The Giant, O'Brien

Picador USA

Chapter One

"Bring in the cows now. Time to shut upfor the night."

There came three cows, breathing in thenear-dark: swishing with the tips of theirtails, their bones showing through hide. They set downtheir hooves among the men, jostling. Flames from thefire danced in their eyes. Through the open door, themoon sailed against the mountain.

"Or O'Shea will have them away over the hill,"Connor said. Connor was their host. "Three cows mygrandfather had of his grandfather. Never a night goesby that he doesn't look to get the debt paid."

"An old quarrel," Claffey said. "They're the best."

Pybus spat. "O'Shea, he'd grudge you the earache. Ifyou'd a boil he'd grudge it you. His soul is as narrowas a needle."

"Look now, Connor," the Giant said. His tone was interested."What'd you do if you had four cows?"

"I can only dream of it," Connor said.

"But for house-room?"

Connor shrugged. "They'd have to come in just the same."

"What if you'd six cows?"

"The men would be further off the fire," Claffey said.

"What if you'd ten cows?"

"The cows would come in and the men would squat outside,"said Pybus.

Connor nodded. "That's true."

The Giant laughed. "A fine host you are. The men would squatoutside!"

"We'd be safe enough out there," Claffey said. "O'Shea maywant interest on the debt, but he'd never steal away a tribeof men."

"Such men as we," said Pybus.

Said Jankin, "What's interest?"

"I could never get ten cows," Connor said. "You are right,Charles O'Brien. The walls would not hold them."

"Well, you see," the Giant said. "There's the limit to yourambition. And all because of some maul-and-bawl in your grandfather'stime."

The door closed, there was only the rushlight; the light out, therewas only the dying fire, and the wet breathing of the beasts, andthe mad glow of the red head of Pybus. "Draw near the embers,"the Giant said. In the smoky half-light, his voice was a blur, like amoth's wing. They moved forward on their stools, and Pybus,who was a boy, shifted his buttocks on the floor of bare rock."What story will it be?"

"You decide, mester," Jankin said. "We can't choose a tale."

Claffey looked sideways at him, when he called the Giant"mester." The Giant noted the look. Claffey had his bad parts:but men are not quite like potatoes, where the rot spreads straightthrough, and when Claffey turned back to him his face was transparent,eager for the tale he wished he could disdain.

The Giant hesitated, looked deep into the smoke of the fire.Outside, mist gathered on the mountain. Shapes formed, in thecorner of the room, that were not the shapes of cattle, and wereunseen by Connor, Jankin, and Claffey; only Pybus, who becauseof his youth had fewer skins, shifted his feet like a restless horse,and lifted his nose at the whiff of an alien smell. "What's there?"he said. But it was nothing, nothing: only a shunt of Claffey'selbow as he jostled for space, only Connor breathing, only themild champing of the white cow's jaw.

The Giant waited until the frown melted from the face ofPybus, till he crossed his arms easily upon his knees and pillowedhis head upon them. Then he allowed his voice free play. It waslight, resonant, not without the accent of education; he spoke tothis effect.

"Has it ever been your misfortune to be travelling alone, in oneof the great forests of this world; to find yourself, as night comesdown, many hours' journey from a Christian hearth? Have youfound yourself, as the wind begins to rise, with no man or beastfor company but your weary pack-animal, and no comfort in thismortal world but the crucifix beneath your shirt?"

"Which is it?" Jankin's voice shook.

"'Tis the Wild Hunt," Connor said. "He meets the dead ontheir nightly walk, led by a ghostly king on a ghostly horse."

"I will be feart," Jankin said.

"No doubt," said Claffey.

"I have heard it," Connor said. "But at that, it's one of his

best."

They finished debating the tale. The Giant resumed, bringingthem presently through the deep, rustling, lion-haunted forest towhere they had not expected to be: to the Edible House. From hisaudience there was a sigh of bliss. They knew edible; they knewhouse. It had seldom been their fortune to meet the two together.

He mixed his tales like this: bliss and blood. The roof of gingerbread,then the slinking arrival of a wolf with a sweet tooth.The white-skinned, well-fleshed woman who turns to bonebeneath a man's caress; the lake where gold pieces bob, thatdrowns all who fish for them. Merit gains no reward, nor dutydone; the lucky prosper, and any of us could be that. Jesu, hethought. There were days, now, when he felt weakness run likewater through legs that were as high as another man's body.Sometimes his wrists trembled at the weight of his own hands. Aman could be at the end of his invention. He could be told out;and those who have not eaten that day have sharp tempers andform a testy audience. Only last week he had asked, "Did youever hear the story of St. Kevin and O'Tooles's goose?" and adozen voices had shouted, "OH, NOT AGAIN!"

A cow, intent on the fire, had almost stepped on his foot. Toteach it a lesson, he stepped on its own. "Mind my beast!" Connorcried. The Giant glanced to heaven, but his view wasblocked by the roof. Forty years ago Connor's grandad hadthatched it, and now it was pickled and black from the fire;when it rained, the rain ran through, and it trickled a dilutesooty brown on the men's heads. Connor had no wife, nor waslikely to get one. Nor Pybus, nor Claffey; Jankin, he slightlyhoped, would be unable to breed.

Changes were coming; he could see them in the fire and feelthem in the whistling draught from every wall. His appetite wasgreat, as befitted him; he could eat a granary, he could drink abarrel. But now that all Ireland is coming down to ruin together,how will giants thrive? He had made a living by going about andbeing a pleasant visitor, who fetched not just the gift of his giantpresence but also stories and songs. He had lived by obliging afarmer who wished a rooted tree lurched up, or a town man whowanted his house pushed down so he could build a better.

Strength had been a little of it, height had been more, and manyhearths had welcomed him as a prodigy, a conversationalist, anillustration from nature's book. Nature's book is little read now,and he thought this: I had better make a living in the obvious way.I will make a living from being tall.

He turned to Claffey, who alone of them had a bit of sense. Hesaid, "My mind's made up. It'll have to be Joe Vance."

A day or two after, Joe Vance up the mountain. He had a greasyhat to his head, and a flask of strong liquor bobbing at his thighon a cord. He was a smart man, convenient and full of quips; hehad been agent and impresario to a number of those who had leftthe district over the last ten years. He knew the art of arrangingsea voyages, and had sometimes been on voyages himself. He hadbeen in gaol, but had got out of it. He had married many wives,and some of them were dead; died of this or that, as women do.He had black whiskers, broad shoulders that showed the bonesplainly, a bluff, reasonable, manly aspect, and honest blue eyes.

Connor's cabin came into view. It had not the refinement of achimney--since six months there was not a chimney in miles--butthere was a hole made in it; indifferently, the smoke easeditself through both the hole and the thatch, so it appeared thewhole house was steaming gently into the rain and mist of themorning.

Joe Vance found the cabin full of smoke, and all of them huddledaround a miserable fire. His honest eyes swept over their circumstances.The Giant looked up. He was ridiculous on his stool,his knees coming up to meet his ears. "You should have athrone," Vance said abruptly.

"Of that he is in no doubt," Claffey said.

"Will you be coming on the venture?" Vance asked him.

"He must," Pybus said. "He speaks their lingo. Jabbers in it,anyway. We have heard him."

"Do you not speak English, O'Brien? I thought you were aneducated giant."

"I have learned it and forgotten it," the Giant said. "I havesealed it up in a lead box, and I have sunk it in the depth ofthe sea."

"Fish it out, there's a good lad," Vance said. "If any see it,grapple it to shore. You must understand, I'm not aiming topresent you as a savage. Nothing at all of that kind of show."

"Are we going as far as Derry?" Jankin asked. "I've heard of it,y'know."

"Ah, Jankin, my good simple soul," said the Giant. "Vancehere, he knows how things are to be done."

"You are aware," Vance said, "that I was agent to the brothersKnife, very prodigious giants who you will remember well."

"I remember them as rather low and paltry," O'Brien said."The larger of the Knives would scarcely come to my shoulder. Asfor his little brother--Pocket, I used to call him--when I went tothe tavern at ten years of age, I was accustomed to clutch my potin my fist and ease my elbow by resting it on his pate."

"The Knives were nothing," Jankin said. "Dwarves, they were,practically."

Joe Vance moved his honest eyes sideways. He recalled theKnives--especially Pocket--as boys who could knock down awall just by looking at it. Pocket was, too, uncommonly keen onhis percentages, and once, when he thought he was shortchanged,he had lifted Joe's own proper person high in the air andhung him by his belt on a hook where a side of pig was stuck justyesterday. It was with one hand he hoisted him, and that his left;Vance wouldn't easily forget it. Glancing up, he appraisedO'Brien, assessing his potential for violent excess. Where be couldget away with it, he was this sort of agent; he took twentyshillings in the guinea.

"Now, as to my terms," the Giant said. "Myself and my followers-that'sthese here about--we must have all comfort andcommodity on the journey."

"I am accustomed to booking passage," Joe Vance said,bowing.

"It must be a vessel to surprise the Britons. A golden prow andsails of silk."

"You yourself shall be the surprise," Vance cooed.

"I must have six singing women to go before me."

Vance lost control; it didn't take much. "That's all shite! You,Charlie O'Brien, you haven't tasted meat since last Easter. Youlive on your hands and knees!"

"True," said the Giant, glancing at the roof. "All six must bequeens," he said, smiling; he thought Vance's manners mildenough, and what's to be lost by upping your demands?

"Where would I get six queens?" Vance bellowed.

"That's your problem," the Giant said urbanely. He stretchedhis legs. The brush of his big toe nearly pitched Jankin into theflame, but Jankin blew on his burnt palms, and licked them, andapologised.

Claffey raised his head. He engaged Vance's eye. He noddedtowards O'Brien, and said, "He's dangerous, in a room." He leftit at that. On the whole, Claffey did know where to leave things.

The Giant said, "Vance, shall I have coin in my pocket? Shall Ihave gold in my store?"

Vance held out his hands, palms up. "What Joe Vance can lawfullyobtain, you shall share in. The English public, of my certainknowledge, is starved of the sight of a giant. It's a kind of charity,now I think of it, to take a giant over to them." He was smilingwith half his face. "Englishmen are a type of ape," he explained.The Giant saw this.

"Not so," he said. "Low in stature, barbarous in manner,incomprehensible in speech: unlettered, incontinent, and a jokewhen they have drink taken: but not hairy. At least, not all over."

"I have never seen an ape," Jankin said. "Nor dreamt of one.Have I seen an Englishman?"

"They are the ones that ride horses," Claffey said.

"So," Jankin said, "I have seen them."

"What about Connor?" Vance asked. "Are you comingyourself?"

"Connor is a man of wealth and substance," Claffey said. "Hehas his cows to guard."

Connor's brow creased. He ran his hands back through hishair. "Once, O'Shea came over, sneaking in the night with abasin, and bled my cows to make his Sunday broth. As if he werea Kerryman."

"Yes," the Giant said. "A Kerry cow knows when it's Saturdaynight." He lifted his head. "Well, this hearth has been our anchor.But now we must be under sail."

When they came down the mountain, their feet sunk in the mudand squally rain blew into their faces. It was the time of yearwhen rats stay in their holes, dogs in their kennels, and lords intheir feather beds. Civilly, the Giant carried all their packs, leavingthem with their hands free to help them balance if they skidded.A league or so on they came to a settlement, or what hadbeen so recently; what was now some tumbled stone walls, thebattered masonry raw, unclothed by creeping green. A fewmonths after the clearance, the cabin walls were already disintegratinginto the mud around; their roofs had been fired, and theywere open to the sky.

Something small, dog-height, loped away at their approach:hands swinging, back bent.

"A hound or a babby?" Pybus asked, surprised.

The Giant wiped the streaming rain from his face. His quickereyes discerned the creature as not of this world. It was one ofthose hybrids that are sometimes seen to scuttle, keen, and scrapein ruins and on battlefields: their human part weeping, their animalnature truffling for dead flesh.

"I'd thought we could take shelter," Claffey said. His fur hatlay on his head like a dead badger, and his best coat had its braidruined. "Not a roof left in the place."

"I told you not to wear your finery," the Giant said.

"A plague on the whole class of agents," Claffey said. "Onagents, bailiffs, and squireens."

"You shouldn't say a plague," the Giant said. "You should saywhat plague. Say, May their tongues blister, and the eyes in theirhead spin in orbits of pus."

"You're pernickety in cursing," Claffey said. "I'd curse 'emwith a cudgel and split their skulls."

"So would I," said Pybus.

"Cursing," the Giant said, "is an ancient and respectable art.An apt curse is worth a regiment of cudgels." He eased the packson his shoulders. "Ah well, let's step out for the town."

"The town!" Jankin said. He tried to skip.

When they came to the town, only a youth or two walked outto greet them; there was no clamour of children come to see theSight. They spotted the youths from a great way off; the road wasbare and smooth as a queen's thigh. The Giant gave a great hulloo,greeting them from afar; it whooped over the treelessdomain, looping the boys like a rope with a noose.

The Giant slowed, accommodating his stride, as he had toremember to do. The youths met them in a wilderness of splinteredwood, the raw wet innards of tree stumps offered up to ablowing, twilit sky.

A whole forest chopped down for profit, and houseless birdsshrieking at day's end.

"We have only been walking one day," Pybus said, "and wehave come to this."

The Giant looked at him sideways. Already, the journey wasbringing out finer feelings in Pybus, which he had not suspectedhim to possess.

The youths bowed when they drew up to them. "Welcome,mesters. These days, even the beggars give us the go-by."

"Do the blind men visit you?" the Giant asked.

"Yes, they have the kindness. They don't turn back, thoughthey say they can smell disaster. Yet if they have a fiddle, we haveno strength to dance."

The youths brought them on to the town. "They are cutting, asyou see," one said.

The stench of the wood's fresh blood lay on the damp air, floatingabout the Giant at chest height.

Jankin gaped. "Where will they go, those persons who live inthe woods?" Hastily, he corrected himself. "Those gentlepersons,I ought to say."

"We can't care," one of the youths said harshly. "We have livedbeside them and even put out milk for them in better times, butwe have no milk now and only ourselves to help us. I've heardthey'd bring grain and a piece of bacon or a fowl to those theyfavour, but that's not our experience. They must shift for themselves,as we must."

"It's stories," Claffey said. "Gentlefolk in the woods, greengentlemen and small--it's only stories anyway."

They looked up at the hillside. It was a face with a smashedmouth, with stumps of teeth. There were no shadows and noshifting lights. It was just what it was, and no more: a devastation.The Giant said, to soften the facts for Jankin, "There arestill some forests in Ireland. And to travel doesn't irk the gentry,as it irks us. They are as swift as thought." Then he bit his lip,and grinned, thinking that in Jankin's case that was not veryswift at all.

The town was silent, and to the Giant this silence was familiar.It was the hush of famine, the calm that comes when bad temperis spent, the gnawing pain has ebbed, and there is nothing aheadbut weakness, swelling, low fever, and the strange growth of hair.Only Jankin sang out: "We are coming to the town, the town."

"Kill that noise," Claffey said. They looked about them. Like apuppy, Jankin crept closer to the Giant's side.

"They have broken you, I see," the Giant said to the youths.

The town was nothing now; two streets of huts, dung heapssteaming outside their doors, their walls cracked and subsiding,their roofs sagging. It was a town with no pride left, no muscularstrength to mend matters, no spark in the heart to make you wantto mend. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were parting. Therutted road held standing pools, a white hazy sun glowing in theirdepths.

The children stared as they passed, scratching the burstingpods of their bellies. They gaped at the Giant, but they did notshout. They were weary of wonders. The wonder of a dish ofpotatoes and buttermilk, that would have made them shout; butfor potatoes, it was too early in the year. If O'Brien had been thedevil come to fetch them, they would have followed him, bug-eyed,hoping they might dine in hell.

"Where's Mulroney's?" Claffey said. "Where's Mulroney'stavern?"

"Where's anything?" one of the youths said. "Mulroney diedwhile you were away up the mountain. He took a fever. His housefell down." He waved an arm. "There it is."

What--that? That ruin slid into a ditch? Mulroney's, wherethey used to hold the Court of Poetry, after the big house wasdestroyed? Mulroney's, where there was no fiddling or singing orvulgar harping, but a correct recitation of the old stories in the oldmetres? It was a court of crumbling men, their faces cob-webbed,their eyes milky, their hands trembling as they gripped their cups.Bad winters killed them one by one, fluid filling the lungs that hadbreathed the deeds of kings.

"But that can't be Mulroney's!" Pybus burst out. "What willwe do? The Giant must have strong drink! It's a need in him."

"It's sauce to a good story," Jankin said, having often heardthis expression.

"Joe Vance will be here presently," the Giant said. "We'll do,till then."

A woman appeared at the door of one of the cabins. She beganto step towards them, skirting the puddles, though her legs andfeet were bare and muddy already. She approached. The Giantsaw her large grey eyes, mild and calm as a lake in August: thefine carving of her lips, the arch of her instep, the freedom of herbones at the joint. Her arms were white peeled twigs, their strongmuscles wasted; a young child showed, riding high inside herbelly like a bunched fist.

"Good day, my queen."

She didn't greet him. "Can you heal? I have heard of giants thatcan heal."

"Who wants it?"

"My son."

"What age?"

"Three." Her hair was as fine as feathers, and the colour ofash. "And as for three years I have never eaten my fill, neither hashe." Blue veins, thin as a pen's tracing, rippled across her eyelidsand marbled her inner arm.

These, the Giant said to himself, are the sons and daughters ofgods and kings. They are the inheritors of the silver tree amongstwhose branches rest all the melodies of the world. And now withouta pot to piss in.

Her hand reached up for his arm. She drew him down thestreet. "This is my cabin."

Beside it, Connor's was a palace. The roof was in holes andmucky water ran freely through it. The child was in the least wetpart, wrapped in a tatter or two. In his fever, he kept tearing therags from him; with practiced fingers, his mother wrapped themback. His forehead bulged, over sunken, fluttering eyelids. "He isdreaming," the Giant said.

Squatting on her haunches, she gazed into his face. "What is hedreaming?"

"He is dreaming the dreams that are fit for a youth who willbecome a hero. Others babies dream of milk; his dreams are offire. He is dreaming of a castle wall and an armoured host of men,himself at the age of eight as strong as any man grown, a gem seton his brow, and a sword of justice in his hand."

She dropped her head, smiling. The corners of her mouth werecracked and bleeding, and her gums were white. "You are an old-fashionedsort, are you not? An antique man. If there were a gemon his brow, I would have sold it. If there were a sword of justice,I would have sold that too. What hope for the future, you'll say,if the sword of justice itself is sold? But it is well known, almost aproverb, that a hungry woman will exchange justice for an ounceof bread. You see, we have no heroes in this town, not anymore.No heroes and no virtues."

"Come away with us," he said. "We are going to England. I amgoing to the great city of London--it seems that there a man canshow himself for being tall, and they'll pay him money."

"Come away?" she repeated. "But you go tomorrow, do younot? Shall I leave my son unburied? I know he will die tonight."

"You have no husband?"

"Gone away."

"No mother or father?"

"Dead."

"No brother or sister?"

"Not one alive."

"Must you measure the ground where they dropped? Will youpace it every day?" He indicated the child. "Will you scour theserags to swaddle the child you are carrying? Come away, lady.There's nothing left for you here. And we need a woman of Ireland,to sit beside me on my throne."

"Who's getting you a throne?"

"Joe Vance. He's shown giants before. He's got experience in it."

"Ah, you poor man," she said. She closed her eyes. "I neverthought I should say that, to a giant."

"Don't fear. There is a sea voyage, but Vance has made the passagebefore."

The child's head jerked, once; his eyes flashed open. He rearedup his skull. A thin green liquid ran from the side of his mouth.His mother put her hand under his head, raising it. He coughedfeebly, snorted as he swallowed the vomit, then began to expel thegreen in little spurts like a kitten's sneeze.

"What did he eat?" O'Brien asked.

"God alone knows. Here we live on green plants, just as in mygrandfather's time men ate grass and dock. The children havefound something that poisons them, and it is always the ones whoare too young to explain it--you could ask them to lead you towhere they have plucked it, but by the time you know they arepoisoned they are too weak to lead you anywhere. Or maybe--Ihave thought--it's something we give them--some innocent herb--thatwe can eat, but which murders them."

"That's a hard thought."

"It is. Very hard," she said.

The Giant and his train enjoyed nettle soup, and before thecraving became acute Vance appeared with his flasks of the goodstuff. Squatting in the cabin of the woman, the Giant told thesestories: the earl of Desmond's wedding night, and how St. Declanswallowed a pirate. All the town had come in, some bringing alight and others a turf for the fire, listening to the tales and prayingin between them. When the death agony arrived, O'Brien tookthe child onto his knee, so that the rattle in his throat was interlacedand sometimes overlaid by his light, mellifluous tones, thattenor which surprised the hearers, coming as it did from a man sogrossly huge. He tried to fit the cadence of his tale to the child'ssuffering, but because he was a fallible person there weremoments when it was necessary for him to pause for thought; atthese times, the mud walls enclosed the horror of labouringsilence, the scraping suspension of breath before the rasping crywhich brought the babby back to life for another minute, andanother. His body sleek with hair, his bones thick as wire, helooked like a mouse under O'Brien's hand.

When the crux came, he cried out once, with that distant, stifledcry that hero babies make when they are still in their mothers'wombs. It was cry of vision and longing, of the future seen plain.When O'Brien heard it he scooped the little body in one hand andplaced it in his mother's lap, where within a second the childbecame a corpse. Within another second a green sludge drippedfrom the nostrils, leaked out between the thighs, dripped like thesea's leavings even from the cock curled like a shell in its ripplingbeach of skin.

At once, Pybus began to sing, his high-strung boy's voice risingto the sky. The clouds had no call for it; they sent his song back,stifled, to die between the wasted shoulders and the mud walls."At least you're not short of water," Claffey said, raising his eyesto tomorrow's certainty of rain.

At dawn, the youths met them and escorted them to the end of thetown. "Can't you voyage with us?" the Giant asked. "You'rebrave boys, and there's nothing here for you."

Joe Vance looked daggers.

"Thank you, sir," the foremost youth said. "We are decided toremain here. A better age may come. Are you a poet, by theway?"

"In a poor sort," the Giant said. "I can make a song. But whocan't? As for the old systems, the strict rules, I never learned them,and if I'm honest with you it's a matter of training rather thanaptitude. I believe there is no one of my generation who is confidentin them. That was the use of Mulroney's, you see, we met theold men there, and we would learn a little."

"Let's get on the way," Joe Vance said. He shifted his feet.

"There was a time when friars walked the roads, disguised asrough working men: friars from Salamanca, from Rome, fromLouvain. They have left me with the rudiments of their varioustongues, besides a sturdy and serviceable Latin, and a knowledgeof the Scriptures in Greek. Travelling gentlemen, all: never morethan a night or two under the one roof, but always with time tospare for the education of a giant boy."

Joe Vance reached up, and tugged at his clothing.

"A fly besets me," the Giant said. He pretended to look about."Or some hornet?"

Joe removed his hand, before he could be swatted. "A honeybee," he said.

That night in his sleep, the Giant sat among the dead, and heardthe voices of the old men at Mulroney's: dry whispers, like autumnleaves rubbed in a bag.

Continues...
Excerpted from The Giant, O'Brienby Hilary Mantel Copyright © 2007 by Hilary Mantel. Excerpted by permission.
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