“You’ll have to wait until they clear out of the hedgerows. Binoculars, you understand. Two days at least. Leave at night, of course.
“Doesn’t everyone travel at night?”
The priest laughed. “Ah, Mister …”
“Cocharan.”
“Whatever. When will this all stop?”
“When the British leave and the northern six counties are reunited with the southern twenty-six.”
The priest put down his teacup. “Not true, my boy. The real desire of the IRA, the most secret dark desire of the Catholics, no matter what we all say about living in peace after the reunification, is to deport all the Protestants back to England, Scotland, and Wales. Send the McGloughlins back to a country they haven’t seen in three hundred years.”
“That’s bloody rubbish.”
The priest shrugged. “I don’t care personally, you understand. I only want you to examine your own heart.”
Flynn leaned across the table. “Why are you in this? The Catholic clergy has never supported any Irish rebellion against the British. So why are you risking internment?”
Father Donnelly stared down into his cup, then looked up at Flynn. “I don’t involve myself with any of the things that mean so much to you. I don’t care what your policy is or even what Church policy is. My only role here is to provide sanctuary. A haven in a country gone mad.”
“To anyone? A murderer like me? Protestants? British troops?”
“Anyone who asks.” He stood. “In this abbey was once an order of fifty monks. Now, only me.” He paused and looked down at Flynn. “This abbey has a limited future, Mr. Cocharan, but a very rich past.”
“Like you and me, Father. But I hope not like our country.”
The priest seemed not to hear him and went on. “This chamber was once the storage cellar of an ancient Celtic Bruidean house. You know the term?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“The House of the Hostages, it was called. A six-sided structure where six roads met. Coincidentally—or maybe not so—chapter houses are traditionally polygons, and the chapter house we passed through is built on these foundations.” He gestured above. “Here in the Bruidean a traveler or a fugitive could shelter from the cold, dark road, protected by tradition and the king’s law. The early Celts were not complete barbarians, after all.” He looked at Flynn, “So you see, you’ve come to the right place.”
“And you’ve taken it upon yourself to combine a bit of paganism with Christian charity.”
The priest smiled. “Irish Catholicism has always been a blend of paganism and Christianity. The early Christians after Patrick specifically built their churches on Druid holy spots such as this. I suspect early Christians burnt this Bruidean down, then constructed a crude church on its foundations. You can still see the charred foundation stones. Then the Vikings destroyed the original monastery, and the next one was destroyed by the English army when Cromwell passed through. This is the last abbey to be built here. The Protestant plantations took all the good land in Ireland, but the Catholics held on to most of the good church sites.”
“What more could you want?”
The priest regarded Flynn for a long time, then spoke softly. “You’d better wake the lady before the tea gets cold.”
Flynn rose and crossed the floor to where Maureen was lying, knelt beside her, and shook her. “Tea.”
She opened her eyes.
He said, “Hold on to me.” He stood her up and helped her to his stool. “How are you feeling?”
She looked around the candlelit room. “Better.”
Flynn poured the tea, and Father Donnelly extracted a pill from a vial. “Take this.”
She swallowed the pill and took some tea. “Did the British come?”
The priest felt her forehead. “Came and went. In a few days you’ll be on your way.”
She looked at him, He was so accepting of them, what they were and what they had done. She felt disreputable. Whenever her life was revealed to people not in the movement, she felt not proud but ashamed, and that was not the way it was supposed to be. “Can you help us?”
“I am, dear. Drink your tea.”
“No, I mean can you help us … get out of this?”
The priest nodded. “I see. Yes, I can help you if you want. It’s rather easy, you know.”
Flynn seemed impatient. “Father, save souls on your own time. I need some sleep. Thank you for everything.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
“Could you do one more favor for us? I’ll give you a number to call. Tell the person who answers where we are. Tell them that Brian and Maureen need help. Let me know what they say.”
“I’ll use a phone in the village in case this one is tapped.”
Flynn smiled appreciatively. “If I’ve seemed a bit abrupt—”
“Don’t let it trouble you.” He repeated the number Flynn gave him, turned, and disappeared into the narrow passageway.
Flynn took the bottle of Dunphy’s from the table and poured some in Maureen’s teacup. She shook her head impatiently. “Not with the penicillin, Brian.”
He looked at her. “We’re not getting along, are we?”
“I’m afraid not.”
He nodded. “Well, let’s have a look at the nick, then.”
She stood slowly, pulled her wet sweater over her head, and dropped it on the stool. Flynn saw that she was in pain as she unhooked her bloodied bra, but he didn’t offer to help. He took a candle from the table and examined the wound, a wide gash running along the outside of her right breast and passing under her armpit. An inch to the left and she would have been dead. “Just a graze, really.”
“I know.”
“The important thing is that you won’t need a doctor.” The wound was bleeding again from the movement of her undressing, and he could see that it had bled and coagulated several times already. “It’s going to hurt a bit.” He dressed the wound while she stood with her arm raised. “Lie down and wrap yourself in the blanket.”
She lay down and stared at him in the flickering light. She was cold, wet, and feverish. Her whole side ached, and the food had made her nauseous, though she was very thirsty. “We live like animals, licking our wounds, cut off from humanity … from …”
“God? But don’t settle for this second-class Popish nonsense, Maureen. Join the Church of England—then you’ll have your God, your respectability, and you can sit over tea with the Ladies’ Auxiliary and complain about the IRA’s latest outrage.”
She closed her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks.
When he saw that she was sleeping, he took the cup of Dunphy’s and drained it, then began walking around the cellar. He examined the walls again and saw the scorch marks. How many times had this place been put to the torch? What made this location holy to both the Druids and the Christians? What spirit lived here in the heart of the earth? He carried a candle to the wooden chest and studied it. After some time he reached out and lifted the lid.
Inside he saw fragments of limestone that bore ancient Celtic inscriptions and a few unidentifiable pieces of metal, bronze, rusted iron. He pushed some of the objects aside, revealing a huge oval ring crusted with verdigris. He slipped it on his ring finger. It was large, but it stayed on his finger well enough. He clenched his fist and studied the ring. It bore a crest, and through the tarnish he could make out Celtic writing around a crudely molded bearded face.
He rubbed his fingers over the ring and wiped away some of the encrustation. The crude face stared back at him like a child’s rendering of a particularly fearsome man. He felt dizzy and sensed his legs buckling under him. He was aware of hitting the floor. Then he blacked out.
CHAPTER 4
Brian Flynn woke to find a face staring down at him.