by Clio Gray
The body on the bier was hugely swollen – enough to burst several buttons on the coat and the shirt below it, and Golo had never been like that. His skin had never had that ghastly green translucence like holding up a bone china cup to the sun. Certainly the clothes looked like Golo’s, but what did Ruan know? He’d hardly seen Golo those last few days on the boat, happy to let that little tic of a boy see to his needs. Maybe Golo had dug out something new to wear. Lord knew, everyone else was stinking with the voyage and Golo was very particular about keeping clean. He used to swim in the loch every morning for a few minutes until he got bronchitis a few years back and Fergus forced him to stop. Yes, Ruan thought. That must be it. It looked a bit like Golo, that body, but it surely wasn’t. Golo wouldn’t just leave him. Golo wouldn’t do that. Ruan couldn’t be left marooned here with nothing and no one. It just wasn’t possible.
He released his grip slightly on the stone seat, convinced that he’d truly been mistaken. All he needed to do was stand up and go back inside the chapel and tell everyone he’d made a mistake and that would be that. He’d stay on a little longer here at the Servants and then Golo would suddenly appear. He’d maybe have a beard and his clothes would probably be ragged from being in the water. Ruan would make a joke about how unkempt he looked, and then they’d laugh about how ridiculously frightened Ruan had been – not that Ruan would admit to it, not to Golo’s face. But Golo would know it anyway, because Golo knew him inside out and back to front, like one of his precious books from which he could recite every page without even having to look at it.
That was how it would go, Ruan decided, and at last he moved a hand up and brushed the hair away from his eyes, only to spot the black cloud of George Gwilt bearing down upon him, holding a tray in both hands piled high with the clothes and belongings of the dead man in the chapel. Whoever he was.
‘Brother Joachim asked me to give these to you,’ George said, standing awkwardly by the young man on the bench who looked like he’d been drained of blood, his thick black hair accentuating the fragile features of his face. Ruan looked up and smiled, which was so unexpected that George’s mouth, which had been dry and scratchy, suddenly flooded with saliva, because he knew what was coming next, the lad’s expression clear to see.
‘You can take them straight back,’ Ruan said. ‘I was just about to come and tell you. That’s not Golo in there. I made a mistake. I’ve been sitting here thinking about it, and I’m certain I’ve made a mistake.’
George understood all too well the nature of grief and what it does to a person. Grief is its own new world, a strange place that had you believing the opposite of what was true. It made you see mountains where there were none or, conversely, and like Ruan was believing now, that there were no mountains at all. All he had to do was blink and he would wake up and the world would be exactly as it had been before. George didn’t move. This was Brother Joachim’s territory. These were the Servants of the Sick, after all, who administered not only to the dead and dying but those they left behind. This was not George’s remit and he didn’t know what to do.
‘It isn’t Golo in there,’ Ruan repeated. ‘I just need to stay on a few more days and he’ll turn up. He must have got separated from everyone else. There’s still one raft unaccounted for. It must have got blown further down the coast, but they’ll know to send him here. Everyone comes here, so I’ve been told.’
George swayed slightly. He had the same disparity to his legs his youngest son had, though nowhere near so bad, but standing stationary too long was hard work, making his neck and back ache as his body was forced to lean to one side. And who knew? Maybe the lad was right. There was a raft unaccounted for, and there was the outside possibility it had been grounded towards the neck of the Peninsula, one side or the other. Even so, surely they’d have heard news of it by now.
His back was really aching, getting ready to spasm, and he had to take a step to one side. It made the tray tip, dislodging one of the cufflinks that was pushed over the edge and sent plinking onto the ground by Ruan’s feet. Ruan stared at it, then bent and picked it up, holding the small dab of gold between his fingertips, smile gone.
‘No!’ Ruan shouted, leaping to his feet and, in the same movement, striking the tray from George’s hands, all the while keeping that little tip of gold within his closing fist. ‘It’s not him, dammit!’
Ruan’s voice was hoarse and petulant, belief and disbelief fighting a battle he could not win. He stamped his foot. He bit his lip until it bled. He clenched his fists tight and then opened them up again, the small shine of falling gold caught by the sun, glinting like the malevolent yellow eye of a goat, the only animal George knew that had an iris shaped like a square, who could stare you down the length of a field, it was so unnatural.
‘It can’t be him,’ Ruan’s voice crumpled back, as did he, into the boy he no longer believed himself to be.
He collapsed onto his bench and all the air came out of him in a soft kind of howl, the sort of noise a bitch will make when she knows her pups are being taken away before their time. George was horrified. He had no words. He could do nothing except slowly bend down on one knee and start to gather the spillings from the tray.
‘Stop, I say,’ Ruan wanted to sound commanding, to hold back the tide.
His throat was strangled by his tears so the words didn’t come out right, came instead as a blur, a plea that George was desperate to obey, but could not. His knees creaked as he lowered himself further and carefully began picking up each garment. He folded them carefully, retrieving the girdle belt that had gone below the bench, the pendant, the ring, the scattered cufflinks, placing them gently to one side where they could easily be seen and recognised. He left the tray on the ground and made no further move to touch it. Using the bench he levered himself and his aching back and knees up again, and sat down next to Ruan Peat.
He’d been hoping that by now someone, anyone – preferably Brother Joachim – would have heard that howl of despair and come to aid this boy who so evidently needed their help, because wasn’t that what they did, these Servants of the Sick? But no one came. Joachim must have heard the boy’s cry but ignored it, his duty to the dead outriding his duty to the living, leaving the situation to George. He was as ill-equipped to deal with it as the time he’d had to tackle his uncle’s beehives when his uncle fell sick and no one else about to see to them but George.
‘Just use the candle to smoke them out,’ his uncle had advised. ‘Then you can lift the honeycombs and slip in the new slats without them noticing.’
George had done as he was told, lit up the candle and set it burning beneath the hive. Out had come the bees as they were supposed to do, and in he’d gone, nimbly lifting the lid and removing the combs, shoving them into his bucket; but apparently he’d not been quick enough because before he’d time to put the new slats in the bees came back. There was no smoke in the world that was going to keep them off the interloper and they covered him head to foot in a moment even as he took to his heels and ran all the while from the village to the sea, the only place he could think to go, them being on him and stinging him and getting into his mouth and ears and up his nose.
It was a miracle he survived at all, saved only by the salt, coming out with a face like a cauliflower and hands that wouldn’t function properly for almost three weeks. Sea and salt and bees. He’d been fond of none of them since, but would have taken his chances with any of them over what he had to do now.
‘God knows, I wish it was otherwise,’ George said quietly, ‘but I think you know it’s him.’
Only stillness at his side, only this boy Ruan Peat, so suddenly deprived of everything he thought he could depend on. There was a gasping noise from the boy as he leant down and picked up the large gold ring that had been on the finger of the dead man in the chapel which, thank the Lord and his own good sense, George hadn’t taken when he’d had the chance. Ruan cradled the ring in his hand. Evidence he could neither ignore nor deny. He leant over an
d placed his head on George Gwilt’s shoulder and wept like the child he was. No rage anymore for the world that had done him wrong, only this silent weeping that broke George’s heart, the tears soaking right through his thin coat and even thinner shirt so that he could feel their warmth upon his skin.
‘It’s alright, lad, it’s alright,’ George said, knowing full well that it wasn’t.
But the boy had the ring, the cufflinks and the pendant. The rest of his belongings might be at the bottom of the sea, but the jewellery he could pawn or use as leverage to get himself back home. And the Servants wouldn’t abandon him. They’d look after him. That was what they did. George could have taken the boy home with him, but the moment he thought of it he disregarded the idea. Nothing there but a cold and empty cottage; no fire struck up since yesterday because George had been down on the sands raking in the weeds for the past few days. And no food. Or nothing like what Ruan would have been used to.
George twitched. Not enough to dislodge the weeping boy, but he twitched all the same because he’d not told Ruan the worst of the news, the details of how Golo had – or had most likely – died. George wondered if he should just walk away and leave the job to someone else. But no. That was not a road he chose to take. He’d started with dishonesty with the cufflink and meant to finish in the opposite way. George gently lifted Ruan’s head from his shoulder, holding his chin in one hand, brushing that thick black hair away from his swollen cheeks with the other.
‘There’s more, I’m afraid, lad,’ George said. ‘But let’s go back inside to Brother Joachim and we’ll tell you all.’
11
ARRIVAL AND ARREST
DUBLIN, IRELAND 1798
The Finnerty Printworks was exactly where it had been in Fergus’s day, on the corner of Stoneybatter and Arbour Hill. It looked as he remembered, although its stonework exterior was smoke-blackened and pitted, no doubt because a blacksmith’s had opened up just down the road where previously – if he remembered rightly – there’d been a glove-maker’s shop. The outside glass of the windows was covered with a thin film of dusty grime but the door was as it had been, standing open a few inches to let out the stench of the fixing agents used to stabilize the ink.
He could hear the presses working within, the rhythmic thump he’d always found so comforting. He didn’t bother knocking, knowing no one would hear him if he did, and instead pushed the door wide open and stepped inside. Two people were standing by the presses, talking animatedly – a young girl, with hair the colour of bright red sandstone, who was thrusting a piece of paper at a man who absolutely had to be Jerome’s son, Peter. He had the same features as his father, the slightly squashed nose, the wide forehead, but patently not the affliction of the long toes because he was wearing ordinary sized shoes.
‘Hello?’ Fergus asked into the noisy interior.
Neither of them heard him but went on talking just the same, the man he took to be Peter Finnerty waving his right arm to indicate the presses, the girl shaking her head violently, patently telling Peter something he didn’t want to hear. She turned suddenly and pointed at the door and then did a double-take to see Fergus standing there. She immediately grabbed at Peter’s elbow, trying to push him away from the presses, throwing herself bodily against him in order to get him to shift his ground. But Peter did not go. Instead he took the girl’s shoulders in his hands and gently pushed her away from him, gazing now directly at Fergus with such a look of defiance that Fergus stopped short.
‘You’re too late!’ Peter shouted above the din of the presses. ‘The news is already out and soon everyone will know that William Orr is innocent and should never have been condemned to hang!’
Fergus was too startled to move, but he held up his hands in a gesture of submission.
‘My name is Fergus Murtagh,’ he spoke loud and clear, hoping he would be heard, or that at least the man could read some of the words upon his lips. ‘A friend of your father’s.’
Peter Finnerty let the girl go and immediately put out a hand and pulled a lever to pause the presses. The wood groaned as it ground to a stop and then Peter was moving quickly across the room and taking Fergus’s hand within his own.
‘My God! My God! It’s really you! It’s Fergus Murtagh,’ Peter said. ‘But by God I recognise you. You used to work for my father when I was a bairn.’
Peter’s face cracked open in a wide smile that was as welcoming as it was unexpected and Fergus returned the fervent handshake, happy to reciprocate.
‘You weren’t exactly a bairn, Peter,’ he said, ‘only a few years younger than me.’
‘Oh indeed, indeed,’ Peter said, ‘but those few years made all the difference.’
The red-haired girl was looking daggers at Fergus, her face puckered in consternation and evident worry.
‘But you have to go, Peter,’ she said, casting a dark look at Fergus. ‘I’ve already told you. They might be on their way right now. They could be here any minute. Seditious libel, they’re saying, and that’s going to mean gaol.’
‘Wheesht child,’ Peter said warmly. ‘It’s going to take at least another couple of hours. I’ve only just put the first of the news run out, so how are they going to get here so soon?’
The girl thrust out her hand again, flapping the piece of paper she was holding.
‘But it’s here, Peter. It’s all here. They’ve been waiting for the chance of it, just like Father Kearns said they would, and…’
‘Greta, enough. We can spare a few minutes for our guest here, and then I promise you I’ll be out of that door and away over the hills before you can spit.’
The girl did not look happy but she subsided for the moment, and Peter led Fergus past the now quietened printing presses into a small room beyond. Inside, there were a couple of chairs ranged around a large table that was scattered over with pieces of paper that looked to Fergus to have no order at all.
‘Why don’t you go outside, Greta,’ Peter said, as he motioned Fergus to sit down. ‘Keep a lookout. If you see any soldiers coming then let me know. And now,’ he continued, speaking directly to Fergus, ‘tell me why you’re here. You sound like a Scotsman, dammit! Whatever happened after your father was exiled? Dad ran several pieces on him and his case, but I’m afraid we never got enough support to bring him back.’
Fergus subsided into his allocated chair, flabbergasted at this last information. His father had committed career suicide when he began taking on cases that pitted Irish against English, digging out documents to support land claims going back hundreds of years, some long before Oliver Cromwell came over with his parliamentary army to exterminate dissent against foreign rule. He’d no idea anyone had tried to get his father’s sentence of exile quashed so he could come back home, sure his father had never known it either and that saddened him greatly, making it difficult for him to know where to start.
‘Thank you,’ was all he said, casting his eyes over the papers strewn about the desk, picking out several oft repeated words and phrases: United Irish, Revolution, against the English, unsupported accusations…
‘So you’re back?’ Peter began easily, apparently unable to allow a silence to grow now the background noise of the presses was in abeyance.
‘I’m back for a reason,’ Fergus said, a little hesitantly.
The talk of approaching soldiers and seditious libel alarmed him but Peter seemed relaxed enough and so Fergus took a chance.
‘I’m back because I need your help, Peter,’ Fergus went on. ‘I know it seems an odd request, and we’d no idea what I’d be facing when I got here, but I need to get to Wexford…’
Peter let out a breath.
‘That’ll not be easy. Don’t you realise the entire country is practically under siege?’
Fergus shook his head. ‘We only knew what we could glean from the papers, and that hasn’t been much.’
‘It wouldn’t be,’ Peter replied hotly. ‘The English don’t want it known what they’re doing, the crimes they’re
perpetrating to keep us under their heel. We’ve one great name on our side though, and someone you’ll no doubt remember. Recall that young ragamuffin you used to run with on your street? The one your father got interested in the law?’
Fergus thought for a moment and then widened his eyes in surprise.
‘You don’t mean Wolfe Tone?’
Peter smiled. ‘I do indeed. He went on to great things. Called to the bar in ‘89 and wrote several rather inflammatory pamphlets on behalf of the Catholic cause. You may not know it but he was in right at the start of the United Irish. Had to leave in ‘95 to avoid being strung up for treason.’
‘My God!’ Fergus said, astonished. ‘What happened to him? Where is he now?’
Peter tapped his fingers on the table.
‘Still fighting for the cause. Went to America and then to Paris where he was welcomed with open arms. He’s rallying troops right now in France to invade Ireland on our behalf, and has even started an Irish Legion to take in all the exiles who’ve had to flee from our shores if they want to keep on breathing. We’ve kept in touch, him and me, as you obviously haven’t.’
Fergus shook his head. ‘No chance of that,’ he said. ‘We went over to Scotland, ended up in one of the remotest corners of that country, and I’ve been there ever since.’
Peter narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table in such exact imitation of his father that Fergus could almost see Jerome sitting there in place of his son. Time to lay his cards on the table, and the fact that Peter was still in touch with Wolfe Tone was stirring up the beginnings of a great idea in him. Like Golo said, information and knowledge always the key.
