Seek the Fair Land

by Walter Macken

‘By the Lord!’ he said. ‘By the Lord! I’m harder now than ever I was. I am like a young oak tree. Make nothing of it I say. Go on with your arrangements. You won’t have time to think. I will be back.’

  ‘You never left us alone before,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed I did,’ he said. ‘ But let me remind you that you are grown up now. You have grown beyond your father, or I can tell you you wouldn’t speak to anyone like you have done today.’

  He left her. Rory came over to her. They walked out of the door. Murdoc was mounted. Dominick was swinging on to the back of the horse. He waved his hand and they were gone. Peter came over to them.

  ‘Where is the old man off to?’ he asked.

  ‘There,’ said Mary Ann, ‘what did I tell you?’

  ‘It seems Murdoc is going into a cage with a wild animal,’ said Rory. ‘And your father is gone with him to open it.’

  ‘That’s his trouble,’ said Peter. ‘ He doesn’t realize that he can’t do the things that came easy to him ten years ago.’

  ‘He is his own man,’ said Rory.

  ‘And he’s our father,’ said Peter, ‘ and something will have to be done about him.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  COLUMBA SAID to Diarmuid: ‘ You will love my son?’

  He said: ‘ He will be the same as my own.’

  Murdoc said from the boat, a bit impatiently: ‘The time is running out, Columba.’

  She was on the bank of the river. Murdoc and Dominick were in the boat Diarmuid was holding the child in his arms. The child was upset, although he felt safe in the arms of the big Joyce man who was holding him. How can he leave him like this? Dominick thought. If he was my son, I would not leave him.

  Columba, looking over her shoulder at Murdoc, said: ‘The time is indeed running out Murdoc.’ Then to Joyce she said: ‘I will be back for him. Keep him safe for me.’

  Diarmuid laughed. ‘Our lives run on wheels,’ he said. ‘Sometimes we come together and part again. I am pleased to foster a child of Murdoc. You must have no fear.’

  ‘I will remember, Diarmuid,’ said Murdoc. ‘I will repay you.’

  Columba kissed her son again and then turned and came into the boat Dominick saw her looking at Murdoc curiously, and then looking at himself, and dropping her eyes when she met his own. She was a different woman from the one who had come with him before on what to her then was a great adventure.

  Murdoc had three things on his mind He wanted to get Dominick with him. He had done that. He wanted to hand over his son into safe keeping and his woman also. That was half done. Then he would see Coote. That would be the last thing, and until it was accomplished his mind would not be free.

  The boat was loosed and went into the middle of the river that flowed to the lake. Dominick remembered this moment. The man on the bank holding the child in his arms, and his horse cropping the grass. It was a grey day. There was no colour in the sky or the clouds or the water or the mountains. He felt sad for the child. He felt sad for Columba. She waved once and then they were in a wind of the river and cut off from the view of the two on the bank.

  Dominick could feel the intensity of Murdoc’s thought, could see it in the impulsion of the oars in his hands. He could feel Columba’s sorrow. He knew it was the parting from her child. He wondered if part of her sorrow was for the shattering of her dreams. It would be partly her own fault, because her dreams had been too coloured. There was silence in the boat.

  They travelled hard. There was little wind. It was the third night before they came drifting down the big river in the darkness. Dominick hadn’t enjoyed it. Murdoc was brooding away. Columba was silent. He couldn’t fathom the thoughts of either of them. He knew too little about their loneliness or their true feelings. Not until he had approached the Wood Quay in the darkness, feeling their way with Dominick in the bow dabbing in front of them with the oar. Here Columba landed. Her face was just a white blur in the darkness. Murdoc got out and stood beside her. Dominick held the boat. He could hear their voices.

  ‘You know where to go?’ Murdoc asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘ I seek O’Fowda tonight and tomorrow I will go into the town.’

  ‘If I can, I will meet you there,’ Murdoc said. ‘Then we will know. I don’t know if I have hurt you badly. I care if I have.’

  ‘We shared it all,’ she said. ‘ I sought you.’

  Murdoc put his hand on her arm. It was a soft arm, but it. held no invitation for him.

  ‘The future will release you,’ he said. ‘I won’t ever forget you.’

  ‘Your time is running out,’ she said.

  He left her then.

  ‘God bless you, Dominick,’ her voice said out of the darkness.

  ‘And you too,’ answered Dominick. He felt uncomfortable. They pushed out into the stream. They rested on their oars and let the drifting water carry them.

  ‘She was born for soft beds and silk,’ said Murdoc. ‘She doesn’t love me.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ said Dominick. ‘ You had no fair road since she came.’

  ‘I know,’ said Murdoc. ‘I am not very bright about people. You know that. Myself has always mattered more to me. But she matters more than myself now. That’s why I give her choice, you see. If I was all bad I would give her no choice. You know what will happen?’

  ‘No,’ said Dominick.

  ‘I can see it,’ said Murdoc ‘Her husband will be alive. His kind always live. They get out when the trouble is coming and they find a soft place to equal what they have left and then when the trouble is over they come back again. Like fleas seeking fat bodies. Oh, he will survive all right and she will go back to him. She feels that she is soiled, and she will expiate her sins in the arms of her aged husband. I know. And he will accept my son, and treat him as his own. But not if I am alive, by God. If I am alive, he is mine Columba was never as big a sinner as I was.’

  ‘Don’t boast about your sins, Murdoc,’ said Dominick harshly.

  Murdoc laughed.

  ‘All right Dominick,’ he said. ‘She was never as great a lover as me, so. She wasn’t for the hard places, in the hard lands, where you think big and act quickly.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘We are going to slip into the town by the stream of the South Milinn,’ said Murdoc, ‘if they haven’t the iron gate down. If they have, I will find another way. You let the boat drift then down under the arch of the bridge and wait for me. If I do not come back before daylight, cross over to the far side and go to the village of the fishermen. Wart there and I will send word to you.’

  ‘Look, Murdoc,’ said Dominick, ‘can’t you let it go? Can’t you forget all you have lost? Can’t you come back home and if you have to be small, be small? It is the small ones of the world, like me and mine, that survive the upheavals and the wars and the persecutions. When you are small they don’t notice you. When you raise your head they notice you and chop it off. Long ago, when you were small, when we knew you, you were happy. Can’t you see yourself that it is only since you became big that the freedom is gone out of your life?’

  ‘It’s easy to be small and become big, Dominick,’ said Murdoc earnestly. ‘But it is not easy to be big and become small. You don’t know what I am talking about but I do. Nobody can do it to me. Nobody will.’

  ‘But what are you going to do?’ Dominick asked. ‘Even if Coote promises you the moon, how can you believe him? Wouldn’t you be better off tending a poor creaght in the hills, becoming old and dying?’

  ‘No, no, no! You don’t understand me, Dominick,’ he almost shouted. ‘Do you know, I am happier at this moment than I have been for a long time. My mind is alive. Now I am doing something. I would prefer to be dead than to be doing nothing. I would give the rest of my life for the moment when I step out of that panel and Coote sees me. Man, it will make me young again. But I wouldn’t be able for it, if I didn’t know that you will be waiting on the river for me. That makes it a fair chance, and if
this fails, I promise you, I will go back with you and become a herder of sheep on Ben Gorm, as true as I am here. Watch it now. Guide her into the stream.’

  They left the main river and drifted into the narrow mill stream by a groyne of loosely piled, seaweed-covered rocks. The tide was fairly high in the river but it was beginning to ebb as they closed on the walls of the town, and scraped down by them. The town smells came back to Dominick’s nostrils, even sharper than he had ever remembered them. There was no sound to be heard except the sibilant retreat of the tide and the rising noise of the river water on the rough river bed.

  Murdoc was crouched in front, feeling his way along by the wall. He checked their passage by rubbing his big palms against the stone walls. The dark arch of the opening to the South Milinn loomed in front of them.

  ‘The gate is not down,’ Murdoc whispered. ‘Hold her here, Dominick.’

  Dominick let the boat on a little, then stood and raised his arms and grasped the stones of the arch above his head with his hands. Murdoc was stripping off his top clothes. He threw them in the boat and then stood only in his trousers, with a knife stuck in his belt.

  ‘I’m going now, Dominick,’ he said. ‘This is the way to live, eh?’ He was nearly chuckling. If he could have seen his face, Dominick knew that the same recklessness would be back in his eyes, the quirk at the side of his mouth. It was the way he had nearly always seen him. Maybe it was the way he was at his best. Having something to overcome, somebody to fight. Not a priest burning at the stake. That would be hateful to Murdoc. That would drive Murdoc to drink. How could they have thought that Murdoc would be responsible for a thing like that?

  Dominick felt his face close to his own, a naked arm around his neck.

  ‘God be with you, Dominick,’ said Murdoc. ‘You were good to come with me. Nobody will defeat you, I know.’

  ‘Only you, Murdoc,’ said Dominick.

  ‘I can’t be fitted anywhere, Dominick,’ said Murdoc. ‘Because I don’t know myself. I only know two things. People hurt me, or people are kind to me. I have always tried to repay both.’

  ‘Coote is clever,’ said Dominick. ‘Don’t forget!’

  ‘He has the devil for his teacher,’ said Murdoc, ‘and maybe I’m working in the same school.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Dominick.

  ‘Wait for me,’ said Murdoc. ‘Don’t forget to wait.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ said Dominick.

  Murdoc slipped over the side into the fast stream, held the boat for a moment and let himself go. There was terrible suction in the water where it had been confined to put pressure on the wheel of the mill. Murdoc let it carry him, just keeping his head above the water, until his feet were swept out from him and his reaching hands felt the wooden blades of the wheel. It was stationary, so he swung himself up until he was free of the water, and then he walked along the slippery blade of the wheel, with the one he was grasping cutting into his belly, until his bare feet found the stone walk. The wheel was in the open. The shaft going from it led off into the mill. But here there was a walk past it leading to St John’s Lane across a second stream. He let himself down into this. It was flowing slowly and the water of it only came to his chest. Across this he climbed and heaved himself on to the small pier and stood there for a moment until a lot of the water had dripped from him. Then he headed for the arched opening into the lane.

  It was very dark. Some houses he passed were dimly lighted. He had to close his nostrils to the stench that was assailing them, all kinds of smells; that always brought to his mind the smell of heather and the pine woods as if to compensate his nose.

  There were no people abroad in the lane. He stood perfectly still at the archway leading into the street. Just as he put his face out the moon seemed to come over the top of the tall buildings to shine on it. He pulled back, but the street was deserted. A mounted soldier had just passed. He could hear the hooves on the stones. He ran across the street, fast and silently, ran through a very narrow lane with tall houses on either side. He came into the Bohar Cam, and didn’t pause until, meeting the wall of the churchyard, he leaped at it and swarmed over it and dropped among the tombstones on the inside of it.

  He was breathing fast. Too fat, he was thinking. I have put on fat. I will want to watch myself. I am not as fit as I should be. Even the thought of that, another obstacle to overcome, made him laugh. Coote mustn’t know, he thought, that I am not fit.

  He felt his way through the gravestones. The moon was shining clear now, as clear as it could through the grey overcast that had pursued them since they set out.

  He remembered Columba’s instructions, delivered in the calm way of hers. He found the place and moved the stone and went down into the musty, depths, feeling with his feet and pulled the stone after him. This was only an interior passage, Columba told him. There are six others which I don’t know that lead out under the walls. It was the way the important members of the Tribes departed in times of trouble; either to flee with their possessions or else negotiate a bit of treachery with the besiegers.

  He felt his way along. His outstretched hands touched the walls on either side, and his feet felt the slippery stones under them. It was very cold, very damp, and smelled of he knew not what. He went down and down and then the walk levelled off and he followed that for some time, and then as his feet met the steps that went up and up the muscles started to tighten in his belly.

  Coote was feeling pleased with himself, as at the table in his room he signed his name to the parchment with a flourish. The bedroom was a comfortable place. There was a big bed with four carved and twisted pillars of polished oak holding a canopy. The furnishing of the bed and the room held traces of the feminine. It had belonged to Columba. There was a wood fire burning in a big open fireplace. The walls were panelled to half their height and the rest was covered with tapestries. He was sitting in a curved-back chair writing at a dark oak table. There was an oil lamp on the table, burning an aromatic oil, and thick candles were lighted in brackets on the walls.

  Yes, I have done well, Coote thought. At this moment I am the most powerful man in the country. Just because he had the intelligence to anticipate the change that was coming. His moves had been swift. He had practically kidnapped the Governor of the town in order to make him declare with his troops for a Free Parliament. Securing the town he had ridden hard to Dublin. He had gathered the right people and there they had declared too for a Free Parliament. All these things had repercussions, but if they had, the name of Coote was always at the head or at the foot of the right documents. He was a good soldier who had obeyed his orders. He had obeyed the orders of the Protector and he would obey the orders of the King. Any orders issued to Coote under the name of the Government had been carried out to the letter however sanguinary they might be. That was not for him to judge. No man could ever say about him that he hadn’t carried out his orders for God and the Government.

  He smiled.

  It had been a pleasing thing to become Mayor. Lord President of Connacht Governor, and Mayor of the city, with faithful and frightened men in Dublin looking to him for a lead, his vast possessions tightened in a legal and unbreakable covenant with all the right parties. He could even settle down, he thought, as Lord-Lieutenant of the country. It was time for the right people to come back. It would be better to serve a king. Under a king the rewards were great too, and the dignity and honour of your position were discernible, and your investment with them had all the legality and sacredness of tradition.

  He would rest now and take it easy. He would let the honours fall on him. He saw in the far years ahead a peaceful existence in palatial places which up to now he had no time to enjoy. Hunting, sporting. He would be a host at entertaining parties. This damned puritanism would die, colour would come back into the world, clothes, movement enjoyment. All the damned drab years would be thrown away. There would be graceful living again for cultured people, music, poesy, the theatre, and one could hear the whisper as you passed
by in great elegance: That is Sir Charles Coote, or Lord Cootehill, or the Earl of Galway. That would be pretty, what?

  It took a few moments for his eyes to prove to him that he wasn’t looking at an apparition. A naked, hairy-chested, grey-haired, big-faced, grimly smiling ghost, who had stepped from a panel directly facing him. The panel had clicked behind him, and that was the little noise that gave reality to his presence.

  ‘God be with you, Coote,’ said Murdoc softly. He enjoyed his moment.

  Coote’s hands were gripping the table as if he expected death. But as his panic-stricken eyes saw that there was no weapon in Murdoc’s hands, he relaxed. He sat back on his chair but Murdoc was pleased to see that there was a sort of jumping tic at the side of his eye.

  ‘You came an odd way,’ said Coote.

  ‘I came the way that Columba left,’ said Murdoc. He saw the tightening of his face. ‘ It’s a pity you didn’t try harder to find how she left.’

  Coote was in his shirt-sleeves.

  ‘You could have come the front way,’ said Coote. ‘I would have seen you.’

  ‘I tried to see you twice,’ said Murdoc. ‘I was refused. I sent you messages. They remained unanswered.’

  ‘I have been busy,’ said Coote. He realized that he was afraid. He had never before in his whole life been alone with fear. There had always been somebody else to carry the burden of it for him. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘You promised me something,’ said Murdoc. ‘You know that. It is far away from me. It is farther away than ever it was. You killed it, throwing coins on white sand. Why did you do that Coote?’

  ‘I like men to be obedient,’ said Coote in a moment of honesty. ‘You were insolent. You had taken the girl. You did nothing about finding that priest.’

  ‘So you decided to destroy me,’ said Murdoc. ‘ What did you think would happen to me when you left?’

  ‘I thought they would kill you,’ said Coote. ‘I thought you deserved death for your defiance.’

  ‘They didn’t kill me physically,’ said Murdoc. ‘They just killed me with their feelings. I had given away a lot for you, Coote, but I thought the promised rewards were worth it. For a real reward you stripped me naked of everything I possessed, my people, my friends, my lover, my son, all.’