by Various
The sailors rowed out to me, clapped me on the back when they heard my name, told me all of Provincetown had given up hope, and asked me to lead them to the other castaway.
“There is no other,” I said.
“We saw two of you near the shore,” one of them said.
“I was alone.”
Days passed into weeks, and then months. Always the prophecy hung over me—my private sword of Damocles. The vision of my death by drowning horrified me, hypocrite that I was, and during that next year I found many excuses not to return to South Weepecket. The consummate reason arrived in the form of Martha: excessively plain, mild, deceptively persistent with cakes and pies and kind words in church. She was the sort of girl who would work hard in a partnership, who would keep a good home. I found myself pledged to her, the wedding plans set in motion by her energetic mother, and my panicked thoughts of Syrenka were too late. I had laid the foundation of my prison walls. I thought every day of Syrenka surfacing near Weepecket, not seeing me, sinking back into the deep, alone. Years later, when I knew she could no longer be waiting for me, daydreams of her crippled me.
Everything the hag predicted came true, but in gray tones, not in vibrant colors. Martha bore babies, my company bore profits, my children—freed of a life of labor—went away to school and never returned, I lived too long. It was a life without Syrenka’s inquiring eyes, without her free heart. One day when I was quite alone, I fileted a fresh, raw flounder and ate it.
This is the juncture in my tale beyond which Mr. Billington has no advantage over you. A fortnight ago I waited in my carriage outside of the bank as he retrieved from my safe deposit the leather pouch you now hold in your hands. Buried in blankets, I might have seemed asleep. A sometime customer of mine named Olaf Ontstaan stood nearby with a lobster fisherman and discussed in hushed tones a young Plymothian named Ezra Doyle—recently bereft of his father—seen by the men of a trawler leaning over a rowboat, enthralled with a pale mermaid, who sensed they were being watched and slipped into the depths. The lobster fisherman offered his own gossip in exchange: Mr. Doyle had been seen loitering on the tip of the rocky outcropping south of Plymouth Wharf by the light of a full moon, on his hands and knees, muttering into the water like a madman. At last I understood why the sea witch had preserved my life beyond reason: first to cause the acid ache of eighty-four years without Syrenka, and now the knife wound of knowing the man who had taken my place.
I hired a stagecoach with four horses and a boy to take me to Mr. Doyle’s home in Plymouth—an arduous eleven-hour ride that pummeled my buttocks until I was bruised. I had known his father, a shipbuilder of integrity and some local renown, and I used that connection to gain entry with his housekeeper, Mrs. Banks. Mr. Doyle greeted me with warmth. We spoke of this and that, none of it important, none of it my true mission. My vision was clouded, but not enough to avoid his beauty. I saw what I had when I was young—unkempt hair, a lithe, lean body, the heart of a poet—and so much more: the conviction of a lover.
I leaned in close before we parted, his bewildered expression the only indication that he was humoring a senseless visit. I said, in the raspy, toothless voice of an old man, “When you give your heart to the ocean, you either drown, or spend your life wishing you had drowned.” He smiled kindly and shook my hand good-bye.
It was evening when I left him and the moon was out, glorious and waxing gibbous. A sudden thought caused me to stop the coach on Water Street and have the boy escort me to the rocky outcropping, over shifting sand, leaning heavily on him until we reached the moistened, packed shore, after which I dismissed him with a coin. Scaling the slick rocks of the outcropping as Mr. Doyle had done was out of the question, and so I rested my frail frame against it, the icy tide licking my feet numb, waiting until dark. Within the hour, the weather changed, the temperature dropped, yet I hardly noticed the chill or my trembling, which would burgeon when I returned home into the illness that consumes me now. I tossed stones feebly into the water—a calling card of sorts, I prayed. Eventually, a miracle: I spied her luminescence, swirling like liquid smoke, and I was carried back in time. It was as if eight decades had not happened, yet I was inexplicably ancient. She surfaced only to her eyes, assessed me from a distance in the moonlight, and then, I saw, recognized me, I know not how. She approached, and we regarded each other in silence, our old habit. But I was there to speak; I had not the luxury of time.
“I came to say…” The words choked me. She was as beautiful as the day I left her. I was a bag of loose flesh and bones. I could not stop the tears as I finished. “…to say…I’m sorry.”
She thought about this carefully, and in that small silence I missed her more than I ever had. Finally she said a low “Thank you.”
I should have left it there, the better ending. But I could not accept the blame for my own mistake.
“Your queen showed me a prophecy the day the ship came, a vision of the future. I had no choice.”
She cocked her head. I thought I saw a wistful smile, but if I did it was gone too quickly, replaced with pleasant indifference. Her heart belonged to another.
“The sea witch has much magic,” she said at last. “But she has never had the power of prophecy.”
And now, patient Thomas, you may open the leather pouch, which contains my dearest treasure, Syrenka’s pearl. Find a woman who makes you long to give it to her. Choose wisely when your time comes. Live—or die—without regret. And remember me as ever, your affectionate great-grandfather,
Resolved Henry Stanton
Copyright (C) 2012 by Elizabeth Fama
Art copyright (C) 2012 by Anna & Elena Balbusso
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Contents
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Geantraí
The outriders were galloping in from both flanks and David ó Flynn pulled back on his pony’s reins to wait halfway down the hillside. His companions imitated him, some yanking warbows from their scabbards and stringing them with thoughtless ease. The footmen lined up in a loose array, holding their javelins ready but with their thumbs not yet in the throwing loops. They had passed unmolested south of the bog country around Dun Mor, avoiding the Foreign-held lands, but one never knew. The heavens cried out the deaths of kings; but on earth in this Year of Grace twelve hundred and four and twenty, men planned those deaths in whispers.
Cill Cluanaigh rolled away fat and green from the base of the hill toward the broad expanse of Lough Corrib. From his position on the hillside, David could just make out the smudge of the lough’s farther shore. Iar Connaught resembled nothing so much as a sullen, gray cloud on the horizon. Freshening, the breeze rippled the grass and raised a sparkling white chop from the lough, as if the grass were an emerald sea breaking on a shore of shattered glass.
The outriders signaled with the finger-ogham but David couldn’t make out the numbers.
“A party of fourteen,” said Gillapadraig, his principal man-of-trust. “Armed.”
“Now, there is a surprise…” David glanced behind. “We’ll move back,” he said. “Just below the crest, not atop it.” Such a position would provide the widest field for the archers.
On David’s other side, Liam ó Flaherty shifted on his pony. “It’s not a trap,” he said. “Only an escort. Himself would not send me all the way into the Sliabh ua Fhlainn only to lure you into a trap.”
“Would he not, then?” David replied distractedly. The western man spoke as
if the Sliabh ua Fhlainn lay at the very ends of the earth. Yet if any land deserved that name, it was surely Iar Connaught. West of Lough Corrib they grew nothing but stones, and not very good stones at that. “Those horsemen may not be your own folk, but Rory’s sons,” he said. “Rumor trickled south with the melting snow: Turlough and Little Hugh have left The ó Neill’s hospitality and have come back into the country to wrest the kingship from Aedh.” He turned to Liam, all bland innocence. “Perhaps you did not hear of it out here in the West.”
Liam grunted and said nothing. David faced forward, morosely satisfied at having his suspicions confirmed. Fools the sons of Rory might be to come back, but not such great fools as to ride openly about. They were hiding under the protection of some great lord, and what better place for hiding than at the very ends of the earth?
Ó Flaherty’s stronghold squatted upon an island in the lough, distant from the shore and stoutly defended by a fleet of war boats. David considered how he might attack the place should the need arise. There was nothing ill between The ó Flynns and The ó Flahertys, but a prudent man kept his wits as sharp as his sword, lest he have need of either weapon. The walls were built of stone after the Foreigner fashion; but if there was anything of which The ó Flaherty had a sufficiency, it was stone.
By the time the party disembarked at the wooden dock below the stronghold, David had concluded that only a siege would be practical–and impractical as well. A hosting of Gaels could perform marvelous feats, but sitting on their backsides and waiting was not one of them. The very word siege was a foreign one, learned the hard way from the wrong ends of trebuchets.
In the courtyard, a ridge of turf had been built up and wooden planks laid atop to create a long table. Upon this a quantity of food had been spread: meats of all sorts—beef, pork, horse, poultry, salted fishes; milsén, wheat cakes and loaves; butter, sweet cream and soured cream, a variety of cheeses; milk–boiled, of course, and with honey added; beans and beets; two or three sorts of apples; and the three condiments: salt, leeks, and seaweed.
There were some strange foods set out as well. Kernels of some large yellow grain mixed with a flat, round, pale-green bean. Lumpish brown things that he thought might be roots of some sort. These looked and smelled not at all toothsome, and their odd aromas hinted that something out of the ordinary awaited.
Hugh ó Flaherty greeted David in the courtyard, gripping his hand, as was the Irish custom. Hugh squeezed. David waited and Hugh squeezed harder and David waited some more. Finally, The ó Flaherty grunted and released him, then presented him with an arm bracelet as a hospitality-gift. David praised him for his open-handed generosity, all the while wondering was the old fox was up to. The guests, as was customary, clapped their hands to show approval.
Hugh led him to the center of the table, where a linen cloth had been laid across the planks and three high seats placed side by side. David’s standard-bearer already stood behind the rightmost one. On the left sat Naoife, his host’s wife, a rail-thin woman with falcon’s eyes. She welcomed David with a smile intended to be pleasant.
Once David was seated, gillies hurried about the courtyard, serving out the food. David turned a little to the side and handed the arm band to Gillapadraig, who sat beside him. “Have you ever seen the like of it?” he murmured.
“Cunningly wrought,” his man-of-trust replied, “but the gems are only polished, not cut.”
“Oh, it’s fine enough work,” David said, taking it back and slipping it onto his arm, where it nestled among twisting tatoos. “But when have you ever seen an eagle outspread and perched upon the sun?” He searched the crowd for what he knew he must find. The ó Flaherty held a platter of roasted boar to him and David took a portion.
“Serving you with his own hand, is he?” Gillapadraig whispered. “He wants something.”
“Is not this day full of surprises.”
The guests were a mix of ó Flaherties and clans allied with them. David noted some rough men from Connemara, the rockiest part of Iar Connaught. Fell fighters, but clearly uncomfortable here among their betters. Their Pictish blood showed in their shorter stature and dark hair, prominent here in a tall sea of Gaelic red and blond. There were two Danes present. Both wore their hair twisted into long braids. The shorter Dane boasted a broad, flattish face, darker in coloring.
David chewed the meat, savoring the juices. “Excellent boar,” he told his host as he continued to study the assembly.
“I speared him myself,” ó Flaherty said.
“Valiantly done.” David had no doubt that the boar was safely dead before ó Flaherty’s men-of-trust had allowed him to approach. Kings were not so plentiful as to waste them on the odd pig or two.
Gillapadraig leaned close. “What are you looking for?”
“Turlough and Little Hugh.”
“Ó Flaherty would not be so bold!”
“Would he not? He’s all twisted in on himself like those capitals the monks draw in their books. He’ll use the sons of Rory to bring down the sons of Cathal; and he’ll use Cathal’s sons to bring down Rory’s. It’s the use that delights him, not the cause. He brought me here so that I might take some word back to Cormac. What word, I don’t yet know.”
He spotted them at last. Not the sons of Rory, after all, but at one with the strange foods and the odd eagle motif. Half a dozen men and women huddled in a small group in the back of the courtyard. Their hair was dark like the Connemara men. But Picts, like the Irish, greased their hair and pulled it out into spikes, while these braided their hair like Danes. The strangers shared with the shorter Dane the same flat features, and their skin was colored a dark copper.
From the corner of his eye, David caught ó Flaherty’s feline smile.
Nothing so pleasures a man who believes himself clever than to succeed at some small trick. Hence, David was not surprised to find Rory’s sons waiting when The ó Flaherty led him into his hall after the banquet. Turlough was standing with his back to the fire, his arms clasped behind him. Little Hugh, his brother, sat at the long table with a bowl of uiscebeatha—and not, by the evidence, his first of the evening. They both turned to face the doorway when David entered.
“So?” Hugh blurted out. “Are you with us?” Turlough reached out and placed a silencing hand on his brother’s shoulder. Ó Flaherty closed the door upon them.
“I haven’t spoken with him yet,” he told the brothers.
David went to the board by the wall and found the jar of uiscebeatha and poured a bowl of his own. “I am with you in that we stand together in this room. Whether I am with you in any other fashion depends on where else you may stand.”
Little Hugh, who had brightened at the first sentence, scowled upon hearing the second. Turlough grimaced. “That wasn’t funny, David.”
“So. I hadn’t meant it to be.”
“All the chiefs are with them,” ó Flaherty commented. Having closed the door on the little gathering, he too proceeded to the jug. “They’ve come and given their pledges.”
“Oh, doubtless there’s been a regular procession through here,” David said. “I can even guess at the names of them. Oaths must have little value these days, if men discard them so lightly.”
Ó Flaherty had fetched his drink and sat with Turlough and David. “I’ve sworn no oath to The ó Conners of Cruachan,” he said.
David shrugged. Iar Connaught had never been counted a part of the kingdom. The ó Flaherty had been expelled from Connaught only a few generations earlier–and by The ó Conners of Cruachan. “And the others who have come?”
Turlough spoke up. “What oaths they gave to my cousin he has forfeited by his feckless and dishonorable behavior.”
“As an argument, that has its conveniences.”
Turlough stood and leaned on the table with both fists. “He is ‘no-king.’ We’ve all agreed: ó Taidg, ó Flannigan, mac Garrity…”
David maintained composure. The consent of the four principal chiefs was needed to proclaim a king in
Connaught, and Turlough had just named three of them. No wonder ó Flaherty had feasted him and covered him with honeyed words. Win over The ó Flynn and they could raise Turlough up on the very rock at Cruachan! He emptied his bowl and tossed it to the table, where it clattered and spun.
“You haven’t mentioned Cormac,” he observed. “The Marshall of the Host may have some little say in the matter, whether the Four Chiefs forswear themselves or not.”
“You’re his officer,” ó Flaherty said. “He listens to your advice.”
“The mac Dermot has the most marvelous sort of ear. What goes into it is only what he permits.”
Turlough struck the table. “The white rod is mine,” he insisted. “My father was High King!”
“And what came of that,” said David, “but that the Foreigners came into Ireland? And there is the pebble over which all your plots will stumble. If I do come over, and if I do bring The mac Dermot with me, Aedh will turn to them, with their shirts of iron. They’ve already castled Meath and Leinster. Would you hand them Connaught, as well?” With a growl of disgust, he turned away.
The ó Flaherty spoke quietly, and a little smugly. “The sons of Cathal are not the only party with iron-shirted friends.”
The ó Flaherty’s briugaid brought them into the room, the very strangers that David had noted earlier. With them came the two Danes, and David suddenly realized, seeing them all together, that the shorter Dane was a half-breed: Danish blood mixed with these strangers.
He studied these new Foreigners with great care, for he knew that ó Flaherty planned some devious trick involving them and he did not yet know what that trick would be. Nor, by all appearances, did the Foreigners, for they cast sidelong glances at their host, and all but one, despite their outward arrogance, displayed signs of wariness.