“You must help young Mortimer. While We are appointing him as lord lieutenant for Ireland, he is in truth too inexperienced. You must advise him, teach him how to handle such as these.” Richard inclined his head toward the Irish lords, who had broken into some kind of song.
“If I must stay here, why are you not making me lord lieutenant?” De Vere drained another goblet.
Richard slid his hand along de Vere’s thigh. “Because We will be bringing you back to Us soon, as soon as We have ferreted out and dealt with those that would do you harm.”
“As Your Royal Majesty commands.” De Vere drummed his fingers on the table. “What of the Sidhe? They expect you to turn over Ireland to them. Kellach is already furious with you for not killing Art and the others. Yesterday he took his Sidhe followers and disappeared. God only knows what he is up to.”
“So We were informed. It will not matter. The legate has sent word that the Vatican is providing a replacement for their wayward marshal, someone of higher rank. The Sidhe are the Vatican’s responsibility now, not Ours.”
“Well and good, but he’d better arrive soon to protect Your Royal Person, and mine, from the sorcery of these creatures.”
A platter stacked with roast pigeons crashed from the hands of a page, sparking a fight with the drunken squire who had tripped him. Several Celts, whose station did not merit a seat on the dais, threw food in appreciation of the brawl.
“How long do we need to stay?” asked de Vere.
“Until We see which of the Irish chiefs passes out first. Make a wager with Us.”
. . . . .
Twilight was settling over Dublin quay. A dozen Viking guards huddled around a glowing brazier at one end, anxiously talking among themselves while watching the Fomorians at the other end tear apart the body of a Celtic prisoner, the nightly offering. Their snarling came to a sudden stop. Still and quiet, the Fomorians looked toward the sea. One barked a command. Although unintelligible to the Vikings, it carried a clear tone of fear, and the creatures slipped into the water, leaving much of their victim behind. A ship’s bell sounded.
The Vikings took up their shields and spread out along the quay, though not too close to the bloody pile of flesh and bone. A war galley emerged from the gloom, its rowers straining in their stations. The Vatican flag flew from the ship’s mast, its linen sail furled and its prow dominated by the figurehead of an angel holding a flaming sword. Bolted to each side of the bow was a large medallion on which the initials VRS glowed with an unnatural light. In the forecastle stood black-robed and -hooded figures. The Viking closest to the entrance of the quay shouted, “Treat them as royalty if you wish to keep your newly won soul!” Then he sprinted toward Dublin Castle.
IN THE FOREST west of Dublin, a towering oak spread its bare winter branches above all others of its kind. Its name was Gormghiolla, “the Gray Servant,” though the memory of how it became so designated was long lost to the Skeaghshee.
Kellach woke with a jolt shooting through his body as if he were falling. The oak remained in its deep winter sleep, safely cradling him in an upper bough. Kellach felt exhausted and angry: he had fallen asleep angry, and his troubled dreams had not helped, dreams of shadowy creatures pursing him, creatures with axes for arms.
Resting one hand on the trunk, Kellach pushed himself up to face the sunrise breaking through the last trace of the snow clouds that had finally exhausted themselves. The life-giving light on his skin chased away the lingering dreams. In the trees around him, he could see his Skeaghshee warriors awakening and knew they would be doing so throughout the forest, raising their arms and giving thanks to the sun and the earth for, first, the trees and, second, for him, their liberator, their king. As the drone of their ritual chant reached him, he could feel their gratitude, their loyalty. It gave him strength.
Wichtlein, difficult Sidhe to lead but savage fighters when it suited them, dotted the ground, still asleep. They were creatures of the night when left to their own devices. Kellach called down to their general, or at least the one he had appointed as their general, and saw him stir toward wakefulness. Savage fighters yes, but vehement fleers as well. It seemed they had only those two modes, Kellach thought. I just need to keep working them up into a blood frenzy. Today I will gather them all together and inform them that the English who were their allies are now their enemies.
The Christian English are impotent, Kellach thought, laughing to himself. They have no true power. He had already sent his Grogoch and Dryads into the Middle Kingdom to call the other clans back from their travels. It was time for Ireland to once again be exclusively the domain of the Sidhe. Now that the Celts were defeated and the Morrígna vanquished, it would be easy to drive out the deceitful English. I could do it with the warriors I have, Kellach thought, though it would be best to lead an army composed of all the Sidhe clans, as it will solidify my position as their new high king.
Kellach jumped down to a lower branch, only to find he was still standing on the same one. He smiled at his misstep, leaped again. He did not leave the original branch. Stretching his leg out, he felt resistance. He tried simply stepping off into the air but immediately slid back onto his branch.
“My king!” shouted a neighboring Skeaghshee. “I cannot leave this tree!”
“Nor can I!” shouted another. Commotion spread throughout the forest.
Kellach closed his eyes, blocked out the noise, and began a counter-enchantment.
Six hours later, sweating and drained from the effort, he was still unable to negate whatever force was holding him in the tree. The surrounding Skeaghshee watched him, waiting. A new commotion rose from the east, heading his way. Several Wichtlein rushed into view, darted past, and kept going. The Wichtlein around his tree held out their javelins and raised their small shields. The pounding of hoofbeats approached. Arrows flew. Wichtlein began to fall. His general glanced up at Kellach and then ordered his remaining forces to retreat, which they did with enthusiasm. English mounted archers galloped by in pursuit. Half a dozen members of the VRS League rode up in their black-cowled robes and stopped. Behind them rode more peasants than he could count from his perch. Not peasants, realized Kellach. Worse. They were woodsmen, glinting axes strapped to their horses. Empty wagons rolled up.
Orsini dismounted beneath the giant oak and gazed up at him. “You must be Kellach, king of the Skeaghshee and, so I hear, new high king of all Sidhe, though I am not sure they all know that.”
“What have you done?” hissed Kellach.
“Impressive work, is it not?” Orsini glanced around at the trees full of Skeaghshee. “You will discover that you and I did this together.”
“You cannot keep me here. No human can maintain an enchantment of this magnitude for long. Then I will kill you.”
“I simply— Well, it was not that simple, but I did bind you into that tree. Now that it is done, you will stay bound unless I undo it. Do not worry yourself. It requires no further effort from me.”
“I do not believe you. You would have had to know my true name to have such power over me.”
One of Orsini’s brothers handed him a small ivory box. He opened it, revealing a single, grossly enlarged eye. “Your friend the Fomorian high king made the mistake of believing me when I told him I had the power to put it back in his head if he would only reveal your true name.”
Fear struck Kellach’s heart and exploded into terror. “I am a much more powerful ally,” he pleaded. “I will give you the Fomorian’s true name.”
“His true name is of no use to me now, or to him.” Orsini dumped the eye onto the ground, flicked it away with his foot.
Kellach tried to hurl an enchantment at Orsini, but it faded away in the branches.
“It would not be much use to bind a Sidhe, just like binding a demon if they could still spit out enchantments. Nothing of yours can leave this tree that you love,” said Orsini, stroking Gormghiolla’s grand trunk. “The real joy of this exorcism, the part that I was not sure would work,
was binding your compatriots. But it did work. That is where you were of such help.” Orsini spread his arms wide, spun around. “You bound them to you with their oaths to you. As long as you are bound into your tree, and as long as you are alive, they, too, are bound into theirs. They will die with their trees.”
Orsini’s spin caused the robe to ride up his arms, revealing small dark stains under his skin. Orsini quickly pulled down his sleeves.
“My followers will rescue me!” Kellach’s voice rose to a scream. “You cannot cut down all the trees!”
“Ah, but you will learn that we can. You are going to feel each one, I am afraid. The forests of Ireland have been sold to the shipwrights and coopers of England.” He patted the giant tree. “Yes, when your time to die comes, this will make many fine barrels.” Orsini turned to his brothers and said, “Have a stockade built around this tree and make sure it is not cut down until all the other Skeaghshee are dead. Use the trees around here. It is a good place to start.”
Orders were shouted. The woodsmen dismounted and began to unstrap their axes.
26
Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
—Acts 19:13–16, King James Version
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
—1 Peter 5:8, King James Version
Galway, Ireland
Two Months Later
On the west coast of Ireland, the kingdom of Connacht crawls from the Atlantic Ocean with craggy bays giving way to thousands of dark lakes, called loughs by the Celts, woven together with rocky streams, punctuated with bogs and low, gray, stony mountains. The soggy westerly half of this kingdom is divided from the rest by a chain of giant loughs that snake from its capital, Galway, to the northern sea: Lough Corrib, Mask, Curra, Cullen, and Conn. It was this rough west land that Kellach had promised the Fomorians, and while the other four kingdoms were busy fighting Richard, they took it. Now, with the Fomorian high king dead, they fractured into tribalism, with petty chiefs fighting each other over every lough and bog, pausing only to pursue their greatest love, killing Celts.
Queen Mael had quickly grown to look older than her years. She returned to Galway every day with blood on her sword and fewer warriors than she had when she left. One morning she rode out at the head of a relief column for the besieged Renvyle Castle, which her only son was trying to hold against the Fomorians, and she did not return. No one returned. The people of Galway retreated behind their city walls and waited for whatever end their Gods decreed. And so when Nottingham’s army rode up in a March sleet storm, the surviving townspeople did not know whether they were opening their gate to their salvation or their final doom. When a long line of wagons followed the soldiers inside, each driven by a black-cowled exorcist, they suspected the latter.
Orsini climbed down from the lead wagon, snatched a rag from his pocket, and coughed, staining the cloth with flecks of black. He tucked it away. “Take me to the queen’s chambers. I shall rest there,” he ordered the town’s bailiff, who was kneeling in the mud before him. That evening orders were issued to the townspeople to strip the great hall of all furniture and build a dividing wall in the middle by morning. There were plenty of newly empty houses to tear down for construction materials, and the wall was completed on time.
At noon the next day, the sleet had given way to rain, and Orsini and Nottingham entered the great hall, now split in two, and wiped the mud from their boots. Several hundred barrels stood end up on the flagstone floor, their lids removed. Behind them the makeshift wall rose to the timber roof. In front of the barrels waited the members of the VRS League. One brought forward a large Bible and held it for Orsini. The rest dropped to their knees.
Orsini opened the Bible to where it was marked with a red ribbon at the book of Ephesians, spread his hands shoulder-high, and read in Latin, “‘Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. . . . ‘” Orsini rushed through the familiar text, his mind elsewhere. ”‘. . . take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.’”
Calls of “Amen” echoed off the walls as the exorcists rose to their work, half going into the newly created room beyond the wall, closing the door behind them. The rest went from barrel to barrel, making the sign of the cross while mumbling in Latin:
“We invoke upon this oil the name of him who suffered, who was crucified, who arose from the dead, and who sits at the right of the uncreated. . . .”
“What are they doing?” asked Nottingham, following Orsini around the room, inspecting the barrels.
“These contain olive oil from my own orchard. My brothers are infusing a blessing,” replied Orsini.
“. . . may every evil spirit be put to flight. . . .”
Carrying an iron pot, one brother carefully ladled a small amount of different, amber-colored oil into each barrel, releasing a sweet, musky odor.
“Smells good,” said Nottingham, peering into the pot.
“Spikenard oil. It was what Lazarus’s sister anointed Jesus’s feet with after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. I hope it will provide some extra punch to the olive oil.”
“And this concoction will drive off the Fomorians?”
“It would, but that is not our aim, is it? We are here to kill them. Come into the next room.” Orsini opened the door. “Be quick. I would not want any of the blessings to slip in.”
The second room was also full of barrels with their tops removed. “Remember that Fomorians are Elioud, only one bloodline removed from the fallen angels that sired them,” continued Orsini. “They are still bound by the ancient laws.”
In this room the exorcists were not mumbling but rather shouting their Latin:
“. . . I exorcise thee, unclean spirit, whoever thou art among issue of the original serpent, his apostate angels, and his diabolical legions. . . .”
White gleamed from inside the barrels.
“. . . Make way thou wicked creature, make way thou profligate monster for Christ’s true love of man. I restrain the force of the adversary’s dominion and break his deceitful snares. . . .”
“You’re exorcising salt?” asked Nottingham, shouting to be heard.
“Not precisely,” replied Orsini. “I am having an exorcism infused into salt. Salt is wonderful that way, a true boon from God.”
“. . . The descent of the Holy Ghost grants me power to tread upon serpents and dragons and upon all powers of the infernal adversary. . . .”
“And what are you going to do with all this?” asked Nottingham.
“Between the blessing in the oil and the exorcism in the salt, the Fomorians will literally be torn apart. We need only to wait for a clear day,” said Orsini.
“. . . Hence, pay heed and tremble, pestilential creature, as I castrate your strength and bind you to this salt even as it dissolves. I strip you of your might and lay waste thy Kingdom. In the name of Jesus the Christ, let all enemies of the one true God be shattered. . . .”
. . . . .
Two days later the clouds finally gave way to blue sky. Orsini knelt in sunlight streaming through the window of the ex-queen’s receiving chamber and prayed: prayed that God would allow him to finish what he started, prayed for strength to get through the next ten minutes. Pulling his robe over his head and
placing it to the side, he heard a gasp and made a mental note to chastise the brother who had made it. Under Orsini’s skin, scattered across his body, were black blotches the size of pennies, except for one on his lower back, which was as big as a hand with black tendrils stretching out like a hundred legs.
Behind Orsini, in addition to the soon-to-be-repentant brother, there were two other exorcists and the legate, who had arrived in Galway the previous day. The legate bent and spoke softly into Orsini’s ear. “Are you sure this has to be done here, now? Let me take you back to Rome. Your brothers can finish with the Fomorians.”
“No. Do not tempt me.” Orsini’s voice trembled, a tremor that seemed to run from his throat down through his body. He regained control with effort. “Just think of it, Legate, the last major race of Nephilim are within our grasp. The great test given by God to Enoch shall be completed. We will have proved to God that we are his one True Church. All other churches will fall before us and become no more than dust. I must remain here, must make sure my process works. It is the culmination of my life’s purpose.”
“As you command, Your Eminence.” The legate straightened up and stepped back.
Orsini prostrated himself on the floor. “Just drive enough of the corruption from me to allow me to finish.”
The legate picked up the sword from the table, unsheathed it, and directed the point toward the exorcists, who joined their hands to form a ring around it. They began an enchantment in Aramaic.
“Legate, these are my three most accomplished students,” said Orsini. “If I should . . . if I should lose control of my holy self, make sure they are allowed to finish my work. Saving me is of little concern.” Orsini began reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
The sword tip had brightened to an orange glow. The legate pressed the tip against the large blotch on Orsini’s back. A thin stream of black smoke rose. Orsini prayed louder. The blotch wriggled, crawled under his skin up his back to his shoulder.
The Last Days of Magic: A Novel Page 33
