The Crafters Book Two

by Christopher Stasheff

  The water-powered mill propelled sturdy wooden hammers, or “beetles,” over raw wet linen to give it smoothness and sheen. The mill was the only part of the property in good order and repair. The “Manor House” had been built in the 1730’s and had never been maintained or repaired.

  As the rain ceased for a while Crafter saw Thomas D’Arcy, his young solicitor, crossing the street toward him. “What is it that brings you out on a damp day like this?” he asked.

  D’Arcy pulled his cloak closer to his thin body. “There’s someone looking for you, Justice of the Peace Benjamin Blackman.”

  “Who is he?” Crafter wanted to know.

  “A lackey of the Earl of Tyrone and an officer of the Crown Courts,” said D’Arcy. “He is not a man to cross.”

  “I have never met him, so not to worry, friend solicitor.”

  D’Arcy pointed across the street. “He’s coming—that’s his aide, Captain Smithers, with him—and there, as usual, is his poor wife about ten steps behind.”

  Crafter watched as the gigantic figure in a rusty black greatcoat crossed toward them. He was trailed by a short grey-haired man wearing a red-coat uniform with Scots-type trews instead of the usual knee breeches. But it was the big man who demanded attention. His large body was topped by a small, reddish bald head thrust forward with a cruel, down-turned beaklike nose. He resembled the savage turkey vultures of the Berkshires in Eben’s native Massachusetts. He had always been repelled by the carrion-eating scavengers, and he felt the same revulsion for the rapidly approaching figure.

  “Crafter, is it not?” the big man croaked in a raspy voice. “I have been looking for you! I am Justice Blackman.”

  “Indeed,” said Crafter. “Why?”

  “My friend, Lord Larne, wrote me that you cheated him of his lands near Cookstown.”

  “He is a fool and he lies,” Crafter said in a soft voice.

  “MY FRIEND IS A LIAR?” Blackman roared. “YOU WILL RETRACT THAT STATEMENT OR FACE ME IN A DUEL!” His face became redder.

  “A fool and a liar,” repeated Crafter.

  Blackman turned to D’Arcy. “Will you act for this ... gentleman?” he asked, sneering the word. “Captain Smithers will act for me. He will be in the Crown Inn half an hour from now.” He moved swiftly away across the street.

  Captain Smithers bowed to D’Arcy and followed. Slowly Blackman’s wife moved after them; as she passed she whispered quietly, “He wants you dead. Lead will not kill him—silver will.”

  D’Arcy shook his head. “He meant to provoke a duel.”

  “So it seems,” said Crafter. “Go meet with the Captain.”

  * * *

  “Four o’clock this afternoon; that’s only five hours from now,” said a very worried D’Arcy when he returned to his chambers where Eben Crafter waited.

  “Do you have a pistol, Mr. D’Arcy?”

  “Yes, I carry it on all my journeys to Dublin; the roads are not always safe.”

  “May I have it? I would also like an hour alone here before we meet Mr. Blackman.”

  “Here is the pistol; my chambers are yours,” said the young solicitor as he left Crafter alone.

  Eben took the small bag of lead bullets, selected one, concentrated, then poured the gunpowder into the barrel, inserted the silver bullet, and tamped in the wadding over it.

  * * *

  At four, in a field two miles south of town they waited.

  Captain Smithers gave the instructions; D’ Arcy called out, “Take ten steps, turn, wait for my order to fire. One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, TURN.” At once, Blackman fired but missed. “Foully done!” shouted D’Arcy.

  Crafter slowly aimed his pistol, waited, then fired. Blackman was hit. He burst at once into roaring red flames. In less than a minute there was nothing left but a smoking small pile of ash that stank of sulphur.

  “Mr. D’Arcy, Mr. Crafter, did you see what I saw?” Captain Smithers screamed in horror. Then, as though swiftly thinking better of the consequences of relating such a wild tale to others, he gathered himself and spoke more calmly, though with a tremor. “Oh, no, I saw nothing, I was not here, was not here. Justice Blackman was summoned to, to ... Dublin Castle and so I will swear ... and you, gentlemen? ...and you?”

  D’Arcy said, “I will speak for Mr. Crafter and myself: We saw nothing ... we were not even here, you agree?”

  As they rode back to town, D’Arcy said, “You are the most interesting client I have ever had. Will there be more surprises?”

  “Perhaps,” said Eben Crafter. “Perhaps.”

  * * *

  “The roof is slate, Squire,” said Joe Burke, the property’s caretaker, “but it needs new slates on the ridge line and along the eaves. The original slates came from Wales, and they are expensive. We might get some cheaper from an old house that burned last year down in Ballygally. They saved most of the slates after the fire.”

  Crafter grinned at Burke. “I’m not a squire.”

  “Yes, you are, sir,” Burke whispered. “I can see that. Now, young Lord Larne was no squire—he could never be a squire for all his titles and high and mighty ways and all his money.”

  “What makes a squire, Burke?” Crafter wanted to know.

  “That’s easy, sir, he has to care about the land and his buildings, and he has to care for the folk who live on his lands.”

  Crafter thought a bit. “I see. Well, I shall try.”

  So Eben Crafter, late of America, found himself a landlord with a caretaker whose wife, Bridgit, cooked in the Irish fashion—in the worst sort of way: boiling the living daylights out of everything. Crafter also had over a hundred tenant-farm families, a mill that processed linen from his lands and from surrounding holdings, and a house very much in need of repair. He needed money to rebuild barns, money to pay farm workers, money to pay house servants. He needed the Talent.

  Early one afternoon in late April he locked himself in his bedroom with orders that he was not to be disturbed until noon the next day. He took with him twenty bronze plates, each weighing some twenty-five pounds. He also had ten silver coins from Spain and a handful of English silver shillings.

  He concentrated on the silver coins until he had their form and weight fixed firmly and clearly in his mind. Then he put his hands to the bronze plates. A pale blue light seemed to pour from his fingertips; then each bronze became a pile of silver coins. It took hours. As always, he was physically and emotionally drained. He slept until ten in the morning of the next day.

  “Burke, saddle my horse,” Crafter said as he came out into a rare sunny morning. “I’m going to Cookstown for workers to fix the house and barns.” He added, “You come, too, for you speak the Gaelic and we’ll need common laborers. We’ll also need help from the tenants.”

  As they rode into the great empty street of the town, they met a couple riding out—a tall man with a bald, skull-like head riding a black stallion, and a girl, a beautiful girl, riding a roan horse that was the tallest horse Crafter had ever seen, eighteen hands, at least. The girl had long red hair that flowed out behind her. Her skin was milk-white, and the figure Eben could make out beneath her flowing green cloak was breathtaking. As they passed he saw her eyes—green with flecks of gold. She smiled at him.

  “Have you ever seen such a beautiful girl?” he said to Burke.

  Burke looked puzzled. “We just passed old Sean O’Dowd—he was leading a roan horse—there was no one with him.”

  Crafter twisted in his saddle, and Burke was right! There was one rider on a black horse leading a big roan horse, and there was nobody on the roan.

  “Who is O’Dowd?” he asked.

  “Why, he lives on your property about two miles from here on the edge of the Tullyhoge Fort that was built before Blessed Saint Patrick made Christians of us all.”

  “I must needs meet th
is O’Dowd after we find our workmen,” Crafter said, half to himself.

  After hiring men who could work with brick and stone and hiring men who could dig ditches and plant trees, and giving Burke orders, Crafter set off at a quick trot toward the ancient hill fort.

  He followed the narrow track Burke had pointed out and saw hoof prints in the soft mud. He came to a small thatched cottage that lay close under the green slope of the fort. He called, “O’Dowd, come out, please.”

  O’Dowd came out the front door, bending his head so he could fit under the door frame. He was over six feet tall, wiry, and not as old-looking as his bald head suggested. “Yes, Squire,” said O’Dowd. “You want me?”

  “You know me?” asked Crafter.

  “All know you, the American who took Lord Larne’s lands and holdings. What may I do for you, Squire?”

  “I would like to meet your daughter.”

  “I have no daughter!” O’Dowd said sullenly.

  “You have; I saw her riding with you. She has red hair, a green cloak, and she rides a great roan horse.”

  O’Dowd answered, “You couldn’t have seen her unless ...”

  “Unless he has the gift or the Talent of our people,” said the beauty as she stepped through the door.

  Crafter looked at her in wonder. She was even lovelier than when he first saw her. “Eben Crafter, your servant, Mistress.”

  She curtseyed. “Maeve O’Dowd, Squire Crafter,” she said, then grinned. “And I’d like to have you as my servant.”

  “Daughter, mind your manners,” growled O’Dowd. He turned to Crafter. “Please come within my house. What is mine is yours,” he said, following the ancient Irish formula of welcome.

  Inside, there was a warm turf fire and two tall wax candles. The furniture was simple, but well-made and sturdy. “Sit, Squire, if you please,” said O’Dowd. “Would you be havin’ a wee drop to clear the dust of the road from your throat?”

  “An excellent idea,” said Crafter, watching the girl, who suddenly disappeared before his eyes. “Oho, what have we here?” The girl reappeared in the middle of the room with an earthen flask and three glasses.

  Before Eben Crafter could say a word, there was a glass in his hand. “Slainte!” said O’Dowd and his daughter in unison and drank. Crafter drank, too. The fiery liquor warmed his throat—no, seared his throat—and his eyes watered.

  “Good Lord, what was that?” Crafter coughed. “The water of life,” said Maeve.

  “Whiskey, Usquebaugh in the Irish Gaelic and in the Scots Gaelic, too,” said O’Dowd. “It is very like the spirits of Scotland: whisky. Irish priests taught the process to the Scots centuries ago.”

  “I’ve had the spirits from Scotland, but this tastes stronger,” said Crafter. “Much stronger.”

  “You should try poteen that your tenants make,” Maeve said, laughing. “It would melt your teeth.”

  “Enough,” O’Dowd said quietly. “Come within. We know of what you did to Justice Blackman. We felt his evil vanish.”

  They led Crafter through a door, and he was inside a huge hall, under the hill fort, a room that was at least thirty feet square with a roof twenty feet high. The hall was lighted by a hundred or more tall candles. The walls were hung with tapestries, ancient axes, swords, and shields of bronze and gold.

  “Who are you? What are you?” asked Crafter.

  “We are cluricaunes,” said O’Dowd, “part of the Sidhe—the people who lived here before the Celts ever came to this island.”

  Maeve continued. “We have some magic powers, but we keep them hidden. We came from the South, near Cork. We left there, for some thought my father a warlock.”

  “You have power, too,” said O’Dowd. “What is the source: good or evil?”

  “My powers come from my great-grandparents, Amer and Samona Crafter. He was an alchemist who turned to the study of natural science. He learned to transmute base metals into silver—he hoped for gold, silver was the best he could do. Samona was a witch who gave up her powers, but some of those powers seem to have been passed on to her offspring. I, too, can transmute metals to silver, see through paper—even playing cards. I know if anyone tells the truth, and I’m immune to all spells.”

  Maeve moved very close to him as he spoke, “You know if one speaks the truth? You will marry me in the month of May, this year.”

  Crafter looked at her. Her father started to say something, but Crafter said, “Yes!”

  * * *

  So it was on the first Saturday of May in 1781 that Eben Crafter and Maeve O’Dowd were to be wed.

  As he dressed that morning in his fawn-colored knee breeches, his fine linen shirt with the white silk neck cloth under his gold-figured Chinese-silk waistcoat, his best white silk stockings, his black shoes with the polished silver buckles, and his new plum-colored broadcloth coat with silver buttons, he gazed into the mirror.

  The face that stared back at Crafter was thin, the cheekbones high, the eyes deep-set and blue, the nose a bit too long, the chin firm, and there were dimples in his cheeks when he smiled. He watched as Burke tied the black ribbon to hold his long brown hair in a neat club down his back.

  “You look grand, sir,” said Burke.

  “Thank you. Are we ready, Burke?”

  “Yes, sir, I have the carriage and the two white horses ready in front.”

  “Let’s go,” said Crafter.

  * * *

  “Do you, Eben Crafter, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife? To have and to hold from this day forward for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do you part?” asked the round little minister of the Church of Ireland in his surprising bass voice.

  “I do,” said Eben, looking at Maeve. No longer needing to hide, the Irish beauty was visible to them all.

  “Do you, Maeve O’Dowd, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? To love, honor, and obey in sickness and health until death do you part?”

  “I do,” said Maeve in a low voice. She turned to Eben and smiled. She looked like a red-haired angel dressed in white.

  “Then, by the powers vested in me by the Holy Church, I pronounce you husband and wife,” intoned the minister.

  With her right hand Maeve lifted her veil away from her face. Eben kissed her gently. “More later,” he whispered.

  They turned to leave the church and saw that only a half dozen were in the pews.

  “No guests, my dear,” Crafter said.

  “They may be at the house,” suggested Maeve.

  When they came out into the sunlight, the few offered good wishes. Eben’s solicitor, Thomas D’ Arcy, handed Maeve into the carriage.

  Back home, Eben carried Maeve over the threshold. “Welcome to your home, my dear, and may all your years here be blessed.”

  She looked at the shabby entryway and then saw Mrs. Burke in her one clean dress. “Bless this house and all who dwell therein.”

  “Amen!” said Mrs. Burke.

  “Mrs. Burke, this is your new mistress, Mrs. Crafter. My dear, this is Mrs. Burke, Bridgit, who cooks and cleans.”

  Mrs. Burke bobbed a curtsey. “I be cookin’ and tryin’ ta keep things in good order.”

  Maeve said curtly, “I can see that this place needs a good cleaning.”

  Mrs. Burke muttered half under her breath, “Puga ma hone!”

  “Puga rna hone, is it? ‘Kiss my ass’? Well, listen to this ...” Maeve said in a quiet voice, then continued with a streak of Gaelic that became louder and louder. She finished in English:

  “Do you understand?”

  Mrs. Burke wilted and blushed under the torrent of words.

  Her head bowed, she said meekly, “I’m sorry, my lady. I thought you were one of those Englished kind of ladies who didn’t understand nothin’! Forgive me bad manners, and I’ll never make a mistake like t
hat again if you’ll keep me on.”

  Maeve looked stern. “I know you won’t, for from now on it will be the lady of the house who will be in charge, not some man who knows nothing of a proper home.”

  Then turning to Eben, Maeve said, “I’ll look at the house with you tomorrow. Now we are to have guests. We must be ready.”

  No guests came except Sean O’Dowd and the solicitor, Thomas D’Arcy. O’Dowd carried two heavy saddlebags and dropped them on the floor. “Mr. D’ Arcy, Esquire, I shall need you in your legal capacity,” O’Dowd said in formal tones. “You’ll help me count out the dowry.”

  “We never talked dowry, Mr. O’Dowd,” Eben said.

  “Did you think a daughter of mine would wed without a proper dowry?”

  With that, he poured the contents of the bags to the floor. “There should be £4,000, in gold. Count it please, Mr. Solicitor.”

  D’ Arcy counted twice. “I find there are fifty guineas more than the four thousand pounds,” he said.

  “Let it be, the girl is worth much more!”

  “Sir, I agree! I never expected such a noble gift beyond your wonderful daughter.” Eben shook O’Dowd’s hand and embraced the older man.

  “Now, our guests? I invited all the landowners hereabouts.”

  “I saw none on the way here,” said O’Dowd.

  “I wonder why none are here?” Eben asked.

  “You wed a ‘native,’ you know,” Maeve said.

  Crafter cursed long and loud in anger, then said, “There are two oxen roasting, there is whiskey, wine, and all sorts of sweets—we should invite our tenants. Burke, take my horse and invite every soul from the estate.”

  “Aye, sir, that I’ll do.”

  Within the hour the floor of the barn was swept; people were eating, drinking, and dancing to the music of the bagpipes, fiddles, and drums. Hands were clapping when little Joe Burke took Maeve into the center and started to do the step-dance. Maeve watched for a moment, then matched step for step. Mrs. Burke grabbed Eben and he, too, danced after a fashion. After several hours all the men picked up the bride, tossed her in the air, and caught her neatly in a chair. They did the same with Crafter. They paraded them out of the barn and around the house three times; they deposited them at the door of the house. “Be havin’ a good night’s sleep,” they shouted with much laughter. “Good night.”