The Murderer Inside the Mirror, page 18
‘I believe I owe it to my father to find out who wrote that play,’ she said, speaking very earnestly. ‘To expose and denounce whoever is behind it all. But there is something that is raising a small doubt for me, and until I’m reassured about it … I felt you were the one person I could approach.’ She leaned forward. ‘Florian, this hidden scene the newspapers have written about—’
‘Ah. The Murder Scene.’
The Murder Scene. The words struck at Ethne’s mind as if they had been a blow. But she said, ‘Is that what you’re calling it? I didn’t know. But I suppose from all I’ve read in the newspapers, I should have known there would be a … a murder.’ She leaned over to touch his hand. ‘Florian, if I could know just a little about the play, it might reassure me that I’ve been right to disown it. On the other hand, if it is my father’s work, I must certainly acknowledge and accept it. You do understand, don’t you? But of course you do – you were always so sensitive. That scene in particular … It sounds as if it’s the real heart of the play. Its essence.’ A pause. ‘You’re in that scene yourself, I think the newspaper said?’
‘I am. But I’ve given my word not to discuss it. Even the pages of that scene have to be given back to Viola after each rehearsal,’ he said, in an aggrieved voice. ‘And rehearsals of it are only ever behind locked doors. In fact tomorrow evening we’re even rehearsing it after everyone has left and the theatre is deserted. Eight o’clock call, if you please. Not even the backstage crew will be there. And there’s a dear little soul who recently joined the company who’s doing her utmost to be helpful and who I think should be included – Timon wants to try out some sound effects, and I think this girl could be trusted to manage them for the evening. Tilly, she’s called. Tilly Fendle. She looks like a startled sprite that’s lost its way in the forest and found itself in the twentieth century by mistake. Utterly stage-struck. I’ve tried to impart a few pearls of wisdom to her, as a matter of fact – from my wealth of experience in the theatre, you know. I think she has found some of our talks instructive and encouraging.’ He examined his fingernails, casually, then said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, but you do see, I can’t tell you anything about the play – and certainly not about the Murder Scene.’
Ethne went to sit next to him on the bed. ‘Of course I understand,’ she said. ‘But aside from that, this has been such a pleasant reunion. It’s brought back those days in Westmeath.’
‘You were very sweet,’ he said, and pulled her against him, squashing her breasts uncomfortably. ‘You still are,’ he said, in a breathy whisper into her ear, and began to fumble at the fastenings on the front of her gown.
Ethne forced herself not to push his hands away. She would allow ten minutes for him to grope and jab, then she would say she had arranged a taxi to take her back to her hotel, and it was due quite soon.
He was pulling her down onto the bed now, and Ethne managed to conceal her revulsion at the feel of his thick body pressing against her. But after some heaving and panting, and a bit more fumbling and prodding at her bodice, Florian rolled back to his side of the bed, gave a heavy sigh, and said, ‘I must not assume anything, must I? After so many years, I must not allow myself to think I would still be attractive to you.’
Either he had developed more gentlemanly habits than he had possessed six years earlier, which Ethne did not think likely, or he had drunk too much wine and rendered himself semi-unable – which she thought very likely indeed. She sat up, buttoned her gown, tidied her hair, and used her line about a car having been booked.
‘But I hope we could have a further meeting very soon,’ she said, reaching out to touch his face with a fingertip. ‘I could stay in Dublin for another day or two.’
‘Then we shall dine together,’ he said.
Ethne had to endure a flabby kiss before she was finally able to escape.
But as she returned to her own hotel, her mind was working furiously. Florian had refused to be drawn about what he had called the Murder Scene, and if it had not been for that disguised scene, Ethne might have been able to dismiss most of her fears. Yes, but there’s the play’s title, said a sly little voice in her mind. The Murderer Inside the Mirror …
The words ran back and forth in her head, and with them, she felt the past pulling her back into that night five years earlier inside Dublin Castle’s Clock Tower.
TWENTY-ONE
Ethne would never forget that night. She would never forget how the shadows had lain thickly everywhere, or the sense of danger … She would never forget the relentless ticking of the immense clock over their heads, tapping out its warning like hammer blows. Don’t-go-in … Leave-the-past-alone …
When Mr Fitzglen found the jutting stone that would move the section of the wall, Ethne had wanted to say the words aloud – to tell them to leave the past sealed up – to let it keep its secrets.
But she had done what they asked, striking the matches, and then lighting the candle and holding it up so that it could shine into the yawning blackness. The small light had burned up in the dry, airless space, and then had come the moment that still walked through her nightmares.
From within the dark recess – the recess that Seamus Rafferty must have designed and that had been sealed up for a century and a half – had reared up the shadowy figure that had come towards them. The room, the entire tunnel, had reverberated with screams that sliced through the shadows, and it was several seconds before Ethne realized that the screams were her own. But even when she did realize, she could not stop, because there was someone in there, someone who had been sealed up in Seamus’s room, and it really was a tomb … And whoever had been walled up inside it was coming towards them – a figure splintered with shards of light, the hands stretched out – a figure who wanted to kill them for disturbing the past and opening up the secrets …
The slap across her face came from her father, and it was like a dash of cold water. Ethne gasped, and half fell, shaking and sobbing, against the wall. Her mind was tumbling – she was dimly aware that they must try to get out.
But it was already too late. Running feet were coming toward them, commands were being shouted. Lights flared and guards – four, no five, of them – erupted into the passage, shouting to the intruders to remain still, not to move, they would be shot if they tried to resist. There was the black glint of what looked like guns.
Ethne felt her arm grabbed, and her father pulled her into the cobwebbed blackness of the alcove. She struggled, but he said, ‘We must hide – it will buy us time … The mechanism operates from inside …’
‘But there’s someone in there …’ Ethne flinched as he pushed her forward, expecting to feel the hands briefly glimpsed to reach out and close around her neck.
‘There’s no one,’ said Phelan, and as he spoke they both fell into the yawning oblong of blackness.
Ethne stumbled against the brick wall, banging her head hard, so that the darkness spun and tilted all around her. But through the spinning confusion, she heard the dry rasp of the stones and blackness closed about them. She thought: he’s moved the wall back. He’s shut us in. We’re shut in with whatever’s in here.
But as she struggled to sit up, her father said, ‘Safe for the moment.’
‘No … There is someone in here with us – I saw him—’
‘There’s no one. Give me the matches.’ He fumbled for them, and struck one, holding it up. ‘See there? A mirror.’
Ethne’s senses were steadying, although her head was throbbing where she had hit the wall, but she managed to look where he was pointing. Propped against the wall, facing the alcove’s opening, was a tall, narrow mirror.
Her father said, bitterly, ‘Seamus’s last macabre joke. He must have wanted anyone getting in here to see what would be a figure walking out of the darkness as soon as the place was opened up.’
‘I did see a figure—’
‘You saw your own reflection. Or mine,’ he said, and as he spoke, there was a tapping against the stone – sharp, insistent.
Ethne’s heart leapt, and she looked across at the wall in sick terror.
‘It’s the guards,’ said her father. ‘They’re trying to get the wall open again, but they can’t see how to do it – they haven’t got Seamus’s map, showing the stone that works the mechanism. Montague’s got it.’ He moved to the wall and pressed his ear against it, listening. ‘Montague’s gone, I think,’ he said, after a moment. ‘But I can just hear what the guards are saying. They’ve sent three men after him, but with fair luck he’ll be out of the castle and halfway down the hill by now.’ Incredibly a note of amusement suddenly came into his tone, and he said, ‘Or, more likely, he’ll fashion for himself a disguise, and still be around.’
‘Will he?’
‘He won’t leave us to our fate,’ said her father, at once. ‘But listen now, two of the guards are still out there, and they’re trying to get in.’ As he spoke, the tapping came again, louder, and moving across the other side of the wall.
‘Will they get in?’ Ethne could not stop shaking, but her whispered words came out reasonably calmly.
‘If they can’t find how to move the section of stone wall, they’ll force it open with pickaxes and sledgehammers. They know we’re in here, you see.’ The match had burned out, but Ethne could sense him thinking very intently.
‘Montague might stage something,’ said Phelan, at last. ‘But even if he doesn’t, that wall will be opened eventually. We can do it from in here, though, which means we might be able to choose our moment. Wait, till I make another light …’ The match-flame flared up again. ‘There’s the stone, d’you see?’ he said. ‘It comes through from the passageway outside. Now listen, Ethne, we’ll give Montague a few moments, but if he doesn’t come back, we’ll open the wall without the guards realizing what we’re up to. They won’t know that we can work it from in here, and it’ll startle them. But they’ll come tumbling in, and if we’re quick we can be out and running through the passages before they’ve got time to realize what’s happened.’ The match went out, but he struck another and, in its wavering light, he looked at her very straightly. ‘It will be dangerous,’ he said. ‘And I might have to use force, although what …’ He looked about him, then reached out to prise a section of the looking-glass frame away. The wood was old and partly rotting, and it splintered, sections of it coming away. ‘I shan’t need it,’ he said. ‘But if necessary it can be used as a bit of a defence. It will deal a fair blow – enough to stun the guards – and buy us time to get out. And we will get out, Ethne. I’ll make sure you’re safe.’
Ethne was shivering at the knowledge that the guards were on the other side of the stone wall, waiting for them, but she suddenly heard herself say, ‘Why did Seamus create this room? What did he need to hide?’
At first she thought he was not going to answer, then he said, ‘Haven’t you seen?’ and striking yet another match, held it up and pointed with his free hand to the far corner.
In the uncertain light, Ethne saw what lay against the wall.
A lute. An old, old lute, lying against the wall. Its surface was ingrained with dirt, but it was possible to see that it would once have been smooth and satiny.
The strings had long since rotted – there were only a few threads clinging to the wood, and the circular sound-hole at the centre of the body had fallen away.
At her side, her father said, very softly, ‘It’s Silken Thomas’s lute. It’s what Seamus created this room for. It’s the hiding place.’
He moved the match’s flame closer, and Ethne saw that wedged inside the lute were sheets of musical notation, with writing on them.
‘Dear God,’ said her father, leaning forward, speaking very softly, ‘It’s not just his lute, it’s his music, as well.’ He struck another match and, almost without realizing what she was doing, Ethne reached out and drew the fragile, curling papers from the lute. They felt dry and as if they might crumble to nothing in her hands. She stared at the elaborate writing, and thought she was closer to Thomas in this moment than she had ever been in her whole life.
The writing at the top of the page had been penned so forcefully that in places it had scored into the paper. But it was possible to make out what it said.
‘Cat’s Lament. A farewell to the Martyr of Silk.’
As her father leaned forward, phrases written beneath the music notation leapt out. Ethne was hardly aware of the proximity of the guards now; her whole being was focused on trying to read the words Thomas had set down centuries earlier.
‘She who uprighted me with such desire … She whose name could twist my heart/And wrench my very soul apart …’
At first Ethne did not understand the opening line, then the memory of that evening in the old orchard came back, and she understood very well indeed. And even in this place, with the danger all around them, and the stench of age and sadness everywhere, she felt her cheeks suddenly hot with embarrassment, because her father was reading this with her. But he would not realize she understood the meaning, of course he would not.
He had already turned to the second of the two pages, but the match had burned all the way down, and darkness closed in.
But into the darkness, he said, softly, ‘He was writing about his own execution. About someone having betrayed him – someone he thought he could trust.’
‘I didn’t see—’
‘Didn’t you? But there were lines at the end …’ In a voice so low she had to strain to hear it, Phelan said,
‘“In cold bleak dawn I soon shall die
Betrayed by one I thought to trust.
But he will walk with death’s grim hood,
With tolling bell, with sawdust spread.
A faithless man, a faceless death …”’
The words dripped like acid into Ethne’s mind, but with them came a brief moment of puzzlement. What was meant by death’s grim hood? Was it simply a term used in those times?
The shouts from beyond the wall were suddenly louder. At any moment the guards would start to break it down, as her father had said. But he handed her the matches, and she managed to strike one and hold it high up for him to examine the upper part of the stonework. He was going to open it from this side, and that would be the moment when they would have to scramble out and run – the moment when force might have to be used against the guards.
Her father’s hand closed around her wrist, and he pushed her back against the stonework. With his lips close to her ear, he said, ‘Stay as still and as quiet as you can. And do whatever I tell you. I think it’s going to be all right.’
‘How—?’
‘Listen,’ he said, and, from beyond the wall a familiar voice rapped out a command.
‘Dammit, you lazy good-for-nothings,’ said the voice, ‘get this wretched wall open, and let’s get at the scoundrels hiding in there!’
Ethne gasped, because it was unmistakably the voice of Montague Fitzglen, but slightly tinged with an Irish accent. Her father said, softly, ‘Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say he’d conjure up a disguise and be back to rescue us?’
‘Oh …’
‘He’s snatched a cap or a jacket from somewhere,’ said her father, ‘and he’s donned the guise of a very senior guard, issuing orders.’
Ethne managed a nod of understanding, then, almost as if obeying a silent command on her own account, she pushed Thomas’s music back in the lute. It folded back into place, and she slid the lute into its dark corner with her foot. There was a movement from within the old mirror as she did so – almost as if there was another Ethne, another lute, inside the looking-glass that Seamus Rafferty had placed here over a century ago. For a wild moment she saw the lute’s reflection, with the music and the writing weirdly reversed, looking almost like runic symbols, or an ancient code. The guards were saying something about not being able to open the panel, apology in their tone.
‘A secret room,’ said one of them. ‘Who’d have guessed it? But none of us able to tell how to open it. Will we break the wall down?’
‘You half-wits,’ snapped Montague. ‘Of course we won’t break it down. Don’t all ancient castles have secret rooms and stairways? And isn’t the way in nearly always on the same principle? There’ll be a lever – concealed behind a bit of stone – something that’s out of true with the rest of the wall. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what do they teach you on this job nowadays? When I was a young man … For pity’s sake, hold up that light, and we’ll soon find how to open this room.’ His last words came much more loudly, and they were followed by insistent tappings.
‘He’s warning us,’ said Phelan, softly. ‘He’s telling us he’s about to open the panel and we should be ready to run for safety.’
‘There it is!’ cried Montague, triumphantly. ‘That bit of stone, looking for all the world as if something’s standing inside the wall, sticking its tongue out at us! That’ll be the part that’ll operate it – I’ll wager my virtue – and no need to smirk like that, either of you, it’s an honest enough wager. Let’s see can I move it … Slowly, now … Is that a movement, there to your left? The left, man! That edge of the wall there, see it? Now then, if the panel doesn’t move properly in a few seconds, then I don’t know anything about castles. Ready?’
Ethne and her father were both on their feet, and he was gripping her arm with one hand, while the other held the length of wood torn from the mirror earlier, clearly prepared to hit out at whoever came into the room if he had to do so. Ethne seized the second piece of wood, and gripped it determinedly. It was astonishing how much courage it gave her.
There was the remembered sound of the stones grating, then the wall began to slide across as it had done earlier, and Montague gave a shout of triumph. ‘Stand ready,’ he cried. ‘You two go in first – I’ll stay here and grab the rogues if you fumble things, for they’ll come bounding out, like pellets shot from a poacher’s gun.’
‘Ah. The Murder Scene.’
The Murder Scene. The words struck at Ethne’s mind as if they had been a blow. But she said, ‘Is that what you’re calling it? I didn’t know. But I suppose from all I’ve read in the newspapers, I should have known there would be a … a murder.’ She leaned over to touch his hand. ‘Florian, if I could know just a little about the play, it might reassure me that I’ve been right to disown it. On the other hand, if it is my father’s work, I must certainly acknowledge and accept it. You do understand, don’t you? But of course you do – you were always so sensitive. That scene in particular … It sounds as if it’s the real heart of the play. Its essence.’ A pause. ‘You’re in that scene yourself, I think the newspaper said?’
‘I am. But I’ve given my word not to discuss it. Even the pages of that scene have to be given back to Viola after each rehearsal,’ he said, in an aggrieved voice. ‘And rehearsals of it are only ever behind locked doors. In fact tomorrow evening we’re even rehearsing it after everyone has left and the theatre is deserted. Eight o’clock call, if you please. Not even the backstage crew will be there. And there’s a dear little soul who recently joined the company who’s doing her utmost to be helpful and who I think should be included – Timon wants to try out some sound effects, and I think this girl could be trusted to manage them for the evening. Tilly, she’s called. Tilly Fendle. She looks like a startled sprite that’s lost its way in the forest and found itself in the twentieth century by mistake. Utterly stage-struck. I’ve tried to impart a few pearls of wisdom to her, as a matter of fact – from my wealth of experience in the theatre, you know. I think she has found some of our talks instructive and encouraging.’ He examined his fingernails, casually, then said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, but you do see, I can’t tell you anything about the play – and certainly not about the Murder Scene.’
Ethne went to sit next to him on the bed. ‘Of course I understand,’ she said. ‘But aside from that, this has been such a pleasant reunion. It’s brought back those days in Westmeath.’
‘You were very sweet,’ he said, and pulled her against him, squashing her breasts uncomfortably. ‘You still are,’ he said, in a breathy whisper into her ear, and began to fumble at the fastenings on the front of her gown.
Ethne forced herself not to push his hands away. She would allow ten minutes for him to grope and jab, then she would say she had arranged a taxi to take her back to her hotel, and it was due quite soon.
He was pulling her down onto the bed now, and Ethne managed to conceal her revulsion at the feel of his thick body pressing against her. But after some heaving and panting, and a bit more fumbling and prodding at her bodice, Florian rolled back to his side of the bed, gave a heavy sigh, and said, ‘I must not assume anything, must I? After so many years, I must not allow myself to think I would still be attractive to you.’
Either he had developed more gentlemanly habits than he had possessed six years earlier, which Ethne did not think likely, or he had drunk too much wine and rendered himself semi-unable – which she thought very likely indeed. She sat up, buttoned her gown, tidied her hair, and used her line about a car having been booked.
‘But I hope we could have a further meeting very soon,’ she said, reaching out to touch his face with a fingertip. ‘I could stay in Dublin for another day or two.’
‘Then we shall dine together,’ he said.
Ethne had to endure a flabby kiss before she was finally able to escape.
But as she returned to her own hotel, her mind was working furiously. Florian had refused to be drawn about what he had called the Murder Scene, and if it had not been for that disguised scene, Ethne might have been able to dismiss most of her fears. Yes, but there’s the play’s title, said a sly little voice in her mind. The Murderer Inside the Mirror …
The words ran back and forth in her head, and with them, she felt the past pulling her back into that night five years earlier inside Dublin Castle’s Clock Tower.
TWENTY-ONE
Ethne would never forget that night. She would never forget how the shadows had lain thickly everywhere, or the sense of danger … She would never forget the relentless ticking of the immense clock over their heads, tapping out its warning like hammer blows. Don’t-go-in … Leave-the-past-alone …
When Mr Fitzglen found the jutting stone that would move the section of the wall, Ethne had wanted to say the words aloud – to tell them to leave the past sealed up – to let it keep its secrets.
But she had done what they asked, striking the matches, and then lighting the candle and holding it up so that it could shine into the yawning blackness. The small light had burned up in the dry, airless space, and then had come the moment that still walked through her nightmares.
From within the dark recess – the recess that Seamus Rafferty must have designed and that had been sealed up for a century and a half – had reared up the shadowy figure that had come towards them. The room, the entire tunnel, had reverberated with screams that sliced through the shadows, and it was several seconds before Ethne realized that the screams were her own. But even when she did realize, she could not stop, because there was someone in there, someone who had been sealed up in Seamus’s room, and it really was a tomb … And whoever had been walled up inside it was coming towards them – a figure splintered with shards of light, the hands stretched out – a figure who wanted to kill them for disturbing the past and opening up the secrets …
The slap across her face came from her father, and it was like a dash of cold water. Ethne gasped, and half fell, shaking and sobbing, against the wall. Her mind was tumbling – she was dimly aware that they must try to get out.
But it was already too late. Running feet were coming toward them, commands were being shouted. Lights flared and guards – four, no five, of them – erupted into the passage, shouting to the intruders to remain still, not to move, they would be shot if they tried to resist. There was the black glint of what looked like guns.
Ethne felt her arm grabbed, and her father pulled her into the cobwebbed blackness of the alcove. She struggled, but he said, ‘We must hide – it will buy us time … The mechanism operates from inside …’
‘But there’s someone in there …’ Ethne flinched as he pushed her forward, expecting to feel the hands briefly glimpsed to reach out and close around her neck.
‘There’s no one,’ said Phelan, and as he spoke they both fell into the yawning oblong of blackness.
Ethne stumbled against the brick wall, banging her head hard, so that the darkness spun and tilted all around her. But through the spinning confusion, she heard the dry rasp of the stones and blackness closed about them. She thought: he’s moved the wall back. He’s shut us in. We’re shut in with whatever’s in here.
But as she struggled to sit up, her father said, ‘Safe for the moment.’
‘No … There is someone in here with us – I saw him—’
‘There’s no one. Give me the matches.’ He fumbled for them, and struck one, holding it up. ‘See there? A mirror.’
Ethne’s senses were steadying, although her head was throbbing where she had hit the wall, but she managed to look where he was pointing. Propped against the wall, facing the alcove’s opening, was a tall, narrow mirror.
Her father said, bitterly, ‘Seamus’s last macabre joke. He must have wanted anyone getting in here to see what would be a figure walking out of the darkness as soon as the place was opened up.’
‘I did see a figure—’
‘You saw your own reflection. Or mine,’ he said, and as he spoke, there was a tapping against the stone – sharp, insistent.
Ethne’s heart leapt, and she looked across at the wall in sick terror.
‘It’s the guards,’ said her father. ‘They’re trying to get the wall open again, but they can’t see how to do it – they haven’t got Seamus’s map, showing the stone that works the mechanism. Montague’s got it.’ He moved to the wall and pressed his ear against it, listening. ‘Montague’s gone, I think,’ he said, after a moment. ‘But I can just hear what the guards are saying. They’ve sent three men after him, but with fair luck he’ll be out of the castle and halfway down the hill by now.’ Incredibly a note of amusement suddenly came into his tone, and he said, ‘Or, more likely, he’ll fashion for himself a disguise, and still be around.’
‘Will he?’
‘He won’t leave us to our fate,’ said her father, at once. ‘But listen now, two of the guards are still out there, and they’re trying to get in.’ As he spoke, the tapping came again, louder, and moving across the other side of the wall.
‘Will they get in?’ Ethne could not stop shaking, but her whispered words came out reasonably calmly.
‘If they can’t find how to move the section of stone wall, they’ll force it open with pickaxes and sledgehammers. They know we’re in here, you see.’ The match had burned out, but Ethne could sense him thinking very intently.
‘Montague might stage something,’ said Phelan, at last. ‘But even if he doesn’t, that wall will be opened eventually. We can do it from in here, though, which means we might be able to choose our moment. Wait, till I make another light …’ The match-flame flared up again. ‘There’s the stone, d’you see?’ he said. ‘It comes through from the passageway outside. Now listen, Ethne, we’ll give Montague a few moments, but if he doesn’t come back, we’ll open the wall without the guards realizing what we’re up to. They won’t know that we can work it from in here, and it’ll startle them. But they’ll come tumbling in, and if we’re quick we can be out and running through the passages before they’ve got time to realize what’s happened.’ The match went out, but he struck another and, in its wavering light, he looked at her very straightly. ‘It will be dangerous,’ he said. ‘And I might have to use force, although what …’ He looked about him, then reached out to prise a section of the looking-glass frame away. The wood was old and partly rotting, and it splintered, sections of it coming away. ‘I shan’t need it,’ he said. ‘But if necessary it can be used as a bit of a defence. It will deal a fair blow – enough to stun the guards – and buy us time to get out. And we will get out, Ethne. I’ll make sure you’re safe.’
Ethne was shivering at the knowledge that the guards were on the other side of the stone wall, waiting for them, but she suddenly heard herself say, ‘Why did Seamus create this room? What did he need to hide?’
At first she thought he was not going to answer, then he said, ‘Haven’t you seen?’ and striking yet another match, held it up and pointed with his free hand to the far corner.
In the uncertain light, Ethne saw what lay against the wall.
A lute. An old, old lute, lying against the wall. Its surface was ingrained with dirt, but it was possible to see that it would once have been smooth and satiny.
The strings had long since rotted – there were only a few threads clinging to the wood, and the circular sound-hole at the centre of the body had fallen away.
At her side, her father said, very softly, ‘It’s Silken Thomas’s lute. It’s what Seamus created this room for. It’s the hiding place.’
He moved the match’s flame closer, and Ethne saw that wedged inside the lute were sheets of musical notation, with writing on them.
‘Dear God,’ said her father, leaning forward, speaking very softly, ‘It’s not just his lute, it’s his music, as well.’ He struck another match and, almost without realizing what she was doing, Ethne reached out and drew the fragile, curling papers from the lute. They felt dry and as if they might crumble to nothing in her hands. She stared at the elaborate writing, and thought she was closer to Thomas in this moment than she had ever been in her whole life.
The writing at the top of the page had been penned so forcefully that in places it had scored into the paper. But it was possible to make out what it said.
‘Cat’s Lament. A farewell to the Martyr of Silk.’
As her father leaned forward, phrases written beneath the music notation leapt out. Ethne was hardly aware of the proximity of the guards now; her whole being was focused on trying to read the words Thomas had set down centuries earlier.
‘She who uprighted me with such desire … She whose name could twist my heart/And wrench my very soul apart …’
At first Ethne did not understand the opening line, then the memory of that evening in the old orchard came back, and she understood very well indeed. And even in this place, with the danger all around them, and the stench of age and sadness everywhere, she felt her cheeks suddenly hot with embarrassment, because her father was reading this with her. But he would not realize she understood the meaning, of course he would not.
He had already turned to the second of the two pages, but the match had burned all the way down, and darkness closed in.
But into the darkness, he said, softly, ‘He was writing about his own execution. About someone having betrayed him – someone he thought he could trust.’
‘I didn’t see—’
‘Didn’t you? But there were lines at the end …’ In a voice so low she had to strain to hear it, Phelan said,
‘“In cold bleak dawn I soon shall die
Betrayed by one I thought to trust.
But he will walk with death’s grim hood,
With tolling bell, with sawdust spread.
A faithless man, a faceless death …”’
The words dripped like acid into Ethne’s mind, but with them came a brief moment of puzzlement. What was meant by death’s grim hood? Was it simply a term used in those times?
The shouts from beyond the wall were suddenly louder. At any moment the guards would start to break it down, as her father had said. But he handed her the matches, and she managed to strike one and hold it high up for him to examine the upper part of the stonework. He was going to open it from this side, and that would be the moment when they would have to scramble out and run – the moment when force might have to be used against the guards.
Her father’s hand closed around her wrist, and he pushed her back against the stonework. With his lips close to her ear, he said, ‘Stay as still and as quiet as you can. And do whatever I tell you. I think it’s going to be all right.’
‘How—?’
‘Listen,’ he said, and, from beyond the wall a familiar voice rapped out a command.
‘Dammit, you lazy good-for-nothings,’ said the voice, ‘get this wretched wall open, and let’s get at the scoundrels hiding in there!’
Ethne gasped, because it was unmistakably the voice of Montague Fitzglen, but slightly tinged with an Irish accent. Her father said, softly, ‘Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say he’d conjure up a disguise and be back to rescue us?’
‘Oh …’
‘He’s snatched a cap or a jacket from somewhere,’ said her father, ‘and he’s donned the guise of a very senior guard, issuing orders.’
Ethne managed a nod of understanding, then, almost as if obeying a silent command on her own account, she pushed Thomas’s music back in the lute. It folded back into place, and she slid the lute into its dark corner with her foot. There was a movement from within the old mirror as she did so – almost as if there was another Ethne, another lute, inside the looking-glass that Seamus Rafferty had placed here over a century ago. For a wild moment she saw the lute’s reflection, with the music and the writing weirdly reversed, looking almost like runic symbols, or an ancient code. The guards were saying something about not being able to open the panel, apology in their tone.
‘A secret room,’ said one of them. ‘Who’d have guessed it? But none of us able to tell how to open it. Will we break the wall down?’
‘You half-wits,’ snapped Montague. ‘Of course we won’t break it down. Don’t all ancient castles have secret rooms and stairways? And isn’t the way in nearly always on the same principle? There’ll be a lever – concealed behind a bit of stone – something that’s out of true with the rest of the wall. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what do they teach you on this job nowadays? When I was a young man … For pity’s sake, hold up that light, and we’ll soon find how to open this room.’ His last words came much more loudly, and they were followed by insistent tappings.
‘He’s warning us,’ said Phelan, softly. ‘He’s telling us he’s about to open the panel and we should be ready to run for safety.’
‘There it is!’ cried Montague, triumphantly. ‘That bit of stone, looking for all the world as if something’s standing inside the wall, sticking its tongue out at us! That’ll be the part that’ll operate it – I’ll wager my virtue – and no need to smirk like that, either of you, it’s an honest enough wager. Let’s see can I move it … Slowly, now … Is that a movement, there to your left? The left, man! That edge of the wall there, see it? Now then, if the panel doesn’t move properly in a few seconds, then I don’t know anything about castles. Ready?’
Ethne and her father were both on their feet, and he was gripping her arm with one hand, while the other held the length of wood torn from the mirror earlier, clearly prepared to hit out at whoever came into the room if he had to do so. Ethne seized the second piece of wood, and gripped it determinedly. It was astonishing how much courage it gave her.
There was the remembered sound of the stones grating, then the wall began to slide across as it had done earlier, and Montague gave a shout of triumph. ‘Stand ready,’ he cried. ‘You two go in first – I’ll stay here and grab the rogues if you fumble things, for they’ll come bounding out, like pellets shot from a poacher’s gun.’
