He knew he must sleep. Yet still he could not. A wave of fatigue would oppress his brain; but then his fear, like a pale dagger, would strike through the darkness at his heart. Dalkey was usually such a pleasant place. The high headland behind him with its views over the bay was like a friendly companion. But not anymore. The dark shape of the hill seemed like a huge, threatening mound from which, at any moment, the ghostly forces of vengeance might issue forth. The O’Byrnes were not far away. All around him in Dalkey, there were probably fishermen who were in league with them. Which of his neighbours could he trust? He had no idea. Their faces came before him one by one, in his mind, familiar faces suddenly transformed into masks of rage and hatred, until at last even his dear friend MacGowan seemed to be among them, gazing at him in his curious way, with one eye closed and the open eye growing larger and larger, terrible, cold, and malevolent.
Why was he staying here? Why wait? Let them burn his house and his carts if they wished, reduce him to poverty. Why should he await his own destruction?
In the end, however, fatigue overcame even his fear, and Tom Tidy wearily went back inside and got into bed. But before he did so, he did something which he had never done before: he barred the door.
The next morning Tom went straight to MacGowan and told him he was leaving for Dublin.
“You’ve no need to worry at all,” MacGowan told him. “I’ll be round at your house every day. I’ll keep an eye on the place.” He’d bring Tom’s remaining horses to his own house, he promised. “You’re doing the right thing, Tom,” he assured him. Tom could see that his friend was quite relieved. Back at his house, he harnessed his two best horses to the big cart and took one more horse on a lead rein behind. Then he set out to Dublin.
He couldn’t help feeling a welcome sense of relief as he came down the long, straight line of Saint Francis’s Street, where the high-gabled houses pressed close together and came out onto the open crossroads where he turned right to enter the city. A hundred yards behind him stood Ailred the Palmer’s old hospital; on his right, the green where the big summer fairs were held; and in front of him, the great western gate—more splendid than ever since it had been rebuilt with its two bulky towers and a little gaol. Through the western gate he went, therefore, with a shade more confidence than he had felt before, and was soon at MacGowan’s brother’s house.
“How long will you be staying?” MacGowan’s brother asked. “Michael told me you might be coming,” he added, without further comment. No doubt he was glad to see his brother’s friend, if not overjoyed.
“Perhaps a week or two,” Tom said, suddenly feeling that he was imposing on the other’s good nature too much.
The craftsman’s house was quite spacious, with a big backyard. His wife and children looked a little surprised to see Tom, but made him welcome and insisted that he sleep in the house beside the kitchen rather than in the loft over the stable as he had offered. A good Irishman would have known how to sink comfortably down on a bench and pass the time of day for a few hours without worrying himself; but although he had lived in Ireland all his life, Tom Tidy’s English nature would not allow him to rest so easy. True, he did sit for an hour, and it was all as friendly as could be; but somehow after that, he felt he was in the way, and making an excuse he went out for a walk.
The house was only a short step from the fine old church of Saint Audoen, which lay just within the former riverside wall. Below the wall, the ground descended a short, steep slope, past some cookhouses and bakeries, to the level area of the land reclaimed from the river. There were views of the Liffey from the old wall by the church, and with the pleasant smell of the bakeries below it should have been considered a pleasant place. But to Tom Tidy in his present mood, its grey stones were gloomy, and even the tall shape of Saint Audoen’s seemed oppressive. After walking about there for a while, he felt no more at ease and, not wishing to return to the house yet, he wandered off in the direction of the crown of the city’s ridge and the precincts of Christ Church.
Perhaps it was sunnier up there than on the lower part of the ridge, but as he entered the precincts, Tom felt better. The thickset mass of Christ Church seemed solid and comforting. He went inside.
There was no doubt that Christ Church was the Christian heart of Dublin. Saint Patrick’s, with its soaring Gothic vaults, was high and magnificent and seemed to have every intention of staring down old Christ Church or any other church that dared to raise its head. For a long time, indeed, the canons of Saint Patrick’s and the monks of Christ Church had been frequently at loggerheads with each other. But that rivalry had finally worn itself out, and the two cathedrals were friendly enough now.
But it was in the quietness of Christ Church that one felt the presence of the ancient Celtic tradition of Patrick and Colum Cille. Its pillars and arches seemed to Tom to be as protective as a castle. The stained-glass windows, like pages from an antique Gospel book, gleamed softly with a mysterious light. From time to time, a monk would pass in the shadows.
Tom wandered there contentedly. He looked at the piece of the True Cross and the other holy relics. He walked amongst the tombs. The most impressive of these was the big raised slab and carved effigy of Strongbow. It was typical of the Plantagenets to have ensured that their vassal should have been given his final resting place and monument in one of the island’s holiest places. Strongbow’s tomb was the emblem of their rule over Ireland. But the greatest treasure of Christ Church, more venerated even than the True Cross, was the Staff of Saint Patrick himself.
It was nearly two centuries now since the monks of Christ Church, during the rule of Archbishop O’Toole, had secured this great treasure from its former sanctuary up in Ulster. It had been a triumph for their own prestige, of course. But the presence of the Staff in Dublin had a subtler significance also.
For if the English had failed to impose order on the whole of Ireland, the Church itself reflected a similar split. As far as the Pope was concerned, the King of England was the patron of the Irish Church and the Irish bishops owed him the allegiance proper to a feudal monarch. If the English king had increasingly insisted on having Englishmen as bishops in his Irish realm, the Pope might sometimes demur, but he mostly went along with it. In practice however, this English domination was only really effective in the areas under royal control. Most of the priests up in the north and west were Irish, preaching to Irish-speaking populations. Indeed, so great was the split that the English archbishop of Saint Patrick’s own Ulster see of Armagh did not even reside in Armagh, where he was not very welcome, but in an English-speaking area to the south. It was ironic in a way, therefore, that the great Staff of the Irish patron saint should be in the heart of English-administered Dublin.
The Staff was magnificent. The great golden case which enclosed it was encrusted with gems. Tom knew that the saint had received it from the hand of Christ himself, and that it was often referred to as the Staff of Jesus, the Bachall Iosa. He gazed at it with awe.
“The staff of a hero.” He had not noticed the priest come up beside him. He was a fair young man with an open, rather simple-minded face and he had addressed Tom in a local English dialect that suggested he had only recently arrived in Ireland.
“Indeed,” said Tom politely.
“Nothing could frighten him,” the young priest said. “Not the High King. Not the druids. He was fearless.”
In the centuries since the beginnings of the Irish Church, the legends about its leaders had continued to grow. Like everyone else, Tom knew and believed in them all. He knew how Saint Patrick had confronted the High King and challenged his druids, in the manner of an Old Testament prophet, to see whose god could make an unquenchable fire; he knew how Saint Patrick had performed many miracles and even banished the snakes—a legend that would have come as a great surprise to the saint himself.
“Yes,” he agreed, “he was fearless.”
“Because he trusted in God,” said the young priest, and Tom bowed his head in acknowledg
ement. The priest, however, had not finished his reflections. He gave Tom an engaging smile. “It is a fine thing for you and me that the tomb of Strongbow and the Staff of Saint Patrick should be there in this cathedral,” he remarked.
“Indeed,” said Tom again. And then, a little curiously, “Why is that?”
“They were both English,” said the young man triumphantly. “That’s us,” he added. “Stout of heart,” and having declared this great truth, he gave Tom Tidy a friendly nod and went upon his way.
Tom Tidy was aware of enough history to see the funny side of this. British Saint Patrick was, no doubt; but could one really call him English? As for Strongbow, did he think of the great Anglo-Norman lord as an Englishman like himself or like this simple priest? He scarcely knew. But there was one thing the young man had said that was not so funny. “Stout of heart.” Strongbow and Saint Patrick, in their different ways, were certainly that. He gazed at the gleaming Bachall Iosa. Was he stout of heart? Not on his present performance, running in a panic from Dalkey to Dublin, forcing himself as a guest upon a family he hardly knew, and all on account of a threat that might not even be real. He shook his head sadly. He could not take much pride in himself today. Indeed, he began to think his behaviour was rather contemptible.
Half an hour later the Dublin MacGowans were surprised when Tom Tidy returned and informed them that he would not be staying after all. By late afternoon his wagon was trundling back past Harold’s Cross. And there were still some hours of daylight left when, to his horror, Michael MacGowan saw Tom Tidy coming up the street and, running out towards him, received from his happy face the news.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m staying here.”
“You can’t,” MacGowan blurted out. But Tom had already driven past.
That evening, as the dusk was falling, Michael MacGowan did all he could to persuade his friend to leave again. “What is the necessity,” he demanded, “of putting yourself in danger for no reason at all?” But he got nowhere. Tom was adamant. As a result, MacGowan spent a sleepless night. Before dawn, he went to his yard, mounted his horse, and rode out of Dalkey. As he rode through the grey predawn, the words of a secret conversation he had recently had were echoing, coldly, in his ear.
“He must leave, MacGowan. Or else …”
“I realise that,” he had replied, “but I’m not going to kill him, you know.”
“You will not be asked to do it, though the O’Byrnes might,” the voice of the other had calmly replied. “Make him leave.”
They came into Carrickmines during the night. It was cleverly done. They did not come in groups, but singly, leading their horses through the darkness with sacking on their hoofs, so that they should neither be seen nor heard. Nor were they, for even the stars were hidden behind a blanket of cloud. In this manner, at dead of night, the Dalkey squadron, Harold’s men, and all the rest—a total of sixty horsemen and as many foot soldiers—passed through the gates of Carrickmines and vanished inside like so many ghostly warriors into a magic hill.
When dawn arose, Carrickmines looked exactly the same as before. The gate was shut, but that was not unusual. Corralled inside, the horses sometimes made a little noise, but the thick stone walls trapped these sounds within. In the middle of the morning, Walsh appeared on the walls with his falcon. He loosed it into the sky where it flew for some time before returning. That was the only movement seen that morning at the castle of Carrickmines.
It was in the afternoon, when he had gone up onto the wall alone, that Walsh thought he saw the girl concealed amongst some rocks a little way to the south. Unless she had been there the night before, he was sure she could not have any idea that Carrickmines was full of soldiers. After a short while he went down again. To make everything seem normal, he opened the gates and let a cart, driven by one of his men, leave the castle and creak across to a neighbouring farm, returning later with some provisions. In the meantime, the gate was left casually half open, and two of his children went out to play. They practised hurling until the cart came back, jumping on it as it went in through the gate, which was still left ajar for some time after it was inside. He knew that the dark-haired girl must have observed all this, because when he went up onto the wall as the children came in, he had seen her watching carefully from another vantage point some way farther up the slope.
In the early evening, however, when he went up again, he could not see her and concluded that she had gone.
“I am sure,” he said to Harold when he had descended, “that they will attack tonight.”
There was something strange about Dalkey today. Tom felt it from the first moment when he went out into the street. Was it just his imagination? A case of nerves? He considered that, of course. But he didn’t think so. Yet it had been a perfect Dalkey morning. The dawn mist had given way to a light, salty haze. As the sky cleared to a soft blue, little clouds came floating in, white as the spume from the sea. Tom had even felt a sense of cheerfulness as he came out of his house and began to walk down the street. Seeing one of his neighbours, he had wished him good morning, just as he would on any other day. But though the man had answered something, it had seemed to Tom that there was an awkwardness in his manner. A few moments later, he had seen one of the fishermen mending nets in front of his cottage give him a strange look; and as he went farther, he had the distinct impression that he was being watched from both sides of the street. It was an eerie sensation, as if he had suddenly become an unwelcome guest in his own village.
Then he had gone into MacGowan’s house and found that his friend had disappeared. He had looked around Dalkey and asked several people, but no one seemed to have any idea where MacGowan had gone. It was very strange. After a while Tom had returned to his home and stayed there for the rest of the morning. At noon, he went round to MacGowan’s again, but there was still no sign of him. On his way back this time, he met a couple of men and a woman in the street. Though they acknowledged his greeting, he noticed the same awkwardness. One of the men tried to avert his eyes, and the woman said, “I thought you were in Dublin,” in a tone of voice that suggested she thought that Dublin was where he belonged. By the time he reached his house again, he was in a sombre mood.
There were only hours to go: a warm afternoon, a long summer evening, the slowly gathering dusk, and then, at last, blackness. And in the middle of that blackness, the terrible trap at Carrickmines. The thought of it oppressed him. He wished he could put it out of his mind. More than once, as he sat in his house alone, Tom wondered whether he had been wrong. MacGowan had vanished; was it because he was afraid? His neighbours seemed to be no longer his friends; did they know something he did not? Should he go back to Dublin, after all? But two things prevented him. The first was shame. If he turned up at MacGowan’s brother’s house again now, wouldn’t he look like an idiot? The second might have been bravery, or it might have been obstinacy. But hadn’t he taken a decision to stay here in Dalkey and face the danger, he reminded himself? He wasn’t going to back down now.
The afternoon passed slowly. He tried to keep himself occupied. He washed down the horses and found chores to do indoors. Nobody came by. He paced about restlessly in the yard. By mid-afternoon he felt like going to the little church, but he forced himself to wait. He’d go at the usual time, not before. He went into the barn and cleaned out all the carts, not because it needed doing but to fill some more time, until, at last, he felt the hour approaching. And he was standing in the yard, gauging the light and just about to leave, when glancing out towards the common, he caught sight of something by one of the rocks. It was hard to tell what it was. A dark sheep, perhaps—many of the Dalkey sheep had dark fleeces. A trick of the light?
Or something else. A girl’s black hair?
The dark-haired girl. Why should she have come into his mind? It was absurd. His imagination was playing games with him, and he knew it. He shook his head impatiently.
She would have a good view of his yard from out there. She’d have seen
all his movements. Was there someone watching the other side of his house? Anybody in Dalkey could be doing that. He stared at the dark patch beside the rock, seeing if he could discern a face. He could not—and the reason he couldn’t, he told himself firmly, was that there was no face there to be seen. He took a deep breath and turned away, refusing to let himself look at the spot anymore. He began to walk out of the yard. It was time to go to church. As he passed into the empty street, he looked back, and saw the dark-haired girl spring up and run swiftly from her hiding place towards the far end of the village.
The church was quiet. The shafts of afternoon sunshine falling from its small windows bathed the interior in a warm and gentle light. Nobody else was there. He went to his usual place behind the screen and, trembling, knelt down to pray. He said a paternoster, and several Ave Marias. Then another paternoster. The words seemed to coil themselves around him, soothing, healing. He accepted their protective power, gratefully.
He had been in quiet prayer for some time when he heard the church door opening.
There were two of them. One had a soft footfall; the other sounded heavier, as if he was wearing stout boots. There was no reason why two people shouldn’t have entered the church, of course. But his mind raced back to the previous week. He couldn’t help it. Was it the girl again? And her unknown companion? He felt himself go cold.
“You are sure he is here?” A deep voice. A voice he didn’t know.
“I am sure.” It was said softly, yet the voice sounded familiar. He froze.
“Where is he, then?”
If there was an answer, it was inaudible. But it made no difference. The footsteps were coming straight in his direction.
They were coming for him. There was nothing to be done. What a fool he’d been, when he could have stayed in Dublin. But now it was too late. He hadn’t even a weapon with which to defend himself. They were going to kill him: he knew it for a certainty. Would they kill him there, in the church? No. This was Ireland. They wouldn’t do that. They’d be taking him to a quiet place somewhere. Then he’d disappear. Perhaps he’d soon be out there, buried under Dalkey common. He hesitated whether to stay on his knees in prayer or get up and face them like a man; the footsteps were coming very close. They stopped. He turned and looked up.