by Des Sheridan
‘You have to remember,’ he said with a sweep of an arm, ‘that in Neolithic times the entire bay was dry land. Thankfully the later flooding which created the islands has isolated the tomb from too many visitors. So it has survived the centuries well.’
Kireg was especially pleased to find that the family of four accompanying them were brezhonegerien, traditional Breton speakers, and he chatted away happily with them. Breaking off his conversation at one point, he turned to Tara and Robert.
‘We have about half a million Breton speakers left, but most are over fifty years old, so our numbers are falling fast. It is wonderful to meet young people who can speak the native tongue because without them we are doomed to be a dying breed.’
He shrugged his shoulders philosophically as he spoke, looking out over the water, before returning to his theme.
‘But you must know, Tara, what is happening here is not unique. Gaelic is struggling badly in your land, and Cornish has long since gone. Mind you, the Welsh are going strong so maybe there is hope.’
He sighed heavily. Robert looked at Tara. She was leaning with her head slightly back and her eyes closed, enjoying the autumn sun on her cheeks. She opened her eyes and nodded absently. She didn’t look like someone unduly troubled by the plight of the Irish language, Robert thought affectionately. Kireg carried on regardless.
‘Did you know, Robert, that a language dies out every two weeks? Poof! It is gone, no more, not another word ever uttered. That means half of the languages spoken today – about 6,500 - will be dead by the end of this century. Think of it! The death of a language is a terrible thing, the loss of so much knowledge, poetry and song – the extinction of a culture through silence, some call it. No wonder we find it so hard to fathom the megalithic people, they left no writing and we know nothing of their tongue.’
‘Did they not speak Breton?’ Tara asked. Despite her dreamy posture, it transpired she actually was listening.
‘Goodness me, no! The Celts were late arrivals in Brittany, Tara. They only came over from England in about 400 AD, displaced by the Saxons.’
His words set Robert thinking. They echoed so much of his recent experience – the loss of irreplaceable artefacts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the casual destruction of Neolithic features in Ireland, and the wider cultural loss of stories and myths handed down for thousands of years. From what Kireg was saying it sounded like more of the same when it came to languages – a push towards more relentless uniformity. While at Arz recently, killing time to stop himself from worrying where Tara was, he had tuned into a TV programme on global biodiversity which recounted how we are living through one of the greatest mass extinctions, driven by human impacts. Robert didn’t often think about having children, simply assuming that one day it would happen. But the programme made him think about the possibility. How awful it would be for them to live in a world without tigers, he mused. He wasn’t sure he would want to live in such a world - a world that systematically sought out difference and extinguished it. An optimist by nature, the bleak thought reminded him that the imperative of changing things was all the more pressing. But what could anyone do that would make a difference?
Sitting in the boat, the whirring of the engine providing an urgent background hum, Robert recognised that his take on the world had been overturned. Incrementally at first over the last few years but in recent months more rapidly as events had crystallised matters for him. Whereas initially he had felt impotent and angry at the way the world was heading, now he felt implacable about it and determined to act to change things. He was identifying strongly with individuals like Kireg. People who stood apart from the mainstream and, like Biblical prophets of old, identified the foolishness of their times. More importantly, they accepted responsibility for doing something about it! These people he now saw as his fellow travellers.
They crux of the issue was that globalisation, driven by exponential population increase and a fevered pace of development, was blending everything into one dull, diminished reality. Cultural and spiritual insights were disappearing fast - so fast that few people were even noticing. Robert couldn’t see how such things could survive in a meaningful way in this new tomorrow. It was even difficult to imagine how such a globalised world itself could survive for long. Conflict over diminishing resources was coming as surely as night follows day.
Robert recognised that another aspect of him had changed. A natural conservative by inclination and training, he felt like a snake that had sloughed off its skin. He wanted, through whatever means he could, to oppose this imperative for uniformity. In his own quiet way Robert was being reborn as a maverick.
His reverie was interrupted abruptly by the sound of Kireg calling out enthusiastically.
‘Robert, look! Welcome to Gavrinis!’
Chapter 68
Gavrinis, France, 3 November 2014, 12:23
Tara was surprised at how unremarkable the island was. Small, uninhabited and without much relief, it was the sort of place you could imagine a troop of Girl Guides camping out. Very Enid Blyton, she thought, thrilling to little ones but in reality quite safe. You would certainly not expect it to house one of Brittany’s finest megalithic sites.
As they tramped up the approach track towards the tomb Kireg began to explain its significance. It dated from 3500 BC and was the finest megalithic passage tomb in Brittany. And this said a lot as there were many highly impressive structures about the region. It had been first reopened in 1835 and soon became world famous. As he talked, they passed through a field and then, crossing through a line of trees, Tara realised that the grassy knoll on her left was the rear of the mound. As the path curved around the edifice rose in front of them. It was faced with a dry stone façade, tiered on two terraces, which looked at least twenty feet tall. The entrance, a portal composed of two great standing stones topped by a flat rock lintel, was at ground level nestled in the middle of the face. The doorway was an impressive sight, yet understated. It seemed to beckon the visitor to enter and see more.
For Tara, from the moment she entered the passage tomb, it was uncannily like stepping back into the tomb at Rosnaree. It felt very much of an ilk and from the wall art she felt immediately it was built by the same people. A riot of decoration adorned the walls. Even Kireg, who had visited many times, appeared dumb-struck.
‘Remember,’ he whispered, ‘in the old times it would have been painted. All sacred places were in the past. Think of it – reds, greens, blues, browns - a feast of colour! All long since lost, of course, weathered away.’
Tara knew, from her dreams, that this was true but said nothing. As they progressed slowly along the tunnel, Kireg pointed out one marvel after another, but Tara wasn’t listening any more. She was utterly absorbed by the abundance of spiral motifs all over the carved wall slabs of the passage. She couldn’t find any triskells of the type found at Newgrange or Rosnaree, but the clusters of spirals had a fascination all of their own. The resemblance of the curves, whorls and ridges before her eyes to the human fingerprint suddenly struck home. She was astonished it hadn’t occurred to her before but here in Gavrinis you could scarcely not see it, it was so apparent.
In the cool of the tomb she closed her eyes and placed her cheek against the rock surface, her finger slowly tracing a journey along one of the larger whorls. It seemed to her that, as at Rosnaree, she could hear a faint low vibration, a hum that amplified as she listened to its song. Then it morphed from a low drone into a wavy modulation, gradually assuming shape as words. She hadn’t heard the voice that entered her ear before but she knew at once who it must be.
‘Thank you, Tara, for your exertions in protecting the sacred artefact. Be assured, our gentle messenger, quis ut deus quis, will restore the Triskell to a secure place to await another time. May the Lord’s grace bathe you. Pergo in fide.’
Cornelius’ parting words were echoing around her head, when she became aware of another voice, wrenching her consciousness somewhere else. She felt he
rself dragged back into the everyday world with an abrupt jolt. Opening her eyes, she found she was lying on the floor of the passage tomb, with Robert leaning over her anxiously, asking her if she was all right. She saw the concern in his eyes and felt a sense of well-being surge through her. She felt just fine and it was a long time since she had felt that way – felt somehow whole. She let him pull her up towards him, their smiles meeting. The world was good again and she knew it was time to get back on the trail of the Triskell. And the gentle messenger? Well, that fitted Malachy to a T. All in all, Cornelius’ message was clear – the chase for the Triskell was not yet over.
Chapter 69
Gavrinis, France, 3 November 201, 13:04
Robert attributed his sluggish reaction to being both tired and relaxed after recent events. On top of which, as he emerged from the darkness of the tomb, the sunlight momentarily blinded his eyes. Whatever the reason he was nonplussed when Kireg, a few steps ahead, stumbled and fell. Instinctively he bent after him which was why he missed the follow up to the blow that had taken Kireg down. Instead, it just harmlessly grazed his arm. But it was the screech to his right that really shook him back to full awareness.
‘All of you over there! Now! At once!’
The voice was high pitched, with an accent. Looking up, Robert’s worst nightmare became true. Standing a short distance away was Freya, the small Dutch-Chinese woman he had seen at La Roche aux Fées. Dressed conventionally in a western woman’s outfit she looked unremarkable. You might well have taken her for just another Chinese tourist - until you looked her in the face. Up close her face, crevassed by deep wrinkles, looked extraordinarily unpleasant. Like a human variant of a Shar Pei puppy he thought but with thinner folds, lots more.
Behind him he heard a man’s voice.
‘Get out here now, bitch!’
Looking around, he saw that it came from Erik, Pascal’s stretch-faced sidekick who was roughly dragging Tara out of the portal by an arm. He pushed her towards Robert.
Straightening up, Robert and Tara faced their captors. Kireg was being seen to by the two Portuguese tourists, an elderly couple, who completed their boat party. Not that it made any difference - he was out cold. There was no sign of the Breton family who had left the tomb a few minutes earlier. They were probably back at the jetty by now.
Erik marched forward, striking Robert across with his free hand and crying out angrily.
‘I’ve been waiting for this moment, you fucking Brit. But for your repeated interference Pascal would have been our leader and on the way to seizing power in Europe. Through him I would have mattered, commanded real respect! We were so close to achieving it. You bastard!’
He lashed at Robert’s face again. Robert instinctively moved a hand up to wipe the blood pouring from his nose but Erik waved his pistol at him.
‘Don’t, mister! Just don’t!’
Robert froze. He recognised that moment when a small-minded angry man became murderous. He had seen it before. The Portuguese man was less lucky. He decided to intervene and lurched to within a foot of Erik who loosed a salvo in his direction. The man cried out then crashed to the ground, blood pouring from his chest. His wife let out a wail and fell on his body.
Robert, desperate and with no idea what to do next, decided to try logic on a more promising candidate.
‘What is the point of this, Freya? We didn’t kill Pascal, Kirsten did. Why blame us?’
Freya stepped forward and stood close to him, not more than two feet away. She looked up at him, directly into his face. Previously at La Roche aux Fées she had seemed a small distant, almost comic figure. This was his first chance to get the measure of her. Unlike Eric she was cool and fully in control of herself. Her eyes were intelligent and thoughtful, and her voice calm.
‘I don’t blame you, Mr Grainger. Kirsten killed Pascal. Unfortunate but there you are. Erik and I are now in charge. I want the Triskell and Tara is the key to making it work. The game goes on – only the players have changed.’
He had no reason to doubt her words or fixity of purpose. She was deadly serious, clear thinking and wanted Tara alive. He was impressed. Within a few short days she had refocused all her energy on a new aim and acted swiftly to achieve it. He had no idea how she had located them but she had succeeded. On the ground beside them the body of the Portuguese man twitched compulsively, not yet lifeless. What Robert couldn’t credit was this intelligent and resourceful woman referring to the thug, Erik, as her partner. He was clearly an impulsive and dangerous liability. It must be a temporary alliance driven by need, he reasoned. She needed muscle and Erik offered that.
Freya followed his glance down to the fallen man then raised her eyes back to meet Robert’s.
‘You have heard my reasoning and it guides my actions,’ she waved the gun towards her colleague. ‘Relax, you are safe for now. I need Tara and the child as well. But longer term Erik does have other plans, Mr Grainger. He insists that he will cut your stomach open and de-gut you while you watch. He tells me that he and Pascal took great pleasure in planning this demise for you. But maybe if you are compliant I will persuade him not to?’
A thin, cruel smile briefly crossed her lips. But her ironic words were effective. She was warning him not to interfere.
Tara interposed, a desperate edge to her voice.
‘Freya, this is foolish! You and I are Seers – that is our work, not butchery. Pascal is gone - it doesn’t matter anymore.’
Freya looked at her intently and with, as best Robert could judge, some respect.
‘Good. I hoped you would finally figure out that we have common ground. We will see. Erik! Get on with it. Tie them up!’
Robert quickly tried to fathom what exactly Freya was signalling to Tara but was at a loss. But it offered some hope and that would have to do for now. Erik brought out a roll of rope and cut off two small stretches. While Freya kept her hand gun covering them Erik roughly bound Robert’s hands behind his back and, viciously pushing his head down, forced him to kneel. Then he pulled out a steel knife from its sheath. It was a surgical-looking cutting tool, curved like a small machete but with a straight tip that was sharpened on both sides. Apart from that it featured vicious-looking scalloped edges. Robert smelt the man’s rank body odour envelop him. Erik leered at Robert and whispered in his ear.
‘This is for later,’ he flashed the blade under Robert’s nose, ‘something for you to think about.’ He turned towards Tara. ‘Get over here, bitch,’ he snarled.
‘Come and get me,’ Tara spat back. Robert, guessing she was reacting angrily to the threat to him, admired her courage.
‘Erik, we don’t have time for this! Just get on with it!’ Freya barked, exasperation evident in her voice. Then another voice intervened – one Robert was very pleased to hear.
‘You’re right. Time is out. Drop your weapons NOW!’
Erik swung around raising his gun hand and then flew backwards as a bullet impacted on his forehead. His head shot backwards, pulling his body after it, and a jet of blood gushed out. Before Robert could react Freya moved fast, like a cat, getting behind Tara and pulling her backwards into the mouth of the tunnel.
‘Don’t follow, Grainger or I will kill her now!’ Freya shouted.
Chapter 70
Gavrinis, France, 3 November 2014, 13:16
Teresa Flanagan emerged from the trees that had afforded her cover, followed closely by Paul Bonnet and Nico. She ran to Robert and dropped to her knees to untie his wrists. Robert spoke rapidly.
‘Am I glad to see you. Freya has got Tara in there,’ he nodded towards the entrance. ‘She wants Tara alive but has just threatened to kill her, if we follow them.’
‘I’m with you.’ Teresa said, pausing to look at Nico who was crouched over Erik’s body.
‘How the hell did Freya find us?’ Robert asked.
‘I have no idea how she traced you. Through a mole or electronically, I expect. We knew they might try something but, after the roasting they g
ot the other night, it seemed unlikely. Paul had your car observed at intervals en route and, lo and behold, you had picked up company. The balloon went up. We got to Larmor-Barden just in time by helicopter. You are good, Robert. We are good but these people are exceptional. You walked into a trap.’
‘A trap you sprang, it seems,’ he said bitterly.
‘Robert, it didn’t happen that way. Nobody planned it. We reacted as fast as we could. Paul advised you repeatedly to stay in the compound. You wouldn’t listen.’
The rebuke was like a slap in the face. It was true. He had misjudged the situation. He reasoned that the opposition were exposed, divided and would have gone to ground. What’s more, he wanted Tara to experience normality - she needed to on health grounds. And there was a third reason. Last time she had been cooped up she had left him and gone off alone. He wasn’t going to risk that again. So he had rejected Paul’s advice and planned the Gavrinis trip. And what Teresa said was right. He had underestimated the opposition. Now Tara was in jeopardy again! Anguish swamped him – he faced losing her again. He couldn’t believe it. Would this nightmare never end?
Teresa must have seen the look on his face for she touched his shoulder.
‘Come on! Don’t over-react. It was an extraordinary long shot when Freya showed up.’
His face was serious as he explained.
‘I understand Tara, Teresa. She needs to experience normality. It helps her, reassures her that she is not losing her grip on sanity. I thought I could protect her. I thought the risk was so low as to be acceptable.’
‘You are not the only one. I too thought Paul was being overly precautionary. You know the rules, Robert. Deal with the now!’
She is right, he thought. Paul and his men, and Nico, had gathered around and they quickly evaluated the situation, Robert speaking almost at once.