The Ground She Walks Upon Page 3

  Niall stared at the priest in amused disbelief. “Come now, Father. Ireland is not quite caught up to the modern age, but surely you don’t believe this Celtic tomfoolery?”

  “The Roman Catholic Church does not believe in such things.”

  “And by that, I presume, you include yourself?”

  Father Nolan reached for the young man’s arm. “I’ve lived many a year in this Ireland. ’Tis difficult not to believe in ancient things in an ancient land.”

  “Father,” Niall interjected, “The year is 1828. The Gael is long dead. There are no more druids, no more witches. No more geise.” He gestured to the volumes that lined the library’s shadowy walls. “In all these books—and I have read them all—a geis is not a natural possibility. I shudder to think what they would say of this at Trinity.”

  “I know it sounds fantastic, but you must listen.”

  “But it’s preposterous.”

  “Niall, you’re an educated, modern man. But is that all you learned at Trinity? Facts and figures, and everything that is real? I ask you, is poetry real? Is love real? Is the sky overhead real, or is it nothingness? Shouldn’t they have taught you to wonder at these things, too?”

  The priest’s impassioned tone seemed to irritate Trevallyan. He lowered his voice, as if he were speaking to a fool. “There are those things to contemplate as well, but not sorcery, not faeries … not asinine Paddy whackery.”

  Father Nolan drummed his fist on the upholstered arm. “The Otherworld is there! ’Tis imbedded within our Gaelic minds and ’tis a part of our being that no man may take away!”

  Trevallyan’s mouth formed a thin, straight line. “Keeping these traditions is no cure for the Crown’s hold on this isle. If anything, it makes Ireland look ridiculous.” He looked at the old priest and softened, but only slightly. “I won’t be a part of it, Father. I won’t do it to our Ireland. Would that intellect be valued on this isle as much as witchery,” he cursed.

  “Niall, you value intellect only because you run from what’s inside you, but listen well: No matter how hard you run, one day what’s inside will win. Your blood is as Irish as mine. The Gael lives within you, too. Be prepared for its victory, or you will perish.”

  “State your business, Father. Tell me why you are here and be done with it,” Niall growled, his eyes flashing.

  “No one knows about this particular business except the council. We will meet with them tonight and that will be it. Hear the geis, and then your decisions will be your own.”

  “Council?” Trevallyan’s brows knit together. “Is the Trevallyan geis public knowledge to everyone but the Trevallyans?”

  “Your parents found each other and fell in love on their own. For them, there was no need for the geis so they were never told about it. But you—you are twenty now and still have no bride. And the cross has signaled for us to go forth.”

  “The cross? What is all this nonsense?”

  “Please, my son.” Father Nolan’s face wore a weary, troubled expression as if burned by the secrets he carried. “Humor a group of old men. Come to the meeting and hear your fate. Then you will have control over it.”

  Trevallyan stood back for a long moment and stared at the father. He closed his eyes as if in disgust and released a drawn-out sigh. “I’ll go and meet with your council, Father.”

  The priest sat back in his chair, looking even more weary than before. “Good, my son. Good,” he said.

  “But this should do me for a year of Sunday Mass.” Trevallyan pulled the cord for Greeves to summon the carriage.

  Four elderly men gathered in Drummond’s rectory while the storm raged through the night heavens above. Four elderly men, their faces lined with the burden of their secret. Mrs. Dwyer served them tea and honeycakes at the rector’s table while Trevallyan looked on, more as an aloof observer than the subject of the meeting.

  When tea had been poured out, Reverend Drummond dismissed the housekeeper and pointedly told her to go home. Mary Dwyer left the vicarage bug-eyed and bulging with gossip. The strange sight of seeing Father Nolan in the Anglican rectory was enough to make her wonder if it was night or day.

  From his place at the mantel, Trevallyan studied the group of strange bedfellows, their old, wrinkled faces glowing in the flickering light of one single candle. It was indeed an unholy gathering. Four old men who were as different and disparate from one another as the four fields of Lir. Drummond and the father contrasted as did one of Lir’s fields that led to the mountains with one that led to the sea. Peter Maguire, the mayor of the small village of Lir, seemed as common as the field that grew cabbages, potatoes, and rye. Lastly, Griffen O’Rooney sat in their midst, the town’s wizened groundskeeper and grave-digger, and sometime storyteller. He was the last of Lir’s fields. The field that had ruined many a good Irish farmer. The field that grew only rocks.

  And, he thought distastefully, Niall Trevallyan was the ogham stone that stood in the center.

  “I suppose I should begin.” Reverend Drummond looked around the table at the three men. His face was pale and serious, as if he had been asked to give a sermon at St. Patrick’s down in Dublin.

  “If I may, I think I am the one to explain things to him,” Father Nolan broke in, clearly bristling. The dark, wainscotted rectory cast long shadows, and the storm brewing in the heavens echoed the tension between the two men. “Even you must admit, Reverend, the Church of Ireland knows little of the Gael.”

  Griffen O’Rooney nodded. “It certainly is a right fine gale we’re havin’ tonight.”

  Peter Maguire’s ruddy face turned to ruby as if he were suppressing nervous laughter.

  “No, Griffen, I said the Gael. Gael,” Father Nolan corrected crossly.

  Griffen nodded to show he understood.

  “So who is to begin?” Mayor Maguire asked, tucking another honeycake into his mouth. A crack of thunder broke overhead, and his face drained of color. He looked at the roof as if in prayer. “In truth, I believe I should be the one to tell young Trevallyan here. The geis was wrought from the four fields, and I am Lir’s mayor.”

  “The wind scared your mare?”

  The entire table seemed to shudder.

  This time the reverend shouted the explanation. “Griffen, we’re off the weather now. We’re on to the geis, all right?”

  “The geis. Yes, of course. Let’s tell him about the geis.” Griffen nodded solemnly, as if what was to come were as inevitable as the death of another old friend. He blew his rather bulbous nose into a faded red handkerchief while all watched breathlessly to see whether his palsied hands would be able to hold the cloth to his nose for the necessary moments. When he was through, he looked around the table at the stares. “I suppose you’re all a-waitin’ for me to begin, me bein’ a storyteller and all. All right, I’ll begin.…”

  “No, Griffen, this should come from his priest,” said Father Nolan.

  “But I’m the mayor, and the geis is tied to Lir,” interjected Maguire.

  “No, I’m the one to tell him because my family guards the cross,” announced Drummond.

  “Enough of this bickering like Kilkenny cats.” Trevallyan pushed away from the mantel and walked to the table where the old men sat around the one ghostly candle. “No one need take the sole responsibility of explaining the geis to me, for I’ll ask the questions and each of you will answer in your turn. What is the cross, Drummond?”

  Drummond appeared a little disconcerted at the command, as if he weren’t prepared to start after all. “It’s an old cross, not a Christian cross, mind you, but a Celtic cross, an amulet. It’s been in my family since they arrived here.” He sniffed. “And I might remind you all”—he glanced at Father Nolan—“that the Drummonds have been in County Lir over two hundred and fifty years.”

  “Fine. Fine. But what does this cross have to do with anything?” Trevallyan asked, growing impatient.

  “It moved in the case, my lord,” Drummond answered succinctly.

  “It wh
at?”

  “It moved in the case.” Drummond glanced at his fellow council members as if asking them to back him. “You see, the cross was in a case my father had built in the church when he was vicar. The case was impervious to trifling because it was permanently sealed. Yet the cross was moved. It was a sign to begin.”

  “Begin what?” Niall crossed his arms over his chest. Looming in the shadows, with his blond hair slicked back, wet from the walk to the door from the carriage, he looked darker than he was, and older. He carried the air of an ominous and disapproving master. Suddenly Drummond seemed to lose his tongue.

  “The housekeeper Mary Dwyer—Mary—s-said she saw a light from the cross while it was in the case,” Peter Maguire stuttered, nervously picking up the explanation.

  “Yes, but let’s be truthful, the woman’s been known to be scared of her shadow,” Father Nolan interjected. He looked suspiciously at Drummond as if his worst fear had suddenly occurred to him. “It might have been a signal, but really, how do we know it wasn’t a trick of the light? And you—you could be wrong about the cross being moved. Where’s our evidence that it was moved now that you’ve destroyed the case? We might have called this council for nothing, all because of another Protestant error in judgment.”

  “I did not make an error in judgment!” Drummond rose to his feet and looked as if he wanted to call Father Nolan out.

  “’Tis well you could have!” Father Nolan stood as well. “And if you did, we’ll all be feeling mighty foolish!”

  “Father,” Trevallyan interrupted, putting his hand on the priest’s shoulder, “if you have your doubts, why did you summon me here?”

  The priest looked at Trevallyan, then at Drummond. His face turned pale and, gravely, he resumed his seat. “I haven’t any doubts,” he conceded, the fight gone out of his voice. “Reverend Drummond, English land-grabber that he is, is telling the truth. It’s time for us to explain the geis.”

  “Then explain it. All of you. This instant,” Trevallyan demanded, scowling at each of the four men until they bowed their gray heads in contrition.

  “A family of millers had your land before the Trevallyans were deeded it by the English Henry,” Father Nolan began.

  “When they found out that the land was no longer theirs, they had a sorcerer put a geis on the Trevallyan men,” said Drummond.

  “The male heir of each generation was to marry before his twentieth year or the geis would go into effect,” finished the mayor.

  “And tell me what the geis is.” Trevallyan looked at each man. They all looked at Griffen O’Rooney.

  Griffen eerily began speaking as if on cue. “I’ll tell you about the geis, me boy.” He stared at Trevallyan, his aged and sunken eyes still bright with intelligence. “Your geis has four parts because Lir has four fields separated by the standing stone with the ogham written upon it.

  “The first part is that the cross must pick your bride. The second part states that this girl must be a commoner from our beloved Lir. Part three is that she must be found in the twentieth year of the Trevallyan heir. The story of the Trevallyan geis has been kept secret. It’s been handed down, father to son, for hundreds of years, and the men you see before you are the only ones left who are descendents of the original council.”

  The room grew silent as all watched Trevallyan’s reaction. The young man looked extremely solemn. Then, all at once, he let out a boisterous laugh. “This is a prank. It must be. You cannot expect me to believe that you four are to pick my bride.”

  “We are not to pick your bride, my son, this is to pick your bride.” Drummond withdrew the cross from his coat pocket. The men let out a gasp at its beauty. The cross almost seemed alive. It glowed and glittered in the firelight, and the sheer exquisiteness of the scrollwork seemed impossibly fine to have been wrought by human hands.

  Trevallyan took the cross and held it at eye level. Purple sparks seemed to shoot from the center of the amethyst, and the scrollwork seemed to turn liquid like writhing snakes. He stared at it like a king meeting his nemesis.

  “My lord,” Drummond whispered, “in all the years I’ve kept the cross, I’ve never seen it so full of fire. The geis must be true. This must be a sign.”

  “’Tis just the firelight that makes it look strange.” Niall tossed the amulet to the reverend. The men gasped. Drummond strove to catch it as if it were a falling babe.

  “’Tis not good to tempt the Otherworld, my son,” said Griffen. He stared at the young man, his eyes filled with pity as if he had once peeked into Trevallyan’s future and had seen the misery Trevallyan scoffed at now.

  O’Rooney’s stare seemed to make Trevallyan falter as if he had cut into the young man’s arrogance and seen his soul. But ever the master, Trevallyan collected himself, and said evenly, coolly, though his pale green-blue eyes snapped with ire, “I cannot tempt a thing that does not exist. This is rubbish. I don’t believe a word. This,” he gestured to the cross, “’tis a beautiful work of Celtic art, but it is not made of magic and it cannot find me a bride. For, tell me, is it to grow wings and fly around the county in search of her?”

  “The cross has already found the girl.”

  All the men shifted to look at Drummond. His face was deathly pale. “It’s true. I went out in my hack this evening, thinking the cross might give me a sign of who the girl might be. I told my driver to just go blindly where I told him to go, that there was no definite destination.”

  “How did you find her?” Peter Maguire whispered.

  “I held the cross in my hand and it seemed to work like a compass, its fire increasing when I went in the direction it wanted me to go. When I found the cottage far outside the village in a grove of hawthorn, I’d never seen it so brilliant. It was blinding.”

  “You’ve found the girl,” Father Nolan said reverently.

  “And who is she?” Niall snapped.

  “’Twas Grania’s cottage.”

  Trevallyan’s laughter boomed through the vicarage. “Grania! Old, humpbacked Grania! The crone the townspeople call witch! Why this is rich! I am to marry a woman who is old enough not just to be my mother, but grandmother as well!”

  “It could be her daughter, Brilliana, the cross was seeking,” said Maguire.

  “Who is Brilliana?” Trevallyan asked.

  “Grania has a daughter who she had very late in life. The daughter would be your age, my lord.”

  “That’s right!” chimed Drummond.

  “We must go to this cottage and see the bride for ourselves.” Father Nolan stood.

  Trevallyan shook his head. “I’ll not bother these women in the dead of night. Not for the preposterous reason of a geis.”

  “I once heard the tale of a young man who laughed at a geis placed upon him by an old woman.” Griffen O’Rooney’s voice issued through the dark room like a shiver. The other old men in the room seemed to huddle together as if they were afraid of the forces they believed howled around them like the wind coming in from the sea. “James Fitzherbert was a fine young man, strapping, tall, and handsome, who lived in this county hundreds of years before you, Trevallyan. He ignored his geis, and famine came to Lir, famine we have never seen since. The first to starve was his true love. The lass wasted away until she was nothing more than a skeleton with large, haunting eyes that cried out for food. Some say ’twas hunger made Fitzherbert go mad, but others say ’twas the guilt that robbed him of his sanity.”

  Trevallyan said nothing. He stared at O’Rooney, anger tautening his lips.

  “We must go to the cottage, m’lord,” begged Father Nolan.

  “You turn twenty at midnight,” Maguire cajoled.

  “Look at the hour!” cried Drummond.

  All heads turned to the walnut mantel clock. It was five minutes before midnight.

  “’Tis folly to believe I’ll marry this girl. I’ve never met her. She could be a hag like her mother. More importantly still, I do not love her. I do not know her—”

  “Ah, but Trev
allyan, you have not asked about the fourth part of the geis.” Griffen O’Rooney’s voice cut through Niall’s words like a ghostly howl in the night. All the men turned to look at O’Rooney, each face paler than the next.

  “So tell me, old storyteller. Tell me the rest of the tale,” Trevallyan mocked, though his cheeks were not so ruddy as before.

  Griffen stared at the young man, the pity and the hope still alive in his aged eyes. “’Tis well you’ll hear the story. When we get to the cottage.”

  Chapter 4

  THE COTTAGE was nestled in a gnarled, dense hawthorn grove that had been planted in ancient times. The wind screamed, and the rain fell in sheets, making a rocky creek bed of the road. Reverend Drummond’s hack fought its way to the cottage light. The carriage stopped before a low, batten doorway where an old crone of a woman stood, as if she had been expecting them.

  Each man filed into the dim cottage. Trevallyan looked upon the interior with disgust. One single oiled sheet of paper covered the small window. The floors were cold earth, and the walls were black with decades of soot from the hearth. Cats were everywhere; fat and sleek, sleeping by the hearth, lurking on shelves, fighting amongst themselves, while rats gnawed and squealed in dark corners, too plentiful even for the pride of cats. There was poverty in Lir, but he had seen none such as this.

  “Woman,” he said softly, staring at the woman’s hands burrowed deep into her apron, hands that were as gnarled as the hawthorns, that should have trembled in the lord’s presence, but were instead as still as sleeping mice. “These men have brought me here because they believe I have a geis. They think I am destined to marry a young lady from this cottage, and that is why we have come here at this strange hour.” Trevallyan watched the woman for a reaction but could find none behind the many wrinkles on her face.

  “I know why ye have come,” she said, her voice dispassionate, or perhaps disconsolate.

  “The reverend told you?”

  “He did not.”

  “But you know of our business here tonight?”