The wind dwindled and we had been going two hours or more before Andrew desisted from his attempts to take the oars from the old priest.
‘What, do you think me so shameless that I would sit back while a man half-eaten by dogs ferries me to my home? See to your woman.’
We passed the burnt-out MacDonnell castle at Red Bay, and could see ahead of us the promontory of Garron Point; it seemed impossible that Stephen could pull another stroke, when at last he said, ‘Praise be to God; take her to the shore – we are at Ardclinnis.’
As we brought the boat up to the small expanse of shingle shore, I could at first see little to distinguish this place from so many other inlets we had passed on our voyage – bog and moss and heather and clumps of trees banding together up the hillside. Massive stones, tumbled on the slopes as if dropped by a forgetful God. But then, from beyond a swathe of birch and willow, at the side of the burn a hundred yards or so from where it ran into the sea I saw a welcome breath of grey smoke curl into the sky. I looked more closely and saw that dotted around the trees were not only rocks and boulders, but head-stones, and behind them a squat and ancient church.
Stephen inhaled deeply as he stepped onto the shore, gratefully stretching his arms and his chest. ‘Smell that air, Alexander. Did you ever smell anything so clean and pure in all of God’s creation?’
And indeed, beyond the constant smell of brine that had attended us from Bonamargy, made more rank at the shore by the seaweeds abandoned by the tide, the rich verdant earth of Ardclinnis was something that spoke to me of the first days, before God’s earth had been sullied by man.
Stephen said, ‘I will go ahead and warn Macha of our arrival; you see to our invalids.’
Deirdre was fully awake now and Andrew was readying himself to carry her to the shore.
‘Let me,’ I said quietly, and he did not argue.
I lifted her from the boat and onto the shore.
‘Can you walk at all?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I will need some help.’ She looked directly at Andrew, who had been waiting a few yards ahead of us, scanning the horizon for signs of Murchadh.
‘You see to the boat,’ he said to me, any notion of master and servant between us long since forgotten. He put his arm carefully around Deirdre’s back, holding the hand at the other side. ‘Can you manage?’ he said, so quietly I could barely hear him.
She let her head rest on his shoulder. ‘Yes, I can manage,’ and there was a softening in his eyes, the suggestion of a smile on his lips as they made their way to the church, the one wounded in body, the other in heart and mind.
As I watched them go, and thought of Father Stephen in his church, preparing Macha for our arrival, for the hurt of the first sight of me, a desire began to crawl through me to turn about and get back in the boat, to take the oars once more and row for Scotland, for Sarah, and what was home, to be away from this place or to drown in the attempt. And if Murchadh and Cormac should apprehend me, that would be the will of God, and if my suffering would be great it would not be long.
I had half turned when Stephen’s voice stopped me. ‘Alexander, we have everything we need from the boat.’ He watched me with a strange curiosity, waiting, and with great reluctance I turned my back to the sea and followed him.
He took me first into the church, a ruin long before he or I had ever drawn breath. ‘Will you make your devotions with me here, Alexander? We might be of two faiths, but there is the one God and it is He who has delivered us. Will you pray with me?’
I looked around the tiny chapel, bare of all furnishing save the simple altar below what remained of the east window. ‘I will.’
He knelt, and I stood, and we prayed to our God in silence together, and then aloud, in the words our Saviour had taught us, he in Gaelic, I in Scots. To the one God. And in this place, where God had been so long before man, there was no place for dogma, for doctrine, for words or forms that might have claimed one of us as right and the other wrong. He blessed me at the end and led the way through a small doorway to what evidently served as his home.
As I was bending my head to pass through the low archway, a glint of something to my right, just below the west window, caught my eye and my breath. It was a crozier, a staff such as I had seen in stained-glass windows and stone effigies, in the hands of bishops and saints. The base of the shaft was of simple wood, cleanly carved, but at the neck it was bracketed in gold, and its curved head was covered entirely in gold, intricately engraved with symbols of the earliest Christian days, and set with precious stones of black, green, red and turquoise. I had never been so close to an object so beautiful. It was a piece for a cathedral, not a lonely and abandoned church of the Culdees.
Stephen stopped ahead of me and looked back. ‘Alexander?’
‘What is that?’
‘The crozier? It has been here many lifetimes, left in the care of the church by an early saint. It will be here long after I am gone. A truth that has been touched by the hands of a saint, and will not be defiled.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It is believed that this staff is a repository of God’s judgement, a rod of truth. If any man, or woman, be accused of a crime and deny that crime, should he swear his innocence on this crozier, and yet be a liar, his mouth will twist and freeze in its deformity. If he be innocent, he will go on his way unmarked.’
‘A man must tell the truth before this staff?’
‘A man must tell the truth, always.’
‘Then will you come before this staff, and tell the truth to me?’
He spread his hands before me. ‘Alexander …’
‘You have put me off long enough, priest. Stand before your piece of wood, and tell me why I am here.’
His head dropped and his body sagged. ‘I will then, I will. Just let us have some rest and warmth, some sustenance for the body. I will tell you all, just let us have some rest.’
He was an old man now. A sick old man. Every step he had taken from Bonamargy, every pull on the oars, had been to bring him here, and now that he was home, Death would not be long in gathering him. I could not deny his request. ‘I will see you on your knees in front of that staff before nightfall.’
‘You have my very word on it.’ He coughed, and steadied himself in the doorway. ‘I am a man not far from my maker. My word is of greater worth than most.’
We found Andrew and Deirdre in a room so tiny it was little more than a cell. Deirdre was seated by a small fire beside which, tending a skillet with frying fish, crouched a heavily pregnant girl. She straightened herself when we came in, and I knew then why Sean could never have loved Roisin O’Neill. The girl into whose momentarily startled eyes I looked was every part the equal of my cousin. Long chestnut hair hung in loose ringlets about her face and down her back. Her brows formed perfect arches above eyes of the warmest brown and the hesitant smile lit up a face that was full of life and kindness. I felt I had always known her. I knew Stephen had forewarned her, but her shock at the sight of me registered a moment before she composed herself. She stepped forward and greeted me in Irish, extending both hands towards mine and kissing me on the cheek.