APRIL 29, 1916
MOORE STREET
DUBLIN, IRELAND 1530 HOURS
Dublin held its collective breath.
Sean and Issy stood behind an iron garden gate, awaiting confirmation of the rumor that had filtered up from the leaders’ temporary haven at 16 Moore Street: Pádraig Pearse’s unconditional surrender was to follow shortly.
With English soldiers barricading corners along the smoldering remains of Sackville, a garrison of some three hundred rebels strong had been forced to flee the GPO under cover of night, with leader Michael O’Rahilly carving a diversionary charge into the cobblestoned nightmare of Moore Street. Rebels and citizens alike were felled under a hail of machine gun fire, their bodies left in full view through the night. Brick buildings pushed up against the retreat on both sides, leaving no choice but for the rebels to tunnel through the interior walls of terraced homes lining the route.
Sean and Issy had found respite through the steady assault, huddling under a porch in a walled garden, finding potatoes and green onions in a nearby grocer’s to fill their aching stomachs that morning. And it was past midday when the last haze of smoke began to fade into clear skies and the rebels watched in disbelief as nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell marched the length of Moore Street under cover of a white flag.
Now it was said she’d return, braving the walk again, and deliver Pádraig Pearse himself to General Lowe and his garrison of English troops swarming the corner of Parnell Street.
“Keep watchin’ down in the direction of Plunkett’s Poultry Shop. He’ll step out there if he’s goin’ to at all.” Sean stood just behind her shoulder.
“Winnie is still inside with Connolly, but there’s a group in the home next door that whispers it’s true—the leaders are negotiating a surrender. Evidently Pearse watched as three aged citizens were gunned down in the madness last night. They fell dead at his feet and he hasn’t recovered. It’s as if that made the decision for him, that no more of Ireland’s innocents will die for this.”
“An’ we must pray then that no death will come wit’ a surrender either. That it will all stop right here.”
Issy gripped her camera, holding it down in front of her torso, fixing the lens for a sharp image through the sunlight. Rebels watched and waited. A slight breeze twirled a crumpled piece of paper along the sidewalk, its edge seared black.
“Look, Issy. There.” A sigh escaped Sean’s lips as he pointed down Moore Street. “Pádraig Pearse. What do ye know—he really does have a sword.”
Issy would have smiled, remembering Sean’s mocking about Pearse’s cane that night at the Abbey Theatre. But nothing could lighten such a sober moment as the president of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic stepped out on the sidewalk. With Elizabeth O’Farrell at his side, they walked with confident steps, Pearse in full military hat and coat, brandishing the sword at his side.
It occurred quickly on the corner, the handing over of Pearse’s sword, pistol, and ammunition into the waiting hands of General Lowe.
Click.
Issy breathed deep, emotions spent as she’d eased her thumb over the shutter. Then in knowing what must come next.
The camera had become a beloved friend by then—a truth teller of their last several days—and she couldn’t bear to part with it. Even so, Issy slid the mechanism into place with careful hands and placed the Kodak back into the safety of the leather case.
She ran her fingertips over it as Pearse was led away and dismay descended upon the crowd of rebels lining the street. Soldiers marched down the sidewalks and rebels raised hands in the air—their abandoned dream laid bare on the bloodstained sidewalk.
“Here.” She turned away from the action on the street to face Sean. “Take it.”
“What?”
“The English will move quickly. They’ll arrest anyone in the vicinity. And before you argue that they wouldn’t dare take a woman, know that they will if she’s been seen running a dispatch for the rebels and took a sniper’s bullet to the arm. I’ll try, but I can’t hope to explain away all of that. As a member of clergy, they’re more likely to let you go free. With you, this camera has a chance at survival. With me—none.”
“I’m not leavin’! Yer mad if ye think I’d do that now.”
“But you must. You know as well as I that they’d never allow me to keep it. Whatever it has seen will be destroyed the moment they get their hands on it. And that I couldn’t allow.” Issy pressed the seal-leather case, now scarred and battle worn, into his hands. She covered his fingertips with her palms and squeezed. “Go. Take it and hide it away—you know where. In my favorite place other than the castle ruins. I’ll find it.”
“Issy . . . I can’. Please don’ ask it of me.”
“You once said I could ask anything of you—remember?” Issy whispered, leaning up to whisper an “I love you” against his lips. “You’re my conviction too. And I’ll see you after. I promise.”
Soldiers invaded the terrace, nearly tearing the gate from its hinges as they swarmed the garden. She winced as soldiers yanked her arm, staring back in the vicar’s eyes, willing him to stand down as handcuffs shackled her wrists and to guard the treasure under his clerical coat.
Never had a sunny afternoon felt so cold as Issy was forced to march with the group of rebels out to the remains of Sackville Street, leaving everything in her world behind.
MAY 8, 1916
KILMAINHAM GAOL
DUBLIN, IRELAND
Dawn sketched a crosshatch design through the window of Issy’s cell on another day death woke her.
For three days the executioners’ guns had gone silent, and she’d hoped it was over. But the deafening crack jolted her awake again and she’d flown to the window, seeing the same prison wall that blocked her view of the Stonebreakers Yard. Even with the reams of sunlight, the soiled linen shirt and herringbone wool trousers she’d worn since her arrest ten days earlier offered little warmth against the damp air. She paced to stir what heat she could—arms drawn in at the waist she marched in her cell, from one brick wall a few steps to the other.
The metal-on-metal clink of an unlocking bolt roused her.
In haste she turned to the cell door as the hinges creaked. Her heart thundered as the door swung open, sunlight from the corridor flooding inside. In the threshold stood a figure dressed in black. She had to blink—twice—to realize it was not an apparition of death come to claim her, but the very real person of Sean O’Connell who’d stepped in.
He paused just inside the door, whispering an inaudible something to a soldier posted on the edge of the shadows. Whatever passed between them, the guard acquiesced, bolting the door to leave them a precious few moments alone.
“Lady Isolde Byrne.” He gave a priestly bow of the head. “I’ve come to see to yer spiritual needs.”
Leave it to Sean to hold formalities at a time like that.
Even with brown hair mussed like he’d run his hand through it and his eyes reading as if he hadn’t slept in days, Issy chastened herself not to find a world of comfort in his presence. But she failed, throwing herself into the haven of his arms.
“Don’t you dare presume to ‘Lady Isolde’ me ever again,” Issy whispered and held on, gripping the lifeline of his shoulders, even with pain in her arm still lingering. “Just know, I’d give anything to kiss you right now for not leaving me alone in here.”
“Shhh . . . We must watch what we say, Issy.” Though Sean’s voice hitched as he whispered against her ear, he seemed as relieved as she was to be standing in the cell.
Sean eased back and scanned the space in a slow, earnest survey. There wasn’t much to see but brick wall and dingy brick wall. Cot with a musty, sagging pallet. And a barred window that allowed in more cold than light. Issy’s cheeks burned when Sean’s gaze fell and then lingered over the crudeness of a sanitation bucket in the corner. He turned back, restoring her dignity in the pretense that he hadn’t seen it—though they both knew he had.
“’Tis no better than a rain-sodden trench in the Green. I’d hoped for better, seein’ as they’re keepin’ women on here. Ye an’ that blasted camera are in a right fix.”
“We’ve all been in a fix since Easter, Sean.”
“I know . . . but I was meanin’ you, Issy.”
“A fix? Is that what we’ve taken to calling prison these days? How civilized. It sounds so much better the way you men of the cloth put it, like I’m simply away on holiday.” Humor and wit, she wagered they’d keep her sane if anything could. “But is that why you’ve come, to tell me I’m in a spot of trouble?”
“That much I knew. But I’m doin’ my best to see about gettin’ ye out.”
Issy tucked a loose wave of hair behind her ear, pushing away thoughts of what she must look like with a boyish cut clipped at the chin, gunpowder under her fingernails, and bloodstained clothes. She melted down to the cot and nudged over a shade, giving him room beside her. Sean sat, understanding what she meant without her saying a word. He reached for her hand and held it, out of the eyeshot of prying guards.
“The guns this morning, Sean. Dare I ask who it was?”
“Éamonn Ceannt, Seán Heuston, Con Colbert.” Sean stared at the stones in the floor. “An’ Michael.”
“Mallin?”
He nodded. Once, on an apologetic close of his eyes.
“I wish we could stop this now. It’s too terrible for words. To think of everyone who’s lost someone dear . . .” Issy couldn’t finish the thought.
“I know what yer thinkin’. ’Tis alright. They’re alive. Saw Levi yesterday.” Sean leaned in, the faint shadow of understanding manifest in his whisper. He could always read her that easily, enough to guess what she was thinking.
Alive. That was enough for the moment, to check one name off their list of worries. She straightened up, her spine poker still. “And my brother?”
“Housed in the gymnasium at Richmond Barracks, wit’ most o’ the others. Rory’s still fightin’ the gunshot wound, but he’ll mend.”
She exhaled, a grateful breath. “Does Honor know?”
“That her fiancé is languishin’ in a makeshift English prison? She does, God bless her. But the soldiers won’ arrest a woman bein’ wit’ child. Right now she’s a humble Irish citizen helpin’ her family rebuild the block ’round their pub. She’ll not draw any notice outside o’ that.”
“And what of Francis Skeffington? When innocent journalists are gunned down in cold blood or the lives of bricklayers are threatened for the cover-up, that’s of note.”
“Aye, but the English have arrested thousands of Sinn Féiners—even the rumored ones. No matter that most had nothin’ to do wit’ this blackness. Scores o’ women in the lot wit’ ye, though the English won’t claim barbarism enough to actually send one to the guns. I’d wager ye Winnie an’ Countess Markievicz pose an interestin’ problem for ’em. Quite the group, ye titled ladies.”
Sean tried to force a smile in reference to Issy’s pedigree, but his brow tightened, the shadows of his face taking a grim turn.
“Public opinion hasn’t stopped Blackader from holdin’ his courtmartials. Not even allowin’ a defense for the accused before sentences are carried out.” He shook his head, like it was all a waste—a shame what atrocities men could inflict on one another. “The Crown wants this all put down so they can get back to the task at hand.”
“A task is it then, this Great War? What does it matter whether men bleed in a trench in France or right outside these walls? I see no difference.”
“’Tis over for Ireland. At least now. Pearse is dead. Plunkett. MacDonagh an’ Clarke too. An’ no matter how bad he’s busted up, Connolly isn’t likely to escape the guns. Under guard at Dublin Castle, but ’tis rumored he’s next. Every man who signed the Proclamation penned it in blood, an’ the Crown’s come to collect payment.”
Issy exhaled, the wind socked right out of her gut. “I’d heard the news in here, but I could scarcely believe it until now.”
“’Tis rumored Pearse whistled when they led him out o’ his cell. Like he knew it would end this way from the start an’ still went through with it all, just as ye said.”
Issy neither confirmed nor denied his comment owned a grain of truth. She didn’t tell Sean what she’d witnessed from inside the GPO that night . . . what her camera lens had recorded of the enigmatic rebel leader the last night before they’d been forced to abandon the rebel post.
“And my camera?”
“Put up safe, just as ye asked.”
“Then I thank you for coming here. The news is wretched, but it’s far better than the not knowing at all. At least this way I can breathe again.”
“’Tis not the only reason I’m here.” Sean didn’t return any warmth in the sentiment, and that wasn’t like him at all. “Rory an’ Levi are set for court-martial today.”
“Court-martial?” Issy searched his face for a denial.
Sorrow etched his brow without a trace of hiding. If they were sentenced and transferred to Kilmainham Gaol, it meant execution. Or further transfer for hard time in a Welsh penal colony, which could be as deadly of a sentence in the end. Either way, they’d lose them.
“A witness has come forward claimin’ he saw one of ’em pull the trigger on an officer—Corley. Neither’s givin’ the other up, so it doesn’ matter they weren’t signees o’ the Proclamation. Unless we can come up with a witness to state the opposite—which they won’ do, bein’ soldiers—they’ll be found guilty.”
“This is because of what we saw, isn’t it? The night Skeffington was killed. The English want to silence any witnesses.”
Sean tossed a quick glance over his shoulder, inspecting the closed door as he dropped his voice even lower. “I can’ talk about that now. But I’ll be allowed to pray wit’ them before the trial. So if ye want me to tell them anythin’ . . .” He swallowed hard with eyes fixed on hers. “Anythin’ at all, I swear I’ll do it for ye.”
A thousand words died on her tongue.
Silence cut the cell in two, amplifying the drip-drop of water bleeding down from the ceiling in the corner.
“I don’t know what to say, Sean. For Honor to lose Rory now, when he could have had his revenge but chose not to? And Levi saved us all on that bridge. This can’t be the end, can it?”
“I pray not. I said if I could help ye, I’d do anythin’. Looks like ’tis time to test that vow.” He hooked his index finger under a wisp of hair that had freed itself at her temple, finding a place of remembrance between them. He was slow and intentional in brushing her hair back, like he’d done so tenderly once, in the beauty of an empty sanctuary.
The door clanged again, the sound of unlocking bolts jarring them out of the innocence of the past.
“Vicar?” the guard barked. “A word.”
Sean stood, the void he’d left next to her cold as death. And she’d not said good-bye. Not properly. Not the way she needed to, if this was the last time . . .
“No, wait—” Issy cried out, unable to let him go.
“Hold on to this.” He offered a Bible she hadn’t realized he’d brought, the beauty of worn black leather extended to her. How he’d rescued it from the GPO she hadn’t a clue. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
The contrast of gunpowder that still darkened the underside of her nails seemed so foul against the Book. But she took it in hand. Carefully. Humbly. As if it were made of something so pure that not even the tarnish of her hands could manage to soil its beauty.
Issy watched sunlight swallow Sean back into the corridor, and darkness fell again as her cell door clanged shut. The sound of bootfalls echoed in the hall . . . and she was alone again.
She gripped the Bible in her palms: paper and ink and cracked leather her lifeline. With hands shaking, gut lurching, untapped courage bubbling its way to the surface, she ran her fingertips over the pages.
One was marked with a slight rise of paper wedged close to the binding. Issy split the Bible at it and found the tender reminder that she wasn’t alone. Folded inside a scrap of paper, Sean had tucked in a lock of cinnamon hair she hadn’t even known he’d saved and two words penned in Gaelic: Tá súil.
Hope.
The unlocking of bolts jarred her from her tears.
Sean reemerged in the open cell door, standing in the space where sunlight pierced shadow.
“It seems God smiles upon ye, Issy-Girl. Yer free to go,” he said, his smile victorious. “I’m to stay on at Kilmainham, if we want to be doin’ anythin’ about helpin’ our brothers when they get here.”
“But how?”
“Seems a witness has come forward, ready to tell the truth.”