‘And Roisin?’
She looked at me, surprised that I had more to ask. ‘Unlike Deirdre, she knows her duty, and her worth. She is a true Irishwoman. Roisin will be Sean’s wife. After a decent period of mourning for my husband has passed, they will be married, and Sean will at last begin to take his place amongst our people.’
I thought of the scene I had witnessed outside the house earlier that same day, and my heart sank for my cousin and the beautiful woman who would be his unloved and unhappy wife. I thought my grandmother was finished with me, and I prepared to take up my pen again. But she was not finished.
‘And you?’ she said.
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Are you yet married?’
‘No,’ I said flatly, ‘I am not married.’
The trace of a smile appeared for a moment on her lips.
‘Good,’ she said, turning to make her way back down the corridor. ‘That is good.’
FIVE
The Funeral Feast
Andrew came to fetch me just as I had consigned my letter to Sarah to the flame. I had struggled in the candlelight and failed to write on paper words I had never been able to say to her when she was standing before me. I did not have the words to tell her of the emptiness, the ache within me the lack of her caused. All I had, night after night, were ashes. He looked from the ashes to me as if he would say something, but thought better of it, not yet ready to breach that barrier.
The place he led me to was a broad stone pillar at the far side of the gallery. All along the rest of the gallery, torches burned in the sconces on the wall, but there was no sconce here.
‘All of these houses have such a place,’ he said, ‘where people may watch, listen, unseen. None of these people trust one another.’
‘In the mix of all the races?’
‘It is the Irish themselves I am talking about. They live to fight. There is not an insult or an intrigue they will let pass for an excuse to go to feud. They would spend all they had on hospitality for a man one night and slit his throat the next if they thought themselves slighted.’
‘I will take care to watch my tongue, then,’ I said, laughing.
He turned his startling green eyes on me, and his face was deadly serious. ‘Watch everything. Always. Do not let up your guard for a moment. With anyone.’
He left me, and I edged forward to peer through the wooden balustrade down onto the hall below. It had been transformed since last I had seen it. The comfortable settles and chairs had either been removed or pushed back against the walls. In their place was an array of long trestle tables, arranged with benches for the seating of over sixty people. The top table was backed by seven carved, high-backed oak dining chairs upholstered in red velvet. Three more tables ran down the room from this one, set out with good pewter whilst the ware on the top table was of fine silver. Candelabra blazed at each table, casting a burning sheen of light upon already unimaginable quantities of food. Baskets of oat bread and towers of fresh autumn fruits contended for space with platters of salmon, majestic-looking still, gutted and poached in their entirety. Tureens of shellfish simmered on each table, sending up aromas that brought to me memories of the best of student feasts. Dishes of nuts and dried fruits were set on the side tables. Pungent rounds of cheese, bowls of bonnyclabber and mounds of butter, already beginning to glisten in the heat of the extravagant candlelight, were set at intervals from one end of the tables to the other. Every manner of fowl and game bird was represented, roasted and stuffed, on the boards. And then, just as the guests were about to enter the hall from the top of the main stairway, huge salvers of hot roasted meats began to appear from the kitchens below.
The musicians had assembled themselves at the far side of the gallery and had begun tuning their instruments. A piper set up his drone, but it was as nothing to the monstrous dirge from the drones of the pipes of the Highlanders from my own country. Another player had a bag of flutes and whistles of varying sizes, playing a few notes on each one before trying the next. Two fiddlers scraped their bows across different tunes, before one set his instrument down to try his tabor. Below, in the hall, I noticed a huge harp had been set up in a corner, near the stair head. At a signal from the piper all noise stopped, and then he began, alone, in an assured, almost defiant, march. As he grew in confidence, and I realised my foot was tapping, almost of itself, against the floor, he was joined by a whistle and then the bodhran, beating out the pace.
Now the guests emerged from below and began to flow into the hall, where they waited, expectantly. At the top of the balcony stairs, on Sean’s arm, my grandmother finally appeared. For all her coldness, I could not help but admire the stately old woman my cousin led to her seat at the top table. She was clad in a gown of the deepest green velvet, her head still covered in the habitual linen headdress. At her neck was a heavy gold chain and cross, garnished with emeralds and pearls. She walked upright, without a stoop, and looked neither left nor right, betraying not the slightest trace of emotion or grief. She had all the bearing, not of a merchant’s wife but of a queen from the ancient tales, and the people assembled around the hall acknowledged her as such.
Andrew had appeared quietly beside me. ‘The old woman plays her part well, does she not?’
I murmured my agreement. Behind them came Deirdre on the arm of Murchadh O’Neill, Roisin’s father. In contrast to Maeve’s sparkling magnificence, Deirdre was dressed entirely in black, save for the simple white lace at her neck. In her hair and at her throat were beads of jet that shimmered in the light as her dark silk skirts moved through the hall. She also looked straight ahead of her as she went to take her place at the top table. Murchadh O’Neill, on the other hand, inclined his head, bestowed smiles, or uttered words of greeting to all who caught his eye. I wondered for a moment if he thought to take my grandfather’s place in this household, but only for a moment: he must have been almost twenty years younger than Maeve, and Deirdre’s hand was already given elsewhere. Next came Roisin herself, on the arm of one of her brothers. ‘That’s Cormac,’ said Andrew, as the oldest-looking of the three took up his seat to Deirdre’s left at the principal table. He was tall, like his father and brothers, but serious and watchful, like darkness to Sean’s light, with none of my cousin’s ready smiles or easy grace. His younger brothers disposed themselves happily among the upper reaches of the lower tables.
Amongst the leading party, there was no sign of Deirdre’s husband. ‘Where is Edward Blackstone?’ I asked.
Andrew Boyd did not even bother to look at the top table, but instead scanned lower down the hall.
‘There,’ he said finally, indicating a place about midway down the table furthest from Deirdre herself.
My eyes followed the direction of his hand to the two young men dressed in sober black, their whole aspect proclaiming them Protestant.
‘Which one?’ I asked.
‘The older,’ replied Andrew, indicating a broad-built man with close-cropped brown hair and a wide, pockmarked face. ‘The younger is his brother, Henry.’
‘Why so far down the table?’
He looked at me, feigning incredulity, something approaching humour appearing for the first time in his eyes. ‘The woman in green is your grandmother.’
‘Surely, now that they are married, she would not slight Deirdre’s husband so publicly?’