The priest lit a candle on a wall sconce and took it down. “Follow me up the altar. Be careful.”
Flynn helped Maureen up to the raised altar sanctuary and watched the priest fumble with some keys and then disappear behind the reredos wall in back of the altar.
Flynn glanced around the church but neither saw nor heard anything in the shadows to signal danger. He noticed that the oppressive smell of incense and tallow was missing, and the church smelled like the outside air. The priest had told him that the abbey was deserted. Father Donnelly was apparently not the abbot but served in something like a caretaker capacity, though he didn’t seem the type of priest that a bishop would exile to such a place, thought Flynn. Nor did he seem the type to hide members of the provisional IRA just to get a thrill out of it.
The priest reappeared holding his candle in the darkness. “Come this way.” He led them to a half-open door made of scrolled wrought iron in the rear of the altar. “This is the place we use.” He looked at the two fugitives to see why they weren’t moving toward it. “The crypt,” he added as if to explain.
“I know what it is. Everyone knows there’s a crypt beneath an altar’s sanctuary.”
“Yes,” said Father Donnelly. “First place they always look. Come along.”
Flynn peered down the stone steps. A candle in an amber glass, apparently always kept burning, illuminated a wall and floor of white limestone. “Why is it I’ve not heard of this abbey as a place of safety before tonight?”
The priest spoke softly, evenly. “You had no need of it before tonight.”
Typical priests’ talk, thought Flynn. He turned to Maureen. She looked down the stairway, then at the priest. Her instincts, too, rebelled against entering the crypt. Yet her conditioned response was to do what the priest urged. She stepped toward the stairway and descended. Flynn glanced at the priest, then stepped through the doorway.
Father Donnelly led them along the limestone wall past the tombs of the former abbots of Whitehorn Abbey. He stopped and opened the bronze door of one of the tombs, marked Fr. Seamus Cahill, held up his candle, and entered the tomb. A wooden casket lay on a stone plinth in the middle of the chamber.
Father Donnelly passed the candle to Flynn and raised the lid of the casket. Inside was a body wrapped in heavy winding sheets, the linen covered with fuzz of green mold. “Sticks and straw,” he said. He reached into the casket and released a concealed catch, and the coffin bottom swung downward with the bogus mummy still affixed to it. “Yes, yes. Melodramatic for our age, but when it was conceived, it was necessary and quite common. Go on. Climb in. There’s a staircase. See it? Follow the passageway at the bottom until you enter a chamber. Use your candle to light the way. There are more candles in the chamber.”
Flynn mounted the plinth and swung his legs over the side. His feet found the top step, and he stood in the casket. A dank, almost putrid smell rose out of the dark hole. He stared at Father Donnelly questioningly.
“It’s the entranceway to hell, my boy. Don’t fear. You’ll find friends down there.”
Flynn tried to smile at the joke, but an involuntary shudder ran up his spine. “I suppose we should be thanking you.”
“I suppose you should. But just hurry on now. I want to be in the refectory having breakfast when they arrive.”
Flynn took a few steps down as Father Donnelly helped Maureen up the plinth and over the side of the casket onto the first step. Flynn held her arm with one hand and held the candle high with the other. She avoided the wrapped figure as she descended.
Father Donnelly pulled the casket floor up, then shut the lid and left the tomb, closing the bronze door behind him.
Flynn held the candle out and followed the narrow, shoulder-width passageway for a distance of about fifty feet, grasping Maureen’s hand behind him. He entered an open area and followed the wall to his right. He found candles in sconces spaced irregularly around the unhewn and unmortared stone walls and lit them, completing the circuit around the room. The air in the chamber was chilly, and he saw his own breath. He looked around slowly at the half-lit room. “Odd sort of place.”
Maureen wrapped herself in a gray blanket she had found and sat on a footstool. “What did you expect, Brian—a game room?”
“Ah, I see you’re feeling better.”
“I’m feeling terrible.”
He walked around the perimeter of the six-sided room. On one wall was a large Celtic cross, and under the cross was a small chest on a wooden stand. Flynn placed his hand on the dusty lid but didn’t open it. He turned back to Maureen. “You trust him?”
“He’s a priest.”
“Priests are no different from other men.”
“Of course they are.”
“We’ll see.” He now felt the fatigue that he had fought off for so long, and he sank down to the damp floor. He sat against the wall next to the chest, facing the stairway. “If we awake in Long Kesh …”
“My fault. All right? Go to sleep.”
Flynn drifted off into fitful periods of sleep, opening his eyes once to see Maureen, wrapped in the blanket, lying on the floor beside him. He awoke again when he heard the casket bottom swing down and strike the wall of the passageway. He jumped up and stood at the entrance to the passage. In a shaft of light from the crypt he could see the coffin floor hanging, its grotesque mockery of a dead man stuck to it like a lizard on a wall.
The torso of a man appeared: black shoes, black trousers, the Roman collar, then the face of Father Donnelly. He held a tea tray high above his head as he made his way. “They were here and they’re gone.”
Flynn moved down the passageway and took the tray that the priest passed to him. Father Donnelly closed the coffin, and they walked into the chamber, Flynn placing the tray on a small wooden table.
Father Donnelly looked around the chamber the way a host examines a guest room. He stared at Maureen’s sleeping figure, then turned to Flynn. “So, you blew up a sixer, did you? Rather daring, I’d say.”
Flynn didn’t answer.
“Well, anyway, they traced you as far as the McGloughlin farm up the lane. Good, loyal Ulstermen, the McGloughlins. Solid Presbyterians. Family came over from Scotland with Cromwell’s army. Another three hundred years and they’ll think this is their country. How’s the lady?”
Flynn knelt beside her. “Sleeping.” He touched her forehead. “Feverish.”
“There’s some penicillin tablets and an army aid kit along with the tea and bacon.” He took a small bottle from his pocket. “And some Dunphy’s, if you’ve the need of it.”
Flynn took the bottle. “Rarely have I needed it more.” He uncorked it and took a long drink.
Father Donnelly found two footstools, pulled them to the table, and sat. “Let her sleep. I’ll take tea with you.”
Flynn sat and watched the priest go through the fussy motions of a man who took food and drink seriously. “Who was here?” asked Flynn.
“The Brits and the RUCs. As usual the RUCs wanted to tear the place apart, but a British army officer restrained them. A Major Martin. Know him, do you? Yes, he’s quite infamous. Anyway, they all played their roles wonderfully.”
“I’m glad everyone had a good time. I’m only sorry I had to waken everyone so early.”
“You know, lad, it’s as if the participants in this war secretly appreciate each other. The excitement is not entirely unwelcome.”
Flynn looked at the priest. Here was one man, at least, who didn’t lie about it. “Can we get out of here?” he asked as he sipped the hot tea.