Cave of Secrets (4 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Dublin

T
he storm had blown itself out before reaching Dublin. The sky over the city was overcast but there was no mud in the streets, only horse dung and refuse. William Flynn paused to consult the new public clock on the Tholsel. Then he made his way toward Skinners’ Row.

The city was growing, extending its boundaries. Land was rising in value day by day and week by week. The streets were crowded with gentlemen and beggars, foreigners and merchants and thieves. Almost every vessel that sailed into Dublin port brought more adventurers eager to make a
fortune
. The harbour was a veritable fortress of masts.

A new Custom House had been erected between Dame Street and the Liffey. Men of distinction were building fine homes along Wood Quay, replacing rotting wharves and warehouses. A new post office had opened in Castle Street.

Flynn’s destination was a low building of red Dutch brick, which rubbed shoulders with a glovemaker’s stall and a butchershop. When he pushed open the door, the smell of
sweating male bodies was almost overpowering. Four men he knew were sitting at a heavy table near the door. He could not help noticing that they were drinking coffee instead of tea.

That is something else I was wrong about, Flynn thought glumly.

One of the men took a carved German pipe from his mouth long enough to call Flynn by name. Another pushed a stool forward with his booted foot. A large fellow with ginger whiskers said, ‘Are you well, William?’

Flynn gave a wan smile. ‘Well enough.’

‘We did not expect to see you again so soon. What brings you back to the capital? Business as usual?’

‘Pah!’ Flynn sounded disgusted. ‘Not this time. I have been seeking an interview with Richard Boyle.’

‘Any success?’

‘I waited all morning in his town house next to Dublin Castle. Magnificent place. Swarming with servants. One of them showed me to a room the size of a barn and left me there without even a drink in my hand. Every time I put my head out the door I was told the earl was busy.’

His friends exchanged meaningful glances.

‘Oh, I saw the earl all right,’ Flynn said bitterly. ‘Saw him out the window as he drove away in a fine carriage – four perfectly matched greys and a man in crimson livery riding postillion. And not so much as a wave of his hand to me.
Order a coffee for me someone, please.’ When a steaming bowl of coffee was placed before him he did not drink, but stared into the dark liquid as if seeing his future. ‘It’s the fourth time Boyle has avoided me, his soul to the devil. I cannot go cap-in-hand to him again.’

‘Quite right too,’ said Ginger Whiskers. ‘A man has his pride.’

‘Pride is a fine thing,’ another remarked, ‘if one can afford it.’ He smoothed his hands across his plum-coloured
waistcoat
. ‘William, you must remember that Richard Boyle is the richest man in Ireland now. He is hounded night and morning by petitioners. I dare say he is sick of the sight of pleading faces.’

An older man with a harsh voice like two stones scraping together said, ‘Don’t spare any sympathy for Boyle.
Underneath
the fine feathers he is a scoundrel who is busy lining his own pockets at the expense of others. The Lord Deputy Thomas Wentworth is a better fellow altogether. He may not be the warmest man I ever met, but I would swear on my brother’s life that Wentworth is honest. Which doesn’t sit too well with Boyle, of course. If we have to choose sides, I choose Wentworth. Boyle has no respect for the king and no real feeling for the people.’

William Flynn looked deeply worried. ‘My family lost their lands in the Elizabethan War,’ he said. ‘I have only a few acres I inherited from an uncle. A political appointment
would enable me to protect them. One word from an
influential
friend was all I needed to get my toes under the
government
table in Dublin. Instead …’ He sagged on the stool. ‘Instead, I have called the wolf into the fold.’

Plum Waistcoat leaned forward and licked his lips with interest. ‘Really? How?’

‘By inviting Richard Boyle to Roaringwater House. I boasted of the fine estate I had created out of nothing. He was impressed, all right. He decided then and there to extend the plantation of Munster and grab the land for his
favourites
.’ William Flynn’s voice dropped to a shamed whisper. ‘And in my confusion … in my craven fear of his power … I offered to help.’

‘You poor fool,’ said Ginger Whiskers. ‘You might as well have handed him the deeds to your land.’

Pipe Smoker studied his smouldering tobacco. ‘Perhaps you should apply to Thomas Wentworth instead.’

‘Waste of breath,’ declared Plum Waistcoat. ‘The interests of the Crown are all the Lord Deputy cares about. He runs roughshod over everyone else in the name of King Charles.’

Harsh Voice said, ‘The king needs all the support he can get. In spite of his efforts on their behalf, the Catholics still don’t trust him. The Puritans hate him, the Scots have rebelled and there’s war looming between Charles and the English parliament.’

‘Meanwhile here in Ireland Wentworth and Boyle are
fighting each other,’ Ginger Whiskers pointed out. ‘The Lord Deputy decided to make an example of Boyle for
defrauding
the Crown. He fined the earl fifteen thousand pounds for questionable practices in the diocese of Lismore. He also forced him to move the elaborate family tomb he had built in the heart of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Now it gathers dust in a side aisle.’

‘Wentworth has made a bitter enemy of the Earl of Cork,’ Plum Waistcoat warned. ‘Boyle will turn the entire
government
against him. And he knows just which strings to pull, which debts to call in. Boyle has a whole string of
moneylenders
working for him, you know. He’s even loaned money to King Charles.’

Pipe Smoker summed up the situation. ‘There are bad times ahead, my friends. Bad times indeed. I advise you to keep your heads below the parapet. We are merely pawns in larger games.’

William Flynn looked around the table. Nobody said
anything
. After a while he got up and left the coffee house.

‘There goes a desperate man,’ Harsh Voice remarked as the door closed behind him.

‘These are desperate times,’ said Ginger Whiskers.

Leaving the cove behind, Donal led Tom along the coast. The waters of the bay were still rough. Great breakers deposited mountains of foam and scud wherever they touched land. Ragged clouds raced across an otherwise blue sky. There were several places where Tom tried to stop for a moment and enjoy the view. Donal, who had seen it all many times before, trotted on. Tom had to run to catch up with him.

Tom felt a growing excitement. He had never met a king before. Even his father had never met a king, though
William
Flynn spoke of King Charles as if he were a personal friend.

At its best the way was rough and broken. The boys climbed up and down steep slopes and made their way along the crumbling edges of unstable cliffs, where the ground threatened to collapse beneath their feet at any moment. Caught between sea and sky, they moved through a magical, ever-shifting light that made it impossible to judge distances.

‘Mind you keep an eye on the path,’ warned Donal.

‘I don’t see any path.’

Donal laughed. He was as agile as a wild goat. Tom twice skinned his knees and once narrowly avoided breaking his ankle. ‘Do we have far to go?’ he panted.

‘Not very,’ Donal assured him. ‘It only seems like a long way because you’re not used to it.’

Tom had just about decided to turn around when Donal announced, ‘Here we are.’

Ahead lay a marshy area studded with clumps of willow bushes like miniature islands. Through this wetland a little river emptied into the bay. The stream flowed sleepily along, in no hurry to reach the sea. By contrast the willows were bristling with energy. Wind trailed long fingers through their branches, turning the slender leaves first to show their
brilliant
green side, then reversing to silver. Shining waves of green and silver followed one another in constant motion.

Tom was entranced by the sight. He almost failed to notice that Donal had turned inland to follow the course of the river. He had to run to catch up.

As they followed a footbeaten track along the riverbank the sound of the bay gradually receded into the distance. The air grew very still.

In the reedy shallows a solitary heron waited, immobile, to spear an unsuspecting fish. The bird was so involved in its task it did not blink as the boys walked past.

When they came to a bend in the river Donal’s pace increased. Tom felt his own heart beat faster.

A short distance beyond the bend, steep hills rose on either side of a narrow valley. Nestled in the valley was a handful of stone cabins whitewashed with lime. They had been built with their backs to a hill and their fronts to the sun. Their roofs were thatched with reeds securely pegged down. A round, stone bake-oven stood at a safe distance from the dwellings. Between the cabins and the river Tom saw
a clutter of lobster pots and fishing nets and coils of rope and upside-down currachs. And other articles whose use he could not guess.

For a moment he thought he heard his father’s warning: A fate worse than death!

Donal gave him a shove from behind. ‘Go on,’ he urged. ‘They’re waiting for you.’

In front of the largest cabin a woman sat at a spinning wheel. She was humming as she worked. Maura was
leaning
against her shoulder. The two looked up as the boys approached. ‘Tomflynn!’ the little girl shouted. She ran to meet him with arms outstretched. ‘Tomflynn, Tomflynn!’

A man appeared in the doorway behind the woman. She looked back at him. He briefly rested one hand on her hair.

People began to emerge from the other cabins. Four men – one of them quite old – a woman well past her youth, and another in her middle years. Seeing them together, Tom understood the meaning of ‘tribe’. Men and women alike were tall and strongly built. All but the oldest had thick black hair. Everyone, even little Maura, possessed the same bright blue eyes and sharply cut features.

They were nothing like the people William Flynn
entertained
at Roaringwater House. Tom recalled his father’s guests with a newly critical eye. Their faces resembled suet puddings. Their clothes were too tight and their bellies were too big.

On Roaringwater Bay lived a tribe with the faces of sea eagles.

The man standing in the doorway wore a saffron-dyed linen tunic and woollen trews. His feet were clad in untanned leather that softly fitted their shape. Slung across his broad shoulders was a mantle trimmed in wolf fur.

Tom had no doubt who he was. Donal’s father looked more like a king than Charles Stuart in his ermines.

How does one greet a king?

Donal’s father solved the problem for Tom by stepping forward and putting one hand on the boy’s shoulder. The man’s eyes sparkled with some hidden amusement. ‘I am chieftain here,’ Muiris said. ‘And you are the son of Liam Ó Floinn.’ Not a question, but a statement. ‘Does your father know where you are?’

‘My father doesn’t care what I do, as long as I stay out of his sight.’

‘Donal says you would like to work with us. Is that true, Tomás?’

It was strange to hear his name pronounced in the Irish way. The servants at home would never dare. ‘It is true,’ said Tom. ‘Learning about the sea would be a great adventure.’

‘It might be,’ Muiris conceded. ‘Is adventure your only reason?’ He cocked one black eyebrow. His blue eyes seemed to see right through Tom.

The boy hesitated. How could he admit that he wanted
to get back at his father? ‘If do have another reason,’ he said, ‘must I tell you what it is?’

Muiris shook his head. ‘I have no need for your secrets. It is enough that you know them.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the Narrow Valley

T
he chieftain’s hand on Tom’s shoulder guaranteed the boy’s acceptance. Muiris introduced the others. His wife was called Bríd. Two of the men, Seán and Séamus, were his brothers. The younger woman was married to Séamus and the older to his cousin.

‘Tomás. Tomás. You are very welcome, Tomás,’ said voices on every side.

There was a rush to offer the visitor hospitality. He was led into a thick-walled cabin and seated on a three-legged stool close to the hearth. He gazed at his surroundings with interest.

Rectangular in shape, the cabin was more spacious than it appeared from the outside. The wide, deep hearth was the heart of the home. Its stone chimney soared to the full height of the roofline. Recesses in the chimney breast provided storage. Cooking pots were slung on an iron crane over the
slumbering hearthfire. Against one wall stood a large timber dresser. Its shelves were filled with pewter cups and plates and the imported Dutch pottery called ‘delft’, after the city where it was made. Underneath this was a nesting box for the hens.

At one end of the main room a wooden ladder led to the children’s sleeping loft under the eaves. A partition at the other end separated their parents’ bedroom from the rest of the house. Windows on either side of the door
provided
daylight for both the main room and the bedroom. Everything the family needed was snugly contained under one roof.

Donal’s family gathered around Tom. He was not used to being the centre of favourable attention. When they pressed food and drink upon him he refused nothing. The spoons were made of mussel shells with bowls that looked like pearls.

Tom ate things with legs, and squishy things, and things with eyes on stalks – because Donal was eating them too. After a while he realised they were delicious. When he was offered a drink which smelled like honey and seaweed, he choked on the first swallow. As soon as he could draw breath again, he laughed. The others laughed with him. After a while he held out his cup for more.

When the younger woman began to sing Tom did not understand all the words. But the music rang in his blood and bones.

He felt at ease with Donal’s family from the beginning. They did not talk to him as if he were a child, and they
listened
when he spoke, as if he were an adult.

Donal’s mother wanted to hear about Roaringwater House. ‘You amaze me,’ she said after Tom had described the house for her in detail. ‘A special room just for sitting, and others for eating and sewing and even dressing! Would you not dress beside your bed, Tomás?’

‘My father says a dressing room is an English custom.’

‘Ah, English,’ she said. ‘I myself was reared in an earthen hovel with one little room for the nine of us and a stall at the end for the cow – when we had a cow. A damp, dark place it was, on the edge of a bog. My poor mother and five of her children coughed their lives away there. The feet of misfortune walked in the tracks of my family. Then one day Muiris found me at the market, Tomás, trying to sell a few pitiful herbs.’ Suddenly Bríd clapped her hands and laughed, as if to blow sorrow away. ‘And here I am!’ Her smile was so bright he had to smile back.

Nothing more was said about Tom’s request to be part of their work. He did not press the point. It was enough to be here. He stayed with Donal’s people until a change in the light warned him it was time to go home.

But already the community in the narrow valley felt like home to him.

As he was leaving, the old woman caught his arm and
pulled him aside. In a hoarse whisper she said, ‘What is for you will not pass by you.’

Much later, as Tom lay in his bed, he looked back on the day with astonishment. He felt like a chick who had broken out of its egg.

The following morning brought gale force winds and hammering rain. Tom went from window to window,
peering
out anxiously. He was afraid his father would come home soon and demand to know how he was spending his time. If he does, Tom told himself, I’ll run away. I’ll go to live with Donal and never come back.

Around noon the skies cleared, leaving the land fresh-washed and fragrant. Tom and his hobby-horse were out the door at once. He hurried to hide the horse, then ran to the cliffs. To Tom’s surprise it was not Donal waiting for him in the cove. It was Muiris.

He sat in a small currach that bobbed in the shallows. When he saw Tom he vaulted out of the boat. The boy watched in open-mouthed admiration as Muiris, thigh deep in the foaming tide, effortlessly lifted the currach, flipped it over and waded ashore, carrying his boat on his back like the shell of a black beetle.

Setting the currach down on the beach, he asked, ‘Are you well, Tomás?’

‘I am well. And yourself?’

‘I am always well,’ Muiris replied. ‘And how is your mother?’

The question was unexpected. ‘My mother is well enough, I suppose. She’s never very strong,’ the boy added truthfully.

‘It is sorry I am to hear that. Does she have enough food?’

‘We have more than enough food,’ Tom assured Muiris. ‘My mother has only a small appetite, but my father never lets her want for anything.’

‘He is not a
sprissaun
, then,’ Muiris said in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself.

‘What is a
sprissaun
?’

‘A person of no value,’ the man replied.

‘That does not apply to my father,’ said Tom. ‘My father …’ the boy struggled to find the right words. He was not used to defending William Flynn. ‘My father does his best.’

‘Which is all a man can do,’ Muiris told him. ‘Now we must talk about you, Tomás, and the possibility of working with us.’ Donal’s father smiled then, though not with his lips. The smile was in his eyes. ‘Did my son explain what we do?’

‘He said you make your living from the sea. At first I thought he meant you were sailors. I liked the idea of being a sailor. Then I realised my mistake. In some way your work involves caves as well as ships.’

Muiris did not agree or disagree. ‘The ships that travel around our coast carry ore and timber and salt,’ he said evenly. ‘How do you connect that to caves?’

‘Ships can carry wine, too,’ replied the boy. ‘And even giant teeth, according to Donal.’

Muiris grinned unexpectedly, his whole face lighting up. ‘My son has a vivid imagination. And you have a clever head, Tomás. You already have put some of the pieces together. You see, King Charles is a greedy man. He has placed huge customs duties on goods brought into Ireland. His tax
collectors
meet cargo vessels at the dock. But suppose part of a shipment is offloaded at night before the ships reach port?’

Tom’s stomach did a back flip. ‘You are pirates!’

‘Not a bit of it, lad. We are smugglers, which is a safer job of work. I have a wife and children to think of, and no
smuggler
has yet been hanged in Ireland.’

‘But … I thought … are there any pirates around here?’

‘Indeed there are, lad; Turks and Algerians and others as well. Wherever you find the sea you find pirates. One of the greatest Gaelic families used to be the terror of the southern coast. My own sept, however, is too small for–’

‘Sept?’

‘A sept is a branch of a much larger clan,’ Muiris explained. ‘Our sept has only a few men now, we lost some to fever and some to the sea. Because of the pirates, English warships patrol the shipping routes these days. Most merchantmen are supplied with matchlocks and pistols. We avoid such
problems
by making a business arrangement ahead of time.’

Tom was both frightened and intrigued. As usual, curiosity won out. ‘What sort of arrangement?’

‘Nothing that need concern you, Tomás,’ Muiris replied.
‘Are you certain you want to do this?’

Tom knew he could walk away. He did not understand why Muiris was willing to let him join them at all. But he did not want to walk away. Nothing so thrilling had ever happened to him before. ‘I am certain,’ he said.

‘If I should summon you at night, could you come to this cove?’

‘After I go to bed they forget about me. I can sneak out without being seen, any time I want. But how will you summon me?’

‘Your house has only a few small windows on the side nearest the bay. There is one with solid timber shutters near the corner of the second storey.’

‘That’s my bed-chamber! How do you know about it?’

‘From that window you should be able to see a signal light,’ Muiris continued without answering Tom’s question. ‘If we need you, there will be two flashes of light shortly after sundown. As soon as you see them, count to five. Then you will see three more. That means come down to the beach as soon as you can. A boat will be waiting for you.’

A boat will be waiting for you. Tom hugged himself with excitement. He had never been in a boat.

Muiris said, ‘A cargo vessel will drop anchor at a
prearranged
place in the bay. We – you and my other men – will row out to meet it.’

My other men!

‘We will load goods from the ship into our boat while the captain and crew look the other way. Then we will bring the merchandise ashore and hide it in these caves. In time other men will come for it.’

‘Where do they take it? Do they sell it? Who buys the–’

‘Donal warned me that you would ask a lot of questions,’ Muiris interrupted. ‘I have just told you all you need to know. Now, and for the last time – do you still want to join us?’

William Flynn returned to Roaringwater House in a black mood. The long ride from Dublin, attended only by a groom for the horses, had exhausted him. His worries rode with him and gave him no peace. When the two men stopped for the night at various inns along the way, his bed was always damp, his meal tasteless. He suspected the groom was more comfortable than he, sleeping in a dry stable.

At last the house he had built with such high hopes lay before him. He drew rein abruptly. The groom was so close behind that his horse ran into the haunches of his master’s horse. Flynn’s bay gelding pinned his ears back and tried to kick the other animal.

William Flynn swore at all of them.

He slouched in the saddle and stared at his house. His mansion. From a distance it looked perfect, gilded by the last
rays of the setting sun. But he knew it was not perfect. Every chimney smoked and every room was draughty, no matter how many tapestries he hung over the cracks in the walls. There was a distinct smell of mould in the kitchen. The
plaster
on the ceiling of Elizabeth’s bed-chamber was beginning to peel away. There was a leak in the roof too, somewhere. There was always a leak in the roof somewhere.

The land on which the house stood was no better. The soil was thin and stony, breaking the backs and the hearts of the few tenants who tried to farm it. There was never enough grass for horses and dairy cows and barely enough for sheep. He could no longer sell the wool anyway. Export duties were too high.

I should give the whole place to the first man who asks for it, Flynn thought to himself. But I would rather die than lose any part of it.

When he stomped into the hall in his filthy boots, the first person he saw was Tom.

The boy gave him a startled look. ‘You’re back! I mean–’

‘Did you hope I would never return, you pitiful lout? You were wrong. This is my home, begog, built with my own blood and sweat. What have you ever contributed? Nothing!’

Tom took a step backwards to avoid his father’s exploding temper. ‘I’m glad you’re home, sir, truly I am, we have all mi–’

‘Don’t lie to me, boy!’ As he spoke, Flynn was fumbling with the ties of his travelling cloak. He threw off the
garment 
and flung it to the floor. ‘Why are you still dressed?’ he demanded to know. ‘The sun is down, you should be in your nightshirt and out of my sight!’

Tom hurried for the stairs.

The boy had formed the habit of keeping his clothes on until the first stars appeared. Every evening he watched for the signal from Muiris. It had not come yet, but it must do soon.

His father’s arrival made Tom more eager than ever to put distance between himself and Roaringwater House.

He raced up the stairs and into his chamber. Two strides took him to the window. Throwing open the timber
shutters
, he gazed towards the bay. Soon he saw two flashes of light. Heart pounding, he counted to five. There were three more flashes. Tom took off his shoes and stuffed his stockings into them. Carrying the shoes in his hand, he slipped from his room. He quietly made his way to the back staircase. If one of the servants saw him he would try to talk his way out of trouble.

Fortunately he met no one. Down the stairs, along the passage, out the rear door, across the stable yard, around the dovecote, past the dairy, past the kitchen garden, the poultry house and the midden heap … he ran until his lungs were bursting. Ran towards the familiar outcrop of furze at the edge of the cliff.

In deepening twilight he picked his way among the rocks
which marked the narrow downward path. Until he reached the foot of the cliff Tom could not tell if anyone was in the cove. To his vast relief, the same currach he had seen before was waiting in the shallows. This time Séamus was at the oars. The boy asked, ‘Where is Muiris?’