Seek the Fair Land

by Walter Macken

  He heard, sensed that the priest was beside him.

  He felt the hand on his shoulder and heard the soft voice saying: ‘Dominick! Dominick!’ and he turned on him then, on one knee and one hand. It made it worse to see tears in the eyes of the priest.

  ‘You never knew her!’ he shouted at him. ‘What do you know about her? You knew nothing about her. Nobody did. But me. What she was. The wonder of her, that could make a daydream or a wakeful night seem like a tale of fairy enchantment. You don’t know love, what it is, how it grows and develops, the depths of it, the height of it.’

  ‘I know,’ said Father Sebastian.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Dominick shouted. ‘You love a dream. Not reality. Here and now. Flesh and blood. Flesh and blood. Sought and found. Real, substantial, wonderful. A haven here and now. Not a heaven which might be but is not seen. I saw it with her. But nobody knows what she was. There’s nobody left in the world that I can talk about her to. Nobody on the face of the world. Would God do that? Why? To me and to her? Killing her like that. She was good. She was filled with goodness. She was dedicated to goodness. Why like that? Like a speared pig. Why would God do that? No, it cannot be. We are all just animals. She was as innocent as the babies whose brains they dashed out against a wall. But what had she done? What had they done to deserve death like that? Tell me!’

  ‘They were paying for us,’ said Sebastian. ‘ Innocent blood so that even their executioners might be saved.’

  ‘Dung,’ said Dominick. ‘Just dung. Spare me that. She was mine. I needed her and she was killed like a pig.’

  His face was buried in the grass.

  ‘God must have wanted her more than you did,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘Don’t talk to me,’ said Dominick. ‘ I heard it all before. It’s just words, words, words. What is reality? What is meaning? I have a hole in my heart. I am desolate. I can’t go on. I will die.’

  ‘Oh, Dominick,’ said Father Sebastian, but never went on, because from across the stream came the shouts of men on horseback. Father Sebastian looked. There were about twelve of them. They had seen the two men in the middle of the meadow. They were hallooing, like the huntsmen who chased the stag or the fox or the wolf.

  He reached down, pulled Dominick to his feet.

  ‘Dominick,’ he said, ‘come on, run, oe we will surely die.’

  ‘Let us die then,’ said Dominick, watching the hunters with swollen eyes.

  ‘Let us die and they will get Man and Peter,’ said Father Sebastian. ‘What will they do to Man, dear Dominick? Do you want Man’s brains dashed out against the trunk of a tree?’

  He was pulling at Dominick, hauling at him.

  And Dominick started to run, at first mechanically and then seriously, a picture flashing in front of his mind of the little girl in the half silk dress with her eyes closed and a chain of fading flowers on her black curls.

  It was up the hill. He was exhausted, but Father Sebastian gave him a start, almost lifting his feet off the ground, tearing the shirt from his back with the strength of his pulling arm.

  They didn’t look back over their shoulders. They kept their eyes on the trees of the wood and ran for them.

  Behind, the horses closed on them, saddle leather creaking, wildly shouting men in the saddles, hurrooing and waving long swords over their heads.

  It seemed a very long way to the trees.

  It seemed a very short way to death.

  Chapter Eight

  THEY REACHED the trees. But here at the edge of the woods the spaces between the trees were wide and there was little scrub, so it seemed as if there was no chance for them.

  Dominick had to make a tremendous effort to prevent his arms from rising to cover his head as he ran. He could hear the thunder of the hooves. Almost he could hear the whistling of the horses’ breath. From the side of his left eye he could see Father Sebastian running strongly.

  No time for tears, Dominick thought. You are allowed no time for weeping. I am a weak man. All the canons that I had created. All the rules of the woods. You mustn’t do this and you must do that, and he had done all the things he shouldn’t have done, had hurled caution to the winds, and now he was going to die and his children would die with him and the priest he had enticed from the woods with his own weakness.

  Suddenly from behind him, and it seemed from all around him, there were shouts and yells, the sound of pistol shots and the heavier sound of muskets being discharged. Instinctively he drew in his shoulderblades expecting to feel a ball tearing into his back. But nothing hit him and when he reached the heavy scrub he didn’t dive into it but turned and faced back.

  It seemed impossible that it could have happened in so short a time. But twelve soldiers were lying on the ground and twelve horses were standing still, good trained horses. Some of the soldiers were obscured from his sight by the men who were bending over them using their knives efficiently on the wounded. There were about twenty of them. Even now some of them were swinging to the ground from the trees, holding their muskets in their hands. They were all bearded men dressed in odds and ends of clothing, but all tall and all strong and all of them having the bearing of soldiers. They were laughing. They were talking in Irish. One saying to the other: ‘Did you see the way …’ They were casual about it, stabbing their knives into the ground to clean them.

  Dominick looked to his right. Father Sebastian was standing as stock still as he was himself, and then he started to walk towards the men. Dominick followed him.

  Out of the confusion a tall man with a fair beard and long hair, dressed in the tunic of a Cromwellian Colonel, came towards them.

  ‘It was little but ye were spitted,’ he said. He laughed. He clapped a hand on his thigh. ‘We had laid a trail for them. We wanted horses. Then ye became hares for us. It was better that way. Otherwise they might have been more cautious coming into the woods.’

  ‘We thank you for our lives,’ said Dominick.

  ‘Thanks are returned to you,’ said the man, ‘lives were never cheaper than they are today. You want to be more careful.’

  Father Sebastian was going around looking at the dead soldiers.

  ‘You have restored my faith,’ said Dominick.

  ‘How so?’ the man asked.

  ‘I thought there was no more resistance,’ said Dominick. ‘I thought we were all left for the scythe.’

  ‘Don’t believe that,’ the man said. ‘We will all have to be dead before that happens. They don’t know it but they are making a nation out of us.’

  Dominick snorted.

  The man regarded him with his head on one side.

  ‘Friend,’ he said, ‘ you are in despair.’

  ‘I was in Drogheda,’ said Dominick.

  ‘All right,’ said the man. ‘Put the name on a flag and carry it over your shoulder. The towns are dead, but they will rise again with new men. The people till the earth and live in the woods. They will always till the earth until it belongs to them again.’ He turned and shouted at his men. ‘ Strip the boots and the weapons,’ he called to them, ‘ and bury them back in the quarry. Throw them on the horses.’

  Dominick walked past him. Father Sebastian was kneeling on the ground over a soldier. The soldier had raised himself on an elbow. His helmet had fallen off. Dominick as he saw his face felt cold shivers running up and down his back. He could never forget that face, even though then he had been looking up at it and there was a fog on his mind. A thin-faced, big-toothed, flaxen-haired man. There were blood bubbles coming out of his mouth, Dominick stood looking at him over the priest’s shoulder. His hands were clenched.

  ‘This is the one! This is the one!’ he shouted. He bent, pulled the man’s own sword from his scabbard and raised it high. The tenseness in his voice brought the attention of the others to him. Father Sebastian caught his wrist, as the sword point was about to enter the man’s stomach. ‘Dominick?’ said Father Sebastian.

  ‘He’s the one,’ said Dominick. ‘The very one. H
e told me, I talked to him. Under her breast in and out. He told me. Free my hand!’

  Father Sebastian’s jaw tightened.

  He released his grip on Dominick’s wrist.

  ‘There you are, Dominick,’ he said. ‘ Kill him. Slaughter him. He’s a dying man. Plunge your sword in his guts. That’s the way, Dominick. You have learnt a lot, Dominick.’

  Dominick was looking at him with glazed eyes. There was a tense silence in the woods.

  ‘Hurry, Dominick,’ the priest shouted. ‘In another few moments he might be dead and you won’t have the chance. He’s your enemy. Kill him. That’s what you have been brought up to believe, isn’t it? Perish him, Dominick. What are you waiting for? There’s not enough blood spilt in the world. Kill him dead, can’t you?’

  Dominick saw the angry face, the hurt eyes of the priest. The upper part of his face was white under the brown from anger.

  He dropped the sword.

  ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ he said.

  ‘Father,’ said the tall fair man. ‘I knew there was something about you. God sent you. You are looking at a band of sinners that never, needed confession more in their lives. Up to three weeks ago we had our own priest but one time he waited to bury the dead and they got him. Father, you will listen to us?’

  Father Sebastian looked at Dominick. Dominick was regarding the dying soldier with wide eyes. Then he turned from him.

  ‘I will listen to ye,’ he said, ‘ and tell me who was your priest?’

  He walked away with, the fair man. The others were stripping the bodies with great dexterity. One man came to Dominick and hauled off the boots of the soldier, unclipped his belt.

  ‘Would you like me to send him off for you?’ he asked Dominick.

  ‘Let him lie,’ said Dominick. ‘ He hasn’t long.’

  He got down on his knees and searched the soldier’s pouch.

  His name was Martin Rokeby. He was a ploughman. He was aged twenty-four years. He was illiterate. There was a paper signed ‘Martin Rokeby, his mark’. There were some coins and a gold-plated cross that had been torn from a rosary. Four of the beads, wooden ones with silver cups around them, and a piece of the silver chain. Dominick took the cross and put the other things back. He looked at the dying man.

  His face was green-tinged. There were cold beads of sweat on his forehead. His eyes were open. They were blue. They were glazing over. There were bubbles of blood coming over his thick lips.

  ‘Nits make lice,’ he said.

  Dominick heard the sentence clearly. He bent over and wiped the man’s forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

  ‘Why,’ he breathed. ‘That’s why. You must kill kids. Or they will be goats. And they will creep back, like lice, and take the land again when they have all been killed. Take your sickle and your scythe. But not women too because they are soft. They are the same. Is it right?’

  ‘No, Martin Rokeby,’ said Dominick. ‘It is not right.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ The words were very thick now in his blood-filled throat. ‘ It’s not right. But why, tell me why, sir? Just tell me why, sir?’

  That was all he said. He died. And something happened to Dominick that he didn’t believe possible. Tears came to his eyes. Not for himself. He was sick of himself. Not for Eibhlin – he had cried out his heart for her – but for this young, bewildered, foreign soldier dying in a foreign land. Who would ever know what became of him? What he had done was truly the work of the Lord, Who didn’t will it, or ordain it but permitted it, for a reason, dear God, because there must be a reason else everything is chaos and there is no past, present, or future.

  ‘Is he gone?’ a voice asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dominick, ‘ he’s gone.’

  ‘Well, hoist him in a hurry,’ the man said. ‘My soul is as black as a deep bog and I’ll have to get to the priest.’

  Dominick took the man’s legs and helped the other to hoist him, feet and head hanging, on the horse’s back. Then he watched as the man led the horse away.

  Dominick walked through the trees. Behind him nothing remained in the clearing of death but broken twigs, blood soaking into the ground, and horse manure. That was all. In a few days the wood would have eliminated all the signs of the brief struggle where a dozen men had been wiped out as if they had never existed. Truly anonymous death.

  He found Man and Peter in the priest’s shelter. She had folded all the hurriedly discarded vestments and placed them neatly on the makeshift altar. She was sitting there with her arm around her brother. Poor Man!

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Daddy,’ she said, ‘ where did you go?’

  ‘Just for a walk, Man,’ he said.

  ‘We heard things,’ she said. ‘We were afraid.’

  He sat beside them.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Man,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t be afraid. Your father won’t ever run away again.’

  ‘Am I near an angel now, Daddy?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll never be nearer, Man,’ he said. ‘ I have a gift for you.’

  ‘You have?’ she asked.

  ‘Look,’ he said, and held out the cross.

  ‘Oh, it’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Is it for me? Can I keep it?’

  ‘It’s for you and you can keep it,’ he said. ‘Some day we will get a most beautiful chain for it.’

  ‘We will?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ Just for now, we’ll mount it on a cord and put it around your neck.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and watched him as he mounted it Peter was looking at all this with wide pleased eyes. He placed it around her neck and tied it at the back. He wondered at how soft and innocent her flesh was as his hard palms touched her shoulders. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him.

  ‘Are you sad because Mammy is lost on us?’ She asked him. All Dominick’s bones started to scream at the question, but he swallowed and relaxed his muscles.

  ‘Yes, Man,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we won’t see Mammy any more.’

  ‘Father Sebastian told me that she is much happier,’ said Man. ‘He said she is spared all the travelling and living in the woods that we do. Isn’t that right? Sure Mammy wouldn’t like all that, Daddy?’ she asked.

  ‘It wouldn’t be good for her,’ he said.

  ‘So it’s as well she is gone,’ said Man. ‘Don’t you believe Father Sebastian?’

  ‘Some of the time,’ said Dominick. ‘We must go now and get the rabbits and cook them. It’s getting late. We’ll have to walk more tonight, Man. Will you mind that?’

  ‘Oh no, Daddy,’ she said. ‘One gets weary in the one place all the time.’

  Dominick laughed.

  ‘Oh, Man,’ he said. ‘ One day I’ll settle. We’ll have a house of our own again.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ said Man.

  They went back to their own shelter and Dominick skinned and cleaned the rabbits, and cut them up, and they came back and built the fire and spitting the quarters started to cook them.

  They were cooked and scenting the air when Dominick heard the breaking twigs. He gathered the two children and swept them behind a tree. I know it’s not likely, he thought, but I will never take a chance again.

  He waited there until he saw Father Sebastian and the tall fair man coming into the clearing and looking around. Then he went to meet them.

  ‘Ah,’ said Father Sebastian, ‘Rory wanted to see you.’

  ‘I’d like to address your daughter,’ said Rory. ‘I hear she had a big day.’

  ‘This is Mary Ann,’ said Dominick. This is Rory. Rory is a soldier who came in the nick of time, Mary Ann.’

  She looked at him. He was very tall. He had clear grey eyes, and he was smiling. She went to meet him. She held out her hand. He bent and took it and kissed it. Mary Ann laughed.

  ‘That’s funny,’ she said, ‘your beard tickled me.’

  ‘And Peter,’ said Dominick, bringing him out by the hand.

  R
ory gravely shook hands with him.

  ‘On account of the great day,’ he said, ‘ I would be pleased if you would accept a gift from me, Miss MacMahon.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Mary Ann.

  He reached inside his tunic and brought forth a most beautiful blue and white coloured silk kerchief.

  ‘Oh!’ said Mary Ann.

  He got on one knee and tied it around her shoulders.

  ‘Oh!’ said Man, preening herself. ‘Thank you. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It belonged to my lady,’ said Rory. ‘She would be pleased for you to have it.’

  ‘Oh, I love it,’ said Man.

  ‘Now I must leave you,’ said Rory. ‘You ought to leave too. This place will be unsafe for some time.’

  ‘See what I got, Dominick,’ said Father Sebastian. He was holding out a Mass book and a gilt chalice. ‘God is good. He had to make a martyr so that I could have them.’

  ‘Thanks for all you have done.’ said Dominick.

  ‘Walk back with me,’ said Rory. ‘I want to talk to you. Goodbye, Miss MacMahon. Could I hope for the pleasure of a kiss?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Man, who was rubbing her palms on the silk scarf. She kissed him. He looked sadly at her and at pudgy Peter, and then he walked away with Dominick beside him.

  ‘I wanted your priest to come with us,’ he said, ‘ but he felt that the Lord wanted him with you.’

  Dominick tried to think of themselves without the priest. How often he had wished that he was anywhere but with them. Now the thought of being deprived of him would not be good.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said.

  ‘He told me about you,’ said Rory. ‘There are people worse off than you. They killed my wife too. Unfortunately I had great possessions and they wanted them and no future claimants. So they killed my three children too. They said nits make lice. They killed her first, so she didn’t see.’