Death on the Holy Mountain

by David Dickinson

  ‘Francis,’ she said at last, ‘you will be careful, won’t you. You see, I’ve just worked it out, we’ve been married for thirteen years now, it’s scarcely credible, is it, and I love you as much now as I did on the day I married you. More even. I couldn’t bear it to end. Not here. Not now. Not like this. I want to be with you till the end, Francis, as I hope you’ll be there for me. Please remember that I love you so much. Take care. Take very great care. I shall be thinking of you and praying for you every moment of every day until you come back.’ She held his hand and kissed it. ‘Now, I won’t say any more. Semper Fidelis, Francis.’

  Semper Fidelis, forever faithful, was a sort of motto, or talisman, between the two of them. It had first been mentioned to Powerscourt by a young man who killed himself in an earlier investigation when he first met Lady Lucy. It had followed them through their lives ever since, a punctuation point on their journey through love and time.

  ‘Semper Fidelis, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt gravely. Out there on the still waters of Killary Harbour, under the wide Connemara sky, he wished he did not have to continue his investigation, to embark on his hazardous mission to Butler Lodge. He wanted to be somewhere else, to stay with Lucy and row out to the mouth of the great fjord. Then he thought of the Ormonde family, of husbands whose wives had been abducted, of the Butlers and the Moores whose very identity was under threat from forces they neither knew nor understood. He kissed Lady Lucy after he handed her out of the boat and set out to prepare for his ordeal.

  Half an hour later he and Johnny Fitzgerald were standing by the front door of Butler Lodge. They knew that the hills around the house concealed the Major’s troops, rifles at the ready in case things went wrong.

  ‘Your round or mine, Francis?’ said Johnny, looking at the bell.

  ‘Mine, I think,’ said Powerscourt and pushed it firmly. A clear peal could be heard inside. Powerscourt wondered if the two ladies had heard it. They heard footsteps. The door opened to reveal the redhead who had answered it earlier that day. Perhaps he was acting as butler for the duration.

  ‘Come in, please,’ said the young man politely. ‘Would you wait here for a moment now?’

  Powerscourt looked around the hall. The floor was marble, you could find marble everywhere in Connemara, he remembered. A couple of hurling sticks were resting in an umbrella stand. There was a table to the left of the door. A pair of fish in glass cases looked across at them from the opposite wall. Powerscourt suddenly remembered the fascination of stuffed creatures for the Anglo-Irish. The birds of the air and the beasts of the field were all fair game for the taxidermists, owls and badgers, voles and squirrels, pike and salmon and trout, otters and owls, bream and perch, all ended up stuck on the walls of the Anglo-Irish in their glass coffins. Powerscourt had been to houses in his youth where they were so numerous that he would not have been surprised to see a stuffed human staring out at him from hall or passageway. Privately he suspected that the gentry identified with these dead creatures. Were they not preserved too, pickled in their past and their history until they had little relevance to the modern world?

  ‘Come this way, please,’ the redhead interrupted his reverie and showed them into a little sitting room on the left of the hall. There were bookcases here from floor to ceiling and a great window that looked out over the lake. The redhead motioned them to a sofa and indicated they were to sit down.

  ‘Posh dentist’s waiting room, Francis?’ said Johnny.

  ‘Doctor’s, I think,’ said Powerscourt. ‘No magazines at all here.’

  Two slim young men of average height came in through the other door and sat down on the chairs opposite the sofa. They were both wearing dark trousers and green shirts, some kind of private uniform, Powerscourt suspected. One had black hair. The other one was so fair he was almost blond.

  ‘Which of you is Powerscourt?’ asked the black-haired one.

  ‘I am he,’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘Then you must be Johnny Fitzgerald.’

  ‘The same,’ Johnny nodded gravely, wondering if he should mention his ancestor. Not yet, he thought, not yet, maybe later.

  ‘Traitors, the pair of ye,’ muttered the blond.

  ‘You can call me Seamus,’ said the black-haired young man, making it abundantly clear that whatever he was called, it was not Seamus, and that he had no intention of revealing his true identity. ‘And he’s Mick,’ he added, pointing to his companion. ‘Now then,’ he continued, ‘it was youse who asked for this meeting. What do you have to say for yourselves?’

  ‘Principally this,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I think it’s time you considered your own position. You have pulled off a most daring piece of kidnapping. But for our good fortune in finding you here, everything would have gone your way.’

  ‘We were betrayed,’ said Mick viciously, ‘another bloody traitor in the ranks. Well, he’ll get what’s coming to him, youse mark my words.’

  Powerscourt did not bother to tell the blond that they had not been betrayed. Dissension in the ranks might work to his, Powerscourt’s, advantage.

  ‘But now,’ he continued, ‘think of it. You are surrounded here. Over twenty cavalrymen are on patrol in the woods. More are expected this afternoon. I do not know how many of you there are in this house but I do not believe you number more than six or seven at the most. And with the greatest possible respect, these men outside are more experienced in battle than you are. They fought in the Boer War after all.’

  Even as he said it he knew mention of the Boer War was a mistake.

  ‘Imperialist racket!’ said the blond in anger. ‘Whole war just so the City of London could get its hands on the South African diamonds! Women and children herded into concentration camps to die! Bloody disgrace!’

  ‘Then think of the position of the two women you have seized. I presume they are still alive, they certainly were yesterday afternoon. If anything were to happen to them now, the authorities would know who to charge.’

  Powerscourt sensed as he spoke that he was not making much impression. Rational argument might not be the best way to reach these young men. He felt that they rejoiced in what they saw as their emotional and moral superiority. They probably thought he was old. He suddenly remembered the appeal of a glorious death fighting in Ireland’s cause against overwhelming odds. He wondered if they would prefer death to a prison sentence, a blood sacrifice in the cause of Ireland’s freedom. That, he felt, might be their most likely and the most dangerous option. He ploughed on.

  ‘If anything were to happen to the women, if they were to be killed for instance, it would go very badly for you. I am certain you would hang. If you give them up, and give yourselves up, the authorities would, I am sure, look at your cases sympathetically.’

  He felt even more like a schoolteacher who has lost all rapport with his pupils. He felt that he was probably making things worse.

  ‘Is that what you came here to say?’ Mick was almost on his feet. ‘Hand ourselves over to the authorities, as you call them? We’d rather die.’

  ‘I don’t think you do want that really,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald affably. ‘You’re young, for heaven’s sake. You’ve got your whole life in front of you. Think of all the wine and women and song waiting for you in the years ahead. Give yourselves a chance, lads.’

  ‘The wine and the women and the song may appeal to people like you from the Big Houses,’ said Seamus. ‘We have a higher cause, the rights of the Irish people to their freedom, the rights of the Irish people to own the land of Ireland, the rights of the Irish people to govern themselves in their own way.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Johnny, ‘but you won’t be able to advance that cause very much if you’re in a wooden box. By the time you become a hero and a martyr in Ireland you don’t know about it, it’s too late, you’ve gone to join your ancestors in the cemetery up on the hill.’

  ‘What about the two of you?’ said Seamus. ‘Intelligent men, well educated, plenty of talent. And you’re Irish. Why do you run
around doing the bidding of those people in the Big Houses? Why are you trying to support the crumbling Protestant Ascendancy? For I tell you, I am certain that I will see it disappear in my lifetime. The struggle may be long, it may be bloody, or the whole pack of them may fall in like a pack of cards, but their day is passing. I’m sure of it. Why support all that if you’re Irish? Wolfe Tone rose above his Protestant heritage to advance the cause of liberty in Ireland. Charles Stewart Parnell was a bloody Protestant landlord in County Wicklow, for Christ’s sake, and he nearly brought us Home Rule. Why can’t you join the right side?’

  ‘Perhaps we’re too old,’ said Powerscourt, nodding at Johnny by his side on the sofa, ‘and perhaps you’re too young. I was brought up into one world, it may be passing now, I grant you, but it was the world my parents lived in. It was the only one I knew. You are growing up in a different world. Each fresh generation embraces a cause, certain with all the certainty of the young that their mission is just and all earlier missions misguided and wrong. As they grow older, that generation is surprised in its turn by the fact that their children espouse different causes, take up another mission. Their creed, their beliefs that they held so strongly in their youth are now ancient history. They’ve been washed away, like sandcastles on a beach. So it goes on, down the generations, like the rising and the setting of the sun or the passing of the seasons. I don’t apologize for my beliefs. I don’t condemn you for yours. All I would remind you is that you’re going to be better placed to advance them if you’re alive rather than if you’re dead.’

  Powerscourt suddenly realized that he had another problem. Pride, the pride of the young, the pride that would not let them lose face. He remembered himself as a young man, willing to argue on long after he had lost because he did not want to back down. He suspected it would be almost impossible for Seamus to agree to his requests. He would only show himself to be a leader without courage, a general who surrendered without a fight. He tried to find a way to ease his path but he couldn’t do it. There were no inducements he could think of offering.

  He tried all the same. ‘Perhaps you’d like to take a break from our conversation and confer with your colleagues elsewhere in the house? Give yourselves a bit of time to think? As long as you go on holding those two women, I think your position is very difficult. If you start a fight here and they are injured or killed you’re in a desperate state, Seamus, you really are.’

  It was Mick who replied. ‘Weasel words!’ he cried. ‘Time to think? You people have had centuries to think and you haven’t come up with anything better for Ireland than croquet on the lawn and hunting six days a week in the winter. You’re a bloody disgrace, the pair of you!’

  Seamus was boxed in. He could not, Powerscourt knew, give way now in face of the defiance of his friend. Powerscourt felt sick inside.

  ‘I have made my mind up,’ said Seamus finally with an air of slight reluctance as if he might have behaved differently on his own. ‘Thank you for coming. Your offer is rejected. One of my men will escort you to the front door. The truce will end half an hour from now.’

  This is not the best of times, Powerscourt said to himself, it is the worst of times. It is not the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness. Suddenly he remembered reading Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities at the age of fourteen, lying on the grass in the summer at Powerscourt House, oblivious to the noises of his sisters, and weeping uncontrollably at the end.

  ‘Perhaps I could make another proposal,’ he said firmly.

  ‘And what is that?’ replied Seamus.

  ‘Take no bloody notice,’ cried Mick, ‘it’ll just be another piece of Protestant trickery!’

  ‘My proposal, quite simply, is this. You let the two ladies go. They must have suffered enough by now. Johnny and I replace them as your hostages. You lose nothing. You still hold a couple of hostages of some value to the authorities here and in England.’

  ‘Just let me make sure I understand you, Lord Powerscourt, I find it hard to comprehend. We let the women go. You volunteer to replace them. Is that right?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said Seamus. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘This time I do need to talk to the others,’ said Seamus, ‘I think I may have to put it to the vote. Wait here. Don’t try anything stupid.’

  So, Powerscourt said to himself, their fate was to be decided by half a dozen twenty-year-olds, their heads probably filled with the nationalist rhetoric of the Christian Brothers and the wild songs of rebel Ireland. He took comfort in one thought. He did not think that these young men would have felt happy holding female hostages. They might have rejected orthodox religion or they might have not, but the Marian cult was probably stronger in Ireland than in any other country in Europe. They had been looking at statues of the Virgin Mary by the roadside, paintings of her on the walls of convent and schoolroom, huge representations with halo and sanctity on the altars of their churches, further icons no doubt displayed in their own homes since before they could walk. She was everywhere. Reverence for her was instilled into every generation. The young men would probably be relieved to be rid of the two women. Then he realized to his horror what else the Marian cult meant. Seamus and Mick would have fewer scruples killing men. Especially Protestant men.

  Johnny strolled over to the window and stared out at the lake. Powerscourt took a close interest in a stuffed badger standing to attention in another glass case. They did not speak. Suddenly Powerscourt remembered the system of hand signals they had learnt in India, a private language without words. With their backs to the door so they could not be observed, they ran through a bewildering variety of gestures involving hands and feet, fingers in a variety of combinations, slight movements of the feet. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. Their revision class was complete. Johnny tried to work out how many of the Major’s troopers he could see, hiding in the woods. Powerscourt wondered if indeed it was a far far better thing they were doing now than they had ever done, if it might be a far far better rest they were going to than they had ever known. Half an hour had gone now. Powerscourt found himself wondering how the Major would behave if their offer were accepted. He hoped he would be calm in making his plans and ruthless in carrying them out. Forty minutes. Powerscourt found himself thinking of Lady Lucy in her wide-brimmed hat out on Killary Harbour so very very long ago now. He wondered what she was doing. The door opened to reveal Seamus and the redhead who had opened the door.

  ‘Very well,’ said Seamus, ‘we accept your offer. We will exchange the two of you for the wife of Ormonde and her sister. Please listen carefully while I outline the other arrangements. When we have finished our conversation, you, Powerscourt, and my colleague here will go outside under another flag of truce and explain the position to your friends skulking in the bushes out there.

  ‘In half an hour the two ladies will be escorted out of the house to the top of the drive. What happens to them from then on is up to your companions. Half an hour after that four of my colleagues will leave and set out towards their homes. They are not to be arrested. I am sure they will be followed but it is an essential part of this bargain that they are allowed home to see their families. That great carriage that came here the other day is to be brought here. You and I and Mick and Mr Fitzgerald here are going on a journey in it. The coachman can drive us. Any attempt to intercept us, to attack the vehicle, to impede its progress in any way and you will both be shot. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Perfectly clear,’ said Powerscourt, ‘and I am grateful for your decision about the two women.’ Not quite so keen on the decision about the two of us, he said to himself, but he kept his counsel.

  ‘Could I ask you about one aspect of your proposal, which may be hard to sell to the people outside?’

  ‘You may.’

  ‘Your four colleagues who are to be allowed to go home in the first instance. Do you think the people outside
will feel able to permit that?’

  ‘I have two things to say to that, Lord Powerscourt,’ said the one called Seamus. ‘The first is that they were not involved in the actual kidnap in any way. Mick and I did all that. Those four joined us here to help look after the women. If you care to ask the women before they go how they have been treated, I am sure they will agree they have been well looked after. Only yesterday Ormonde’s wife was telling one of the lads that he must come and see them when all this is over. The two women have never seen either Mick or myself, not properly. We wore balaclavas when we seized them and we have kept out of sight here. So what would the charge be? Not kidnapping because they weren’t involved. Holding people against their will? They weren’t the ones making the decisions. Harsh treatment of poor women in captivity? Hardly likely when the women might testify in their defence. Indeed the two ladies have already said they would appear in court on behalf of the four young men if things turned out that way. And the second thing is quite simple. If the people out there don’t agree, then the whole deal is off. The women stay as our hostages. You two could go.’

  ‘That’s very clear,’ said Powerscourt with just a trace of bitterness in his voice. The redhead appeared again wrapping the tattered remains of what had once been a white shirt round a hurling stick The flag of truce was prepared. As Powerscourt and the young man stepped outside the front door, they could hear a faint rustling in the undergrowth ahead. A couple of crows flew past to explore the lake and the desolate hills beyond. The sun was shining. Major Arbuthnot-Leigh was wearing civilian clothes today, a tweed suit that might have seen stalking duty in the past and a hat that looked as though it could once have belonged to Davy Crockett. Powerscourt outlined the plans.

  ‘Not a particularly good hand, what?’ was the Major’s first reaction.

  ‘It could be worse,’ said Powerscourt. ‘All things considered, I think we should accept the offer.’