Songs of Love and War (31 page)

As sunrise bled into the eastern sky the reds and golds of Heaven were nothing compared to the bleak brilliance of Castle Deverill. By now most of Ballinakelly had come to help
put out the fire, Protestants and Catholics alike. The constabulary and all the members of the British forces available were on the scene. The grounds were swarming with people, but still no one
could enter the skeleton castle to find Hubert. Adeline had been taken to the Hunting Lodge. Bertie remained at the castle. Kitty looked around for Jack. Sean was there with Mrs Doyle, but there
was no sign of Jack and there was no sign of Michael.

Kitty stayed with her grandmother until she fell asleep in Kitty’s bed. The doctor had come to give her laudanum to dull her senses and she had closed her eyes like a child and sunk into
the relief of slumber. Kitty dressed quickly and hurried round to the stables to saddle her horse. Without a word to anyone she galloped over the hills to Ballinakelly. There was a storm coming.
She could see the purple clouds gathering on the horizon, like a fleet of black ships sailing in on an evil wind. Every instinct told her to turn back, but her anger was so great she ignored the
internal warnings that had always served her so well and galloped on.

When she reached the Doyles’ farm she tied her horse to a post and strode into the house. ‘Michael Doyle!’ she shouted, marching through the rooms. ‘Michael Doyle!
Don’t be a coward and show yourself!’ But only the fire smouldered in the grate from the night before. Old Mrs Nagle’s chair was empty. Suddenly the door opened and Michael
stepped into the room, his bulk overwhelming the dwarfish door frame. His face was dark and damp with sweat. She could smell the oil on him, and the menace. He rubbed his bristly chin and his
fingers were soiled with soot. ‘Top of the morning to you, Kitty. This is a pleasant surprise.’ But there was no joy in his voice.

‘You murderer!’ she hissed hysterically. ‘You set my home on fire! You’ve killed my grandfather . . . my dear, sweet gran—’ She swallowed her grief and willed
herself to be strong. ‘You’ll pay for this!’

Michael took off his cap, tossing it onto the table. His black curls fell about his head and he pushed them back with a dirty hand. ‘It wasn’t my intention to kill anybody, but you
can’t bake a cake without breaking an egg or two.’

Kitty stared at him in disgust. ‘Have you no conscience? You’ve murdered an innocent man.’

‘It was my intention to burn your father’s inheritance,’ he said and his face darkened with loathing. ‘If I’ve dealt him a blow to the heart then all the better.
Your grandfather? That’s just the price of the struggle.’

‘I risked my life for the struggle and this is how you repay me? What do you have against my father? Hasn’t he always been kind to you and your kin?’

Michael walked up to her and put his face so close to hers she could smell the alcohol on his lips and feel his pugnacious rage sucking the air out of the room and stealing her breath.
‘What do I have against your father, you ask?’

‘I do indeed,’ she retaliated, rising to her full height.

‘You mean you don’t know?’ His eyes glared at her, but she held her ground and stared right back at him.

‘No, I don’t know, Michael, so you had better tell me.’

‘He raped my sister.’

The words hit Kitty so hard she reeled. ‘He raped Bridie?’ she gasped, incredulous.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘You’re lying. My father’s no rapist.’

‘Is he not?’ Michael laughed meanly. ‘Then why is Bridie in Dublin pregnant as a sow?’

‘Bridie’s pregnant!’ Kitty held her stomach as if Michael had punched her beneath the ribs.

‘Why do you think your father sent her to Dublin?’

‘She said he had found her a job.’ But Bridie had broken her promise and never written. Kitty had been too distracted by Jack and her clandestine gun-running that she hadn’t
taken the trouble to ask herself why.

‘He sent her to Dublin to get her out of the way because he violated her and when he laid his hands on her he insulted my family and our people. That’s why I burned the castle. I
took revenge on behalf of my kin, so help me God.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ But Kitty was unsure.

‘Then ask him.’ He stepped away and casually took off his jacket. He began unbuttoning his shirt. ‘I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other, do you?
You’d better go and throw some water on that old fortress of yours, for all the good it will do.’

‘You bastard!’ she shouted. ‘You won’t get away with this. I’ll tell the constabulary and they’ll hang you!’

‘Then they’ll hang Jack too.’

Kitty blanched. ‘Jack? What’s he got to do with this?’

‘Oh, he’s part of the plot, all right. While the RIC are all up at the castle putting out the fire, he’s stealing guns and taking them to a safe house, that is, if he
doesn’t get caught on the way. I have a very strong feeling that he
will
get caught on the way.’ He gave her a broad smile.

‘How could you!’ Kitty felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. ‘This has nothing to do with my father, or Bridie, does it? This is about me!’

‘Don’t flatter yourself, Kitty Deverill. You’re not my type.’ He took off his shirt, revealing a body honed by a life of manual labour. ‘Now, if you please, I have
to clean myself up before my nanna comes back from Mass.’

‘You’ve set Jack up because you can’t stand it that I love him and not you!’ She began to laugh manically, overcome by a madness that derived from the wildness of love,
war and fire. ‘You’re a pathetic excuse for a man, Michael Doyle. Jack is worth ten of you!’ Michael’s face hardened. She realized then that he wanted her. In his own
twisted way he probably even loved her. ‘Killing and burning houses doesn’t make you a man, Michael, and it never will. You’ll never be the man your father was and you’ll
never be half the man Jack is.’

She knew in that moment that she’d gone too far. The air in the room stilled. The light darkened as the purple clouds now closed in above the house. An icy wind swept beneath the door.
Michael grabbed her by the throat with his giant hands. ‘I’ll show you how much of a man I am,’ he rasped, a diabolical look in his eyes. He threw her onto the table, pressing her
nose into the wood, bruising her cheekbone. She struggled to free herself, but he had pinned her down so that she couldn’t move her head. With the other hand he lifted her skirt to her waist.
Panic seized her. She wriggled and writhed and banged her fists on the table but she was helpless. He roughly spread her legs with his knee and tore off her drawers, ripping them as if they were
made of paper. She tried to scream but nothing came out. Her mind flooded with fear. Thick, suffocating fear that tightened and dried around her, leaving her immobile. She realized, to her horror,
that
he
was going to do to
her
what
her father
had apparently done to
Bridie
and there was nothing she could do to stop him. She froze in terror as something hard
prodded and probed between her legs, then forced its way inside her with unstoppable brutality. It jabbed her deep in her core, tearing her, and the pain was intense. Now suddenly she shrieked but
he didn’t seem to hear. His breath stentorian, his bulging black eyes fixed in the middle distance, he stabbed her again and again, faster and faster, deeper and deeper, thrusting into her
with the full power of his weight as if in some perverse way he believed this act of violence would make her his. She closed her eyes and tried to think of the greenhouse in spring but all she
could see was, through the gap in the door, her father thrusting into Grace. Then Grace became Bridie and Kitty opened her eyes in revulsion and began to cry.

When he was done he withdrew and buttoned up his trousers. Kitty pushed herself off the table. As she stood a trickle of warm fluid ran down her legs and her knees almost buckled beneath a
sudden wave of anguish and exhaustion. But years of suppressing her pain had taught her to dissemble. With deliberation she smoothed down her skirt and searched past her humiliation for her
dignity. At last she lifted her eyes to see that Michael was as horrified as she was. He stared at her in silence, rooted to the spot, shocked by his own actions. ‘I hope you’re
satisfied, Michael Doyle,’ she said and her voice was surprisingly steady. He gazed at her in fear, as if he saw something truly frightening in her eyes. ‘As God is my witness, you will
live to regret this for the rest of your life. You should have killed me. Instead you have created a Fury that will pursue you to the gates of hell and beyond. You’ve no idea what a wounded
woman can do. Yes, you’ll wish you had killed me.’ She picked up her torn drawers, pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin and left the house.

As soon as the door had slammed behind her Kitty was overcome by a swell of nausea. It began in her belly and rose up into her throat where it was duly exorcised. She held her stomach as she
bent over and retched onto the grass. Fearful that Michael would witness her weakness she clamped her mouth shut and strained every muscle in her neck to suppress her distress, and staggered to her
horse. It took her three attempts before her trembling knees found the strength to lift her into the saddle. Shaking the reins she galloped over the fields as fast as her mare could carry her,
wincing with pain every time the motion of the horse jolted her.

Only when she was far away from the Doyle farm did she release her suffering into the wind. She howled so loudly and with such anger as to challenge even the Banshee herself. As tears rolled she
wished she had plunged a dagger into his heart.

She rode to the Fairy Ring and dismounted. Standing in the centre of the circle of stones where she had so often met Jack, she let the rain soothe her tormented spirit. Quite apart from the
humiliation she had just suffered, the loss of her family home, her grandfather and the suggestion that her father had raped Bridie and sown a child into her belly, she feared for Jack. Had this
ruined the one thing that was precious to her? Was she spoiled for him now? Would she be good enough for him? She knew that as soon as she could she would wash her body clean and then at least
she’d be herself again.

For an hour she paced the soggy ground until the grass had turned to mud beneath her feet and she was sodden through and shivering with cold. When she could sob no more she found her breath and
something else, deep in her core, that was always there like the still, calm ocean bed leagues below the waves. Slowly she was healed by the allure of her surroundings. Ireland – beautiful,
wild, constant Ireland. The gentle rain, the desolate cry of a gull, the relentless wind that battered the coastline and the mysterious megaliths that had withstood it for hundreds of years, these
things she treasured because they would never change and no one could ever take them from her.

A dense fog hung over the sea and the sound of waves crashing against rock seemed to pacify her. Kitty stopped pacing and stood gazing out into the mist and listening to the sounds she had known
and loved all her life. A surprising composure settled upon her like the feathery touch of angel wings. She surrendered to it and as she did so her mind cleared and her heart opened and from
somewhere beyond her senses came a source of strength.

At last she mounted her horse and headed for home, whatever was left of it. But she knew now that she would cope. Michael had defiled her body but he hadn’t touched her soul, and her mind
was hers to command; she would lock away the memory and throw out the key. If her father had raped Bridie, why would she have held on to his handkerchief as if it was something to be treasured?
Bridie had given herself to him willingly, for certain, but Kitty would never forgive him for taking her. As for her grandfather, he was dead, imprisoned now with Barton and Egerton and all the
other restless heirs of Castle Deverill. Michael had burnt the castle and killed its Lord. But what about ‘A Deverill’s castle is his kingdom’? The family constantly repeated that
motto but now she doubted it. What did that mean anymore? Everything was ashes. The Deverills diminished. And then she understood, that in his disgusting way, Michael Doyle had recognized that
spirit in her, and in his attempt to possess her and destroy her, he had in fact made her stronger. Now she was worthy of her name.

Kitty returned home to find the castle still burning. When at length the rain put out the last of the embers all that remained was the western tower and the outer stone walls.
It was as if that part of the building had been protected by a supernatural force, for the room where Barton Deverill resided remained untouched and unscathed even by the smoke. Adeline insisted
she remain there, for not even Hubert’s ‘bloody Shinners’ could keep her from his spirit, which now haunted that tower with all his unfortunate ancestors. The Shrubs feared she
had lost her mind. Bertie feared the tower was unstable and begged her to come back to the Hunting Lodge where it was safe. But Kitty understood her grandmother better than all of them. She took
comfort, as she always had, from Adeline’s presence up there in the tower where she lit a fire and lounged in Barton’s chair, drinking cannabis tea and talking to her husband as if he
were still made of flesh and blood and complaining about the state of the country, only now he was complaining about the other spirits who had the audacity to enter the tower he had claimed for
himself.

Kitty soon heard from Grace that Jack and Michael had gone into hiding. Jack had been caught taking stolen guns to a safe house outside Ballinakelly but he had overpowered the two Auxiliaries
who had arrested him and escaped into the hills. As for Michael, a warrant was out for his arrest for arson. Grace assumed they were together and that they would hear word as soon as they were able
to contact them. ‘We have friends all over the country, Kitty. Jack and Michael will be safe, I promise you.’

‘Michael Doyle can rot in hell for all I care,’ Kitty replied and the venom in her voice gave Grace a jolt.

‘My dear, you don’t think he’s responsible for setting fire to the castle? Surely . . . ?’