Seek the Fair Land

by Walter Macken

  The man wasn’t terribly nervous. He looked at the gathered soldiers. He easily picked out the Colonel, who sat staring at him, still chewing slowly at his food like a great black and russet bullock. The man drew his horse close to him.

  ‘Ah, Colonel,’ he said. ‘I am Master Gantley. I am the owner of the manse at Monasterboice. Your brave soldiers have taken possession of it in the name of the Parliament. I know justice will be done to me when these dreadful wars are over. The Colonel gave me protection which I was to present to whoever stopped me. It grants me protection to get to Dublin. I wouldn’t have come this way but I was told to avoid Drogheda, which would have been an easier road. I hope you will be pleased to grant me the facilities which your other friends have given me up to this.’

  ‘Show,’ said the Colonel, holding out his free hand.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Master Gantley, ‘I have it right here.’ He put his hand into the breast of his coat and took out a sheet of vellum. It was good vellum. You could almost tell his circumstances from listening to the sound of its dull rustling. ‘ I hailed with delight the knowledge that you were coming over here, Colonel. It is the only way that peace can be established in this savage-land, so that we can sleep in our beds, not looking over our shoulders, waiting for them to fall on us from the woods.’

  The Colonel was reading the protection, still chewing.

  ‘This is Mistress Gantley,’ the man went on. ‘She is so upset by the events of the past few years, but even if we are temporarily dispossessed, she knows that it is in a good cause.’

  ‘Hold it up to your breast,’ the Colonel said, handing back the protection.

  ‘What? What?’ Master Gantley asked, slightly bewildered.

  ‘Just hold it over your heart,’ said the Colonel.

  The soldiers had gathered around the group. They were grinning.

  ‘Like this?’ Master Gantley asked, still slightly bewildered. He held the opened vellum sheet until it covered the left side of the breast of his coat. He looked down to see if he was doing what he was told and probably never even knew what killed him. The Colonel drew his pistol and shot and a hole appeared in the dead centre of the paper. It was black and then just before Master Gantley fell from his horse Dominick saw that it was stained red.

  ‘Why,’ said the Colonel, ‘he was wrong. It didn’t protect him at all.’

  It just took a count of ten to kill the servant, who died with his mouth in a rounded O as a soldier’s sword went right through his chest and came out on the other side. Mistress Gantley died quickly too. She still had a look of pathetic horror on her face as they cut her head off when they pulled her from the horse.

  Dominick pulled away as they started to tear the clothes off the fair maid, who was now screaming. She would be pleasured before she died for all her screaming No, No, in a schoolgirlish prim sort of English way.

  Now I know, Dominick thought. It took all that to make me know. On yourself alone does safety depend. Not on being disguised, not on protection which can be bought but is not worth the paper it is written on. And if they were such cannibals as to eat their own, what would they do to those who were not their own? It was the soft evening that deceived him, the misty blue sky. I will never again be deceived by misty blue skies.

  He moved very cautiously. The thing is that you must never be caught unawares. There is no need to be caught if all your senses are awake. Master Gantley had been cute. He disguised his Irish people, or what remained of them, and sent them ahead of him to draw the fire, or to see what would become of them. It was clear now as if Dominick had been there when they planned it. And the decoys were safe while the real geese died.

  He cleared the patch of wheat and scanned the open field before he crossed it, and even then he didn’t cross directly but wound his way through hollow and copse until he could hear the noise of the stream where it ran over stones, through the grove of the tall beeches, on its winding way to the Boyne. He said in his mind: Never again stop at a place where the noise of a river can dull your hearing.

  It was proved to him when he edged his way over the steep bank and looked down below. The sun was slanting through the trees and dappling the hollow near the stream on the far bank. There the priest was sitting, cross-legged, his face to the sun, his eyes blinking to its glare, his face still startlingly white under his three-day growth of beard. Was it only three days? The tonsure on his head was less pronounced. Anyhow its round line was broken by the jagged patch of sewn scalp, which they had decided to expose to the air and the sun. Man was sitting at one side of him, her arms resting on his leg, and Peter at the other, playing with wet pebbles. The priest was talking. He was saying:

  ‘Yes, Man. You have seen in the big window of the church how the shaft of sunlight shines through the great panes and colours the floor. Why can’t a pane of glass, which is solid, stop the beam of the sun? It should be able to. A stone wall can stop the beams. Glass is a pure substance; a purified material. That was Our Lady. She was a purified material too and the Holy Ghost could penetrate her like the sunbeams through a pane of glass.’

  ‘Bang!’ shouted Dominick in a loud voice.

  Man buried her head in the priest’s lap. He grasped her tightly. Peter dropped his pebbles and ran like a rabbit on all fours until he was behind the body of the priest.

  ‘You see,’ said Dominick. ‘You could be dead. I told you not to come out of the trees. Don’t you know that they are all around you? How do you know what minute they are going to fall on you? Did we escape from Drogheda to die spitted like rabbits by a drinking-place?’

  He was angry with the priest. He was angry with himself for being angry. He stood erect and leaped from his eminence right across the stream to land on his feet beside them.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dominick,’ the priest said. ‘It was so pleasant in the sun.’

  ‘From now on, keep out of the sun,’ said Dominick, ‘if you want to live.’

  ‘You frightened me, Daddy,’ said Man.

  ‘I wanted to frighten you, Man,’ said Dominick. ‘You must always be frightened until we are free. And do what your Daddy tells you.’

  ‘They are only children,’ said the priest. ‘It was easy for me to lead them astray. I’m sorry.’

  He was looking at Dominick with his great calm eyes, which seemed to have become sunken into his head. Dominick couldn’t look into his eyes. He didn’t want to. He didn’t understand the antagonism he felt. He was loaded with a burden of a wounded priest. He felt that if he was on his own he could travel faster and travel safer.

  ‘You look too much like a priest,’ he said. ‘ If we meet them there will be no hope when you look like a priest. We will stop at the first place possible and change your clothes.’

  ‘Are we not going south?’ the priest asked.

  ‘Suppose,’ said Dominick, ‘that you could choose between going where a fire had already burned and going where a fire might follow you, where would you go?’

  ‘I would go to the burned-out land,’ said the priest.

  ‘So we are going north,’ said Dominick. ‘I remember a little of the land since the time before I went to live inside the walls. There are two places. First we must reach the wood of Coillcree and then if we are still alive we will head for a safe place I know between Loc Sileann and Loc Reamore. If it is still the same, we can hide there for the winter, and maybe after that the storm will be past.’

  ‘Do whatever you think is best,’ said the priest. ‘Soon I will be of more help to you.’

  ‘We will move now,’ said Dominick. ‘There is a village about four miles away. We’ll have to get through it before dark. We will lie up beyond it and after that we will have to travel at night. Are you tired, Man? Can you walk a little more?’

  ‘I’m not tired, Daddy,’ said Man.

  ‘You’re a good girl,’ said Dominick. He walked into the trees to where their possessions were stacked. He buckled a short sword over his shoulder, so that it rested between his should
er-blades and he could draw it by putting his hand behind his head. Then he tied the two bundles by their necks and wore them around his neck. He turned to look back. The priest was having trouble getting to his feet. Man was helping him up, pulling at his hand. He was smiling.

  ‘Hurry, hurry,’ said Dominick impatiently and frowned as the smile was wiped off the face of the priest. ‘ Come on, Peter,’ he said. Peter looked at him and walked towards him. The patch on his fair head looked black and ugly, but he had no fever and he could walk. He came to Dominick holding out his hand. Dominick took it. ‘You are not tired, Pedro?’ he asked. The boy shook his head. Dominick felt tears of anger in his eyes. What kind of a cruel God could let things like that happen to little children? ‘ Come on, son,’ he said then, and walked through the trees. He heard the feet of the priest and Man on the fallen leaves.

  The sun was almost setting when they cautiously came into the clearing before the village. They had been guided to it by a dying pillar of smoke. The pretty stream where they had rested some miles down flowed through the village and had turned the small wheel of the mill near the church. Dominick remembered the place. He had been there two or three times.

  The church was a simple thatched one with stone walls. There had been just six mud-walled thatched houses, one of which was a sort of rude inn. Nothing remained. The thatch of the church with its wooden supports succumbed to the fire. It was just four blackened walls. The cottages had disintegrated as if they had been blown up by gunpowder. The stone mill was still there, the wheel turning. You could hear the stones grinding with a dull rumble. There were several corpses lying in front of the houses.

  Dominick walked towards them. There was no sound at all to be heard except the grinding of the stones.

  He thought, all this doesn’t matter. Just that there are dead people and they wear clothes and the priest must get clothes. That’s all that matters, because they are dead and they are well out of it. There were only three bodies, one a young man and the other two old men. So pray that the rest had fled before the holocaust. Except there in front of the church where a long beam of limestone had been inserted in the stones over the door so that it could carry a small bell. There was a rope tied around this stone and the body of a man was hanging from it, his feet about two steps off the ground. You could distinguish the black and white habit of a friar, rent and torn. Unminding, Dominick walked towards him. The dying sun made a long shadow from the improvised gallows. The body was swaying. You could see the deep cuts around the ankles and the mutilation of the face and the palms of the hands which were turned outwards as if in display. He had been dragged behind a horse before he was hanged, Dominick saw. He hoped that he had died before that.

  He heard the thump in the dust and turned. The priest was kneeling on the ground, his face upturned. Man was looking up too. Why can’t I shake off this impassivity? Dominick wondered. Am I mad? He walked away and over towards the body of the young man. He was a strong young man. He had died fighting. There was a blood-stained cudgel near his hand. Well, he’s dead, Dominick thought. He won’t miss his clothes. Then he pulled away from him in distaste. He couldn’t do it.

  ‘Come on,’ Man,’ he called. ‘Come on, Peter. Let us get away from here. Come on! Come on!’ There was an evening breeze arising from the clear day. It was rustling the corn in the surrounding fields. The blackbirds were stirring in the bushes. He walked past them. ‘Come on!’ he called again, heading towards the stream.

  ‘Loan me your knife, Dominick,’ he heard the priest call then.

  Dominick turned.

  ‘Let the dead bury the dead,’ he said. ‘Me and my children are getting away from here. Do you want us to die too?’

  The priest was standing.

  ‘Of your mercy loan me the knife,’ he said.

  ‘We will leave you,’ said Dominick. ‘Don’t, forget. We will leave, you. We are going to survive. They will be back.’

  ‘God go with you,’ said the priest and turned away. He started to pile some flat stones near the body of the hanging friar.

  Dominick walked oil towards the stream. Then he turned.

  Man and Peter were looking, after him. She was holding Peter’s hand.

  ‘Come on, Man,’ he said.

  She didn’t move. Just looking at him.

  He walked back a few paces to her.

  ‘You are to come when your daddy says so, Man,’ he told her.

  She dropped her head.

  ‘Come on, Man,’ he said.

  She slowly came towards him. Peter walked with her. Both their heads, were lowered. Little children, like that. He watched them walk past him and followed after them. The stream here was fordable. He went across first, and then dropping his load he turned to help them across. He only looked once towards the church. The priest had got his stones high enough and was pulling at the knot sunk into the neck of the, dead friar. ‘Oh, God! God!’ Dominick shouted. He clenched his teeth. He dug the heel of his shoe into the soft ground, and then he went back across the stream. ‘Wait here! Wait here!’ he said to them.

  His movements were quick, almost savage.

  He handed the knife to the priest who didn’t look at him, and when the rope was, cut and the body freed he let it slide into his arms, and walked with it beside the church where the crude tombstones were. He had to do it all himself. Father Sebastian just didn’t have the strength for it What did he have to do? He had to dig and dig, until his clothes, were soaked in sweat, a wide, shallow grave in the soft earth, where they buried four people. He resented every inch of it. Every bit of it. All the time listening with half of his mind to all the sounds of the evening. Ready to flee, or hide or run, shepherding his charges. But the priest would have to shift for himself in that case.

  They patted the earth, and only then the priest went for the children and brought them back and he knelt on the earth with one of them each side of him and he prayed in Latin.

  Dominick didn’t kneel. Not he. He was smelling the scent of new-turned earth, and the scent of the dead, and he felt as if all his nerves were open to a chill wind, blowing on them so that it was all he could do to save himself from trembling to death.

  ‘Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!’ he finally ground out, almost in agony, and the priest blessed himself and rose to his feet.

  ‘We are ready to go now,’ he said.

  ‘Well, come, come, come,’ said Dominick.

  ‘That’s the glory of anonymous death,’ said the priest as he walked. ‘ Nobody will ever know. There will never be a name in the book of martyrs. Just a soft turn of the earth, that won’t be known to the generations that follow after. I had nearly forgotten that I was a priest.’

  Dominick said: ‘I wish I could forget it.’

  ‘You won’t have to suffer me much longer,’ the priest said.

  ‘All I want to do is to hurry,’ said Dominick. ‘That’s all I want to do. If we stay in one place long enough, they will find us. That’s all I want you to understand. I want to live. I want my children to live. If it would be glory for you to die, it wouldn’t be for us. That’s all I want you to understand.’

  ‘I understand, Dominick’ said the priest. He bent and lifted Peter into his arms. ‘I am stronger now. I will be of more help to you.’

  Dominick went to the stream and crossed it and started to burden himself with his possessions.

  Chapter Seven

  DOMINICK MOVED carefully through the trees. In the open spaces the frost was still on the ground. A breaking twig under the foot was like the sound of a discharged pistol. But very few twigs broke under his feet. The wood mainly consisted of giant oak trees and beeches with an under-scrub of stunted willows and thorn trees, some of them so enveloped in briars that they had formed themselves into thick and almost impenetrable thickets. It was an easy place to hide and an easy place to dodge, but now the cold wind was whipping the leaves off the trees and soon most of them would be bare. It was time to move.

  There were three de
ad rabbits tied to his belt. He held the bow which he had fashioned himself in his hand. His old skill with it was coming back to him. In fact if he stopped to think about it, it would seem to him that his life had taken up where he had left it off when he was sixteen; that there had been no interval of comparatively civilized living. All this furtive living was what he had been used to, and he carried out its rules now as if he had never abandoned them. He never crossed a clearing without looking very closely and listening for the scolding of a disturbed bird or the sound of a breaking branch. He never stood still unless he had the thick bole of a tree to his back. He did this almost mechanically. He knew there was safety in it, but he despised the necessity for it.

  He came to the thicket that disguised their existence. He pulled away the opening to it and crawled inside, closing the opening after him. He paused, crouched in there, and looked over his head. He could see more of the sky. Soon the long fronds of the blackberries would be brown and dying and the thin choked branches of the bushes would be naked. It wouldn’t be cover much longer for man or animals.

  He broke through on the other side. Here there was a fall of ten feet to the narrow clearing below. He listened and then dropped. He made no sound. It was a pleasant little place. The height of it was made by two great granite rocks leaning on each other to form an arch. The opening in the arch was naturally covered by trailing woodbine vines and thick ivy. To the left of it, a trickle of water poured and dropped to the stream that ran away down a hill towards the pool below. He listened. He thought he could hear Man’s voice. He detached the rabbits from his belt and hung them on a tree branch went into the arch. He could enter standing. There was a beam of light coming from above at the one spot where the two stones did not touch. It was like a skylight in a town house. When it rained the rain came in there, but it had been doing it for so long that it fell straight into a rock pool that its falling had created over the centuries, overflowed and ran out on the sloping rock floor. At each side of the pool there were fresh rushes covering the stone where they slept. Natural shelves in the rocks held their belongings.