A Game of Sorrows

by Shona MacLean

  ‘Do you think Deirdre knows any of this?’ I said quietly.

  ‘She is too proud to see herself a pawn in anybody’s game. The walls of this house and the lives of the women in it must be like a slow death to her.’

  There was one more thing I needed to know before I could shut my mind on these matters for the night. ‘Who is Maeve MacQuillan?’ I said. ‘And why should the mention of her have upset my grandmother?’

  He sighed and opened eyes that had not long since closed.

  ‘Long ago, before the power of the MacQuillans on this coast was usurped by the MacDonnells, the daughter of the MacQuillan chieftain was locked up by her father in a tower at Dunluce Castle, until she should come to her senses; she had refused to marry the man he had chosen for her. But the girl showed no intention of coming to her senses, and while her father paced the sands below and raged at her obstinacy, she spent her time in the tower in knitting herself a shroud. Eventually, the father relented and arranged the girl’s escape with her lover across the sea to Scotland, but their boat foundered and the pair drowned. When the father looked up at her window, he saw his daughter’s ghost look down on him; she held up her shroud and said, “See, Father, it is finished.” It is said by the superstitious that the ghost of Maeve MacQuillan still paces the room of that tower, and if anyone should chance to glance up at the window and see her there, holding her shroud, they will be dead within the year.’

  ‘And Deirdre saw this vision?’

  He was quiet a long moment. ‘I asked the servant girl about it. She said that when your grandmother and Deirdre returned from their visit to O’Rahilly, the old woman was in a state of some distress, and little your cousin could say would pacify her. They had travelled by Dunluce on their journey back to Coleraine, and stopped there to dine. The castle is the seat of Randal MacDonnell, Earl of Antrim. Your grandmother is a distant cousin of MacDonnell’s wife, and finds a welcome in all such houses. The earl gave them a guide back to Coleraine. As they left the castle, Deirdre turned back to wave to MacDonnell’s wife, and your grandmother said she stopped cold. It was only once they were back through the gates of Coleraine and MacDonnell’s man returning to his master that she eventually broke and told the old woman what she had seen: Maeve MacQuillan at her window, holding up her shroud.’

  I had no more time for superstition and tales of ghosts and their threats and promises than did Andrew, but I felt I would sleep better for the reading of the scriptures, as we had done together on occasion since my arrival in this country. Our choice had fallen on St Paul’s letter to the Romans, but the seventh chapter, where Andrew had last set his marker, gave little comfort to either of us, with its words on the law regarding married women.

  ‘Well, that is clear enough, I think,’ said Andrew, shutting his bible after only three verses. ‘Adultery or widowhood, the alternatives for a woman who has married where she does not love.’ His words were clipped and bitter.

  I raised myself on my elbow to look at him properly. ‘Andrew,’ I began hesitantly, ‘you must believe me, for I know it for a certainty: there is a madness in men sometimes, in women too, that makes them reject what they love.’

  ‘Then they do not truly love.’ He turned his back on me and laid himself down to sleep.

  When at last I also closed my eyes, it was with my cousin Deirdre’s face before me, her hand reaching out to me from a tower window, offering me her shroud.

  TWELVE

  Cargoes

  The warmth of our welcome from the ladies of the house did not improve in the watery sunshine of the late October morning. While the night candles in the parlour had endowed the edges of their mother’s face with folds and shadows, they had lent a sort of golden glow to her daughters which was utterly dissipated by what daylight found its way through the window panes and into the house. Pasty faces and dull eyes greeted me when I went to make my breakfast. Andrew had declared his intention of breakfasting early in the kitchen and then going to the stable, to see what further information he might glean from the maids and stable-boy. I was therefore constrained to make an uncomfortable breakfast myself in the cold parlour with the three women, the master having gone early to see to business across the river at the Clothworkers’ Hall. There was little conversation, but when they did speak it was to ask insulting questions, dressed as apologies for their ignorance, about the life and habits of my family. I learned in the course of the half-hour I was able to sit there that ‘I’, and those they supposed to be my ‘sort’, were commonly believed to live a life of licentious sloth in conditions of filth the masters of Bedlam would have baulked at.

  ‘I am sorry you find my manners and person so offensive to your expectations,’ I said. ‘I am only surprised my sister has not disabused you of these notions.’

  ‘Oh, no, your sister’s manner had quite prepared us …’

  I stood up. ‘You must excuse my sister’s manner, Madam: she is accustomed to the company of ladies.’ Putting my knife in my belt, I left the frozen room.

  What Andrew had learnt from the servants told us little new: Matthew Blackstone was a good master, but not a man to be crossed; his wife was a harridan and the daughters vessels of bitterness and misery. The sons were better but not well liked, and my cousin Deirdre was disdained by all in the family save her husband, who seemed genuinely to love her, and her father-in-law, who treated her as more worthy of conversation than he did his own daughters. Blackstone’s position in the plantation was sound, and his grip on building works throughout the London Companies’ proportions and the City of Londonderry tightened by the day. What he made, he invested back in land. Should the king declare the plantation forfeit, Black-stone’s losses would be incalculable.

  Andrew did go to meet with my grandfather’s agent in the town and I made a show of going with him. The man was a little surprised to see Andrew and more to see me, but beyond some words of sorrow at the passing of my grandfather found little further reason to talk to me. I showed an appropriate level of interest in their conversation, and in the role of Sean as I was, spent more time admiring servant girls and young wives out about their business on the vast and empty streets of this new town. On our way down to the ferry afterwards, Andrew told me the gist of what the man had said.

  ‘The position of your grandfather’s business in the market here is assured. However, he says the greatest threat to the Fitz-Garretts’ prosperity lies in Edward Blackstone – within an hour of the news of your grandfather’s death reaching Coleraine, the leech was at the shore, claiming to act in your grandfather’s behalf, and that all FitzGarrett business here should henceforth be conducted through him.’

  ‘What did the agent do?’

  Andrew shrugged as if my question had been unnecessary. ‘He told him to take himself off and comfort his wife, of course. That only your grandfather’s seal or my word was any currency to him.’

  As Matthew Blackstone was not expected back in town until almost midday, and neither of us had any desire to return to the house, we made our way towards the quayside for want of anything better to do.

  We passed the smithy to the west of the market, and the smell of the furnace and clang of iron on steel brought me back to another smithy, only ten years ago, where my father had worked and hammered almost until his last breath, pounding out his pride and his disappointments.

  ‘I was brought up at a forge,’ I said.

  Andrew raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘And now you are a philosopher.’

  ‘I don’t know what I am now. I do not know what I will go back to. I do not know if my night flight with Sean will have closed those doors to me that had not long begun to open.’

  ‘And if they are? What then?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  He pointed to the cluster of the old abbey buildings, where a school was planned for the townsfolk’s children. ‘I know they have no proper schoolmaster as yet.’

  How clean a new beginning it would be, to be part of a society that was itsel
f only just beginning. But I still wished with every ounce of my will and strength to hold on to the life I had, and was determined to do so until it was shown to me for certain that I had lost it.

  We stopped by the jetty where the ferry from Kilowen would dock. A small barque from Ayrshire was disgorging its load of coals, bolts of Scots cloth and whisky on to the side, its master and men declaring loudly that they were damned if ever they tried to make port at Coleraine again.

  The workers ashore had heard the like before.

  ‘Then you are twenty times damned, the whole crew of you, for you have been uttering your threats six times a year these last three years and more. And who else but the desperate and stranded would pay as we do for your shoddy wares?’ The ensuing scuffle was brought to an end with little more than bloodied noses on each side, and the dropping of a flagon of whisky which was declared to have a crack in it.

  The load fully landed and accounted for, the antagonists betook themselves and the damaged bottle to a corner of the abbey grounds. As I watched them, a movement at a door in the abbey wall caught my eye. He must have been a hundred yards or more from where I stood, and he was no longer clad in his baker’s garb, but I would have sworn the fellow behind whom the small wooden door now swung shut was the Franciscan, Father Stephen. I hardly had time to gather my thoughts before Andrew took me by the arm and pulled me towards the dock.

  ‘The ferry is coming, with Blackstone on it. Let us see who he is with and who he talks to.’ I tried to tell him about the priest, but my voice was lost in the crush towards the quayside, for beyond the ferry could be seen, still a little way down river, the masts of the long-awaited Bristol vessel, her sails being furled as men and boys ran like monkeys over her decks and rigging. A cheer went up, and frantic work began at the harbour to make ready for the arrival. Shouts and signals were sent to the ferryman, but he had already seen the ship, and had begun slowly but deftly to guide his craft towards the far side of the jetty. Within minutes he had docked, and his passengers – a woman holding an old hen under one arm and a small child in the other, an Irishman with three stout black cows, and two Englishmen with their horses – noisily, and with some difficulty on the part of the cattle, disembarked.

  ‘Who is that with Blackstone?’ I asked Andrew, for the man looked familiar.

  He glanced for only a moment at Blackstone’s companion. ‘I don’t know. I have never seen him before.’

  ‘No, wait,’ I said, forcing him to look again, ‘is that not the overseer of the brickworks?’

  Andrew looked at the man for longer this time. The other’s face and clothing were clean, no trace visible of the gritty red dust that had encrusted itself into every line in his skin last night, but as he removed a coarse leather glove to take Black-stone’s change from the ferryman, I saw the redness in his hands and nails. In his eyes was the same disaffected expression we had seen before.

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said at last, ‘I think you are right.’

  Blackstone hailed us warmly across the throng. ‘Well, gentlemen, is this not a fine sight for a morning? She’ll pass the bar this morning and be unloaded before dinner-time, I’d stake my horse on it. Is that not so, Dunstan?’

  ‘Aye, sir, no doubt,’ said the overseer, with little enthusiasm.

  ‘Now, then, get you to those brickworks and see if you can’t wring some work out of those lazy dullards. We’ll need eight hundred more for Monavagher than that idiot Cookston told me.’ He turned his attention to us, the smile re-forming on his face. ‘And now, gentlemen, you have had a pleasant morning I hope?’

  ‘We have found plenty to occupy us,’ Andrew answered. ‘But now I must seek out my old master’s agent, and give him instructions about the Madeira about to be landed.’

  Blackstone clapped him on the shoulder, looking not displeased that Andrew would be leaving us. ‘Aye, quite right. Very good, very good.’

  Andrew had warned me that he might have to leave me with Blackstone a while, and had counselled me not to leave the public view in the docks until he had returned. I wondered for a moment why he felt the need to give my grandfather’s agent his instructions again, for amongst what little I had caught of their conversation earlier in the morning were instructions regarding the Madeira. I knew enough not to question him on it in front of Blackstone, and so said nothing as he left us to make in the direction not of the agent’s house, but of the brickworks. Blackstone did not notice, so engrossed was he in the attempts of the ship to negotiate the bar and ease herself triumphantly into Coleraine harbour.

  Two great cheers went up, one from the crowd on the quayside, one from the ship. Scrawny men scampered like boys down the riggings, and others made ready the ropes, huge heavy coils waiting to be flung out to shore. Another cheer went up as the anchor was dropped, and then the ropes were caught on the quayside and tied fast to iron bollards. A gangplank was thrown down and soon a straggling troupe of weary and exhausted passengers was making its uncertain way on to dry land. Blackstone found his way to this group and detached from it his carpenters: he would have had two apprentices too, had not a tanner, in his apron and still reeking of the noxious fumes of his trade, claimed them as his own.

  The passengers safely disgorged, the business of unloading the merchant cargo began. The customs officers, even I could see, kept a close eye on some loads but turned their backs resolutely to others, their palms no doubt already profitably greased by some merchant’s coin. It took well into the afternoon before all the cargo was ashore, its contents and provenance verified, and allocated to its rightful owners. Amongst those checking and marking receipt of their goods was my grandfather’s agent; of Andrew there was still no sign. The agent counted out three bolts of silk, two barrels of oil, and the cask of Madeira. It seemed a small enough item to warrant such special instruction, but then I knew little more of trade than did Sean, and I did not ponder it long.

  Blackstone oversaw the landing of his goods with a degree of satisfaction and an eye that missed nothing. He took particular care over the loading on to carts of some cases of slates. ‘For my own new house. The slates produced here are not of a quality I would happily use. I advise my wealthier clients also to spend the extra coin now to save them expensive repairs in the future. But do they listen to me? Ha! Not many. But when I come to the end of my labours, I’m damned if I’ll sit under a leaking roof. Welsh slate, FitzGarrett. Welsh slate.’ He glanced uneasily at the customs officers, but they fortuitously, it seemed, had turned their attention elsewhere, and showed no interest in the contents of the heavy cases loaded on to his carts. It appeared Matthew Blackstone was not above bribery when it came to his own interests.

  There was a degree of relief in his face as the second of his carts was drawn away from the docks in the direction of his brickworks, and his good humour was such that he offered me a very favourable price on a sack of dates he had that morning bargained his way to, but I laughed and told him it would not be worth the wrath of my steward to make purchases without him.

  ‘He is a good man, that one, but you will not keep him long I think: he does not wait upon his opportunities. I will not beat about the bush, FitzGarrett. You need someone you can trust to manage your business, or you will not see one penny in two that belongs to you. To add an alliance in business to the one in marriage between our two families would do neither of us any harm. It would give me, and my son, greater trust amongst the Irish, and strengthen your support for the plantation in the eyes of the king. Neither of our families would lose by the arrangement.’

  ‘And if I do not support the plantation?’

  ‘Then the day will come when you will lose everything that was ever dear to you.’ Blackstone then left me, urging me to consider his words.

  Remembering Andrew’s warnings, I would have lingered longer by the quay, had it not been for the young man I caught sight of, emerging from the abbey grounds and coming towards the river. He was dressed in the robes of a Franciscan friar and walking towards me wit
h a purpose that left no doubt that he thought he knew me. I had not been prepared for this, for recognition as Sean by someone who might have been a mere acquaintance, a close friend, or a sworn enemy. The set of his face suggested the latter. Whatever this man was to Sean, it would soon become clear to him that I was nothing but a fraud.

  As a paralysing panic worked through me, good fortune, in the shape of a recalcitrant donkey, came to my aid. The creature, a few feet in front of me and between me and the oncoming stranger, objected greatly to the attempts of its handler to encourage it away from the quayside with its load. The more he pulled and cursed, the firmer the beast stood, until at last, at the end of his patience, the man kicked it in its hind quarters. The thing let out a terrible screech and took off at a speed neither I nor the carter had thought it capable of, sending barrels of apples and fish rolling and sliding all over the quay, with merchants and shore porters alike running after them. I heard one barrel crash into the river, and that was enough to bring me out of my own stasis: I ran and I did not look back. I went through yards and behind walls, anywhere that I thought might shield me from the sight of my pursuer. When I was at last satisfied that I had lost him, I went in search of Andrew. It was almost half an hour afterwards that I found him, in a tavern close to the brickworks. It was a desperate place, where poor ale was served to poor men, and women of no attraction or hope sought to entice what remained from the pockets of those men. He was drinking alone, a jug of beer before him, and ignoring the efforts of a young but pockmarked woman to engage him with her charms. I thought of Margaret, in the inn we had eaten at two days ago, clean and lovely and unsullied, and still unable to interest Andrew, and I pitied this poor and hopeless creature.