by Des Sheridan
‘The Reek?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, that is what we call Croagh Patrick around here. It is about seventy-five miles away and is Ireland’s holiest mountain. They say St Patrick fasted there in the fifth century and built a church at the top.’
Tara talked him through the vista. To the north lay the dramatic table-top profile of Ben Bulben and its steep scarp faces: Yeats’ Country. Westwards, an unbroken line of hills, of various shapes and sizes, traced the skyline of north Mayo. Nearer to hand was the flat summit of Knocknarea, with Queen Maeve’s Tomb sitting like a great nipple at its midpoint. To the south and east, the Dublin-Sligo road skirted the winding shoreline of a great body of water, Lough Arrow. The whole panorama was an extraordinary sight and Robert couldn’t recall seeing such a varied landscape before.
He also found himself taking in the soft skin of Tara’s arms and legs, the tonal quality of which was almost perfect. Absorbing also her slim physique and the hint of the generous curves under her T-shirt, he forced his eyes back to the horizon.
She was explaining about the legendary Maeve and the Táin Bó Cúailnge, an epic that recounted the great queen’s story, a tale of warriors battling to the death and cattle raiding as a way of life, it seemed.
‘Malachy was telling me the other day, that the Celts felt so close to the Otherworld, they really were unafraid to die. For them it was simply the start of another adventure, in a world full of magic. You know, legend has it that Maeve is entombed over there,’ she pointed at Knocknarea. ‘Standing bolt upright, dressed for battle and facing north, towards her enemies in Ulster.’
Listening to Tara’s musical voice and absorbing the beauty of this magical, mythic landscape, Robert could readily believe it. He could trace Malachy’s influence in what she was saying, although it was a lot easier to hear coming from her. How could that mousey man have such an impact on them all, he wondered?
‘Would you like to see a few more tombs? If we cut back over that direction,’ she pointed eastwards, ‘we can catch the Caves of Kesh as well on the way home.’
‘The Caves of Kesh?’ exclaimed Robert. ‘Sounds like somewhere in Afghanistan!’
‘Well, not quite that exotic,’ she smiled. ‘But definitely worth a visit. You might as well do the full tour since you are here!’
Chapter 70
They ran along the ridge, stopping at other tombs, the last one of which was huge, with a diameter of about sixty feet and a mound maybe twenty feet tall. They paused there, sharing a drink of water.
‘We will go across to the ridge at Corran Kesh and cut around to the north on the low ground back to the farm. We should be there in less than two hours. Is that OK?’
Robert nodded. In truth he was torn, for he had told no one he would be out that long. He knew Mac would be worried, but there wasn’t much he could do about it as he couldn’t get a mobile signal. Truth was he was enjoying the running and the open air. They were a relief from the intensity of recent events and he sensed Tara felt the same. And he would happily spend the whole of this sunny day with this gorgeous woman. Up here he could put aside the fact that she was manipulative and high maintenance and just admire her beauty.
Tara was talking again.
‘Malachy says that the tombs date to about five-thousand-four-hundred BC, so they are about eight-hundred years older than the pyramids at Giza. Can you credit that? They are about two-thousand years older than our tomb at Rosnaree, although I have no idea how he works that out. He also said that we need to imagine the place without the heather and blanket bog. They came much later. When these tombs were built the rock was bare all around. Think of it. Bare grey pavements with these great grey tombs built upon it.’
It was quite a thought. They sat in silence a moment then Tara asked inquiringly,
‘How did you get involved in archaeology and protecting sites, Robert? It’s an unusual career choice.’
Robert laughed.
‘It sure is! I am a lucky man, I guess, because I have a really unpredictable job, one that gets me outdoors a lot and pays well. And that suits me fine.’
He paused, thinking a moment about what to say next.
‘It started years ago, when I was in Afghanistan with the Army. I was due a spell of leave and was a bit bored, so my wife e-mailed suggesting that I visit the site of the Bamayan Statutes. You know, the giant Buddhas that the Taliban blew up?’
Tara nodded.
‘Anyway from there I became friends with an Afghani archaeologist who, it transpired, had connections on high. He pulled strings and got me assigned as military attaché to archaeological expeditions, and things kind of evolved from there. Then when Iraq happened I was invited to do something similar but on a more professional footing. I stuck with it a year and a half until I tired of coming up against the same brick wall. Basically no one gave a damn what was happening to the ancient monuments. So I resigned my commission and set up ARAD with some friends. We knew that soon someone would have to sit up and take notice of what was happening. We created ARAD to be there on the scene to help.’
Tara had listened intently without interrupting. She hadn’t heard him talk at such length and so freely. She had taken him for the strong, silent and dumb type.
‘And is your wife in Varna at the moment?’ she asked.
Robert hesitated before responding, looking out across the countryside.
‘No, Sarah was a partner in the business. She was an expert in Mesopotamian art but she died nine years ago.’
Tara looked at him. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I mean I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘That’s OK, you weren’t to know’ Robert replied. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’
Standing up he held a hand out and she took it.
‘Let’s finish our run and see what we can find out about your friend Cornelius online.’
For a second their eyes locked, two people acknowledging something. Was it Tara acknowledging his loss, or something more? Was he acknowledging that Cornelius was real, not a figment of her imagination? Robert couldn’t be certain, but he knew a connection had been forged. Then the moment passed and they set off fast downhill, Tara leading the way.
Chapter 71
They followed the second ridge southwards, the brown and white colours of Jack’s coat, bobbing up here and there about them as they wound their way gradually downwards across the contours. Robert saw a limestone crag emerging from the heather on their right, and as they neared it, caves dotted in a line along the base of a long white scarp. Below the scarp, a steep slope, mainly grassy but with scree in places and sheep grazing on it, fell away sharply down to a road. Tara took him quite far along the scarp, before stopping before two very large cave entrances, each perhaps twenty feet tall. He estimated they had passed at least nine caves by that point. They both paused, panting, resting their hands on their knees in order to catch their breath.
A minute or two later, Tara started to speak.
‘When we came to live at Rosnaree I was nine and we had a school teacher who brought us out here twice a year. The first time she told us about the fairy tales, and then on successive visits we looked at different aspects of the area - the geography, biology and so on. It was a great way to learn. I remember the excitement once when we found bones of bears and great elk in one of the caves. Can you imagine it?’
Her face lit up at the reminiscence and Robert could see that the visit was bringing back to life long-dormant memories.
‘It is a very special place in Irish legend,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s look inside.’
Truth told, Robert was disappointed with the interior. You could stand up only in the outer reaches, and beyond that the roof lowered rapidly so that the cave narrowed into a great crevice, much wider than it was tall, that vanished into the mountainside. You would need proper equipment, lights and ropes to explore them and a lot of groping about on your stomach. These were not great caverns of the type he had seen in Cheddar and parts of France. What did strik
e him though was the sound. Although outside there was only a mild breeze, in here a low, persistent whistling sound never left them.
‘You hear that?’ asked Tara. ‘It is meant to be the sound of Corran. He was a legendary harp player who invented the ceis, a droning style of harp playing. Hence the name of the hill, Corran Kesh.’
She paused, soaking in the atmosphere.
‘My favourite legend is that the Milesians forced one of the ancient Irish peoples, the Tuatha de Danann, to flee underground through these caves. But their spirits, the sídhe – you know as in banshee? – rise again each Halloween and, materialising from the caves, revisit our world. I’m afraid we can’t go much further in without torches,’ she added. ‘But the potholes go on for miles. Apparently they link up with a cave system in Roscommon, about twenty miles away.’
‘Well if it’s all right with you, I’m freezing, so can we, like the sídhe , rejoin the upper world please?’ said Robert.
Tara’s laugh echoed through the cave.
‘OK, tough guy, come on.’
They emerged once again into the welcoming warmth of the morning sunshine. But to the south-west dark clouds were gathering and it looked like the best of the day would soon be over.
‘Look, we ought to head back’ said Robert. Tara nodded, and they heard Jack bark nearby.
‘OK, come on Jack, we’re going. Come!’ Tara called, but Jack just kept barking.
‘Not again!’ said Tara in exasperation. They followed the sound back along the track, around a large buttress of limestone. Jack appeared briefly out of a cave, barked once more then shot back in. Robert was struck by the odd appearance of the place. Although it had a large arch like the adjacent caves, most of the entrance was occupied by a wall of solid rock which, although undoubtedly natural, looked as though it was manmade, as if someone had tried to block it up. The entrance was a tall thin gash surmounted at about eight feet up by a circular opening. It immediately struck Robert as sexual in its configuration. Jack continued barking inside the cave.
Calling over her shoulder Tara said impatiently, ‘Bloody dog, I will have to go in and get him.’
Reluctantly Robert started climbing the slope to follow Tara and he saw her slip into the entrance. As he gained the level of the opening, a hair-raising scream emanated from within the cave. It must be Tara he realised, and it so caught him by surprise that he lost his footing and slid down the slope, hitting the grass bank awkwardly.
‘Oh fuck!’ he swore in exasperation before urgently regaining his balance and clambering frantically upslope to reach her.
Chapter 72
‘Tara, what is it? Are you all right?’
Robert called out anxiously as he squeezed in through the narrow gap after her. It was pitch black inside, cold air enveloping him immediately, but he could at least hear the sound of her sobbing. She was alive! Blinking, his eyes started to adapt to the darkness and he discerned that the chamber was roughly rectangular. He located Tara in the far left corner, slumped at floor level, with her back to the wall and her hands over her eyes. Her mobile had fallen on the floor in front of her, its screen still lit. Close to her, a dark misshapen mass seemed to form a pillar that rose towards the roof. Jack was at the bottom of it, licking the stone.
Robert crossed the cave and picked up Tara’s phone. As he did so, he brushed against the pillar and was surprised when it seemed to give way against his weight. He realised there must be something else, an object, attached to the pillar. Reaching out he touched it and, with a rising sense of unease, realised it was cold and soft. It made no sense but for some reason he knew it must be flesh. He swore heavily and Jack, alarmed by the noise, leapt forwards and past him, causing Robert to jump back in surprise. His brain computed fast. There was at most a faint, musty smell so if it was flesh, the body couldn’t have been long here. Perhaps it belonged to some animal or a solo pot-holer who had injured himself?
Too many questions. It was time to establish what he was dealing with. He extracted his mobile from the rear pocket of his running shorts but, no sooner was the phone in his hands, than he stopped dead. Tara had reached up and grasped his hand, her nails biting into his skin. Startled again, he swore softly then turned back to her and she pointed with her free hand upwards, although her face remained averted.
‘Tara, it’s OK, I’m here. It’s safe now, look at me.’
But still she ignored him, and kept pointing, waving her arm in agitation. Following the trajectory of her arm, Robert turned and raised his mobile phone, hit the on button, and stumbled for a second time in this hellish cave. Outlined in the light, about ten feet away, was a hideous apparition: a face filthy with mud, the two eyes, rigid and wild, staring straight at him. Regaining his balance he looked again, terrified. Then he registered that the face wasn’t moving, it was perfectly static, the eyes frozen in death. Two insights crashed through his consciousness. First, he was looking at a head, detached from its body, placed on a natural ledge in the limestone. Secondly, that he knew the face, not well but well enough to know who it was. It was Tara’s friend, Shay.
Swiftly, Robert’s soldiering reflexes kicked in, and he turned his attention back to the pillar. In the pale light of the phone he saw that there was a body strapped to the pillar. It was entirely naked and lacked a head, having instead a horrific butchered hole above the torso. So it must be Shay’s body. What was also plain was that the muscular body of the former athlete was severely mutilated and covered in stab wounds and gashes. Shay had been tortured. Shining the light down Robert saw that the man’s feet stood in a pool of red mud: water and silt mingled with blood. He was looking at what was once a living, breathing, human being reduced to a butchered piece of meat. It was horrific and the setting - the dark, dank cave - simply compounded the awfulness. He became aware of the persistent whistling, the ceis that Tara mentioned earlier. It was droning in the background, like the wheezing of a spectral witness to the unspeakable event that had taken place here. Turning to Tara in the rock-hewn chamber of death Robert said gently,
‘Come on Tara, come with me.’
At his touch she screeched and fell back, pulling him toward her, again pointing and gesticulating. She was scrambling her words but Robert could recognise the garbled name Shay repeated amid a jumble of nonsense. He sharpened his tone.
‘Tara, I know, I know it’s Shay but we can’t help him. We must get out of here, please come with me. Trust me, Tara. I will see you safe. Jack will come too. Trust me!’
With difficulty, since she continued vigorously to resist him, he pulled her to her feet and, supporting her with one arm, dragged her towards the entrance. After what seemed an age he finally got her through the narrow gap, out of the cave and they collapsed together down the slope a couple of yards, to a ledge of grass. Jack was busy fussing about her and she took the animal in her arms, cuddling it. Tara was shaking quite violently and making whimpering sounds. Robert sat beside her, soothing her with reassuring words.
‘It’s OK, Tara, you are safe now, don’t worry, you are safe.’ He spoke quietly, stroking her hair to calm her, repeating the words over and over.
In reality Robert knew they were far from safe. He was wondering how the hell to get her out of here. How to get her down the steep slope in this condition without her breaking a limb or her neck! And he was hoping to God that Jack wouldn’t go back into that bloody cave. To make matters worse the weather was closing in. The clouds in the south had coalesced into a dramatic dark, mass of cumulonimbus that soared thousands of feet upwards and was advancing fast towards them, as though intent on devouring them. He estimated it was no more than two miles away. The temperature was dropping in advance of the weather front and Robert could feel rain in the air. His light running clothes, damp with sweat, were clinging chilled to his skin. There was no time to lose. He had to get Tara off the hill before the rain came. Lying on his front beside her, he persuaded her eventually to let go of the dog and start sliding slowly down the hillside,
staggering their descent every yard or two. He stayed alongside her, controlling her fall as best he could so that she came to no harm. Thankfully about a third of the way down, she recovered her wits somewhat and started to play a more active part in the process, encouraged by Robert.
The rain had arrived now, light and soft to start with, but they were both already cold and shaken and they would soon be wet through. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, but in reality was about thirty minutes, they reached the bottom of the slope. Robert stood up, pulling Tara to her feet. Still supporting her, he headed for the wall, towards a gate that he seen from on high, which he had observed led onto the minor road that ran along the base of the hill. As he undid the twine that held the gate, Tara, holding on desperately to him, said in an almost unrecognisable hoarse whisper,
‘Thank you. Thank you for getting me out of there.’
Her arms fell to her side in a gesture that amply conveyed her hopelessness. He turned, catching her as she slumped in a faint. Clasping his arms around her, he found himself looking back up the slope to the caves, through the curtain of rain that was pouring across his face. Mist was enveloping the caves on high and they were fading from sight rapidly even as he stared, like a chimera disappearing before his eyes. However, the two large openings by Cormac’s cave, where they had stopped, could still be glimpsed. To Robert they seemed two great black sockets staring out of a white skull, watching him. He shivered at the thought, remembering Shay’s decapitated head staring at him from the darkness.
During the slow descent down the hillside Robert had spotted a cottage about a quarter of a mile down the road. It had a satellite dish and a telephone line, so it was a good bet that it was lived-in. They would head there for help. As the downpour intensified Robert and Tara, wrapped round each other and soaked through, covered in mud, slowly shambled down the road. Jack, indomitable as ever, scampered around, a wet figure carving figures of eight about them.