Cave of Secrets Page 5

  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

  The 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?’

  ‘My brother will be meeting us at the mouth of our river,’ Séamus replied, ‘with a larger boat to carry cargo. Get in now.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ Tom ran to the cave and tucked his shoes and stockings inside. Then he waded into the shallows and tried to climb into the currach.

  Getting in was not as easy as it looked. The little boat was as skittish as a nervous horse. When it felt his weight it tilted violently to one side.

  Séamus laughed. ‘Easy, lad. Do not lunge at her, come up easy, like. Slip over the side like an eel over a tree root.’ He leaned away from Tom to balance the boat, and the boy tried again.

  ‘Easy, like,’ Tom muttered under his breath.

  After two more embarrassing attempts he finally managed to get in without overturning the currach. Aside from leaning, Séamus had done nothing to help him. ‘Sit still now,’ he instructed. He took up the oars and began to row. ‘Watch what I do, lad. Ye might do this yourself some day.’

  Tom gave the pair of oars a hard look. They were very long and narrow, with a flat blade at the end instead of a paddle. He could not imagine them propelling a boat forward. But when skilfully handled by Séamus, they made the small currach seem to fly over the water.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Roaringwater Bay

  ‘Mr Fox has not called on you since the betrothal party,’ William Flynn said accusingly. ‘What have you done to upset him, Elizabeth?’

  ‘How could I upset him if I have not seen him?’

  ‘You must encourage your suitor more, my girl. You don’t have so many danglers you can afford to let this one get away.’

  ‘I accepted his offer of marriage, Father, what more do you want?’

  Flynn could no longer restrain himself, even with one of his beloved daughters. ‘It is woman’s work to keep the pot on the boil! You should have been writing frequent letters to Herbert Fox, assuring him of your undying devotion. Scenting the letters with some of the expensive perfume I gave you. Must I think of everything myself? The lot of you hang out of me like leeches. Taking and taking, never giving!’

  Elizabeth ran crying to her mother. ‘I’ve done everything Father asked of me, always. Still he wants more. Is there no pleasing him?’

  Lying half submerged in the pile of pillows on her bed, Catherine Flynn turned a pale face towards her daughter. Elizabeth bent low to hear her words.

  ‘What did William ask of you now?’

  ‘To embroider some flags for Mr Fox’s ships. I’m not artistic, Mother, you know I’m not. My embroidery is pitiful. Ginny should be do
ing this. Then I could say it was mine.’

  ‘That would not be honest, dear. You would be deceiving the man who has promised to marry you.’

  ‘What difference would that make? Have you always told Father everything?’

  Mrs Flynn said, ‘William knows all there is to know about me.’ Her whispery voice faded to a mere thread. ‘Yet he loves me anyway.’

  Elizabeth stood at her mother’s bedside, looking down. ‘Of course he does, Mother. You are beautiful.’

  Catherine Flynn gave a hollow laugh.

  * * *

  The rhythmic sound of the oars … tloc swoosh, tloc swoosh, tloc swoosh … accompanied the little boat like a kind of music. Séamus stayed close to the shore. Tom relaxed and began to enjoy himself.

  He was careful to watch how Séamus handled the oars.

  Travelling in a boat, he decided, was easier and more pleasant than travelling on land. Riding the waves. He could imagine himself making other, longer voyages. Perhaps some day he might even sail to the New World.

  Come and take a ride with me upon my magic pony, fast and far we’ll travel all the live long day …

  As night took hold, the sky above the bay was losing its peacock radiance. There was no visible moon.

  They reached the mouth of the little river more quickly than he had expected. Muiris, Seán and Fergal, the younger of the two male cousins, were waiting with a much larger currach. ‘Isn’t Donal coming?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Donal is still a boy,’ said Muiris. ‘Strong and willing surely, but what we do tonight is man’s work.’

  Man’s work. Tom wished his father could hear those words.

  Transferring into the larger boat was another challenge. No one offered to help him this time. He was directed to sit in the middle of the boat. ‘I don’t suppose you know how to row?’ Seán asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Tom.

  ‘Not yet,’ Muiris echoed. ‘D’ye hear him, lads? He has a head on his shoulders, this one. Tomás knows he is for the rowing.’