Uncertain Magic

by Laura Kinsale

  She stood with her hands locked before her, staring at the brown packet for a long time. It was marked with Faelan’s name, and Blake and Skipworth, Jewelers and Watchmakers.

  Her chest began to hurt. She put her locked hands to her mouth and pressed them against her lower lip. It seemed very hard to breathe suddenly; her throat was tight and aching and her eyes and nose stung. A little sound escaped her, a tiny moan of grief. She stood there until she felt the muffled thump of the O’Connells’ front door; until she saw Faelan through the window, wheeling his horse out of the courtyard below…until moisture splashed onto the back of her hands and slipped down her wrists to make silent drops on the floor.

  She swallowed, and drew a deep, ragged breath. Without looking again at the paper packet, she opened the door and ran out of the room.

  Roddy’s hair whipped across her mouth, a sliding, pricking touch. She squinted, turning her head from the spray, watching Derrynane Bay roll past and break upon the strand in fountains of green and cream. The storm was rising. She knew she should return to the shelter of the house and trees on the hills above. Instead she walked farther out the spit of sand.

  The ruined abbey drew her, set on its higher rocky ground above the tide. Through the arched, empty windows she could see the water and clouds beyond, driven by wind that moaned past the crumbling walls.

  As she looked, a shadow took shape and life somewhere beyond. She blinked. At first it seemed a trick of sky and sea. She went forward, lost the thing behind one of the abbey walls, and then turned an ancient corner to find Fionn leaning against the stone transept.

  She was dressed in the colors of the storm, white and green and gray that blended into the wild background and stood out starkly against the dark, wet abbey. Roddy opened her mouth to give a greeting, but Fionn laughed and called, “Come away! Come away, I can’t stay here.”

  Roddy gathered her cape and followed, down the hill toward the sea. Some confluence of land and wind created a space of calm in the tempest, a little cove where a seal lay resting above the reach of the waves. Fionn ran ahead, faster than Roddy dared, and stopped to stroke the seal’s silken head. It relaxed under her hand and rolled over luxuriously. When Roddy neared, the animal gazed at her placidly from a liquid brown eye.

  “Go,” Fionn ordered, and gave the seal a little flick about the nose. “Soon it will be too rough to chance.”

  The seal opened its mouth in yawning protest, then rolled upright and made its undulating way toward the water. It paused, breast-deep in the waves, and looked back once. Then it was gone.

  Fionn sat down in the sand. “I can’t stay long.” She looked over her shoulder toward the abbey. “That place is none of mine.”

  Roddy smiled, not understanding, and not caring if she did. “I’m glad you came. It’s been a long time.”

  “Has it?” Fionn smirked and giggled. “Has it?”

  “I tried to find the ring of stones. I never could. I’m sorry. I would have come again if I could have.”

  Fionn tilted her head, gazing out at the sea. Her hair blew in golden waves across her shoulders. “Perhaps you’ll learn the way someday.”

  “I don’t think so.” Roddy bit her lip. “I’m leaving here. I doubt I’ll come back again.”

  Fionn lifted a strand of her hair and played with it idly, batting the tip to and fro. “I said I would tell you a story.”

  “Yes.” Roddy huddled on the sand, lost in a sudden, piercing melancholy for what it would mean to leave this wild land. “Please.”

  “There was a king,” Fionn said. “A great king with three daughters, and the oldest wished to be married. So she went up in the castle, and put on the cloak of darkness which her father owned, and wished for the most beautiful man in the world as a husband.”

  A wave crashed high upon the sand and rolled almost to their feet. Fionn did not flinch or waver.

  She said, “The king’s eldest daughter had her wish. As soon as she put off the cloak, there came a golden coach with four horses, two black and two white, and in it the finest man she had ever laid eyes upon, and took her away.”

  Fionn looked sideways at Roddy with her laughing sly smile. “When the second daughter saw what had happened to her sister,” Fionn said, “she put on the cloak of darkness and wished for the next-best man in the world.”

  Roddy pulled her cape closer around her as the sky darkened to greenish black and the waves rose to pound the sand. They seemed very near, and yet their sound was muffled and distant. She rested her chin on her arms and listened to Fionn’s musical voice above the wind.

  “The second daughter put off the cloak, and instantly there came, in a golden coach with four black horses, a man nearly as fine as the first, and took her away.” Fionn still looked at Roddy. “Then the third sister put on the cloak, and wished for the best black dog in the world.”

  Roddy turned in puzzlement, and Fionn laughed. “Straightaway he came,” she declared, “in a golden coach and four pitch-black horses, and took the youngest sister away.”

  “A black dog?”

  “Aye. And when the first man brought his new wife home he asked her: ‘In what form will you have me in the daytime—as I am now in the daytime, or as I am now at night?’ And his wife answered, ‘As you are now in the daytime.’ So the first sister had her husband as a man in the daytime, but at night he was—” She paused dramatically, as if to see if she had Roddy’s full attention. “—a seal!” Fionn covered her face, her merriment pealing out over the sand.

  “Oh,” Roddy said, and felt quite stupid.

  “And the second man asked the same question of the second sister, and had the same answer, so the second sister had her husband as a man in the daytime and a seal at night.” Fionn was smiling, apparently certain that Roddy was enjoying this story immensely. “Now, when the black dog brought the youngest sister home, he asked her, ‘How will you have me be in the daytime—as I am now in the day, or as I am now at night?’”

  Something stirred in Roddy: a suspicion, a flicker of premonition. She gazed warily at Fionn. “What did she say?”

  “She answered, ‘As you are now in the day.’” The other girl drew a pattern with her finger in the sand. In a strange, gentle voice, she added slowly, “So the black dog was a beast in the daytime, and the most beautiful of men at night.”

  Roddy put her palm to her face, feeling it grow hot with confusion. “Is that the story?”

  Fionn looked back out to sea. She nodded.

  “But that’s not the end,” Roddy cried.

  “Is it not?”

  “No. That can’t be the end! It was only at night he could be a man.”

  Fionn rose. “I must go now.”

  “You can’t go. Tell me the rest—”

  The sky lightened, and Fionn’s clothes seemed to fade into the background of clouds and sea. Her hair drifted in a golden mist around her head. “I don’t know the rest,” she said.

  “Oh, no,” Roddy moaned, burying her face in her hands. “I need to know the end. Please.”

  Her only answer was the sound of the wind. She looked up, and the strand was empty. The day had turned bright and blue around her. In the light ripple of waves, a seal dove and splashed, looking back at Roddy for a moment before it gave an echoing bark and disappeared.

  She stood up, and began to run. By the time she reached the O’Connells’ house, she was gasping for breath. Maurice was just emerging from the stable to join his huntsman and the pack of beagles milling in the court. He looked up at her stumbling figure in shock.

  “Mr. O’Connell—” Roddy took a gulp of air. “Mr. O’Connell—do you know where my husband has gone?”

  “Lady Iveragh, are you all right?” He strode toward her. “Where in God’s name have you been? Saints above, child, we’ve been searching shore and hills over for you!”

  “His Lordship,” Roddy repeated. “Is he here?”

  “No indeed. He left four days ago, just before you disappeared.” M
aurice reached out. His thin, strong hands closed over her shoulders, his sharp eyes searching her for signs of injury. “I don’t know where he went, but I’ve been in a dread that he’d return to find you gone. We were just going out with dogs again. My dear child, my dear, dear child, we’d given up hope. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been on the island.” She waved vaguely back toward the bay and the abbey. “Not long.”

  “Not long? My lady—four nights we’ve been searching.” He let go of her, and spread his arms to take in the ravaged trees and littered lawn. “Four nights and five days, and the worst spring storm in fifty years.”

  Roddy found herself on a redcoated arm as she descended the gangplank onto Pigeon House quay. “’Tis all come to naught,” the Dublin yeoman said positively, in answer to a question she had not even asked. “All the jails are full, and we’ve had quantities of pikes surrendered. I’ve seen none of the flogging, but ’tis awful to hear—” He stopped himself, remembering that he was trying to reassure his companion, not regale her with the stories of how it had taken three hundred lashes before some of the conspirators would reveal where the pikes were hidden.

  Behind her, Martha was paying no attention to the yeoman’s talk, occupied fully with extracting her skirt from a splintered barrel where the hem had caught. Young Davan, the O’Connell cousin who’d leaped at the chance to escort Roddy to the capital, managed to hide his dismay. He’d had high hopes of plunging into the heart of the rebellion that his more conservative relations in Kerry had looked upon askance. The easy surrender of arms in the remote southwest had been uninspiring, but Davan had been certain that in Dublin the rising would succeed. He’d only prayed that they’d not be too late for the pitched battle, in which he was certain he would find a chance to perform some deed worthy of glorification in a song or an epic poem.

  It appeared that his prayers had gone unheard. The yeoman led Roddy down the quay, between two hasty fortifications of sandbags manned by armed and confident soldiers, but there was no sign of disturbance. In the long, golden shadows of late afternoon, the Liffey flowed peacefully between its stone embankments. Along the curving riverside avenues crowds moved and shifted beneath the fine new facades and across the arching bridges: ladies borne in open litters and ragged beggars with their outstretched hats, gentlemen on horseback among the brilliant abundance of scarlet uniforms.

  Davan and Roddy joined the throng, unable to hail a litter for the short ride to the inn where she planned to wait for her father. She had not mailed the letter she’d written in Derrynane, but hoped she could summon him faster by sending it directly from Dublin. The mood of the crowd flowing past was strange and artificially gay: a tightly tuned instrument robbed of its performance, a rising exhilaration as smoke from neighborhoods suspected of rebel contamination curled silently into the clear air.

  The innkeeper asked Roddy and Davan to share the public parlor while her room was prepared. “The crush, Your Ladyship,” he explained hastily. “The past week—you can’t know. Everything’s in upset.”

  Roddy barely listened to him. She sat down in the chair offered and stared dully at her teacup, listening to the street noise from the open window and breathing the familiar smell of burning timber.

  Three other ladies sat around a table in the corner, exchanging rumors. “Did you hear what they planned for the Kingston trial?” one asked as she buttered a thin slice of cake.

  “Oh, that came to nothing,” another said. “All that excitement over the trial of a peer—imagine, outfitting the Commons to hold all seventy-one lords just for a silly murder where the prosecution didn’t even make an appearance!”

  “No—no, that’s not the half of it. The viceroy was there, do you see, and the lord chancellor, and—well, the entire government of the country, do you see. And they planned to take it! Right then and there, without a shot fired!”

  “The Unitedmen?” The first woman gasped. “Lawks, you don’t mean it!”

  “Oh, aye, that’s what I heard. My housekeeper is as loyal as the day is long, but she has a sister-in-law whose cousin’s son is high up in their councils.” The first woman nodded, and took a bite of cake. “Without a shot fired, do you see.”

  “Well, they didn’t do it, did they?” the third said complacently. “’Tis crushed now, my husband says. There was a motion in the House this morning to execute all the rebel prisoners. Right away. If they wait upon trials, they fear it might be too late.”

  Roddy’s teacup slid from her fingers and broke in a tinkling crash upon the floor. The ladies all looked toward her, and the one who’d spoken of the executions jumped up. “Oh, dear, what a shame—your pretty dress, love, here, quickly now—” She began patting at the stain on Roddy’s skirt with a handkerchief. “Do pull the bell, sir! What a shame. But soda and chamomile will take it right out, my dear, I promise you.”

  Before Davan could reach for the bell, a change came in the crowd outside. The high-strung, confused gaiety faltered and the noise hushed. For an instant a weird silence settled over the streets; the pedestrians stopped and the horses were reined in, and the sound which had alerted them came clearly through the evening air.

  Drums. The urgent, rolling snap echoed above the poised crowd, calling to arms, sending the redcoats suddenly scrambling and the ladies in their litters crying to the bearers to hurry on, for God’s sake. The women in the parlor looked at one another in horror, and then, like Roddy and Davan and everyone else, ran for the door and stumbled over each other down the stairs, where shopkeepers and businessmen and residents were pouring into the streets.

  Davan was first to reach the entry, in a pitch of renewed excitement. He grabbed at a running soldier, and got a shove and a curse for his pains. “The news!” Davan shouted after, his bellow nearly lost amid the noise and the drums. “What’s the news?”

  “They’re massing at Santry!” A youth in civilian clothes lunged for the door. “Out of the way, man—I’ve got to get at my uniform!” The youth squeezed and pushed his way in, losing his hat and panting apologies to the ladies. “Mama—Mama—my coat—”

  “Santry—where’s—”

  “To the north,” one of the ladies said wildly.

  “So close!” The press of other guests and servants behind them began to push Roddy and Davan out the door. She clung to the frame, unable to pick individual thought out of chaos. Davan was looking about wildly; he took a step out into the street and stumbled under the force of collision with an aproned shopkeeper.

  He grabbed the man by both arms. “The United army,” he yelled. “Where is it?”

  “Rathfarnham,” the shopman cried in triumph. “Six thousand already, and more coming.”

  “How do I get there?”

  The shopkeeper tore himself from Davan’s arms. “Are you a friend? Go to Newgate—they’ll need you there! Lord Edward’s to be freed to lead the attack!”

  Roddy reached out, trying to catch Davan’s arm. She knew that name—Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Duke of Leinster’s brother, the center of Geoffrey’s circle of aristocratic radicals. But one of the women from the parlor caught her back. “Attack! Are they going to attack?”

  Roddy turned for an instant, just long enough to shake herself free. When she looked back again, Davan was gone.

  Roddy stared into the surging crowd, unable to open her gift to this intensity. It pressed at her through her barriers, frighteningly like the night of the fire, a crowd-mind that knew no reason, no sense, but only swept and swayed with wild emotion as the drums crackled their dread message through the streets.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to escape it, trying to think. Someone ran into her, and she had to move to avoid falling. She opened her eyes and saw a cavalryman urging his frantic mount forward, almost on top of her. She pressed back, trying to avoid the animal’s hooves as it half reared and came down, knocking a porter aside. The press of people caught her up; she had to move to keep from going to her knees.

  She wa
s pushed one way and then the next by the surge and shuffle. The color of the crowd seemed to be gaining red as the barristers and attorneys and merchants and bankers and students and apothecaries of the city threw on uniforms and became yeomen desperate to reach their mustering points. She stumbled along the riverside in their midst, already far down from the inn where she’d lost Davan. The sun was setting, throwing the buildings and milling crowd into high relief. Still the drums went on, calling and calling for the men who were helplessly jammed in the press.

  Reason seemed impossible in the noise and confusion. At first, she tried to battle her way back toward the inn, but the general movement was opposite, and she exhausted herself without making headway. Shorter than the rest, she could not see which way to move, could only follow her perception of where the crowd thinned.

  The river flowed like a silver dagger down the center of the mob. She found herself at a bridge, and grabbed a yeoman’s hand and shouted in his ear for the way to Newgate, receiving a vague wave and an uninterpretable shout in return. Like a stream branching around a rock, the people around her pushed her along onto the bridge, across it, and into the mass on the other side.

  She shouted again for the way to Newgate, and this time a barefoot beggar boy answered, not with words, but with a tug on her arm and a motion to follow.

  She hung on to him until sweat popped out on her palm and made the contact slippery and hard to keep. But his small, dirty fingers dug into her skin, pulling at her, squeezing her through among shoulders and arms and legs while dusk settled into shadows.

  They left the river far behind, but the crowds did not lessen. It was almost all uniformed men by now, and a strange hilarity had begun to grow among them, made of fear and helplessness and determination. She heard laughter, and saw bottles of porter making rounds. Many of them tried to move and make way for Roddy as they saw a gentlewoman in their midst. “Get along home, ma’am,” someone cried toward her. “We’re standing buff for your defense!” A spate of encouraging calls followed, but Roddy had not time to answer, clinging to her small guide, afraid she would lose him as darkness closed in.