by Sarah Rayne
‘And I tell you what,’ went on Colm, ‘if Sheehan wasn’t defrocked and excommunicated all those years ago, then he would be now if the truth got out. But,’ he said, ‘I’d rather put him to rout myself.’
‘You’re going up to the watchtower to confront him?’
‘I am.’
‘Then,’ said Declan, ‘I’m coming with you.’
They went the next morning, which was Saturday and which was, as Declan said, a time when anyone might be anywhere and no one would be particularly looking for them. Declan’s mother said it was sad altogether when a boy could not be staying at home, and must be off stravaiging into the village, dinnerless. When Declan said he hadn’t any appetite today, she scooped an apple and a wedge of freshly baked soda bread from the table and made him pocket both.
The path winding up to the watchtower was steep and narrow. Colm and Declan had walked past it hundreds of times, but neither of them had ever climbed to the very top of it.
The gentle May warmth no longer cast a scented balm on the air and the sky held the bruised darkness that heralded a storm. Far below, the Atlantic flung itself against the cliffs, and if the sidhe were abroad today they were in a wild and eldritch mood.
For the first half of the climb the watchtower was hidden from view by the rock face, but as they rounded a curve in the path, it reared up, a black and forbidding column against the sky.
‘It looks,’ said Declan, pausing to stare at it, ‘as if it’s leaning forward to inspect us, d’you think that?’
‘You read too many books,’ said Colm, but he too looked uneasily at the stark silhouette.
‘Someone’s looking down out of that window,’ said Declan.
‘It’ll be Nick Sheehan, crouching up there like a spider watching a couple of flies approach his lair.’
‘There’s a door at the centre,’ said Declan as they drew nearer.
‘Did you think your man flew in and out of the place by the windows like a winged demon?’ demanded Colm. ‘Or that it was the door-less tower where Rapunzel was imprisoned?’
‘I thought I was the one who read too many books,’ said Declan.
The door was a low one, slightly pointed at the top like a church door, set deep into the stone walls, the surface black with age, but the huge ring handle gleaming in the sulky storm-light. As they drew nearer, the door opened, doing so with a slow deliberation that held such menace Declan thought it would not take much to send them helter-skelter back down the slope and be damned to being revenged. Then he remembered they were doing this for Romilly and that Father Sheehan was a libertine and a seducer of young girls, and he took a deep breath, and went forward at Colm’s side. Even so, for a wild moment he thought he would not be surprised if they found themselves confronted with Lucifer himself, holding the door wide and bidding them, with honeyed and sinister persuasiveness, to step inside.
It was not Lucifer who was standing in the doorway of the watchtower, of course, although on closer inspection it might, as Declan had once said, be one of his apostles.
Nicholas Sheehan. The man who, according to local legend, had once been a devout priest, but who some deep dark cause had forced to this lonely eyrie.
At first they thought he was younger than they had expected, but as they drew nearer they revised this opinion, and thought he was considerably older. Colm said afterwards that it was impossible to even guess his age, and he might be anything from thirty to sixty. His hair was dark and his face lean and even slightly austere. There was the impression that he might enjoy good music and wine and interesting conversation, and this was the most disconcerting thing yet, because if you have ascribed the role of unprincipled seducer and devil-befriender to someone, you do not want to discover that person has an appreciation of the good and gentle things in life.
‘Good day to you,’ said Nicholas Sheehan, and smiled so charmingly that Declan and Colm almost smiled back. But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, thought Declan. They’re the weariest eyes I ever saw.
‘You’re a long way from Kilglenn,’ said Father Sheehan, leaning against the door frame of the ancient watchtower. ‘And it’s a fair old haul up that path. Will you come inside and take a drink with me?’
‘That’s very trusting of you,’ said Colm, after a moment, and this time the smile did reach Sheehan’s eyes.
‘Oh, I’m not trusting in the least,’ he said. ‘But I know who you are, so I’m taking a chance. You’re Romilly Rourke’s cousin Colm, and you’re his good friend Declan Doyle. A very likely pair of boyos, I’d say, although you’ll be stifled and repressed by the outlook of the villagers, I don’t doubt. Do they still gather in Fintan Reilly’s bar of an evening to put the world to rights, and believe themselves rebels and firebrands?’ He stood back and indicated to them to come in. As they did so, he said, ‘I don’t imagine you’re here to plunder my worldly goods and chattels, but in case you have that in mind, I should mention you’d be wasting your time.’
‘Because you have hell’s weapons in your armoury?’ demanded Colm.
‘My, what a very dramatic young man you are,’ said Father Sheehan, looking at Colm with more interest. ‘But I’m sorry to disappoint you, Colm. I haven’t so much as a pitchfork stashed away. It’s simply that I gave up possessing goods and chattels long ago.’
FIVE
For a man who had given up worldly possessions, Father Sheehan seemed to live in considerable comfort. The stone walls inside the watchtower had been softened with tapestries of soft blues and greens and with ornate mirrors. Silken rugs lay on the floor, their colours dimmed by age, but glowing richly against the ancient oak and stone.
The minute Declan and Colm were inside they had the sensation of stepping neck-deep into a past that was very dark and chilling. They shared a thought: are we mad to be doing this? Then the memory of Romilly sobbing and distraught and threatening to leave Kilglenn came back, and they both followed Sheehan to an octagonal room where books lined the walls and several velvet-covered chairs were drawn up to a massive hearth. Even though it was May, the afternoon was dark and a fire burned, casting mysterious crimson shadows. Through the narrow windows came threads of deep blue light from the ocean, edging the firelight with violet.
‘Sit down,’ said Sheehan, and took a careless seat in one of the chairs, facing them. The glow from the fire washed over him, so that for a moment he was a creature of shadows and fire. ‘A glass of wine?’ Without waiting for their reply, he reached for a slender-necked decanter on a side table and poured three glasses.
Colm and Declan had hardly ever drunk wine, and they were certainly unused to alcohol of any kind at this time of the day. But Colm took the glass with slightly forced nonchalance and Declan followed suit. The wine was rich and potent, and they had the feeling that the scented firelight might have soaked into it.
‘I’m thinking,’ said Sheehan, leaning back in his chair, the fingers of his hand curled lazily round the stem of his wine glass, ‘that this visit is connected with your little cousin. What a beautiful girl. Hasn’t she a fine charm? And as persuasive as a witch on Beltane.’
‘Persuasive?’ said Colm sharply. ‘Weren’t you the one who was persuasive with her? In fact,’ he said, setting down the wine glass and leaning forward, ‘weren’t you a whole lot more than persuasive, Father Sheehan?’
‘You know I no longer have the right to that title,’ said Sheehan, politely.
‘They stripped it from you,’ said Colm.
‘No. I stripped it from myself.’
‘You lost your belief?’ said Declan, curious despite himself.
‘I lost some beliefs. But you didn’t come here to discuss beliefs.’
‘We came to . . . to bring you to account over what you did to my cousin Romilly.’ Declan saw Colm’s eyes flicker as he said this and knew Colm must have heard how brash the words and the tone sounded compared to Sheehan’s soft courtesies.
‘I did nothing to your cousin Romilly. And if I weren’t such a g
entleman,’ said Nick Sheehan, thoughtfully, ‘I’d tell you that she went away very disappointed indeed.’
‘You’re saying she seduced you?’ demanded Declan.
‘I’m saying she tried. But I’m a little too old to be lured by sly innocents.’
‘You’re a black-hearted liar,’ said Colm angrily.
‘I promise you I am not. Your waif-like Romilly made it perfectly clear what she wanted. I made it clear I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t especially flattered by the approach,’ said Sheehan and paused to drink more wine. ‘Her real motive was money, of course.’
‘You can’t know what her motives were,’ said Colm.
‘Women usually do want money. Or are you both still too young to know that?’
‘Did you give her any money?’
‘I gave her objects of value that could be turned into money. She forced my hand,’ said Sheehan. ‘She threatened to tell people I had raped her, and I wasn’t prepared to risk that. My solitude – my life here – is important to me. So I gave her more or less what she wanted.’
Anger had spiked into both boys’ minds at the mocking implication that they were too young, but hard on its heels came the memory of Romilly saying, ‘Nicholas Sheehan gave me presents. He said I could sell them.’ Alongside that was the image of her expression and how she had looked at them through her tears as if to assess how they were receiving her story.
Declan said, ‘Did you tell her she was a good and pretty girl?’
‘Is that what she said? No. I told her she was a sly little liar, and she would one day get her just deserts.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Colm, but there was a note of doubt in his voice. ‘I think you seduced her and there needs to be a reckoning between us.’
‘What kind of reckoning do you propose?’
‘That you leave Kilglenn for good.’
‘Aren’t you the most dramatic young man ever, Colm Rourke?’ said Sheehan. ‘I’m not leaving this place.’ Something flickered behind his eyes that neither of the boys could identify. He said, ‘And you’ve only Romilly’s word against mine for what happened.’
Colm leaned forward. ‘The legend says you’re a gambling man,’ he said. ‘If that’s right, I see how we can resolve this with honour on both sides.’
‘What had you in mind?’
‘A game of chance. The winner to set the forfeit.’
Sheehan studied him. Then he said, ‘Was it perhaps a game of chess you had in mind?’
With the words something seemed to shiver in the quiet room with its muted light, but Colm said firmly, ‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
‘You know the legend of the chess set?’
‘I know one of them. And I’ll play you for it,’ said Colm. ‘If I win, we’ll agree that you dishonoured my cousin. You’ll leave here for good. And I take the chess set.’
‘And if I win?’
‘I’ll apologize and ensure my cousin doesn’t repeat her story. The chessmen will stay with you.’
‘The chessmen,’ said Sheehan, ‘will go where they choose. You and I won’t have any say in it.’ He frowned, and Declan, eyeing him, thought Sheehan would never agree.
Then Sheehan stood up. ‘Come with me,’ he said.
In the stone entrance hall was a carved screen, which Sheehan moved aside to reveal a small door. There was a flight of stone steps immediately inside, very worn at the centre and leading into pitch darkness.
‘I’ll have to go ahead of you,’ said Sheehan. ‘The room is deep into the ground, and the steps are uneven. There’s hardly any natural light, so I’ll light lamps and you follow me.’
As they stood together at the head of the steps, waiting for the flare of light from below, Declan said in a furious whisper, ‘Colm, you can’t do this.’
‘I can. Didn’t we always vow we’d come up here one day and challenge Sheehan to a chess game and win the devil’s powers off him?’
‘We were children, for pity’s sake. Can you even play chess?’
‘I can,’ said Colm, his jaw set stubbornly.
‘But he’ll trick you.’
‘He will not. He’s all show. No substance.’
‘Yes, but this is the chess set that—’
‘That’s just an old legend and Sheehan probably spread it around to make himself more interesting. So will you shut up?’
‘But—’
‘He’s got the lamps lit,’ said Colm as light flared below them, and he began to descend the steps. After a moment Declan followed.
The steps spiralled round and were treacherously narrow. At the bottom, a door had been propped open, and beyond it was a stone-lined room. Colm and Declan had been expecting a conventional cellar, but this chamber was situated on the open side of the cliff face and one section of wall had a tiny barred window, barely two feet square, looking straight on to the ocean. Dull light came through it and there was the sound of the sea moaning against the rocks.
‘You’re in one of Ireland’s deepest pockets of memory,’ said Sheehan, who had set three oil lamps around the room. ‘This place is drenched in ancient memories – sometimes, on a still night, it’s almost possible to hear them. There are chords within the mind, you know. If you know how to pluck them they go on resonating for far longer than you’d imagine.’
At the centre of the room was a small round table with two chairs drawn up to it. Nicholas Sheehan tilted one of the lamps slightly and light fell directly on to the table’s surface. Colm and Declan caught their breath, for set out on the table, reflecting fathoms deep in the polished surface, was the sinister chess set from the legend.
It was the most beautiful and yet also the most repellent thing either of them had ever seen. The black pieces were ebony and jet, studded with tiny iridescent chips of something they did not recognize, the pawns about five inches high, the kings and queens two or three inches more. The white figures were ivory, crusted with what looked like tiny pearls. The carved armour gleamed and the crowns sparkled and it was easy to think the figures moved in the lamplight – that a fold of a king’s cloak twitched, that a prancing knight tightened his rein.
For a moment no one spoke, then Sheehan said softly, ‘Yes, they are beautiful, aren’t they? The white pieces are ivory and white jade, with seed pearls. The black are ebony and black jade with black diamonds. But it’s said they bring ill luck,’ he said, and Declan suddenly had the impression that Sheehan was afraid.
‘I’ll risk that.’ Colm was staring at the chess figures, and Declan was aware of a growing unease because Colm’s eyes held something he had never seen before. But Colm seated himself at the table, and Nicholas Sheehan took the chair facing him.
‘Declan, are you going to stay?’
‘I am,’ said Declan to Sheehan, and sat down where he could see the faces of the two combatants.
‘And,’ said Colm, with an edge to his voice, ‘we’ll both take another glass of wine.’
Storm clouds were gathering outside as they began to play, and the light from the lamps cast pools of light. But outside of those pools, Declan had the increasing feeling that something hid in the thick shadows and that it watched from sly narrow eyes.
Sheehan’s expression was unreadable. He played the black pieces, and when Colm captured his bishop, Sheehan shrugged and said, ‘A weak piece. Of little account. In Persian tradition, the piece was originally an elephant. Later, the Europeans called it Aufin. Aufin is related to a French word for fool. It’s curious how language merges one with another, isn’t it, and produces totally different words and meanings? But in that case the transformation was appropriate, for most bishops I ever met were fools anyway.’
Colm said, ‘Chess is a Persian game, isn’t it?’
‘Who knows? Some tell how the God Euphron created it, or that it began as a dice-playing game at the Siege of Troy. But most legends place its origins in India, although it was supposed to be part of the princely education of Persian nobility.’
‘You’re ver
y knowledgeable,’ said Colm, with reluctant admiration.
‘I learned a little – a very little – from the man who owned this set before me. He possessed far more knowledge than I ever will,’ said Sheehan.
When Sheehan’s King was placed in jeopardy, Colm gave a soft hoot of triumph, and Sheehan said, ‘Yes, that’s a telling move. But you should not feel too pleased with yourself. The King is the most important piece, but it’s the Queen who is the most powerful.’
But as the black pieces were taken with measured inexorability, Colm and Declan had the impression that Sheehan no longer cared if he won or lost. Whether he was suddenly tired of the old legend and wanted to put an end to it, they had no idea, but at length the black Queen was cornered. As Colm reached out to lift the ebony figure from the board, the tiny jewelled eyes in the carved head caught the light and seemed to glint evilly. Colm hesitated. Then he shrugged and his fingers closed round the figure.
Sheehan and Colm looked at one another for a long moment. Then Sheehan said, ‘Congratulations, Colm. A game well played. I imagine you’re about to demand I keep our bargain.’
‘I am.’
‘Leave Kilglenn? Leave this tower?’
‘That was the agreement.’
‘A gentleman’s agreement only. And,’ said Sheehan, ‘it’s a long while since I was regarded as a gentleman.’
Colm said, ‘You’re reneging on the deal?’
‘An ugly word.’
‘Well?’
‘I’m not leaving this place,’ said Sheehan. ‘I can’t.’