The Deverell Woman

By Meg Hutchinson

Can a legacy of hate ever be overcome...
Maura Deverell lives with her ailing mother in the beautiful Irish hamlet of Clonmacnoise, where the locals still believe in ancient magic. Their cruel landlord Seamus Riordan threatens to throw the women out of their cottage unless Maura agrees to marry his young son, Liam Riordan. But before Maura can decide, she is brutally raped by Liam's brother Padraig, who is determined to use the beautiful Maura for his own pleasure.

Ireland is locked in the grips of the potato famine, but Maura though weakened by hunger, still finds the strength to defy the Riordans. On her deathbed, Maura's mother makes her promise to leave Ireland for good, whilst cursing the Riordans with her powerful magic.

Escaping to Birmingham, Maura tries to rebuild her life, but all the time she longs for home. Will it ever be safe for her to return to her beloved Ireland?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Oct 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789542776

Meg Hutchinson

Meg Hutchinson lived for sixty years in Wednesbury, where her parents and grandparents spent all their lives. Her passion for storytelling reaped dividends, with her novels regularly appearing in bestseller lists. She was the undisputed queen of the saga. Passionate about history, her meticulous research provided an authentic context to the action-packed narratives set in the Black Country. She died in February 2010.

Book preview

1

‘Ye’ll be at the church come Saturday eve, ye’ll stand afore the holy altar and marry with Liam Riordan, that be my word and I’ll suffer no denying of it!’

‘I will not… I’m no daughter to you to be ordered like some servant!’

Seamus Riordan’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the thin slip of a girl standing before him. Her mother had looked the same at sixteen, great wide eyes green as the forest floor, tumbling hair the colour of ripe chestnuts… and spirit, yes the spirit was the same too, one that stood and defied him where no man would.

‘No, ye be no daughter to me,’ he answered thickly, ‘but ye’ll do my word if it be ye wants yer mother to die in a bed!’

‘But Liam—’

‘Be the Riordan runt!’ The interruption was cold. ‘But a Riordan none the less and as such superior to all in the county.’

‘Then why me?’ Maura Deverell’s head came up. ‘If the Riordans be so superior why marry one with the daughter of a peat cutter… why would the Ard Ri want such for one of their own?’

‘Kings be right,’ Seamus Riordan snarled. ‘The Riordans be kings in this valley, everything in it belongs to them and that has the including of ye’self. Ye will marry with my son and that be the end of it!’

*

There was no man to protect her, none that would stand against the Riordans. Kings? Maura thought despisingly. They were more coward than king with their sly underhand ways, waiting until the family of a man were near to starving, until every last stick had been exchanged for food, then buying the land from beneath his feet. And no man’s feet stayed long on land that belonged to Seamus Riordan, they were out before the time it took to blink an eye.

Now it was to be the turn of the Deverells unless she married with the misfit… but she must not call him that, not even in her thoughts! Pausing by the side of the stream that ran down from the hills Maura Deverell stared at the clear bright water. Liam Riordan was different, he didn’t have the streak of cruelty and arrogance that ran through his father and brother, he was soft spoken, a smile ready on his lips whenever he might pass on the road; but it was not often Liam Riordan was seen, neither on the road nor off it.

Slipping out of her shoes she placed them in her empty basket, then sat down on the springy turf, her feet in the cold water.

Why did the man keep so to the house? To be sure it was the grandest in the valley, maybe the grandest in the whole county but was that reason enough to so rarely leave its shelter?

It was not. Watching the rippling water turn red-gold in the lowering sun, Maura felt the same twinge of pity she had often felt for the younger son of Seamus Riordan. The runt, his father had called him; was that the name he used in Liam’s hearing, did he know how his father thought of him? Did he have to bear that as well as everything else a cruel fate had put upon him? Once he had been more like the rest of the children of Clonmacnoise…

Lying back on the sweet-smelling earth she closed her eyes, her mind wandering the path of memory.

He would smile and wave from the dog cart his mother drove, and when she stopped to speak a while with the women at their doors he was always polite, always interested in all he saw.

‘That one be a gentleman, sure an’ it be strange to think of his coming from the loins of Seamus Riordan.’

The words her own mother had used of the lad grown to teenhood when last he and his mother had come to her door drifted in among Maura’s thoughts.

Then his mother had died and he had been seen less and less until now he was hardly ever seen at all, kept closed away by a father ashamed of a crippled son, ashamed he was not strong and athletic like his brother? But where Liam had been pleasant and kindly spoken, Padraig Riordan was a complete image of his father: arrogant, overbearing and a bully ready to make money do the work should it be his fists could not.

And now they wanted her. But why, for what reason? Still she could not fathom it. Liam Riordan was a cripple, but it was a crippled body he carried and not a crippled mind! He was attractive of speech and face. There must be many a girl in Clonmacnoise, a girl of family better placed than the Deverells, who would be glad to marry with a Riordan, but the father had chosen her, selected her like so much horseflesh. She liked Liam, in many ways she pitied him, but she did not love him and she would not be traded for, like an animal in the market place!

‘… ye’ll do my word if it be ye wants yer mother to die in a bed.’

The warning was clear… but so was the warning of her heart: to marry into the Riordan family would be to place herself in purgatory! Never from that day would she have a voice or a will of her own.

‘Did yer mother never tell ye that to lie on yer back on the ground with yer legs spread was to invite trouble?’

Her eyes flying open, Maura stared into the leering face of Padraig Riordan.

‘I… I was thinking… I—’

‘So was I… thinking that you be trespassin’ on Riordan land.’

‘I was not… I mean… I have to cross this place to get home.’ Fear sudden and solid in her chest she inched backwards on the soft ground.

‘That doesn’t alter the fact you be trespassin’ and that be against the law. Now what are we goin’ to be doin’ about that?’

There was more than the look of a bully in those narrow eyes. Maura’s nerves jangled.

‘You can report me to the magistrate… I will answer to him.’

‘Why would I be doin’ that when I would much prefer you answer to me!’

For the space of five seconds he watched her scramble awkwardly backwards, hands and feet digging into the spongy turf.

‘This here be Riordan property and I charge a fee for the crossing of it.’

Almost as the words left his lips he moved, stamping a foot to each side of her, laughing as she gasped.

‘I… I have no money.’ She tried to scramble away, a couple of yards and she could be on her feet and away; with luck she could reach home before he could catch up with her.

‘A gentleman takes no money from a lady,’ he laughed again, his hot stare stroking the length of her bare legs, ‘especially not from one set to become his sister-in-law.’

‘Then let me go.’

‘All in good time.’ Bending over her he caught the neck of the dress worn thin from constant washing. ‘All in good time, but first I take my fee.’ Giving a tug that half lifted her by its force, he ripped the dress from neck to hem.

‘No… o… o!’

The cry surged over the rippling water, echoing and re-echoing off purple-topped hills before being silenced beneath a rough hand.

‘You wouldn’t have yourself branded a common thief, would you?’ He brought his face close. ‘A girl who takes without making payment.’

‘I will pay.’ Maura twisted her head, freeing her mouth of his torrid kiss. ‘I will.’

The leer of a smile spreading his mouth he snatched at the flimsy chemise, exposing pale mounds of small pink-tipped breasts.

‘Of course you will.’ He squeezed the tender flesh, ignoring her cry of pain. ‘I’m going to make sure you do.’

*

She had tried to push him away… she had… she had! Stood waist-deep in the cold crystal waters of the stream, Maura made no attempt to stem the tears coursing over her cheeks.

‘What of Liam,’ she had gasped, ‘if I am to marry with him?’

It had been like crying in the wind. Scooping handfuls of water she rubbed at her breasts, trying to wash away the touch of hands and mouth.

His eyes dark with the passion driving through him, Padraig Riordan had snatched away the last of her clothes then released his own, a hungry animal stare sweeping the small figure trembling before him.

‘Don’t worry about Liam,’ he had grunted, ‘he won’t have sense enough to realise the crust has already been cut from the loaf.’ He had pushed her roughly to the ground, his tongue flicking quickly over his thin lips, that awful abusing stare fastening on the helpless form beneath him.

‘No, Liam will never know the first slice is already gone… or how many more will be taken once it’s brought into the house!’

She needed no one to interpret his words, no one to explain the threat behind them. With a sob breaking in her throat she dropped to her knees, letting the sharp sting of the water rush over her chest and shoulders, wanting it to wash away the foulness of the man, to scour all trace of him from her flesh; but how would she cleanse what he had done from her mind, how could she scrub away the horror of the memory for that would be with her as long as breath filled her lungs. Padraig Riordan had raped her and threatened to do the same thing over and again once she became his brother’s wife!

‘No… o… o!’

Half-strangled, the heart-rent cry rushed over the water startling a covey of grey partridge using the tall rushes as cover against a harassing black raven.

She couldn’t live like that… she couldn’t. Sobs wracked the thinness of her as she plunged her head beneath the tumbling waters. But she had to live like that if her mother was to see another year!

Climbing slowly from the water she dressed in the tattered rags, holding her dress together across breasts and stomach. She would not add to the troubles that had brought her mother so near her deathbed. There had been little enough of luxury in the rough stone cottage with its turf roof, but prior to her father’s death at least there had been potatoes in the storeroom and often a poached trout or rabbit to keep them company, but after the accident that had killed him, and the blight that had taken a year’s crop before it could be lifted, it seemed the will to go on living had passed from Mairead Deverell and now she coughed blood with almost every breath. ‘The consumption,’ Mother O’Toole from across the valley had shaken her head on pronouncing the dreaded word, ‘there be no cure as be known or none the like o’ which ye have the money to buy.’

It had seemed that day as though the Passing Bell had already sounded, her mother was dying.

‘… ye’ll do my word if it be ye wants yer mother to die in a bed.’

Seamus Riordan’s words returned; mocking, adding to the misery and pain searing her heart.

The land her father had worked belonged to Seamus Riordan, the cottage that stood on it belonged to Seamus Riordan… and she must belong to him also.

Blinded by tears hot in her eyes she stumbled through grass and heather damp with the dew of evening, and not until she stood among the tall sculptured crosses and tumble of ruined buildings that had once been small churches skirting the grander ruin of the Abbey of Clonmacnoise did she realise where she was.

Holding the remnants of her dress close about her, seeing her near nudity as an insult to this holy place, she walked slowly to where a tiny cell-like structure still stood. Here was the tomb of Ciaran, the gentle understanding saint who had founded the early monastery and who had been known to help the people of the valley when all else failed them.

But would the saintly Ciaran help a girl who had lain with a man out of wedlock?

‘I didn’t want to do it,’ she whispered, ‘it was not my will.’ Head bowed, shame pressing heavily on her, she fell to her knees on the hard stony ground of the tiny windowless room.

‘Help me, holy Father,’ she whispered again, ‘help me live a life of vileness; for my mother’s sake help me to enter that house, to take on a life of sin for I know no other way to stave off the hand of death, to hold her with me for as long as I can. Pray for me, gentle Saint, pray God in His compassion forgives me taking my own life the moment my mother takes her last breath.’

Trembling in the eerie shadows she listened, hoping the drift of evening air would carry an answer on its wings. But there was only silence. Rising to her feet, head still bent, she turned back into the open, passing among the forest of ornately carved stone crosses and engraved tombstones, the heart inside her crippled with the pain of knowing there would be no answer from Ciaran, no plea for dispensation. Fornication and suicide, they were each a sin; despised and unforgivable by the Church, their perpetrators refused the benefit of Communion and denied a place of eternal rest in sanctified ground. Yet all of that did not frighten her as much as the silence in the chapel of Ciaran, a silence that said it was also unforgivable in the eyes of God… commit any such sin and hell awaited you… but Maura Deverell would commit them both.

*

Mairead Deverell staggered up from her knees to which the bout of coughing had drawn her. It could not be long now, the consumption Sinead O’Toole had spoken of took more of her strength with every passing day and soon it would take her life. Wiping blood from her lips she stared about the dark smoky room in which she had spent most of the last seventeen years. Maura, her first-born, had been birthed in the bed shoved into one corner, there also had been born the boy child that followed a year later, a babe that had not lived to see the light of his first morning. Sean was the name they had given him. Mairead’s arms folded across her chest holding an unseen child, her eyes closing as she seemed to feel the nuzzle of a tiny head against her breast.

They had known he could not live, they had seen the mark of death upon him. She pressed the imagined body closer to her own, the heart inside her breaking now as it had broken so many years ago. There had been no time to fetch a priest, the nearest one had been in Clonfert and with no horse to ride Brendan could not have reached there and back before…

With tears squeezing beneath closed lids she swallowed against the pain of remembering.

‘The baptising has to be done.’

Mother O’Toole, who acted as midwife to all who called for her, had reached for the newly born child but Mairead had clung to it, her eyes beseeching a silent Brendan.

‘Mairead child!’ The old woman’s voice had been gentle, full of pity. ‘Ye must give the babe to yer man, let him give the blessing of holy church afore the child be laid in the ground.’

Inside the shadowed house Mairead’s inner eyes watched the drama of that bitter night unfold.

‘The child be dead,’ Sinead O’Toole had continued, ‘God rest its tiny soul, now it must needs be buried.’

‘No… o… o!’

The cry she had uttered ringing even now in her ears, Mairead stared at the bed as the answer she had given sounded again in her mind.

‘How can I bury him, how can I let him lie in the cold earth?’

‘Child… child!’ The woman’s arms had closed about her, the mouth already wrinkled, whispering against her brow. ‘Look at your man, his also is the heart that be breaking; ye must be strong, girl, strong for the two of ye, don’t be givin’ him any more of the pain for ’tis my fear he won’t have the standin’ of it.’

She had looked at Brendan then, at the man who had chosen to take her, and seen the agony dark in his eyes. It was his child too, he had shared in the making of it, in the wonder of its first movement in the womb, shouted in joy at its delivery and sobbed as she did at its death. She had released her hold on the precious bundle. Reaching for her husband’s hand she had bitten back the sobs as the woman had taken their child.

They had huddled together; there on that very bed Brendan and herself had watched the washing of that tiny body, the wrapping of it in a clean white doth… the preparing of their son for burial.

‘All be ready.’

In the gathering dusk it seemed Sinead O’Toole held the still bundle once more towards her while the shadows whispered her words.

‘Say goodbye to your child… give him into the hand of the Lord.’

‘Give him into the hand of the Lord!’ It had burst from her, ripping the heart from her body. ‘Why say that when ye know there can be no salvation for him, ye knows the teaching same as me… there be no entry into heaven for the unbaptised.’

Sinead O’Toole had shaken her head at that, a strange half smile touching her deeply grooved mouth.

‘This babe will not go unbaptised and no unmarked ground shall have the covering of him. Pour into a dish some of the water that be purified from boiling in that kettle and make the sign upon its brow.’

‘No!’

Wrapped in the silence settling over the land, Mairead lived again the moments she had lived a thousand times. Brendan had drawn away, the expression on his tired face showing the tumult in his heart.

‘’Tis forbidden!’ He had guessed the purpose in the woman’s mind and rejected it. ‘’Tis none but a consecrated priest can perform the rite and none but holy water placed upon the brow.’

‘Be that the truth now!’ Eyes blackbird bright had flashed in the light of candles. ‘Then p’raps with your knowledge, Brendan Deverell, ye’ll be after tellin’ an ignorant woman who it was consecrated John the Baptist, and who it was declared the river Jordan holy before our Saviour was baptised in its waters? I say any water that has the blessing of God asked upon it be holy and that He turns away none for whom His mercy is asked. Pour the water, Brendan Deverell, and say the words of a father for his son.’

Mairead had risen from the bed, drawing her husband with her, and herself had poured the dish of water. Then in the dimness of the same room Brendan had taken the child into his arms.

‘Let no fear hold yer tongue.’

The words breathed from the folding shadows had the same gentle calmness in them now as there had been when first they had left Sinead O’Toole’s mouth, a calmness no words of a priest had given before or since. Holding the blood-soaked rag to her mouth, Mairead listened.

‘Words truly meant have a sweetness to the ear of the Lord.’

‘But… but the child be dead.’

The strange half smile had lingered as the bright eyes had fastened on Brendan’s face.

‘Sure an’ wasn’t Lazarus dead four days in his tomb afore he was brought forth? And our own Saviour himself, lying dead in his grave until the third day? Make your heart easy for death has no power before God; place the sign of His son on this dead babe, name him and give him into the love that is the salvation of all men.’

With naught but the darkness to see, Brendan had asked a blessing on the dish of water then with one finger had traced a drop of it on the tiny brow.

‘Sean, Brendan, Rourke,’ she had whispered as he paused.

Repeating the names given to honour the child’s father and grandfathers he had made the sign of the cross then kissed the already cold face and together they had laid the child to rest among the flowers of her small garden.

There had been no more children, no more sons for Brendan Deverell. He had loved her the same as before and cherished his daughter, but always the pain had been visible behind the smile, lurking deep in the eyes that never again held that same brightness. And that small patch once set around with blossom, that had become his own resting place. Her glance travelled beyond the door to rest where two wooden crosses stood side by side in the soft earth. He had been brought there and buried by the men who had found him dead at the foot of the hill beneath Hermit’s Cave said once to have housed a holy man. Now they lay together, her husband and her son.

‘Hold them both in your keeping, Lord.’

The prayer died on her lips as she caught sight of a thin figure stumbling towards the house.

‘Maura!’ It was no more than a whisper but the fear locked in it rocked the world around her. ‘Maura!’ she whispered again, then, the bloodstained rag dropping to the floor, she began to run.

2

‘Do I think as how it be wise?’

Seamus Riordan looked at his elder son, feeling the same old resentment rise from the deepest part of him, resentment that this was not the child of the woman he had loved, the woman he loved still.

‘I think it’s after being no less wise than taking the daughter of Fergus Shea into the house, a woman who seemingly can carry no child to its full.’

‘That was an accident, a trip on the stair.’

‘And the second! Was it an accident that tore the second child from the womb, and it no more than seven months… an accident or your use of the fist?’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Enough!’ Seamus swept a hand through the air, his face a mask of anger. ‘I’ll hear no more. What goes between you and your wife be of no import to me.’

No one had ever been of import to his father. Padraig Riordan shifted under the gaze that carried more contempt than ever it had carried love, but then his father had never felt that emotion, not for his wife or for his sons.

‘There has to be sons.’ Seamus banged a closed hand on a delicate spindle-legged table, rocking it with the blow. ‘And it looks to be those sons will not come from Niamh Shea, for that reason if no other then Liam must marry.’

‘There will be sons—’

‘Be that the truth now!’ Eyes hard and cold as rock rested on Padraig. ‘And when might that be… this year, next? I can’t wait on words. The wench be sickly, that be clear to any as looks on her. Bring her to the farrowing pen and like as not the next bed she’ll sleep in will be six foot down in the earth. No, the Riordan name must go on and if not from your loins then from those of Liam.’

His own thoughts had been those of his father. Padraig’s teeth clenched. Niamh might never be brought to bed of a child. But that was no fault of his, he lay with her often enough; but the Deverell girl… there was one would give a man what he wanted, she would stir the blood in his veins, with her he could sire a host of sons… and, like his father said, Niamh was sickly, giving birth or not she would not live long and then…

‘My mind be set and there’ll be no altering of it,’ Seamus Riordan swept on. ‘Come Saturday eve the priest will read the words over Liam and the daughter of Brendan Deverell and she will come to this house as his wife.’

‘And supposing there be no child, no son, supposing Liam be no more capable in bed than out of it, what then?’

A look cold as ice-robed stone stayed on the younger man, the unconcealed contempt so deep-seated in those hard eyes striking like a blow to his face.

‘Then ’twill be as it ever was, and matters taken care of for him, but take heed, Padraig, that be one matter will not be given over to you.’

‘Then who, Father?’ Controlling his own easily roused temper with difficulty, Padraig returned the stare. ‘To carry the Riordan name a child must be born of a Riordan man and if Liam should prove incapable—’

‘Then I’ll do the job myself!’

‘You!’ Padraig half laughed. ‘The father of the girl’s own husband.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of this world and I hold little doubt it will be the last, but this I tell you certain sure,’ the older man’s eyes glistened dangerously, ‘wife of Liam or no the Deverell girl will not be touched by you; not one finger will be laid upon her or I’ll take the heart from yer body with my own hand!’

‘I’ll take the heart from yer body with my own hand.’

Walking slowly to the part of the house given to his and his wife’s use, Padraig let the words run through his mind, playing over it like the ripples of a stream.

Why? At the head of the stair he stood with his hand on the heavily carved banister. Why, for all he had done to others, had Seamus Riordan protected that girl and her mother, even now allowing them to live in that cottage?

His father was owner of this whole valley. The death of the English landowner had brought his widow to Clonfert to sit out her period of mourning, but that had been forgotten in the meeting of Seamus Riordan. What he had given the lady of Eyrecourt had obviously compensated very well for the loss of her husband, so much so she had married her Irish lover and all she had once owned was now his. But she had been far into middle age on coming to Ireland and the damp bog mists soon saw her into her grave. This Seamus had foreseen, and the wait to become valley king had not been a long one. Yet all of that did not explain why, as he had done with all other tenants, he had not turned the Deverell family from his lands.

There had to be cause. Dropping his hand to his side he walked slowly along the beautifully carpeted corridor, turning into his own room. There had to be cause, he thought again, dropping heavily into a leather-covered armchair, but what? There had never been friendship between his father and Brendan Deverell, and though Deverell’s wife was polite and respectful whenever his own mother paused to pass the time of day she had never once been known to give a word to his father.

So; he stared at the peat fire burning in the grate. If there was no friendship between Mairead Deverell and his father what was the tie that bound them for there was one, of that he was certain, and what was it had given rise to the words ‘I’ll take the heart from yer body’? That was one question to ponder, the other was would Padraig Riordan ever find out his warning had come too late?

*

Mairead Deverell looked at the girl sleeping in the small truckle bed made for her by her father when she was too grown to fit into the dresser drawer that had served for the first four years of her life. It all seemed so long ago, so long since Brendan had brought her as his bride to the clochan, this tiny stone cottage, so long since their only son had died less than an hour after his coming into the world… all of it so long ago. How hard those years had been, they had both worked every hour between the dawn and the dusk, him in the field he had first cleared of stones to make a tatie patch and she in the cottage looking to the thousand and one tasks that filled a woman’s day. Then at night, in the bed that stood in the corner, he had held her in his arms; but though the whispering of his love for her had never ceased, the joining of his body to hers in the fulfilling of that love had become less and less until no longer did it happen at all. Had it been that desire had died in him? No, Mairead’s head shook briefly at the thought, it had been the shame he thought was his, the failure to father another son.

‘But it could not have been your fault!’ Mairead’s whispers even now were for her husband’s comfort. ‘The blame must have lain with me, I was not fit in the eyes of heaven to bear you more children, I gave only one daughter and now—’ But she would not tell Brendan that, she would not disturb his eternal rest with the telling of the rape of his child; but neither would she let it go unpunished.

She knew what she must do. The valley kings would pay for the sin laid upon her daughter; but not with coin. Drawing her ragged shawl about her shoulders Mairead Deverell looked once more at the girl she had bathed then rocked to sleep in her arms. No, they would not pay with coin!

Going softly from the one room that was home to herself and her daughter, Mairead stood for a moment staring at the bare patch of earth within the small overgrown garden, Brendan had cleared that too, then planted it with flowers for her delight, but now it was empty of all save bracken, all, that was, except for the dark narrow strip that covered him and his son. Soon it would cover her but before it did she would have justice for the wrong done her daughter.

Padraig Riordan would no doubt deny the truth of what Maura had told her and it was equally of no doubt his father would uphold him. Well, she could not blame him for that, it was natural for a parent to support their own, but for Seamus Riordan there could be no wrong in his son, she would get no justice there.

‘That is why I must be doing what I do,’ she whispered to the smudge of earth black in the light of a full moon. ‘I know you would forbid it, Brendan, but there be no other way.’

Standing a few seconds more, a scrap of clean rag held to her mouth to stifle the cough that wracked her thin body, she listened to the quiet rhythm of her daughter’s breathing. With the help of God and His holy saints… No – she pushed the thought away – she could not ask the help of heaven in what she was about to do.

It was as if some secret inner sense had warned of the coming of this day. Mairead touched a hand to the pocket of her patched skirt, feeling the slivers of wood wrapped in a scrap of cloth. It had been a long time in the gathering, asking passing tinkers to bring what she could not gather for herself, often waiting months for their return, but at last the tiny hole set in the wall behind her bed held all she had prayed would never be needed. But that inner sense, that soundless voice that whispered always in her heart, had not told her false and now the need was come and tonight would see her vengeance.

Stumbling slightly, tussocks of grass catching at her feet, breath rattling in her lungs, she made her way to the brook that was a silver finger of the broad river Shannon. At its edge she dropped to her knees on the dew-soaked ground, coughing into the scrap of rag and feeling the rise of blood warm in her mouth. It must be done this night, the waning of the next moon would see all chance gone for she would not live that long.

Glancing at the brilliant orb she smiled at its fullness. Deceitful so it was, the perfection of its circle denying the fact that its dying, like her own, was already well begun; that in a few short nights its glory would be eaten away and the earth would lie in darkness for three more before that brightness returned as a slim crescent. But it was this time, the time of the moon’s waning, that her work must be done.

Taking the small cloth-wrapped bundle from her pocket she spread it on the grass beside her. Just inches beyond the stream’s edge the moon’s reflection was a great golden bowl on the gently rippling water. Stretching her hands towards it she dipped her fingers into its gleaming centre then sprinkled the tiny drops onto the slivers of wood lying in the cloth.

The powers of old would judge her asking. Crossing both hands over her breast she bowed her head, her whisper a sigh on the night.

‘Seven twigs from seven trees,

Thy ancient powers now give to these.

Bathed in the moon’s full light,

Imbue them with thy force and might.’

With the last word the earth seemed suddenly to breathe, the rushes at the stream’s edge riffled as the waters surged, the leaves of nearby trees rustled, whispering among themselves as a blast of wind bent their long arms towards her, while overhead the light of the moon appeared to grow, its golden phosphorescence intensifying to a silver radiance bathing her whole body in a shimmering lambent glow. Then in a breath the silence returned, the moon golden once more on the softly tumbling water.

The ancient powers had given of their answer. Mairead spread her arms, whispering thanks the night air carried over the moonlit stream. Taking up cloth and twigs she rose to her feet. She would have her revenge.

Retracing her steps she looked at the cottage Brendan had built for her when she became his bride. It had been a sign to all in Clonmacnoise, a telling that he saw no shame in the daughter of Arlen Shanley. But the shame had been there, hiding deep in her heart, though none of it had been of her doing, just as the rape of her daughter had been none of Maura’s doing. Such as the father so is the son! The thought stabbing at her brain Mairead gripped her bundle tightly, her thoughts on the girl lying inside that clochan, the house so small and low it seemed as though it were sinking back into the earth from which it had been formed. She had washed the blood from her child as her own mother had washed it from her; soothed her to sleep as she had been soothed, but that would not redress the shame of rape, the pain that would fester in her daughter’s heart as it had festered in hers.

A reckoning had been taken. Her steps slower now, her free hand holding the bloodstained rag against her lips, Mairead walked on towards the black shadow that was her home. Her own mother had called upon those same ancient powers, she had taken her own revenge, but it was not one so terrible as Mairead Deverell would take!

Averting her eyes from the smudge of earth black among the shadows, she gritted her teeth against the touch she could almost feel in the darkness. She would not listen to the plea she knew Brendan would have spoken, the words she could hear now in the hollow of her soul.

‘Not again,’ she sobbed into the stained cloth, ‘I won’t, Brendan, I won’t let it happen again!’

*

Inside the house she stood a moment listening to the breathing of the girl asleep in the truckle bed, breaths broken by sobs and frightened murmurs. No, she would not let it happen again! Her footsteps soundless on the earthen floor she crossed to the hearth, holding the bundle of twigs over the glowing heart of the peat fire as she murmured.

‘Thy power be their power.’

A settling of the peat sent a myriad tiny sparks bursting upwards and in the shadowed darkness Mairead’s pale face smiled. Again the ancient powers had marked her asking and again they answered. She turned away, the crimson glow of the fire hindering her vision, but years spent in this room meant she had no need of lamp to light her way, and no glow of burning peat could hide what was printed in her brain. Laying cloth and twigs on the table she crossed to her solitary cupboard, reaching out the things she had put ready.

Beyond the tiny low-slung window the earth lay swathed in brilliant gold, a great banner of a moon glistening its defiant beauty before surrendering to the rise of the sun.

Taking an earthenware dish to the hearth she scooped a smattering of ash into it before returning to the table where she tore a narrow strip of the cloth, twisting it about an unused candle.

Blue, the colour of compelling, she had chosen carefully. Letting the shawl slip from her shoulders she lit the candle, holding it towards the window, mingling its light with the brilliance of the moon, drawing the power of one into the other. Turning back to the table she placed the candle at its centre.

Glancing towards the narrow bed she caught her breath, fighting back the cough rising in her throat. Maura must not wake now, she must never carry knowledge of what took place here this night; she had not been given instruction in the old ways, her daughter had not been taught as she had been taught. Tonight Mairead Deverell would call upon the ways of old but the powers of summoning would die with her. Swallowing the warm blood curdling in her mouth she touched a thumb to the ash covering the bottom of the bowl and pressed it to each twig. She could not write her name but the powers would know her signing.

Circling bowl and twigs