A Game of Sorrows

by Shona MacLean

  Again he nodded.

  ‘Why did she not want it?’

  ‘They did not argue of it before me. Your cousin may not like our ways, the ways of your grandmother, and of me, but she knows them well and respects them, although she does not fully understand their power. She would not dishonour your grandmother or me by arguing about it openly before me.’

  ‘And yet you know she did not want it?’

  He smiled slowly. ‘I have spent long years in study of words and of people. You must know a person before you can know the words you must use for them. Ever since I was a child, I have watched people. I watched your uncle, Phelim, your mother too. And when she came here, I watched your cousin. I watched her eyes and the small movements of her face and her body. She did not want what your grandmother wanted. She thinks she can take the road of the new English, and find her place in Ireland. She is wrong. I tried to tell her she was wrong…’

  ‘And so my grandmother paid you to do her bidding – to do what?’

  ‘To tell the glories of her family through the generations, to extol her lineage above others, to assert its claims for supremacy in Ulster, to bless this new union that it might further those ends.’

  ‘And of the Blackstones? What were you to say of them?’

  ‘The English ones?’

  ‘The family of the groom,’ I said, flatly.

  ‘They were not to be mentioned at all.’

  ‘But the oration you made was something quite different.’

  ‘There are times when the duty of the poet is to point out the errors of his patron, to set him on the right path, to give warning to others that they might not …’

  ‘That may well be,’ I broke in, ‘but that is not what happened at Deirdre’s wedding. You were paid by someone to …’

  He was on his feet. ‘Do not insult me.’

  ‘I do not insult you. You know the truth better than I. You have sold the dignity of your calling. My mother schooled me well enough in the understanding of the exalted place of the poets, the years of training required, the honour you were accorded in noble households. Where is your honour to be found now?’ I threw the pouch at him. ‘At the bottom of a greasy purse.’

  ‘Do not presume to cite me your mother on honour. A whore who abandoned Ireland at the first opportunity. What would she know of noble households, she who rolled in her servant’s bed?’

  His last words dropped like stones onto the carpet of fallen leaves around us, and lay there heavy and still. A bolt of coldness ran through my body.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Ask those who remember. I can tell you no more.’

  What was he saying? My father had never been a servant. He had been a craftsman, and a soldier. I had not been born until a year after she had returned with him to Banff.

  ‘Are you trying to say I am not my father’s son?’ I said.

  ‘Is your name truly Seaton? That was the name of the man they said she left with, so you are probably his son.’

  Disgust with the poet swamped me; I was growing tired of puzzles and riddles, of things that claimed to be other than what they seemed. I wanted to root out the knowledge I had come for and leave. Remembering the words of the Franciscan, ‘Master your anger,’ I swallowed down the rising bile. ‘Who paid you to curse my family?’

  ‘I was honouring a patron, I was …’

  ‘Enough of honour. You were paid. Who did it, and to what end?’

  He shook his head. ‘You think that I do not know that I am degenerate from my forefathers? Do you think I would be here in this desolate place, selling my talent and my worth, if I could have the place of my forefathers? We are persecuted by the English, who fear our power over the minds of the people, we are made destitute by the destitution and banishment of our lords, those who once feted us, we are abandoned by those who remain and do not give us succour for fear of falling out of favour with the English masters at whose knees they crawl. So I scrape what living I can with my words and my mind, for I have not been taught any other. But I have my honour and I will not betray my patron to you.’

  ‘You betrayed my grandmother.’

  ‘I spoke only the truth.’

  ‘For a murderer,’ I said. ‘My cousin is dead and you foretold it.’

  ‘He would have been dead soon enough anyway. Look about you. Look at this country. Listen to what is said. Watch. There will be death. But I tell you this: the person who had me curse your cousin will not be the person who murdered him.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I told you, I watch people, and I know love.’

  I called from my memory the images of the night of my grandfather’s wake. I sought out the poet, as he ate, drank, as he stood to declaim our family’s fall. Who had he watched, where had his gaze landed? Faces, faces, faces, all around. But my mind had been taken up entirely with his words, and my memory would not tell me that he had looked on any of them.

  His voice broke into my searching. ‘You must forget this now. You must learn the lesson of the Cursing Circle: it has no end.’

  There was no more to be had from him and I got up in dejection, leaving the money pouch on the ground beside him. I could hear the steady crinkle and splash of a stream running nearby and sought it out, to slake my thirst. The nuts were just bursting from an overhanging hazel and I took them gratefully, with brambles from the bushes. I looked around me for somewhere I might find good shelter and lay my head for the night, but all was damp or jagged underfoot, and would afford me little comfort. I made my way back to the clearing, where Finn O’Rahilly still sat as I had left him, the pouch untouched at his feet.

  ‘My home is in the church,’ he said, indicating the ruin from which he had emerged. ‘You may spend the night there; there are clean rushes in the corner of the east wall; you will be dry and warm by the hearth. You would not be the first visitor to take rest here before returning to the world. There is a candle and flint in a niche above the bedding. I will not disturb you.’

  For want of an option, I thanked him, and sought out a corner for myself in the ruined church. Much of the roof had gone, and what little remained was of old thatch. When the elements were at their worst there can have been few places of true shelter in the shell of the building, but the corner by the hearth protected me from the advances of the east wind, and the night was dry. It was almost dark. I lit the candle I had found in the niche, and lay down amongst the rushes, wishing I had Sean’s heavy mantle about me now. I flinched as a bat swooped down from a rotting beam above my head and swept out into the night. I had never liked the creatures. I had always had a terror that they would entangle themselves in my hair. I was glad now of my monk’s hood and pulled it up about me. Other creatures scuttled around me, in the rushes, across the stone floor. The noises of the wood seemed to come closer as evening advanced further into night.

  O’Rahilly himself sat in the doorway, looking outwards beyond the clearing into the darkness of the wood. I wondered what he was seeing, what he was remembering, the young boy who had sought sanctuary and training with the last of the poets when Phelim was in his prime and my mother in her bloom; what he had known before the cause was lost and the heroes fled, what trials had brought him here, to cling to the last remnants of his dignity in this desolate place. I wondered if he had ever had a family, loved a woman … For a while I had thought he might be sleeping, but his eyes were open, and every so often his lips moved in some silent speech. The last remnant of his race.

  ‘Tell me a poem,’ I said into the silence.

  He did not move and so I asked him again.

  ‘Why do you want to hear a poem?’

  ‘Because I want to know the art of it, the life. I want to know what my forefathers knew, all those generations that will be lost now, in me.’

  ‘Hear then “The Downfall of the Gael”.’ And the same low, clear, powerful voice that I had heard on the night of my grandfather’s wake went out into the night.

&nb
sp; My heart is in woe,

  And my soul deep in trouble,

  For the mighty are low,

  And abased are the noble:

  The sons of the Gael

  Are in exile and mourning,

  Worn, weary and pale,

  As spent pilgrims returning,

  Or men who, in flight

  From the field of disaster,

  Beseech the black night

  On their flight to fall faster;

  Or men whom we see

  That have got their death-omen –

  Such wretches are we

  In the chains of our foemen!

  Our course is fear,

  Our nobility vileness,

  Our hope is despair,

  And our comeliness foulness.

  From Boyne to the Linn

  Has the mandate been given,

  That the children of Finn

  From their country be driven.

  The Gael cannot tell,

  In the uprooted wildwood

  And red ridgy dell,

  The old nurse of his childhood:

  The nurse of his youth

  Is in doubt as she views him,

  If the wan wretch in truth,

  Be the child of her bosom.

  Through the woods let us roam,

  Through the wastes wide and barren:

  We are strangers at home!

  We are exiles in Erin!

  And Erin’s a bark

  O’er the wild waters driven!

  And the tempest howls dark,

  And her side planks are riven!

  And in billows of might

  Swell the Saxon before her–

  Unite, oh, unite!

  Or the billows burst o’er her!

  As his voice carried to me, the faces of my family – of those who were dead and gone and those who were now left, in distress and abandoned to fear – came before me. The face of the pilgrims Stephen, and Michael, came before me; Deirdre, with her vision of death; Murchadh and his sons came before me, with Maeve leading their decimated hopes and empty dreams. The memory of myself and Andrew, in our desperate flight to Dunluce, came to me with such force that I had to remind myself that that night was past. I wished I had never spoken.

  After a moment, O’Rahilly came back into the church and went to a chest out of which he lifted some garment I could not see. Without so much as turning his head to look at me, he then went out of the door and walked through the circle, crossing himself as he passed the centre stone, and out into the woods. I laid my head down upon the rushes and prayed for that lost man and his lost brothers, and it was all I could do not to forget my religion and ask God’s mercy on those of my blood, of this race, who had gone to Him before me.

  I closed my eyes and wished for sleep. If it came, it came only lightly, for there was not one moment when I was not aware of the rustling and scuttling of creatures on the ground, the beating and swooping of things in the air, and the creaking of the trees in the wind. And then, into it all, came a sound I had never heard before, but knew; a sound that should not have been in these woods: a howling. I stood up cautiously and quietly snuffed out the candle, which had burnt very low. Hardly daring to breathe, I pressed myself as far back against the wall of the church as I could, and waited. A cloud passed from the face of the moon at the top of the trees, and I watched in a kind of terror as the wolf slowly crossed the circle, pausing at the centre to sniff the air. It howled once again and, looking for a long moment in the direction of the church, walked on, in search of its brothers.

  I did not sleep after that, but stood at the edge of the burial ground keeping watch for I knew not what. The bats swirled from tree to tree, an owl hooted somewhere in the woods. I was startled by a movement amongst the stones of the burial ground, but it was nothing more than a solitary fox. I tried to turn my mind from thoughts of what might have happened in this place before the Christianity of Patrick had claimed it for God, but the more I tried to find consolation amongst the scriptures I had by heart, the more my mind ran to the powers of the Devil, to the foul and dreadful deeds committed in his name, to the paganism, the baals, celebrated wherever the light of the gospel did not shine. My mind ran to what Sean had said, long ago now, it seemed, but in truth not so long ago, as I had mocked the superstitions of his people, of my people. He had told me of the attempt made on his life as he rode alone at night, and of his fear then, of the powers of darkness and the spirits of the world beyond, and I had scorned them. ‘These forces may have retreated from your land,’ he had said, ‘but they have a home yet in ours, and they are not ready to be vanquished.’ I wished I could have told him now that I understood.

  Where Finn O’Rahilly had gone, and if he had encountered the wolf, I did not know. He had had no light with him, taken no staff for travelling, no food or drink that I could see. As my eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, and my ears to the natural sounds of the night, my body began to relax a little, and I could see perhaps how a man for whom the world has little further use might eke out his days in a place such as this. But surely that fate would not be mine; surely my grandmother’s madness could not take hold in the minds of reasonable men? I wondered if Finn O’Rahilly had gone to report me to the authorities – whatever authorities there were that would take the word of one such as he – but I saw that the pouch of money lay still on the ground, unopened, where he had left it.

  Gradually, I became aware of a new sound in the night, the sound of horses. Not many horses, not the great wolf-hunt that had pursued me from Coleraine, but perhaps two or three beasts and their riders, moving cautiously through the wood, coming closer. I moved quickly and quietly back into the church, found candle and flint again and got myself some light. There was nothing amongst Finn O’Rahilly’s few belongings with which I might defend myself, and so I committed myself to prayer.

  At last the riders emerged from the forest and came to a silent halt at the edge of the circle. What little I could see of the outline of their forms against the trees told me that these were not the Blackstones, the men of Coleraine. The horses were different, somehow; the set of the men, their clothing different; all three were dressed as Sean had been the first time I had seen him. I was not left long to wonder, for a strong voice rang out, demanding in Irish,

  ‘Show yourself, O’Rahilly. Step out of your sanctuary and meet your fate.’

  I emerged from the church into the darkness and held up my light to look into the faces of three men. The two younger sons of Murchadh O’Neill, and another, who by the look of him was a kinsman. For a moment there was silence, even the creatures of the night seemed to stop in their movement, hold their breath. And then the youngest of the three cried out in terror, startling his own horse and those of the others.

  ‘Holy mother of God,’ said the lead rider slowly, crossing himself. He regarded me for a long moment and then spoke.

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘I am a man.’

  ‘It is the spirit of Sean risen. Let us leave this place. Ciaran, let us go, before we are damned.’

  ‘This is no spirit.’ Ciaran O’Neill turned his eyes once more on me. ‘I ask again. What are you?’ He edged his horse forward, but those of the two others shied back from the stones and would come no nearer.

  ‘I am Alexander Seaton.’

  ‘You are Sean O’Neill FitzGarrett risen from the dead!’

  Again Ciaran chided his young kinsman. He spoke once more to me. ‘Whatever your name, you are of the O’Neills. What are you to the O’Neills?’

  And so once again, slowly, in English and in a clear voice, I told my lineage.

  ‘Grainne died.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she died. When I was seventeen years old, and she had been safe landed in Scotland eighteen years.’

  ‘And she told no one of your birth?’

  ‘My grandmother…’

  ‘That would be right. The old bitch. And now?’

  ‘Now?’


  ‘Who knows of you now?’

  ‘What is that to you?’

  ‘This is not a game, Scotsman, and if it were, the cards would be in my hand. You would do well to answer what you are asked.’

  I said nothing and held firm to my staff, as if guarding the church. Beneath my priest’s robes, my heart pounded in terror.

  Ciaran got down from his horse and the others did the same, careful to keep a pace behind him, casting me glances as if to ascertain that I truly was corporeal. ‘You do better to trust me than to make an enemy of me,’ he said, venturing a smile at me for the first time. ‘I am Ciaran O’Neill, son of Murchadh. We have come for the poet. Stand aside and let us pass.’

  ‘He is not here.’ I was glad for a moment for their attention to shift from myself.

  ‘Where is he hiding?’

  ‘I do not know. He left a few hours ago and has not returned.’

  It did not take them long to make a search of the ruined church. They cursed their frustration in Irish, and then reverted to English, to treat with me. ‘And what are you doing here? Who has sent you?’

  ‘There were things I wished to know from him, information I wished to have.’

  One drew a knife from the sheath round his neck, and stepping closer to me slowly raised the blade to my throat. Ciaran did nothing to stop him. ‘What is your business with O’Rahilly?’

  ‘I came here to find out who paid him to curse my family.’

  ‘Who brought you here?’

  ‘To Kilcrue?’

  ‘To Ireland.’

  ‘Sean.’

  ‘Safe enough in saying that now, for he is dead.’

  I ground out my words. ‘He was sent by my grandmother to fetch me from Scotland, with some idea that when he saw me O’Rahilly would lift the curse.’

  Ciaran laughed. ‘He told you that, did he?’

  ‘Why else would they have brought me here?’