by Erin Hart
She didn’t know if she could bear the way he looked at her. She made a bolt for the stairs and shut herself in the bathroom, running the bathwater to cover the sound of her tears. A long soak would wash them away, the tears, the deceit, and make her feel whole again; at least she hoped it would. But the look on his face, the shock and hurt as she backed away—she knew that was only a fraction of what he would feel when she told him she was leaving, and the prospect made her shoulders shake more violently with each shuddering sob.
She’d been in the bath twenty minutes when she heard a soft rap at the door. “Nora, are you all right? Please talk to me.”
“Come in.” The door opened a crack and she could see his worried face. “You can come all the way in.”
He crouched by the end of the tub where her head emerged from the bubbles. The house had been newly fitted out, but it still had an old claw-footed tub, wide and deep. She closed her eyes and felt his fingers brush against her cheek. He kissed her forehead, her burning eyes. She lay back and listened as he poured a drop of shampoo into his hands and began soaping her hair and scalp, massaging her pounding temples with slow, rhythmic strokes. She could feel her fear break up and wash away as he rinsed the soap from her hair. As she rose dripping from the water he wrapped her in a huge white towel, then carried her in his arms the short distance to the bedroom. And this time nothing shattered; there was only triumphal yielding, sweet blending.
10
Charlie Brazil waded through the tall grass at the edge of the apiary, his mouth dry and a twisting knot in his stomach. Strange things had been happening here the last few days. He felt eyes on him, heard whispers wherever he went, and rumors swirled through the air like ghosts. He’d come home this evening to find that detective, the same one from all those years ago, speaking to his parents. He’d listened, watching and waiting outside until the policeman got into his car and drove away. Apparently all the whispers had been true: the body from the bog was his father’s only brother, Danny Brazil. But when he’d gone into the house a few minutes later, neither of his parents had spoken a word about it.
But Danny Brazil wasn’t the reason for this clenched knot beneath his ribs—not exactly. How did Ursula know about what he’d got up here? She couldn’t know anything; she couldn’t. She was just having him on, playing him. But she must have been here—how else would she know about Brona? He felt the burning shame come over him once more, remembering how it had felt when Ursula sat straddling him, the edge in her voice when she’d talked about Brona. He’d wanted to throttle her, rip her for thinking that way; he couldn’t bear it. Raising a hand to wipe the bitter taste of hatred from his lips, he heard something and stopped abruptly, midstride.
His beekeeping shed had no door, and he could hear a noise from inside, a faint tearing sound. It was her again. He crouched by the window, peering through the weeds up into the loft at Brona Scully, once again illuminated in a shaft of late-evening sun. She sat on her feet, deeply immersed in ripping some piece of cloth to ribbons. Surely she knew that he came here every day; surely she saw that the bees were looked after? But today he was earlier than usual. Watching her behave as though she were completely alone gave him a kind of guilty thrill, the same thing he’d experienced following his mother up here all those years ago. The sun shone through the edges of her shift, and her thin, pale arms looked gilded.
All at once a dog began to bark in the distance, and Brona got to her feet and bolted down the stairs before he had a chance to hide himself. It was the very first time their eyes had met, and Charlie felt electrified by her gaze. She, too, seemed shocked, momentarily paralyzed at seeing him not an arm’s length away. As she came through the door, his arm shot out and snaked around her waist; for a brief, breathless moment he held her there, transfixed by the galvanizing jolt that passed through him as he felt her warmth through the thin cloth. The ground seemed to rise in a roiling wave beneath his feet when she let out a short gasp, the only sound he’d ever heard her make. Then she was gone, pushing past him before he could even react.
She was anxious, frightened—because of him? The idea upset him. He went back over the frozen moment in his mind: the terrified look in the girl’s eyes; her face streaked with tears, he realized now, bright tracks down her pale, lightly freckled cheeks. It wasn’t her eyes he’d stared at when they’d stood face to face, but her lips, moving noiselessly. He found himself wondering if she made any sound at all when she wept. He was seized with a fierce desire to hold her, help her in some way.
He hesitated, wondering whether he should follow her, not wanting to step from the place he’d first touched her, rooted to the spot as if under a spell, weakened by her gaze. Then the feeling passed; he turned slowly and sat on the steps up to the loft, turning over the scene in his mind, reliving the startling shock of touching her, going through in slow motion how he’d put out his hand, how his arm had circled her, briefly. He had only been trying to stop her so that he could see what was wrong, how he might help her—how could he communicate that? Most people said she was a deaf-mute, but others protested that she wasn’t deaf, only refusing to speak, stubborn, touched. He knew the truth; she understood every word you said to her. And there was no mistaking the looks she got, a mixture of pity and contempt. Charlie knew those looks because he’d received them himself—cultivated them, in fact. It was easier than trying to fit in, which was hopeless in any case.
She must have known that they would sooner or later meet on this threshold. What had she imagined happening then? He’d tried to keep from thinking of it, alone in his narrow bed at night, filled with yearning for which there was no relief. He couldn’t allow himself to think of touching her in that way, but sometimes he awakened drenched in sweat, the bedclothes sticky, and he felt ashamed of what his unconscious mind desired. He hung his head and tried to wipe that sensation from his memory, knowing it could never be erased—the feeling of her hipbone under his palm, the friction of the two fabrics rubbing together under the weight of his hand. It was automatic, he told himself, just a reflex. Anyone would have put out a hand to stop her.
Charlie climbed the ladder to the loft to see what she’d been at. He found a cardboard suitcase lying open, its contents jumbled about—a man’s suitcase, by the look of it. Definitely a man’s clothing. Where had she found it? Or perhaps she’d brought it with her. He’d been up here a few times and never found anything like that, but the loft was filled with boxes of nails gone to rust, old milk cans, spools of rotted baling twine. He knelt and lifted one of the shirts. Those were what Brona had been after. There were two completely torn up, the bodies and arms shredded to ribbons. What was she up to?
A pile of yellowed newspaper cuttings had been tossed aside; Charlie picked up the top one, gone soft with mildew and almost illegible. It was a smudgy photo of two hurlers struggling for control of a ball, one gripping the other’s shirt, feet and ankles covered in mud, teeth gritted fiercely as they concentrated on the ball. He quickly pawed through the other cuttings; they were all about the Loughnabrone hurling club and the Offaly team. Beneath the cuttings was a polythene bag containing a few old snapshots. Most of the images were stuck to one another, the photographic emulsion turned sticky with age and damp. A single picture had been facing the polythene and was still intact except for slight discoloration at the edges. He edged nearer a hole in the thatching so that he could have a look at it in the light. A young woman stared at the camera thoughtfully, skirt pulled over her drawn-up knees. Charlie recognized the setting: it was the downstairs of this house, in better repair in those days. The photo was slightly out of focus, but not so blurred that he couldn’t recognize the young woman as his mother.
A faint buzzing noise arose as he tried to make out the expression on the face in the photograph. Without warning, a large, sticky drop of golden honey fell from above, directly onto the photograph. He pulled it out of harm’s way—too late—then looked up and watched another drop stretch from the ceiling and fall in the sam
e place, onto a growing mound of crystallizing sweetness on the floor. The bees had gotten into the roof and recognized the dark, enclosed space between the beams as suitable for a hive. They’d have to be shifted, and a bucket put under the drip until he had time to do it. The bees, not knowing it was their own store escaping, would bring the honey back, one drop at a time, only to lose it again.
He looked back at the photograph, thinking how young his mother looked, and wondering if he could somehow rinse away the sticky residue without ruining it. Had this place been her retreat even then? But the suitcase was a man’s, he was almost sure of it. Charlie felt something hovering in his consciousness, unnamed, unrealized, an idea that had yet to take shape. He tossed the picture aside. He’d have to think about it later. Right now he had to know if Ursula had been here. If she had—
He cursed himself again for his stupid mistake, letting Ursula catch him looking at her maps. He felt his palms go damp, remembering how she had circled around him and blocked the door, not letting him out until he was shaking and covered in sweat. And then yesterday afternoon she’d stopped him behind the supply trailer. At least he hadn’t told her anything. She couldn’t know.
He dropped to the place he used for hiding things, a hollowed-out space under one of the flagstones near the fire. He’d hidden a biscuit tin there, to make a safe place for the things he didn’t want robbed. He used the poker to pry the flagstone up, and found the tin just where it should be. He’d looked in it only a few days ago, and everything seemed to be there. His eyes traveled over the familiar shapes: two fingerlike silver ingots; fourteen bronze rings—he counted to make sure they were all there; six coins; four bracelets, ends flared like trumpets; and a dagger, its greenish sheath graved with sinuous scrolls. Everything was exactly where he’d left it, he was sure. He glanced around, checking the windows and the door to see how anyone might be able to look into this protected space.
He couldn’t leave the box here now; what if she’d found it and just decided not to take anything? But where could he hide it? She could be watching now, to see what he would do. He was caught again. He had no way to know for certain whether she had been there. Everything was in the box, but maybe she’d taken something else, left something for him.
He searched the walls and windows for any mark, anything out of place. Then he saw it: the blank space on the wall where he’d tacked up the other beekeeper’s drawings. He started pulling down the remaining sketches, ripping them in his fury, heedless of the thumbtacks flying everywhere and rolling dangerously underfoot.
11
The long golden twilight was beginning to wane outside the bedroom window. Lying tangled in the sheets with Cormac, watching him sleep, was a rare luxury. But Nora felt her blissful, dreamy state dissipate as her stomach’s emptiness made itself known. She’d have to get something to eat.
“Cormac, are you awake? I’m starving. Do you want anything?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her a long moment, and not as if he was thinking about food. Finally he said, “I’ll come with you.”
They were foraging in the kitchen when the bell sounded, and Nora turned to see Liam Ward’s angular profile framed in the diamond window of the front door. “It’s Ward, that detective I told you about.”
When she answered the door, Ward’s face wore a somewhat worried expression. “Sorry for intruding, Dr. Gavin. I was just at—I was passing by, and I had a few more questions for you about the postmortem, if you have a few minutes.”
“Of course. Come in.”
The policeman stepped into the tiny front hall and offered his hand to Cormac. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Liam Ward.”
“Cormac Maguire.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Nora asked, ushering him into the inner room. Ward eyed the two places set at the table and moved to one of the leather chairs near the fireplace. Nora sat down across from him, and Cormac perched on the arm of her chair.
“Any luck yet in identifying the body?” Nora asked. “Everyone’s been talking about it.”
“As a matter of fact, someone did come forward with information, and the positive ID came through yesterday. The victim was Danny Brazil. You probably heard some speculation about it. His family thought he’d emigrated to Australia twenty-five years ago. They say they didn’t expect to hear from him, and they never did.”
“How can I help you?”
“Well, you mentioned something yesterday at the postmortem, and it’s been with me ever since—this notion of ‘triple death.’ Can you tell me any more about it?”
Nora felt embarrassed. “I’m not sure I’m the one you should be asking. Cormac probably knows much more about it than I do.”
“There’s not much to know,” Cormac said, “but I can tell you what I’ve read. The whole idea of triple death stems from the fact that some bodies found in bogs seem to have sustained multiple mortal injuries. Up to this point, all the clearest examples have come from Britain and the Continent, but that could change as forensic methods improve. The man from Gallagh in Galway—he’s on exhibit at the National Museum—is from the Iron Age, and it’s quite possible that the twisted sally rods around his neck were some sort of noose or garrote. And from what Nora’s told me, the older body from Loughnabrone was strangled with a narrow cord, then had his throat cut, and was deliberately sunk in the bog. At first glance that certainly seems like overkill, since any one of the three would have been enough to dispatch him. But taken together, they might add up to a classic triple death.”
Ward pulled at his left ear. “So this triple death was a form of human sacrifice?”
“It’s one possibility,” Cormac said. “I’m not deliberately being difficult, but the Iron Age Celts operated in a completely oral culture; they never wrote anything down about their religious practices. Much of what we know about them was actually written by others, like the Romans, and a lot of that was based on hearsay rather than firsthand accounts. But something like the triple death probably did exist, according to the current scholarship.”
“What was its purpose?” Ward asked.
Cormac said, “There are Roman sources that say each of the three major Celtic deities who required human sacrifice had a preferred method: the thunder god Taranis was appeased by fire or heavy blows like thunderbolts. Then there was Esus, who preferred his sacrifices hanged from a tree and cut until they bled to death. Sacrifices to the war god Teutates were usually dispatched by drowning. Personally, I don’t think the Romans really had a firm grasp on barbarian religious practices. I think the reality was a bit more complicated than they imagined; after all, they considered other cultures inferior, barbaric. The Celts had numerous triple deities, one entity with three different aspects, sometimes three separate identities…when the early Christians were teaching about the trinity, the concept was already pretty old news in these parts. There’s a strong streak of triplism that remains in us, even today.”
Ward pulled at his lower lip and nodded slowly. “All those old pishrogues—making the sign of the cross three times.”
“Exactly,” Cormac said. “When it came to those ancient sacrifices, the three-in-one combination seemed to be all about augmenting power—both the power of the deity and of the person making the invocation. And a triple sacrifice, likewise, was intended to magnify and make an offering more powerful. To combine all three forms may have been a very powerful offering indeed, perhaps reserved for times of great crisis. And of course there were variations; sometimes the victim wasn’t bashed over the head, or his throat wasn’t cut. The hanging or strangling seemed to have been pretty consistent, as was disposition in the bog. Sometimes the victims were pinned down with wooden stakes.”
“The older body from last week was clearly staked down,” Nora said. “I didn’t see any stakes around Danny Brazil’s body, but it might be worth asking Rachel Briscoe if she remembers removing any sticks or branches from around the body—if someone is trying to make it look like a triple death, a small
detail like that might be important.”
“So who were the usual victims?” Ward asked. “How were they chosen?”
“Some of the bodies show no battle scars or evidence of hard labor, so one camp says that sacrificial victims were probably not warriors, and may have been fairly highborn individuals, possibly even priests. Of course, they may also have been criminals, or outcasts, or hostages taken in war. The Romans said that the Celts preferred sacrificing criminals, but if there were none, they would resort to using innocent people. But they also said the sacrifices were invariably performed in the presence of holy men or priests.”
Nora said, “From what I’ve read, the victims were sometimes children, or people who were injured or malformed in some way—some had tubercular bones, some had extra fingers or toes. It’s possible that they were chosen as scapegoats for those reasons.”
“Or it may have been left to chance. Examination of some victims’ stomach contents showed that they’d recently ingested blackened grain kernels. There’s a theory that a burnt piece of bannock may have been used in a kind of deadly lottery. Several had apparently ingested grain contaminated with ergot, which can cause hallucinations and severe convulsions—so those victims might have been in some sort of altered state when they were killed. Archaeological evidence for any of these theories is very scant, especially here in Ireland, and what does exist is open to a number of different interpretations. In other words, no one really knows. Everything we’ve told you is built on a certain amount of speculation.”
“Finding an ancient body that fits this pattern of multiple injuries isn’t a complete shock,” Nora said. “A number of victims have turned up, all across northern Europe, with similar wounds; most of them date from the Iron Age—about two thousand years ago.”
