Seek the Fair Land

by Walter Macken

  Dominick always remembered the silence that reigned then for a short time. He could hear the screams of the gulls fighting for the offal in the river that shuddered as it wound its way through these few hundred yards of town where it was soiled and dirtied until it met farther out the clean sand of the seashore.

  There were birds singing in the trees too.

  ‘I beg you for quarter, sir, for me and my men and the town of Drogheda,’ the clipped, incisive, emotionless voice said, as if he was inviting him to feast in the Tholsel. The other just stood staring at him. There was an officer close to his saddle. He bent his head and spoke to him. This officer nodded, and showed his teeth. He was blood-bespattered, powder-begrimed.

  ‘You will get quarter when you lay down your arms,’ this man said as he advanced with his sword in his hand. The blade of the sword was still bright with blood, so short a time it was taking.

  The man with the wooden leg hesitated, reversed his sword and held out the hilt to the approaching officer. Behind him all the men guarding the towers of the bridge, and the soldiers clustered half way up the steep hill to St Peter’s, threw down their arms. The sound clattered, clattered, clattered on the cobblestones like a noise echoing in the hills, and on top of that Dominick shouted, and it sounded over the clattering of the surrender: ‘No!’ Just one expletive which he couldn’t explain and it seemed that it was like a battle-cry.

  The officer had reached Aston; he took his sword. There were four troopers at his back. He bent down swiftly, caught Aston by the wooden leg and upended him. As he fell one of the troopers slashed with a knife and the wooden leg came free in the hand of the officer. He raised it and crashed the heavy end of it on the head of the man who was elbow-leaning on the ground, the leather straps that had attached it coiling around his arm like snakes. Everyone there heard the crunch of the blow, and saw Aston die, with his brains spattering the cobbles of the bridge; saw all this in a moment of incredible horror, that even in the midst of savage wars a man could die like that, like vermin crushed by a stick, like a snake, like a rat, like anything but a human being, and the defenders knew in a terrible moment of time what was in store for them if this was the way their aristocratic leader died, and they bent frantically for their discarded weapons as in a tide of black, russet, and brown vengeance, Cromwell and his soldiers came after them with horse and gun and sword.

  The hill behind was very steep. It gave them half a chance as the hooves of the horses of the enemy slithered on the blood-wet cobblestones.

  Past the Tholsel Dominick ran, across the mouth of West Street, and found beside him a house whose walls showed gaping holes from the bombardment. This was the north side of the town where the wealthy people lived, where the loot would be rich. They were wooden houses, covered on the outside with lath and plaster, the upper stories projecting over the lower: leaded window-panes. The inside was a shambles where the heavy balls had hit home, and from which the people had fled, probably to the sanctuary of St Peter’s Church on the top of the hill.

  Dominick didn’t stay below. He climbed the narrow wooden staircase that wound to the top of the house and he sought the attic and found it. He didn’t have to find a way out to the roof, the bombardment had taken away half of the roof. He dragged himself through and crouched on the rough-hewn slates, sliding down them into the gully between two roofs. It would be the only way to get home, he had thought. Get to the river across the roofs and maybe then a quick dive into the river. What shelter could there be in the streets? He raised his head to look. He remembered one time when the river had flooded the lower reaches of the town where he had then been living. How the water had come through under the door and then spread its way over the floor seeking every level to fill itself in. That was the way it was below now as the victorious army slashed its way up towards St Peter’s, spread in side-waves through all the streets, and for the first time the screams of women rose in the air, and Dominick shivered. Be careful, Eibhlin. Get into the cellar. He had the cellar prepared, covering all eventualities, in his desire to survive. It was a good cellar. Even now, walking on the flap of it, you wouldn’t know it existed. He had bound it underneath so that there was no hollow sound and he had provisioned it.

  He turned to look at St Peter’s.

  So wonderful on Sunday morning. Was it only days ago? It seemed so long. An amazing upsurging of the people had taken place and they had reclaimed their church, which had been taken from them in the years when the Defender of the Faith had driven them from their churches and their chapels and their monasteries; at last it had come back, for so short a time, and once again the incense had reached to its roof and the rich vestments gleamed in the sunlight that burst through the windows, and the great candles once again lighted the altars and the chant of the sung Mass was wonderful to hear, sending shivers up the back and bringing tears to the eyes of the most hardened as they sung the responses loud and clear with a great wealth of optimism. And in a place of honour at the foot of the altar had been the English gentleman with the wooden leg. His fate was the fate that was to befall the lot of them. His end was the end of their dreams, his death was the death of their brief flickering hopes.

  The way to the church was littered with the dead, freshly killed, so that their blood was actual rivulets flowing down the hill. The doors of the church were closed and it was surrounded and for a moment there was a pause in the screaming and the shouting and the shooting and the clash of arms, and, muffled on the air, from the inside of the church Dominick heard the voices of the people singing, they were singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo, and then the guns shot in the door and the army flooded into the church, beating one another to get in, and at the same moment the wooden steeple caught fire and blazed, and seemed to become a prolonged scream. He saw the people running out of the narrow doors below it and being butchered.

  Once it had been a stone steeple. They boasted of their steeple that it was the highest one in the world, and then the Lord had sent a great wind that knocked it down. That was nearly a hundred years ago. That quieted their boasting, so they built it anew and they built it of wood, and now it was acting as a pyre for the people who sought its shelter.

  He dropped his head and his aching eyes. He raised them thereafter very infrequently. He didn’t want to look. He could imagine what was going on inside the church as the singing became weaker and weaker. Once he saw a woman in a deep red brocade gown running from the front of the church, her long hair flowing. And one of them followed her and caught her hair and swung his sword and waved her decapitated head in his hand. That was a swift death. And he saw one of them come out wearing the vestments of a priest over his bloodstained clothes, and he mounted a horse and they brought a statue of Our Lady and tied it to the horse’s tail and he galloped the horse in the church square and down the hill, through the corpses; and the head of the statue bumped and bumped on the cobbles and the corpses, until it broke and rolled away and the soldier, laughing like a maniac in his torn lace and chasuble, raced across the bridge to the cheers of those who were resting from their work.

  Thereafter he looked no more. He buried his head in his arms. Something happened to him that he didn’t believe possible there. He slept. He didn’t know for how long. He thought he would never be able to sleep again. But he did. He was startled to awareness by the tremendous roar. He saw the church outlined in a great red flash of flame and rubble. And then the rubble settled and the church was a ruin, without a roof, its walls caved in, just one strong wall standing alone. Like an enormous headstone for the dead. It would need no inscription anyhow, he thought. That one ought to be written the minds of men.

  A soft darkness had descended on the town, but there would be a moon to relieve the darkness. That was a terrible thought. Because there was no silence in the town. None at all. He shut out the sounds he was hearing. He didn’t want to identify them. He stirred himself from his position. He was stiff. He was still carrying his useless bow. He wondered if he would leave it. He di
dn’t. He took it with him.

  He scaled the roof he was on towards the back. He saw the roof of another house built into the back of this one about ten feet below him. He dropped on the top of that, his legs straddling the slope. There was a short row of them going down towards the west gate. He climbed and jumped his way down a line of them until he came to a gap where a street stopped him. It was empty at the moment. From all the houses around there were terrible sounds emerging. He dropped and leaned against the wall, and flattened himself against it as running steps turned towards the place where he was. It was almost too dark to see. But it was a young girl. He saw her teeth and the whites of her eyes. Her bodice was torn down to her waist. She was running silently but she had no hope in her. There was one of them following her. He was roaring. He was laughing. And as he passed, Dominick leaned out and slipped the bowstring over his head and twisted, once, twice, three times. The soldier stopped, and gurgled and fell to his knees. His fingers were scraping at his neck. Dominick got him between his knees and kept twisting until he stopped moving. The girl was gone. Where would she go? There was only one end for her.

  He turned the soldier over and unbuckled the straps of his breastplate. He put his arms through it and pulled it as tight as he could at the back. Then he took the man’s helmet and put it on. It was noisome, feeling the leather of it wet with sweat, smelling of somebody else. He was a trooper, this one, and he wore long boots. Dominick stripped him of them and donned them. These were warm with sweat too and smelled, but he donned them, and took a fallen sword, and left the man there and staggered into the West Street and down towards the Tholsel and under the arch of the Maiden Tower and he went across the bridge staggering and muttering. Mostly he kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to hear. He turned down St John’s Street and when he was half way down he cut out of it and into the alleys and backways towards his home. He thought oddly then of Murdoc. So long ago. Eight years ago that was, that Murdoc would have been a fugitive down these back places as he himself was now. But it wasn’t the silent street that Murdoc had found. This street was full of terrible things now, with several of the thatched houses blazing and screams and the movements of people and the sound of shots, as the soldiers drank, raped, and shot, and almost outside his own door Dominick stumbled over the body of the woman.

  He opened his eyes then.

  He knew before he got to his knees beside her. O God, no, I beg, he said as he got to his knees, but his prayer was in vain, because Eibhlin was lying there on the street her face to the sky, her black curly hair loosed and lying in the dust. Her breast and stomach had been pierced again and again with the blade of a heavy sword. Her eyes were open. He put his hands on them. He felt her face. It was warm, only cooling. If I had only been a little earlier, just a little earlier, just a little bit. He could see her face in the light of the fires and the ascending moon. Maybe it wasn’t she at all. But it was. Her nose turned up a bit at the tip. Calm she seemed, almost a smile on her face, the small teeth showing. They hadn’t done anything else to her, only killed her. But what did they do to my children?

  He turned. The door of his house, the heavy open door, was gaping on battered hinges. He went over to it. Inside it was wrecked, mutilated, it was torn apart. He looked for the bodies of his children. It was dark, but if they had been there he would have seen them. He ran at the ladder to the room above. That was torn apart too, but his children weren’t there. Did they kill them and throw them away? He ran down to the place below and he leaned on the flap of the cellar. ‘Mary Ann! Oh, Mary Ann,’ he called down through one of the cracks, and held his breath, and then a voice came almost into his ear.

  ‘Oh, Daddy,’ said the voice, ‘little Peter got out the door and Mammy ran after him, and a man hit him, and hit Mammy, but he ran back and I got him and there’s blood on his head and I put a cloth on it and he’s down here, and oh, Daddy, where’s Mammy, and I’m glad you’re home.’

  Her breathless way.

  He didn’t have time to weep. He whispered, ‘ Stay there, Man, you stay there. I will come back.’

  ‘Oh, hurry, Daddy, hurry,’ she said.

  Then he rose and went out to Eibhlin.

  Because he knew what he was going to do. He would put her where she would want to be, on the highest part of this town, and then, well, then he would see, to kill and kill and die or what, he didn’t know.

  He knelt beside her. He put his arms under her body. He had raised her so that her head was resting on his shoulder, struggling into his as she often did, her hair silky on his cheek. Then he saw the feet of the soldier beside him.

  ‘I killed her,’ the voice said. He looked up. A young face looking down at them, hardly down on the cheeks, flaxen-haired.

  ‘They said it was right. That they were only animals. Uncivilized, like.’

  He had a thick voice. He had big teeth, thick loose lips. But his eyes were soft and blue, and a little bewildered. Dominick wondered at himself. What was happening?

  ‘I never killed a woman before. But she is the same as an English woman. She is the same as they are at home. She was a pretty woman. They said it was right. But I don’t know. I came back to see her. I hit a kid on the head too. Just a little kid. He had fair hair. They’re the same as our own. It is right to do this? It’s all right to do it, isn’t it? They’re only like animals, isn’t that all?’

  Dominick rose to his feet. She was quite light. She still smelt like Eibhlin.

  ‘That’s all, friend,’ he said. ‘Just animals. Just pretty animals.’ He started to walk away from him.

  ‘And papists too,’ the other called after him. That’s what they said. It makes it all right it’s the Lord’s work, isn’t it?’

  ‘Whatever way you look at it, it’s the Lord’s work,’ said Dominick. ‘If He didn’t want it to happen, it wouldn’t happen. Carry on the good work, friend.’

  Then he walked away with his burden.

  ‘Oh, you pretty, pretty papist,’ he said to her as he bent his head and put his face against her cheek. Her cheek was turning cold. Like the time when they would walk outside the walls by the river, and her cheek would be cold then too, as he pressed his face to it, kissing her neck, making her gurgle. ‘You’re the prettiest papist of them all,’ he said.

  He carried her into St John’s Street, and into the market-place and across the bridge and at the Tholsel he turned into St Lawrence Street and from that he climbed the hill towards St Peter’s from the back way, and he got in there by the gravestones and the headstones, until he came to the one he needed, a great flat stone raised on four pillars about three feet off the ground, and leaving her gently on the grass, he crawled under this great stone and started to excavate the earth there with his hands. It was soft earth. It came easy.

  And he could have been alone, in this town, in this place. He heard nothing, he saw nothing. He didn’t care for anything, as he dug away at the earth with his hands.

  Chapter Four

  HE KNELT there at the stone, his head resting on his arms. He felt absolutely nothing. He should have been baying at the mocking harvest moon, like an anguished dog. Here was a thought! One time he had a little black and brown mongrel dog. It was affectionate. It was in the street one day and it had been run over by the wheel of a drayman’s cart. It took a few days to die. And when it died they wept. About a dog. Now he had no tears, no weeping. His heart felt empty. He had no desire to die, no desire to live. It would be quite simple to find death. There were over ten thousand men in the town who would be pleased to show it to him.

  He felt as if he was walking blindly in a tunnel, with no light to be seen in it, stumbling and hitting himself from one side to the other, unmindful of the bruising; the only niggle of light that remained to him was the picture of two children, who in some way belonged to him, hiding in a cellar under the floors of a raped and desecrated house.

  He got to his feet and started to walk away, blindly, falling over grave-mounds, bumping into headstones.
He was conscious of nothing except desolation, if this numbness of the mind could be called desolation, and yet when he neared the iron gate that led out of the churchyard, and he heard the movement and the groan, he fell crouched, his hand feeling for the sword that he no longer carried. That is just instinctive, that gesture, he thought as he rose to his feet again and walked towards the movement. It was dim enough in here near the wall, but light enough to see the dark bulk lying behind a gravestone. He approached it. It was the body of a man, a supine body that had raised itself on an arm. He looked over the stone. All the side of the man’s face was covered with dried blood and fresh oozing blood from a sword slash on the left side of the head. Part of the scalp was hanging down over his ear.

  It took him a few moments to recognize the broad shoulders that made the head look small, the big hand rising to hold the side of the wounded head. It was Father Sebastian. He had seen him before at the breastworks with his habit tucked into his girdle. He had retreated with the people to the church. He had probably conducted the singing as they died.

  He saw the whites of his eyes as the priest looked up at him. There was no fear appearing in them, just resignation as he saw a Cromwellian soldier looking down at him. Dominick got on one knee in front of him.