Seek the Fair Land

by Walter Macken

  ‘You were going away,’ said Dominick. ‘Did you go away?’

  ‘I went away,’ said Rory. ‘France, Spain, with a mercenary sword.’

  ‘But Sebastian,’ said Dominick. ‘Sebastian is gone.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rory. ‘ I am here to replace him.’

  ‘You are a priest?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rory with a sigh. ‘I exchanged the sword for the breviary. Exiled soldiers are little use to their country. This is the better way. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dominick, ‘but it’s so strange, so strange. This is my son.’

  ‘Peter,’ said Rory. ‘I know. I have heard many things. Hello, Peter.’

  ‘It’s timing. Such good timing,’ said Peter as he shook hands with him. ‘We wanted a priest. We haven’t seen one since Sebastian died. But we need one now for a special cause. I am not surprised but you had to come. You remember Mary Ann, do you?’

  ‘I remember her,’ said Rory. ‘ It was her first Communion and I gave her a kerchief.’

  ‘Now you can give her a husband,’ said Peter. ‘Are you laughing, Father?’ he asked of Dominick. ‘You see how Mary Ann always gets her way, how all things always work for Mary Ann.’

  ‘I’m not laughing now,’ said Dominick. ‘ Maybe I’ll laugh tomorrow,’ He moved towards the closed door. ‘Come into our house, Rory,’ he said. ‘All that we have is yours.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ONE MORNING, before the summer, Murdoc finally came forth from his room, like a great bear awakening from hibernation. A shaft of light from the narrow window was blinding in his eyes. His mouth was dry and foul.

  He sat up. There was a tankard of water beside him on a polished bronze platter. He took it up and drank greedily. The water ran down his bearded chin and down on to his naked hairy chest. He shivered under the impact of it. Then he poured some of the water into his palm and rubbed it on his face and over his hair.

  He groaned.

  He took up the bronze platter, rubbed it with his arm and looked at it. He saw a hairy devil glaring back at him with putted eyes. He threw it from him. It rang as it hit the stone wall. He pulled on and belted his trousers. His head was aching but his brain seemed to him at last to be clear. He knew what he was going to do.

  He went down the stone stairs in his bare feet with his shirt in his hand. A grey-haired woman in the room below who was talking to the little three-year-old boy, looked at him.

  ‘Where is she?’ he asked her.

  She inclined her head towards the yard outside. Then he noticed his son. He went over to him. He held out his naked arms.

  ‘Tadhg,’ he said, ‘come to your father.’

  The small black-eyed little boy did not. He shrank back against the woman. ‘I frighten him, Catriona,’ said Murdoc.

  ‘You would frighten the devil,’ she said, ‘with the cut of you.’

  ‘I will change that,’ he said.

  He went into the courtyard.

  The light hurt his eyes. He had to blink them many times before he could accustom them to the glare.

  The courtyard was not as he had been accustomed to seeing it. It was empty. There was no smoke coming from the fires. Some of the erected shelters had fallen in on themselves. In places there was grass beginning to grow where no grass had ever grown. He called: ‘Columba! Columba!’

  He waited.

  Then she appeared from one of the houses. Her sleeves were rolled up on her arms. There was white flour on them. She stood there looking at him. She was severely dressed. Her plaited hair was tightly bound to her head. He thought she looked thin. He walked over to her slowly.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ he asked her.

  ‘There is no one else to do it,’ she said.

  ‘Is it that bad?’ he asked.

  ‘It is,’ she said.

  He looked around him.

  ‘I have been sick,’ he said.

  ‘You have not been well,’ she said.

  He looked at her curiously.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave me too?’ he asked. She didn’t answer. These past months seemed like one long nightmare. He had tempered them with strong drink. ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you or say anything evil to you?’ he asked.

  She looked at him, and smiled.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘any evil you did was to yourself.’

  ‘I am going to take you home.’ he said.

  ‘Where is home?’ she asked.

  ‘You have friends in Galway still?’ he asked. ‘ It’s not as bad in there since the evil one died. I am going there. I want you to come with me. We will find out how the land lies. I want you to be there in case I cannot come back. I want to give you time to be free of me, so that you will look at the future and decide on me.’

  ‘What about my son?’ she asked after a pause.

  ‘I have talked to the Joyce,’ he said. ‘ He will foster Tadgh for us. He will be safe with ham. Nobody will hurt him.’

  ‘You know what you are doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know now.’

  ‘I will get things ready,’ she said and walked towards the house. Murdoc’s heart was dreary as he looked after her. Then he went to the pool where they had trapped the mountain stream, blocked it with smooth stones so that the horses could drink here and the women could pound the washing. The water was icy cold He washed his head and his body in it, and he shaved off the thick grey-black stubble from his chin and trimmed his moustache. Sometimes he could see his eyes in the water. They were red-rimmed, and red-veined. They looked sick. But he felt better for the wash.

  He put on his shirt and high leather boots, then he went outside the courtyard and looked towards the stables. He called: ‘Morogh. Morogh Dubh!’ He called again. He didn’t know if Morogh would appear, but he did. He came and looked and then walked slowly towards him.

  Morogh examined him with his eyes.

  ‘You are about?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Murdoc. ‘ We haven’t many left, Morogh?’

  ‘About a fistful in all,’ said Morogh.

  ‘Where are they gone?’ Murdoc asked.

  ‘To their bits of land,’ said Morogh. ‘Some of them have gone to the one at Baile na hlnse. Some to Gnomor. They are scattered.’

  ‘Why did you stay?’ Murdoc asked. Morogh just looked at him.

  ‘You think I was not guilty, eh?’ Murdoc asked.

  ‘I stayed,’ said Morogh.

  ‘I am going,’ said Murdoc. ‘I should be back in six or seven days. Keep the place for me. I expect to come back. If I do not, everything will belong to you and the ones who remained with me, animals, horses, everything. You can strip this all bare. You understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Morogh frowning. ‘I will go with you.’

  ‘No,’ said Murdoc. ‘ Somebody must stay. When I have acted I will be back, and I will accept the allegiance of the ones who turned their backs on me. But most, I will remember my friends. Get three horses ready.’ He turned to go, then he looked back. ‘There is nothing more precious in life, Morogh, than a faithful man. I won’t forget.’

  It didn’t take them long to prepare. Weapons, food, and some extra clothes were all that they needed. Tadgh sat on the horse in front of Columba. They were seen away by Morogh Dubh and Catriona. Just two figures in that big courtyard. Murdoc couldn’t help thinking how it had been before. The milling horses; the bleating sheep; the children playing; the waving hands; the good-humoured shouts, the accompanying on part of the way by the wild young men on the little horses, showing off their horsemanship, standing on the horses’ backs and hurrooing. You were conscious of leaving a thriving community that would be there to welcome you when you returned.

  They were well on their way before he spoke again.

  ‘If we find that Dorsi is dead, Columba,’ he said, ‘will you then marry me?’

  ‘If I can be married to you by a priest,’ she answered, ‘ I will marry you.’

&nbs
p; ‘You know that can’t be,’ he said.

  ‘It can be,’ she said. ‘It is for you to say.’

  ‘But that is something I can’t say,’ he said. ‘ When you decide like I did, it’s not something you do too lightly, and once you have done it is it not easy to undo it. Do you love me?’

  ‘I did,’ she said.

  ‘Or did you love something else, a sort of a dream of me?’ he asked. ‘Was that it?’ He had turned off to the left.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. This is not the way.’

  ‘I am going to call on the little man,’ he said. ‘I have a reason.’ The test of faith, that would be, and what he thought about him. During the last terrible months he had thought about Dominick, of the calm eyes that could become bright with anger, of the methodical incisive way of doing things. He would see. Was human nature altogether fallible?

  ‘Suppose he doesn’t want to see you?’ Columba asked.

  He looked at her. She thinks the worst of me, he thought and who can blame her?

  ‘Somehow I think he will,’ said Murdoc, and spurred on the horse.

  Rory was saying, standing tall with his back to the fire: ‘ No man knows what exactly is the value of his possessions until somebody tries to take them away from him. Do you agree with that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dominick thoughtfully.

  ‘Then you wake up to the value of what you possess and you decide to fight for it, even if you are to be killed fighting. Then you find you are not alone. There are many thousands who have come to the same decision. So out of all the oppression and persecution a people is formed and then a nation.’

  ‘What you are saying is that there won’t be peace for us, even now, is that it?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Rory. ‘It will only mean a change of masters. In fact there might be even worse to come for all we know. That’s one of the reasons why I am here: Where you are an exile all the time you say: Maybe next year I will be going home. Once I was wounded. I was looking at my own blood flowing. When you are a soldier you expect that. But then you say: What cause am I bleeding for? You are bleeding for a foreign cause, on which your heart is not set, and you think: If I have to bleed would it not be better to be bleeding at home?’

  The doorway was darkened. They hadn’t heard the sound of the horses’ hooves on the soft ground.

  Murdoc stood there, his eyes searching. The light from the window was falling on Rory’s face. Murdoc shifted his eyes and found Dominick who was sitting on a bench near the wooden table. Dominick rose to his feet.

  Murdoc came towards him.

  ‘Dominick,’ he said, ‘tell me something. Do you believe I did that thing?’

  ‘No,’ said Dominick immediately.

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Murdoc, almost shocked. ‘But why didn’t you tell me? Why did you leave me? I thought nobody on the face of the earth thought anything of me.’

  ‘I tried to see you,’ said Dominick patiently. ‘Three or four times. You weren’t there or …’

  ‘Or I wasn’t capable,’ said Murdoc. He sat on a stool. He put his head in his hands. Then he raised his face. The light was shining on him now. His face seemed ravaged to Dominick. He didn’t look well. Why didn’t you think so? What made you doubt the evidence?’

  ‘You are too big,’ said Dominick, ‘for a deed so small. That’s all. I’ve known you longer than most people.’

  ‘Coote is so cunning,’ said Murdoc. ‘I almost admired him for it. Would you believe that?’

  ‘Who did it?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘One of ourselves did it,’ said Murdoc. ‘I don’t know who. Sebastian’s God will look after him. Somebody that was jealous of him. I suspect the ollamh who taught the children. He resented the way they loved Sebastian and abandoned, him. It might have been the breithim. I don’t know. There will always be one of us like that. I don’t want to know. What’s the use when it is all over?’

  ‘It’s not much use.’

  ‘Will you come with me now, Dominick? I am going to the town. I am going to see Coote. He won’t see me straight, so I have to find a way to see him by stealth and I will need help.’

  ‘Why do you want to see him?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘I want to be straightened out,’ said Murdoc. ‘I want to find out if he is all bad; if he has even the wind of a word of truth left in him. I want you to come with me. I would have asked you even if you thought I was as evil as other people think. It’s important to me,’ He was on his feet. ‘Aren’t you the only man in the whole world of this moment who cares a straw for me?’ He put his hand on his shoulder.

  Dominick’s stomach was falling. Caught in a cleft again I am, he thought. I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m as happy now as ever I was or as ever I am likely to be. I am not as young as I was. I am over forty.

  ‘Coote is dangerous, Murdoc,’ he said. ‘You ought to know that now. Let him be. Have nothing more to do with him.’

  ‘He will crush me if I don’t face him,’ said Murdoc. ‘I don’t want to become a wanderer again. I paid too much for what I have I want to hold it. I will build again even from the remnants of what’s left to me.’

  His eyes had drifted again towards the silent priest. He didn’t look like a priest. He was dressed like a pedlar.

  Dominick saw his look.

  ‘Murdoc, this is …’ Murdoc cut him short.

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ said Murdoc grimly. ‘I can guess. Just don’t tell me his name or he’ll end up the same way as Sebastian.’

  ‘Can I help you, friend?’ Rory asked.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Murdoc. ‘ I am gone beyond you. Just don’t let me know anything about you, or where you came from, or where you are going from here. That’s all. Dominick, will you come with me?’

  If he was even the same, Dominick thought. If he was the big, pulsating, laughing, reckless Murdoc I knew long ago, I would be able to resist him. But he wasn’t the same. He was a giant with flesh hanging loosely on his face and his body, a sort of caricature of the big fellow he had known.

  Peter and Mary Ann had come laughing across the hills. Peter was riding the horse and Mary Ann was holding on tightly to him. You get hiccups when you laugh on the back of a trotting horse, but Mary Ann got a cure for the hiccups when they came near their own house and saw the three horses at the side of it, and the woman sitting up on one, with the child in front of her.

  ‘Look,’ said Mary Ann. ‘He must be with Father. What does he want him for? And Rory is there. Why should he come near our house?’

  ‘He is the owner,’ said Peter calmly. ‘ We are only his tenants. Why shouldn’t he come near our house?’

  ‘After what he did?’ asked Mary Ann, sliding off the horse. ‘After the terrible thing he did? What does he want of Father?’

  ‘You don’t know that he did anything,’ said Peter. ‘ You have only the word of an enemy for that.’

  ‘I know he did! I know he did! I know he did!’ said Mary Ann. ‘And he’s not going to get Father into anything while I’m alive. He has done enough against him.’ She ran past Columba. Columba said: ‘God be with you, Mary Ann.’ But Mary Ann just glared at her and headed for the house, running. Peter made up a little for it. He came close to her and said: ‘Pay no attention to her. She didn’t mean to be rude. She’s getting married soon, and I suppose that upsets girls. Is this the little fellow?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Nice little fellow,’ said Peter, catching the small hand. ‘Good soldier, eh?’ The child smiled at him.

  So Mary Ann went in at the open door and went over to her father, talking. ‘ Father, I like Dualta’s father. He’s nice underneath. He has a bad temper. Very violent. But you’re the same really, except that you control it better.’

  ‘You are looking well, Mary Ann,’ said Murdoc.

  She ignored him.

  ‘The pedlar will be at Cliogain tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We are going to go and buy the silk. Just a few yards,
Father.’

  She was displeasing her father, she saw. She didn’t care.

  ‘We will go now, so, Murdoc,’ he said.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘Murdoc and myself are going on a short journey,’ he said.

  ‘I am being married on Sunday and you are going away today,’ she said. ‘Is that a way to be a father? You mustn’t go. He never brought you anything but trouble.’

  ‘Mind your tongue, Mary Ann,’ said Dominick.

  ‘I don’t care. It’s true,’ said Mary Ann. ‘Don’t go anywhere with him. Hasn’t he done enough to us?’

  ‘Stop talking,’ said Dominick. ‘Count what he has done for us. You ought to know. You ought to know better than anyone.’

  ‘You mustn’t go with him,’ said Mary Ann. ‘I’m asking you not to go with him.’

  ‘If you don’t stop, Mary Ann,’ said Dominick, ‘I’ll hit you!’ He was getting mad with her.

  ‘Do your own mean so little to you after all?’ she asked.

  He moved towards the door. He took his cloak from a peg, swung it on his arm. ‘I’m ready now, Murdoc,’ he said.

  Murdoc was looking at her back.

  ‘Don’t feel bad, Mary Ann,’ he said. ‘He is helping somebody. He will be back to dance at your wedding.’ She didn’t turn to him. He made a gesture with his big hands and went out of the door.

  ‘Mary Ann,’ said Dominick. She looked, went over to him with her head down. ‘Listen, I’ll be back. Don’t worry. Some day you’ll find out too that there is more to life than ploughing your own furrow.’

  ‘You can’t fool me,’ said Mary Ann. ‘ You like going with him. You hope it will lead to excitement. You like excitement. You were getting bored with the life here. You don’t care about us.’

  ‘Will you talk to her, Rory, for the love of God?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Rory.

  ‘I’m going, Mary Ann,’ said Dominick then.

  She put her arms round his neck. She was as tall as he.

  ‘You like it,’ she said. ‘I know you like it and maybe you’re not able for it. You are now over forty. Suppose anything happened to you.’

  Dominick laughed.