Song of the Silent Harp (10 page)

A terrible dread welled up in her as she approached the Quigley house. She nodded a greeting to Mary Larkin, whose grim shake of the head indicated that the worst was about to happen. A silence had fallen over the group as she drew near, a strange, oppressive stillness, as if the entire assembly was waiting for someone to die. The faces of the people, both men and women, were lined with a mixture of fear and sympathy, disbelief and hostility.

Her gaze went from the bailiff, mounted on a scrawny brown horse, to Cotter, who sat scowling down at the crowd from his snorting gray stallion. It took her a moment to comprehend the significance of several raggedy-looking men standing near the horses, but when she did she nearly gasped aloud.

“Destructives,” murmured a man nearby, as if voicing her dismay. Nora shuddered. These were the despised housewreckers, those who, after being evicted from their own homes, managed to survive by tearing down the houses of their neighbors for food or pay.

God have mercy, are they going to tumble Aine's house as well as turn her out?
Nora wondered.

One of the local constables was reading off a list in a loud, imperious voice. Nora heard the names of the O'Malleys and the Quigleys called, then the Gaffneys. When no one appeared from any of the three cottages, Cotter spurred his horse forward, prodding the constable with his riding crop. Startled, the short, rotund man jumped, then took off running to the front door of the Quigley house, giving it three hard raps with his fist.

Nora's breath quickened with dismay when Aine appeared at the door. In her arms she held her youngest babe, a thin, fine-boned boy with hair the color of old ivory; two wee girls stood on either side of their mother. Every face, with the exception of the babe in his mother's arms, was pale with fright.

The constable started to speak, but Cotter went charging up the yard on his mount, his gruff voice drowning out the policeman. “Where's the man of this house?”

Nora could just barely hear Aine's reply.

“Why, my husband is dead, sir. More than four months past now.” The woman's voice trembled almost as violently as the thin hand clinging to the door frame.

Cotter turned to the bailiff, who was dismounting. “What have they got? Any animals?”

“A goat and a horse,” the other man replied carelessly, handing over the reins of his horse to one of the housewreckers standing nearby. “They had a cow, but it seems it died on them in December—”

“The horse and the goat are dead, too, sir,” Aine quickly interrupted. “We have no animals now, none at all.”

“Well, your rent is in arrears, and since you've no way of paying it, you'll have to leave,” Cotter ordered. “Get what you want from inside and get out. Now!”

Aine flinched as if the agent had struck her in the face with his riding crop. Wincing from the plight of her friend's pain, Nora instinctively took a step forward. She stopped when Cotter whirled around to eye the crowd that had gradually begun to close in.

“Stay back, the lot of you!” he bellowed. “You'd be wise to take heed of what is happening here. Any one of you behind in his rent—you'll be next if it's not paid in full when you're told!”

From somewhere in the crowd a woman cried out, and soon others began to weep with her. Aine Quigley, however, seemed resolved to fight. “Sure, and you can't mean what you say, sir! I've three small babes and not a coat among us. We've no food and no health! You'll be sending us to our deaths if you turn us out.”

“Then apply for admission to the workhouse!” snapped Cotter, turning to
glare down at the bailiff. “Get those men started at once!

And you”—he wagged a finger at the bald-headed constable still in the yard—“see to the other tenant across the road.”

A red-faced Sean O'Malley had come out of his cottage and now stood, his wife pressed behind him, halfway between his own place and Aine Quigley's. “There's no room in the workhouse, and well you know it!” O'Malley shouted at Cotter. “Would you have the woman and her babes die in the ditch before sundown?”

By now the crowd had again started to close their ranks and were gathering in around Cotter. Some of the women were still weeping, but the men's voices rose in an angry buzz that burst into a roar of fury when the destructives swung out and, dividing, began to swarm on all three houses.

“God have mercy on us!” wailed a silver-haired woman to Nora's left. “They mean to see us all dead.”

Nora watched in horror as one of the housewreckers yanked Aine and the children away from the door and shoved them roughly out into the yard. Aine Quigley sent up the keening cry of the mourner as she watched her meager possessions being tossed out of the house into the mud and sleet. Pushing the babe in her arms at a woman nearby, she ran back inside, screaming.

The distressed murmurs of the watching crowd had swelled to a rumble of mounting fury when a roar rose up from somewhere behind them. Nora spun around with the others at the sound. Stunned, she watched Morgan Fitzgerald charging his way through their midst, his face livid, his eyes blazing.

Two of the housewreckers had just come out the front door, their arms filled with kettles and dishes. They froze at the sight of the fiery-haired giant tearing his way through the crowd, which was now parting to give him room.

One of the destructives shot a glance of alarm at Cotter, then scurried back inside the house. The other dropped the contents in his arms where he stood and took off running around the side of the yard.

They needn't have feared, for Morgan's objective was plainly Cotter. Stunned, Nora watched him charge the agent, who still sat astride his horse, his bloated red face a mask of incredulity. The wild-eyed stallion snorted, then reared with a force that sent Cotter flying. His riding crop sailed out of his hand and landed in the mud as he fell.

Morgan went for the agent, now lying on his back, feet up, in a pool of icy slush. Cotter was paunchy and awkward, no match at all for the frenzied giant towering over him. Grasping him roughly beneath his arms, Morgan
jerked him upright and spun him around. The terrified agent squawked and let fly a string of oaths. Undaunted, Morgan lifted him into the air as if he were no more than a lumpy sack of potatoes. He held him there, feet dangling above the ground, arms flailing wildly as he faced the crowd.

Horrified, Nora could hear Morgan's words to the bug-eyed Cotter as he demanded,
“Call them off!
Get your riffraff out of that house, or I'll snap your cowardly spine, I swear I will!”

The agent's red face looked like a melon about to burst. He continued to rage and squeal as Morgan dangled him in front of the people.

At that moment the constable who had started for Michael Gaffney's place came racing across the road, his pistol drawn. He fired once into the air, then again.
“Put him down, Fitzgerald!
Release him at once or you're a dead man!”

Morgan swiveled to look, dragging Cotter around with him. As he pivoted, he set the agent rudely on his feet, but continued to grasp him firmly under the arms. Pushing Cotter in front of him as he went, he edged his way toward the policeman. “A grand idea, Constable! Go ahead, shoot! Shoot this devil and bless us all!”

A roar went up from the crowd, and several of the men now began to converge on the policeman. The man stood gaping for another instant, then lowered his gun and backed away.

Nora saw the other constable and Cotter's two bodyguards edge up behind Morgan's back.
“Morgan!
Look out—behind you!”

Morgan whipped around, dragging the agent as if the man were weightless. “Get back!” he warned, his face hard and determined. “His death will be on your heads, lads.”

They halted, but didn't retreat, and Morgan shouted again, “I mean it! Just give me an excuse, why don't you? Wouldn't I just love to snap his fat neck!”

Nora shivered in the hush that had fallen over the crowd as Morgan dared his attackers with a grim smile. Didn't the lunatic realize he was endangering not only himself, but all of them? Cotter would turn out the entire village for his madness!

“Well? Get on with it, then—him or me?”

The constables lowered their weapons, and the bodyguards took a few reluctant steps backward.

“I'll have the pistols on the ground, lads,” Morgan demanded.

The policemen exchanged uncomfortable glances, but dropped their guns as he instructed.

A growl of rage exploded from Cotter. Morgan yanked him back against his chest, hard enough that Nora heard the man's bones snap as he cried out in pain. She cringed again, anger at Morgan and his mindless temper surging through her. The man he was threatening held the life of every person here in his very hands.

“Now, then,
Mister
Cotter—your honor,
sir,”
Morgan sneered, his mouth close to the agent's temple as he slurred his words in an exaggerated brogue, “you'll be after ending this little incident right away. Just send your boys along like good lads, and I'll turn you loose as well. We'll be having no more of this eviction talk today, if you please.” His eyes went to the destructives. “But first, boyos, let's be putting the Missus Quigley's furniture back inside her house where it belongs.”

“No!”
Cotter twisted and squirmed, struggling in vain to free himself from Morgan's iron grip. “Stay where you are! Do you hear?
Stay where you are!”

Nora's hand flew to her mouth as Morgan's grasp on the man tightened. Cotter shrieked, but Morgan merely pressed his mouth even closer to Cotter's ear and grated, “I think you'd best heed what I say, man, and heed it well. I have some lads of my own, you see, who are far more fierce than these miserable
spalpeens
of yours.” One brawny arm locked under Cotter's chin. “Now here's the way it will be, unless you do as you're told: Some night very soon my men and I will come calling. We'll come while you sleep, and you'll not even know we're about.” His voice hardened. “Until we've spread-eagled you in the yard and set you ablaze, that is.”

The agent had stopped his squirming—indeed, he seemed to have stopped breathing. “Aye,” Morgan finished smoothly, “you'll be ashes among the cow dung before anyone even suspects what has happened.”

Cotter's eyes looked about to pop as Morgan tightened his hold on his throat. The agent frantically began to nod his agreement.

“Ah, so we understand each other then, your honor?”

Again Cotter wagged his head vigorously, tears tracking down his fat cheeks.

“Well, that's grand, then,” Morgan said cheerfully, inclining his head toward O'Malley. “Bring me one of those pistols, Sean, why don't you? And perhaps you might want to hold on to the other one yourself.”

The lithe, square-shouldered O'Malley didn't hesitate. He passed one pistol to Morgan, then leveled the other gun on the agent.

“All right, now,” Morgan said evenly, releasing Cotter's throat to palm the gun. “We'll just be waiting until your lads put Missus Quigley's house back in order.”

Morgan continued to hold Cotter firmly until all Aine's belongings had been returned to her cottage. Finally, he gave the agent a rough shove, pushing him toward his horse and training the pistol on him.

All eyes followed Cotter and the officials as they jumped on their mounts and started to ride away, their henchmen running behind them. Unexpectedly Cotter jerked his stallion around to face Morgan. “Know this, Fitzgerald,” he grated out, his face flushed with hatred and humiliation, “this day you have signed your death ticket!”

An impudent grin spread over Morgan's face as he lifted his chin and cocked his head, but his eyes glittered as hard as ice chips. “That being the case, your honor,
sir,
you might do well to remember that
your
ticket is attached to my own.”

The agent swore, then yanked his horse around and took off at a frenzied gallop. Behind him, the crowd of watchers broke into a militant cheer.

Nora stiffened, feeling her face grow hot as Morgan caught her eye and began walking toward her. She could sense the interested stares of her neighbors and wanted desperately to run.

“You saved my back, lass,” he said quietly in the Irish. “I thank you for the warning.”

Nora stared resolutely down at the frozen mire, not answering. Acutely aware of his eyes on her, she finally dragged her gaze up to meet his, encountering a faint glint of amusement that made her blood boil. His eyes went over her, traveling past Old Dan's worn, shapeless coat and her sodden brown skirt, down to her feet, lost in the old man's heavy boots.

His eyes met hers again and held. He said nothing; his smile said it all. It suddenly occurred to Nora how desperately woebegone she must appear to him, standing there like a drowned ragamuffin in the old man's clothes. Well, and what did she care
how
she looked to Morgan Fitzgerald?

Irked by his insolence, Nora snapped at him. “You do know he's right, don't you? Not only has your madness signed your ticket to the gallows, but you've most likely sealed the fate of the entire village!”

His arrogant smile fled as he stood studying her face. When he finally spoke, his tone was guarded. “The fate of the village and all Ireland was sealed long before this day. If you did not know that before, then at least face the truth now.”

“Just what is the truth?” she whispered savagely. “What, Morgan Fitzgerald, did you mean when you warned the agent about ‘your lads,' as you called them? What is it you're hiding, with your wandering about and your gifting us with provisions from the Lord knows where and—”

Suddenly Nora stopped, shaking her head wearily. She dared not finish the question or play out her accusations to the end. There were some things, she realized with self-disgust, that were better left unknown.

When she looked up at Morgan again his eyes were hard, and for a moment Nora thought he was simply going to turn and walk away. Instead, he shoved the pistol into his belt, took her firmly by the arm, and started walking, pulling her along beside him. “Come along, Nora Ellen, I will see you home before you catch your death.”