A Game of Sorrows

by Shona MacLean

  The fire had sunk to embers and the candles burned far down when I heard Roisin softly enter the room. She hesitated, seeing me, as she thought, sleeping, and knelt quietly down by the round hearth and laid another turf of peat upon it. She was watching me, I knew, and I opened my eyes fully, that she might not be deceived. She swallowed, looked away, then back again. I sat up and held my hand out towards her. She took it and let me draw her closer, and laid her head in my lap. As I stroked the silken hair away from her face I felt the slight moisture of the tears on her cheek. My hand moved over her brow, down the side of her face. There was an anger in me that I could scarcely master: anger at Sean, whom I had loved, and she had loved, and who had not loved her; anger at her father, who had sent her here to me, who saw only Maeve O’Neill’s grandson, and cared not which one it was, nor if his daughter did either; anger at myself for the weakness that was in me, the lack of constancy, the sin I knew I would succumb to.

  ‘Why have they sent you?’ I asked eventually.

  She did not lift her head, ‘It is only my father; Cormac does not know that I am here.’

  ‘This is some policy of your father’s alone?’

  She raised her head and I brought her up closer, in to my chest. ‘I think so, I think he is no readier to accept that Cormac should lead this rebellion than he was that Sean should.’

  ‘Do you think your father killed Sean? Had him killed?’

  ‘He would not have dared. Sean was his best hope of acceptance by the Irish outside our own kin. If I had married Sean, and produced a child, then my father could have taken the fosterage: he would have been untouchable.’

  ‘But now with Cormac …?’

  ‘Cormac is his own man. He has always been his own man. Since his youngest boyhood he has burned with shame at my father’s pandering to the English while others who would not succumb to their blandishments were abandoned to their fates. My father will never control Cormac; he will be as an old stallion put out to grass, not fit for the race or the hunt or the siring any more. My father will not accept living like that; there will be a reckoning between him and Cormac, whether before or after the rising, I do not know.’

  ‘But none of that explains why you are here.’

  ‘I am here because it is the time of my fertility. The women keep an eye on these matters, and they tell my father.’

  ‘And he has sent you here …’

  She looked away. ‘Any child born of this night he would pass off as Sean’s: it would have a right to the patrimony. Or even as your own – by the brehon laws, it would be as if I had married Sean himself.’

  ‘Have you … were you ever with Sean?’

  ‘I have never been with any man.’

  ‘Will they know? If you have lain with me or not?’

  She shook her head. ‘They will not force me to that indignity.’

  ‘Then before you leave – if you stay till morning – we could cut my wound once more – let some of the blood drop upon your dress …’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is what we could do.’

  I spread out the rushes on the floor a little more, and took down the priest’s robe again, to be a cover over us – it was coarse, but warm. She laid herself down, her head on my chest, as I held her close in the near-darkness, and wished her goodnight. Her breathing was even, but I knew she was not asleep. A tear ran down her cheek and I felt the wetness of it on my bare chest, where my robe had begun to come loose. I brushed her cheek and kissed her head again. She moved slightly and looked up at me. I lowered my head and kissed her again, gently, on the mouth. She responded and I did it again, less gently this time, pushing the crucifix at my neck to the side, desire taking over my senses. I knew it was wrong, and I knew it was not me that she wanted, but I had not been with a woman in three years, and in the darkness of that God-forsaken place, I submitted to her heartbroken passion and to my every carnal desire.

  TWENTY

  The Brothers of Bonamargy

  It was almost dawn when I woke, Roisin still entwined in my arms, the lingering scent of rose oil from her hair drifting into my senses. The fire had gone out and the room was cold. The dark mass of guilt had found me, as I had known it would. I felt it weigh me down like a rock on my stomach. I looked down at her as she moved slightly and murmured in her sleep. Oh God, that Sarah would never know of this. I lifted Fintan’s cloak from where it had slipped to the floor and covered the girl’s bare shoulders with it, and prayed for forgiveness. Suddenly the cell door crashed open. I sat up quickly, trying to shield Roisin with my back, and was only a little relieved when I saw Father Stephen Mac Cuarta stride into the room.

  He took in the scene in less than a second. ‘So, it is like that then. Like the rest of the O’Neills: weak in the flesh.’

  I struggled to say something, but he put up a hand to stay me. ‘Save it for your prayers. There is no time.’ He quickly gathered the clothes I had put on the night before that were now strewn around me. ‘Quick, put these on. Time is scarce.’

  Roisin was stirring now, but he crouched down near her and laid a hand on her head. ‘Sshh, sleep on, child. When they come, tell them you woke and he was gone, that you know no more.’ Taking a moment to understand what he said, she looked from him to me, then nodded her head. She lay slowly back down on the pallet, pulling the robe to her, and watched quietly as I dressed. Stephen strode around the room impatiently as I fumbled with the belt to my tunic and the trousers.

  ‘Come on, come on, man! Did your mother always dress you?’

  ‘I am not used to this clothing,’ I said, eventually triumphing over my leg wear and casting around the room for my boots, which, I was thankful, they had not made me exchange for a pair of priest’s sandals.

  ‘Here they are,’ said Stephen, thrusting them towards me. ‘Now be quick!’

  ‘But where …?’ I began.

  ‘For the love of God, will you move?’

  A moment later I was ready and Stephen made for the door. I looked at him and then at Roisin, and understanding, he relented a little. ‘One minute,’ he said, raising a finger, ‘and not one second more.’

  I nodded and, muttering something under his breath, he went out.

  I went over to Roisin, crouched down, took her hands. ‘I am sorry,’ I said, ‘that I am not of your world. May you find someone who is worthy of you.’

  She smiled. ‘Perhaps I did. I will not forget you.’

  I bent down and kissed her, one last time, then left, without looking back.

  ‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said Stephen, in some exasperation. ‘Now can we go?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but go where? What is happening? Where are the guards?’

  ‘The guards are all drunker than lords, and will have heads like balls of lead when they come to in the morning. The apothecary at Bonamargy has many talents.’

  ‘You drugged them?’ I said in disbelief.

  He smiled grimly, and with a relish that almost disturbed me. ‘Every last one of the devils, from Murchadh himself down to the boy who empties his piss pot.’

  ‘But how? You were drunk yourselves.’

  ‘Were we indeed?’ He allowed himself a low laugh. ‘You think those fools strutting about the stage in Coleraine the other night are the only men in Ireland who can act? No, my young friend, we were not drunk. But I think you would do well to take a lesson from your friend Andrew Boyd, and inspect very carefully any drink handed to you by an Irishman.’

  ‘How so? I was not drugged to sleep.’

  ‘Not to sleep, no, indeed not to sleep, but there was more stuff in the goblet you had by you in yonder room than any vintner ever put there.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘How should I know? A man of my calling has no need for such arts, and indeed does better to stay away from them, but there were the dregs of something that was not of the grape in that.’

  So I had indeed been drugged, given some aphrodisiac, at the instance of Murchadh, no doubt. His da
ughter would not even have known about it. This should perhaps have assuaged in me something of my guilt, but it could not, for I had wanted her last night, as I knew I had the very first time I had laid eyes on her.

  Passing the main chamber, a quick glance confirmed Stephen’s story: it was like some enchantment in a child’s fairytale, as men, women and boys lay in attitudes of satisfaction and great contentment in utterly drunken slumber. We stepped with caution over the guards at one end of the corridor and then, with more apprehension, over those at the entrance to Dun-a-Mallaght itself.

  Day was breaking as I emerged at last from my earthen prison. I stretched out my arms and breathed deep the fresh air of early morning.

  ‘No time for that,’ said Stephen, turning eastwards, where the sun had just begun to rise over the sea.

  ‘What of Deirdre? I will not leave her.’

  ‘She is there already, and a damned sight less trouble than you she was, too, let me tell you.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘For the love of all things holy! Bonamargy, where else? Now come on, or I’ll leave you to Murchadh’s dogs.’

  I had had enough of dogs and took my warning, following him in a steady trot towards his friary, which I could already see emerging out of the morning grey.

  In a matter of a few minutes we had left Murchadh’s subterranean fortress well behind us, and had come within the precincts of the small friary, near the mouth of the river. My own college, my own haven, the Marischal College in Aberdeen, had once been a place of friars, a cloistered ornament to a debased way of life, put to better use in the service of God following the reformation of religion in my country. Despite the darkness and depravities of the place I had just left, I was apprehensive at entering this place that declared itself dedicated, in its misguided way, to the service of God.

  ‘Don’t look so pious, Presbyterian,’ said Stephen, ‘it sits not well on the countenance of one who spent last night as you did.’

  Bereft of anything to say in my defence, I cast my eyes to the ground and braced myself for yet more of the rituals of their superstitions. We were welcomed by an old friar at the gatehouse, who greeted Stephen with a blessing and a prayer of thanks for his safe return ‘from that evil place’, and cast a suspicious glance in my direction. He did not question Stephen, though. I was beginning to realise that few people questioned Stephen Mac Cuarta, and those who did rarely received answers it did not suit him to give.

  ‘How many are you here?’ I asked, as a means out of the silence.

  ‘Six. Only six of us friars. And a nun: Julia. You’ll not see her if she’s not in the humour for it, and she’s rarely in the humour.’

  ‘A very small community.’

  ‘Aye, and has been scarcely that sometimes.’

  The church was long and low, with a cloister walk that continued down its east range, beside the domestic quarters we were headed towards. ‘The chapterhouse and refectory,’ explained Stephen. ‘The dormitory is above. Julia has her own cell, separate from us of course, and the kitchens are in there.’ He indicated a small limestone building with thatched roof, tacked on to the end of the eastern range. I had always imagined that friaries, or monasteries, must have been hives of activity, communities at work and prayer, every skill represented and followed behind their cloistered walls. But it was evidently not thus at Bonamargy. The authorities vacillated between banishment and toleration of the Catholic churchmen, and only the protection of the Earl of Antrim stood between this small knot of men with their spiritual sister and eviction. The place had a desolate air of emptiness and silence, as if its time was well past and it was just waiting for those within its walls to acknowledge that truth and die.

  ‘We have not been a constant community here,’ said Stephen, reading my face as I surveyed the place. ‘But it makes a base for us here, we who have returned from the continent, for our mission, our work.’

  Their work. Stephen would have had me believe that he was returned to Ireland for the capture of souls, the solace and encouragement of the remaining faithful on his island. He did not know I had heard any of what had passed at Dun-a-Mallaght, that I knew what his work was. I knew from his own lips that Stephen Mac Cuarta was a man who would say mass at dawn and kill a man at noon, a soldier for Ireland and a soldier for God being all one in his eyes. I had not the opportunity to say anything, for we had entered the friary building by a door in the east range, and Michael was waiting there to meet us.

  ‘God be praised! You got away, then?’

  ‘Only just.’ Stephen afforded me a grudging sideways glance.

  Michael raised his eyebrows in curiosity, but did not pursue the matter, as Stephen was bustling past him through a long vaulted room, evidently the refectory, to some place beyond.

  I spoke to Michael as we followed after him. ‘Will they not think to follow us here?’

  Michael’s face was set, grim. ‘Even Murchadh will not think you will have been stupid enough to come to so close and obvious a place.’

  ‘Then they will not come after us?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll come after you all right, eventually. And first we will deny all knowledge of you and your escape, and then, after Ciaran has tortured me a little, I will break and tell him Stephen organised a boat that took you across to Rathlin, from where you will flee back to Scotland, taking Deirdre with you.’

  ‘Torture?’ He spoke of it with such composure, such casual certainty.

  He glanced at me sideways and smiled. ‘I have been trained to withstand it, to the necessary point.’

  We could say nothing more, for we had now arrived in a small, vaulted chamber that I took to be a chapter room or sacristy. ‘The girl?’ Stephen had asked as soon as he was through the door.

  ‘Julia has her in her cell,’ said Michael. ‘Gerard is attending to her.’

  ‘And the Scotsman?’

  I had seen no sign of Andrew since we had entered the precincts of the friary.

  Michael pointed upwards. ‘In the dormitory.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Out in the burial ground. Digging for all they are worth. Time presses on.’

  I felt my heart drop within me, a nauseating hollow appear at the pit of my stomach. ‘For Andrew?’ I managed to say.

  ‘There is little enough time to do it before Murchadh and Cormac appear here. It must be done before then.’

  I sank to the bench below me, desolate. He had been a man cheated by time, cheated by life, in life, and in his thirty-four years he had been a better man than all who had cheated him. I thought of what I had only started to glimpse through breaches in his defences he had allowed himself with me, and of the girl who was hovering at the edges of sanity in some small room above me. I put my head in my hands and let despair take me.

  It was Stephen who noticed first. ‘What in the name …?’

  An old friar who’d been sitting in the corner came over, knelt before me, took my hands from my face. ‘No, my child, you have it wrong. He is not dead. Your friend lives, and will live.’

  ‘Then why?’ I began.

  ‘Because we know Cormac seeks him, and knows he was brought here.’

  Because I had told him. I cursed myself.

  ‘And when Cormac comes here and demands to know where Andrew Boyd is, he will be shown to that freshly dug ground, and asked to pray for a lost soul.’

  I did not know whether to laugh at their ingenuity or recoil from their blasphemy, but relief swept over me like the tide over a rock.

  ‘Come on,’ said Stephen, less gruff now than he had been. ‘Let us go to your friend.’ He took me out into a passageway and up a stair to the dormitory above.

  There were six beds, flimsy-looking wooden cots, set under six windows, three down each side of the room. The floor was completely bare, and the walls were without adornment, save for the wooden crucifix above each bed. Of Andrew there was no sign. Father Stephen was behind me, at the top of the stairs; I stepped back, fearing a t
rap.

  ‘What is the matter?’ he said, advancing towards me.

  I stepped back again. ‘Where is Andrew?’

  He looked to the one disturbed bed in the dormitory and saw that it was empty. ‘At the latrine, if nowhere else.’ He indicated a small door off to the left, at the end of the long chamber. ‘We are not altogether savages.’

  I sat down on the bed he had declared to be Andrew’s, and watched the latrine door. I jumped when another door at the very end of the dormitory opened, and a black-clad figure moved through it.

  ‘Well, Stephen, so you are returned from your carousing.’

  ‘I am that, Julia,’ he said. ‘And not alone.’

  She looked down upon me for the first time, and her face froze for a moment. She crossed herself. ‘Holy Mother of God.’

  ‘Be at ease, Julia: it is not Sean FitzGarrett.’

  ‘I know who it is and is not,’ she said. ‘I had not known Grainne had another child.’

  I looked at her in incomprehension, and then to Stephen, awaiting his correction: it did not come. ‘Julia …’ he said, his voice full of warning.

  ‘I am not in the business of deceit, Stephen Mac Cuarta. And if you had not been either, this would be a different day and Sean FitzGarrett might yet walk among us.’ She looked then to me. ‘You may go in to Deirdre, but remember: she is not fit to be disturbed by the conversation of men.’ She gave Stephen a look that would have frozen iron, and swept through the dormitory and down the stairs.

  ‘What did she mean?’

  ‘Alexander,’ he began.

  I rose to my feet and I could feel my voice rise in anger. ‘No more of your lies, your half-truths, your rationing of information, priest. What did she mean?’

  ‘You must understand,’ he said.

  ‘Understand?’ I shouted. ‘Understand? I have been hounded by dogs, dressed as a priest, bound in shackles and left in a stinking cell; my own grandmother noises it abroad that I have murdered my cousin; I have heard my mother called a whore by those who were not fit to look at her, and now there is talk of Grainne’s “other child”. And you tell me to understand? Well, tell me why, priest, for I want nothing more than to understand.’