A Game of Sorrows

NINE A Thing Foretold

Maeve wanted to retire to her room, she was tired now, oh so tired. But she could not, for she was Maeve O’Neill, and she had played that part well seventy years now. A little longer yet, just a little longer and she could rest. She did not know half the people in the house and cared for fewer of them. How many people did she care for? Not many. On this side of the grave, there was only one, only one who mattered, and within him he held everything.

She watched her grandson as he danced, talked, made a friend at every turn. Half the girls were in love with him – a few who were no longer girls, also. But they would not have him. She recalled the hour, twenty years ago, when she had witnessed the birth of the girl who she had chosen to be Sean’s wife. Murchadh had fathered many fine sons, but it was a daughter Maeve had waited so eagerly upon, and when that daughter had drawn her first breath, it had been Maeve who soothed the laboured mother’s brow, whispered sweet comforts in her ear and handed her her child. And she had chosen well, for Roisin was everything that she should have been. A pale beauty, but healthy: she would be as good a breeder as her mother had been. And she was compliant, she knew her place, knew her duty, would serve it without murmur or complaint. What could she have had to complain of, with a man like Sean handed to her?

Not like Deirdre. Maeve shivered. How the gods of her forefathers had punished her in her daughter and granddaughter. She had sullied the purity of her line with the taint of English blood, and they had made her pay, first in Grainne and now in Deirdre. Oh, but Richard FitzGarrett had been a fine man, and they had known passion. And in their grandson her debt would be paid, her line redeemed.

The young people were enjoying themselves: they had paid her husband due honour, as was right, but now the night was theirs. She allowed herself a smile, gracious, if one of them should catch her eye. Murchadh’s sons were fine men, all of them, like their father, but stronger. He had been foolish in his youth, weak. His resolve had not been strong enough, but he had learned, and surely he had paid for it now? But it was only the weak that had survived that killing time, those days of exile. The heroes, like Phelim, were dead. Cormac would have been such a hero. That Deirdre had rejected him was beyond her comprehension. There was a madness in the girl that went beyond dishonour, ingratitude, spite: it was the taint.

The taint. Grainne. Grainne had been the warning. An aberration she should have been, but she was not; she had continued into the next generation. And now God had gifted her Grainne’s heretic son, and he had come to play his part, pay his due to his race and his name. But he did not matter: only Sean mattered.

A servant filled her glass again. She had had a lifetime with her glass full, but the wine often bitter. No more. A boy came from the lower floor, a note in his hand. Pray God not the poet; she could not withstand him a third time. The lad searched the room and found Sean soon enough. He took the note from the boy and read it in a moment. His countenance changed, the mask slipped. The mask that faced the world, day and night. But she knew that other face. She had seen it sometimes in the boy he had once been. Grainne had known it in his two-year-old face. Deirdre had seen it all her life. He had hidden it from Maeve, but that did not hurt. Not so much. She would accomplish in him what must be accomplished, and if her grandson’s love be the cost to her, then so be it.

She watched as Sean left Roisin’s side, murmuring some politeness to her and seeking out Eachan. He had not long to look, for the man from Tyrone was never far from his master’s shadow. Again, in that, she had chosen well. Eachan was not well pleased at the content of the note, but Sean laughed, slapped him on the shoulder, sought to reassure him, and then downed his drink and descended the stairs, calling for his mantle. Not the poet, then, but a woman. Some town whore, no doubt. It would do no harm, it was natural, after all, and Roisin knew the way of the world of men. Even so, he should not go out in the night alone, not when the threat to him had been made so clear, and public. But she need not have concerned herself about that, for as she had known he would, Eachan had gone out after his master, a minute or two behind.

She could sleep safe now. She was in truth very tired. Deirdre had already gone to her bed, long before she should have done, feigning grief for her grandfather. What did she know of love? Maeve’s bile rose to think of it. She should bid goodnight to Murchadh, but she had had enough for the day, and did not want the whole company called together to watch her retire. She would slip away unnoticed. She was an old woman and it was her right. But she took the longer way to her chamber, seeking out the serving boy. He trembled to see her coming, and it reminded her weary bones to straight – themselves.

‘The note for my grandson – who brought it?’

‘A girl. She covered her face.’

‘A whore?’

The boy stammered. ‘No, Mistress, I do not think it. Just a girl. I could not see her right.’

‘Very well. Now see to my guests’ glasses. This is a house of hospitality, not a Protestant church.’

The boy ran to do her bidding. It pleased her. She was Maeve O’Neill.

It cannot have been two hours later that she was woken by a hammering, a kicking at the door, a howling that was not of human born. Half the house had not yet been abed, and yet the noise overpowered all their laughter, their singing and their music. It pierced the doors, the walls, and found its way through stairways and along corridors to meet every terror in her heart. By the time she had reached the balcony, the whole house was up. Deirdre, in her nightclothes, was running down to the hall. From below, Cormac had bounded up to meet her and sought to hold her back. She pulled against him but he smothered her head in his shoulders and would not let her look on the horror.

But Maeve saw. As the household parted like the sea in front of Eachan, she saw. Sean’s servant, whence the howling came, had dropped to his knees at the entrance to the hall and lifted his hands in tormented appeal to a relentless God. Before him, on the floor already staining dark, was the body of her grandson.

The world had stopped. There was no sound or movement save the animal cry of the man from Tyrone, echoing through the house, reaching to the other world. No one put a hand out to her, sought to stop her as slowly, she descended the stairs.

Eachan had laid him like a child, carefully, on the ground, as if fearful of hurting his head. He had closed the eyes that had lighted every thing they had ever looked on. He might have been sleeping as a child sleeps, a day’s labours done and with no fears for the morrow. But his face was white, the white of death, and already the blood was drying at the cut in his throat. For a moment, she feared she might not find her voice. ‘Take him to my chamber,’ she said at last.

There were six of them in the room: herself, Eachan, Cormac, Murchadh, Deirdre and the priest. Eachan had laid him on the bed – he had carried him up alone, allowing no other to touch him. Maeve had ordered more coals to be brought, as if the warmth of the fire could ever reach him now. The priest was at his offices, and the servant was prostrate at his dead master’s feet, but none of the others were on their knees. Murchadh was breathing heavy, his fingers clenching and unclenching over the hilt of his sword, and Cormac was as white as a winding-sheet, beads of perspiration on his brow. Deirdre was staring at her grandmother, all insolence, all defiance gone: nothing left but a sheer and complete hatred.

‘You have killed him,’ she said.

Cormac laid a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off.

Maeve kept her voice steady. ‘Not I.’

‘You would not leave it. You would never leave it, and now he is dead. You have murdered my brother.’

Maeve spoke slowly, for the certainty had only now come to her. ‘Deirdre,’ she said, ‘you know who murdered your brother.’