Seek the Fair Land Page 15

  ‘In trust for his three sons who have fled,’ said Murdoc.

  ‘If you want to be the chief, in fact, you can,’ said Coote, ‘if you will acknowledge the Crown. I beg your pardon, I mean the Parliament. Are you willing to do this, publicly?’

  ‘I might,’ said Murdoc.

  ‘You have no choice,’ said Coote. ‘If you don’t I will wipe you out. I may seem a weak man to you in this situation, but I’m not weak. I can do what I want to do.’

  ‘Tell me, Coote,’ Murdoc asked, ‘about the girl? Have you no pity in you at all?’

  ‘Pity,’ said Coote, ‘is like a small hole in a dam holding back a great body of water. Unless it is plugged the whole collapses. No. I have no pity. You know, I like you, O’Flaherty. I think we could be friends.’

  Murdoc laughed. He spoke a verse in Irish. ‘What does that mean?’ Coote asked.

  Murdoc said:

  ‘‘With one of the English race, no friendship make.

  Shouldst thou, destruction will thee overtake.

  He’ll lie in wait to ruin thee when he can;

  Such is the friendship of an Englishman.’’

  ‘Is that true, Coote?’

  ‘Isn’t it only time will tell?’ Coote asked.

  Murdoc looked closely at him.

  ‘A lot of our feathers are the same,’ he said. ‘We will talk,’

  ‘Our talk will be good,’ Coote said, ‘but first we will walk. Alone.’

  He strode towards the door. The guard-room was crowded. They made way for him. Percy, about to attach himself again like a tick on the body of a dog, went to follow.

  ‘No, Percy,’ said Coote. ‘You will look after good Tom and that other young man, young Mister Browne. See that they are inconvenienced.’

  ‘That has already been seen to, sir,’ said Percy, smirking.

  He walked into the sunlight. Murdoc’s men were on the other side of the street. They were watching.

  ‘Stay there!’ Murdoc ordered them loudly in Irish, ‘I walk with the black dog for a little. I will be back.’

  Then he matched step with Coote as they walked towards the Great Gate Tower.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THEY WALKED along the crowded street, and through the Great Tower and into the fortifications, and over the drawbridge into the Green.

  Where they went they brought silence, except for the clash of arms from the soldiers, who stood rigidly until they passed. Murdoc noticed the blank look that came over the faces of the people. He knew what were the feelings behind that blankness. He watched the unconcerned features of the Lord President. They came onto the Green. It had once been a fair place where the gentlemen disported themselves at jousting, the bowls and the archery butts, under the glances of the ladies in silk and satin. It had been a gay place in Murdoc’s memory when he was young and had travelled to the town with his father, and when, even then, they had been forced to sleep outside the walls in the Bull Inn near the Great Gate.

  Now the Green was nothing. In wet days the grass had been turned into yellow mud by the horses of the soldiers. They were still bivouacking there, and it looked dirty and smelled dirty. The Bull Inn was just walls blackened from the fire that had destroyed it. The New Market-place was crowded, but a great hush descended on it as they walked by, a great silence, and they turned their steps to climb the hill of the King’s Way, the Bohermor. Here were the south suburbs, lines of houses on each side of the wide road, most of them thatched and most of them wanting roofs or walls since the siege. Each side was crowded with people, who silently watched them pass.

  Coote was wiping moisture from his bulging forehead, but it wasn’t the sweat of fear.

  ‘You are not afraid to walk among the people?’ Murdoc asked. He was wondering why. Was Coote trying to show him what a brave man he was?

  ‘No,’ said Coote, putting a handkerchief to his nose to spare it from the smells that were rising from all around them.

  ‘What is to prevent one of those people burying a scian in you?’ Murdoc asked. ‘ Does that upset you?’

  ‘No,’ said Coote. They are a spineless people. If one of them did acquire the courage, I would die happy thinking of what my soldiers would do to them, to all of them. It would be a very famous massacre.’

  Murdoc looked at him. He almost believed him.

  Then they stood under the gallows.

  They were doubled now, Murdoc saw. One on each side. There were clients occupying both.

  ‘You have added to the amenities of the suburbs,’ he said.

  Coote turned to the one on the left.

  ‘I want you to meet your uncle,’ he said.

  Murdoc knew he was looking at him; knew now the reason for the walk. He kept his features unmoving as he looked at the hanging man.

  He could hardly be distinguished as a man, just a skeleton with tattered weathered clothes which had once been good.

  This is your uncle. Colonel Edmond,’ said Coote. ‘He was a murderer. He assaulted the castle of Tromragh in Clare and killed the owner, a good Christian, Mister Peter Ward. He met his just deserts at the desire of the people.’

  ‘He didn’t kill anyone,’ said Murdoc, still looking up.

  ‘His followers did,’ said Coote.

  ‘If one were to be hanged for the deeds of followers,’ said Murdoc, ‘there wouldn’t be enough gallows in the world to hang you all. No, Coote. He hanged because he was on the losing side. But for the grace of Cromwell’s God, you would be there, not he.’

  ‘Any man in this province can end up there,’ said Coote.

  ‘I understand the lesson.’ said Murdoc, looking at him, wondering what patience was given to him not to take this man in front of him and tear him apart with his bare hands, pull off his head and his limbs and throw them to the four corners of the world. Tell me something. For the last ten years you have been responsible for the deaths of more people than any man alive apart from your master. How does it feel, Coote?’

  ‘Let us return,’ said Coote.

  They retraced their steps. Murdoc found that his mouth was dry. He gathered spittle on his tongue and spat it on the dust.

  ‘I am an obedient servant,’ said Coote. ‘And when you talk of people, to you they may be people, but not to me. To me they are an uncivilized race of brutes. If you move into a jungle to bring it to order, to reduce it to cultivation so that it will bring forth fruit instead of weeds, you must first destroy the animals, the wild beasts of the forest. In your heart you must know as well as I that most of them are better off dead. What have they to give to life? What have they to give to civilization? They talk with the tongue of monkeys and act like apes. If they refuse to be tamed, to be cultivated, it is necessary to kill them and train their young.’

  ‘Do you really believe this?’ Murdoc asked.

  Coote stopped and looked at him.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘ In years to come it will be seen how right I am. Cruelty is essential for the advance of civilization. You must do what is to be done and you must do it unflinchingly.’

  Murdoc looked at the pale yellow eyes. They were serious.

  There are no chinks at all in you,’ said Murdoc.

  ‘Some day, where these gallows now stand,’ said Coote, the descendants of this same people will erect a monument to my memory. Coote of Connacht will be remembered for ever.’

  ‘I have only one wish for you,’ said Murdoc.

  ‘Yes?’ Coote inquired.

  ‘How long is a moment?’ Murdoc asked. ‘A moment can last for a long time, almost the length of eternity. When you come to die, Coote, I wish you a long moment so that all the dead beasts can rise up and pass before your eyes, every one of them.’

  ‘I will die easy,’ said Coote. ‘I will die in the bosom of the Lord. I have that assurance from the pen of the Lord Protector himself.’ He spoke sardonically. He walked on. His hands were clasped behind his back.

  ‘So you have possessed yourself of the lands of Edmond in Rinnmhil,�
� he said. ‘I will assure you of them, but I warn you that they can be taken away again in the same way as they were given. I want a loyal man there. I need a loyal man there.’

  ‘They may be taken away again, man,’ said Murdoc. ‘ That is true, but they can only be taken away again at great expense. I’m telling you that so that you will know.’

  They walked past the market and into the fortifications and through the bridge and down the Great Gate Street, and Murdoc was thinking: The only weakness he has is that fear of death, and Coote was thinking: His weakness is possession. From what he had heard of Murdoc, he knew that he had never had anything much. Now he would have something. It would be interesting to find out how far he would go, or the things he would do, in order to hold on to it.

  He stopped in front of the castle. He held out his white hand.

  Murdoc looked at it. He was conscious of the men of his band behind him watching, of the people who walked the streets standing still and watching. Murdoc took the moist flabby white hand in his own for a moment. Oddly, Coote’s eyes were anxious. That’s because, Murdoc thought, he has no friend, he never had a friend, he never will have a friend; and because he was Irish and soft, he felt a momentary pang of pity for this powerful man, a great soldier, a pitilessly efficient administrator, enriched beyond all knowledge by his depredations, a man without mercy or honour, confident, sure, despising the weaknesses of the human beings who came within his orbit; and as their hands touched, the brown, hard, heavily muscled hand of the soldier and the white moist hand of the baronet, for a moment each mind was shocked with a fleeting vision. Our destinies are bound. As if this had happened before somewhere in the past, or maybe in the future, for good or bad that they were bound, a tingle of subconscious knowledge that made them widen their eyes and look closely at one another, and that for a moment made Murdoc’s breath come fast.

  Then their hands dropped and it was gone, whatever it was.

  Coote said: ‘You and your men may walk the streets and drink in the taverns until nightfall. I would remind you that there is still a byelaw which says no O or Mac may strut or swagger in the streets of Galway. So now I suspend the byelaw. If you discomfort the citizens, that is their luck. At nightfall your men will leave the town and go outside the walls. You will come to a banquet with the gentlemen of the town who hate you and your name and everything you stand for. They will welcome you. Tomorrow morning you will swear fealty. And another thing. You will keep away from young Mrs Walter Dorsi. You understand that. Her punishment is only suspended.’

  He turned and walked into the door of the castle.

  Murdoc looked after him.

  Who won? he wondered. He hoped it was himself but he was beginning to doubt it. All the same, the whole game was not out of his hands yet.

  He walked to his men.

  ‘Morogh Dubh,’ he addressed the dark one who had taken the girl away. ‘What of the girl?’

  ‘She is brave,’ said Morogh Dubh, ‘but what chance is there for her? He will get his hands on her again.’

  ‘Has she no suggestions?’ Murdoc asked.

  ‘She said that there is a place underground from her house that leads to the churchyard,’ said Morogh.

  ‘A clever girl too,’ said Murdoc. ‘When it is dark go back to her. In the meantime, go out of the little gate and to the Wood Quay. Ask for a man named Davie O’Fowda. He is the master of the boatmen. Tell him O’Flaherty will want a boat at nightfall.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Morogh.

  ‘Listen, the rest of you,’ said Murdoc. There is a relative of ours swinging outside on the gallows. At nightfall you must leave the town. You will take down our relative and find a priest and have him buried in holy ground. Now we will go and drink and plan.’

  They mounted their little horses and under the sour gaze of the citizens they clattered down Skinner’s Street.

  Tom was glum.

  Dominick mostly took pleasure out of walking on the main street, passing the shops and smelling their trade from them, the chandler’s, and the baker’s, and the malthouse, and the tavern and the spice shop which brought you a whiff of strange and far-off foreign lands.

  Before they reached the market-place they turned down Shoemaker’s Lane into the Middle Street.

  ‘Why couldn’t we do that?’ asked Tom. ‘Aren’t we spineless people? It had to be that Irishman.’

  ‘You are Irish too,’ said Dominick.

  ‘Not like these wild ones,’ said Tom. ‘Didn’t he shame us, high and low alike?’

  ‘Why?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘If we did what he did.’

  ‘You would be dead,’ said Dominick.

  ‘Yes, but Coote would be dead too,’ said Tom.

  ‘If Coote was killed what would happen to the town?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘It would be swamped in a bath of blood,’ said Tom.

  ‘You know that, I know that and Coote knows that. That’s why he appears to be unafraid. The big fellow has the courage of recklessness. He could do it. Maybe it wasn’t so reckless. Maybe he is useful to Coote. Maybe he could do a thing like that knowing that he would get away with it. In these days, Tom, it’s the heroes who live and the cowards who die.’

  ‘All the same we should have done something real,’ said Tom. He sighed. ‘It might be better to be dead, anyhow, than to watch what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ said Dominick. There was a time when I didn’t mind, but not now. I like the feel of the hot sun on my face and the smell of fish and horses: and dust and sweat.’

  ‘All I smell is fear,’ said Tom, ‘ my own fear and the fear of people around me. Nothing will ever be the same again. There was courage here. For nine months we held out against them. Nine months, and all the time the frightened ones were sneaking away in ships, some this month and some the next month. That was a good time. All men were friends. All men were equal in their resolution. But after the betrayal and the surrender, then it changed. It was bad then. It’s not good now.’

  ‘It will be good again too,’ said Dominick.

  ‘Not in my time, boy, not in my time,’ said Tom.

  They cut across to Earl’s Street, passing the Fish Shambles, and Dominick was remembering Murdoc. How he would see him and walk up on him if he could and tap him on the shoulder and surprise him. He would have to search out Sebastian too and tell him, and Mary Ann, that Murdoc was in town, and if that was what they decided that there was hope for the future. Life had been kind enough to them since they came here. A golden coin slipped to the soldier checking their passes at the main gate had got twenty-four days stamped on it instead of twenty-four hours.

  They entered the tavern. Tom was grumbling. ‘ Fine doings,’ he was saying. ‘What am I going to do now? I won’t get free of it Coote never forgets.’

  ‘Have you got more brandy?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘I have seven kegs of it,’ said Tom, ‘but I’m damned if he’s going to lay a lip on a drip of it.’

  ‘It might be better to submit,’ said Dominick, who had recovered his wet clothes and was squeezing the last drop of water out of them.

  ‘I’d breach the casks and empty them into the privy first.’ said Tom, ‘every last drop of them. Then let him do what he will.’

  ‘No price is too high at the moment to pay for peace, Tom,’ said Dominick, ‘Pay for your gesture, that is all you can do.’

  Tom was shifting casks, moving kegs, muttering away to himself, when they suddenly heard the clatter of feet outside, and the opening was darkened by the forms of three men, two of them soldiers, who came blinking in out of the sun-bathed street.

  Dominick recognized the man. His name was Marcus Lynch Fitzthomas. He was one of the two sheriffs. All men spat when he passed by. So far he was the only one who had really gone over. He had publicly made the Oath of Abjuration, discarding his religion, all he had believed in, for the moment of power. His reward was to become a sheriff, but watching him Dominick had thought
that the reward did not make up for the loss. He had seen him flinching at every spit, reacting to the soft name-calling coming from a group of men gathered at a street corner when he passed by. He was clean-shaven with brown hair that was going grey. He made nervous gestures with his hands and his body, and always his hand was on his sword, and his eyes had become redshot from looking over his shoulder.

  ‘Tarpy,’ he said in a high voice, that broke occasionally, ‘ you have offended the Lord President, and the Government of this country in his body. You have been ordered to produce six kegs of brandy as tribute. Where is it? Or do we have to search for it and find it out?’

  Tom was red-faced. He was tightly gripping the handle of the keg in his hand.

  ‘You dungpit!’ he said. ‘ You misbegotten son of a pig. You should never have been born. Submit to conquerors, all right, you filth, but to you born with a name that was good, until you smaddered it, you quaking perverted apostate!’ And he gathered a spit in his mouth and accurately threw it with his heavy lips into the face of the sheriff.

  Things happened very suddenly.

  One of the soldiers near the sheriff shouted, ‘ Here, you black devil!’ He drew his sword and moved towards the red-faced tavern-keeper.

  Dominick saw the spittle flowing down the face of the man, and the soldier drawing the sword, and then Tom’s hand that held the jar rising and falling and hitting the soldier a great and skull-shattering blow on the side of the head; but before he could move, the other soldier had drawn a pistol and fired, and the small place was filled with the smoke of gunpowder, and he saw the ball hitting the great expanse of Tom’s chest, moving the linen like a sudden swift breeze, and then he saw the quick spurt of scarlet starting to spread and he saw the great body about to fall, and it hadn’t reached the floor when his own hand had found the dagger in the belt of the soldier who had used the pistol, had drawn it and driven it deep with a cry of anger, and then he knew that he was standing in the smoke-filled room holding a stained dagger, looking across at the man who was wiping the spittle from his face with the side of his hand. They looked at one another and then the sheriff, his face white, his limbs quaking, turned and ran out and tried to call with a croaking voice, and couldn’t, and Dominick heard his steps running and running on the road, and he thought, Poor Tom, and then he thought of himself and of how little time he would have now, and that the problem of what he was going to do was finally solved for him, and he went over and got on his knee beside the great bulk of the tavern-keeper.