A Game of Sorrows by S. G. MacLean Page A

have told Alexander of every escapade you have been in. There is no tale of you I could hear that I could discount at first hearing, other than that you had settled to a life of business and piety. But I took the precaution of speaking to our grandfather’s agent. He is the only man in Coleraine whose word I trust. He told me the truth of it. You must be careful. Murchadh …’
    He glanced at me. ‘Not now, Deirdre. Let us talk of pleasanter things. It will not be long until the wake begins. Time enough for sombre thoughts.’
    ‘But the curse …’
    ‘Ach, the curse. Do not trouble your head about that. After the funeral, I am to take Alexander to O’Rahilly and …’
    Her face paled at the mention of O’Rahilly’s name. ‘You cannot be thinking of that. You cannot place Alexander in that danger.’ She gripped my hand again. ‘You must not go. Please, you must not go.’
    Before I could answer, the door to the room opened and Andrew Boyd walked in. He stopped short when he saw that I was not alone. Sean stepped back and Deirdre stood up. Boyd muttered something that sounded like, ‘I am sorry,’ and left as suddenly as he had come.
    Sean looked to Deirdre. ‘Come on, your husband will be wondering where you are.’
    ‘I am his wife, not his lapdog.’
    Her brother grinned. ‘I do not think Blackstone knew what he was about when he married himself an Irishwoman. But it is time for us to get ready, all the same. Alexander, Maeve has some plan for you for this evening. We will talk later.’
    Deirdre kissed me on the cheek. ‘And you and I also will talk, and talk, for there is a lifetime of you that I must get to know.’ And then they were gone, and something of the light inside went with them.
    It was not long afterwards that my grandmother entered the room. We had not spoken since the night of the strange, aborted baptism. There were no preliminaries.
    ‘Your grandfather will be buried tomorrow.’
    ‘I know that,’ I said.
    ‘No doubt. You should be there, by Sean’s side, at his funeral. It is your place, but it is not yet the time to make you known.’
    ‘I will do him honour here, in prayer, in scripture reading. I would like to have known him better, but I will pray to take example from what I have learned about him in life.’
    Maeve’s mouth contorted slightly. ‘How Grainne must have suffered with such people,’ she said. ‘But you are in my house tonight, and there are none of your ministers here. It is my desire, and he would have expected it also, that you watch over your grandfather’s body tonight.’
    ‘You wish me to sit in the chapel with his remains?’ I asked.
    She looked at me as if I were lacking in something. ‘His remains rest in this house. I wish you to be at the wake.’
    ‘How can that be if I am not to be made known? Is the house not full of people?’
    ‘There is a place in the gallery that you can watch from. Andrew Boyd will show you where. You must take great care not to be seen.’ Her voice was low and soft, as my mother’s had been, but there was no warmth in it for me. I still gave little credence to her worries, but I assured her I would be cautious. Her business finished, she made to leave, but paused a moment when I spoke again.
    ‘Tell me, who is Roisin O’Neill?’
    She appraised me, interested.
    ‘Roisin O’Neill is the only daughter of my cousin Murchadh. Through the duplicity of others, Murchadh fell out of favour with the Earl of Tyrone in his youth, and had made his peace with the Crown before the end of Tyrone’s rebellion. The earl never forgave him, and Murchadh was not with him when he and the others, my own son Phelim amongst them, left for Spain, to seek help for our plundered land. But there was a blessing in it, for the English trust Murchadh, and he has managed to hold to some of his lands where others have had them wrenched from them.’ My grandmother seemed pleased with this, what must have been a well-rehearsed justification of