Moran the butler was a quiet man. Many thought him wise. For half a century he had served in the houses of some of Ireland’s oldest families and his loyalty and attention to his responsibilities were considered impeccable. In the drawing rooms and at the dining tables of the rich and powerful he had listened to them talk of Ireland’s perpetual calamities and knew by heart all their random, brutal remedies. Yet he had stood as still as a statue, awaiting the beckoned call or the snap of a finger, an obedient, discrete and utterly trustworthy servant, seemingly deaf to it all.
He had been born into service. His mother was a scullery maid to Lord Bessborough, his father was His Lordship’s senior groom. From the cradle Moran had known only his mother’s warmth and love. He was a stranger to the pangs of an empty stomach. As he grew older, he knew little of the world outside the estates. He would listen to the kitchen staff tell of the hunger among the poor but, hearing the contrary from his employers, preferred to believe them. To him, kitchen talk was grossly exaggerated gossip and he reminded the storytellers that among the Irish there was considerable verbal licence. He seemed to care nothing for his country’s ills. Until the day the English hanged the son of his sister, his only nephew, Liam.
The boy had been a month short of his nineteenth birthday, an innocent in Ireland’s mayhem. He was a simple boy who snared hares for a living, content to pass the time of day with anyone who offered a smile. But he shared a cottage with men who lived very differently, men who lived violently, men prepared to kill for a living. In time they were caught and sentenced to hang and Liam was sentenced with them.
Outside the walls of Dublin’s Newgate Prison, Moran watched the three climb the steps to the scaffold, the killers shouting their defiance, kicking the air until their last breath. He saw the noose tighten around Liam’s neck, the boy with the guiltless face who was asking why, even as the death hatch opened. And without an answer, dropped to oblivion.
They would not let Moran bury him in the family grave. The boy’s body was taken back inside the prison walls and flung into a pit of lime with the other two. A month later his mother died of grief and since that day the quiet butler lived only to avenge her. Now he worked for another master within Sir William’s household. As ever, he stood silent and respectful in the hub of government activity where many confidences were freely available and many secrets unguardedly revealed. Now he was the prime source of information for men who were not England’s friends. He knew the risks he was expected to take on their behalf and the penalty of being discovered. But he was unfamiliar with the ways of a man long skilled in the black art and this was his undoing.
Greville Martineau believed that the world surrounding him was so threatening, so evil, his Church could only be made safe by using the weapons of evil and the strategies of evil men. He believed that Church to be so precious that, like truth itself, it must be protected by a cordon of cunning, lies and deceit.
When Captain Shelley had left for Skibbereen with his wagons of food, Martineau sent one of his trusted spies with him, under the guise of a wagon master. In time the man reported back all the captain did and said. He made mention of the young man’s distress, his anger at the land agents for demanding rent from paupers, at the corn merchants for profiting from the rise in wheat prices. Shelley was seen shouting at the dockers loading the sailing ships with Irish wheat and oats, bound for England. The spy reported that the captain had since sold the Commission’s wagons and horses, had bought food with the money and was giving it out free. Hundreds of families were flocking to him.
Dr Martineau sat reading the report in his dressing room. He was not alarmed by it nor was he surprised. He realised it was too late to have the captain arrested. Shelley had already thrown off his uniform and retreated to the hinterland with men not of his own kind, men jubilant they had recruited such a prize, an English army officer, a young gallant, now a rebel himself. The doctor decided that Shelley must go the way of all desperate men and he must go soon. It would not be enough simply to capture him.
He gazed into the hand mirror on his dressing table, daubed a touch of powder on his cheeks and a little more rouge to his lips. He caressed the heavy gold crucifix that rested in the cleft of his neck, saw his reflection in the shimmering candlelight and felt a surge of pleasure. He knew now what he must do and the prospect excited him. He snuffed out the candle and left the darkened room smiling.
‘She is not sick, Sir William, simply bored, and an empty mind is a dangerous vessel. It has been a long winter and Cork is not a place for young souls denied their hunting and prancing. It is not a doctor she needs but a little employment.’
Dr Martineau sat with Sir William Macaulay in the room of beechwood, drinking his mid-morning coffee. He continued.
‘Your daughter is not herself. She is listless and depressed but I really do not believe she is suffering from anything more serious than boredom. We must find her something to do.’
‘Like what?’ asked Sir William. ‘What is there do in this cursed country except what we are doing? I promised her lively company, people of her own sort, parties and the like and she has had none of these things. And she’s changing. She is not the Kathryn I brought with me from England. She says the oddest things in the oddest way. Sometimes I close my eyes when she is speaking and wonder if it is her. Reminds me of someone I knew a long time ago. Indeed she does.’
For some minutes he said nothing. Martineau waited. Sir William poured himself more coffee. ‘Damn it, Martineau, I’d send her back home if I could but Trevelyan insists that she stay, though for the life of me I can’t understand why. She’s hardly the flower of society and that’s why he wanted her here.’
Martineau was soothing. ‘You must not blame yourself. Ireland is presently the most upsetting country on God’s earth.’
‘It’s cursed!’ Sir William rose from his chair, angry. ‘I tell you, it’s cursed. That’s why God cut it off from the rest of us and dumped it out here in the Atlantic. Ireland is damned.’
‘I do not believe in curses.’
‘Then maybe you should. Explain it any other way.’
‘It’s God’s will.’
‘And God’s will be done. Well, he’s certainly doing it here with a vengeance.’
‘With respect sir, we must not blaspheme.’
Sir William settled himself in his chair again, his anger gone. ‘You talked of Kathryn.’
‘We must make her busy. Here in the Commission. I think it will lift her spirits and yours too, perhaps.’
‘It wasn’t so long ago that you told me she ought not to be privy to our work.’
‘I did, and with good reason. But I think her temper has subsided. She has quietened decidedly. Now she needs employment.’
Sir William nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right, Martineau. As you always are. Maybe she might work for me as my personal assistant, looking after all the trivia that flies back and forth from Trevelyan. He’s a monster for detail and I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up with him. One minute he’s complaining there is not enough activity here and the next he’s protesting we are spending too much of his money. How can we be active if he’s reined in our budget? He’s now threatening to end this entire thing next year, close us up and have us go home. We’ve hardly arrived and they’re still hungry out there. The man has no heart. He should come and see for himself.’
‘And of Kathryn, sir?’ Martineau asked.
‘What? Yes! Do it. She’ll help soothe me.’
Martineau bowed his head. ‘Just one small thing, Sir William. It might be best if you make no mention of my part in this. She may consider it too patronising and young people are so sensitive. I suggest the initiative is entirely yours.’
Sir William did not think it important but he nodded. ‘Of course. But before you go, Martineau, tell me, what news of Captain Shelley? Has he been seen again?’
‘No, sir. Not since that report from Killarney. But we will find him. He cannot hide for long and he is no use to himself or others unless he is making mischief in the open.’
‘God knows what we’ll do when we catch him. I’d shoot him myself. Damn the man, his treachery and his double-dealing. A British officer and supposedly a gentleman. And eating at my table!’
‘Be patient, Sir William. Just a while longer. Then you’ll see. We will draw him out.’
‘The man’s a fool, Martineau. They say he burnt his uniform but kept his army boots. What do you make of that?’
‘Let us not underestimate him. Remember it is a wise caution to fear the man who has nothing to lose.’ He bowed once more and left the room, closing the door gently behind him.
There was no one moment when Kate and Moran declared themselves allies. No formal pact, no secret signals. He would hear of things happening as far north as Sligo and Monaghan or as far west as Tralee and she would know that Shelley was still alive. For a month now she had been working with her father, copying and filing instructions to his agents, redrafting his hastily written letters, correcting his grammar. She found it no more and no less interesting than reading Trollope in the library, but she was now intimate with confidential information and there was little that happened within the Commission she was not aware of. Shelley had asked her to be his conspirator and now she was perfectly placed. She would be careful not to appear too interested, too diligent, and remember to heed his warning, that not all around her was quite what it seemed.
Dr Martineau had finally decided on a way to rid himself of Shelley without the risk of incriminating himself. He had chosen the place and the method of his execution. Droplets of information would be fed to Kate and she would, he knew, pass these on to Shelley. Early in March, he set his trap and waited.
A mixed cargo of flour sent by the Quakers and barrels of ship’s biscuits, sent from the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, had recently arrived in Cork and was due to be sent south to Skibbereen. Martineau ordered it instead to be trans-shipped to the small port of Kinvara in Galway Bay. There it would be stored in the Commission’s newly built depot for later distribution. A platoon of well-armed Fusiliers would be aboard the ship en route and once the cargo was unloaded and their officer was satisfied it was safely stored in the depot under lock and key, they were to return to their barracks.
Some members of the Commission questioned whether it was prudent to leave so many tons of food unguarded, but Martineau reminded them that the military were better employed elsewhere. It was wiser, he said, to have them in their garrison ready for any emergency than to have them grow fat and lazy guarding food stocks. He assured them that the depot was secure, built of brick, well roofed and with strong doors. Few ever questioned his judgement. They knew him to be profoundly efficient, a man who planned everything to the very last detail. So they agreed that the troops should do as Martineau had recommended and he was pleased.
It was the first day of spring. There was warmth in the sun. Primulas and primroses, wild anemones and celandine rose up to carpet the grass. The curling woodbine was in new leaf, entwining its tentacles through the hedges and there was a cuckoo in the woods. As each day passed, the land became brighter and greener and with spring came the resurgence, once again, of hope.
It was now that men thought of their potatoes. It was time once again for the annual ritual of praying for a long, generous summer of warm westerlies and a full harvest. Sick, weak and hungry men found strength to work their plots, turning back the turf, cutting away the gorse and bramble. Across all of Ireland there was a frenzy of planting. Everything was sold to the gombeen man – the last chair, a hair comb, a marriage ring – for a handful of pennies to buy the seed potatoes. It was the last desperate stake.
Kate felt the surge that spring gives and began taking her mare out again beyond the walls of the city. She saw families spread across the fields, men, women and their children on their knees. Those without shovels were turning over the earth with sticks and bare hands, breaking up the clods. Others followed with a dibber and dropped the cut and dressed seed potatoes into the neat drills, nursing them into soft cradles, crossing themselves for God’s blessing. Every inch of the plots was patted into place, the line of the trenches as straight and neat as a shovel could work them. Never had the symmetry been so perfect, never had expectations been so great. From Bantry to Lough Swilly, from Cape Clear to Malin Head, they prayed more for their potatoes than they did for their own souls.
John Shelley, former captain in the 49th, had spent many fretful days and nights planning for this night and this raid. It could not fail. He would not let it. Too much was at stake. Too many starving people were depending on him. To return with nothing would condemn them to die as surely as if they were struck by the plague. What would save them was the food, less than a mile away in the Commission’s depot, right under the shadow of Dunguaire Castle.
Shelley had made a long and tortuous journey since the day he turned away from the England he had loved, burnt his regimental uniform and buried his sword and pistol. He kept only his boots. Soon afterwards he was recruited by a band of rebels who called themselves the Ribbonmen. But in time they proved too violent for him, dedicated as they were to murder and mayhem, torching the landlords’ estates, terrorising those who laboured on them, burning crops and cutting the hamstrings of cattle. So he formed a following of his own. They had no name, no banner to fight under, no brutal intimidation and they carried no weapons. They were few but they did what others did not. They stole from the well fed to feed the hungry poor.
He was at Ennis in Clare when he received the message from Kate. It told him of the shipment of food arriving in Kinvara and where it would be stored. It told him of the escort of Fusiliers and of their orders to return to barracks once the food had been securely stored. As he read her note, the risks and doubts that, as a military man, should have made him cautious and suspicious were overwhelmed by the prospect of such a bounty so easily taken.
He had checked every last detail of his plan. The break-in would be easy. Emptying the depot would take time and labour but time was with them. The nearest army garrison was over twenty miles away in Galway town. And behind them, sheltering by Kinvara’s harbour wall, was the labour: over a hundred families, willing and desperate men, women and their children, waiting for the signal to come and carry away what they believed was theirs to take.
‘This is not right, Mr Shelley. All this food and nobody here. Where are the guards?’
‘Stop your worrying, Declan. The soldiers have long gone. People here saw them go and nobody has seen them return. They swear to it. The place is quiet.’
‘But it makes no sense. Tons of it there, just waiting for us. Something is wrong, something’s up, I can sense it and I don’t like it.’
‘Declan. Steady yourself. We’ve come a long way and we’ll not be hasty. We will wait as long as we have to. We made a promise, remember, and lives depend on it.’
‘Just as soon as this mist lifts and we can see a bit of light, send a man ahead to scour the place. Tell him not to hide himself, be open, just pass it by and back again. Tell him to do a circle of it, let him be seen. If there’s military there he’ll draw them out of their hiding place.’
‘Better I send my son Ronan. If they are there, they may not harm a boy but they’ll take a man for sure and keep him.’
‘Can you depend on him?’
‘With my life.’
‘Then let him go. And mind what I said. Let him be seen.’
‘And if he doesn’t come back?’
‘Then we must be away.’
‘I must leave my son here?’
‘We will have no choice.’
‘Then I will stay.’
‘I understand.’
They sat in a circle, the ten of them, Shelley cross-legged at their centre, all shrouded by the early morning mist drifting off the sea. They did not speak. They had nothing to say. They had walked five days to be here and were weary and hungry like those they had come to save, and hungrier still, knowing the feast that was stored so close. So they sat in silence, waiting for the young boy to return.
‘Mr Shelley, he’s been gone now an hour or more and the depot is only a half a mile off. How much longer do we wait?’
‘You said you trusted him’.
‘I do.’
‘Then you must trust him a little longer.’
‘What if they’ve taken him?’
‘We would have heard the commotion. Soldiers do nothing quietly.’
‘Should I go myself?’
‘Sit still, Declan. And all of you be patient. We’ve come too far to be reckless now.’
The first touch of warmth of the sun was on their backs when they saw the boy again. He came running but he was smiling too.
‘There’s no one there, Mr Shelley,’ he said, panting. ‘I went round and around and …’
‘Easy, Ronan.’ Shelley held him by the shoulder. ‘Get your breath, boy, and tell us what you saw or didn’t see.’
‘That’s it, sir. I saw nothing and no one. I went up and down, making out I was searching for something I’d lost, stopping and looking at the ground but all the time I had my eye on the big barn. Then I went around the back of it and banged on the doors but nothing happened.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Declan said. ‘Leaving it like that. Why should they do that, Mr Shelley?’
‘This is a long way from the troubles. Maybe that’s why they’ve stored it here. Whatever the reason, it’s ours now. Come, let’s go and get it.’
The depot was just as Martineau had described: a large barn, windowless, built of brick with strong oak double doors, coupled together by a single chain and padlock. The deep ruts made by the wagons that had brought the food from the harbour were still visible in the soft earth. For some minutes they stood by the doors waiting, as if they were unable or unwilling to believe that all they had prayed for had come about. How many times had they risked their lives to bring food to those who had none? How many times had they fought with their bare hands against men with knives who had tried to take it from them? How many times had they come close to utter despair, without hope, not knowing what to do next?
Shelley gave the nod and Declan’s crowbar wrenched the lock away with one single pull. The doors were pulled open and they were inside. Ten men and a boy stood silent in the half light, stunned by the sight of so much food, the rows of barrels and sacks stacked so neatly and suddenly all theirs to take. Shelley beckoned to Ronan and almost in a whisper said, ‘Go, boy, go fast to the harbour and tell them to come as quick as they can. If they have carts, bring them too. Tell them there’s plenty for all.’
The bullet of the first rifle shot pierced a sack and flour came trickling out onto the floor. The second cracked open a barrel stave.
‘Stay where you are, boy, or my third shot will be yours.’
The officer was behind them in the half light. He came forward, a pistol in his hand, flanked by six of his men, their rifles at their shoulders.
‘Welcome, Mr Shelley. We have been camped here for ten very long days and nights waiting for you and your gang. It has not been a pleasant stay. This is the most rotten place to be but you are, at last, our reward. I must admit I had my doubts you would come. But they said you would, they were certain. They said you’d not be able to resist.’ He waved his pistol towards the stacks of food.
‘They said this was the bait to catch you and catch you we have. It has been cleverly done, you must grant them that. Twenty-two of us came but only sixteen of us left. And your little watchdogs out there didn’t notice. You must admit it was very well planned.’
‘What now?’ asked Shelley. ‘Will you take me and let these men go?’
‘Oh! No. It’s not like that at all. There is no deal, Mr Shelley. I have my orders and I think you know what they might be.’
‘I expect a trial. I am a former English officer.’
‘You are a traitor, Mr Shelley. Once you wore this uniform and when you threw it off you must have known the penalty.’
‘I demand you arrest me and me alone. What I have done I have done for my reasons. Let me face the tribunal and I’ll accept the punishment.’
‘Not so, Mr Shelley. Not so.’
‘I demand to be heard.’
‘Too late, Mr Shelley. Too, too late. You have already been judged and condemned.’
He turned to his squad, their rifles still at their shoulders.
‘Sergeant, close the doors. We have business to finish here.’
Kate was out that day to meet Edward Ogilvie at Kinsale, some twenty miles south of Cork. The rendezvous was not of her choosing. The more she met him the more repulsive she found him. It was election time and this was polling day. Ogilvie, confident he was about to become a Member in the Parliament of Westminster, was cantering about his constituency to ensure his tenants put their crosses to his name. Few dared to disappoint him.
The town was like a fair on market day, massed with people drawn out by the sun and the prospect of a spectacle. Even the pauper mothers and their ragged children seemed blushed with excitement. Kate had never been so enveloped by a swarm of so many people. The scent of burning peat from the tinkers’ fires, the sweat of the horses, the pungent smell of their oiled harnesses, the sweet wisps of tobacco smoke, was both suffocating and comforting. A man on a stool was blowing a tin whistle and men came and danced around him, then staggered their way drunken back to the shebeens for another mug of whiskey. Another man, wearing a scarlet jacket and a jester’s cap with bells on its tips, held up a sack, shouting, ‘A ha’penny a guess. A ha’penny to guess how many chickens I have inside my sack. And if you guess right you can have the pair of them.’
In the corner of the square a man stood alone with a pig in a cart. He beckoned to her. ‘Look at the lovely lard on him,’ he said. ‘Look at his grand skull.’
He stuck his broad finger into the belly of the little pale-eyed pig, took hold of its tail and pulled it out of its bed of straw. ‘Aye! There’s nine weeks of fattening in him.’
At the bend of the square was a cow, old and thin; its udders had not given milk for years. Two men were arguing and Kate stepped closer to listen. They spat on their hands and whacked them together. ‘I’ll give you three pounds,’ said the buyer.
‘I’ll not take it,’ replied the seller.
Then a third man introduced himself, for it always takes more than two to make a bargain in an Irish fair. ‘Divide the pound,’ he said, to begin the haggle.
‘Will ye split the pound?’ demanded the buyer.
‘I will not.’
‘Will ye give him to me then?’
‘I told you three pounds.’
The buyer walked off.
‘You’ll be back,’ the seller shouted as men around him berated him for his obstinacy. The third man then ran after the buyer, seized his hand, pulled him back and smacked the buyer’s hand against the seller’s. They split the pound, the sale was made. The buyer took out his scissors and clipped his mark on the cow’s rump and the three men went off to celebrate the sale at one of the steaming, crowded pubs.
Kate heard the sound of a hunting horn and at the far end of the market she saw Ogilvie. He was elegantly dressed with a black top hat, a pink hunting jacket and riding breeches of white broadcloth above his polished black knee boots. Blue ribbons were tied to his mare’s tail and neck. He rode at the head of a long line of men who walked hesitantly, awkward and morose as if they were being led to a funeral. Behind them she saw his own bully-boys, broad and heavy men, with a blunderbuss over their shoulders and a shillelagh in their belts.
He was pleased to see her. He clapped his hands above the top hat and shouted above the din. ‘Kathryn, my dearest girl. What an exceptional honour. Your father promised me you would come but I didn’t dare expect to see you.’
‘I’ve never been to an election before,’ she shouted back. ‘Like your tumbling gangs, I suppose it’s something I ought not to miss.’
He was grinning. ‘Kathryn, don’t be sour with me, not on a day like this. You might regret it. Tomorrow I will be a parliamentarian and I could have you transported to the other side of the world for insolence.’
‘Tell me what is happening, Edward. Who are these men behind you?’
‘My tenants. Freeholders who’ve come to vote for me. Not that they are very free, nor do they have much of a holding. But they are beholden and that’s what matters. Remember the hanging gale? They do and I don’t let them forget it.’
He turned and stood in his saddle. He looked down and laughed at them. They did not look up.
He said, ‘They’re not over fond of me but they’ll give me their cross or they’ll be out on their backsides. No vote, no tenancy. It’s a simple electoral choice.’
‘It’s blackmail.’
He stood in his stirrups and spoke loudly, as if he wanted to hear himself speak, to listen to his own words, knowing that they could sound one way in the mind and yet sound quite different spoken aloud.
‘It’s nothing of the sort, Kathryn. Remember you’re in Ireland. Who do you think they would vote for if they weren’t obliged to vote for me? They’d go for one of their own and then what would we have? A Parliament of papists. Don’t call it blackmail. If the English want to keep this country, you must accept that what is happening here today is democratic and nothing less.’
Kate said, ‘This is their country, Edward. It’s their future.’
He laughed and raised his hat as he passed the paupers’ tents, mocking them. ‘The poor do not worry about the future. They worry only about today. Tomorrow is far too far away. And it is not their country. How often have I told you that land belongs to those who own it and my father owns this?’
As the procession of tenants passed through the market square, the crowd jeered and threw mud at them, ridiculing them for their subservience, shouting that they were following their Protestant master like sheep to the slaughter. Some of the mud hit their targets and a tenant voter broke line and began fighting. Ogilvie turned his horse. There was a crack of his whip over their heads. The crowds fell back, cowed, and the line of tenants shuffled on.
Kate was too ashamed to look at them. She felt their eyes on her. Honest, hardworking men, forced to march and vote for a man who held them captive. Ogilvie was talking to her again.
‘Don’t fret, Kathryn. The land is bright again. Given a good summer, we shall have wheat and some good profit. Prices are high and, given another blight, they will go higher.’
‘You want another blight?
‘Yes, of course. It will do a lot of good, believe me. The famine will be a great help, a calamity to some but with a purpose for others. It puts these people out. Gets rid of them off good land. It allows us to bring it together and make some really profitable farms. There’s talk of bringing Scottish shepherds over and putting the land to sheep. You just see. Once this is all over, this country will be peaceful and profitable and who denies the common sense in that? If it wasn’t all for the good then why did God make it happen?’
She did not answer. There was no answer to give. She vowed never to see him again. She had known him to be a braggart. She had seen his ways with her father and knew he was a self-seeking sycophant. She had seen such young men in England yet none had been as callously cruel as Edward Ogilvie.
Ahead of them she saw a crowd gathered around a man dressed like a scarecrow. He had a pole down the back of his tattered coat and another that went through both arms. He had stuffed straw into the front of his vest and more came out from his sleeves. His face was smeared with chalk so that his eyes were bright and his lips protruded fleshy red. He moved with the jerky action of a clockwork doll, stiff, his limbs unbending, imitating a scarecrow buffeted by the wind. Then he stopped as still as a stone and the crowd marvelled at his cleverness. Somebody dropped a penny into his hand. He bowed and they clapped.
She saw a small boy standing in her way, quite still, captivated by the scarecrow. He was no higher than her stirrups. She did not hear Ogilvie shout to the boy to move aside. He did not shout a second time. He brought the bullwhip high above his head and lashed the boy, the tiny bags of grapeshot cutting his shirt apart and tearing open the skin on his back. The whip cracked again like the snapping of a dead branch and blood spurted from the boy’s legs. He cried out and fell. He did not move.
Kate jumped from her horse and ran to him. She held him in her arms, his blood staining her skirt. She looked for help. No one moved.
‘Someone help me,’ she shouted. ‘Help me carry him to my horse … Help me!’ No one came forward.
‘Curse you for your cowardice,’ she screamed at them. ‘All of you. Curse you for this!’
She turned. The end of Olgilvie’s whip with its leather pouches lay only a foot away from her. She grabbed and pulled it quick and hard. The whip handle was attached to a loop on his wrist and he was jerked off his saddle and hit the ground hard. He was a heavy man and the breath was knocked out of him. She ran towards him, took hold of the whip end again and hit him across the face. Blood ran down his neck as his men pulled her away.
She turned back. The boy was unconscious in the arms of a man.
‘Bring him here,’ she shouted to him. ‘Put him on the saddle and I will take him to a doctor.’
The man said. ‘There is no doctor here, miss. If there was, the gentleman would have him first.’
Ogilvie was helped away, limp and barely conscious. Bloodied rags covered his face.
‘Where can we take this boy?’ she asked the man. ‘Who will look after him? Where is his family?’
‘He has none,’ he replied. ‘But I know him. I will care for him.’
‘Then take my horse.’
‘It is not far, miss. I can manage.’
‘Please.’ She held the boy’s hand. The man nodded.
‘I am a schoolmaster. My name is Keegan and my schoolhouse is only a little way beyond the market. If you should come, I will ask the women to rinse your clothes. You cannot go to your home like that.’
The crowd was sullen and silent as they left. She had called them cowards and they knew that well enough themselves. But she had injured their landlord, made him look ridiculous in front of them and that was worse. Whatever he intended for her would be nothing to what he was certain to do to them. They knew his bullwhip would return to Kinsale and God help man, women or child that had its attention.
It was not a long walk to Keegan’s schoolhouse. It was squat and thatched and the stone had been freshly whitewashed. By the side of it was a semicircle of small cottages bordering a patch of grass. Beyond that, a grand view of the sea.
Keegan said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on. You would like tea?’
Kate nodded. Together they undressed the boy, washed his wounds in warm soapy water and laid him in a mattress of straw. The whip had cut deep but the wounds were clean and Keegan said the warm air would dry them and heal them.
‘He’ll have awful scars,’ he said. ‘They will last him all his life. He will not forget Mr Ogilvie.’
Keegan was a neat man in himself and all things around him. He had dark-brown hair, long sideburns and grey eyes that were never still, set deep in his ruddy face. He was small but with powerful shoulders and strong arms and might have been a stonemason or a woodcutter. He looked at odds with his schoolroom. There was a small square window on its southern wall. Nailed above the door was a piece of wood engraved with the words, ‘Céad míle fáilte’.
‘It means a hundred thousand welcomes,’ he said. ‘And never in my life have I been happier to offer one of them to someone than I am now to you. You have honoured me by your visit here.’
‘May I come back tomorrow?’ she asked him. ‘I could bring some balm and new dressings. Maybe a little fruit.’
‘Would that be wise, miss?’
‘My name is Kathryn, Mr Keegan. I prefer to be called Kate.’
They shook hands.
‘Why should it matter whether it’s wise or not?’ she asked. ‘I would like to help.’
‘I’m not sure that coming back will help him more,’ he answered.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Ogilvie is a vicious man, Miss Kate. We know his cruelty here.’
She sipped her tea. ‘I’m not afraid of him. He cannot hurt me.’
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I am not afraid for you. You are of his people. But he can harm us and he will. He will be back and I fear some of us might not see the end of summer.’
‘Then I must come back here again. Don’t you see? As long as I keep coming, he cannot hurt you. He can do nothing to me. I am your protection.’
Keegan studied her face as she helped herself to more tea from the pot. He asked himself why she was doing this. Why should she whip one of her own? It made no sense. Who was she, dressed in such finery? An English girl riding a horse that was worth more than most could earn in a lifetime. The saddle alone would keep his school in books for the rest of his teaching life and another teacher’s beyond that. Such a fine young lady sitting here on a stool, drinking his tea.
She looked to him. ‘Perhaps, one day, I will tell you why this is so important to me.’
This startled him. ‘You must read my mind,’ he said.
‘I surprise myself. It is all happening very suddenly. But you must not think it sinister. I simply want to help and this is the first chance I’ve had. Let me come back.’
He said nothing for a while. He looked at the boy asleep in the cot. A draught whistled softly through a crack in the window frame. It was late afternoon, the sun had left the room. Soon it would be dusk.
He held out his hands to her. ‘Miss Kate, this is a strange day. Some might say it was a day meant to happen. But whatever comes out of it can only be good for us all. That I know. Of that I’m certain.’
She took his hands and held them tight in hers. She looked at the boy. ‘What is his name?’
‘Eugene. A fine boy. He had a yearning to learn. But it’s dead in him now that he has lost his family.’
‘They are dead?’
‘Dead or gone.’
‘I will bring him a picture book. And the fruit.’
She ducked beneath the low door into the early orange evening. Keegan’s neighbours had watered her mare and let her graze on the slopes. As she mounted, a woman came with a knitted shawl. She spoke in Irish.
‘She wants you to have it,’ Keegan said. ‘To cover the blood.’
Kate wrapped it across her knees. ‘I will bring it back tomorrow. Tell her I am very grateful.’
‘And we are too, Miss Kate. If we seem shy, forgive us. We are strangers to kindness of this sort.’
She waved them goodbye and cantered away to join the road to Cork. When she was above Kinsale she stopped and looked down. She could see the schoolhouse shining in the last of the sun. Around it, like a litter of suckling piglets, the semicircle of cottages. How wonderfully safe it all looked, as if nothing that had happened this past year had touched it, as if all the suffering and dying had bypassed it, leaving it clean and tidy. Then she thought of the little boy Eugene in her arms, his blood trickling through her fingers, a child who had lost all and she knew that Keegan and his hamlet had not escaped that winter’s sorrow.
It was almost dark. On the rise she could see the lights of Cork. She had left the road and cut cross-country, following a route she knew well. At the Owenboy River at Fivemilebridge she quickly reined in her mare. Three horsemen were waiting on the far side. She was about to turn when one of them came trotting towards her.
‘Mistress Kathryn.’
She knew the voice.
‘Moran. Is that you?’
He stopped beside her and took hold of her bridle. ‘Thank God we found you first, Miss Kathryn.’
‘Moran. Why are you here? I am almost home. Did father send you?’
‘No! But he has many men out searching. He knows what happened in Kinsale. He is not pleased but Mr Ogilvie says there will be no charges against you.’
‘It was a terrible thing I did, Moran.’
‘No man deserved it more. But that is not why I’m here. I must tell you …’
He hesitated. Kate tugged at his sleeve.
‘Go on, Moran. Tell me what?’
‘Captain Shelley is dead.’
It was as if she already knew, as if this was simply confirmation. She had not heard from him for over a month and his smuggled letters had been so constant, so regular. This was expected. She did not feel shock.
‘How did he die?’ she asked.
‘He and the others broke into a depot in Kinvara. It was full of food, over five tons of it, enough to feed all Galway. But it was a trap. They were waiting for them, waiting inside. There was nothing they could do.’
‘Who was waiting? Tell me, Moran, who were they?’
‘The military. Fusiliers. They shot them, every single one of them, a boy and all. They didn’t have to. None of them was armed. But they shot them as they stood and dragged the bodies into the sea. It was planned. They were meant to die.’
She said nothing. Moran touched her arm.
‘He is dead, Miss Kathryn. And we did it. We killed them just as sure as if we had pulled the triggers ourselves.’
There was a splash of fish downstream and the call of a coot.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘I sent them news of that food convoy. At first Shelley said they could do nothing, it would be too well guarded. But then you told me that the military would leave once the food was in place, that Martineau had not wanted soldiers there. I sent your note to him, telling him that, just as you asked.’
‘Yes! Just as I asked. Oh! Moran, how could we have known?’
‘It was Martineau, Miss Kate. It was his doing. He planned it. He let us know deliberately. The English could never arrest the captain. They could never have let him stand trial. He had too much to say, too much to tell.’
‘He had to be silenced.’
‘Yes, Miss Kate. They have silenced him. And all who were with him.’
From the far side of the river a man called out, ‘Come, Moran. We must go. We have a long night ahead.’
Kate looked towards the horsemen. They were bareheaded. The collars of their coats were pulled high, covering their faces.
‘Who are these men?’ she asked. ‘Where are you going?’
‘They are friends. And I am going with them. I will be hung if the Redcoats take me. Your father knows my part in this. Martineau will have told him. I am a wanted man, Miss Kathryn. I am a criminal.’
‘Moran, I must help you. I must do something.’
The two horsemen crossed the bridge and one edged closer. ‘You can do nothing, Miss Macaulay, but go to your father and stay out of this business of ours. The road is safe for you from here to the city. I’ll vouch for that. Say your goodbye to Moran for you’ll not see him again.’
Moran held out his hand and dropped something into hers. It was a pendant. ‘It is silver, Miss Kathryn. It belonged to my sister. Have it to remember me by. Others know me by it. Show it and you will not be hurt. We have been friends, you and I, and I do not believe that will ever change, whatever is ahead of us. Goodbye and may God always be with you.’
Kate watched the three canter away and soon they were lost in the half light. She listened until she could hear the pounding hooves no more. Then she too followed their path and left the river behind.
That night she cried herself to sleep. In her dreams he came to her once again, the ragged orphan in the flames, the boy with the despairing eyes. But this time she did not burn her hands trying to save him. He was reaching out for her instead.