A Game of Sorrows

by Shona MacLean

  ‘That is a lie.’ Andrew Boyd’s low whisper cut into my mind. I turned to look at him. ‘Your grandfather would not permit half of that crew in this house. Murchadh O’Neill never set foot over the door in his life before.’

  ‘But I thought …’

  He held a finger to his lips. Maeve was in full flow. ‘We have known laughter here, and nights of triumph. But there has been weeping also, and tragedy. And tonight there will be weeping, for Richard FitzGarrett is dead.’ She meant to go on, but I could see that, for a moment, she could not, and I understood then what I would otherwise have doubted: Maeve O’Neill had loved her husband. She gathered her strength and continued. ‘The man who for fifty years shared my bed, my troubles and my joys is gone. He was the master of this house and the father of my children. He grieved with me over those children, both lost to Ireland, though for very different causes. He was the best of his race, that breed of Englishman who came here so many generations ago, to conquer our land, and could not. They stayed, and were conquered by it. He was as Irish as he was English. He spoke our tongue, gave due honour to our ways, and died in the true faith. He fathered an Irish hero in our son, and will be grandfather, God willing, to many more.’ She held high the glass in her hand, the candlelight dancing in its ruby wine. ‘Drink with me to Richard FitzGarrett, my husband. Father of Phelim, grandfather of Sean, the last of his race.’ As the company loudly proclaimed my grandfather’s name, I drained my cup to its depths.

  Maeve’s was the first of many toasts made, as the musicians took up their playing once more and the company set to the food before them like hounds at a kill.

  It was not long until Andrew realised he would be needed below. ‘They will be needing more casks up from the cellars.’

  ‘But there are casks everywhere they can be fitted.’

  ‘Have you seen how much they are pouring down their throats? I tell you, Bacchus himself would not outlast some of those beneath you. What would kill many another man is to them but a taster for what is to come.’

  Unmarked by the players as he passed behind them, he went down amongst the company. He walked behind the tables rather than amongst them as the other servants did. But then, he was not quite a servant here. If not a servant though, what? He appeared to know little better than I what his place here really was. He spoke to a few of the merchants and aldermen at the lower end of the tables, but made no contact with Deirdre’s husband or his brother. Now and again, he would issue instructions to the other servants when he noticed something was required, but there was no ease in his bearing, and to the native Irish, Maeve’s relatives and their retainers, he spoke not at all, nor even approached the high table where the principal mourners sat.

  My gaze drifted to Deirdre, whose eyes were searching the room. It was evident that she was not looking for her husband. She was drinking little, but the point came when she had finished the wine in her glass. Murchadh O’Neill noticed and called for more to be brought. One of the kitchen boys stepped forward with a jug, but Murchadh shook his head and pointed at Andrew instead. ‘Him. Let him bring it.’

  Andrew flinched for a moment and I thought he would refuse, but he took the jug from the boy and walked slowly towards where Deirdre sat and began to pour. Murchadh seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in watching the act, but Deirdre stared ahead of her, not acknowledging the man she must have known her entire life. I thought for a moment that Andrew would allow the wine to spill over the edge of the glass, but at the last moment he tilted the jug upwards and walked away. My cousin carefully lifted the glass to her mouth, her hand very steady, and only a trickle of the ruby liquid overflowed the rim and dropped on to the white linen tablecloth below.

  The harper was playing now, and conversations in the hall gradually came to their end as all around turned to listen to the melancholy notes issuing from his strings. I closed my eyes and leant against the cold stone of the pillar. There was a grace in the music rising towards me that brought to my mind images of the seas and land separating me from all that I had understood of the world until a few weeks ago. What was Sarah doing now? The melody that insinuated itself into my mind was beckoning me, telling me this was the place now, that it was the other that was the dream. I caught sight of her, her hair blowing across her face, at the other side of the Irish Sea. She would not cross, I knew that; she would not exist here. I allowed the music to take me where it would.

  ‘You are a true Irishman indeed, cousin. But take care your snoring does not drown out the harper.’

  I came to with a start and was relieved to see Sean’s face looking down upon me. ‘How long have I been sleeping?’ I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I have been here two minutes, and you have been dead to the world all that time. And they say we are lazy.’

  I smiled sheepishly. ‘The music and the warmth and the wine overcame me. I had expected Andrew Boyd by now.’

  He squatted down beside me and sighed heavily. ‘Andrew will have taken himself off somewhere to seethe in private. Murchadh does not realise when he overreaches himself.’

  ‘What was that about?’

  He moved uneasily. ‘Ach, it is not worth talking about tonight.

  I will tell you sometime, when you know him better.’

  I indicated Deirdre’s husband. ‘Your brother-in-law seems ill-at-ease.’

  He snorted. ‘As well he might, in this company.’

  ‘Cormac O’Neill seems much taken with Deirdre.’

  ‘She is like an illness he cannot shake off. I fear for him because of it.’

  ‘And his sister?’

  ‘Roisin?’ He looked away from me. ‘She too has placed her heart where it does not find a welcome, and in one much less worthy.’

  ‘She is very beautiful.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘She is very beautiful.’

  ‘But that is not enough?’

  ‘No, I do not think it is. I would to God that it was.’ He would tell me about it when he was ready to. For now there was sadness enough between us. Andrew returned with more food and drink for me, the two nodded briefly to one another, and Sean took his leave.

  The harper came to the end of his final air, and was hugely lauded. As the tumult died down, Murchadh O’Neill rose to his feet and addressed the company. ‘Drink to the harpers,’ he said. ‘And to the poets, and the lawmakers, for Ireland has no heroes any more. Drink to Richard FitzGarrett, the last of his kind, as different from these new English who have come to wrest our lands and ways from us as the stag is from the stoat.’ Some of the traders and merchants at the lower tables began to murmur amongst themselves and to shift uncomfortably on their benches. Murchadh afforded them little notice. ‘Richard FitzGarrett has gone, and there is no place for his sort of honour in Ireland. There can be no accommodation now for his race or mine with the godless heretic interloper who would rape our land. His passing is the passing of the time of compromise. We have been butchered, starved, harried and robbed, and our time is coming. The day is not long when we will make a new Ireland out of the ashes of the old.’

  A pallor had descended on the faces of many of the guests, and principally the English, for what in Murchadh’s mouth was a rallying call to the Irish was in their ears nothing less than sedition. Henry Blackstone stood up. His brother tried to pull him down, but the younger man struggled free, knocking over a tankard of ale as he did so.

  ‘Do you think we have come here to listen to this, you old Irish goat? Your poets and your harpers are gone, and your days are gone too, you and all your kind.’

  All along the principal table, and at the upper ends of the side tables, hands went to hilts. There was a dead silence. Andrew Boyd whispered to me, ‘At a word from Murchadh, they will slit his throat.’

  Edward Blackstone made another attempt to pull his brother down. ‘Henry, you make a fool …’

  ‘No, Edward, you are the fool. Do you allow yourself to be treated like this by your own wife? Having your family and your na
tion insulted in this way? Consigned to the lowest tables like an inconvenient stranger? Your wife’s lover flaunted in your face …’ Half-a-dozen Irishmen leapt from their seats; Sean was only kept in his by the firm hand of Eachan, who had rarely left his side all evening.

  Edward Blackstone let go his brother’s arm: he looked utterly defeated. He pushed his plate away and got to his feet. He ignored his brother now, and looked past him to Deirdre. ‘Well?’ he said to her.

  ‘It is not the place …’ she began.

  ‘No. It is not. And I will not stay here.’ He took his brother by the arm and began to walk from the hall. As he came to the stair head, he turned again to his wife. ‘Well? Do you come with me?’

  She had not moved. ‘My grandfather…’

  ‘Your grandfather be damned,’ he snapped. ‘You are my wife. I return to Coleraine two days from tomorrow; you will come with me then or not at all.’ Without waiting for her reply, he left.

  All eyes were on my cousin. Her long, loose hair glinted brilliantly like the red leaves of autumn in the candlelight. Her composure had not faltered, but I could see that she breathed deeply, and that her fingers gripped hard to the goblet in her hand. Cormac O’Neill stared long after my cousin’s husband, and I would not have slept easy in my bed had I been Edward Blackstone that night. Further down the table, Sean’s face was like thunder, and I noticed Eachan’s hand still pressed hard on his shoulder. At the centre of the table, Maeve had never wavered, and only a slight smile at the corner of her lips betrayed what she felt. She lifted high the glass in her right hand, and again her steward filled it.

  The players had their pipes and bows flying in a jig within minutes. The tension was broken, and soon all around the hall there was movement, music, the clamour of talk between old friends and the exchange of wary or defiant glances between old foes. Andrew Boyd had told me the names of as many of the mourners as he knew, and I had tried in my head to match them to Sean’s stories of rivalries and feuds between families and neighbours. Everywhere was brilliant light and warmth, yet when I looked at Roisin O’Neill I saw she sat alone, unreachable in her stillness and silence. I wondered what it was in her that my cousin had no interest in knowing.

  ‘What did Henry Blackstone mean,’ I said, ‘when he spoke to his brother about his wife’s lover?’

  There was no response from Andrew Boyd and for a moment I thought he had not heard my necessarily low whisper. I repeated my question. ‘Who did he mean by Deirdre’s lover? Is it Cormac?’ Murchadh’s oldest son was tall, striking, with a strange beauty to him that might dazzle man or woman.

  Andrew Boyd followed the direction of my gaze. ‘Your cousin has no lover,’ he said, in a tone that suggested that should be the end of the matter, but there was more I wanted to know.

  ‘Even so…’

  He turned exasperated eyes on me and waited.

  ‘Even if that is so,’ I continued, ‘could no one have stopped her throwing herself away on Edward Blackstone? She clearly does not like him, still less love him.’

  He looked away from me, his voice hardened. ‘I am not made privy to such matters.’ And in that moment, I heard the answer to all the questions I might yet ask: it was not Cormac O’Neill who had been Deirdre’s lover.

  I could say nothing, but after a moment something in him relented. ‘Maeve tried, of course. You know that already. But she was not dissuaded. She did it to defy your grandmother, to throw off her Gaelic roots and to find herself a place in this new Ulster.’

  The woman I was looking at was an Irishwoman in every part of her being. ‘I think she is wasted with him.’

  ‘A pearl before swine,’ he murmured, and then he looked at me, a light in his eyes that I had never seen there before. ‘She told me once that she wanted to escape, as your mother had done. But I think your father was a better man than Edward Blackstone, and that your mother chose a better path. Deirdre would have done well to have fallen in with Maeve’s plan that she marry Cormac.’

  When I looked again at the man she had refused, and thought of him she had chosen, I realised that my cousin’s abhorrence of our grandmother’s world must be great indeed.

  As Andrew was showing himself more inclined to conversation than he had ever done before, I thought I would try my luck a little further. ‘Why will Sean not defy Maeve in the same way? It is evident that he does not love Roisin O’Neill.’

  He squatted down on his haunches and regarded me as one would an inquisitive child.

  ‘You really do not understand these people yet, do you? But Sean does, for all his careless manner, he knows what is expected of him. Roisin is an O’Neill, and her father, by conforming to English law, has held on to some of the old O’Neill lands. With your grandfather’s money now coming to Sean, and trading on the FitzGarretts’ good standing with the English administration, they will buy into more lands. Sean will take his FitzGarrett name and his FitzGarrett money and dazzle the English with them. He will be given some of the old O’Neill lands in return, he will promise to nurture his tenants in loyalty to the Crown. The English will think themselves well served in this bargain.’

  ‘And will they be?’ He did not answer me at first. I persisted. ‘Will they be well served?’

  He considered a moment and spoke slowly. ‘About as well served as a coop of chickens by a starving fox.’

  I looked at Murchadh O’Neill and his sons. They might have kept their peace and kept their lands for twenty years, but everything in their bearing, their appearance and their speech told they were Irishmen, through and through. As Roisin’s brother called to the players for a livelier air, I suspected they would not dance to the English tune much longer.

  Andrew got up. ‘I am needed downstairs,’ he said. ‘You should forget what we have spoken about tonight. And take care you do not move into the light; I thought I saw you once.’

  As he was going down the steps from the gallery, I heard a shout from somewhere outside. Few in the hall appeared to notice it. After a moment it came again, and then a third time. Andrew had heard it too, and started towards the ground floor, taking the steps two at a time. It was a few minutes before he returned, his face set and determined. He went directly to Sean, whose expression darkened as he listened. Then they went to Maeve. Whatever message they brought had only a slight effect on my grandmother’s countenance, the briefest flicker of something – fear, surprise – then a deepening of its habitual resolution. She said a brief word to Andrew and took up her seat once more at the centre of the table. He hesitated a moment, but it was clear that Maeve was not going to give her order twice, and he went to do her bidding. After standing a moment in a kind of shock, Sean began to speak urgently to her. Maeve rewarded him with a few words only and continued to gaze straight ahead, a picture of composure. With a great reluctance, Sean took up his seat beside her once more. Both now watched the head of the stairs, waiting.

  I too turned my eyes towards the stair head, wishing Andrew Boyd was still by me to tell me who the new arrival was. The man he led into the hall was like no one I had ever seen; he was a figure from an earlier age, from the age of the heroes. His garments were long, his mantle reaching almost to the floor; his tunic was gathered at the waist by a strong belt with silver buckle, and ended just above the knee, its sleeves wide and long, and bordered with threads of blue and gold. His long silver hair hung loose. His beard, like his eyebrows, was not silver, but dark, and his skin was that of a man not yet thirty-five. A silver bangle was at his wrist, and in his hand he held a long staff, tipped with a carved head. The room fell to complete silence as he walked to the head of it and came to rest in front of Maeve, who stood up and bowed her head slightly towards him.

  ‘You do honour to this house and to my husband’s name. Be welcome as an honoured guest.’ She indicated the seat to her right, which Sean at once vacated. No one in the room moved until the stranger sat down and was given wine. I could see, but not hear, much low whispering taking place amongst individual
s and small groups. Food was brought to the newcomer – he was not left to help himself from the platters on the table as everyone else – even Maeve and Murchadh – had been. Sean stood behind our grandmother, never taking his eyes off the newcomer. The harper was called back to his instrument, and gentle airs soon began to rise from his strings, a contrast with the lively jig that had been taken up only a few moments ago and that had been so suddenly stilled. The stranger ate and drank his fill as muted conversations rose and died around the room. No one at the upper table spoke, but all watched or cast glances they thought unseen at the newcomer. Maeve had lost none of her composure, but Deirdre was pale, as pale as death. There was not one of the O’Neill men in the room who did not have his hand on the hilt of his dagger. I felt my own breathing come deeper and harder, for in this place there was a reckoning coming, and it would be soon.

  At last the stranger stopped eating and had had his fill of wine. He closed his eyes, pressed clenched fists to the table and took a deep breath before standing up. The harper fell silent and even the movement of the servants in the hall stopped. It was only when he began to speak that I realised at last who he was: Finn O’Rahilly, the poet who had placed my family under the curse that had brought me here. My grandmother’s resolve was more than I would have believed even her to be capable of: she showed no trace of fear, but I could only guess at what turmoil the sight again of this man must have caused her. His words rolled through the house like a quiet thunder.

  Hearken to me, you band of the O’Neill;

  Hearken to me and hear your fate,

  You who have betrayed Ireland and now think to enjoy her favour,

  The hour is fast approaching.

  It has come to pass, Maeve O’Neill, as it was foretold:

  The Englishman is dead; do not pretend ignorance at the cause.