The Legacy of the Lynx: Three people, two murders, one oath... Read online

  ‘That I don’t, Greta,’ Shauna answered. ‘I’ve heard nothing. But what I do know is this: if they died there on the Hill then they died for you and me and for the Cause we are not alone believing in.’

  Greta nodded. This much she understood. Her older brother, Joseph, had taken up arms soon as he was able, her father next, both dying early doors, the reason she’d got involved in the first place, for if they believed then so did she. Far better to have a function than hang around an empty homestead and a mother who took refuge from her grief by denying that any other world might exist than the one that kept playing out in her own head, where father and brother still existed and went on with their lives.

  ‘It may not be my way,’ Shauna said, after a brief silence, ‘or the way I might have chosen them to do it, but it’s a truly righteous thing they’re doing, those men, my boys. And you Greta. You too. Never forget that.’

  Both quiet they were then, the middle-aged mother who might have lost her last remaining sons, and the lost young girl, thinking their own thoughts, hands clasped together sitting by their fire. They listened to the sounds of normal life going on all about them: the cattle grazing out in the fields, the occasional low bellow that came from a dam to her calf when they became separated by the throng for too long, the chooks pecking away at the stones in the yard for any seed that might have fallen into the hollows between the cobbles, the softer sounds of collared doves calling from their cot, the rise and fall of lapwings as they whirred haphazardly over the cottage and its surrounding meadows.

  ‘Is there anything I can do? About your boys, I mean?’ Greta asked. ‘I could go back…I could…’

  Shauna Clooney sighed, squeezing Greta’s hand, her shoulders sagging without conscious thought.

  ‘No, darling,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing you can do. If it’s done, it’s done. Same as it’s been since this whole thing started. Nothing to do but sit and wait, same as every other woman the country up and down.’

  And that about summed it up: Shauna sitting here, waiting to hear if her sons were dead or alive, if they’d survived the latest battle and – if they had – whether or not they’d gone on to, and died, in the next. No adequate means of letting her know one way or another. Letters getting through occasionally but only if they knew how to write, and only if they had trusted channels to send them through. Greta thought back to the Printworks and the morning before New Ross and Fergus and to Mogue Kearns and her oath.

  Christ almighty! How had she never seen it before? She had the means to help Shauna right here with her! It wouldn’t take much. No need for complication. Knots and beads, Fergus had said, how hard could it be? But first, a proper look at the stringy doodah before she got Shauna’s hopes up. She looked around wildly, suddenly remembering Shauna flinging not a few of her clothes on the fire.

  ‘My jacket!’ she exclaimed. ‘Where’s my jacket?’

  Oh Jesus, please don’t say you’ve burned my brother’s jacket.

  She snatched her hand away from Shauna’s and put it to her mouth, because if it was gone then so too was the Scotsman’s Bauble and her journey was at an end.

  28

  THE LEAPING OF THE LION

  DEVENTER, HOLLAND

  Several weeks after Louisa’s last meeting with her Sewing Circle, which she had not attended since, she went about her duties with not a care in the world, because Caro too gets up at the crack of dawn every day to help her. Together they riddle the stove, fill the water buckets, wash the previous night’s dishes, wipe the muck from everyone’s boots and polish them into a decent shine – four pairs now, instead of two. They clean all the lamps, trim their wicks, change any linen that needs changing, then set to bashing at the bread dough, shaping it, winding it into plaited buns or sprinkling it with poppy or sesame seeds.

  Then down comes Hendrik and the three of them sit together for breakfast, Ruan Peat always staying in bed the longest with no desire for a communal meal so early in the day. He spends no more time with any of them than he has to. He’s lost interest in anything except the arrival of Golo Eck’s Will so he can be released from their company entirely. He is polite and deferential, but refuses to accompany Hendrik to the Athenaeum and pays no attention to anything Hendrik talks about afterwards when he’s come home. Hendrik had become fascinated by the history of the Lynx ever since Ruan gave him Golo’s book, or rather the book that Golo gave Caro, deciphering Golo’s scribbled notes in its margins.

  And this morning is no different, except that Caro isn’t here. Hendrik has discovered that the Athenaeum possesses quite a few of the Lynx papers – not so surprising, considering it is one of the foremost libraries in Europe, exactly the sort of place they would have ended up in, buried down in the stacks for decades on end. One of them has pointed to another possible deposit in a private collection in Arnhem and Hendrik knows the owner well and has sent Caro off to collect them.

  He should be back tonight, or if not tonight then tomorrow morning, so Louisa has saved some of the bread dough and plans to make something special for his return. A stöllen, she’s thinking, something sweet and delicious he’ll never have tasted before. Yes, she thinks, that’s what she’ll prepare for him. Something to make him smile in wonder. She can already see that smile in her mind and is joyful because of it, even though it is only a promise of the real thing.

  Greta’s world was back on its axis, her Road to Exile still intact. Shauna had not burned her jacket. Gone were her boots, socks and the bottom half of her trousers, but not the jacket.

  ‘That much leather?’ Shauna laughed just to think on it. ‘Of course not, child! It would have smothered my fire into nonexistence, and why would I burn the one thing you were wearing that could still be of use? I meant to talk to you today about replacing all the rest of your clothes, or rather the ones you’re still wearing because my word, I don’t know if you know it, but you look and smell a fright.’

  The words weren’t said badly and Greta didn’t take them so, and before long she was kitted out in hand-me-downs of varying shapes and sizes, topped off by her brother’s jacket. She would stay with Shauna Clooney only as long as it took her feet to heel and then she would be off again.

  They got on well during the weeks Greta was at Shauna’s, quickly settling into a routine. Shauna inspected Greta’s feet every morning, removing the bandages, washing the sores, lathering on more medicaments before bandaging them back up again. And then the both of them went to the stock or the dairy for a few more hours, or weeding Shauna’s vegetable plot, collecting fruit from the orchard, boiling it into pickles and jams, tying up bundles of herbs to dry near the fire, pressing down mushrooms with salt into a ketchup that would last far longer than either of them could hope to live.

  By the time seven o’clock of a night came, Shauna and her young helpmeet had gained enough hours to afford them both the rare pleasure of having time to spare, and in the quiet times of the evenings they played card games or read to each other from one of the few books Shauna’s mother had left her – books not opened for maybe fifteen, twenty, years. They also allotted half an hour a night to try to figure out a way the stringy belt – as Greta called it, for she couldn’t remember it’s proper name – could be put to use for the United Irish or, more specifically, for Shauna and her sons.

  The first time Greta took out the pouch she was dismayed by the dark brown flakes that fell from its surface: Mogue Kearns’ blood. Shauna understood, and swept every last fraction of them into a small handkerchief and handed it over to Greta, who took it with gratitude and placed it inside her jacket pocket. Then she turned her attention back to the pouch and tipped out its contents. Shauna was dazzled by the ring, but as soon as Greta explained how the belt might put to practical use she ignored it, the ring put away and never spoken of again.

  ‘So where’s the what of it?’ Shauna asked, completely confounded by the khipu. Greta was puzzled too. She was an observant girl and was certain it looked different now than it had d
one when Fergus first showed her it, although this was the first time she’d looked at it up close.

  ‘He said it was all to do with the knots and beads,’ she answered slowly, biting her lip, unsure where to start.

  She wished she’d bothered to go back to Fergus at the time and get the specifics out of him, but it was too late for that now. Still, over the following nights they had time and spent it well. Shauna had no writing paper in the house but fetched a beet bag from the pantry and ironed it flat and it would have to do. They began by Greta copying down the patterns of the differently embroidered squares that made up the belt – some looking like stylised depictions of trees and water, others taking the form of abstract symmetrical designs. All tiny, all beautiful, and while Greta copied Shauna looked at one or other and came up with several ideas of what they could signify.

  ‘I suppose this one here,’ she said, pointing at a group of little lollipops of differing heights standing together, ‘this might mean family, or maybe a tribe or a clan. When I get lads coming through here on the Exile Road I’ll often ask them where they come from and who their forebears were. Can’t never be too careful, and if one answers wrongly we’d be maybe thinking spy, and testing them some more. Ooh, and this one here. This might be sheaves of corn, maybe means a farmer or rebirth or something like…’

  Greta nodded each time Shauna spoke, jotting down her ideas beneath each illustration. When they’d finished that task to their satisfaction Greta moved on to drawing the positions of each knot and bead on each string dangling from each little square so that when done they had a complete depiction from beginning to end – a random beginning and end to be sure, but a completion of sorts.

  While they worked it became clear that it really could be used to encode information, though had no clue what the original information was. But that didn’t matter. What was needed now was how they could use it to convey information, of more importance than ever since the disaster of Vinegar Hill that had scattered the surviving cadres completely. If they were ever to reunite and mount another successful uprising then the key to it was going to be everyone knowing where everyone else was and everyone acting in consort.

  ‘Let’s say you knit a band like a skinny scarf,’ Greta proposed, Shauna nodding. ‘We need to keep it simple, so maybe we have it in squares of different colours and from those squares we thread several plaited lengths.’

  Shauna raised a finger and interrupted

  ‘That’s easy done. I can make a fair few of those a night if they’re needed.’

  ‘They’ll be needed,’ Greta said, with conviction. ‘And the colours? Can you manage that?’

  ‘Well,’ Shauna twitched her mouth as she thought. ‘Onion for brown and black, tansy for orange, Dyer’s rocket for yellow and green, elder for blue, madder for pink…yes. I think if I think some more on it I can maybe get ten. Might have to shear the sheep early for the wool and raid my herb store right enough, but that’s by the by.’

  ‘Alright then,’ Greta said, ‘Let’s say ten. So ten different coloured squares, a couple of plaits from each, a couple of knots or beads on each plaint and we could make an alphabet easy, knot at the top for one letter, knot at the bottom for another, maybe one square for direction, south or east and so on…’

  ‘And then squares meaning yes or no depending on the placing of the bead, another for wounded – good or bad, another for alive or…dead.’

  Shauna spoke these last words quiet and slow, Greta looking over at the older woman knowing she was thinking about her sons.

  ‘That will do it,’ Greta said after a few moments. ‘That will do it.’

  And so it did. They spent their last few nights together figuring it all out in detail, keeping it as uncomplicated as possible so it could be used by literate and illiterate alike, until they could produce a working prototype, one Shauna would put into action as soon as she had made it. They made plans for its dissemination, moving from one safe house to another with its rudimentary instructions, passing it from link to link, from chain to chain, moving slowly but certainly across the land.

  Too soon for Shauna came Greta’s leaving. No sign yet of Donal coming home from the coast.

  ‘He’ll be lording it up after the whales,’ Shauna said. ‘That’s ay been my Donal. Stick a bit of money in his pocket and he’ll step into every public house he can find from anywhere to here, and Lord knows there’s a good many of those.’

  It seemed wrong to Greta that he should do such a thing, and to a woman like Shauna who spent all her days working so hard, but Shauna herself did not appear concerned. She instead relished this time she’d had alone on the farm with her young Wexford Warrior, as she called Greta – in her head if not to her face.

  It was a quiet night, the last one Greta and Shauna spent together, darkness a gentle shadow that hugged itself about the cottage; a night with no wind nor rain, no furrowing of clouds. It was late, far later than either of them were used to, but neither wanted to part nor sleep until it was absolutely necessary.

  They sat outside, the stars bright, everything seeming safe and just as it was meant to be. They listened to the chooks shuffling themselves and their wings to sleep in the hen-house, and the doves snuggling down inside their cot, the cattle pluffing in their byre. Owls were on patrol, swooping down the long lines of wheat and rye in the meadows not yet harvested, calling softly to one another every now and then until they hooked their efficient claws into the backs of the mice and voles that ran along their hidden paths.

  Shauna was dismayed that Greta would be gone the following morning for she had lit up her life and she was feared to go back into the darkness when Greta left.

  ‘Don’t forget what I told you,’ Shauna said into the night. ‘I know you know the route and that each place will direct you to the next, but stick to it Greta. And keep your voice low as you can. And I know the bands will hurt,’ she added, referring to the strips of muslin she’d advised Greta to bind about her chest to hide the small budding of her breasts. Shauna had also cropped Greta’s hair, for it had grown since Greta had first chopped it.

  ‘And be wary. You’ll not get on any boat at all if they believe you’re a girl,’ she went on, ‘and Lord knows you don’t want them discovering it part way out. For starters those old fishermen think women are the worst kind of luck and will chuck you overboard if they decide to blame you for their bad catches. And for seconders… well, I’m not even going to talk about that, but be warned, Greta. Men at sea are lonely, and there’s a different law out there. Makes them less accountable, makes them take what they want, not what they’re given.’

  Greta didn’t reply but leaned in toward Shauna and rested her head upon Shauna’s shoulder, a gesture so casual and intimate that Shauna closed her eyes, wanting to hang on to the memory of it for as long as she lived.

  ‘I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you,’ Greta said, reaching out a hand and taking Shauna’s freckly fingers in her own, trying her best not to cry.

  ‘Only by coming home safe, darling,’ Shauna replied. ‘And by coming back to tell me all you’ve done and of the great adventures I know you’ll have, which will be a hundred times more than any woman I’ve ever known.’

  They went to their beds then, and the following morning Greta took her way down the path and Shauna went back into her house, ignoring the chickens that were clamouring for attention, ignoring the cows who were so desperate to be milked. Shauna instead went directly to her kitchen and swept up all the locks of Greta’s hair she had shorn off the night before, securing them in a small bag that she hung on a nail directly opposite her bed just below the round window so that every morning afterwards she would remember her young Wexford Warrior and send up a prayer that she was safe.

  Caro was eager to be off, eager to be home to Louisa, overjoyed – still a little stupefied – that he actually a place he could call home. He’d made good time so far. The two boxes of papers from Hendrik’s friend in Arnhem were strapped to hi
s back and he was just about to step on board the barge that would take him the last leg to Deventer when he heard a loud voice booming behind him.

  ‘Well if it isn’t my old friend! Wait up, wait up!’

  Caro turned to see the broad smiling face of Signor Ducetti beaming down on him.

  ‘It is you, Caro, why I thought it was, but my, you’ve changed! You were a slip of a lad last time I saw you and I swear you’ve grown an inch since then. Do come up here and let me buy you the biggest lunch you’ve ever seen! I owe you much, not just for dragging me onto the raft but for leading me from Walcheren, and I am not a man who likes to be in debt.’

  Same old Signor Ducetti, words pouring out of him like smoke from a chimney. A man who had never seemed able to keep quiet, not on the raft, not on the way from the Servants. Donkeys looked to their hind legs when he passed them by. Caro didn’t really want to wait, certainly didn’t want to miss this barge, but it seemed ill-mannered not to pass the time of day with a fellow survivor from the Collybuckie, and no sooner had they shaken hands than Ducetti was leading Caro back up the way to an inn, his big hand cradling Caro’s shoulder.

  ‘So you’re still in Holland? You must tell me all about it. And I want to know everything!’

  He laughed so loudly that people turned and stared, not that Ducetti noticed. He was too busy inveigling Caro to sit, choose whatever he wanted from the sparse menu.

  ‘And wine! We must have wine and lots of it, and nothing but the best for my young friend. This is a celebration! An accidental celebration maybe, but they are always the best kind. And let me tell you, young Caro, that I have as much to tell you as you must have to tell me. I’m on my way to Amsterdam, to my shop there, but this happy coincidence has stopped me in my tracks!’

  On and on he went, Caro subsiding beneath the wave of his words, sitting as commanded, choosing at random various foodstuffs, Ducetti demanding more, and before Caro knew it several hours had gone by, and then another hour, and another. He wasn’t used to drinking wine and by early evening was sleepy, at which point Ducetti declared he needed rooms for the night.