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?’
‘I would give much to know that, and I suspect my father would also.’
‘Our father will know well enough the minute he sees him,’ said Padraig, the younger brother. ‘Another Franciscan.’
‘I am not.’
‘Of course not. None of you ever are. But I see the hand of Stephen Mac Cuarta in this.’ He had evidently heard enough. ‘Come on, we are wasting our time here. The clouds are gathering. We should get out of these woods.’
‘You are right,’ said Ciaran, turning also from me. ‘But first we must find O’Rahilly. Donal, bind him.’ And within seconds, before I fully knew what was happening, my arms had been pulled behind my back and my hands bound together with rope. A shove in the back sent me in the direction of the waiting horses, but the shock of it made me stumble, and I caught the side of my face on the centre stone as I fell to the ground. There was nothing I could do but struggle to my feet again and go where they bade me, and I was soon heaved up on to the back of Padraig’s mount.
After a short debate they urged their horses not southwards, back to where they had come from, but eastwards, to the part of the wood that I had come through myself a few hours earlier. We had not travelled far on the moonlit paths before the lead horse, under Ciaran, brought us to a halt. It whinnied and tried to turn back, refusing to continue. He dismounted, and proceeded cautiously on foot.
‘Damn him to every torment.’
‘By God, he did our job for us.’
‘Do you think? He will never tell his mysteries now.’
And then I saw it: a few yards ahead of us, arrayed in the magnificent robes of white and gold given to him by my grandmother, hanging by its neck from an ancient hawthorn tree, was the dead body of Finn O’Rahilly. The three men crossed themselves.
‘Will we cut him down?’
Ciaran shook his head. ‘Let the crows have him. He was a traitor to his race, and his words an outrage to ours. Let his rotting corpse serve as warning to others who might think to do the same.’
He turned to me. ‘Think not to pray over him, priest. Save your prayers for us and yourself when we bring you and not O’Rahilly to our father.’
‘I have told you, I am no priest.’
They merely laughed in scorn. ‘Well, you had better find some God to appeal to before you find yourself before Murchadh.’
‘At Carrickfergus?’
‘Carrickfergus?’ Ciaran smiled grimly. ‘No, my friend, he is not at Carrickfergus; we are taking you to Dun-a-Mallaght.’
Within an hour we were out of the woods and riding hard towards the coast once more, trying to outrun the storm which had broken over the hills and was pursuing us down towards the sea. As we approached I saw, encompassed by unbreachable headlands at either end, the broad sweep of a bay, where the sea came in increasingly powerful waves to the shore. I chanced to look back once, when I thought I could keep my balance, and saw a huge bolt of lightning strike right where I imagined Kilcrue to be. In my mind’s eye I saw it strike to the heart of the stone – the priest’s stone, O’Rahilly had called it – before the storm moved on to seek out the poet himself.