The Legacy of the Lynx: Three people, two murders, one oath... Page 10

  ‘So you’re here for why?’ the man said without preamble.

  Fergus’s escort hadn’t left him and the weight of them at his back was intimidating. He was dog tired, finding it hard to think straight, let alone formulate any words. The man Greta had indicated as Mick Malloy spoke again.

  ‘Greta says you’ve been sent from Peter and that’s all to the good, but you need to tell us why.’

  He was from the north and spoke fast and furious, but Fergus caught enough to understand what was being asked, Greta chiming in before he had time to speak.

  ‘Still don’t know what you and Peter were talking about so’s you’d better tell us now and it better be good.’

  Malloy nodded at Greta’s intervention. He was short and wiry, with eyebrows joining at the middle, making him look like a man who could do a few rounds with a bear and come out the better.

  ‘Got that, Greta,’ Mick said. ‘And we’re still waiting for the answer.’

  Fergus cleared his throat, trying to get the words straight in his head. Before he could start he was interrupted by Mick Malloy kicking hard at the log just to the left of Fergus’s leg and leaving his boot there, trapping Fergus in.

  ‘Don’t want to start wrongly – Fergus, is it? But Jesus, we don’t have time here for going around the houses. Just spit it out, an’ we’ll go from there.’

  Fergus blinked, but did as he was told.

  ‘I’m needing to get in touch with a Mordeciah Crook from Wexford on personal business. I’m also needing to get a message to Mogue Kearns to give to Wolfe Tone. That’s the long and short of it…’

  Malloy let out a snort of laugher before Fergus finished speaking, moving his boot and stamping it down onto the grass.

  ‘Mordeciah Crook, is it? Well that’s going to be difficult, seeing as him and his house were sent up in flames last two weeks back and nothing left of either of ‘em but a big pile of ash.’

  Fergus wobbled on his log at this information and Malloy noted it before going on.

  ‘And Mogue Kearns or Wolfe Tone, is it? Well don’t aim low. But I got news for you, Scotsman, that man Tone ain’t been within hide nor hair of this place in years, and Mogue Kearns is well out of your reach.’

  His derision was echoed by the men at Fergus’s back, one of them thumping Fergus hard between the shoulder blades, sending him forward so he almost toppled off his log.

  ‘Gonna need to do better than that,’ one of them said.

  ‘Aye right,’ said the other, punching Fergus in the shoulder the second he’d righted himself, at which point Greta jumped up and squared herself in front of Mick Malloy.

  ‘But Peter vouched for him!’ she said with vehemence, her spiky hair jittering in the light of the fire that was hidden somewhere back in the clearing between the trees. ‘And that should count for something.’

  ‘And I’ve something to trade,’ Fergus put in quickly. ‘Something Peter thought might be of use to Greta and your cause.’

  Malloy squinted, looking from Fergus to Greta, her earnestness, her loyalty so evident on her face that he lifted a hand so his comrades fell back, still laughing quietly. They left the three of them alone, for which Fergus was immensely grateful.

  ‘Right enough,’ Mick said, holding up his hands, offering placation. ‘Sorry, lass. We knows how much you does for us and how genuine grateful we are for it, and for Peter too. But you,’ he turned back to Fergus, ‘you have some explaining to do.’

  Fergus’s stomach had dropped down a hole when Malloy said that Mordeciah Crook was gone, as was his house and presumably his library, including the Lynx part of it – assuming it was really there – nullifying his reason for being here. But there might, he reasoned, still be some rescue to the fiasco; his past relations with both Peter and Wolfe Tone might save him from being summarily killed and shovelled down the nearest hole as a spy.

  He rubbed his hands together and spoke, editing his story of all the parts that would no longer make sense. He knew that he needed to make himself valuable if anything good was to come from this trip, and his skin goose-pimpled with Malloy standing above him like a stone as he tried to think fast and logical.

  ‘The fact that Mordeciah Crook is dead certainly alters things,’ he began, ‘but I grew up with both Peter and Wolfe Tone before I had to leave with my father.’

  ‘And why was that?’ Malloy asked curtly, at least displaying a modicum of interest.

  ‘He was a lawyer, Edgar Murtagh, started chasing landrights for Catholic claims. Got us both exiled back when…’

  ‘Edgar Murtagh,’ Malloy repeated quietly, perhaps recognising the name, though Fergus couldn’t be sure and ploughed on regardless.

  ‘The fact remains that I’m here, and it strikes me that my mission is not entirely lost, not if I can get word to Wolfe Tone about what me and my master are trying to do.’

  ‘And what’s that, Scotsman?’ Malloy asked, unmoved and unmoving.

  ‘It’s no great thing to you,’ Fergus admitted, ‘an attempt to rekindle a society to push forward the views of the Enlightenment but the point is this…’

  Fergus brought out his pouch and the khipu from it, laying it on his knee.

  ‘That’s some gewgaw,’ said Malloy with unhidden disdain, ‘but what the feck is it, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘It’s a means of communication,’ Fergus went on, a little gratified that Greta was leaning in towards him to take a better look. ‘Good for people in your circumstances. Able to encode a lot of information but no earthly way for your enemy understanding it, and there are a hundred ways it can be adapted to your needs.’

  Malloy looked briefly at the strange ropey contraption Fergus had produced. He wasn’t literate, nor was he good with numbers, and could make nothing of it. He turned his gaze to Greta.

  ‘You’re the one’ll have to work with it, so what do you think?’

  Greta hesitated. She’d never seen anything like it, but was keen on anything that might prove better than word of mouth or messages written on paper that could get the person carrying that message – herself included – arrested and hung.

  ‘How does it work?’ she asked, prodding her fingers at the strings on Fergus’s knee.

  ‘It’s all to do with the knots and beads,’ Fergus began to explain, ‘and these divisions on the belt itself…’

  ‘Enough,’ Malloy interrupted. ‘I don’t have time for this but I’ll tell you something for nothing, Scotsman, you’ve got here at a hell of a time. But because of this…this stringy thing, I’m going to give you a chance. We’re due up in battle tomorrow. Should be a bit of a walkover but nothing’s ever done until it’s done, so here’s the nub of it. Walk away with Greta and your gewgaw before it all kicks off or step up shoulder to shoulder with your countrymen and prove that you can fight. Do the first, and I’ll keep you in mind if Wolfe Tone ever makes good his promise to get over here with his fighting Frenchies; do the second, and I’ll back you to the hilt, take you to Mogue Kearns if it’s with the last breath I’ve got blowing between my bones.’

  He stomped away, leaving Fergus blinking and blenching behind him and Greta tapping on his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll go with that,’ Greta said. ‘But right now I need some shut-eye and I suggest you do the same. Big decision, Mr Scotsman, and thank your lucky stars you’ve got Peter on your side, because as long as you’ve got him you’ve got me.’

  14

  THE GRIMALKIN CLAUSE

  SERVANTS OF THE SICK, WALCHEREN, HOLLAND

  ‘He’s not going to take me with him, is he?’ Caro said to Joachim as the two of them moved away from the refectory. The lad was so downcast that Joachim decided to excuse himself from mass. There were times when people came first, and this was one of them. He was angry at Ruan for treating the boy so badly, and was trying to figure a way he could make it right. He had the glimmering of an idea how that might be done, but no point in offering the boy false hope, not just yet.

  ‘Take heart
, Caro,’ was all he said for the moment. ‘Let’s get you washed and dressed in something other than goat urine and see where we go from there.’

  He took the boy’s hand in his own and gave it a small squeeze. It was not reciprocated. He wasn’t even sure Caro was listening. The boy hung his head like the proverbial lamb going to slaughter and Joachim closed his eyes. He shook his head, disgusted – not for the first time – at how cruelly one man can treat another, let alone a child like this.

  He was right. Caro wasn’t listening. He was regretting letting go of Golo’s book in his last ditch attempt to secure Ruan’s favour. That book was the only thing anyone had ever given him, at least anything good. He was remembering Golo Eck on the boat and how kind he’d been, and how eager to share his knowledge and how once – only once – Caro had been able to teach Golo something in return. It was in the bit about the whales, when the book had been describing those weird dolphins that had horns growing out of their heads.

  ‘They call them narwhals,’ Golo had said. ‘And I’ve certainly never seen one, and indeed many people believe they don’t exist.’

  ‘Oh but they so do!’ Caro had countered. ‘I’ve seen them up there off of Greenland. We chased ‘em for miles, but they got away, went charging up a split in the ice and then under so we couldn’t follow.’

  ‘Is that so, my young friend,’ Golo had said, ruffling the hair on Caro’s head. It was a touch he would have shrunk from if it had come from anyone else, but not from Golo. ‘Well that makes you the wiser one of us two,’ Golo added, and that was what Caro was recalling now, Golo and his words and the flash of light Golo had given him that all could come out right.

  The wiser one of us two. Hardly the case now. Caro was defeated. Promise given, promise gone. Only thing left was to shrink himself back into the shell he’d already begun to construct about the deepest core of him, shrink himself up until there was nothing left.

  Joachim, though, was not defeated, and the glimmer of that idea came to the fore. It was certainly a flimsy plan but he doubted Ruan would turn his back on it, not if it was delivered as a package. After depositing Caro with the brothers who would wash and bath him, put some salve on his sores, give him some better clothes, he went straight back to the refectory and intercepted Ruan who was on his way out.

  ‘I can help you,’ Joachim said.

  ‘Help me how?’ Ruan asked without enthusiasm. He didn’t want any prayers said in his name and couldn’t see what else might be on offer.

  ‘With a place to go,’ Joachim said, dismissing the urge to give the young man a slap, ‘and a place to start. You said your Golo had all your letters of introduction in his waist pouch and we both know they’re ruined beyond rescue, but I do know of one man of science who’ll likely provide you with every assistance, once he knows what you’re about.’

  This was a bit of gamble on Joachim’s part but he trusted in His God, and he trusted in the son he had abandoned when he’d joined the Servants. And the more he thought about it the more convinced he became that the probable outcome could only be good, and far better than Ruan deserved.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Ruan asked, though plainly wasn’t expecting anything much, his face closed and sulky and belonging to someone much younger than his years.

  ‘I have one proviso,’ Joachim went on.

  Ruan sighed deeply in response and it was all Joachim could do not to just walk away, abandon this young cuss to his fate and instead give his information directly to Caro who at least might make better use of it. But he didn’t like the idea of sending Caro out, penniless and unprotected, to trek the length of Holland on his own, and so he bit his tongue, took a breath, divulged the relevant information.

  ‘I want your guarantee that when I give you the details you will take Caro with you.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Ruan muttered under his breath, but Joachim clearly heard him.

  ‘Your absolute guarantee, Ruan,’ he said. ‘I want your sworn word that you won’t ditch him halfway there because if you do, and if I find out…well.’

  A few moments of silence then as Ruan weighed the odds. A place to go was something, and a name to head towards even better. If he could get that someone to guarantee him at a bank or with a lawyer then he’d be able to get hold of some funds to see him further. And he would need proof of Golo’s death before he could lay hands on the estate, and he didn’t have a clue how to go about that. But he saw his chance. Tit for tat, and all that.

  ‘I’ll take the little tyke with me,’ Ruan said, ‘but I’ll need something in return.’

  Joachim clenched his fists. It was an awful long time since he’d been so angry. Who the hell did Ruan think he was? Didn’t he understand how lucky he’d been? Didn’t he grasp the importance of what Joachim was offering him?

  ‘Which is what?’ Joachim said, rather shortly.

  ‘A signed deposition from you and your Abbot that Golo Eck is dead and buried.’

  Joachim sucked in his breath. He could have remonstrated, but in fact this was the first sensible thing to have come out of Ruan’s mouth and had the unexpected upside that he could extract something further from Ruan at the same time.

  ‘I’ll have it for you first thing tomorrow. And at the same time I will have drawn up a document saying that you’re taking Caro on as your indentured assistant, for as long as he agrees to the terms. And I want you to give George something for finding Golo and determining how he died. The cufflinks. Nothing more, nothing less. Will that suit?’

  Ruan narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like it at all but he really had no choice, and Joachim had a little knot of joy in his heart to see Ruan nod.

  ‘We’re agreed, then?’ Joachim asked.

  ‘We’re agreed,’ Ruan said with some reluctance, but he thrust out his hand and Joachim took it, and the two of them shared a hard and unpleasant handshake that had no good grace on either side.

  ‘Until tomorrow morning, then,’ Joachim said, turning abruptly on his heel and walking away before Ruan could change his mind.

  He needed now to get to the Abbot before Ruan did, make sure all was above board, that the Abbot would hear Joachim’s side and get the depositions drawn up so no one could dispute them.

  When did people become so callous? he was thinking as he strode quickly away. But always, he knew, always had men been so. It was the reason he’d quit his previous life and joined the Servants in the first place. All he could hope now was that his son had not become one of them in between Joachim’s going and his sending these two young souls to his door.

  15

  THE BATTLE OF NEW ROSS

  IRELAND, 1798

  Fergus hadn’t thought for a moment he would sleep. Patently he did, because he awoke an hour or so before proper dawn, his back propped up against his log, Greta’s voice speaking quietly to Malloy as they stood a few yards away from him.

  ‘It’s the English,’ Greta was saying. ‘There’s more than we thought and already moving out from Waterford.’

  Malloy’s face was scrunched in annoyance. Until yesterday his scouts had told him there was only one garrison in the vicinity of New Ross and Malloy had upwards of three thousand men scattered here beneath the trees. But if another force of Loyalists got here too soon then the taking of New Ross was not going to be as easy as he’d previously supposed. And it was a place he wanted. A stronghold they had sore need of.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, sounding more dismissive than he’d meant, disliking himself for blaming the messenger, especially when that messenger was Greta, who had never yet steered them wrong. ‘My lads told me they were sticking to Waterford like flies on shit,’ he felt compelled to say nonetheless, ‘and that was only two days past. And we need New Ross. If we can get our hands on the town and hold it then the ones who’ve already gathered on Vinegar Hill will at least have somewhere else to go.’

  Greta nodded. She knew as much, how the remnants of various bedraggled and demoralised cadres had retreated to the high ground
of the hill above Enniskillen in the hope of getting enough of them back together to make a stand, if the worst came to the worst. She’d not been in Dublin long but it appeared the situation down here had deteriorated sharply. She was not one to bite her tongue. She’d been at this game as long as any of them, maybe not fighting directly, but just as integral a part.

  ‘I’ll stick around, give you warning when they’re close.’

  Malloy shook his head. ‘No, Greta. We can’t go changing our plans now. I need to get inside New Ross and you know you’re needed down in Rosslare.’

  Fergus couldn’t help but overhear. He was twitchy. He was no master strategist but could see Malloy was right. If there really were a load of English soldiers on their way here then surely it would be better to be garrisoned within a town’s walls than isolated out where they were, with only a few trees for cover. And any minute now they were going to ask him for his decision – run with Greta or stay and fight.

  Everything in his head was telling him to run, that this wasn’t his fight – except for that fact that it was. It really was his fight. He’d been away from Ireland for so long he’d lost touch with what was going on here. His father had fought in his own way, and maybe it was time Fergus did too. And it shouldn’t be hard. Not from what he’d gathered from the mutterings of the men and what Malloy had said to Greta: only one garrison of Loyalists somewhere to the west of New Ross, and upwards of three thousand Irish rebels gathered here under Malloy’s command. How hard could it be?

  If he fought then Mick would take him to Mogue Kearns and Kearns would get him in touch with Wolfe Tone and maybe a way to help Golo get at the library in Paris before it was too late. His blood was jittering in his veins with awful anticipation. He was no fighting man, never had been, and oddly found himself wondering what Ruan would do in this same situation and was in no doubt what that would be. The thought that Ruan might be a braver man at his core than Fergus didn’t bear consideration.