Seek the Fair Land Read online

  Dominick’s heart was beating madly.

  ‘You take it quietly,’ he said.

  ‘I am a soldier,’ said Rory. ‘I want to live, although there doesn’t seem to be any actual reason for living. But you can’t live on emotion. That will lead you into death very quickly. You are lucky to have your children. You have something to live for. So don’t get emotional. Where are you heading?’

  Dominick told him.

  ‘Stay there awhile,’ Rory said. ‘All the middle south is going to become a great graveyard. The soldiers have been promised the land. They are being issued with scythes and sickles. That will cause starvation, plague, and famine. After that go west.’

  ‘Another soldier told me that too,’ said Dominick.

  ‘You will have no alternative in the end,’ said Rory. ‘ God be with you. Don’t come any farther.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Dominick asked.

  ‘North, where I belong,’ Rory said. ‘We will fight there for some time to come. We can’t last, not unless we want to be wood soldiers all our lives. Maybe we will have to go away, like the wild geese, across the sea to other lands where they want good soldiers who will fight the English. You stay here. Fight for your children. They will inherit the land. If I had my children, I would dig a burrow in the earth, anything at all, so that they would be there.’

  ‘God be with you,’ said Rory.

  He looked at Dominick for a moment and then he was gone.

  Dominick looked after him.

  There is a good man, he thought, and he is strong because he has acceptance. He wondered if the fine hand of Father Sebastian was behind the way he had unburdened himself to Dominick. Dominick supposed it was, but he felt no resentment. He went back to his cares.

  When they were all packed up and himself and Father Sebastian were loaded with burdens and they were heading out of the woods in the red twilight of that October evening, he watched the two children walking ahead of them in the clearing and he said to Father Sebastian:

  ‘I’d better face it now. Father, I suppose. Pedro is dumb, isn’t he?’

  Father Sebastian didn’t answer for a moment.

  ‘But he has most expressive eyes, Dominick,’ he said. ‘And he has Man.’

  ‘And me,’ said Dominick.

  ‘And me,’ said Father Sebastian, and he thumped Dominick on the shoulder with his big hand.

  Chapter Nine

  THE SEAGULL, soaring high in the air, exercising himself from the cold waters of Loc Sileann, looked down from his great height.

  He could see the big loc shaping to a point at its south-west corner where rested three other lakes, the one in the centre carrying two smaller ones at each end of it so that the three together looked like a tail added to the bulk of Sileann, and making the whole resemble the ungainly shape of a prehistoric fish. The waters of the lakes glinted in the afternoon sun, and the land all around them was white from the fall of snow. In the curve of the fish’s tail there was a wooded valley. The valley itself had been raped of its timber, and even the fall of snow could barely hide the way the earth had been gouged and punished by the hauling of thereat logs of oak and pine. This narrow cleared valley was about twenty yards wide and if the seagull had any interest in human affairs he could have noticed the small dot that was a man foiling up the valley towards the height where the tree-cutting had ended.

  The seagull, if his eyes were keen enough, could have seen in the shelter of the woods, on the opposite side of this height, the other figure of a man who was quietly stealing from tree to tree in the wake of a thin goat, who moved and munched, moved and munched anything at all green that came his way, discarded branches of pine not yet turned yellow, or searching the ground under the oak where snow had not fallen thickly, to crunch the husks of the acorns that had been left by the wild pigs.

  The seagull could have warned, by a shrill cry, the man toiling up the valley, that at each side of him in the woods lean shapes were moving almost parallel to him, three on each side, brown shaggy-coated animals that looked like the great dogs that hunted them, but they weren’t dogs and they moved like shadows, soundlessly, and the man was not aware of them.

  The seagull may not have liked the look of them. He lifted a wing and coasted back to the blue waters of the lake.

  Dominick was on one knee behind a tree, and the arrow was set in the bow. He edged around the tree. He got the goat into his sight and aimed for his body behind the foreleg. The goat died, on his feet. His narrow mouth made two more crunches and then he just fell over.

  Dominick let out his breath and moved towards him. The snow was crisp under his long hide boots. He knelt beside the goat and felt him. He was warm to the touch and he smelt, and he was very thin. But he would do. He extracted the arrow and cleaned it in the snow. It stained the snow a very bright scarlet. The hair of the goat was long.

  He heard a sound carried to his ear from in front of him.

  He stiffened, listened, and then crouched low, moved through the trees towards the spot where they ended and the sky was coldly coloured. He paused there behind the bole of the largest oak and looked down the valley.

  The man trudging up towards him was about a hundred yards away. He wasn’t walking strongly. He was walking from side to side as if to ease the climb towards the top. It wasn’t a steep climb. If he was strong he could have walked straight up. This man was walking in a zigzag.

  Then Dominick froze as he saw the shapes flitting from tree to tree on each side of the man.

  He rose and ran, and he shouted, ‘At your back! At your back!’ He saw the man looking up at him with his mouth open, drawing great breaths into his lungs, and at the same time he saw the wolves as if on a signal converge on the man from each side. Dominick was flying fast down the hill. Move! Move! his mind ordered the man, and the man reacted. He turned to face back and drew a sword from his belt. His arm swung and the first wolf that leapt for him was decapitated. It was a terrible stroke. His falling head still had its teeth bared. Dominick had knelt when he judged the distance right, had fitted the arrow and saw it strike the other leaping one in the throat. The man shouted and ran at the other hesitators. They didn’t wait for him. They ran for the trees at each side.

  Dominick came down to the man.

  As he came close to him he saw that his own size seemed to decrease and the size of the fast-breathing man to increase, so that when he faced him, Dominick, although he had the advantage of the hill; had to look up at him. A thickly bearded black face seeming more black from the white streaks running through it. The man took the soft cloth hat from his ragged hair and wiped sweat off his face. He had a very big chest and an immense hand gripping the dripping sword. The coarse cloth of his clothes made him seem even bigger than he was. But there was strain in his face and his cheeks were gaunt and there were deep shadows under his eyes, but somewhere out of his face Dominick pulled the thought of him as seen before. In frost weather too, by candlelight in a cellar, and in a room with a woman in the bed imperiously pointing to a cradle at the bottom of it, saying, ‘ Look at my baby.’

  ‘God bless you, Murdoc,’ said Dominick.

  Murdoc screwed up his eyes, and put his head on one side. He walked to one side of Dominick and walked to the other side of Dominick. His forehead was furrowed. He was still breathing very hard. He saw a long-haired man, fair hair, and a cleanshaven narrow face, low-sized, stocky, confident, with a half smile on his face.

  He hit his head with his free hand.

  ‘Why don’t I know you, man?’ he asked, abusing himself. ‘Speak to me again.’

  ‘It is very cold,’ said Dominick. ‘ The town is asleep. Many men are marching through an orchard. There is the sound of clashing pikes, loud hurroos and the clash of arms, and you run into the back ways seeking shelter.’

  ‘Oh, no! Oh, no!’ exclaimed Murdoc. ‘It couldn’t be you.’ Holding out his hand, Dominick took it. ‘Not again. How many years? So many years. In between the two times. And y
ou do it again. Not that I wouldn’t have been able to handle those butchers. Cowardly butchers. You understand that? Oh, let me think. A great name, I said, and you skulking behind walls, not caring. It was Mac, Mac, MacMahon!’ he said then in a shout. ‘Hah. There’s the memory of Murdoc! You got away. I thought of you, and of her, that black-haired woman in the bed that should have been on a mountain in the west. When I heard what they did to it, I mourned for you. I lit a big candle in the church and I got the priest to pray for you. I didn’t forget, Dominick MacMahon.’

  He squeezed Dominick’s hand, almost crunching the bones of it, so pleased to see him, so pleased at his own memories.

  ‘You got away,’ he said again.

  ‘I got away,’ said Dominick, ‘but she didn’t get away. She is still there, under a stone.’ He marvelled at his own calm now.

  ‘Oh,’ said Murdoc. ‘That’s not right. Oh, sad, sad! And where are you? How did it happen?’

  ‘They say God makes meetings,’ said Dominick. ‘Meetings are meant. How do I know? We are here. We are sheltered in a very safe spot between the four lakes. We have been there nearly two years. I was hunting meat. I found the meat and then I found you. You will come back with me?’

  ‘Oh, but I will,’ said Murdoc. ‘I am sapped. I was a man of great strength, but they have reduced me. Maybe I mightn’t have been able to kill all those wolves.’ He caught the one that Dominick had killed by the tail and raised her up. ‘A bitch,’ he said. ‘She’s worth ten pounds. Did you know that? And the fellow that I killed is worth six pounds. Will we gather the heads and go into an Uaimh with them, and collect the bounty?’

  That amused him. He laughed.

  ‘Oh, but I am glad to see you, man,’ he said. ‘For the last half year, I have been like a hunted wolf myself. I was heading west and each time they kept heading me east, I got caught on the wrong side of the Blackwater, but it was fate, man. If I could have crossed the Shannon we would never have met, I will go with you. Lead me on.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you, Murdoc,’ said Dominick. ‘I haven’t forgotten you.’

  ‘How could you, man?’ said Murdoc. ‘Does any man forget people who owe their lives to him? It’s a precious thing.’

  They didn’t talk, they just wondered as they climbed back up the hill to the dead goat. Dominick caught him by the legs and wore him around his neck, holding him by the hooves. He didn’t smell well, but what did it matter? All the time Murdoc was shaking his head and saying: ‘Well, well!’ and ‘Man! Man!’ and following Dominick’s footsteps in the snow.

  They didn’t talk. They saved their breaths because both of them moved with caution, their bodies tense, listening. It’s a wonder, Dominick thought, that our ears haven’t grown as long as the ears of a donkey with all the listening we do.

  They came from the wooded place. From this height they could see the evening sun changing the colours of the water of the lakes below them, from blue to red. There were great black lowering clouds, rolling up from the north to their right. They were like snow-capped mountains. In all the vast stretch of land below them there was no sign of smoke to be seen, nor the sign of a person. There were people there, somewhere, but no man moved unless he moved as they themselves moved, always in shelter, by thickets and trees and concealing folds in the earth.

  Dominick sighed.

  He felt the burden of the goat on his shoulders, but it was worth while. He thought of the way it would be greeted.

  It took them an hour to get down from the heights into the callows and rushes by the soft lands.

  Here Dominick stopped. He dropped the goat and sat on his haunches. ‘We will rest awhile,’ he said. ‘ From here it is hard.’

  Murdoc sat. He was breathing heavily. Dominick noticed sweat on him.

  ‘I’m an old man,’ said Murdoc. ‘Before my time. It’s only home that will cure me and make me strong. I’ll breathe in the mountains. You don’t heed food. You can eat the air.’

  ‘How long is it since you have been home?’ Dominick asked.

  Murdoc thought.

  ‘In forty-one,’ he said, ‘I met you. I had been a year out before that. Eleven years ago. Dear God, I was a young man with fire in me then. Now look at me! ’

  ‘You look young enough and strong enough to me still,’ said Dominick.

  ‘Ah, but the fire is gone,’ said Murdoc. ‘I have seen too many sights. I have killed too many men.’

  ‘We’ll go now,’ said Dominick, looking at the spreading twilight. ‘It’s a clever place. We have to get in by the light,’ He wore the goat again. ‘Follow me closely,’ he said.

  ‘Lead on, man,’ said Murdoc tiredly.

  They came to where acres of faded rushes grew on soft ground. Dominick chose a point and stepped into them. Murdoc followed him. His feet sank into the greyish-yellow ooze, and it tried to hold on to them. He had to pull each foot out. It took an effort. Dominick didn’t take a straight way through the rushes, but went from side to side, twisting and turning. Murdoc floundered after him, wondering at the light way his feet seemed to rest on the soft ground. It was very hard walking. When Murdoc thought that his heart would burst its way through the wall of his chest, they came to a stretch, a wide stretch, of open water. Dominick waited for him.

  ‘Keep close here,’ he said, and seemed to walk out on the water. Murdoc followed him and felt the firm ground about six inches under the water. Dominick didn’t cross here the straight way either. He took a line on the land in front of him and sometimes he went to the right and sometimes he went to the left. The whole place was a maze of rushes and open water, and more rushes and more open water. The sun was gone and the last light was fading from the sky when Murdoc felt solid ground under his feet.

  ‘The worst is over now,’ said Dominick. Murdoc guessed they were on a sort of island in the middle of the miles of quaking land. There was a lot of scrub willows and alders, bare of foliage, and stunted forest trees that got little room to expand. In five minutes they came to a fence of hurdles. They went around this and saw the fire. Its light was blocked by the hurdles in front and by the steep rise of overhang behind it. In this overhang there was a big man tending the fire. He looked up at them.

  ‘I found a friend,’ said Dominick. ‘ I got a goat. Here is the goat and this is my friend Murdoc. This is Sebastian. Sebastian came from Drogheda too.’ He didn’t say Sebastian was a priest.

  Sebastian rose and held out his hand. ‘Dominick told me of you,’ he said.

  They could see very little of one another now, just the bones of their faces lighted up by the fire.

  ‘Our fates are entwined,’ said Murdoc, shaking his hand. A big hard hand, as rough as his own. ‘And where’s the little one?’

  Dominick laughed.

  ‘Ah, she’s no longer little,’ he said. ‘Come and see her.’

  ‘They are sleeping,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘More than one,’ said Murdoc, following Dominick away from the fire. Their feet were squelching in the wet boots.

  ‘I have a son, too,’ said Dominick.

  ‘You are wealthy,’ said Murdoc.

  They came to the mound. It was a round mound rising roughly from the surrounding thickets. There was a narrow rectangular stone opening to it. Dominick bent and went in. Murdoc followed him.

  It was lighted inside by rushlight, guttering. It was beehive shape Murdoc had seen them before built at the time when men were less civilized than they were now – that made him chuckle, that thought – perfectly formed, where saintly men had come to get away from their fellow men. The roof was arched, one stone supporting another, held together by mortar that was still as hard as the day it was put in maybe a thousand years ago. There was a small room above with narrow stone steps up to it. He followed Dominick. Dominick was crouched inside. Murdoc just shoved his head and shoulders through the opening and looked. Dominick held the light high so that Murdoc could see the sleeping girl. Oh, but it brought it all back, the sight of her. There was a fai
r boy sleeping on the rushes beside her. Dominick pulled the skins more closely around them and came down after Murdoc.

  ‘Out of her mother’s mouth, the same spit,’ said Murdoc. He was shaking his head. ‘She will be her mother,’ he said. ‘How lucky you are, man! While you have her, you have her mother.’

  ‘Come to the fire and eat,’ said Dominick.

  Sebastian was already skinning the goat. Dominick indicated a crude wooden seat near the fire. Murdoc sank on it with a sigh. He took off his soaked boots and rubbed his cold feet with his hands and held them out to the fire.

  ‘That’s the heat of God,’ he said.

  Dominick handed him a wooden platter. It held rough oaten bread and a little cold rabbit.

  ‘It’s not much, Murdoc,’ said Dominick, ‘and you will have to drink water.’ He handed him a pewter tankard, thinking how sad it was that their wine was all gone. Thinking of the way Sebastian had husbanded the altar wine, using just a fingerful each time to consecrate it for Mass, measuring one twentieth of its small bulk to add the water. Now it was all gone. He could no longer say Mass.

  ‘We will have to leave here soon now,’ he said. ‘What is the world abroad like, Murdoc?’

  ‘I have never seen a desert,’ said Murdoc. ‘ It is a fertile desert. Can such a thing be?’

  ‘It’s man himself that makes the deserts,’ said Sebastian. He puzzled Murdoc – his quiet voice, his calm eyes in a thin face. Yet he looked like a ploughman.

  ‘Maybe we should have brought the wolves and eaten them,’ he said. ‘I’ve eaten everything else. Not wolf.’

  ‘You killed a wolf?’ Sebastian asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Murdoc. ‘They wanted to make a meal of me. But Dominick saved me. Two heads. They would be worth sixteen pounds. Equal to the price you’d get for the heads of two and a half priests.’

  ‘Is that the price?’ Sebastian asked.

  ‘Six pounds a skull,’ said Murdoc. ‘That’s the price of them. The same as a he wolf. Who made this bread? It is good bread.’