To Kingdom Come

16

I could have gone on kissing Maire O’Casey forever, if she would have let me. The feel of her lips and the heady scent of lilac water in her hair are things that will linger in my memory forever. Finally, she put both hands on my chest insistently and ended our kiss. I murmured her name, and she silenced me with her cool hand.

“You quite take a girl’s breath away, Mr. Penrith,” she said, and I could feel her tremble with emotion, or perhaps it was only the chill of the night. She stepped back and gathered her shawl about her shoulders again. “I hadn’t intended to … to … I had better go now.”

She turned, and before I could stop her, she fled, bounding from rock to rock. I could still taste her lips and smell the lilac, but they were the only evidence that it wasn’t a dream, that I wasn’t still in the cottage with Cyrus Barker, sleeping. I didn’t think she’d meant to kiss me. She was going to say something, to utter some commonplace remark about the party or the demonstration or about coming upon me alone so late at night, and then something happened. She was the match and I the dynamite. We’d gotten too close to each other, and a chemical reaction had occurred.

I walked along the shoreline for a while, but every couple of steps my mind and feet were arrested by the memory of what had just happened, and I’d stand and relive it. That had been no casual kiss. I think it surprised her more than it had me, and that is saying a good deal. It was half an hour before I finally thought to return to my berth, and I was still walking with my head in the clouds. That is my explanation for not noticing the train until it hit me.

It wasn’t an actual train, of course, but it might as well have been. It ran on eight legs at a tremendous pace and struck with the force of a steam locomotive. I was knocked clean off my feet and didn’t land again for a half dozen yards. I skidded along a rock and then was crushed in a tangle of arms and limbs and bodies. I tried to see what had hit me, under the silvery moonlight, but what I saw was something out of the book of Irish myths. That alone could explain the wild-haired, blue-skinned Celts that had stepped out of the past and now stood over me.

Eight rough hands seized me, ripping braces and buttons and pulling up my shirt while keeping my limbs pinned to the ground. I struggled as my stomach and chest were laid bare, and for a moment I wondered if I was about to be sacrificed by a secret cabal of Druids to their ancient gods. Then, a rain of blows from sticks showered down, as if my stomach were a drum to be beat upon, and all the fierce warriors began to chant: “Bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,bata,BATA!”

I cried out in pain as my ribs were pummeled. Then, as I lay prostrate, my four assailants proceeded to strip me almost bare, tossing clothes and shoes over their shoulders, as if I’d never need them in this world again. My reverie had suddenly become a nightmare. Finally, the moon slipped from behind a cloud, and I could see what calamity had overtaken me.

Eamon O’Casey looked down on me, his heel on my right shoulder, his stick against my cheek. He was shirtless, though he still wore braces over his naked chest. All manner of designs had been drawn over his face and torso in blue paint, giving him the look of a South Sea island savage. I could see a Celtic dragon across Fergus McKeller’s brawny chest; his braces hung about his knees. Despite his fierce war paint and bare breast, Colin Bannon still wore his respectable bowler, but he’d stuck some feathers into the band; and Padraig was got up as close to a Plains Indian as an Irish lad could be, with nothing but trousers and his waistcoat, and dozens of painted tattoos over his arms, chest, and face.

My first thought, absurd as it was, was that O’Casey had seen me kiss his sister and had come to thrash me, but that wouldn’t account for the elaborate paint and the presence of the others. Then it occurred to me that somehow they had penetrated our subterfuge, and I grew truly frightened. Perhaps I really was about to be sacrificed, with Barker coming next. In either case, I was certain I wasn’t going to get out of this alive, not by the serious and resolute expressions of O’Casey and McKeller glowering over me.

“Is the candidate ready?” a voice intoned behind me.

“He is ready,” Eamon O’Casey declared.

“Move him to the sacrificial stone.”

The four men carried me, struggling, to the fractured dolmen, where they held me down, a man to each limb. The fifth member of the group followed, and they parted as he stepped up onto the stone, stood between my splayed limbs, and placed a short length of wood like a wand against my breast. He wore a long black cloak that covered him to the ground, but his face was not obscured. It was Willie Yeats. Spectacles had been drawn onto his face in blue, with wavy lines radiating out in every direction. He looked like the high priest in some secret order, which, in fact, he was.

“What is your name, candidate?”

“You know very well what my-Oof!”

I’d received a thump from each of the four corners.

“What is your name, candidate?” he repeated severely.

“Thomas Penrith!”

“Mr. Penrith, you are about to be initiated into one of the most secret and sacred orders of the world: the Invisibles. Do you swear under penalty of death that you will not reveal or divulge anything that you see here tonight?”

My word! It was an initiation ceremony. I let out a sigh of relief. “I swear.”

“Then repeat after me. I, Thomas Penrith, do solemnly swear … that I will hold secret all arcane ceremonies of the Invisibles … and if I dare to reveal these secrets … may my tongue be torn out by its roots … my breast opened … and my heart and liver removed and roasted on a spit … for being a blasphemous traitor…. Henceforth, I declare these men here … to be my true and only brothers … and I pledge undying loyalty … to my brethren … and to this hallowed society.”

“And to this hallowed society,” I finished.

Yeats poured a drink into my mouth, a mixture of stout and ash from the fire. While I was still sputtering, he turned his wand sideways, and thrust it between my teeth. I should have noticed that my left leg was free and Colin Bannon missing, but I was too busy choking to realize it until he had returned to perform the next part of the ceremony. I cried out as the red-hot metal ferrule of his stick burned the flesh of my shoulder. I knew Cyrus Barker had close to a dozen such marks, but it had never occurred to me how much each one of them must have hurt.

Willie Yeats reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a small pot of blue paint and a brush. While I lay there, still groaning with his stick in my mouth, he began painting my torso in runes and symbols. I’m sure he loved every minute of it, playing the high priest and torturing his rival for Maire’s affections, if in fact, he knew I was a rival.

“This is your new stick. It’s called a bata in Gaelic. Does it hurt?” he asked with a devilish smile.

“You know it hurts!” I sputtered around the stick in my mouth.

“Would you like some cold water on it?”

I nodded. Cold water was just what I needed for my shoulder.

“He wants water, boys,” Yeats said. Suddenly, I was dragged off the rock and, before I knew it, I was sailing through the air, until I struck the icy water of the Irish Sea. I hadn’t meant salt water. My shoulder stung as if a thousand needles had been jabbed into it. Unsteadily, I crawled out of the sea onto the rocks. What had I been thinking when I assured myself this was just an initiation ceremony? I was hoping now to simply live through it.

Shivering, bruised, wearing nothing but sodden drawers, I came back up to the circle of smirking devils who awaited me.

“Is that it?” I asked. “Is it over?”

“Almost,” O’Casey said with an evil look, handing me the stick I had just been branded with. “You just have to fight Fergus and me and it’s all but over.”

“But I’ve never fought with a stick before!” I protested.

“Aye, we know,” he gloated. “This is to teach you the importance of knowing how. Fergus?”

“Call it!” He tossed a ha’penny up in the air, caught it, and slapped it against the back of his wrist.

“Heads!” Fergus called, delighted.

“Heads, it is, then. Your treat. But save me a little.”

“I’ll save you just enough to wrap a stick around,” he said, and began to circle me.

I was about to get a hiding, while Barker was asleep a quarter mile away, which might as well have been London, for all the help he could render me. If my rapidly bruising ribs were any indication, this was going to hurt. I had had no more than a week’s worth of lessons from Monsieur Vigny, and my experiences with fisticuffs, in prison and the school yard, had been generally unsatisfactory.

McKeller raised his stick behind him, waving it in small circles over his head. His other hand was out, his feet spread apart, ready to wage war with the ease of a seasoned fighter. I raised both hands in front of me and swung my stick around in an attempt at self-defense.

He lashed out before I could move and smacked the knuckles of my free hand. Pain blossomed as if I’d been stung, but I dared not drop the stick. I thrust the hand under my other arm and continued circling my stick. He swung across with a swipe that would have taken off my head had I not barely ducked out of the way.

The stick continued in an arc, coming back my way again with more speed. I wasn’t going to stand there and get hit. I blocked and parried it, but missed his shoulder by a good foot. The malacca stick I had trained with was nothing compared to the knobby cudgels we were fighting with now, and I had nothing to protect me at all save my wits.

Fergus McKeller feinted at my head again, causing me to raise my stick just enough for him to wallop me in the ribs. The stick felt like an iron fist. I gasped and leapt back, but the ring of young men pushed me into the fray again. We circled about once more, McKeller with a grin on his face, assured of an easy victory. I was going to have to do something to show him this wasn’t going to be so easy.

What could I use that Barker had taught me? He told me there were three basic kinds of fighters: the runner, who strikes quickly and dances away; the blocker, who blocks the attack and launches one of his own; and the jammer, who jams your attack as it starts and brings the fight to you. Identifying which fighter I faced would allow me to anticipate what he would do. McKeller, I decided, was a jammer. He wasn’t afraid of my stick and didn’t fear leaping into my territory. I’d have to teach him.

As if in answer to my thoughts, my opponent jumped forward, stick raised overhead, ready to hit me over the ear. Grasping both ends of the bata stick, I pushed it into his chest, knocking him back before his stick could hit me. Everyone laughed, and McKeller was left rubbing his chest, a lopsided grin on his face. He gave tit for tat on the next move, however, as his hand shot out and he lunged forward in a classic fencing move, the knob catching me square in the solar plexus. I gasped for air and rubbed furiously at the spot.

We circled for a few moments, swinging and missing, feinting and jabbing. I was hoping I’d earned a bit of respect from him. I dodged one of his attacks and caught him on the knuckles of his stick hand, which brought some colorful Irish language from his lips. My downfall, however, was in foolhardiness. I swung at his head; and in answer, he parried it solidly and gave me a riposte upon the ear that knocked me right off my feet.

“My turn!” Eamon O’Casey called eagerly, and he and McKeller switched places. Of the two, he was the more dangerous. McKeller relied upon his aggressiveness and his strength, but O’Casey was a scientific fighter. Watching me as I got up again, he padded about like a young panther planning a kill. He stepped this way and that lightly, almost on his toes, and reluctantly settled into position. His every muscle was coiled, and when I dared wave my stick at him, he knocked it down and lashed out, catching me on the other ear. Now it was I who cursed.

I won’t embarrass myself any further by describing it. I attacked; he struck. I blocked; he struck. I ran; he came after me and struck again. I was hopelessly outclassed. I was also quickly growing black and blue. My lip began bleeding, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of quitting. He’d have to knock me off my feet before I admitted the point. Which he did.

I lay flat on the rocky ground, remarking to myself how many types of pain there are. The sharp agony from a blow on the elbow, for example, is far different from the deep ache from a whack on the lower limbs. A blow to the ears feels cold, as if a bucketful of water has been thrown on your head, but a handful of barked knuckles is hot, like a burn. These were the thoughts I was mulling over when both my opponents bent and looked down on my prostrate form.

“Both at once?” I asked, a bit of fight still left in me.

“Well, he’s game enough,” McKeller stated.

“What’s this about?”

“Call it a test, Penrith,” O’Casey said. “An initiation. We initiated you in the Invisibles. This is a tryout for goalkeeper of our hurling club. We’ll need one badly once this is all over and we go back to Dublin. Are you interested?”

“I’ll consider it,” I said diplomatically.

“First non-Irish lad we’ve ever invited to be on the team,” McKeller said, making sure I saw what an honor it was.

“Perhaps, if you stop beating me with sticks.”

“Stop! Why, boy,” McKeller insisted, “we was just getting started!”

“Very well,” I said, “but I want you to know I’m taking names of those to whom I shall eventually give a good beating.”

“Put me down,” quipped McKeller.

“Me, too,” O’Casey added.

“Is this a private gathering, gentlemen, or may I join?” a voice came from the shadows. All eyes turned as the blessed form of Cyrus Barker stepped forward into the flickering light of the bonfire. He was removing his jacket and pulling down his braces. “Perhaps, Mr. McKeller, you would enjoy sparring with someone closer to your own height and weight.”

Everyone looked at one another. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. Barker changed things. Barker leveled things.

“I dunno, Mr. van Rhyn,” McKeller said. “You ain’t a member. You haven’t been initiated.”

Barker turned to O’Casey. “In that case, I formally apply for membership in your organization. Here are my credentials.”

He removed his shirt and singlet, revealing to the terrorists the dozens of entrees to other secret organizations he wore across his arms and torso. He flexed his bulging arms as he displayed Chinese figures seared into his forearms, Arabic script across his biceps, and a dragon tattoo on his shoulder.

“Get the paint pot, Willie,” O’Casey commanded. “Colin, put Penrith’s stick back into the fire.”

“I have brought my own,” my employer said coolly, handing his ivory-inlaid stick to Bannon. The tip of his cane, I noted, was much thicker than my bata stick.

He neither cracked a smile through Yeats’s silly speech nor flinched when he was given a new brand on his arm. He solemnly swore to keep the secrets of the Invisibles, on pain of death. With the paintbrush, he covered his own chest and arms in Germanic script. Then he lightly sprung from the dolmen and picked up his cane.

“Are you ready, McKeller?” he asked.

“Aye, but no hooking with that cane of yours.”

For once, McKeller looked almost afraid.

“Appeal to Mr. O’Casey, not to me,” Barker stated, going into a crouch.

“Eamon, lad,” McKeller pleaded. “Canes ain’t in the bata rules. He needs a proper knob at the end.”

“I’ll allow it, Fergus,” Eamon replied. “It’s his stick and his choice.”

Now it was my turn to see the big Irishman squirm. I looked over at Yeats and the Bannons. We all appeared to be looking forward to seeing Fergus McKeller taught a lesson.

Reluctantly, McKeller went into a crouch. He was a jammer, as I said, and he immediately took the fight to Barker. My employer had anticipated the move, however, and stepped across at an angle, swinging his stick laterally. It caught McKeller on the temple. He let out an oath and backed up.

They circled again, the light and shadows playing across their faces. Barker made a feint, and McKeller roared in. The Guv stepped under his flailing arm and, as he passed, reached up behind him, catching McKeller on the shoulder. Before the Irishman could react, he fell backward over Barker, all his limbs thrashing, and landed on his head and shoulders in the sand. There was a short moment of grappling, and before he knew it, his head was squeezed between my employer’s knees, the cane’s handle around his throat. The Irishman dared not move.

O’Casey strode over casually to McKeller and looked down into his beet-red face. “You call that ‘form,’ do you? After all the training I’ve given you? Face it, man. You’ve just been outclassed, and rather handily.”

McKeller tapped Barker’s knee and was released. He rubbed his throat.

“I still think he shouldn’t have used his cane. ’Twas no proper bata fight to my way of looking at things.”

“Are you next, Mr. O’Casey?” Barker asked, bowing.

“Some other time,” O’Casey said nonchalantly. “Where did you learn to fight, Mr. van Rhyn?”

“Here and there,” came the reply. “There are some advantages to living a nomad’s existence.”

“Are we done now?” McKeller asked his friend. “This has built up a powerful thirst, and I want to be the first to pour my new little brother a drink. Great things, brothers. Always willing to lend you a shilling for a pint or two.”

Barker went back to the cottage, and I had several pints with McKeller, while with time and night air, my wounds slowly blossomed, every blessed one of them. I have a conviction that the only good thing about alcohol is its use as an anesthetic. I don’t think I was brave enough to face all those bruises sober.

By the time I climbed into bed a second time that night, I had no trouble at all falling asleep. Between the nervous exhaustion from the demonstration, the ceilidh, the sudden kiss from Maire, and the initiation-with its branding, ceremony, and beatings-it was a wonder I was still conscious. My last thought before I slid into sleep, as easily as one slides beneath the surface of a pool, was this: of the two sides, theirs and ours, who that evening had provided the best show? At best, I’d call it even.