Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [313]
“Even when I know it is a lie?” she had asked.
“Perhaps, yes,” he had answered frankly, and given her a little lecture on her duty humbly to submit to these trials. “God may be testing you,” he explained. But she had been unable to accept this counsel, even from the sa’intly friar.
“It’s the humiliation,” she had burst out, “the scorn of his lie that allows him to continue sleeping with that girl almost in my own house. It’s too much,” she had cried, “I can’t bear it anymore. He does nothing but lie to me, and if I try to pin him down, he just slips away, leaving me with nothing. Something has to change.” She had looked at the friar desperately. “If he goes on, I won’t answer for what I might do. Perhaps,” she added with a wild menace, “I’ll put a knife in his heart while he’s asleep.” And as he looked at her in horror, she had repeated the threat. “Even if I go to Hell for it,” she swore. Only then had he reluctantly agreed to consider her request for help. “There is one thing I could do,” he had suggested.
As she looked at her husband now, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. He must have some idea, by this time, what was coming, and no doubt he was already preparing his usual defence. But there was one thing he didn’t know.
“Your tenant Brennan,” the friar began, giving Sean a hard look, “has a wife, with whom you …”
“I have already sworn as to that,” Sean cut in, quick as a flash.
“I know you have.” The friar raised his hand. “But you may wish to reconsider. It would be a terrible thing, Sean O’Byrne, to have the sin of a false oath upon your conscience, when all you need to do is ask forgiveness of this woman,” he indicated Eva, “who loves you and is ready to let bygones be bygones. Can you not see,” he went on urgently, “that your cruelty is hurting her?”
But if Sean did see, he wasn’t admitting it. His face was set stubbornly.
“I have sworn,” he said, “to Father Donal here.”
“So you wouldn’t object to swearing again, to me?” asked the friar.
Did her husband hesitate now, just for a moment? It seemed to Eva that he did. But he was cornered.
“I’d swear to the bishop himself,” he declared angrily.
“Very well.” Reaching into his habit now, the friar drew out the small parcel.
“What’s that?” asked Sean suspiciously.
Slowly and carefully, the friar unwrapped the cloth that had been wound around the small wooden box, blackened with age, which he placed upon the table. Reverently, he took the lid off the box to reveal, contained within it, another box, this one made of silver, its top encrusted with gems.
“This comes from the Church of Saint Kevin in Dublin,” he said quietly. “It contains the finger bone of Saint Kevin of Glendalough himself.”
And this time, Eva heard her husband give a little intake of breath as they all gazed at the jewelled box with awe.
The most splendid of the holy relics, like the Bachall Iosa of Saint Patrick, were to be found in the Cathedral of Christ Church; but several of the lesser churches had treasures of great sanctity which, everybody knew, had awesome powers. When you touched the relic before them now, you were in the presence of the Saint of Glendalough himself.
“Will you place your hand, Sean O’Byrne, over the body of Saint Kevin and swear that you have never had carnal knowledge of the Brennan woman?” the friar invited quietly. “Will you do it?”
There was silence. The three of them watched him. Sean stared first at the friar, then at the little box. For a moment it really seemed that he might stretch forth his hand.
But whatever his faults, Sean O’Byrne still had a healthy fear of God and of the power of His saints. After an agonising hesitation, he scowled at the three of them and drew his hand back.
“You cannot do it,” said the friar. “And you should be glad you could not; for if you had, Sean O’Byrne, it would have been a sin so terrible that nothing could have kept you from the eternal fire of Hell.