by Oisin McGann
XXII
A DYING LANDSCAPE
NATE MOANED IN HIS SLEEP, twitching and shifting about under the blankets, as if trying to avoid looking at something. But the nightmare was all around him. It was inside him. He was unaware of Clancy lying in the next bed across from him, watching with concerned eyes; or Dempsey, in the top bunk, hissing through his teeth because he couldn’t sleep with the young man thrashing on the bunk below.
All Nate could see, right out to the horizon, was a dying landscape. Rain fell from the brooding, bruised clouds overhead. The twilight was not a natural one, coming as it did at midday. The land was cast in shadow, and it was changing before Nate’s eyes. Plants were being eaten away, dissolving into pulp. The trunks of trees cracked and shattered in explosions of dust, as if abruptly, catastrophically riddled with dry rot. The leaves liquefied. The wood turned to charcoal, the charcoal to ash, the ash to dust. Then the dust was stewed into mud by the unrelenting rain.
Nate saw beautiful, majestic buildings, grown up from the very soil and rock and trees of the landscape; he saw them crumble and topple in on themselves, their forms disintegrating to join the churning soup that had once been a civilization. They left no trace of their structures behind. The decay claimed the animals too. Nate saw a saber-tooth tiger, someone’s prized pet, wade frantically through the seething mud. He watched the mighty cat burst, its skin vaporizing, the remains of its flesh and skeleton claimed by the mud. A herd of mammoths, escaped from their handlers, stampeded across a nearby river. Some were dragged under. Others made it to the other side, only to stumble in this new swamp, their hair falling out in massive clumps, their legs seeming to grow shorter as they were eaten away, the beasts faltering and falling. One made it to a low hill, where the mud was only ankle-deep on the huge beast. It reared, raising its front legs, trunk whipping around its enormous tusks. Thin, snake-like tendrils erupted from all over its body, like worms being born from a corpse. The mammoth reared once more, trying to escape something that was inside its own body.
Before its feet could touch ground again, its balding flesh exploded outwards in a cloud of blood and gas and smoke, its very cells breaking down into their basic elements. Its skeleton fell apart, collapsing into the mud and disappearing. Nate gasped at the sight, though he had seen it before. He had witnessed this scene a hundred times before, but each time it seemed to get worse.
He was trying not to look at the people. There were still a few left. Those who could exercise the greatest control over their own bodies. They sought the high ground, trying to shelter from the rain under rocky outcrops or any trees that were still left standing. But even these people were consumed in the end. Their skin unwound in strings, twisting off their bodies and dissolving or vaporizing. Sometimes Nate thought he could see the things that were destroying them, where the concentrations were so high that they appeared almost as clouds of gas, or swarms of tiny insects.
Only the engimals escaped. Alerted by their instincts and given some limited protection by their inorganic forms, they fled from their masters, and from the scene of the devastation, before they too could be absorbed into the primordial mass.
Nate covered his face. He could never keep his hands over his eyes for long, however. He had to keep watching. But this time, when he looked again, he saw Daisy, Tatty and Leo standing just a few feet from him. A cold horror settled over him. He had never seen this before.
“What are you doing here?” he whimpered hoarsely. “This can’t be! Why are you here?”
Without a word, Daisy turned away from him, looking to the others, anguish carved into her face. Leo screamed as his flesh began to unravel. Tatty crouched down by him, but her body too was beginning to come apart. Daisy shrieked at Nate, begging him to help. She threw her arms around Tatty and Leo, as if trying to hold their bodies together, to save them … but their forms collapsed against her, spraying her skin and clothes as they became nothing more than decay and dust and stains. Then she cracked and crumbled and a gust of wind whirled her face away as if it were dry ash, swiftly pulling the remains of her body along with it.
Nate felt his own skin begin to burn, felt his muscles tear and his bones crack. He looked down as his body began its own horrible self-destruction. His skin slewed off, his face cracked and peeled. He went blind, but the sensations lasted a few moments longer …
And then he awoke with a high-pitched shriek. His sheet and blanket were drenched in sweat. His body was cold and clammy, trembling violently. He was lying on his front, his hands clutching at the stones in the wall at his head, as if trying to stop himself from falling.
That had been the worst nightmare yet. He breathed in deep, gasping lungfuls of air. The serpentine in his belly, normally eager to comfort him, had his insides knotted up in a terrible cramp. His groaning turned into a low growl as he focused his will on it, forcing it to release its hold on him.
“Jesus Christ, Wildenstern!” Dempsey snapped at him from the top bunk. “What in the name of God is going on inside your rotted head? If you can’t sleep like a normal human being, take your night-time contortions somewhere else and let the rest of us get some goddamned rest!”
Nate felt too tired to reply: The side of his head was throbbing, his eardrum still healing from the fight with Harmonica that evening. He touched his fingers to the healing burns on the side of his head, and singed hair came away on his hand. The injury had affected his balance as well, which was not helped by the bewildered state in which he had woken up. He felt weak, exhausted, hopelessly mortal. This running battle had taken so much out of him, and he hadn’t even made it home yet. Gerald was going to win—Nate was sure of it.
But even as the thought entered his head, Nate pushed it away from him. There was no choice to be made, nothing to think about. Gerald had to die, whatever the cost. Nothing else mattered. Nate smiled bitterly at his renewed conviction, fervently wishing he’d killed his cousin properly the first time.
Sitting up, he placed his feet flat on the floor until he felt confident that his head was clear enough for him to walk. Dressed in just his underclothes, he threw the blanket about his shoulders, took his father’s journal from his pack, and walked to the door and opened the latch. The building was an old stone-walled stable that had been recently been converted to house as many as twenty men. It was a Fenian safe-house, part of a farm set into some woods near the village of Blessington.
They had disembarked from the train at Sallins in Kildare the previous evening, and taken a wagon across country to Blessington, arriving early in the morning. Nate had only managed to get a few hours of troubled sleep, and now here he was awake again. He felt exhausted and miserable.
The air was cold outside and a light drizzle was falling. The chill made his ear hurt even more, the breeze feeling like it was blowing right into the center of his head. Shivering slightly, he took a lantern that hung from a nail beside the door. Lighting the lantern with a match, he strode barefoot across the yard, shielding the notebook under his blanket. He came to another stable—one that still housed horses. He slipped inside, set the lamp on the floor and settled himself into a pile of straw in a corner near the door.
There were still a couple of hours before dawn. Nate rubbed his hands together, trying to loosen them up and warm them against the cold, and then opened the journal and began reading. There was little of interest over the next few pages. After finding Eamon Duffy and Miriam together in the basement, Edgar hardly mentioned his wife again for some time. There were occasional words about his newborn daughter, but these were the disinterested remarks made by a distant father who had probably hoped for another son, rather than a new addition to “the frivolous sex.” Nate read on impatiently, skipping past comments on economics, politics, social unrest and the usual family scandal. He only wanted to know about his mother, but there wasn’t another mention of her over the following few weeks.
He finally found what he was l
ooking for, dated the 14th of June:
I have discovered that Eamon Duffy is still alive. My informants tell me that he boarded a ship in Kingstown last week, bound for Canada. How he could have survived the injuries I inflicted upon him is beyond me. There was no doubt in my mind that his wounds were fatal. Is it possible that he is some exiled relative of one of the families with aurea sanitas? Even so, his recovery is remarkable. And by all accounts, he walked aboard the ship unaided. My investigator assures me that the witness is certain of what he saw, and yet I am loath to believe it. In any case, if he is alive, he has learned his lesson and has wisely fled the country. Many of the ships carrying such emigrants have become known as ‘coffin ships’ because of their lack of seaworthiness, and the high death rate aboard from malnutrition, exposure and disease. With any luck, Mr. Duffy will oblige us with his demise.
I have finally settled on a resolution regarding Miriam’s betrayal. I had thus far been merciful, even compassionate, in my handling of the affair, but that could not continue. Under my instructions, Warburton has kept her sedated since I discovered, and pre-empted, her intention to abscond with our infant daughter. She has been confined to her room, but has been allowed to see the baby from time to time, though she is hardly conscious on these occasions. But word of her indiscretions has somehow got out to the family—as it so often does—and they are insisting she be ‘retired,’ as our little female-taming process has become known.
At first I would not hear of it, but I must, above all, consider my position. Already, I can hear the rumbling of dissent among some of my more ambitious kin. It has been some years since I have had to put down an Act of Aggression, and I have no wish to kill any more brothers or cousins unless it is absolutely necessary. But I suspect that trouble is brewing. If I am seen to be inconsistent in the imposing of my authority, my discipline, it will be viewed as a weakness. Any sign of weakness invites attack. And if they cannot hurt me directly, they will do it through Miriam. The more compassion I show her, the more certain the jackals are to use her against me. This cannot be permitted.
And so it is with a heavy heart that I have agreed to retire her. To demonstrate the breaking of her will, I had her precious ‘Dagda’s cauldron’ thrown into the furnace. Miriam had been brought to watch, but she turned and walked back upstairs. While gazing at it glowing and disintegrating in the fires, I noticed the snake that had encircled its rim—the one swallowing its own tail—was gone. The molding of the serpent had been torn or cut off the edge of the bronze cauldron. It was an irritation to see her still trying to defy me in any way she could, but what could one expect from such a stubborn chit?
Nate lifted his head, frowning, feeling the movement of the serpentine in his gut. Could that be where this thing had come from? This thing inside him could manipulate intelligent particles—perhaps even make new ones—he knew that. Its uncanny abilities had saved his life—and Cathal’s and Gerald’s. Had it once been welded onto the rim of that cauldron? If so, it might explain how Duffy had survived Edgar’s attack. Perhaps the Dagda’s cauldron could perform some of the miracles his mother claimed after all. Nate’s mother must have discovered the serpentine was actually an engimal and secreted the creature away, perhaps even sending it to Edgar’s sister who lived in exile. It was she who had used it years later, to save Cathal from tuberculosis. Nate shook his head and read on:
Yesterday, Dr. Herbert Angstrom was contacted and we arrived at the asylum this morning to carry out her incarceration. It helped that she was so befuddled by laudanum that she appeared only a shadow of her normal character. Her limp body was strapped into a wheelchair, and her once-beautiful face, with its gaunt, grey pallor, was devoid of expression. Her eyes, half-closed, were rolled up under her lids, showing only the whites. A dribble of saliva dripped from one corner of her mouth, which a footman respectfully wiped away at regular intervals.
In a final moment of tenderness towards my love, I took her hand and kissed it. There was no response; I do not think she was even aware of my presence. It was just as well for, as she was wheeled away into the cold damp dungeon that is Philip Richard’s House, I felt the last of my humanity was wheeled away with her. I have thought little, in the past, of all the women who have lived out the last years of their lives in that place, but I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck as I saw them close the heavy, locked door on my beloved.
We will announce next week that she died of a severe bout of influenza. It will be a majestic funeral—one befitting her passionate and generous character. Part of me hopes that her real funeral, which will necessarily be a secret and hidden affair, will not be too long coming. Truly, this asylum is a horror of human misery. As I turned round to leave, Dr. Angstrom asked if I would require the procedure to be performed. Still a relatively young man, he has profited well from his research, and this macabre service that he provides. With so many noble families’ skeletons in his closet, I foresee that he could become a very powerful man indeed. He certainly has that ambition, if I’m any judge. Staring up at the curving brown brick walls with their narrow, prison-like windows, I shook my head at his question. At the very least, I thought, let us leave her with her sanity.
But you didn’t even leave her that, did you? Nate thought as he read this last passage. He felt sick to his stomach as his father’s words confirmed what had happened to his mother. Edgar had obviously felt some pang of conscience. Just over a year later, he had brought his wife back home. Not to live among the family, but to be imprisoned again, in a fortified room in the attic, above Edgar’s rooms. On some nights, when the hallways were quiet and the wind blew across the top of Wildenstern Hall, Nate remembered how he and his siblings could hear the barely audible sounds of screams from the attic.
In her final days, Miriam Wildenstern had gone completely and utterly out of her mind.
Sitting in that dark, cold stable with the horses looking curiously at him, Nate put his head between his knees and cried for his mother.
XXIII
SOME FIERCE DANGEROUS EVENTS
HENNESSY, THE OLD HEAD GROOM—and her husband’s former lover—was the only person Daisy could trust to take her to the secret meeting. But even with the reins in his expert hands, the carriage ride from the Wildenstern estate to Dublin seemed to take forever. She could have used the family’s train, whose private tracks joined the Great Southern and Western Railway, to carry the train into Kingsbridge Station in Dublin—a much faster journey than the one she was taking. But it was an obscenely decadent way for just two people to travel to the city, and there was something calming about taking the slower route by carriage. Daisy needed as many calming influences as she could muster. And this way, she was spared from having to converse with any of the boorish relatives who might have been tempted to come along for the train ride.
Starting early in the morning, before most of the family was up, she and Hennessy traveled through the villages of Woodtown and Ballyboden, towards Rathfarnham and on through Rathgar and Rathmines, then into the city itself. Passing through some of the rougher areas, she spotted words scrawled on walls in chalk or even paint: “Long live the Highwayboy!”
Through her windows, Daisy saw the lowest, most wretched hovels built of turf and mud and straw squatting out among the fields. Closer to town, there was less of that, though it could be argued that the poor in the tall, over-crowded, filthy tenement buildings had it even worse than their rural counterparts. Many of these buildings were owned by the Wildensterns, and Daisy knew full well that the few taps in those hellholes gave out contaminated water, and the gutters on the streets in some areas ran with human sewage. Diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlatina, smallpox, typhoid and cholera were rife. Dublin had the highest rate of death by disease of any city in Europe. Its death rate was on a par with Calcutta in India. With horrible overcrowding, epidemics were common. Whole families might live in a single room of these buildings … and, of c
ourse, the Irish were famous for their large families.
Daisy had started a scheme to improve sanitation in the Wildenstern properties and keep the buildings themselves better maintained. She had been shocked to discover that some structures were on the verge of collapsing after years of neglect and cost-cutting. But she was struggling to find the money for these projects now, with Gerald siphoning off huge sums for his private research. The Wildenstern family had massive resources, but like an enormous ship it took a lot just to keep the company moving. If it lost momentum, it could easily end up on the rocks. With all the short-sighted greed of the family’s more stupid members, and with Gerald’s complete lack of concern as he bled the business dry, rot was setting into the North American Trading Company and its Irish assets. The Wildensterns were in increasing danger of going broke.
It was a fact that had not gone unnoticed by Brutus. The medieval ogre was not the complete ignoramus that Daisy had expected: On the contrary, the meetings she had had with him concerning the business had convinced her that the ancient Wildenstern was a man of keen intellect. Gerald had clearly coached him well, and Daisy was also convinced that Brutus’s contemporary education had included a thorough reading of Edgar Wildenstern’s journals. She had managed to read a few herself, before Gerald had ‘confiscated’ them. There was a definite pattern of thought that she recognized in Brutus—a ruthless clarity and an uncompromising belief in discipline. Perhaps he could indeed enforce his rule over the family, just as Edgar had. Soon, it might not matter to Daisy. The plans she was laying had the potential to change everything. But so much rested on the hope that Nathaniel—who must surely be close by now—could somehow draw Gerald’s attention away long enough to put those plans into action.
Hennessy drove the carriage to Leinster House, the family’s Dublin residence, a large mansion on spacious grounds in Merrion Square. For most of the day, Daisy played the part of a rich socialite, meeting some ladies for coffee and cream scones in the lobby of the Gresham Hotel on Sackville Street before heading off for a spot of shopping in some of the city’s most fashionable boutiques. Hennessy followed a few steps behind, carrying a growing pile of boxes and packages.