by Des Sheridan
‘Patience please,’ said Malachy, slowly picking up a magnifying glass. ‘Give me a minute, the writing is long hand, somewhat flamboyant in style, and faded in places.’ He started to read out the verse, hesitantly at first as he tried to find the metre.
‘The curious Triskell shall from base to acumination be held secure and privily covert, in oyster shell lapped by pransing coil, where the breath of Zephyros sucureth the Prince of Israel’s skyward course, held close within the recusant bosom under sovereign acceptation, and the fundament lieth yet within the regal sepulchre by Cormac’s shield, until the dawn whence summon the Sacred Triune them to be ingathered and sheweth all to unfold’.
Tara was dumbstruck. Most of the poem was gobbledygook to her but the reference to Cormac’s shield struck home like a bolt. Wasn’t that the phrase Joe had used in his diaries? Or was it Colum’s shield? Suddenly confused she felt thrown.
‘And what does all that mean?’ asked Sean simply.
‘I can’t say I know,’ replied Malachy. ‘Seventeenth century verse can be self-consciously learned, with flowery conceits, sometimes even revelling in its own opacity. And there can be classical and biblical references that we are simply not familiar with. Still, I expect it can be decoded, but one of you will need to do a bit of research on it.’
‘What’s that at the bottom?’ asked Tara.
‘Aha!’ said Malachy brightly. ‘Bingo! That, my dear lady, is what your American friends call paydirt. It is a signature. Looks like Corne..lius... Walsh... ensis... Episcopus. Bishop Cornelius Walshe. Now, I wonder who he was?’
He looked around the table. His eyes, sparkling with excitement at the prospect of a quest, came to rest on Tara.
‘Tara, now, there is a clue to follow!’
Tara looked at him. Was he taking the mickey? Sometimes his manner seemed almost camp, as though the whole thing was a joke. It was one aspect of him that she didn’t warm too. It seemed contrary to his usual empathy, which made her feel safe with him.
As Malachy packed away the parchment, the party drifted back into to the living room. Joining them for the next twenty minutes, Tara watched the news channel on TV. The discoveries at Rosnaree were receiving global news coverage. It was hard to credit, tucked away safely in this country house, that they were the centre of world attention. Reluctantly, in the face of increasingly strident summonses from Mrs Ryan, they filed in for their much-postponed evening meal. Tara wondered if they were as bushwhacked by the events of the day as she was: her outbursts of the morning; the successful press conference; the finding of the metal object and the letter; the dust devil and finally the verse.
The mood was relaxed and friendly around the table but Tara noticed that no one mentioned the elephant in the room, namely that her insistence had been justified and that there was no rational explanation for it. She observed that Robert seemed very lost in thought and watched his face. She was learning to interpret his expressions, now that she knew his self-control covered many emotions. How had he been so quick to react when the whirlwind arose? She was not going to rely on any man ever again, but his presence was unexpectedly reassuring.
An hour or so later Tara trekked upstairs to bed exhausted but exhilarated. It had been a good day. She was taking charge of her life and she felt the better for it. She felt braver too. In the tomb a few days back, she had prayed out of fear, now spontaneously she offered up a prayer. She didn’t know why but, for the first time since she was a child, she was in the right frame of mind. She couldn’t remember the complete words of any formal prayer so she just closed her eyes and made one up.
‘Whoever or whatever you are,’ she intoned silently to the ether. ‘I know you are sending me signals. Come and talk to me again’.
Lying in bed, a sense of peace enveloped her, like that safe feeling she remembered from when her mum had tucked her up as a child. Smiling at the memory, she reflected that how she felt right now wasn’t so bad. It certainly trumped worrying about her sanity as she had done for the last three months.
Chapter 67
The second dream seeped into Tara’s unconscious mind like a mist through a wood, slowly and imperceptibly at first and then gradually pervading everything. Blurred, evanescent forms began to coalesce into turbulent images of a great fortified building under attack. A tall, round tower loomed over the scene, rising above squared bastions and vaulted roofs that formed a complex of buildings squatting upon a great curved dome of rock. At first mortal combat unfolded along walls of the fortress, the soldiers fighting with much shouting and yelling and clashing of arms. Then she saw a gruesome slaughter unfolding in a fine church with an enormous arched ceiling. Blood pumped out of the slain and wounded, ponding hideously around the feet of the assassins as they hacked mercilessly into the writhing bodies of priests, civilians and children alike. The vivid scenes of butchery caused Tara to flinch and recoil in disgust. Then part of her brain became lucid, aware that it was a dream she was experiencing and not reality. Or more precisely, that what she was viewing was part of a different reality. She was inside the dream, but untouched by the events unfolding, like a ghostly presence.
Without warning the scene shifted abruptly and a new tableau unfolded. Images of a beautiful and grand house, on a sunny day, with a group of people walking about a knot garden. Small box hedges fringed the borders and the heat of summer raised the smells of mint, rosemary and lavender into the air. Tara looked down and noticed that the lavender was not yet in flower. One man seemed to be at the centre of proceedings. He was taller than the others and was ahead of her, so that all she could see was his back. He wore a suit of matching padded trousers and a jerkin, both cut in burgundy-coloured velvet, above tall leather boots. Long, fair locks of curling hair tumbled down onto his shoulders and upper back.
Although she could see the faces of his companions, she always found herself behind the man as the party made its way along the parterre path, their buckled shoes crunching on the gravel. She tried desperately to get in front, but whenever she did so he would change direction and thwart her intent. Flecks of dandruff speckled his upper back and she raised her hand to sweep it away, but somehow could not touch him, his body moving out of reach as he strode on.
A ripple of laughter sounded. These people were friends, she sensed, trusting in each other. Odd words and phrases reached her ears. They were speaking English and some Gaelic. She shouted ‘Stop!’ as loudly as she could but nobody seemed to hear her. Finally, lunging forward, she broke through the invisible barrier of time and space and touched the man. The sensation was electric and she was propelled backwards at great speed. She feared that the dream would end but instead the man wheeled around, moving swiftly towards her, so that his face almost collided into hers. He had a large head and strong features, bushy eyebrows and a long straight nose. His face, the skin crevassed by age, was inches from hers and she took in the magnificent golden moustache and beard. A cavalier! But it was the eyes that captivated her - lively, thoughtful eyes, robin-blue in colour and watching her. A generous smile of welcome spread across his lips, which parted to reveal tarnished teeth, green and yellow with age. Recognition swept over Tara, as when you meet someone you have never seen before, but somehow feel you know really well; or if you have met them previously it has been in a past so deep and distant you can’t be sure it had ever happened. Joy filled her as he grasped her two hands in his and pressed them. Then, in a flash, it was gone, the intense encounter over.
Tara sat bolt upright in her bed, staring anxiously about in the dark of the night. But there was nothing there, nothing to fear. She was just in her bed, in her usual room at Rosnaree. Falling back on the bedding she fell swiftly into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.
Chapter 68
Sligo, Ireland, 25 September 2014
Tara was up early, checking the in-box on the house e-mail. Robert’s prediction was proved correct, she noted. The news coverage had triggered over three hundred e-mails. She worked fast, filing them into fo
lders of similar subject matter. Many were media requests for interviews from press, radio and TV companies. Some were willing to pay and pay well. Other inquiries were from archaeologists and scholars all around the globe, asking for information and offering help in various guises.
Making her way to the kitchen she found Malachy cooking bacon and was surprised to see Robert thumbing through a large pile of newspapers. Seeing the look on her face, Robert smiled at her.
‘One of Mac’s men picked them up from Sligo first thing. We will get them each day for as long as we need to’.
Tara liked his smile, there was something open and guileless about it. She also wondered if Robert ever failed to foresee a need. He seemed hard-wired to react and take methodical action. She recalled again his fast reflexes during last night’s storm. When they had been huddled together she had smelt his cologne, felt his arms protectively envelop her, yet somehow respecting her space at the same time. At first, she had been irritated by his presence at Rosnaree. She couldn’t see why they needed a former British Army type there at all. Like many Irish people, Tara’s dislike of violent Republicanism was matched by an equal distrust of the British Army. But this morning she found the ex-soldier’s presence reassuring. In Malachy, whom she had known for years, she had a friend she could implicitly trust. Maybe she should be more tolerant. Perhaps Robert might become an ally too. She could do with a few more.
As they laid into bacon and toast, Tara announced that she was going to research the background to the parchment on the internet.
Malachy responded. ‘Good idea. I have access to all sorts of historical archives on academic search sites that may help. I can let you have access. If our friend Cornelius is there, you will find him.’
‘I’ll start with a link to Cashel,’ said Tara. The two men paused in their eating and looked at her inquiringly.
Eventually Malachy broke the silence and said, ‘Do I take it you have had another dream?’
Tara nodded.
‘And?’ prompted Malachy.
‘There was a battle at the Rock of Cashel. I recognised the hill and the round tower from pictures you see on calendars. Then a lot of killing took place in a cathedral with a very tall, vaulted roof. The final scene was at a beautiful county house. It looked English but some of the conversation was in Gaelic so it must be somewhere in Ireland. Finally I saw a man, a cavalier, classic Van Dyke beard and moustache. All that stuff. That was it’.
Malachy considered this information for a few moments then said, ‘Hmmm, could be just auto-suggestion. Andrew told you it was sixteen-forties, all the rest could flow from that.’
‘Yes, it could but for one thing’.
She moved purposefully and opened a cupboard. Rummaging about she eventually brought out a tin of tomatoes.
‘Fine, don’t mind us. God, I’d forgotten how irritating you can be!’ said Malachy.
He and Tara laughed and Robert found himself joining in. It was a human moment and he felt privileged that these two strangers were sharing their friendship in front of him.
‘OK,’ said Tara. ‘All right then, I know because, it felt the same as the first dream. Some bits were frightening and disturbing but others were pleasant, and ...,’ she paused looking for words. ‘Well, it was like watching the same channel, I mean a TV channel. It was familiar, but the signal was much stronger and the picture clearer. And there were smells again, so intense’.
Malachy groaned and put his head on the table. ‘Oh God, more female intuition!’
He is enjoying this - teasing me - thought Tara.
‘Shut up, you sod! Just help me check out Cornelius.’
‘OK’, said Malachy. ‘But can we do it later? I have promised to help in the cleaning room’.
Chapter 69
Robert found his pace after fifteen minutes or so, the soles of his running shoes springing upwards from the heather. This being limestone country, yesterday’s rain had disappeared underground, departing with little trace apart from leaving in its wake a softer, more pliant turf underfoot. He ran for the sense of exhilaration: his heart pumping, the sweat running free, his body propelling forward through air that parted before him and brushed his skin. The secret was to keep up the momentum. That way, if your footing slipped on the uneven ground it didn’t matter. You could switch balance to the other leg and keep moving. The morning was fine and dry which made it easier to maintain pace, and he skimmed across the purple moorland. The sounds of Mark Knopfler’s music rang in his earplugs, providing him with a rhythmic tempo to pace his run.
This morning he had departed from his previous course through the lanes and fields around Rosnaree. That route had let him check out who was hanging around the area, his role as jogger pre-empting any need to account for his own presence. Today Malachy had directed him upwards, into the Bricklieve Mountains, and the Carrowkeel ridge in particular. Following tracks up from the farm, he came to a place where two great crags rose spectacularly skywards, creating a mighty gap between. Following Malachy’s instructions he picked up a track to the left, and ran up to a crest where he paused for breath, bending over, hands on knees. Near the next spur on the hillside was a small parking area, with a dishevelled sign on a post that teetered rakishly at an angle, just as Malachy had described.
Recent events ran through his mind. How could a whirlwind be so extraordinarily well-timed? He couldn’t shake the feeling that but for it they would have been attacked by the men he had seen and the metal object stolen. His rational mind resisted the implication that flowed from that, namely that something had prompted nature to intervene to protect them. It was completely absurd and unsettling, yet something told him that it was exactly what had happened. He couldn’t make sense of it so determined to focus his attention back into the here and now.
Robert’s eye followed the line of the hill upwards to the right and had his first sight of the tombs of Carrowkeel. He covered the intervening ground fast, pausing only to read the ancient Department of Public Works sign. It advised him not to damage a scheduled monument but provided not a word of explanation about the tombs. As he resumed his way up the short ascent to the summit, the tomb seemed at first just a pile of limestone scree but getting closer he saw it was a sizeable mound of randomly shaped stones, most about a foot or so across. A practical people, Robert reflected, they had used the raw material that nature had left strewn about and put it to good purpose. At the front of the tomb a small platform area fronted a vertical slab, behind which an opening, with steps down on one side, provided access into the chamber. Above the entrance were two larger flat-lying rectangular lintel stones: one directly above the opening and a shorter, upper one that topped a horizontal, rectangular window box. Malachy had told him that the box aligned with the rays of the midsummer’s day sun, which would penetrate inwards along the passage to the heart of the tomb, illuminating it until finally extinguished at sunset. It was obvious that the well-shaped lintels were the work of practised stonemasons.
Dropping into the entrance, Robert crouched his way inwards on his hunkers across great flat paving slabs. Lighting his way with his mobile phone, he reached a rounded central room off which opened three tiny chambers. The roof rose centrally on two large corbels to a huge ceiling slab. Although the tomb was much smaller than that at Rosnaree, the core design was the same. What was striking here was the complete absence of etched artwork, as though at this point in time the builders had yet to discover the abstract language they needed to capture their thoughts and dreams.
Returning to the surface, and dazzling daylight, Robert stood, map in hand, and took in the wider setting. The tomb where he was standing was part of a megalithic cemetery with a dozen or so other tombs scattered along the ridge, and yet more lay on a sister ridge, across the dramatic gap that he noticed earlier. Like ships in a flotilla, they lined up behind the flagship - the place where he now stood – all pointing towards the focal point of the surrounding landscape: a huge pile of stones, at the central point on a
huge hill a few miles distant. This he realised must be the tomb of Queen Maeve that Malachy had told him about.
A touch on his shoulder made Robert jump, and looking around he was astonished to find Tara standing by his side. She was dressed in loose-fitting, mauve jogging shorts and a white T-shirt with the logo ‘Boston Marathon 2003’ on it. A pale lilac sweat band wrapped round her head kept her hair out of her eyes. He pulled out his phones, letting them fall on his shoulder.
Tara smiled. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I didn’t realise.’ She pointed to the phones. ‘I did shout several times and I thought you would hear Jack yapping’.
Robert returned the smile, delighted at her unexpected arrival.
‘My fault, that’s the trouble with phones. I don’t normally wear them both because of the danger of not hearing cars and so on. But up here I thought I was all alone’.
A fleeting expression crossed her face and he realised the crassness of what he had said. He touched her on the arm, letting his hand rest there.
‘You are the very person I need,’ he announced. ‘You can help me get the lie of the land, tell me about these tombs and explain who the hell Queen Maeve was!’
Her eyes widened slightly in response to the physical contact but she didn’t pull away, and responded good-humouredly.
‘Well, I am no expert, but I will do my best. Sit yourself down.’
She propped herself on the top of the vertical slab of the tomb, stretching her legs out before her. He sat near her on the stone pile. Pointing with her right arm, Tara recited the names of the various ranges of hills for his benefit.
‘It is a glorious day for September so you are lucky. It is rare to get the benefit of a full three-sixty-degree view without clouds. Can you see that tall mountain in the distance? That is the Reek.’