My first thought, absurd as it was, was that O’Casey had seen me kiss his sister and had come to thrash me, but that wouldn’t account for the elaborate paint and the presence of the others. Then it occurred to me that somehow they had penetrated our subterfuge, and I grew truly frightened. Perhaps I really was about to be sacrificed, with Barker coming next. In either case, I was certain I wasn’t going to get out of this alive, not by the serious and resolute expressions of O’Casey and McKeller glowering over me.
“Is the candidate ready?” a voice intoned behind me.
“He is ready,” Eamon O’Casey declared.
“Move him to the sacrificial stone.”
The four men carried me, struggling, to the fractured dolmen, where they held me down, a man to each limb. The fifth member of the group followed, and they parted as he stepped up onto the stone, stood between my splayed limbs, and placed a short length of wood like a wand against my breast. He wore a long black cloak that covered him to the ground, but his face was not obscured. It was Willie Yeats. Spectacles had been drawn onto his face in blue, with wavy lines radiating out in every direction. He looked like the high priest in some secret order, which, in fact, he was.
“What is your name, candidate?”
“You know very well what my-Oof!”
I’d received a thump from each of the four corners.
“What is your name, candidate?” he repeated severely.
“Thomas Penrith!”
“Mr. Penrith, you are about to be initiated into one of the most secret and sacred orders of the world: the Invisibles. Do you swear under penalty of death that you will not reveal or divulge anything that you see here tonight?”
My word! It was an initiation ceremony. I let out a sigh of relief. “I swear.”
“Then repeat after me. I, Thomas Penrith, do solemnly swear … that I will hold secret all arcane ceremonies of the Invisibles … and if I dare to reveal these secrets … may my tongue be torn out by its roots … my breast opened … and my heart and liver removed and roasted on a spit … for being a blasphemous traitor…. Henceforth, I declare these men here … to be my true and only brothers … and I pledge undying loyalty … to my brethren … and to this hallowed society.”
“And to this hallowed society,” I finished.
Yeats poured a drink into my mouth, a mixture of stout and ash from the fire. While I was still sputtering, he turned his wand sideways, and thrust it between my teeth. I should have noticed that my left leg was free and Colin Bannon missing, but I was too busy choking to realize it until he had returned to perform the next part of the ceremony. I cried out as the red-hot metal ferrule of his stick burned the flesh of my shoulder. I knew Cyrus Barker had close to a dozen such marks, but it had never occurred to me how much each one of them must have hurt.
Willie Yeats reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a small pot of blue paint and a brush. While I lay there, still groaning with his stick in my mouth, he began painting my torso in runes and symbols. I’m sure he loved every minute of it, playing the high priest and torturing his rival for Maire’s affections, if in fact, he knew I was a rival.
“This is your new stick. It’s called a bata in Gaelic. Does it hurt?” he asked with a devilish smile.
“You know it hurts!” I sputtered around the stick in my mouth.
“Would you like some cold water on it?”
I nodded. Cold water was just what I needed for my shoulder.
“He wants water, boys,” Yeats said. Suddenly, I was dragged off the rock and, before I knew it, I was sailing through the air, until I struck the icy water of the Irish Sea. I hadn’t meant salt water. My shoulder stung as if a thousand needles had been jabbed into it. Unsteadily, I crawled out of the sea onto the rocks. What had I been thinking when I assured myself this was just an initiation ceremony? I was hoping now to simply live through it.
Shivering, bruised, wearing nothing but sodden drawers, I came back up to the circle of smirking devils who awaited me.
“Is that it?” I asked. “Is it over?”
“Almost,” O’Casey said with an evil look, handing me the stick I had just been branded with. “You just have to fight Fergus and me and it’s all but over.”
“But I’ve never fought with a stick before!” I protested.
“Aye, we know,” he gloated. “This is to teach you the importance of knowing how. Fergus?”
“Call it!” He tossed a ha’penny up in the air, caught it, and slapped it against the back of his wrist.
“Heads!” Fergus called, delighted.
“Heads, it is, then. Your treat. But save me a little.”
“I’ll save you just enough to wrap a stick around,” he said, and began to circle me.
I was about to get a hiding, while Barker was asleep a quarter mile away, which might as well have been London, for all the help he could render me. If my rapidly bruising ribs were any indication, this was going to hurt. I had had no more than a week’s worth of lessons from Monsieur Vigny, and my experiences with fisticuffs, in prison and the school yard, had been generally unsatisfactory.
McKeller raised his stick behind him, waving it in small circles over his head. His other hand was out, his feet spread apart, ready to wage war with the ease of a seasoned fighter. I raised both hands in front of me and swung my stick around in an attempt at self-defense.
He lashed out before I could move and smacked the knuckles of my free hand. Pain blossomed as if I’d been stung, but I dared not drop the stick. I thrust the hand under my other arm and continued circling my stick. He swung across with a swipe that would have taken off my head had I not barely ducked out of the way.
The stick continued in an arc, coming back my way again with more speed. I wasn’t going to stand there and get hit. I blocked and parried it, but missed his shoulder by a good foot. The malacca stick I had trained with was nothing compared to the knobby cudgels we were fighting with now, and I had nothing to protect me at all save my wits.
Fergus McKeller feinted at my head again, causing me to raise my stick just enough for him to wallop me in the ribs. The stick felt like an iron fist. I gasped and leapt back, but the ring of young men pushed me into the fray again. We circled about once more, McKeller with a grin on his face, assured of an easy victory. I was going to have to do something to show him this wasn’t going to be so easy.
What could I use that Barker had taught me? He told me there were three basic kinds of fighters: the runner, who strikes quickly and dances away; the blocker, who blocks the attack and launches one of his own; and the jammer, who jams your attack as it starts and brings the fight to you. Identifying which fighter I faced would allow me to anticipate what he would do. McKeller, I decided, was a jammer. He wasn’t afraid of my stick and didn’t fear leaping into my territory. I’d have to teach him.
As if in answer to my thoughts, my opponent jumped forward, stick raised overhead, ready to hit me over the ear. Grasping both ends of the bata stick, I pushed it into his chest, knocking him back before his stick could hit me. Everyone laughed, and McKeller was left rubbing his chest, a lopsided grin on his face. He gave tit for tat on the next move, however, as his hand shot out and he lunged forward in a classic fencing move, the knob catching me square in the solar plexus. I gasped for air and rubbed furiously at the spot.
We circled for a few moments, swinging and missing, feinting and jabbing. I was hoping I’d earned a bit of respect from him. I dodged one of his attacks and caught him on the knuckles of his stick hand, which brought some colorful Irish language from his lips. My downfall, however, was in foolhardiness. I swung at his head; and in answer, he parried it solidly and gave me a riposte upon the ear that knocked me right off my feet.
“My turn!” Eamon O’Casey called eagerly, and he and McKeller switched places. Of the two, he was the more dangerous. McKeller relied upon his aggressiveness and his strength, but O’Casey was a scientific fighter. Watching me as I got up again, he padded about like a young panther planning a kill. He stepped this way and that lightly, almost on his toes, and reluctantly settled into position. His every muscle was coiled, and when I dared wave my stick at him, he knocked it down and lashed out, catching me on the other ear. Now it was I who cursed.