I won’t embarrass myself any further by describing it. I attacked; he struck. I blocked; he struck. I ran; he came after me and struck again. I was hopelessly outclassed. I was also quickly growing black and blue. My lip began bleeding, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of quitting. He’d have to knock me off my feet before I admitted the point. Which he did.
I lay flat on the rocky ground, remarking to myself how many types of pain there are. The sharp agony from a blow on the elbow, for example, is far different from the deep ache from a whack on the lower limbs. A blow to the ears feels cold, as if a bucketful of water has been thrown on your head, but a handful of barked knuckles is hot, like a burn. These were the thoughts I was mulling over when both my opponents bent and looked down on my prostrate form.
“Both at once?” I asked, a bit of fight still left in me.
“Well, he’s game enough,” McKeller stated.
“What’s this about?”
“Call it a test, Penrith,” O’Casey said. “An initiation. We initiated you in the Invisibles. This is a tryout for goalkeeper of our hurling club. We’ll need one badly once this is all over and we go back to Dublin. Are you interested?”
“I’ll consider it,” I said diplomatically.
“First non-Irish lad we’ve ever invited to be on the team,” McKeller said, making sure I saw what an honor it was.
“Perhaps, if you stop beating me with sticks.”
“Stop! Why, boy,” McKeller insisted, “we was just getting started!”
“Very well,” I said, “but I want you to know I’m taking names of those to whom I shall eventually give a good beating.”
“Put me down,” quipped McKeller.
“Me, too,” O’Casey added.
“Is this a private gathering, gentlemen, or may I join?” a voice came from the shadows. All eyes turned as the blessed form of Cyrus Barker stepped forward into the flickering light of the bonfire. He was removing his jacket and pulling down his braces. “Perhaps, Mr. McKeller, you would enjoy sparring with someone closer to your own height and weight.”
Everyone looked at one another. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. Barker changed things. Barker leveled things.
“I dunno, Mr. van Rhyn,” McKeller said. “You ain’t a member. You haven’t been initiated.”
Barker turned to O’Casey. “In that case, I formally apply for membership in your organization. Here are my credentials.”
He removed his shirt and singlet, revealing to the terrorists the dozens of entrees to other secret organizations he wore across his arms and torso. He flexed his bulging arms as he displayed Chinese figures seared into his forearms, Arabic script across his biceps, and a dragon tattoo on his shoulder.
“Get the paint pot, Willie,” O’Casey commanded. “Colin, put Penrith’s stick back into the fire.”
“I have brought my own,” my employer said coolly, handing his ivory-inlaid stick to Bannon. The tip of his cane, I noted, was much thicker than my bata stick.
He neither cracked a smile through Yeats’s silly speech nor flinched when he was given a new brand on his arm. He solemnly swore to keep the secrets of the Invisibles, on pain of death. With the paintbrush, he covered his own chest and arms in Germanic script. Then he lightly sprung from the dolmen and picked up his cane.
“Are you ready, McKeller?” he asked.
“Aye, but no hooking with that cane of yours.”
For once, McKeller looked almost afraid.
“Appeal to Mr. O’Casey, not to me,” Barker stated, going into a crouch.
“Eamon, lad,” McKeller pleaded. “Canes ain’t in the bata rules. He needs a proper knob at the end.”
“I’ll allow it, Fergus,” Eamon replied. “It’s his stick and his choice.”
Now it was my turn to see the big Irishman squirm. I looked over at Yeats and the Bannons. We all appeared to be looking forward to seeing Fergus McKeller taught a lesson.
Reluctantly, McKeller went into a crouch. He was a jammer, as I said, and he immediately took the fight to Barker. My employer had anticipated the move, however, and stepped across at an angle, swinging his stick laterally. It caught McKeller on the temple. He let out an oath and backed up.
They circled again, the light and shadows playing across their faces. Barker made a feint, and McKeller roared in. The Guv stepped under his flailing arm and, as he passed, reached up behind him, catching McKeller on the shoulder. Before the Irishman could react, he fell backward over Barker, all his limbs thrashing, and landed on his head and shoulders in the sand. There was a short moment of grappling, and before he knew it, his head was squeezed between my employer’s knees, the cane’s handle around his throat. The Irishman dared not move.
O’Casey strode over casually to McKeller and looked down into his beet-red face. “You call that ‘form,’ do you? After all the training I’ve given you? Face it, man. You’ve just been outclassed, and rather handily.”
McKeller tapped Barker’s knee and was released. He rubbed his throat.
“I still think he shouldn’t have used his cane. ’Twas no proper bata fight to my way of looking at things.”
“Are you next, Mr. O’Casey?” Barker asked, bowing.
“Some other time,” O’Casey said nonchalantly. “Where did you learn to fight, Mr. van Rhyn?”
“Here and there,” came the reply. “There are some advantages to living a nomad’s existence.”
“Are we done now?” McKeller asked his friend. “This has built up a powerful thirst, and I want to be the first to pour my new little brother a drink. Great things, brothers. Always willing to lend you a shilling for a pint or two.”
Barker went back to the cottage, and I had several pints with McKeller, while with time and night air, my wounds slowly blossomed, every blessed one of them. I have a conviction that the only good thing about alcohol is its use as an anesthetic. I don’t think I was brave enough to face all those bruises sober.
By the time I climbed into bed a second time that night, I had no trouble at all falling asleep. Between the nervous exhaustion from the demonstration, the ceilidh, the sudden kiss from Maire, and the initiation-with its branding, ceremony, and beatings-it was a wonder I was still conscious. My last thought before I slid into sleep, as easily as one slides beneath the surface of a pool, was this: of the two sides, theirs and ours, who that evening had provided the best show? At best, I’d call it even.
17
The next I knew, it was morning. Warm, painfully bright sunshine streamed in from an open window, and the room was full of the scent of Barker’s tobacco, which at the moment smelled like burning seaweed. I tried rising, felt the effects of too much alcohol and the pain from the initiation, and thought better of it.
Barker was leaning against his headboard, his ankles crossed, his fingers knotted over his now-ample stomach, attempting to blow smoke rings.
“Morning, sir,” I muttered. I missed my room in Newington and my privacy.
“How are you feeling?” my employer asked.
I got up, groaning, and went to the ewer and bowl in the corner. Somehow, the water began turning blue. It took a moment for my disjointed brain to put it all together. I was still half clothed and covered in paint like a savage. There were arcane symbols all over my chest and face. Barker, of course, had washed his off the previous night and looked as normal as, well, as he had looked since this case began.
“How long were you there watching before you joined in?” I asked, as I wiped my face and chest with a towel.