Song of the Silent Harp (40 page)

The demented face of a woman rode the storm aboard the
Green Flag.
Sheathed in a gossamer gown, hair flowing, her twisted features were set straight ahead. One arm was raised, the hand balled to a fist. The fist gripped a piece of green silk, flapping madly in the wind.

The wild eyes of the
Green Flag's
masthead seemed to follow the frenzied movement of the crewmen as they fought the gale-driven waves splashing over the deck.

The force of the waves knocked sailors off their feet, hurtling them forward, sweeping some the entire length of the deck. Timbers cracked, blocks fell, spars broke loose and went down in a tangle of rigging.

On into the howling night the woman leaped across the waves, pointing the way with the flag in her upraised arm, daring the gale to slow her speed.

Engulfed by the blackness of the sea and the night, the woman appeared to be fleeing a different Darkness.

35

And thus we rust
Life's iron chain
Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
And some men make no moan:
But God's eternal Laws are kind
And break the heart of stone.

O
SCAR
W
ILDE
(1854–1900)

I
t was taking Cummins and the priest a powerful long time to get around to telling him he was about to swing.

After fifteen minutes or more of idle blather, Morgan had enough. They might just as well get to it, since all three knew exactly why they had come.

Joseph Mahon obviously still hoped to shrive him, and Cummins no doubt wanted to be the lad to lead him to the noose.

Joseph had already sat down twice, only to haul himself up again and go pacing around the cell as if
he
were the one confined. Morgan thought it a bit peculiar that a priest like Mahon, who by now had to be an old hand at hearing the confessions of the condemned, should have such a difficult time of things with yet another sinner.

Cummins, too, seemed in an odd mood. Rather than the glee Morgan would have expected from him, the man's face was so sour it could have curdled a pail of new milk.

“So, then, Joseph, where have you been hiding yourself these days? You haven't been ill, I hope?”

Even as Morgan said the words, it struck him that indeed the priest
did
look ill, so lean you could blow him off your hand. Joseph Mahon was killing himself over his parish. Morgan would have wagered that both he and Oliver
the rat had been eating better than the priest.

Mahon stopped his pacing and came to stand directly in front of Morgan, in the middle of the cell. In his right hand he held an envelope and a paper rolled into a tube—the legal go-ahead for his hanging, Morgan assumed. The hand holding the papers trembled so fiercely Morgan's instinct was to reach out and steady it with his own.

Instead, he shot the priest a grim smile in an attempt to make things easier for him. Splaying his hands on his hips, he stood, legs wide, studying Mahon with a rueful expression.

“It's all right, Joseph. Haven't we both known it was coming, and soon at that?”

The priest contemplated Morgan for what seemed a very long time, looking away only once to glance at Cummins.

“Morgan,” Joseph Mahon finally said, his quivering hand tightening on the papers, “it is not what you think, lad.”

Morgan frowned, waiting.

“Morgan,” Joseph Mahon said again, lifting the paper in his hand and holding it up like a signpost, “you have been granted a pardon. A
conditional
pardon, mind you. But you are saved, Morgan. You are saved from the rope.”

Morgan stared at him. He dropped his hands down to his sides, looked about him. The room seemed to swim. Even the ceiling tilted a bit, and the floor on which he was standing rose as if to hurl him backward.

“What are you saying to me, Joseph?” he grated out.

The priest reached out to put a hand to Morgan's forearm. “It's true, lad. You will not hang.”

His heart pounding, Morgan looked to Cummins. The gaoler sat, hunched over like a lump on the sagging mattress. He wore the dark, angry face of one who has had the rug yanked out from under him.

“A pardon, is it?” Morgan parroted, turning back to Joseph Mahon.

“Aye, lad,” said the priest, quickly adding, “a
conditional
pardon.”

“I don't believe it,” said Morgan, then repeated the words softly.

“I don't believe it. How could this be, Joseph?”

“It is true, Morgan,” the priest assured him. “You are saved. By God's grace, you will live.”

For one appalling instant, Morgan felt he would disgrace himself by bursting into tears of stunned relief. Recovering, he looked at the papers in Joseph's hand.

“Is that—”

The priest nodded. “This is your pardon, Morgan. And a letter.”

“A letter? A letter from whom?”

Morgan reached for the papers, but Joseph put up a restraining hand. “Wait, lad. Sit down, now, for we must talk.”

Morgan managed a jerky nod. “How, Joseph? How could such a thing happen?”

The priest gave him a long look, then took his arm and motioned him toward the bed. Cummins immediately jumped to his feet and went to stand on the opposite side of the cell, as if Morgan's nearness might contaminate him.

“It came about,” said the priest, waiting for Morgan to sit down, “through your grandfather.”

While Morgan sat staring at him with burning eyes, struggling to shake off the buzzing in his head, Joseph Mahon turned to Cummins. “I will talk with him alone now.”

The sullen line of the gaoler's mouth pulled down even more. “I'm to see the pardon delivered,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “and its terms accepted before the prisoner is released.”

Mahon narrowed his eyes. “The pardon will be
delivered,
and will tell you when the prisoner can be released! Will you insult your own priest by doubting his honor, Francis Cummins?”

The gaoler grumbled but finally turned and let himself out the door.

The priest sat down beside Morgan. “I know you are surprised, Morgan. I will explain what I can.”

Morgan's own hand was shaking as he rubbed one side of his beard. He looked at the priest.

“Surprised?” Morgan repeated blankly. “Oh, I am not surprised, Joseph. I am dumbfounded!”

Avoiding Morgan's eyes, Joseph sat staring down at the floor.

Morgan noted that the priest's hands were still trembling.
Weakness,
he realized.
It isn't dread over approaching doom after all, but illness and exhaustion that has made him quake so.

“Much of what you will want to know, Morgan, is in this letter,” said Joseph, handing both the envelope and the scrolled sheet of paper to Morgan without looking at him. “There are some things I cannot tell you, not without violating your father's last confession.”

Morgan looked down at the papers in Joseph's hand, then took them. “My father's—” Morgan stopped, groping to make some sense of the priest's words. “What is all this you are telling me, Joseph? About my father—and a grandfather? I have no grandfather, at least none I ever knew.”

He paused, and Joseph Mahon turned and met his eyes, nodding. “Aye, lad, I know that. You thought you had no real family, other than your father and Thomas.”

“That's the truth. But how is it that
you
know?”

“I have just returned from Dublin, Morgan. That's why I have not come to the gaol for some days now.”

“Dublin? What is in Dublin?”

“Your grandfather. Your mother's father.”

“My—Joseph, what is this about?” Morgan put a heavy hand to Joseph's arm, but, feeling the thin, fragile bones beneath the sleeve of the priest's cassock, he immediately gentled his touch.

Mahon looked away. “Do you remember your mother at all, Morgan?”

“No. I never knew her.”

Still staring at the floor, Joseph asked quietly, “Did you know that she was half English?”

“Aye, I knew that, well enough,” Morgan muttered.

The priest turned to look at him, his eyes widening with surprise. “Aidan told you, then—about your mother?”

Morgan shook his head. “Thomas. Thomas told me. Our da spilled it to him one night when he was on the bottle,” he said tightly, remembering how his young heart had sickened at the thought of British blood in his veins.

“How much did Thomas know?”

“How much?” Morgan looked at him, then shrugged. “That was most of it. Our mother was the daughter of an English politician and a Dublin woman who left the church to marry.”

“That was all? Did you never wonder what happened to your mother?”

“She died,” Morgan said quietly, avoiding the priest's probing gaze. “When I was still a babe. I never knew her at all. She died, and his grief for her set our father on the road. He never got over her death, you know. Her dying killed him as well.”

“It was hard for you lads, you and Thomas,” said Joseph softly, as if remembering. “Aidan was a…a difficult man. A broken man. You must have wondered about your mother, what she was like?”

“Aye, we did,” Morgan admitted. “Da would not speak of her, told us nothing of their life together, and so I made up a picture of her in my mind when I was small. The picture became so real that she almost seemed to live, at least at night, in my dreams. Even now,” he said with a faint smile, “I can see the face I gave to her. It was a lovely face—”

Catching the maudlin note in his voice, he broke off and got to his feet. “Ah, well, what boy does not want a lovely mother? Joseph, I will ask you again:
How is it that you know these things, and what is all this leading up to?”

“Aidan told both you and Thomas that your mother's people were dead as well as herself, did he not?”

Morgan nodded. “He did.”

The priest sighed, his eyes roaming over the dark, barren cell. “I suppose he felt it best, safer for you boys.” He regarded Morgan with a thoughtful gaze for a moment. “But it was a lie. Your grandfather still lives, Morgan. And it is to him you owe your freedom.”

For a fleeting instant, Joseph caught a rare glimpse of vulnerability in Morgan, and it pierced his heart all through.

He had known this immense, strapping young man since he was a lad—long enough to know he was not the callous outlaw his reputation suggested. The Morgan Fitzgerald Joseph knew might very well possess the ferocity of a lion and the cunning of the wolf after which he was called. But he was also a man with an infinitely tender heart that belied his strength, a heart easily pierced and supremely capable of deep, intense pain.

Joseph remembered the boy Morgan had been, with his wild copper curls and his too-long legs and his habit of hurling endless unanswerable questions during the catechism classes. Brilliant and eclectic, he had been a rebel even then, a rebel with a hunger for knowledge and a fierce intolerance of easy answers. The lad had often reminded Joseph of a young animal, stalking the most elusive prey known to man—Truth.

“Sit down, Morgan,” he said. “Sit down here beside me.”

Morgan did as he was told, but the look he gave Joseph was guarded and not altogether friendly.

“The letter you hold is from your maternal grandfather. He has written to you with an explanation of the terms of your pardon, which he secured on your behalf. I will tell you the little I can without violating the confessional, but the rest you must learn for yourself, inside that letter.”

Morgan studied the envelope in his hand for an instant. “How did you know where to find him?”

“Oh,
finding
him was no problem,” Joseph said. “He is a well-known, powerful man—a member of the aristocracy. He sat in Parliament for years, owns vast estates both in England and in Ireland, and has great influence. No, it wasn't difficult at all to find him,” he repeated. “He's an old man now, of course, retired because of age and poor health. But your friend, Smith O'Brien, helped me gain an audience with him. He knew a man who knew another man, don't you see, and the next thing that happened, I found myself in your grandfather's library.”

Joseph leaned toward Morgan. “And what a library it
is,
Morgan! You would lie down and die of ecstasy just to see it, and that's the truth!”

“Joseph, I care nothing about my—about this man's library! Just tell me whatever it is you think I should know and be done with it. If it's true that I am about to be freed from this place, the sooner the better for me!”

Joseph nodded. He thought he understood Morgan's confusion. To spend years with no family at all and then one day to learn of a grandfather who is no more than a stranger—an English stranger—would be a hard thing. A hard thing, indeed.

“Your father's family was ancient Gaelic—among the very oldest of Irish stock. Not wealthy at all, but learned people, most of them teachers and priests. Aidan was educated, first in France and later in Dublin at great financial sacrifice. To his family, knowledge was all, nearly as important as life itself.”