‘I am greatly sorrowed by your loss,’ I said. ‘If there is anything I can do for your help or comfort you must ask me as you would a brother.’
‘He told me it would be so when he went for you. He always knew it might end in this way, as did I. I have his child and he has taken care that his legacy might be fulfilled. No more can we ask.’
I looked to Stephen, but he avoided my eye, and I sat down with some discomfort beside Andrew.
‘And so, Deirdre,’ said Stephen, affecting some of his old heartiness, ‘you have met your sister-in-law.’
My cousin looked up at Macha, smiling. ‘God has blessed us where we thought he had forsaken us. That I will soon see the face of my brother’s child lightens the sorrow in my heart.’
‘As it will your grandmother’s too,’ said Stephen.
Her face clouded, the smile fell away. She looked to Andrew and to me. ‘Must my grandmother know?’
‘There is no need …’ began Andrew.
‘Surely she must know, it is the child’s birthright …’
Deirdre looked pleadingly at the priest. ‘But you know what will happen; you know what she will do: the child will have no life!’
Stephen began to speak, his voice raised, but his breath failed him and he swayed on his feet, only a wheeze escaping his throat. I steadied him and Macha brought forth a small stool for him to sit upon. Once recovered, he tried again. ‘Your grandmother knows what is the child’s birthright. She will teach him what he must know, as she did Sean.’
‘Who is dead now, murdered …’
Andrew put out an arm to calm her but she shook it off. ‘You condemn this child.’
‘There are those who will protect him. We will be better prepared, the time is soon …’
‘The time is gone. Will none of you see it? The time is gone!’
She pushed past him into the church, from where the sounds of her grief wrenched the heart of me. Andrew would have followed her, but Stephen held him back. ‘Give her this time for her anger. She has held it too long, and now she will give it up to our Holy Mother. Let her have this time.’
Macha brought us the food on simple wooden platters. Despite her bulk, she moved with grace, and there was little in her to suggest she had known a life of servitude. ‘She is of a family in Down,’ Stephen had told me. ‘They fell foul of your grandmother’s family many generations ago. The certainty of Maeve’s wrath added to the attraction for Sean, I think. In truth, though, I cannot see that he would have married any other woman. And her lineage was every bit the match of his own. She will hold her own with your grandmother, and the old woman will take to her in spite of herself.’ I watched the girl as I ate, and knew the priest was right.
The cooked fish were coated in oatmeal and in an instant took me home, the softness of the flesh melting on my tongue, the small hard balls of the oatmeal cracking like crisp hot nuts on my teeth. Could I have done, I would have willed myself back there now, to Mistress Youngson’s kitchen in Banff, the austerity of her countenance matched only by the warmth of her welcome, the safety of her home.
In the poor light of the room it was difficult to see whether Stephen improved with the rest and nourishment, but soon Macha was chiding him gently for not having eaten enough, and had warmed a bowl of goat’s milk to tempt him.
‘He seemed strong as an ox,’ said Andrew. ‘Invincible.’
‘I think the trials of the last few days have proved too much for him. And who knows how long he has been living and travelling on reserved strength? He must have used what little fortitude was left to him to reach this place.’
‘It was his home, the girl told me. When he was a young boy, he was servant to the priest here. It was believed he was his father. I think he has come back here to die.’
‘We cannot linger here long. Murchadh and Cormac will be after us soon, and we must get the women to safety somewhere.’
‘We must get them to Carrickfergus.’
I nodded. ‘Rest now – I will need what strength you have tomorrow. We will make up a pallet for the priest in the boat and take him with us. Deirdre improves a little, thank God, but with Macha too it will be slow progress. We will start at dawn.’
Andrew looked over to the priest, who was sipping at the bowl of milk and smiling at Macha as if he were only doing it to indulge her. ‘I doubt he will make it to the dawn.’
Stephen finally nodded off to sleep and Andrew went to bring Deirdre back from the cold church. Macha knelt beside me, getting down to her knees with some difficulty.
‘He is much agitated and has made me promise I will waken him after he has slept an hour. I know he has business of some sort with you, but can it not wait until the morning, until he is better able for it?’
‘I do not think it can,’ I said.
‘Then I will make up a fire through there, for he insists he will speak to you only before the crozier.’
‘Let me do it,’ I said. ‘You cannot be long from your time.’
‘I do not think it will be many days now until my husband’s son cries his first upon this earth.’ I forced myself not to dwell on thoughts of what Sean would never hear, never see.
‘You are so sure it will be a son?’
‘I know it. It was promised and foretold.’
‘By whom?’
‘By Julia MacQuillan, at Bonamargy. She has the sight; she is never wrong. I shall bear my husband a son.’
In my homeland, such things would not have been spoken so freely, and I had trained myself for many years to pay no heed to them, but here, tonight, I knew that the old nun could not be doubted, that I would soon hold in my arms my brother’s son, and that Stephen Mac Cuarta would be dead by morning. I laid a fire of wood and peats before the crozier, beneath the west window of the church. Neither Andrew nor Deirdre questioned what I was doing, and I was glad to see the two women lie down soon after on clean straw in the priest’s cell, with rugs laid carefully over them. Andrew did not sleep for a long time, but watched them, as I had known he would. I waited until he, too, had finally dozed off and then quietly woke the priest. He seemed to come to with some relief, for his sleep had been a restless one, and once or twice he had muttered, as if struggling in a dream.
I supported him through to the church, for although it did not matter to me now where we spoke, it was he who insisted that we should do it there. The fire had lent what warmth it could to the crumbling building, and two large candles, mass candles, burned on the altar. Through a hole in the rafters where there was no thatch I could see the stars.
I eased Stephen down on to a pallet of straw covered in an old sheepskin, and waited. His breath came hard and heavy, but eased off at last when the exertion of walking from his cell passed. He bent his head towards the crozier and kissed it.
‘You do not need to do that,’ I said. ‘Your word is enough.’
‘For you, perhaps. But I have made many bargains with my God, and may He forgive me, I have not kept them all. He shall know by this that I tell the truth.’
‘He knows anyway.’
‘Perhaps. But indulge the beliefs of an old man, and pray that He might also.’
‘I have spent much of the night in prayer for you.’
He inclined his head a little towards me. ‘Thank you. Now, tell me where you wish me to begin.’
‘At the beginning.’
He almost managed a laugh. ‘The beginning? There is no beginning to Ireland, save the day of creation when God filled her with his bounty and then said, “Come, fight it out.”’
I did not like the blasphemy, and we had no time for humour. ‘Tell me when you became involved in the treachery of Murchadh O’Neill, what my cousin’s place in his scheme was, and why he brought me here.’