It occurred to me that there were more questions than answers in this little mental exercise I had taken upon myself and that proof of any of this speculation was in rather short supply.
I looked over at Denny. He'd put his hands flat on his thighs and was starting to rock slowly back and forth on the bench. The rest of us waited.
"I'll tell you a story about someting very strange that happened to someone around here," he said finally. "Now I'm not saying who. No, I'm not saying who 'tis I'm talking about. If you know, then you know. If you don't, then you won't hear it from me. No, you won't be hearing it from me.
"Once there was a Kerry man who'd a wife and beautiful daughters."
"Now this is a good one," Kev said. "Very mysterious, I'll tell you."
"Don't interrupt." Malachy scowled. "Let him tell it."
"But he wasn't happy, for he wanted a son. Soon it was too late, if you take my meaning, his wife getting on to middle age. He was nigh on desperate for a son, and some say he made a pact with the divil so's to have one. Whatever 'twas he did, to everyone's surprise, his wife presented him with a fine lad. A beauty, the boy was. All pink and gold, and eyes so blue. How he doted on that boy. Wouldn't hardly leave him alone for a minute."
"Hardly a minute," Malachy agreed.
"But one day he had to go to Cork to see to his affairs, and while he was away, and his little son, only a few weeks old, was rocking in his cradle out in the garden, a very strange boy, old-looking, came to the place. The maid, she seen him, and this strange creature hopped into the little boy's bed. When the man came home, he found his son gone, and this strange-looking creature in his boy's cradle. 'Twas a terrible ting happened, really 'twas. And he says to his wife, 'what's happened here?' And she says, 'what do you mean?' 'It's the fairies,' the man exclaims, 'they've taken my boy away.' 'Yer crazy,' the woman says. But I tell you 'twere true. The fairies had switched the boy for one of their own. And the man raced to find the boy before he ate the fairy food, because as everybody knows, once you eat their food, you're with them forever, the fairies."
" 'Tis true," Kev asserted. "If they take you, don't eat what they offer, not even a little bite, no matter it looks so good."
"Shh," said Malachy. "Let him finish."
"But the man had a pact with the divil, as I've just told you," Denny continued as if the others hadn't spoken. "So he went back to the divil and says to him, 'you promised me a son,' he says to the divil, bold as brass, for what'd he have to lose what with his son being taken and all? 'I gave you one,' the divil said. 'I didn't say you'd have him forever.'
"Now this Kerryman was no slouch in the head, if you know what I mean, no slouch at all in that department. 'So what do you tink people will be saying about you, if you don't keep your promises,' the Kerryman says. 'I'll be telling everybody what you done to me. There'll be no more pacts with the divil around here when I'm done.' 'Hush your tongue,' the divil says. 'You're worse than a woman for all your complaining. But I'll tell you what I'll do. You go back and get rid of the ugly child in your boy's bed, and I'll save your boy. But you'll have to find him yerself,because I've already promised him to another.'
"The Kerryman accepts the divil's offer. What else could he do? He goes home, and takes a sword and goes to whack the ugly boy over the head with it, and what do you know, the ugly child, seeing what he's up to, jumps out of the cradle and runs away so fast no one can catch him no matter how fast they run.
"And the man looks all over the countryside for his wee boy, the real one, but he can't find him for many, many years. But then he does, when the boy's almost growed. But then the man's wife, who's brooded all these years over her lost boy, she won't recognize her son, says he's not him. But the man, he knows it's his son, who's been lost, and just before he dies, is reconciled with him. So 'tis a strange story, but a true one, and a happy ending of sorts."
Denny stopped talking, and then rocking. The tale, such as it was, was over. What a peculiar story, I thought, and would have made a point of forgetting if it had not been for what was said next.
"Denny has lots of stories like that one," Malachy said. "But that one, 'twas one of Eamon Byrne's favorites. Brought a tear to his eye every time, didn't it, Kev?"
"Aye, a tear to his eye every time. Very close to his heart, 'twas."
I was about to probe this further when I heard my name yahooed from the top of the hill leading down to the pier. Michael Davis came running toward me. "They told me at the Inn they thought you'd come down here," he puffed. "It's gone!"
"What's gone?"
"Breeta's clue!" he exclaimed. "Someone's got into the safe and stolen Breeta's clue."
Chapter Five. A HAWK ABOVE THE CLIFF
AS wondrous as the Dagda's cauldron might be, 'twas only one of four great gifts from the gods, one for each of the cities from which the children of the goddess Danu sprang, and each with a tale to be told.
The cauldron, the one that was never empty, was from Murias. From Falias came Lia Fail, the stone that roared and sang when the true king of Ireland stood on it. Brought, some have said, from the East by the goddess Tea to Tara, the stone, for that is what it is, the stone of destiny, is to rest wherever the high king of Scotic reigns. Many the man thought he would be king at Tara, but only a few heard the roar of Lia Fail.
It should never have left Ireland. Never have left. But Fergus, son of Ere, begged his brother, Murtagh mac Ere, to send it to him in lona so that Fergus might be crowned king there. Filled with a care for his brother, Murtagh sent it across the sea. Then Kenneth took it to Scone.
And what happened then to it, this gift from thegods? The bloody English took it! The things the English done to us! The evil Edward carried off the stone of destiny and put it beneath the English throne. Edward thought he took the power with it, but have the English ever heard it roar, I ask you? Have they ever heard it roar?
There's some would say the stone that rests at Tara now, right close to its center, is Lia Fail. But that one too is silent, and should it be Lia Fail, then the magic's left us.
And then there's them that say the English have set their royal arses over a plain old chunk of stone. And Lia Fail is hidden, waiting for a better time, waiting to be found.
"I'm afraid you may think us ungracious," Margaret Byrne said, as she poured tea into delicate ivory cups with a practiced hand, having peremptorily dismissed a rather nervous Deirdre, who'd clattered around with the teacups in an irritating way. "The circumstances…" she said, dropping her eyes delicately. "I hope you understand."
Despite the refined setting, and the hoity-toity manner in which we were being served, the room was awash in tension. I had a feeling that Alex and I, who had hied ourselves off to Second Chance at the request of Michael and Breeta to ferret out the details of the disappearance of Breeta's clue, had interrupted a scene of some drama when we'd arrived. If true, there was no mention made of it.
Margaret looked toward me, awaiting my response. She was neatly dressed, Chanel again, and black again, in a silk blouse and skirt, with expensive-looking pumps: snake, appropriately enough. The expression on her carefully made-up face was one of perpetual faint surprise, the result, I thought maliciously, of one too many face-lifts. But she was an attractive woman, nonetheless. She looked to be in her late forties, but I assumed she was probably ten years older than that. She sat framed against two oil portraits on the wall behind her, one of Eamon Byrne in happier and healthier times, another a man who was, if the thin lip line and resolute jaw was anything to go by, her father.