Dark Rosaleen (16 page)

‘Poor donkey,' Una said and wiped her eyes in mock sorrow.

‘Poor donkey,' the children shouted in a chorus, repeating it in English.

‘I bet you haven't heard of the headless horseman of Limerick?' the old man said.

‘Is it right for the children?' Keegan asked.

‘They'll have seen worse themselves,' Tom replied.

Una put her arms around the children either side of her. Kate did the same. Keegan poured more tea. Tom began: ‘There was once a coachman on his way to Limerick. The city was under siege by the Dutch and the coachman gave them information about where the Irish defenders were hidden for a reward. All but one of them were killed and when the survivor reached the city he told them of the treachery. When they caught the coachman, they cut off his head and stuck it on a pike on Thomond Gate. Then, on Halloween night, the feast of the dead, they threw the head into the Shannon and cursed his spirit, so it would ride around the city forever. But then the good people of Limerick asked the fairy king, Rí na Sideog, to be lenient. If the coachman ever found his head as he rode his rounds, he would be forgiven.'

‘And did he find it?' Kate asked.

‘No one knows,' the old man answered. ‘Nobody's ever dared to look because if you see him, you are cursed to ride with him too.'

The children were not frightened by it. They laughed as old Tom moaned like a ghost and held his head in his hands. He looked about him for applause. He saw his son was at ease and he was pleased. He waited for the moment.

‘Young Keegan,' he said. ‘The horses will be needing some water and grass. Be a good man and look to them.'

Keegan rose and went to the door.

‘And maybe,' his father continued. ‘Miss Una might like to see a little of the valley. You have the time.'

When they had gone, Kate took the old man's hand.

‘Are you the cunning matchmaker, Tom?' she asked.

‘Just a little bit of mischief,' he said, smiling. ‘My boy's a shy one but I've been looking at him. Did you see his face? The way he looks at her? All he needs is a bit of a shove.'

They rode from the village a little after midday and Kate knew Una would soon be returning to it. Old Tom's last words echoed – the ones he had whispered to her as they left: ‘As sure as God made them, He matched them.'

Kate stopped on the ridge overlooking the village, so that Una could see the view for herself.

The air was suddenly still. There was no rustle of a breeze as it turned the grass. No leaf moved. No birds sang. It was a strange silence.

‘What is it, Una?' Kate asked.

‘I don't know. Maybe summer's on the turn early.'

‘Keegan said we mustn't have rain before September.'

They were a half an hour's ride from Cork when they saw them in the distance. They could not count how many because they were spread so wide, like a battalion of infantrymen. But they were not soldiers. Una halted.

‘We should go another way,' she said.

‘Is something wrong?'

‘I don't think it's wise to get too close to them. I've seen men on the march like this before. They're looking for food and work and it's best not to confront them. They can be frightening.'

They turned and cantered away until they came to a narrow gorge. Kate knew it well. It would lead them across country in a wide semicircle beyond Ballinaboy and back onto the Cork road. They would be well away from the threat of the men.

The gorge that split two hills and they were only halfway through it when they were suddenly surrounded by gangs of men running down the steep slopes either side. Rough hands caught their bridles.

‘Get off your horses and empty your purses,' the leader shouted. ‘Now, before we do it our way.'

He was a large man, tall and big-boned, but the skin around his neck hung in loose folds and his eyes were sunk in shadow. He held his fist to Kate's face and she saw the bare wrist was covered in sores and scabs.

‘Do as we say!' he shouted again. ‘And we might let you walk home, the way we have walked all the way from Skibbereen and Baltimore. Now give us what we want and if we cannot sell your horses, by God, we'll eat them.'

The men roared their approval but none moved to pull the girls down. The leader coughed and spat and Kate saw blood in his spittle.

‘If I give you money,' Kate said, ‘will you promise to let us through?'

She saw the hatred in his eyes. ‘I don't have to promise you a damned thing, missy. We have been promised food from the depots and work on the roads and we are still looking for it.'

He grabbed her stirrup and as she lashed out with her whip, he shouted, ‘At them, boys, and do what you bloody well like. But for Christ's sake don't let the horses go!'

Then the rock above his head exploded and tiny splinters hit him in the neck and head. Blood trickled into his eyes and he fell to his knees. They heard a voice above him.

‘Fall away, Gleeson. Your men, too. I'll aim better the second time.'

Three horsemen side-stepped their way down the hill. The leading man held a pistol. Cloths covered half their faces but Kate knew the man who had fired the shot. He was the same rider who had come with Moran on Fivemilebridge, the day he had brought the news that Shelley had been killed. There was no mistaking his eyes. He looked at her and nodded. He might have been smiling, mocking.

‘Perhaps you didn't expect your day to turn out to be so dangerous, Miss Macaulay,' he said. ‘But haven't I already warned you to stay out of our affairs and keep yourself safe in Cork?'

She pulled on her reins. ‘Riding from Kinsale to Cork is no affair of yours and God forbid it ever will be. We shall ride where we like and when we like.'

‘Which is obviously not true, not when there are men like Gleeson in your way. And I warn you that he has a more gentle nature than some you are liable to meet. Ireland has become a land of hungry men and hunger makes them a different sort. So take heed of what I say and stay in your father's house. You too, Miss Fitzgerald. I know of your father and your brother and I've much respect for them both but I wouldn't be doing them any favours letting you gallivant around the countryside in times like this.'

He kicked his horse and came closer to Kate.

‘We've come from Cork and we have seen the ships there full to the gunwales with food. Your father is pleased with himself, least so I'm told. But he's a fool if he thinks any of it will find its way into Gleeson's belly or any man here, because they haven't the money to buy it. Ships are leaving full of Irish grain and meat, off to feed foreigners while Irishmen here starve. You ask your father the justice of that. These men have followed the shoreline all the way here, eating seaweed to stay alive. The beaches are bare from here to Cape Clear. Isn't that right, Gleeson?'

The big man struggled to his feet and nodded, holding his head. Blood trickled through his fingers.

The masked rider continued. ‘You tell your father, Miss Macaulay, that there's worse to come, much worse, and it's not far off, not a day's ride away. Tell him that.'

‘Now may we pass?' Kate said defiantly, as if she had not listened to a word. She saw him stiffen.

He backed his horse away. ‘Yes. Go! But I cannot promise to rescue you a second time.'

‘I cannot say I want you to,' she replied.

‘You are a very cocky young woman!'

‘And you are a very impudent young man.'

His eyes were fixed on her, unblinking, grey-green, almost translucent. He paused and said nothing. Then, ‘Let them pass. And I'll blow the hand off any man who touches them.'

The men parted, leaving a narrow corridor for them to ride through. Kate turned in her saddle and looked down at Gleeson. She took the silk scarf from around her neck and gave it to him. ‘Wrap it tight and it will stop the bleeding.' She took her purse from the saddle bag and dropped it into his bloodied hands. He clasped it tight but he did not look up.

They rode off and put five miles between themselves and the gorge before they stopped. Kate waited for her pulse to slacken and the throbbing in her head to stop.

‘Who are they, Una? How can they ride about the country masked and armed like that?'

Una shook her head. ‘He said it was none of your business and he is right. It is not.'

‘It is my business,' Kate said. ‘I'm certain he is the man who was with Moran when he told me Shelley was killed. He knows who's to blame. You must tell me.'

Una hesitated. ‘He's known as ‘the Rebel' but he has another name.'

‘What is it then?'

‘Coburn, Daniel Coburn. He is the leader of the Young Irelanders. Once they followed O'Connell but they left him because they thought he was too old, too sick, too patient. Coburn is different, full of talk about freeing Ireland from the English, full of threats. He has many supporters and there are rumours that they are arming themselves. My father says it's only talk and maybe that's all it will ever be.'

‘What will happen if the government catches him?'

‘They will hang him. Which is a shame.'

Kate thought of the soft voice behind the mask and the grey-green eyes and said nothing.

They cantered on following the river's bends as far as the crossroads near Sligga Bridge. Then they climbed the shallow rise of a hill until they came to its brow. Here again the air was cold and still, as if all of nature's sounds had been silenced. The horses kicked the ground. The entire valley below was covered in a thick white mist and, as they watched, it rose before them until even the sky was hidden. And from it came a smell, the evil, sickly stench of corruption.

‘Dear God,' Una whispered. ‘Oh! God save us.'

‘What is it, Una? What's happening? What is it?'

‘Listen,' she said. ‘Can't you hear them crying? Women and men too, down there, inside it. Smell it. Smell it, Kate. It's what Coburn meant. He said there was worse to come. He must have seen it already.'

‘What, Una? What did he see? Tell me.'

Out of the blanket of white came an old woman, her apron covering her head, wandering blindly and wailing. Una turned to Kate and there was fear in her eyes.

‘It's the blight, Kate. It has come back. God help us! The potatoes are dead.'

Dr Martineau was an obsessively punctual man. For any agreed appointment he would neither be early nor late and it was his fashion to quicken his pace or dawdle in order to arrive exactly on time. For him, punctuality was next to godliness and cleanliness in the neat and disciplined order of his day's routine. Which was why, that morning, Sir William was puzzled by his lateness. It was past eight o'clock. Precisely on the stroke of the hour, he would have expected to hear the soft knock on his door that had so regularly announced the doctor's arrival.

By nine o'clock Sir William was anxious. By ten o'clock he was in a state of mild panic, such was his dependence on the cleric to lend order to his day. Messengers were sent to the doctor's house and they returned without him. They said his housekeeper had not seen him since the previous evening. Sir William alerted the constabulary and waited, expecting the worst.

It came shortly after midday. Dr Martineau had been found in the woods at Glanmire, some distance from Sir William's house, hanging from an oak by Sunday's Well. His clothes had been stripped from him, his naked body was still warm and green ribbons hung from his feet. Pinned to his chest was a piece of paper and on it the scrawled name, ‘Shelley'.

Storms wracked Ireland from coast to coast. It was as if Nature herself had joined Ireland's enemies. The wind froze the rain that hit the ground as sleet. It grazed the hands and bit the face. It ripped up the stalks and shredded the plants that lay rotting on the long beds. The people watched and wept, drenched in despair.

The potato fields were as black as if they had been covered in tar. Families were deep in mud, pulling the mounds apart on their knees. They found nothing but stinking pulp. Women clawed their breasts and wept. Their men roared curses at the sky, threw themselves down and beat the ground with their fists.