Cave of Secrets

by Morgan Llywelyn

  ‘During those years Fineen Ó Driscoll had become the most feared pirate in Ireland,’ Muiris continued. ‘Fineen the Rover, they called him. From his stronghold in Roaringwater Bay he and his followers boarded Spanish galleons and Dutch merchantmen and every English ship that sailed along the southern coast. The treasure they took came back to the Gael.’

  Tom wondered if Fineen’s followers were still out there. They might have boarded the ship his father was on! They might even have …

  Muiris interrupted his wild imaginings. ‘Fineen was a cunning man, Tomás. When the English began fitting out larger warships to hunt him down, he took off his coat and turned it to the other side. He made friends with the Sasanach.’

  Tom was shocked. ‘That’s awful!’

  ‘Fineen would say it was just a matter of survival,’ Muiris countered. ‘He was good at survival. He convinced the English that he was their friend, whilst making the Irish believe he was still one of their own. They only began to have doubts when he went to London to meet Queen Elizabeth. She was known to have a grá for pirates.

  ‘To everyone’s surprise, in London Fineen traded his Gaelic title for an English knighthood. He also surrendered the territory remaining to his clan – which was not his personal property to give away. As reward for this treachery a portion of the land was re-granted to him. So was a new title. He returned to Roaringwater Bay as Sir Fineen Ó Driscoll.

  ‘A man cannot take two sides and be true to them both, Tomás. In the end Ó Driscoll turned everyone against him. His clan splintered, with different factions going different ways. And the English, knowing what he was, never trusted him.

  ‘After the battle of Kinsale English troops occupied Cape Clear and installed English settlers in the village of Baltimore. They mounted cannons on the high ground and blasted Dún an Óir to ruins. What remains is only a shell. Local people believe it is haunted. They never go there.’

  The two boats rowed on together like a pair of horses in harness. Approaching the dark bulk of Cape Clear island, they began to follow its shoreline. The wind was rising. A heavy bank of cloud obscured the helpful stars. Try as he might, Tom could make out few details of the island. The boats rowed along its length for some three miles, until they came to a rugged headland.

  At that moment the wind shifted. Briefly, the clouds lifted, as if swept aside by magic.

  ‘Look up, Tomás!’ Muiris commanded.

  Tom looked up. Up a stark wall of rock, rising sheer from the roiling waves. Higher still, at the very top and eerily lit by starlight, he saw the tumbled towers and broken battlements of the Castle of Gold.

  Tom’s mouth went dry. ‘Is it … I mean, can it be …’ He licked his lips and tried again. ‘Is it really haunted?’

  No one answered. They rowed on.

  Still spellbound by the ruined castle, at first Tom did not notice the increasing violence of the sea. As the waves mounted, a powerful current seized the two boats and tried to spin them off course. The oarsmen had to use all their skill to maintain control.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Fergal assured the boy. ‘It’s always like this between here and the Fastnet.’

  ‘What’s the Fastnet?’

  Muiris said, ‘Fastnet Rock, Tomás. The sea here is more dangerous than anywhere else on the coast. Few ships will risk it, which suits our purpose. We want no witnesses to what we do tonight.’

  The turbulence grew worse. The oarsmen grunted with effort. Tom was drenched by icy spray from the waves that battered the boat and a cold rain driven by a bitter wind. The rain slanted sideways, slamming into his face with the force of pebbles. He lost sight of the other currach.

  ‘They’d better be here after all this,’ Fergal muttered.

  The voice of the gale rose to an inhuman howl.

  The waves looked like mountains to Tom. The currach dropped into a deep valley, then rode up on a cresting wave only to plunge down again. The boy grabbed the side of the boat with both hands. He was too scared to be seasick. He longed to be back in Roaringwater House, with four stout walls around him and the weather locked outside.

  Or did he? No matter what happened, would he not rather be here with Muiris and the others than anywhere else in the world?

  A calm, strong voice reached him over the wind. ‘Your first storm is always the worst, Tomás,’ said Muiris.

  Those words steadied the boy. He forced himself to take one hand from the side of the boat so he could wipe the water out of his eyes. He looked at the men hunched over their oars, obviously accustomed to rough seas. How brave they were! Tom wanted to be just like them.

  They fought on. Then Tom heard a relieved cry, and a moment later he glimpsed a large ship through the rain. ‘God bless the man,’ Muiris said clearly.

  Under his direction the currach was manoeuvred into the lee of the ship, where it could be partly shielded from the storm. The other currach soon joined them. A rope ladder was lowered down the side of the ship but the pounding sea made it dangerous to climb. Muiris would not let anyone else go with him. He had a brief, hard exchange about this with Séamus, but in the end Muiris won out.

  Tom held his breath as he watched Muiris lean out of the currach to catch the swaying rope ladder, then go up hand over hand. There was a moment of relief when he safely made it over the rail and onto the deck. Then came a long wait, while the men at the oars struggled to maintain their position.

  ‘Why don’t we fasten our boats to the bottom of the ladder?’ Tom asked Fergal.

  ‘Because the wind could change at any time. We could be swept away by the sea and tear the ladder down with us. Worse still, we might be slammed against the side of the ship and have no way to escape before the currachs were crushed. Freedom is everything, Tomás.’

  They continued to wait. Buffeted by the storm, swinging in a wild sea.

  ‘Has something gone wrong?’ Tom wanted to know.

  Fergal said, ‘You never know.’ He sounded tense.

  ‘Muiris told me this was safe.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Fergal gave an odd laugh, somewhere between a snort and a cough. ‘Our friend has a strange idea of “safe”.’

  They waited. A man in the other currach began to whistle through his teeth. He was interrupted by a familiar shout from the deck. A loaded cargo net was lowered over the side. It struck the bottom of Tom’s currach with a mighty thud. Two men swiftly removed a number of soft leather bags from the net. They placed the bags in the centre of the currach while the rest of the crew struggled to hold the vessel steady.

  Surprisingly, when the net was only half empty it was hauled up again. Not taken back aboard ship, but left dangling against the side. Muiris called down a command in Irish to his men. The currach in which Tom rode moved away to allow the other to take its place. The net was lowered once more. The remainder of its contents – more leather bags – were offloaded into the second currach.

  ‘Why not put all the cargo in one boat?’ Tom wondered aloud.

  Fergal said, ‘For safety’s sake. With two boats, at least one should get back safely. To lose half of our load would be disaster enough, but to lose everything would be a catastrophe.’ He untied the neck of one of the leather bags. ‘Put your hand in there, Tomás. Do you feel something cold and hard? That is gold, lad. Solid gold.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Buried Treasure

  As soon as Muiris was safely back in the currach the boats rowed away. ‘We are racing the light,’ Muiris reminded his crew. ‘If dawn catches us on open water some fisherman is bound to see us.’

  A pale glow was visible in the east as they approached a tiny, tree-covered island. It might have been the one where they met Muiris earlier, Tom could not tell. The men rowed into the shallows and then just sat, looking at one another. Within moments the second currach joined them.

  Fergal gave a great shout. ‘We’ve done it!’ he exulted. ‘By all the saints and sinners, we’ve taken the Great Earl’s gold!’

  Seán said
angrily, ‘This is not the Great Earl’s gold. Everything Richard Boyle has was stolen from the Irish, one way or another. We have just reclaimed a portion of it.’

  ‘We have work to do,’ Muiris reminded them.

  They beached the currachs and unloaded the leather bags. The bags contained solid bars of pure gold. ‘These are called ingots,’ Muiris told Tom. They carried the bags to the centre of the island, where a number of holes had been dug in advance. The gold ingots were deposited in the holes, which were then filled with earth. Finally their location was disguised by the natural debris of a woodland. Muiris was not satisfied until the scene appeared completely undisturbed.

  By the time the task was finished, it was morning. Tom was exhausted. He had more questions than ever, but was too tired to ask them. It was all he could do to climb back into a currach. Muiris himself rowed the boy to the cove. The sun was climbing into a sky swept clean by the night’s storm. ‘You were a great help to us tonight, Tomás,’ Muiris said as Tom got out of the boat. ‘We needed speed and agility and you had both. Now … can you get to your house without being seen?’

  Tom managed a tired smile. ‘I’ve had enough practice. But tell me, what will you do with the gold?’

  Muiris looked tired too, there were dark circles under his eyes. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to ask. The Earl of Cork has been moving large amounts of wealth around by sea to avoid the tax man. Those ingots probably were melted down from coins, jewellery, even gold plate. I rather doubt if the earl will make his loss public. It is in Richard Boyle’s interest to keep the whole thing quiet.

  ‘The captain of the ship will claim he was boarded by pirates. No one will find the culprits because no one will look very hard. When the time is right, we will remove the gold bars from the island and exchange them for coins that cannot be identified. There is a man in Limerick town who makes his living from such transactions. The ship’s captain will receive a goodly share and a portion for his crew. If we are careful with it, the rest of the treasure will provide enough security for our sept and our children’s children.’ Muiris gave a satisfied sigh. ‘Now, it’s home for you, lad. While your father is away you are the man of the family. Tonight you have proved you are up to the task.’

  * * *

  The storm had heralded the change of seasons. Soon the wind from the bay dripped autumn over the land. One storm followed another, until Tom could barely recall the radiant days of summer.

  In September Tom’s tutor arrived at Roaringwater House. Nicholas Beasley had long thin arms and short spindly legs, a bald head he disguised with a cheap wig, and a bulging Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down when he spoke. He rode a swaybacked brown mare who looked older than he was. His canvas saddlebags were stuffed to bursting with books, notebooks, maps, charts, inks, pens, chalk, and a greying blackboard.

  In previous years Tom had been glad to see him. Behind Beasley’s unimpressive face was a brain packed with fascinating facts. If Tom showed interest in a particular subject, his tutor could pour out knowledge like cream from a pitcher.

  This year was different. Lessons made an unwanted claim on Tom’s time. He had to put away his magic pony. No more visits to the bay. No more swimming. No more happy days with his friends in the narrow valley. Combined with the onset of bad weather, Mr Beasley’s appearance made Tom a virtual prisoner in Roaringwater House.

  When Herbert Fox paid a call on Elizabeth it was obvious the engagement was not going well. Even the servants commented on it. The couple had little to say to each other. Fox showed more interest in Flynn’s wine cellar than in his daughter. Elizabeth spent most of the time in her chamber. When they sat at table together she only picked at her food.

  Fox confirmed that William Flynn had booked passage on one of his ships. ‘We spoke together before he departed,’ the man told Mrs Flynn, ‘and from the ship’s captain I know he arrived safely. I have no idea where he went or what he did after that. His movements have nothing to do with me. Nothing at all,’ Fox stressed.

  He left Roaringwater House after only two days. Elizabeth’s spirits improved at once.

  Mrs Flynn waited anxiously for a letter, or even a short note, but none came. She did not say anything about it to the children, she did not want to worry them, but she was increasingly withdrawn.

  Only Caroline noticed. One morning she intercepted Tom in the passageway. ‘I’m afraid Mother is ill,’ she said.

  ‘She’s never very well,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I know, but this is different. I tried to show her one of my gloves that had split a seam. Mother will talk about clothes no matter how poorly she feels. Yet this time she wouldn’t even answer me. And she had such an expression in her eyes … I can’t describe it, but something is wrong, Tom. Really, truly wrong.’

  ‘Did you tell Lizzie or Ginny?’

  ‘I tried but they won’t listen to me. I’m just “giddy, silly Caro” to them. I may be giddy but I’m not stupid. I notice things.’ As she spoke, Caroline was looking closely at her brother. He had grown during the summer. He was taller and leaner, with colour in his face. ‘Will you talk to Mother, Tom?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said.

  But Mrs Flynn had no intention of discussing her problems with her little boy, her last baby. She called him impertinent. ‘Really, Tom, I do not know what has got into you. I must ask Mr Beasley to teach you some respect.’

  ‘I agree with you, Caro,’ Tom told his sister afterwards. ‘Either Mother is ill, or she has a serious problem, but she won’t tell me.’

  ‘Then what can we do?’

  Tom squared his shoulders. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he promised. He had no idea what that might be, though saying the words made him feel better. As if he really could do it.

  * * *

  ‘Why doesn’t Tomflynn come to see us any more?’ Maura asked Donal.

  He looked up from the rope he was plaiting. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he likes that big house of his better than he likes us.’

  The answer did not satisfy Maura. She went to her mother. ‘Does Tomflynn hate me?’

  ‘Light of my heart, who could hate you?’ the woman said with a laugh. She swept Maura into her arms and gave her a big hug.

  That was no answer either. Maura went where she always went when she needed to think. She crawled under one of the overturned currachs. For the first time in many days the sun was shining. Its heat warmed the leather shell of the boat, comforting the little girl inside.

  Tomflynn could not like his house better than he likes me, she told herself. Could he? I like him better than I like my house.

  Something else must be wrong. I had best go see.

  She crawled out from under the currach and set out to find Tom.

  * * *

  The first sunshine in ages, Tom thought glumly. And I’m trapped here.

  ‘Here’ was the former nursery at Roaringwater House, fitted out as a schoolroom. At the front of the room Mr Beasley was droning on and on about the twelve Caesars – or was it ten? – it did not matter anyway. They were all dead.

  With his forefinger, Tom flicked a dead fly off the table that served as his desk. He yawned. It was late afternoon, the time of day when boys are inclined to grow sleepy over their schoolbooks. Dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight from the nearest window. Drying ink at the mouth of Tom’s inkpot took on the colours of the rainbow.

  Rainbows over the bay.

  ‘Thomas!’ Mr Beasley said abruptly. ‘Are you paying attention?’

  ‘I am, sir.’

  ‘Then perhaps you would humour me by naming the exports of Ireland to Spain and Portugal. Stand up, please.’

  ‘Spain and Portugal?’ Tom queried, playing for time.

  Beasley nodded.

  ‘The exports are … er …’ Tom’s brain was racing. He cleared his throat and began again. ‘Pilchards, cod, hake, salmon skins for gloves, beans, iron, linen …’ he rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling, ‘… pipe-staves, bu
tter and tallow. Sir.’ He heaved a sigh of relief and sat down.

  There was a knock at the door. Mr Beasley scowled at the interruption. A moment later Virginia thrust her head into the room. ‘Tom? There is the funniest little girl downstairs, asking for you.’

  But she was no longer downstairs. She pushed past Virginia and ran straight to Tom. ‘I’m not funyest and I’m not little!’ she cried, stamping her feet in indignation. ‘Tell her, Tomflynn.’

  ‘Maura! What brings you here?’

  The child noticed Mr Beasley staring at her bare toes. ‘Your eye is crookit,’ she told him. ‘Does it hurt much?’ Before the astonished tutor could respond she said, ‘I’m Tomflynn’s friend, Maura. I want to know if he likes this house better’n me.’

  ‘I like you and your family better than anybody,’ Tom assured her.

  Maura rewarded him with a dazzling smile. Virginia was frowning. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked her brother. ‘Just who is this person, Tom? And what is her family to you?’

  ‘She told you; they’re my friends.’

  ‘I see,’ said Virginia, who did not see at all. She bent down until her face was level with Maura’s. ‘I should like to be your friend too.’ She spoke in the too-sweet voice adults commonly use for infants.

  Maura regarded her solemnly, then held up two small hands with fingers spread wide. ‘I have this many friends now,’ she informed Virginia. ‘Can’t have more ’til I have more fingers.’

  Tom burst into laughter. ‘Did you come all the way here by yourself, Maura, or did Donal bring you?’

  Her eyes danced. ‘By myself!’

  Tom glanced towards his tutor. ‘A gentleman would walk you home, is that not right, Mr Beasley?’ He extended a hand to the child, who took it with perfect trust. ‘Come now, Maura, the hour is late and we’d best be going.’ Without waiting for permission from anyone, he led her from the room.

  Halfway down the front stairs they met Mrs Flynn coming up. When she saw Maura one hand flew to her throat. The other hand gripped the banister until the knuckles were white. ‘Where did you come from?’ she gasped.