The Legacy of the Lynx: Three people, two murders, one oath... Page 8

  ‘The man I work for,’ Fergus began, ‘is called Golo Eck. His great aim in life is to resurrect a society started by one of his ancestors, a democratic, sharing society to promote new science right across Europe.’

  ‘That’s some aim,’ Peter said slowly, ‘and one sorely needed. If we could get rid of even half the superstition I’ve come across it would be a great start. But where do I come into this? Surely you didn’t come here for the good of your health.’

  Fergus’s turn to smile, and he took a deep breath, trying to formulate what to say next.

  ‘I came to you,’ he said, ‘because we knew we’d need information about what was happening across the country. I’ve read a few of your articles. They got into the Scottish press if not into the English.’

  ‘Well God bless Scotland!’ Peter said. ‘Quite a few Scots have come over to Ireland specifically to help us in our fight. I thought at first you might be one of them, but obviously not.’

  ‘No,’ Fergus flinched at the accusation. ‘But I’d no idea how bad things were. I saw a hanging on my way here, on the bridge…’

  ‘That would have been William Orr and his brother,’ Peter sucked in a breath and shook his head. ‘And they’re not the only ones. Men have been executed left, right and centre. Dragged out of their houses and hung from their own eaves, burned then to the ground and their families with them. I’ll not lie to you, Fergus, things here are bad, and it doesn’t look like we’re winning, not at the moment. Wexford is one of our strongholds, but how you’re going to get from here to there…well…’

  Peter sighed, leaning back in his seat, crossing one foot over the other, another echo of Jerome that Fergus could not miss. His great idea was slipping away from him practically before it began, but no harm in giving it a shot.

  ‘If I wanted to get a message to Wolfe Tone,’ Fergus asked, ‘would you be able to do it?’

  Peter snorted.

  ‘It would be hard, my friend, no doubting that. My correspondence gets checked before it leaves the end of the street. It’s a miracle those few articles got through to your Scottish papers, but not for want of trying. But there is one other person he’s in touch with…’

  The moment dragged as Peter studied Fergus and Fergus studied Peter.

  ‘And who’s that?’ Fergus asked eventually.

  ‘Man named Mogue Kearns,’ Peter finally said. ‘One of the commanders of the United Irish, was in France during their Revolution. It’s to him Tone promised he’d get the French to invade on our side. You know the French – never liked the English, as no more have the English ever liked the French.’

  Fergus saw with slight alarm that Peter was beginning to tap his fingers on the desk, just as Jerome used to do when he was about to squash some story or other.

  ‘This society I told you about,’ Fergus said hurriedly. ‘It’s called the Lynx. And Golo, the man I work for, is very keen to get its old library back together. That’s why I’m here, to get to the part of it that’s in Wexford. But another part is in Paris, about to go up for auction, and we can’t get there. We can’t get the permits to get into France, but from what you say it seems that Wolfe Tone might be able to help us gain access to it…’

  Fergus trailed off when he saw the look in Peter’s eyes.

  ‘Is this a joke?’ Peter asked slowly.

  Fergus closed his eyes. It certainly was no joke to Golo and yet here in Ireland, with men being strung up on bridges and others, like Peter Finnerty, apparently about to be arrested for doing nothing more than his job, the entire idea of the Lynx seemed irrelevant and mediocre. He felt embarrassed for Golo and mortified for himself. He opened his eyes, shook his head.

  ‘I know it seems like nothing to you, Peter,’ Fergus said, ‘but it’s Golo’s life’s work, and outside of all that’s happening here I know it’s important. It’s information and knowledge, and free access to both for all. And I swore to him, I swore to him I would not fail.’

  Peter was quiet for a moment as he weighed the situation up.

  ‘You do realise that this…errand,’ he wanted to add the adjective trivial to his sentence but restrained himself. ‘Well, that it might cost you your life? Nothing is certain here, Fergus. Nothing at all. Just mentioning the name of Wolfe Tone in the wrong place will be grounds enough to get you arrested.’

  Fergus hung his head. Peter had not exactly ridiculed his task but even to Fergus it seemed paltry, given the circumstances Peter was obviously in, it no doubt seeming that Fergus was chasing shadows of no consequence, a child running after bubbles when so much more was going on in the world. Strangely it was Peter himself who came to his rescue.

  ‘But I do understand, Fergus,’ he said. ‘I really do. I know what you mean about knowledge and information. If we’d more of it here then we’d not be in the clinch we’re in now. If everyone was allowed the pleasures of being able to read and write then everything would be different, but it’s not. It’s not. Half our population lives in hand-to-mouth poverty and are illiterate to boot. They can’t even communicate properly because of it, despite the fact they’re trying to fight a war to make things better for their children, if not for themselves. So I’m asking you again, Fergus. Why exactly are you here?’

  Fergus put a hand to his pocket, the one that contained the ring and khipu, and suddenly saw a way out, and a good one.

  ‘I’ve something might help with that,’ he said, ‘something from the Lynx. A way of encrypting messages, passing along information, devised by a people with no written language themselves.’

  Peter leaned in towards Fergus, a spark of interest on his face.

  ‘Now that, my friend,’ he said, ‘is something truly worth a trade. Something we are in sore need of. We’ve cadres of United Irish right across the land, but passing information is our Achilles heel. It’s been impossible to mobilise in coordination but if we could, well, things might go very differently.’

  Fergus smiled though his beard, and thanked his inner Golo he’d managed to drag something from the Lynx that had some workable value. The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that the khipu could do just that. It was tailor-made for the type of hidden communications Peter and his underground network needed. Get stopped with a letter on you and it was neck-in-a-noose time; get stopped with a khipu and no one’s going to be any the wiser. All he had to do was pass on what he knew about how it worked, let Peter adapt it to suit their needs. He was about to do just that when the red-headed girl came suddenly bowling back into the room, shouting for all she was worth.

  ‘It’s them!’ she yelled. ‘Soldiers! They’re on their way, Peter. Oh my God, you have to get out!’

  Peter Finnerty was on his feet in a moment.

  ‘Greta,’ he commanded. ‘Take Fergus out the back. Take him to Father Kearns. Don’t argue!’ he added, as the girl started pulling at Peter’s sleeve as she had done before. ‘Enough, girl!’ Peter said, though not roughly. ‘Please Greta, do as I ask.’

  Greta’s face was white as a seashell abandoned on the shore but she obeyed and let go her grip on Peter and instead grabbed at Fergus, propelling him towards a small door that lay just beyond the paper-scattered desk.

  ‘Quickly!’ Peter shouted, but did not follow them, and instead pushed the lever of the presses so they all started in unison, almost drowning out his last command. ‘Get Fergus to Mogue Kearns, Greta. Tell him to tell Kearns what he’s just told me. It’s important, Greta, or I wouldn’t ask it!’

  Fergus’s heart was in this throat. He wanted to stay and argue Peter’s corner. He was not the lawyer his father had been but had picked up some of the jargon down the years, but Greta was not taking no for an answer and pulled him on with a strength her small body should not have had.

  Moments later they were tumbling out the back door of the Printworks onto the cold surface of the Stoneybatter, Greta forcing Fergus to run with her, hard and fast, pausing only once to rub away the tears that were pouring from her eyes and blurri
ng her way. Ten minutes later she was shoving Fergus into a little ginnel where they could stand at last and take their breath.

  ‘They didn’t ought to have done that,’ Greta said, smiting her face with the back of her hand several times to stop herself from crying. ‘They didn’t ought to have done that,’ she repeated as she released Fergus.

  He flopped down to his knees, cracking them against the hard stone of the vennel, wild thoughts racing through his head like the deer that ran so elegantly over the moors above Loch Eck. Events had overtaken him and were moving too fast. He still had to get to Wexford, and could not ignore the possibility of getting some kind of message to Wolfe Tone, but everything else was scrambled. What was going to happen to Peter? Jesus Christ, he might even hang like those men on the bridge earlier.

  ‘You have to come on,’ the red-headed girl was saying to Fergus, angrily prodding him in the ribs. ‘If Peter says you’re to get to Mogue Kearns then I’ll get you to him, but we can’t stop here, not for long.’

  Fergus looked up. The girl appeared thinner than she’d done before, maybe because she’d shoved a boy’s cap over her head, hiding her hair, this simple ruse drawing a person’s eyes away from her face and back down to her scrawny frame, making her look astonishingly like a boy. Her features were not too fine, combining with stubby eyelashes and brows that were so fair they could hardly be seen. An elvin, intersex creature of indeterminate age, lying anywhere between eleven and eighteen, Fergus could not decide.

  ‘I said, come on!’ the girl said, kicking Fergus hard in his side.

  Fergus obeyed, emerging out the other side of the ginnel into a squalid street of run-down houses, washing slung out between them like paltry sails. A few pieces of paper floated down out of the sky and Fergus grasped one as it came within reach and paused to read it, squatting down to grab a few more that had landed in the puddles between the cobbles.

  The Inhuman Treatment of Prisoners of War, he read, and in particular of one William Orr.

  And then he understood why Peter Finnerty hadn’t come running out of the Printworks behind them as he’d fully expected the man to do. He’d spent his last few minutes of freedom fetching up as many as he could of the fliers he’d been printing, flinging them out in handfuls onto the street so the wind would take them as far as it could, an act of such defiance and bravery it made Fergus feel sick. Greta wasn’t so affected.

  ‘Get off your arse, man,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘If Peter’s fool enough to let himself be arrested then I’m sure as damn not going to let you go without spilling out everything he thinks you’ve got.’

  ‘It’s the khipu,’ Fergus managed to breathe out, but Greta wasn’t going to wait for any explanations.

  ‘The kimu, kimsoo, whatever you said,’ Greta spat at him, ‘had better be worth its weight in gold for what I’m about to do for you. And if Peter hangs, if Peter hangs…’

  But this was a line of thought Greta could not bring herself to follow. Instead she got her hand twisted in her new companion’s collar and hoisted him to standing.

  ‘We’ve a way to go,’ she said. ‘And if you’re coming then you’d best look lively, for I’m not one who waits.’

  12

  SERVANTS AND SUBHUMATION

  WALCHEREN PENINSULA

  ‘So what are your plans?’ Brother Joachim asked Ruan Peat, as they sat straight-backed at the refectory table the morning following the laying out of Golo Eck.

  Bowls of honey-sweetened brose stood before them; both were untouched. The rest of the Brothers had swiftly eaten, eyeing Ruan all the while, talking quietly about the unenviable position he was in. Here was a foreign lad, shipwrecked, now alone in the world, with nothing left to him but the clothes upon his back and whatever he’d been carrying in his pockets when he’d chucked himself overboard from the Collybuckie. More precisely, he had what he’d managed to hang onto during his night of being battered about on the dark ocean before being eventually dragged into shore. Even they, the Brothers of the Servants, must surely own more than Ruan Peat did now, but he apparently had Joachim fighting his corner and so they soon departed, leaving the two alone in the near empty room.

  Ruan cleared his throat, glad the rest were gone. He hated the way they’d slyly glanced at him as they shoved their porridge into their mouths. He had, more than once, fought down the desire to spring to his feet and shake his fist at them all, shouting to the world that he didn’t deserve any of this, and what the hell was the world going to do to make it right? Last night he’d been so angry, so despairing, he’d not been able to think straight and the night hadn’t done him any favours, falling asleep only to wake what seemed like a few minutes later, panic in every cell of him, sweat soaking from the nape of his neck to the tips of his toes.

  The darkness gave no comfort, made it hard for him to grasp what course of action would be reasonable and what not. All that went through his mind as he stared up at the ceiling of his cell was that all those lessons studying logic and philosophy with Fergus had been a waste of time. Why weren’t they helping him sift through his memories so that he could get at what he needed? And what he needed were names, and a place to start.

  He’d no money, no way of going anywhere, forward or back. All Golo’s letters of introduction and banking arrangements – that wad of papers kept in his girdle pouch – had been mulched into nonexistence by the sea. He’d the pendant, ring and cufflinks, all made of gold, but how that could translate into proper currency and bartering material he’d no idea. He was as useless and vulnerable as a snail that had lost its shell. And here, under Brother Joachim’s scrutiny and the bright light of morning, he felt more vulnerable still.

  ‘You will, of course, be welcome to stay here for as long as you need,’ Joachim’s soft voice said, though this was not strictly true, not unless Ruan elected to become a lay brother, which seemed to Joachim unlikely in the extreme. ‘And we need to decide what to do with your friend’s body.’

  Ruan swallowed, and swallowed again. Joachim, who’d been in similar situations with other relatives of other men and women brought up dead within his bailiwick, understood the indications and offered a solution.

  ‘Mr Eck will be very welcome to stay here with us. Buried with full service, and remembered every week in our prayers.’

  For a moment Ruan was perfectly still, for oddly what to do with Golo’s body hadn’t occurred to him. He knew Golo was dead, his dark night of the soul had seen to that. What were uppermost – when his mind alighted on that truth – were George’s assumptions that somehow or other, in the middle of that brutal storm, Golo had not been given a fair chance of survival, some unknown person going to great lengths precisely to make sure that he didn’t. It seemed incredible. Literally beyond belief. A fancy dreamt up by someone who hadn’t known Golo. For what had Golo ever been but a self-sustaining scholar, a book-gnome clinging desperately to his stupid family history to give himself worth, and trying to make Ruan do the same? And none of it worth hiccupping over let alone killing for, and all of it anyway gone down the plug-hole now Golo was no longer here to keep shouting about it. Ruan was free of the yoke Golo had placed upon his shoulders early doors, and thank Christ for it.

  Or so he had thought last night.

  This morning he was wondering if it might not be the ladder that would help him out of the hole he’d landed headfirst in. The last thing he wanted was to go back to the former dregs of his life in Scotland. He assumed the house and lands there now belonged to him, and worth a small fortune. If he could figure out how to get his hands on it then he could spend the rest of his life freewheeling, go wherever – and for as long – as he wanted.

  The initial shock of Golo’s dying was wearing off a little and Ruan’s head was beginning to spin with all the possibilities that might lie ahead of him because of it, if only he could leapfrog over this initial step of being without anything in a place he didn’t know and where nobody knew him. He couldn’t bear that his great adventure should c
ome to an end before it had even started. He was so disgusted by the thought that he suddenly put out his hand and pushed away the bowl of porridge before him as if it was the most poisonous thing on earth. He had no plans about what exactly he was going to do, but making contact with some of Golo’s cronies who corresponded with him about the Lynx would be a definite step in the right direction.

  But first he needed to make a decision about Golo, and really he had no choice. Ruan didn’t like himself for what he was about to say, and knew it was the last thing Golo would have wanted, that Golo would have preferred at all costs to have his body repatriated and buried on the shores of Loch Eck. Maybe later, when Ruan managed to secure the monies he knew the Eck Estate would confer on him, but no more possibility of it now than landing a man on the moon.

  ‘He’ll have to stay here,’ Ruan answered in a dull monotone to Joachim’s question. ‘And I need to find a way out. Get away.’

  He was about to say more, sound out his vague ideas with Joachim, thinking maybe he could jump from monastery to monastery until he found someone who could help him out, but his train of thought was disrupted by the refectory door being suddenly flung open, one of the Brothers coming in, dragging a small boy behind him, holding him tight by the ear, kicking back at the refectory door to keep it closed before placing his large body between the ragamuffin and escape.

  ‘Says he know you, Mr Peat,’ said the Brother.

  The lad, now released, ran towards Ruan like an iron filing towards a magnet, as unkempt a specimen of boyhood as Ruan had ever seen. Except that through the detritus covering him Ruan saw something he recognised. Surely this was Caro, the boy from the Collybuckie, the one Golo had spent so much time with, who Ruan himself had plucked from the water and dragged onto the raft. He stood up abruptly as Caro ran towards him and Caro would have thrown his arms about Ruan’s waist if Ruan hadn’t stepped sharply to one side. Jesus, man, but the boy stank! Ruan involuntarily pinched his nose shut with his fingers.