Dark Lord of Geeragh

by Veronica Geoghegan Sweeney

  © Copyright 1984, 2011 Veronica Sweeney. All rights reserved.

  Dark Lord

  of

  Geeragh

  V.G. Sweeney

  When I first came to County Clare in 1979 I was told, by teasing locals, that if I stood on the western-most point of Inis Mor, that I could see, on a clear day, the shores of Tir na Nog, the Land of the Forever Young, where the old Irish heroes lived. This was told to me so many times that, with my writer’s imagination, I began to wonder if, on the eastern-most shore of Tir na Nog, people told themselves that on a clear day, if one looked to the east, one could see the pale and distant shore of Ireland, from where they had come, once upon a time, in a far-off, forgotten age...

  Dedication

  I first wrote this story for my daughter, Pippa, to show her that courage can take many forms. Now she is all grown up, but here, at last, is her little story in book form.

  This is for you, Pip, in memory of the one-acre field, and the badger set, the first snowman and the stone wall that no one believed your Gran and I could build; in memory of the Fairy Ring and the chestnut tree, the leprechaun on the toadstool in the holly bush, and all of the magic that was Knockiclovaun.

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the day of my capture I was twelve years and two weeks old. The War was older than I: the War was an ancient thing, to most people as accepted as the fog that rolled in from the sea, as unquestioned and as all-pervasive. Only I seemed to question it; but then, one questions much, at twelve years and two weeks old.

  For one hundred and ten years the War had been raging, though “raging” would not be the word to describe it, not from our view of the conflict. For the passive poverty of our lives was not disrupted by the signs of warfare: no soldiers were seen, no distant sounds of guns or cannon reached our cottage, no warships passed on the horizon of the sea. Far to the south, over the borders into the hostile territory of Foyrr, and deep in the valleys beyond the mountain range to the west, where our solders fought the savage tribes of the land of Arrach, and beyond the central plain to the south-west where the men of Sowragh harried our border-dwellers - this was where the War was fought. For one hundred and ten years our gallant little country of Geeragh had held off the enemy, surrounded on three sides by wealthy and well-equipped Foyrrians, Arrachans and Sowrans - and still they could not defeat us.

  Until that fateful day upon the beach, my mother had always spoken with pride of the men of Geeragh who had marched away to war; that none had ever returned was also a matter of grim pride, though as the years went on, that pride was tinged with bitterness. My father, Fenvar the Fair-haired, had gone to fight in the War, setting sail, with five deckhands, on his little ship, the White Cloud - and neither ship, crew, nor captain had returned. When her tale reached this point, my mother’s face became closed and pinched. I had never thought of her as beautiful, but I know now that once she had been: beautiful and light of step and bright of eye, when she had trod barefoot along the seashore in the days when she and my father were young. But I would become frightened by her face, her voice, when she came to talk of my father’s sailing, the little ship setting out with five others from our grey-weathered jetty to join the great Geeran fleet. I felt my mother no longer saw me, but saw my father, standing there upon the deck in his green cloak, wearing the heavy silver locket that bore my mother’s portrait. One hand had gripped the locket like a promise, like the words he flung landward to her, “I’ll be back, Liardin, by springtime!” Hearing her words, I was there with her; I heard the shouts of the first mate, the crack of the sails before the ship came about and moved away, and the voice of my father, carrying over the water, “It’ll all be over by springtime! I’ll see our child born! I’ll be back by then!”

  My mother said that was the first time I moved within her; she wanted to call out to Fenvar and tell him - but it was such an intimate thing, she said, to call out across the growing space of water, and would he have heard? For the crowd on the jetty and the sailors on the ships were still shouting and waving their farewells.

  It would have been the smallest of small acts of mine, for my father to take as knowledge of his son. As it was, Fenvar the Fair-haired, of the ship White Cloud, went to war, and perished, knowing nothing at all of his son.

  That day on the beach when the soldiers came, was, ironically, the day that I first quarrelled with my mother. I thought, afterwards, and perhaps still do think, that I may have brought the incident upon myself as a kind of retribution, for until then, I had always treated my mother with respect, and I had no right to blame her for speaking what was, after all, only the truth. Often we blame others for the death of our dreams, and that day I turned upon my mother, for just such a reason.

  I had been singing an old martial tune, probably as old as the War, perhaps dating back to Iera, that mythical island to the east, from whence they say our people came. I can admit it, now, that I had been singing it loud, and singing it long, as a bored child will do - and there was little that was more boring than gathering kelp from the beach. I wanted to be away, perhaps to Ardal’s house, where we would watch his grandfather mending nets and listen to his tales, or perhaps we’d go swimming or fishing with the other lads of the village. But no, I must help my mother. And so I sang. And sang.

  “Arra, will you stop?” My mother’s voice cut across a verse of particularly bloody intent, and I stared at her. “Just stop,” she said, more mildly, and bent her head to stuff more of the slimy green seaweed into her sack.

  I had been daydreaming, while I worked, of riding a dark horse into battle, of killing savage Foyrrians, there to my left, there to my right, and…

  Arra, will you stop, my mother had said, and I spoke, then, sullen in my dissatisfaction at finding myself back on this dismal beach, “When I grow up I shall be a soldier. I shall go and fight in the War, like Da. I shall be a great hero and the Dark Lord himself will give me a medal.”

  My mother Liardin’s eyes are blue, like my own, but when she is angry they seem to become grey, and cold; at this moment they looked as grey and cold and as welcoming as the shiny stones of the beach, which slid a little under my feet as I took a step back from her.

  “And you think that to be a fine ambition, do you? Not that they’ll take you for a soldier, you foolish boy. Oh, get about your work.”

  And that hurt more than her anger, more than the rasp of her voice, as grating as those same shingles beneath my feet. But I was angry with myself, now, and stood my ground. I was angry because I knew she was right, I would never go asoldiering; I was trapped here in this cottage on this beach as surely as she was, but, so fresh from my pleasant daydream, I hated her for her honesty, her very unnecessary truth. And I hated her the more for her dismissal of this, my first act of rebellion; it was also a child’s first blathering of ambition and independence. And it was acknowledged in myself only as the words left my lips, and in the grain of its truth I gained the courage to persist.

  “And I shall have my own boat one day, a fine ship, better - bigger - than the White Cloud, and I shall - shan’t - I shan’t sail off to war, like Da! I shall sail out into the Great Mist and I won’t be becalmed or beaten back to shore! I shall sail away!”

  “Fen,” said my mother. But I was too angry to hear the sudden strain and emotion in her voice. Nor did I notice the slight thrumming in my ears, I thought it was the rush of my own blood. I did not notice the subtle, persistent, growing trembling of the earth, for I thought it was my own temper that shook me so.

  “And I’ll reach Iera, and I’ll never come back, and no one will ever laugh at me again!” I was thinking, as I said this, of Duggan, the son of the blacksmith in the village, and how I had had to thrash him two
days before, and what a hard time I had had of it.

  But my mother, to my added chagrin, was not even giving me the courtesy of her attention. Her gaze was directed above my head, down the beach. Then her eyes were wide, and her mouth distorted, and she yelled, “Run, Fen!”

  She seldom joked, being a serious woman, but at that moment, all I could think was that she was playing some sort of prank, but only for a moment. In reflex, I turned, to follow the direction of her gaze - and I saw them.

  “Run!” My mother’s voice was in my ear, and her hard hands had taken my upper arm and were pulling me along. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up to meet the terror of her screams, “Run, Fen, run!” even though I did not fully understand. And I was still looking back at that gathering menace when I tripped, and sprawled my length on the hard and shining stones, and was pulled along, still pulled along on my nose for a few feet, by the force of my mother’s hard hands and her fear.

  I should have been more afraid than I was, but I think my recent daydream of leading Geeragh into battle had stayed with me and still cast its charm about me, for here I was, if not in the forefront of battle, at least surrounded by the components of that company. Iron-shod hoofs ploughed up the beach and sprayed sand and pebbles that stung my face and arms, the sunlight struck brilliance off gold and silver and polished steel, to my ears came the shouting, the chinkering slash of metals, the snorting, heaving breath of the horses, and to my nostrils came the smell of hot leather and the sweat of both horses and men. I could not have moved, even if it were not for my awe, my fear - for my mother had those thin, hard arms wrapped tight about me as we huddled there upon the beach.

  “Arra, Mam, let go. Let go!”

  How many men, how many horses? All the riders wore the black and silver that marked them as knights and soldiers of Geeragh - and there, fluttering past my vision, borne by a man on a leaping and rearing chestnut, was the Royal Standard, the silver falcon on a black field. My mother, whimpering, buried her head in my shoulder and pressed my own face hard into the trembling sinews of her neck.

  I fought her off, I fought off her clinging, protective hands and I stood, with difficulty, and tried to face -

  Who? For they still reared and careened and plummeted all around me, eight, ten of them, and only slowly did they sort themselves into some kind of order, and I saw, then, that some were indeed soldiers of the royal household, and some - a few - were much more important than that.

  Dark-clad, the gold and silvered ones paused directly in front of my mother and me, and held their horses in check, and stared at us in the way I would have studied something that had been washed up with the sea wrack after a storm.

  One, heavier-set than the others, turned to my mother and said, “You are Liardin, widow of Fenvar the Fair-haired?”

  “Yes,” said my mother, and I forgot my fear of the riders and stared at her in horror. Widow? Widow? She had never before been called a widow…

  And this is your son, Fen?” the burley knight said.

  “Yes, sir.” My mother drew me closer to her. I had never heard fear in my mother’s voice, but I heard it now. “Please, sirs, let us go! We’ve done nothing wrong - let us go…”

  Another knight, dark-haired like the first, but more slender, younger, who wore his clothes well and sat in his saddle with elegant grace, said, not unkindly, “Be quiet, woman, we mean you no harm. We may, indeed, help you and your son. The boy can read, can he? And write?”

  And at the same time, the third knight, who had, until now, been silent, growled, “And is that a necessity, Speedwell? Was that part of the description? We’re looking for a servant, not a scholar.” and he turned to me and gave me a black look from beneath a heavy, over-hanging brow. He was very dark, this third knight, tall and round-shouldered in the saddle, and he had untidy hair and a rough beard. He did not strike me as a friendly man, and I pulled my gaze from those small, hard, black eyes.

  “You may feel yourself honoured, woman,” the first knight announced, in cheerful accents. “We have come in search of a lad - one of an ambitious, intelligent turn of mind - to act as page to the Lord of Geeragh. You may have heard of the accident.” On this last word he had lowered his rather ringing voice.

  The words page, Lord of Geeragh and accident were whirling about in my head with uncomfortable and unpleasant possibilities. My mother, close beside me, was stiff with… what emotion? For when she spoke again, I could no longer discern any fear in her voice. She sounded grim, almost defiant. “And what does the great Dark Lord of Geeragh want with my son?”

  The younger, dapper knight, the one addressed as Speedwell, said, “Do not call him Dark Lord of Geeragh. In truth, it is not wise to call him the Dark Lord of Geeragh. For one thing, he is not even so swarthy as my brother Groundsel, here,” he gave a good-natured jerk of his head towards his grim, lanky companion. “So the only remaining connotation of the word holds something sinister about it. Do you see? The epithet does not please my lord. Overhearing it has been known to put him in a flogging turn of mind.”

  “We’re wasting time,” drawled Groundsel, “do we take the boy or not? He looks bright enough.” This last was accompanied by another harsh look from those pebbly eyes that almost, almost, had me shrinking back against my mother were I not all of twelve years old and past all that.

  “When would he be home again?” asked my mother, and I swear her voice was even grimmer. I stared at her.

  “Two days every quarter, with twelve gold coins. The Lord Bress provides all else.”

  And my mother was silent. I was still staring at her. I had to put my hand on her arm. “Mam? Say no, Mam.”

  The blue eyes had that stony look to them when she turned slowly to gaze down at me, for she is a very tall woman. Even then, I wondered if she could see me at all, so opaque did her vision seem. When she finally spoke, it was not to me but to the thick-set, older knight who had first addressed us, as if she had singled him out to be their leader. “Allow me to speak to my son alone.”

  Groundsel snarled, “We’re late already… Let’s just -”

  His horse moved forward a little, and my mother held me close and almost shrieked, “I’m not asking for much, am I? A few minutes with him, to say goodbye!”

  The elder of the knights said, “Alright, a few minutes.”

  Groundsel growled to himself, something about a hunt, and this did nothing to detract from my mounting terror.

  “Leave us, then,” my mother said. The knights and the soldiers stared at her, as amazed, I think, as I, by her arrogance. But then they turned their mounts and moved off along the beach a little. I watched them, for I did not want to look, immediately, at my mother. How could she? My mind kept repeating, and each repetition brought me closer to baby-like, unwanted tears, How could she?

  She turned to me, and bent over me, so those blue-grey eyes were upon me, and at the same time her nails dug into my shoulders, though I knew she was unaware of hurting me, with her grip and with her words - those terrible, terrible words that haunt me, still.

  “You must be very brave,” my mother said. “This is a terrible thing, I know - but I’ve raised you to be strong, to rely on yourself. I was afraid,” she continued almost wryly, “that I might become ill, and you would be left to fend for yourself here. And yet it is you who are to leave, and in such a manner…” Her voice trailed off a little, her eyes sought that group of dark-clad figures and fretting horses, down by the shoreline.

  My mother went on, her voice stronger, her grip upon me even tighter, “If your father ever came back, he would be proud of you, Fen -”

  “You said my father was dead!” I accused, remembering, “You said you were a widow, and you’re not!”

  “Fen. Fen, he will not come back.”

  “He’s not dead! He’s not!”

  She shook me a little. “It’s only in this moment that I can admit it.” And there were tears in her voice, in her eyes, something so unknown that I was struck into sile
nce. “He loved me, Fen. I pray you know the kind of love your father and I had for each other. A blessed thing it is, between a man and a woman, to know such love. If he could come back to me, he would, Fen. He’s dead. He’ll not be coming home.”

  “Then I must stay! I’m the man of the house, so I must -”

  “You’ll do as you’re told!” Another shake, and a wild look in her eyes that silenced me once more. “I can do nothing more for Fenvar than this one thing, my son. I can avenge him. You can avenge him. Aye, and avenge me, also, for all I’ve suffered down these long years without my man. You can do this for me, Fen. You can do this for your father.”

  “I can… what, Mam? I don’t -”

  “Who’s caused this war that has bled Geeragh dry for a hundred and ten years? Whose fault is it that all our fine young men have gone to their deaths, and all of the other kingdoms of Tieranor have turned against us? Who was it that sent our ships - and the White Cloud amongst them - against Foyrr, never to return?”

  Who? I almost asked. But she thought I knew. And then I did know. “The D…Dark Lord of Geeragh. Lord B… Bress -”

  “Who’s to blame, Fen, for your father’s death, for all the years of our poverty and loneliness?” There was a strange white substance at the corner of my mother’s mouth. I stared at it, not at the eyes, the eyes of a stranger, and a wild, frightening stranger at that. I could barely whisper, “The Dark Lord of Geeragh.”

  My mother nodded, slowly. She seemed to calm a little, although, now the fury seemed to have passed, I felt that her hands, still gripping my arms, were trembling. She spoke slowly, and carefully, in a terrible and unconscious parody of the times in my life when she taught me something new, letters and numbers, or how to light the fire, how to mend the thatch…

  “Fen… Fen, you know what you have to do, don’t you? You father’s blood is on the hands of the Dark Lord. If not for him, your father would be alive. If it was up to me, I’d do it gladly - I’ve courage enough - I’ve dreamt of it often enough. But they’d not let me close enough.” She shook me a little, for emphasis. “You must do it. Wait your chance, take your time…” Her face was very close, her voice savage with her hate, “Kill him. Kill the Dark Lord of Geeragh.”