“I’ve looked into the next competition in Kilkenny on the assumption that you would win this last match,” Mr. Edwards informed Joseph. “The wrestling champion is from Tipperary. His reputation is that he’s no gentleman. He’s never lost a match. And he’s an unusually large man.”
This was the most that Mr. Edwards had ever said to Joseph. Was he warning him, or trying to get him off his game?
“Big? How big? Bigger than the stonemason? He’s a good-sized man. I wouldn’t try to wrestle him,” said Joseph after washing down a mouthful of ham with the hard cider.
“Think of our master stonemason and add yet another half man.”
Joseph had too much to think about to worry about a big clumsy guy who wouldn’t know much about wrestling. He had been wrestling far beyond his weight class since he had arrived, and his speed had won out each time. No need to worry.
“Thanks for the warning.”
“It’s more than a warning. He’s inflicted damage. You’ll need to prepare for him. The colonel is preparing to wager a staggering amount on this match.”
Why would Edwards help him? Joseph had figured that he was just extra trouble for the guy. He pushed the empty plate away.
“You’re right. I need to prepare,” he said.
Mr. Edwards nodded in his inscrutable fashion, picked up the plate, and departed.
After the wrestling match in Cork, Joseph noticed a slight tingle in his calf muscle. Three days later, as he practiced with Sean, his calf muscle seized up in a cramp that dropped him to the ground. Sean ran off for help and brought Deirdre.
Hugging his knee into his chest, both hands grabbing the throbbing muscle, Joseph looked up at her from his flattened position in the courtyard. She looked different from this angle; not so tiny. The way the morning light was reflected in her green eyes and the offshore breeze caught at her skirt made him think of seaweed and ocean.
Deirdre rubbed her hands together, then blew into them with a humming song. She bent down beside him, placed her hands on his, and gently unwrapped his grip on the spasms. Her hands were hot to the touch, and he willingly released his grip. She closed her eyes and placed her hands on his lower leg.
Her hands grew hot, then icy cold, then hot again. He’d never had this exact perspective before, and he noticed that her skin was oddly smooth and young, not like a mother’s should be, a mother of so many children, all of whom were far older than Taleen. The hot and cold ran along the back of his leg from his ankle to his butt. Then a warm, wet breeze blew along his leg on the inside, under the skin, running circles around the muscles, skimming over his kneecap. His entire leg was sucked into something like a tornado, and all the hot, tight places were extracted and blown away. Not once was Joseph afraid, not once did he doubt that this small, dark-haired woman could extinguish the pain in his leg.
“Deirdre?” he said once, but the Deirdre that he knew, the mother of his true love, the woman who managed a gigantic kitchen, who cooked roasts, puddings, and sauces that made all the men weep, that Deirdre was not present. Sean said, “Be still, man, and let her do her work.”
Joseph laid his torso back but kept his head raised, let his young and powerful neck hold his head up because he had never seen anything like Deirdre, eyes closed, hand on his leg, giving him something, taking away something. If he squinted, it was possible to see a rosy light all over her and his leg.
“Let the hounds come now,” she said to Sean. “Off with you to the stables.”
Sean ran off, and before Joseph imagined it was possible, the three adult wolfhounds arrived. The gray giants sniffed his leg, looked once at Deirdre, then again at Joseph with their amber eyes. The wolfhounds still spooked him. Joseph was the first one to look away.
Deirdre jerked her hands off his leg and said, “Run!” The hounds sped off, heading for the pastures. Joseph rolled to his side and saw all three of them outstretched, their long, narrow faces pointed into the wind, their powerful lungs bellowing and their legs all but invisible.
Deirdre flicked her hands at the wind and suddenly looked like her old self again.
“That was a growing injury. You were graced with good fortune to take ill here and not in your next wrestling match. But you have a spot where you are weak, not terrible, but weak, and you’ll be wise to treat it tenderly and not let it be worsened with wrestling,” said Deirdre.
“What did you just do?” asked Joseph. He felt a delicious warmth in his suddenly painless leg.
She patted his shoulder. “Only what I do for everyone.”
“What did the hounds do? Why did you call them?”
“I acted on inspiration. They’ll only help with the Irish. Is there something you’d like to tell me, Joseph Blair from the Canadian Provinces? The hounds don’t lie. They’re dying out, refusing to continue, but they’ve no ability to lie.”
Even under the triple stare of monster dogs and the green eyes of Deirdre, Joseph made himself lie.
“Looks like there’s a first time for everything,” he shrugged.
Joseph retreated to the main house—the “big house,” as the Irish called it. He was sure of two things: the colonel thought he was a champion, and Taleen was in love with him. What else mattered? He waited for Taleen and Madigan to return from her lessons.
After the manor grew quiet and all those within had taken to bed, Joseph and Taleen met in the laundry room, far from the ears of upper levels and other servants. Madigan lay wedged against the door. His creamy, oatmeal color had darkened slightly since Joseph had first arrived. His new color was shot through with serious threads of dark brown, and his tail and ears were thoroughly tinged with the deeper shade. He lay on his side, his legs twitching in slumber.
Joseph and Taleen had made a bed of the soiled bed linens that were destined to be washed the next day. They lay side by side, facing each other. His white shirt was unbuttoned, and Taleen’s small hands grazed his skin as a reminder of the sex that had just consumed them. She had lifted her skirt and revealed, once again, the entry into her body that consumed so much of Joseph’s attention.
“We must keep on some clothes,” she had breathed heavily, “in case someone comes. Madigan will give us enough warning to run off, but we should run off with our clothes, not naked.”
Although Joseph longed for the freedom to be completely naked with Taleen, to see every inch of her, he understood the need to protect her as well. He remembered Deirdre’s warning about the colonel; remembered, but disregarded.
He kissed her wrist. “Your mother helped me when my leg cramped today. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know she could do stuff like that, you know, like a doctor.”
Taleen pushed him away, far enough so that she could look directly at him without her eyes crossing. “She’s a healer, just like I will be someday. It comes down through our line. We don’t speak of it to the colonel, but all the local Irish come to Mum for the ailments.”
“But how does she do it? I mean, she sort of put her hands on my leg, called for the hounds, and poof, my leg was better. Can you do that?” Joseph asked, pushing up on one elbow.
“I’m still young, and the sight—that’s what it’s called—doesn’t settle down in young ones until we are fully ready to use it. Mum says it should happen soon for me.”
“What does it feel like, this sight?” asked Joseph.
“Every day it is different. Sometimes I see a bit beyond today, mostly about sickness. I can see if someone will take ill. I don’t know what to do about the sickness, so I don’t know what the point is. Or other days, I can see a shadowy glow rising from people, the way you can see heat rising from a candle in the right light. Mum said that was their strength of spirit and not to worry about it. Other times I can see colors around people when they talk. The colors change if they are afraid, or happy, or sad.”
As incredible as this should have been to hear, Joseph accepted every word as easily as he would have if Taleen had said that she was particularly good at r
oasting a chicken. He was so completely in love with her that if she had said she could fly, he would have believed her.
“Can you make something happen? Could you make someone go away?”
“You mean make a person do something they didn’t want to do? Do you mean a curse? Mum tells me we are pledged never to curse, and if we find a curse, we must heal the poor soul who is taken by it.”
Joseph slumped in disappointment.
“Me mum says that love is mixing in with my sight and causing an uproar, making the sight slower to settle into its proper place with me. She said I must be careful.”
“When people are old, they always tell us to be careful, to pay attention, to go slow. They have no idea what real love feels like,” said Joseph.
“Aye, and I love you, Joseph. You and I were meant to be.”
Madigan stirred. He clattered to standing and trotted over to the lovers, nudging Taleen’s hand with his nose.
“My wondrous sight, as well as this grand hound, tells me that the sun is a few hours from rising and that the wrath of God will be on us if we are found here.”
They stood up, returned the bed linens to the basket, and crept back to their respective beds.
Chapter 30
The shock of seeing Joseph left her rudderless. Everything had hinged on finding him. She had searched for the boy, terrified that he could not survive the hardships that the common people of Ireland endured, until finally Glenis had joined in the quest by seeking out Biddy Early. Was all this worth Glennie dying? No, she wasn’t thinking clearly; Glennie would have died no matter what. Ectopic pregnancies were efficient slayers.
Why couldn’t she think straight? Joseph had looked unbelievably healthy, but something had been profoundly different about him. He’d filled out more with an evident growth spurt. But it was the way he’d stood, with his chin out, sure and ready. He’d been Joseph and not Joseph. And he had shunned her.
Anna had been unseen by him. He was family and he had turned away from her. All the space inside her reserved for the boy, the memories of rollerblading on the bike trail, reading to him when he was a toddler, all the thinking of him, all the fiberoptical connectedness had dissolved and turned her lopsided with empty spaces. The gaps filled instantly with shame, for which she was equally unprepared. The shame was hooded and certain, adding jet fuel to the spark of having been abandoned by her father. The internal explosion was spectacular. Anna wanted to hide from herself.
Then she got mad. She said, “I’m gonna kill that kid when I get my hands on him.”
Anna and Donal took refuge in a friend’s house. Donal had lived in Cork, mapmaking for fifteen years. He seemed to know every Irish man and woman in the town, and hearths sprang open to him. He accepted the hospitality of Liam and his aged father, who lived on the east side of town, on the way to Cobh, one of the largest ports in Ireland, and the site of intense military wariness by the English, according to Donal.
Anna and Donal shared a meal with meat in it, bits of sweet pork, and Anna felt the shock of meat in her mouth, the undeniable fleshiness of it.
“God, this is wonderful,” she said, tipping the plate up and licking it. “Your friends here eat quite differently from the west.”
Donal positioned himself so that he faced the door. “The farther east that you go, the better the food. The land is richer here. It’s the west that must live on air and water. By the time you go as far as Tramore, where Colonel Mitford lives, the countryside is fairly bursting with food: fruit trees from Spain, thick larders, butter, cream, meat….”
Anna pictured the arrival of the potato blight and the resulting famine killing millions. The west coast would be hammered, because they had no reserves; even their smuggling might not save them. She calculated the months until the next potato season would be harvested. They had eight months before the devastation began.
“I want you to stay here for a few days,” said Donal, interrupting her thoughts. “You’ll be a welcomed guest in this house.”
Anna whipped her head around. “Do you mean that you’re leaving me here? Where are you going, and why can’t I go with you?”
“Your legs are in no shape to travel. Your lovely thighs are too raw from riding. I can take O’Connell and make my way to Tramore. I’ll find out why your nephew is under the grip of the English colonel.”
They had just rubbed her legs with a generous slather of lard. They were red and raw from the full day’s ride from Kinsale. Anna knew he was right, and she hated it. She slouched in her chair and spread her legs wide, making a dip in her skirt.
“How long?”
“Two days. And I can’t return to this house, because it would make it too dangerous for Liam. You must meet me at the Passage West Tavern. The place is well worn by the smugglers. You’ll be expected.”
“Wait a minute. You used to live here. You worked for the British in Cork. Why do you have to duck around the corners?”
“If by ducking you mean keeping my face in the shadows, I do so exactly because I worked for the English. No one walks away from the employ of the British. I was their cartographer, and they didn’t fancy that I made off with every map of Ireland in my head. I am a smuggler’s dream. Glenis and Tom were persuasive.”
“Then you shouldn’t have come here. You never should have agreed to come with me.” Anna stood up.
“And let you step into this viper’s nest alone? You don’t know the ways here, my Anna. You don’t know the half of what goes on around you. Cork is the most frightfully dangerous place, so it is best if you don’t speak when you are out. You’ll draw too much attention.” He sighed. “As if you didn’t draw all the sight out of a man’s eye even when you’ve slept on the ground and woke with sticks in your hair and lard on your dear legs. I shall meet you at the Passage West in two days. Liam will be glad of your company. Nothing could stop me from coming back to you.”
Anna spent the few days without Donal in a feverish fit of reading. She discovered that even the poorest Irish houses had books, and she worked her way through local newspapers to understand the tenor of the time politically. She also read one volume of Charles Dickens, a young British author whose political satire was hugely admired by the Irish. In fact, when she arrived at the pub, she was still daydreaming about the full-throttle nerve of Dickens to challenge the status quo. She imagined twining herself around Donal in a nearly warm bed, feeling the scratch of his legs, talking about the political impact of authors like Dickens. But first, Donal would tell her how to extract Joseph from Colonel Mitford. She didn’t particularly care if it meant tossing the boy into a sack and hauling him on the backside of a horse. Such were her thoughts when she pulled open the door of the Passage West.
The pub was everything Donal had promised; a small slip of a storefront that opened to a larger pub, nestled into the poor side of town, as close to the bay as one could go without falling in. Cork was famous for its massive and complex bays and coves, which made it a haven for ships seeking shelter from the wild forces of wind and sea. Donal had picked the Passage West precisely because it was in the poorest part of town, with the fewest militia. The pub was a stopping place for smugglers and those who yearned for an Irish home rule.
“You’ll be welcomed there. If you find the drinking and the singing too much for your liking, the barkeep will let you rest in the back of the pub. They’ve quiet rooms,” Donal had said.
The smoke assaulted her eyes and nose, quickly filling her lungs with the gritty residue of a poorly ventilated peat fire and smoke from the clay pipes that half the men sucked on. A soldier at the far end of the bar stood out like a beacon, his red coat rakishly open and his hat on the bar. Even from the door, she could see that he was drunk and that the others in the pub offered him a wary, yet genial, distance. A fiddler played near the hearth and tipped his head sideways to Anna as she entered. This meant that she should do something, but what?
The British soldier caught her eye, and she looked quickly away. She
recognized the crooked nose immediately; he was the soldier who had twice shoved Anna away at the wrestling match. Recognition slowly dawned on him as he pushed away from the bar. Something was wrong. Where was Donal? He had said that he’d be here. Wasn’t this the place? She turned to look in the far right corner, remembering how Donal liked to sit facing the door.
Taking quick strides that Anna heard rather than saw, the soldier was on her before she even took off her wrap. His hand latched tightly to the back of her neck. No one had ever touched her like that before, gripping her neck, trying to guide her like a dog. Her reaction came from the don’t-kill-me part of her brain.
“Get your hands off me,” she yelped. She had wanted to snarl with deep, resonant tones, but her voice came out high and shrill with fear. The breath of the soldier was thick with alcohol and smoke, but her words rattled him to a sort of sobriety. She recognized the look, the blur of passion and humiliation, followed by the decision to inflict damage and take possession. She did not have long to ponder, only a fraction of a second to look at the barkeep whom Donal had said could be trusted.
The fist burst into Anna’s jaw like a car crash. There had been no attempt at slowing or swerving to avoid the collision. With the shatter of light and sound, the crunch of her teeth, she felt not the pang of nerve endings insulted but wonderment. Had her mother forgotten her, had her brother forgotten her, and had her father long since forgotten her? No, she knew they hadn’t. The bolt of light that illumined her brain confirmed her connection; she mattered to the people in her time, to her family, even to her rascal of a nephew.
She spit the broken teeth into her hand, wanting to save them, just in case she was spirited back to her time again. She wanted the teeth put back in her mouth, reinstated. The commotion in the pub screeched to a thick silence, and the only sound was the scratch of her boots along the floor as she tried to right herself.
He dragged her to the door, his hands dug deep into her long hair. Her boots scraped furiously along the stone floor. She gripped the bits of her teeth in one hand and thrashed about with the other arm, trying to reach any part of the man. He pulled open the tavern door, and her feet bumped over the threshold as he dragged her to the street.
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