Lake of Sorrows

Ward’s eyes narrowed. “You really don’t know?” She shook her head. He put one arm around her shoulder and led her to the end of the dock. A hard breeze blew over the lake, raising a shiver on the water. “This lakeshore is treacherous, like quicksand. Struggling only makes it worse.”

In the marshy area below their feet, all that remained visible of Desmond Quill’s body was a pale hand sticking up out of the water. Gripped tightly in his fist was the bright gold collar, cast once more into its role as a votive offering, a dreadful sacrifice to appease the capricious gods.

Book Six

TO HEAL SORROW BY WEEPING

If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief.

—Sophocles, Scyrii

. Frag. 510

1

Eleven days after Desmond Quill’s murderous spree had ended at Loughnabrone, the cottage at the Crosses was nearly restored to its former order. In the aftermath, Nora had focused on cleaning the house. It was something to do, something concrete. On hands and knees, scrubbing the wine stains from the floor and walls, she reflected that it might easily have been her blood spilled here. What had stopped Quill from slitting her throat—and why was she obsessed with the thought, unable to let it go? She knew enough about survivor guilt by now to recognize the signs, but that didn’t prevent her from seeing it again and again: Dominic Brazil’s inert body slumping sideways, the red flood creeping down Brona Scully’s chest, Quill’s dead hand grasping the bright gold collar.

Having something useful to do had helped to break up those visions over the past few days; they came less frequently now. And every minute she spent clearing away the damage down here was another minute she could avoid going upstairs and packing her suitcase, avoid thinking about how her time with Cormac was nearly at an end. The future loomed before her, unknown.

She considered the nameless, faceless creature her brother-in-law was supposed to be marrying in only four weeks’ time. It was easy to imagine the woman as reckless or desperate, perhaps not terribly bright. But Triona, beautiful and brilliant and usually very cautious, had fallen for him as well. Intelligence had little to do with it. Every relationship meant taking a chance, leaping headlong into the void, suspended by hope. And only some were lucky. She remembered the jumble of silk and the handcuffs from Owen Cadogan’s hidden stash, and the thin leather cord she’d seen around Ursula Downes’s throat. Maybe Ursula had been taking ever-greater chances, flirting with death, trusting that Owen Cadogan, or Desmond Quill, or whoever, for whatever reason, would loosen the cord in time to pull her back from the brink. For the first time Nora saw Ursula’s actions for what they had been, a cry for understanding and connection, born of a need as deep as that for food or water, or shelter, or warmth. Even Desmond Quill’s attraction to blood could be seen that way. A deep need for connection to something beyond themselves had been the very reason that ancient lake dwellers made sacrifices, sank weapons, gold—sometimes even fellow creatures—into dark and seemingly bottomless pools. Quill had been right about one thing, Nora thought; that we shouldn’t look back with contempt before taking a closer look at our own currently acceptable behavior.

She looked around at the books stacked back on the desk, the pictures repaired and rehung, the crockery—what was left of it—back on the sideboard shelves. She opened the box of new stoneware she’d found to replace the set Desmond Quill had smashed. Everything else that had been shattered in the past few days would be much harder to repair or put right, but this much was easy. Each piece was wrapped in crumpled tissue paper, cushioned against its fellows for transport. As she took out each new plate, unwrapped it and set it on the sideboard shelf, the same thoughts kept tumbling through her consciousness: Quill had known enough pertinent details about sacrificial victims found in bogs, and he had used that information to mislead the police into thinking that the recent murders might be some sort of ritual killings, stringing them together with Danny Brazil’s death. They had been rituals of a kind—Desmond Quill’s own blood homage to the talisman, the sacred object he sought.