The Sin Eater(61)

The students left shortly after six. Michael threw away the ruined saucepan, and returned to the Abbot and the entry into his story of Fintan Reilly.

Fintan, it appeared, had the habit of turning up at St Patrick’s unexpectedly, generally when he was broke, hungry, running from an irate husband, father or brother, or – on a couple of memorable occasions – running from the law. And there had been a particular night midway through a tempestuous November evening in 1878 when he had arrived at the monastery, his appearance unannounced, as it always was.

‘A dark and wild night it was, with the rain lashing against the windows and rattling them like the bones of the restless dead, and the wind screeching across the ocean like the voices of souls trapped in purgatory,’ wrote the Abbot, and Michael read this with delight. Oh, Fergal, why didn’t you take to writing purple fiction, he thought. Or maybe you did. Maybe you were really Bram Stoker or Sheridan Le Fanu. He considered this concept of allotting shadow personas to well-known novelists for a moment in case it might make an interesting essay subject for his students, then resumed reading.

We had two guests that night, for N.S. was visiting us as well. N.S. had left us three or four years previously, to take a curacy in a parish on the outskirts of Galway. He had written to me, describing his work with enthusiasm, and I was starting to hope my early fears about him had been unfounded. This was the first time he had returned to St Patrick’s, however.

It was after supper when Fintan unfolded his tale. Fintan always told a tale when he was given food; he considered it a form of payment, I think.

‘I’ve a tale to spin,’ says Fintan, on this November night, and there was a small, pleased murmur. The ordinands – we had six at the time – looked up hopefully.

‘Once upon a time, and a very long time it was,’ says Fintan, ‘the devil, walking the world in his greedy, prideful way, thought he’d put some of his powers of persuasion into the rocks and stones and gems of the world. “Aha”, thinks he, “there’ll come a time when men will chisel out these rocks and stones, and make objects to adorn their houses and their shelves. And I’ll be inside those things, and that’ll be yet another way for me to get into their souls.”’

Here Fintan paused and took a refreshing draught of the mulled wine at his elbow. (Readers will be familiar with St Paul’s dictum about a little wine for the stomach’s sake, although to be fair, Fintan’s measures could not be called little.)

‘I’ve a friend now, in service at Kilderry Castle,’ says Fintan. ‘A very particular friend she is, and a good girl, diligent and willing.’ This was a perfectly acceptable remark for any man to make; the trouble was that Fintan accompanied his words with a sly wink to the monk seated next to him. The monk happened to be our cellerar, Brother Cuthbert, who was seventy-five if he was a day, and although he’d know in theory about willing girls, he’d been in the monastery for fifty years, so the practice would be a dim memory.

‘My girl at Kilderry Castle has a deep concern,’ said Fintan, and for the first time since I ever knew him, his voice had a serious ring to it.

Somebody further down the table observed that there would always be a deep concern about anyone inside Kilderry Castle, for wasn’t the Earl known as the boldest sinner ever.

This was putting it kindly, for the Black Earl, as he was often called (although not in his hearing) was said by some to have trafficked with the devil. People said that, like Faust, he had sold his soul to Satan for power over men and women. Mesmerism, they call it nowadays, and it’s a subtle power and one you’d certainly expect Satan to have in his gift.

‘That’s as maybe,’ says Fintan, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. ‘But the Earl’s been good enough to my girl and he’s been good enough to other servants as well.’

There was a slightly awkward silence at this, for Gerald Kilderry’s particular brand of ‘goodness’ was generally believed to take a very particular form, although if only half the rumours about him were true you’d at least have to admire the man’s energy.

‘So now,’ says Fintan, ‘there’s this room in Kilderry Castle lined with books and manuscripts and all manner of fine things for learned gentlemen to browse among of an evening. And in that room, also, is a set of chessmen – you’ll all know the game of chess, of course, you being learned people, never mind monks.’

A murmur of assent. I saw N.S. lean forward, his eyes bright and alert.

‘The chessmen,’ says Fintan, lowering his voice the better to infuse it with a thrilling note, ‘were hewn from those very rocks that old Satan threaded through with his evil charm – and it’s a charm that will talk men into doing whatever Satan wants. Imagine how it might be if an ordinary human got hold of that power. If men – even women – were able to crook a finger and point to a victim and say, “You. You come to me on such and such a date, at such and such a time”.’ He demonstrated by crooking his own finger and several of the monks looked startled.

‘Those chessmen,’ goes on Fintan, ‘are as black and as bad as Satan’s own horns. And there they sit, in the library at Kilderry Castle, and Satan’s power trapped within them.

‘And my girl at the castle tells how there are times when the Black Earl has sat in that room any length of time, that his eyes take on a look that terrifies them all. A hungry look,’ said Fintan. ‘As if his eyes could eat a man’s soul.’