by Lisa Henry
Boru stood, his arms raised high.
One by one, with a series of massive clanking sounds, the stadium lights blazed into life.
The crowd howled.
So bright. Darragh had to shield his eyes. It was loud, as well. Men cheered and shouted and stamped their feet in the seats. The sound rolled around the decrepit stadium and washed back in on itself. Darragh was the last in a long line of men being led into the stadium. Armed and armoured men like himself, grim and gloating. Terrified, emaciated slaves, tied together at the neck with hemp rope.
And all around him, from the parts of the stands still upright, spectators looked down at them, cheering and applauding. And then, at the head of the stadium stood King Boru, arms raised in triumph, basking in the applause of his subjects and the might of his own electrical power.
Darragh’s eyes fell immediately to Ciaran, who knelt at Boru’s feet, his gold adornments gleaming under the stadium lights. He was staring straight ahead, unflinching. Darragh wondered how much he was really seeing, if anything at all. He looked … blank. Empty. Like he wasn’t really here at all. Darragh had never seen him like this, never. Even at his most abject, he’d always had something of a light in his eyes—a cleverness, a will to survive, even fear, but at least something. But there was nothing left. Had the king drugged him?
Darragh didn’t know what was worse: if the king had drugged him, or if mistreatment alone had turned Ciaran into this empty doll of a man.
I am so sorry, Ciaran. So sorry.
Darragh wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers. He didn’t know yet if he could kill another man, but he hadn’t known at Milbourne Avenue either. Maybe he was just a beast. And maybe if he was enough of a beast, he would have the chance to tell Ciaran how sorry he was. Yeah, right, sorry, so sorry he’d take Ciaran on his knees and fuck him in front of this massive crowd, fuck him until he bled, until Darragh spent inside him and Boru killed them both for their treachery.
Maybe it would be better to die on the field. Maybe if it was gruesome enough, Boru’s bloodlust would be sated and Ciaran would be spared. Let him go on living, and maybe one day he’d be freed and return to his father in the North, return to a life of value and meaning. Darragh would be dead, buried in an unmarked grave, maybe left for wild dogs to scavenge, but Ciaran would live on, live on as a doctor or a lawyer or a professor or a politician, and keep Darragh’s memory alive, even if it wasn’t a fond one.
Not that Darragh could choose the outcome tonight even if he did know the right choice. It would come down to wits and luck and brutality, and he supposed that whatever happened, it would be up to fate. Fate, just like it had been fate that the king’s men had stumbled upon him in the hospital. Fate, just like it had been fate that he’d survived when his brother had not. What he’d made of that life, Darragh didn’t know. What he’d make of his death, he didn’t know, either.
The king spoke then. A booming speech that crackled overhead with a noise the likes of which Darragh hadn’t heard in years. The crowd called back to him, hooting and applauding and shouting, while the champions preened and the slaves cried and Darragh stared at Ciaran, wishing at least to meet his eye.
Then the blood sport began.
Danny.
Ciaran couldn’t stop thinking about him. They hadn’t been that close, not really. Ciaran had loved his passion and his ideology, and would have followed him anywhere, but he hadn’t known much about him. He’d existed, mostly, as a symbol and an ideal more than as a man. Maybe that was why Ciaran still mourned him so keenly. In the end, Ciaran supposed, Danny had been his last link to his old life, and he’d watched him get cut down in nothing short of a massacre. That was no way for ideals like his to die.
At least Boru couldn’t take that from him again. He could watch as hard-heartedly as any other man now. And he did. The champions—except for Darragh—made quick work of the terrified, unarmed slaves Boru had provided to warm up his audience. A couple died begging, a couple died running, a couple died spitting and fighting like wildcats, but they all died just the same, the long grass sprayed in blood.
And Darragh stood back, holding the hurley they’d given him, just gawping.
Boru’s fingers twined in Ciaran’s hair. “Your champion is not making a strong start, Boy.”
Your champion, not mine.
“He may be conserving his strength, my king,” Ciaran said. He leaned his head on Boru’s knee and fought the urge to close his eyes. Not to shut out the bloodshed, but to sleep.
“Still defensive of him, are you? He must have a very fine cock indeed.”
It’s not his cock that made the difference.
“I don’t …” Ciaran struggled to concentrate. “Majesty, I was not defending him, please. I am trying so hard to please you. Do I please you still?”
Boru only grunted.
Ciaran wondered if maybe he should slide between the king’s legs, insinuate himself between those thighs, take the king’s cock in his mouth again, remind him of … remind him of— God, what was he thinking? He should be relieved that Boru was more interested in the Games than in a blowjob. One less indignity to suffer before he died.
Down on the grass, the dead were left where they fell.
The atmosphere in the stadium changed then, from cheering and crowing to keen anticipation as the champions realised all the slaves were dead and began to eye one another instead. Taking stock and measuring up. Calculating their odds.
Boru announced the first match. Two men from two different gangs. Not Darragh, so Ciaran settled against Boru’s knee again and let his eyes slide closed. He had no interest in the outcome of this match and listened instead as the cheers of the men in the stands told him when a particularly vicious blow had been dealt. He wouldn’t watch this barbarian show. He wouldn’t imagine himself—or Darragh—as its sad finale.
Soon, Boru was dumping Ciaran unceremoniously off his lap so he could stand and announce the winner of the match and the pairing for the next. Padraig, from the Grafton Street gang. William, from the men of Kilmainham Gaol. Ciaran blinked under the blazing stadium lights and looked for Darragh among the champions clustered below Boru’s podium. Even though he knew they were both to die regardless, he couldn’t help fearing for the man’s safety.
Dumb culchie. Should never have looked at you.
And yet, he was glad he had. Glad to have had that moment of kindness, however brief, before Darragh had been twisted and it had all gone to hell. Glad that he’d still had the courage to seek that kindness out—for himself, for nobody else—and maybe even glad, in the end, that he would die because of it. Could die because of it.
Death without pain, that’s all he could hope for here. That’s all he wanted. He’d been foolish to try to cling to life in this place because it wasn’t worth the living. He was done with it.
Boru called Darragh’s name.
“Darragh Fearghal Anluan of Cork,” Darragh had called himself on that first day, but now the king called him, “The condemned culchie, my own champion.”
Not even a name.
Well, names were dangerous in this place. Better to forget them and the faces of the people who had said them kindly. Better to remember names like “William the Butcher, of Kilmainham Gaol,” a brute of a man still covered in blood from his first fight, who launched himself at Darragh before Darragh could even raise an arm to block the blow.
This was it. Darragh, the impossibly gentle fool, was about to die. Nearly untainted by this place, still with a little of his humanity left, and now it was time for him to die.
If Ciaran had shown him how to be a monster, he hoped that Darragh remembered it now. Maybe he’d live.
Did Ciaran want him to live, at that price?
He couldn’t take his eyes from the field. It was like he’d been hypnotised, frozen in place, unable to even blink. All he could do was watch as Darragh took the blow of the club and stumbled, managed in his bewildered state to dodge William the Butcher’s next brutal swing and give th
e man a pitiful gut shot with his hurley in return.
The crowd jeered his efforts.
Ciaran’s heart beat for him.
Then, just as William raised his club again, the lights cut out, plunging the stadium into darkness.
William the Butcher. A name the snarling man had earned when he’d cut down four of the defenceless slaves and sealed for himself when he’d massacred the two champions he’d been matched with.
Now he faced Darragh across the field, but Darragh could barely focus on him, couldn’t even hope to predict his movements because he couldn’t let his eyes stray from Ciaran, kneeling on the stage. If he was going to die, he wanted his last vision to be of Ciaran. Not Boru. Not William the Butcher. Not bodies and blood or the mad citizens of Dublin, their faces masks of rage and cruelty, streaked with soot.
He was almost sick with guilt. His death was at hand, but what of Ciaran? What further torments awaited him before Boru killed him? And Darragh knew he would die. He’d seen that now: there was no kind future in this place, only death. Today, tomorrow, a year from now after hard use by the king and his men … Ciaran would die. A reprieve from the ever-changeable king was no reprieve at all. Ciaran would die. But he would die as Boy, not the man that Darragh had so briefly known. The man he would never be again.
The Butcher’s attack came out of nowhere, his club striking the side of Darragh’s face and knocking him sideways. Darragh didn’t fall, however. He’d been kicked by horses, after all. It would take more than that exhausted, battle-wearied blow to bring him down.
He saw a flash of something in the Butcher’s eyes that he recognised in himself: the will to live. This man, whatever else he was, was in the same desperate position as Darragh. Kill or be killed.
Darragh jabbed his hurley in the Butcher’s gut, but couldn’t summon up any real rage behind the blow. He was already defeated, wasn’t he? The condemned culchie. What was the point of condemning another with him? He could die here. Deny the king the joy of it. Let the Butcher live, even if he’d earned his life through unspeakable cruelty. At least Darragh would have his conscience when he died, more or less intact. If only he could have Ciaran’s forgiveness, too.
When the lights went out, he thought maybe it meant he’d died, but then he heard the screams and saw the flashes on the field.
Explosions.
Had this been planned?
No, because he heard Boru scream in rage.
Boru.
Ciaran.
Darragh whirled away from the Butcher and ran towards the stage. Not thinking, still clutching his hurley. No plan at all except to take every advantage he could of this unexpected confusion. He leapt onto the stage and found himself on his hands and knees in front of Ciaran.
Boru roared at him.
Small, pitiful man. Darragh rose up onto his feet and swung the hurley. Heard the crack as it connected with Boru’s jaw, and then the king was reeling backwards, howling like a wounded dog. Darragh reached down and grabbed Ciaran’s chain.
Ciaran grabbed it, too, wild eyed, and pulled back on it as Darragh tried to drag him close.
“Get up! Come on!”
Ciaran shook his head.
Darragh reached down and hauled him to his feet, pulled him over the edge of the stage into the field. More explosions. Shouting and screaming. Gunfire.
There was no fucking time to deal with Ciaran’s inexplicable struggling, so he pulled the tiny, frail man into his arms and carried him. He had to get them both to safety. Out of the arena. Out of Dublin. Maybe even out of Ireland altogether.
He’d go as far as his feet took him, and then farther still.
Darragh didn’t know the way he had been brought into the stadium, but he’d seen Boru and Ciaran arrive, so that’s where he headed: to the tunnel underneath the stands that must have once led to dressing rooms or equipment stores. Behind him there was chaos as the men in the seats came under attack from the unseen enemy.
More explosions. Scattered gunfire. Darragh just kept moving forwards, kept Ciaran cradled to his chest. He could see the end of the tunnel, nearly, nearly. He burst out into the moonlight, carried forwards on a sudden wave of hope.
There were people waiting, dark shapes. Bristling with sticks and clubs.
“He’s one of Boru’s men! He’s got the hostage!” someone shouted, and that was when they swarmed him. No amount of determination could possibly overcome that.
Still shielding Ciaran, he fell.
Darragh awoke with a splitting headache, in a redbrick room. A cellar, maybe, based on the reek of fermentation. Possibly a place where liquor had once been stored and spilled. A steep, narrow set of stairs led upwards. Above him in the ceiling were a set of steel doors that must have led directly to the street. They were locked with rusted chains. The dampness of this place seeped into Darragh’s bones, making them ache. It probably didn’t help that he was tied roughly to a supporting post, arms wrenched behind him. Somebody had cut the front of his shirt open.
Ciaran.
Where was Ciaran? He blinked his eyes hard against the swimming darkness. His throat was rough, but he still tried to call out. “Ciaran,” he croaked. He had no English at all in his addled state, so he called out in Irish, “Ciaran, are you here? Are you all right?”
“Gaeilge!” a voice called back from the darkness, but it wasn’t Ciaran’s. It was a woman. She crept forwards into Darragh’s field of vision, carrying a kerosene lamp that etched her lined face with shadows. “You’re one of that mad fuck Boru’s men and you speak Gaeilge?” Her Irish was formal, stilted, like he’d have heard on the television as a child, nothing like the easy rhythms of his home.
“I’m not his man. I’m from Cork. We have no king in Cork. Where is Ciaran? The Boy. The king’s boy, Ciaran.” He winced back from the light. Something throbbed in his eyes.
The old woman pursed her lips. “We have no king in Dublin either, but you bear his mark on your chest.” She stabbed his scar with a pointed finger, awakening no pain in the long-healed flesh.
“A trade. For medicine. I had no choice.”
The woman snarled, baring teeth. “We all have a choice. I bear no fucking mark. I serve no fucking mad king. I take my own medicine from my ruined city.”
“I didn’t know,” Darragh said. “I didn’t know where to find any. He said he would give me medicine.” Tears pricked at his eyes. If the old woman was so sure he’d had a choice, why hadn’t he seen it at the time?
“He says many things, that man who calls himself Boru. You’re not the first fool man to sell him your soul. You were there for the Milbourne skirmish.”
“That was you. You’re the …” Darragh groaned, twisted his arms. Didn’t want to say it.
“Go on. The Milbourne rats, yes. That’s what the king calls us, isn’t it? Rats. Well, we’ll give him rats. We’ll give him shit and treachery and disease. We’ll overrun him and eat him alive.”
Of that, Darragh had no doubt.
“That makes me the rat queen, culchie. So what are you?”
“I just want to see Ciaran. Please. You didn’t hurt him, did you? He was a prisoner.”
“I didn’t. But what’s it to you? You snatched him from the king when Croke Park fell. Where were you taking him?”
“I—”
He didn’t know. Away. Safe. That was all.
“I hadn’t thought it out.”
“You didn’t want to take the king’s place? With him?”
You didn’t want to rape him and own him and use him until all the light went out of his eyes?
“No. Never. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. That’s why I was condemned. I couldn’t hurt him anymore.”
“And you weren’t planning on trading him for your precious medicine? You must know who he is. Certainly worth some of your precious antivirals if he were to be returned to where he came from.”
Darragh widened his eyes. He hadn’t even thought. Hadn’t even considered. Ciaran was a hostage. Th
e son of a powerful man. A precious commodity, and the king had treated him as such. Just how much was he worth? Medicine? Safe passage to the North?
Or something else? Something immeasurable and unquantifiable? Something of value to Darragh—no, Darragh’s heart alone?
No. Darragh’s people depended on him. He needed to be practical.
“I know who he is. The Taoiseach’s son. But I swear, I had no plans to collect his ransom. I just—” He hung his head. “I just wanted him safe. I didn’t want him to hurt anymore.”
“You admit you’re responsible for some of that hurt yourself.”
Darragh’s heart pounded. “Yes … I … I’m sure he told you the same.”
She shook her head. “Not him.”
Ah. Of course. She’d said antivirals, as well. Not just medicine, but the same words Darragh had used in front of Boru. There really was a traitor in his ranks, then, watching, listening, and reporting back to this strange old woman. Scheming. Bringing Boru’s kingdom down from the inside. The traitor had known about the Milbourne raid. Had known about the electricity and the generators at Croke Park, too.
“What’s he saying?” a soft, rough voice asked, in English.
Ciaran.
For the second time in Darragh’s life, Ciaran materialised out of the shadows, but this time, he stood as a man, not a Boy. No chains. No gold. No beautiful bare chest, slight and soft. A man, in clothes and boots. A black T-shirt. A puffy vest. Combat trousers. His face was covered in bruises and there were dark circles under his eyes, but he looked so much more … solid, now, like he fully belonged to this world instead of the ethereal nightmare Boru had created to be a dream of a glorious past.
“You don’t understand?” the woman asked in English. “Bookworm like you?”
“I read it,” Ciaran said. “In speech, I don’t follow as well. Especially not his dialect.”
Ciaran.
Darragh wanted to tell him he was sorry, wanted to ask if he was all right, but that wasn’t what came out of his mouth at all: “You’ve got clothes on!”
Ciaran took a step back, hugging his arms around his chest as though he were still naked. “Of course I have. Did you think I liked being paraded around like that? Did you think I liked any of it? Did you think that was the real me?” He traded his hurt for a snarl. “Or did you only want to own me when I was a slut?”