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doubtful. ‘It’s not for me to decide,’ he said. ‘You had best talk to my father.’
    ‘Your father the king?’
    ‘My father the king. I can tell him about your offer tonight. If he’s interested, I’ll take you to meet him tomorrow.’
    Tom hardly slept that night. The morning dawned dark and stormy. By the time he was dressed the wind was howling down the chimneys. It rattled the windows of the houseand made the horses restless in the stable. When Tom came downstairs Elizabeth told him, ‘Mother says you are not to go outside today.’
    ‘I don’t mind the weather. She thinks I’m still a baby.’
    ‘She means it, Tom. You have to stay in.’
    With a heavy heart, the boy went in search of a way to pass the time. He checked the traps in the cellar and released the rats. He tried to make them race one another but they ran away and hid instead. He then devoted himself to carving curlicues on the upstairs window frames – in places where no one would notice – with his penknife. Until the blade broke.
    The storm grew worse. At midday the dairymaid complained to Cook that the cows in the dairy still had not let down their milk.
    In the afternoon it seemed as if all of Roaringwater Bay was trying to come into the house. Tom had never been frightened of storms. They were both familiar and exciting. But this one was a giant. With giant fangs …
    He struggled to control his galloping imagination.
    Catherine Flynn stayed in her room for most of the day. So did Elizabeth. Virginia busied herself trying to paint the storm, while Caroline painted beauty patches on her face with a bit of soot from the fireplace. Eventually Missus ordered the lamps to be lit and sent a housemaid to the cellar for more lamp oil. The housemaid returned to report thatshe could hear ‘rats everywhere’ and would not go down. In the end, Virginia went for the oil herself.
    Night fell early. Darkness crept in through the windows and lay in inky pools on the floor. Tom’s mother came downstairs to gather her children by the massive fireplace in the great hall. Mrs Flynn set to work darning a silk stocking. Every time the thunder rolled she flinched. Finally she laid aside the wooden darning egg and folded her hands in her lap.
    Caroline paced nervously back and forth, picking up an ornament, setting it down again. Elizabeth and Virginia sat rigidly in their chairs, looking pale.
    Tom longed to run upstairs and climb into his bed-closet and shut the panel tight. But he stayed where he was until the women went to bed.
    The following morning the beach was littered with wreckage. Tangled masses of seaweed, driftwood, dead fish, broken shells. The sand stirred up from the bottom of the bay smelt rotten. But the sun shone. The sun shone! And Donal was waiting there for Tom.

CHAPTER SIX

Dublin
    T he storm had blown itself out before reaching Dublin. The sky over the city was overcast but there was no mud in the streets, only horse dung and refuse. William Flynn paused to consult the new public clock on the Tholsel. Then he made his way toward Skinners’ Row.
    The city was growing, extending its boundaries. Land was rising in value day by day and week by week. The streets were crowded with gentlemen and beggars, foreigners and merchants and thieves. Almost every vessel that sailed into Dublin port brought more adventurers eager to make a fortune . The harbour was a veritable fortress of masts.
    A new Custom House had been erected between Dame Street and the Liffey. Men of distinction were building fine homes along Wood Quay, replacing rotting wharves and warehouses. A new post office had opened in Castle Street.
    Flynn’s destination was a low building of red Dutch brick, which rubbed shoulders with a glovemaker’s stall and a butchershop. When he pushed open the door, the smell ofsweating male bodies was almost overpowering. Four men he knew were sitting at a heavy table near the door. He could not help noticing that they were drinking coffee