and her guilt in Sean’s murder is all around the town. Your grandmother was up much of the night, busied in commending that girl’s soul to all the punishments of the damned. She is not yet ready to acknowledge your innocence, but she will. You are safe here now.’

The doctor arrived within the hour, and did little more than raise his eyebrows when told the cause of my wound. ‘It is in the blood, it would seem. I treated your cousin, and your uncle before him, for woundings of this nature on more than one occasion. You will be left with a scar that will more than match that on your forehead. Do not tell me that a young girl gave you that too?’

It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about.

‘No, not a young girl. A powerfully-built man with a rock in his hand and an intention to embed it in my skull gifted me that,’ I said, rubbing at the deep gouge in my temple carved out by the provost of Banff, over two years ago.

‘Do you O’Neills never consider the peaceful resolution of disputes?’ he asked, as he steadied his hand to thread the needle that would soon be drawing together the skin at the gash in my neck.

I attempted a smile. ‘I did not know I was an O’Neill, then.’

Later, as darkness was drawing in, Andrew came again to see me, bringing with him a bowl of broth and some bread, ‘and the eager wishes of Deirdre and Macha to see you. Your grandmother will not hear of it. Macha she will not let out of her sight, and she holds Deirdre in scarcely less contempt than she does you.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘She blames her for the death of Cormac.’

‘But that is ridiculous. How could she …?’

‘However ridiculous, Deirdre has joined her in the certainty of her own guilt. I have tried to reason with her but she will have none of it. She says if she had but done what Maeve wanted her to do in the first place, none of this would have happened.’

‘She cannot believe that is true.’

‘More than that, she cries out about the curse, that it is her fault, that she has brought it down upon us.’

‘Andrew, that is madness.’

‘I know it is madness, but she is beyond telling. I begin to fear it might truly send her mad. She says that her only consolation is that she has seen Maeve MacQuillan, and must surely join Sean and Cormac soon.’

‘And my grandmother?’

‘She stokes the fire of her delusions, goads her on, with accusation after accusation.’

She was engulfed in a storm, this cousin, this girl whom I had sworn to Sean and to Cormac that I would protect, and I did not know how to get her to safety; it seemed that here there was no way out for her, no possibility of shelter.

‘What can we do, Andrew?’

‘We? There is nothing we can do until we know for certain that she will allow it to be done.’

A loud banging on the outer door beneath us interrupted our conversation. Andrew ran to look out over the machicolation and I attempted to hobble after him.

‘It is the Blackstones; I must alert them at the castle,’ he said, before rushing down the stairs.

I saw that he was right. Deirdre’s husband Edward was there, and his father Matthew with him. They had in attendance a rabble of men – not the hunting party that had pursued us to Dunluce, but an ill-mounted assortment of what I thought must be brick-makers, builders, tenants, all men in Matthew Blackstone’s pay with little option but to do his bidding. The genial Englishman at whose table Andrew and I had dined a few nights ago was gone, his place taken by an enraged, blustering bull of a man. His own son looked to be in fear of him.

‘Let us in, you conniving whore, or I will break these doors down.’

A servant’s voice replied. ‘You will gain no entrance here. Go back where you came from, if you value your liberty.’