‘Do you not now?’ He looked around the chamber, his arms outstretched in appeal to his followers. ‘The heretic schoolman has no fear of Murchadh O’Neill. He killed his own cousin in cold blood in a deserted Protestant church, so why should he fear me?’ He laughed into the uneasy silence and his followers, hesitant at first, did likewise.
He brought his face down close to mine, so close I could smell the heavy sweat of his night’s ride and the stale sourness of wine on his breath. ‘You should fear me, schoolman, because I can kill very slowly.’
There was a general murmur of agreement and approval from around the room. ‘Do it, Murchadh!’ called out one voice.
‘Give us some sport!’ shouted another, and soon my ears were filled with calls in Irish for many kinds of torturing and a slow death.
Murchadh stood up straight and wiped his hand on his thigh, as if near contact with me was a contamination in itself. ‘Calm yourselves, you shall have your sport. The whore’s offspring will cross the Irish Sea no more.’
‘My mother was no whore!’ I had tried to stand up, but was again thwarted by my chains.
Murchadh pushed me by the shoulder back to the ground. ‘Your mother had much the same taste as your cousin that’s through that door.’ Behind him I saw something in Cormac’s face, some small flicker in the stone. He turned again to his followers. ‘You will have your sport, in good time, but first there are some things I would have of our guest before he loses his tongue.’ More laughter from around the chamber, more assured this time.
The laughter was brought to a halt by a shout travelling down the entrance passageway from the watchmen at the door. It was echoed by the watchman to the chamber. ‘Strangers coming. Wait – holy men.’
Murchadh’s eyes went quickly from the door back to me. ‘Take him to the pit. Be quick.’ Padraig again took hold of me while Donal loosed my chains. I tried to struggle free from his grip but was rewarded by a tremendous strike into the side of my face by Murchadh’s gloved fist. The glove was not quite thick enough to cushion me from the sharp contours of the garnet-studded gold ring he wore on his right hand, and as I staggered to my feet once more I felt a soft trickle of blood begin to make its way down my cheek. Padraig pulled my arm up so tightly behind my back I felt my shoulder burn.
The pit was a small dug-out room set still further into the bowels of the earth. I had to stoop to enter it, almost gagging on the foul human odours that reached my nose and my throat. There was barely enough room in the place to accommodate both Padraig and myself. There was no furnishing or floor covering of any sort, and the only light came from a small grille near the roof, the length and width of the span of my hand, that looked on to the floor level of the main chamber.
‘Do not think of trying to get out. And do nothing to attract any attention to yourself; you may not like the attentions we have to offer.’ And to my great relief, he left.
As soon as he was gone, I crept to the grille. By craning my neck I could see the floor of the main chamber and feet and the hems of cloaks brushing over it. But I had evidently not been the first unfortunate to find myself here, for on bending down I could see that there was a foothold in the wall, and by pulling myself up to the grille from it I could see much further around the chamber. I could hear too, but the general hubbub was too great for me to be able to distinguish one voice and what it said from another. Then there was a standing to readiness, and all movement in the room stopped. Silence. I could hear my own heart beating, so loud in the silence that I almost feared it would draw someone’s attention to me, but I did not dare move from where I was. At last the voice of the watchman echoed through the chamber again, breaking the tension. ‘Father Stephen Mac Cuarta of the order of St Francis at Bonamargy seeks audience with Murchadh O’Neill.’
Murchadh was silent, but only for a moment. ‘Then let the father enter, and be welcome.’
I shifted position enough that I could see the end of the passageway and, a moment later, Stephen and Michael entered. Stephen gave a blessing in Gaelic to his ‘brothers’. There followed murmuring and nodding and general sounds of welcome, before Murchadh spoke again.
‘Be welcome, Father. May you bring God’s blessing to this place.’
‘Amen,’ said Michael.
‘Indeed,’ followed Stephen, ‘and on a night such as this it is in need of it. The powers of darkness are at their height in this land tonight.’
‘And have been rising some time,’ said Murchadh. ‘But let us not forget the hospitality due a guest, even on such a night.’ His welcome was too quick in coming, his smile too easy. ‘Roisin, have the women bring food and drink.’
Stephen watched the girl as she went to the fire at the centre of the chamber, where a hog was being slowly turned and roasted. ‘Your daughter has grown up a credit to her mother, God rest her.’
‘Amen to that. She will be a credit to Ireland also.’
‘I do not doubt it. But,’ said Stephen carefully, sitting down on the floor as Murchadh had indicated he should do, ‘she will mourn the loss of her betrothed.’
‘As do we all,’ responded Murchadh, just as carefully.
‘It will be a great blow to you also, who had such hopes for the union of your family with that of Maeve O’Neill.’
‘Sean was not Maeve’s only grandchild, nor Roisin my only child.’
‘But Deirdre is already married.’
‘There are divorcements, are there not? Besides, that is not the only possibility.’
‘Oh?’ said Stephen, as casually as if all that concerned him was the comfort of his robes, which he was taking some trouble over rearranging beneath him. ‘What other possibilities might there be?’
‘Who knows what God will provide? Or has provided?’
‘Indeed,’ said the priest, setting to now to the steaming platter Roisin had brought him. ‘Who knows?’
‘Father, should we not thank the Lord?’
Stephen smiled apologetically at Michael. ‘Indeed, my friend. You must forgive me: the habits of an old campaigner die hard.’ He said the grace and the pair gave their attention to the food and drink they had been brought, chewing slowly and drinking deep. The silence all around them began to weigh heavy on their host, until finally he called on the harper to earn his keep. As the soft music plucked from the strings gradually filled the air, there was the slightest relaxation in the tension around the chamber, but not in Murchadh O’Neill, nor, I noticed as I studied him more closely, in Stephen Mac Cuarta.
Eventually, when the friars had finished and Roisin had brought them a bowl of water in which to wash their hands, Murchadh told the harper to stop. The time had come.
‘We have not met in many years, Father.’
‘Indeed we have not. Nearly thirty years. Kinsale.’
There was an audible drawing in of breath at the mention of the word, a marked rising in tension. I scrambled through my memory a while until I had it: Kinsale, the last great hope of O’Neill’s rebellion against the English, when he and his men had marched the length of Ireland in winter to meet with their Spanish allies, sent by Philip III to help them hound the Virgin Queen from Ireland. But the allies had been relentlessly besieged, and in open battle on Christmas Eve the expedition had ended in ignominy and disaster. As for Murchadh, he had been the last to join in the southern march and the first to abandon his kinsmen and their Spanish brethren to their fates. No one mentioned Kinsale in front of Murchadh O’Neill.
‘Aye, Kinsale. A place out of season then, and of no consequence now.’
Stephen took great care in the drying of his hands. ‘But perhaps it is,’ he said at length. ‘Perhaps it is of consequence, or should be, if we are not to repeat past failings.’