The Barrow Lover

by Patrick Todoroff

  I gathered a few askance looks asking after the Queen Mother's residence—not being the picture of propriety—but a rag-seller finally pointed me north. "Minding the harbor entrance. West side, at the very end of Greencastle Road," she croaked. "Big hall, white as snow with a red slate roof. You can't miss it."

  I rode north, night dropping hard and fast, part of me hoping I would.

  Half a mile from the Point, I tied the Mayor's horse in a stand of Wych Elm a stone's throw off the road. Far enough to be hidden for the night, close enough to be found in case things didn't work out. I didn't dwell too long on that—the bald truth of me without anything resembling a plan fixed my immediate attention. Tomorrow had its own troubles, the Vicar always said. Skulking along right then in the scrub, I wondered more than once how I got so stupid.

  I tried being sly as a fox, but was more a lost cow, bumbling around in the unfamiliar dark, snapping branches and tripping over roots. I dove in the bushes several times as riders and a wagon passed me, but the wind off the sea was shaking the treetops, rushing through the tall grass. That and inky dark were the only reasons I wasn't found out.

  Took twice the time it should have, but the road eventually ended. A fat Gibbous moon had climbed over the far landside hills, dappling everything silver and slate, and I could see the ocean heaving on my right, a vast stretch of burnished lead, breathing slowly. Close to the house, I started creeping in earnest.

  Crickets chorused in the hills, a thousand wee voices matching the throaty rumble of waves surging up over the cliff edge. The tang of brine stung my eyes, salted my lips. I scouted out a thick patch of hazel on a rise above the Point, ducked in, gathered myself, then peered out... and my heart sank like a stone.

  The Queen Mother's residence was more fortified estate than house. I counted three smaller cottages, a stable, small barn, and separate kitchen house, all of it surrounded by a high wall. Her fancy white hall with its ruddy roof was plopped at the back at the cliff. When the old woman had said“minding the harbor”she'd really meant“near tumbling into it;”her Majesty's manor was perched on the very edge like a cormorant roost.

  If that weren't bad enough, it took me spying the soldiers to remember Kane. Odhran Kane, Captain of the Queen Mother's Guard. Mystery to me how I could forget the man slavering to giblet and hang me beside the very Gate I'd passed through earlier that day. My Ma always said I had a good memory, even if it is a bit short.

  If there was one person I wouldn't mind introducing to Magalie, it was Kane. Seemed to me the two of them were perfect for each other. Match-made-in-Hades, that was.

  The manor's main entrance was closed up with fancy wrought-iron, a guard shack stuck right outside. I could see helmets glinting in torchlight. A straight long shadow in the turf revealed a second path that veered off the main road farther back. It led to a pair of stout wooden doors in the wall near the cliff edge. The servant's entrance.

  Sticking to bushes and dark folds on the hill, I skirted around the three sides of Queen Niamh's house. There was no other gate, no breech in the wall, no gardener's shack right up next to it. Not even a tree with overhanging branches.

  How in God's name Paddy weaseled his way in there, I had no idea. But in there he was, I knew it certain as the moon above, the sun tomorrow, my own heart beating. If anyone could find a way in, it'd be him. Finding things is what he did. And he would, 'cause that's what that venomous bitch Magalie wanted.

  I had the stone cold notion once she'd got what she came for, she'd toss him aside like a stale crust of bread. Between her and Kane, he didn't stand a chance.

  Raw from the wind, near chilled to death, I had a powerful dread sitting on me, but courage is being scared and standing up anyway. My best mate was down there and I was the only one to help him.

  It was on my second pass around I noticed the drainage ditch. Barely more than a slit in the ground, it ran alongside the servant's footpath and disappeared under the shadows below the wall by the wooden door. It was a long shot but it was better than nothing.

  I doubled back, crossed the road, then slithered through the grass, popping up like a jack-in-the-box now and again to search for it. I found it when I tumbled in.

  It was the manor's drain; muck and fluids from the kitchen house, the privy, and God knows where else sludged down there.

  Shite.

  It was such a good idea when it was still an idea.

  The stench of rotted food and chamber pots gagged me, watered my eyes 'til I was weeping and snotting like an infant, but I held my breath and crawled.

  And crawled.

  And crawled until I reached the wall.

  Near four feet down at the foundation, I made out a rusty iron grate wedged in a stone culvert. By starlight, I saw a gap where the bars were bent and broken. Looked just wide enough.

  I lay on my side, reached my arms all the way in and started to shimmy forward.

  All that ooze was good for something. I managed my head, then my shoulders, then—slowly—my chest. It was tar black and drippy in the drain, but if I craned my neck I could spot the gray-light of some kind of opening a few feet ahead. I was going to make it.

  Then one of the jagged bars poked my kidneys. I hissed and twisted away. Which was when my belt snagged.

  I twisted back, but the bar jabbed me again like an oven poker. I groped in the muck for something to grab, to pull myself along. Nothing. I tried backing out, but my hands kept slipping. I took a deep breath and gave one good kick, hoping to squirt myself past the obstruction.

  Red hot pain flashed in my side. The bar only dug deeper.

  Forward, backward, rolling side to side... every move only hooked me tighter.

  I told myself not to panic, but in less than a ten-count I was near flailing and splashing and ready to scream.

  Wriggling in the stinky, slimy dark, the picture of a new cut headstone popped in my head. Declan Flood, it read. He passed so young and died absurd—in the slop smellin' like a turd.

  I near screamed then, but bit my tongue. Over the wind, I heard grass rustling. Footsteps, coming my way.

  Had the guards heard me writhing about? Were they smirking down at my legs right now, deciding whether to spear me or piss themselves laughing?

  I froze, heart hammering in my chest. I swore I could hear its tiny echo off the stones around me.

  The footsteps stopped. I lifted my head careful as can be and strained to hear anything.

  A snort, then a laugh.

  Bastards.

  I was about to shout at the fookers to pull me out and at least kill me standing when Teagan's voice whispered out. "Why am I not surprised to find you down there?"

  ***

  "Sweet Christ, you're rancid," Teagan said, passing me another towel.

  I sponged gunk off my neck. "How did you get here?"

  "Mayor Tom don't have the only horse in town, Declan." She squinted at me in the starlight. "He's right pissed, you know."

  "No, I mean what are you doing here?" I demanded.

  "Pulling your ungrateful arse out of the fire, apparently," she sniped.

  We were standing in the shadow of a small horse cart loaded with vegetables. I gaped. Teagan began wiping my shoulders.

  "Where'd this all come from?" I pointed, incredulous.

  "My Ma's garden," she replied. "She's pissed, too."

  The wind shifted suddenly, carried a bark of laughter, men talking. I flinched. The guards—

  "Easy there, darlin'. Those two are fine. " She lifted the linen off a basket of sweet rolls. " I brought 'em these and apologized profusely, this order for her Majesty's larder coming so late."

  I stared at Teagan. Moonbeams dimpled her chin and round cheeks. A coarse kitchen dress hung on her, fronted by a stained, frayed apron. The brim of the battered straw hat flopped in the wind, held on her head by a string under her chin. Her shawl and hair flapped to one side like ragged flags. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

  "How did you—?"


  "Wasn't hard to work out, boyo. After we talked, I heard Paddy was the one who left with Meany, not you. And when the O'Meara boy said he saw you on the Mayor's horse, I put it together. Your Magalie's after the Queen Mother."

  "She's not mine," I squawked.

  She waved my objection off and fixed me with a hard look. Same look as her Ma. "You sure Paddy's in there?"

  I swallowed. On the other side of the manor wall was King's own mother, Queen Niamh. More than likely, other high-born as well, along with dozens of attendants, and a troop of soldiers captained by a spleen-venting malignity named Odhran Kane.

  And so was a simple soul snared into bearing the rancorous witchery of a vengeful ghost—my friend Paddy O' Doule. I was sure of it.

  I nodded.

  Teagan squared her shoulders. "Well, then, that's where we're going. Here." She hefted a large basket of turnips and greens into my arms. "You're helping me unload. Act slow-witted," she winked. "Shouldn't be too hard."

  Together we walked through the servant's entrance.

  ***

  Teagan led that horse and cart straight across the yard, marched into the kitchen like it was her own. In she went, dumping cabbages on the nearest table, reciting the perils of mud, tolls, thieving street brats and useless help—meaning me—before any of the staff knew what hit 'em. I shuffled in after, a bit of drool slipping out the corner of my mouth.

  Four cooks, not one of them had ever laid eyes on her in their life, but she was so bold in belonging there, they believed it. Another minute, they were nodding and chuckling along with her.

  "And this useless fella," she swopped me in the arm, "near let the wheels get pinched right off my cart. Put them there," she pointed me and my basket to the table.

  "He's good for hefting, not much else," she whispered conspiratorially. "Fell out a tree when he was a wee lad." She rapped her knuckles on her head. "Ain't been the same since."

  That earned a laugh.

  "Oi!" she suddenly exclaimed at me. "You stepped in something."

  She made a show of taking a big sniff, scrunched her face, then waved me out the door. "Outside with you. Wait. By. The. Cart."

  She rolled her eyes and turned back to staff. "Sorry 'bout that. Doozy keeping track of him all the time. I'll bring the rest in myself."

  I trotted out, head down, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.

  Planting myself behind the bulk of the horse, I studied the royal residence. There had to be a way in.

  The manor house was hunchback thick, with a squat center tower on one end, and a set of sharp roofs jutting like black saw-teeth at the stars. The first-floor windows close to me were bright, the curtains orange warm with firelight. Fuzzy figures moved behind them, rippling across the fabric like the shadows of clouds across a meadow.

  The cook's entrance was twenty paces off; a dark arch of a doorway notched under a flat shed roof. My gaze drifted up the gable end to the oily shimmer of window glass on the second floor.

  Paddy was looking down at me.

  My heart stopped.

  Without thinking, I grabbed a basket of vegetables and started walking.

  The door was unlocked.

  Heart in my mouth at the brass of it, I lifted the latch and slipped into a tiny, dark pantry. I could make out shelves stacked with cutlery and crystal, the throat of a narrow hall leading further in. Ruddy light and noise murmured out of an open doorway midway down. At the far end, I spied the dull-dark-dull-dark accordion of stairs.

  Letting out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, I moused forward, holding the basket in front of me like a shield. Don't mind me, I quavered in my head. I'm just a stinky, dumb culchie, delivering to the wrong door. A dozen creeps later the noise resolved: laughter, glasses tinkling, and a strumming cittern.

  Queen Niamh was at supper.

  Worming along the wall, I'd edged right up to the jamb when Kane's voice rang out. "I'll attend to him personally, your Majesty."

  He snipped his words like spent blooms on a bush, a string of dead husks falling from his lips.

  "Debts and lies come always paired," a woman said. "I want no further discussion until he pays."

  Against my better judgment, I peeked around the corner.

  Kane's back was to me, barely pissing distance away. Beyond him, a large dining room glittered with candlelight, crystal, and gilt. Kane was at attention, addressing the pair at the table.

  The Queen Mother herself sat profile to me, wine glass in hand, posed for a portrait. Her beauty was aged, gray and stern as a rapier. She was staring at the man across the table, mouth dour.

  The fellow was a balding old pudge with a red bulb nose and great woolly muttonchops. Wearing blue and gold silks, he had a nasty comb-over that made his head look like a duck egg clutched by a giant spider.

  At her Majesty's words, he threw his head back and guffawed as if she'd made a great joke. "Words are the cheapest currency, your Majesty. But I fear the Earl of Connacht's treasury is full of little else." He winked and tossed back his wine. A servant darted in to refill his glass. I ducked back.

  My jerkiness rattled the turnips and the whole fat dirty purple pile started to slide. I quick tucked the basket in and caught greens under my chin. Trembling, I slowly knelt and gently placed the wicker on the floor at my feet.

  The Queen made some new comment, and it must have been the height of wit, because both the Old Baldy and Kane laughed. I peeked again; all three were still facing away.

  Now or never.

  Deep breath... and I shot past the doorway into the dark end of the hall.

  At the foot of the stairs, the Queen's voice sounded behind me. "What is that horrid smell?"

  "Not me!" Lord Pudge chuckled. "Stopped eating cabbage last year."

  "I'll find out, your Majesty," Kane spoke over him.

  I curled up as Odhran Kane strode into the hall. Instead of looking around, he turned toward the panty and promptly tripped over the basket. He caught himself and swore.

  "Captain Kane?" the Queen Mother called out.

  "It's nothing, your Majesty," he growled. "By your leave, I'll return momentarily." Without waiting for a reply, he snatched up a turnip and stomped toward the tiny pantry.

  As I crept up the stairs, I heard Old Pudge behind me. "Bit odious, that man. Still," he tutted, "his type can be useful, don't you agree?"

  "Absolutely," Queen Niamh replied.

  Up I went.

  The stairs joined another passage, this one wider with a long rug and a row of tall arched windows facing seaside. The candle sconces weren't lit, but starlight outlined ornate carved railings, brass fittings, even fancy painted paper on the wall. It hit me the glass panes alone in this house cost more than all of Carn earned in a year. I gaped.

  Vicar Duffy always said if you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gives it to. Standing there, I finally understood what he meant.

  It took all of two seconds to find Paddy. A bright sick light was smoldering under a door at the end of the hall, just like that night at Fades, like the light in Paddy's window.

  I went in and found the both of them standing there. Paddy O' Doule and Magalie Morreaux, the Black Jewel of Senlis.

  They stood in the middle of some kind of changing room with mirrors, little tables and curvy padded couches. Another fancy arched window took up most of the far wall. It was open to the wind and I could hear the crash and hiss of breakers boiling up from the rocks below.

  They both turned to me. Paddy held the open locket. Beside him, Magalie was every inch the lost and lovely lass in the picture, only gauzy at the edges, like smoke. Her eyes met mine and she smiled triumphantly.

  Paddy's face was creased. "You shouldn't have come, Dec."

  "Paddy..." I croaked.

  He shook his head. "You should go."

  My mouth was dry ash. "I'm here to help. To bring you home."

  Paddy looked questioningly at Magalie, then back a
t me. "I don't need your help no more, Dec. Magalie says so."

  "Mate," I began. "Don't be heeding her. She's lying to you."

  "No, no, no" he said. "I'm not listening. I don't have to no more. She says my finding things connects us. Makes me special."

  Magalie started flickering, guttering like a candle; her dress, hair, face. One instant pretty, the next, the bloody bean síof my dream. Smiling all the while. Paddy didn't seem to notice.

  I tore my eyes off the stuttering nightmare and bulled ahead. "Paddy, she killed Fade—”

  "'Cause he killed her," he snapped. "He sliced her and left her to drain like a pig in the dirt. It was wrong."

  "Vengeance isn't ours to take. Ask her why she killed the Widow," I demanded. "She wasn't in the woods."

  He stared at me stubbornly.

  "Now she's after the Queen Mother," I explained. "To murder her. And you bringing her here paints you the same. Is that what you want?"

  He thrust the locket toward me. The open lid flashed, the scratchy swirl of letters coiling like a tiny viper "I want you to leave me be," he pouted. "All you've ever done is use me: 'Paddy find me this' or 'Paddy where's my stuff?' All I'm good for is to get you money. You don't care about me."

  It weren't all true, but enough of it was I staggered at the shame of it.

  "Well, I don't need you no more," he declared. "Magalie says we can be together."

  The skull-faced corpse girl grinned at me, bright red blood drenching her dress of laced fog and pyre smoke.

  She touched his shoulder and spoke, her voice soft and dry as rotted silk, echoing across a great gulf. "It's time. Leave me open in her room. I will find you when it's done."

  My blood chilled at that. She'd schemed him into some devilish compact. "Paddy," I started, "I never meant— "

  "You never meant nothing," he replied gruffly.

  That stung me. "Paddy, that's not true. I did mean it. You're my best mate. Have been since we were little. It never came out perfect, but you are. True as true."