SCOTT MARIANI

The Forgotten Holocaust

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Prologue
County Cork, Ireland
May 29th, 1846
It had been raining all morning, but now the sun shone brightly
over the fields. Other than the gentle breeze that rustled the
crops, all was still and silent. Beyond the rickety wooden fence,
the country road was empty, except for two men approaching
on horseback.
Any local observing the pair of riders would have been able
to tell at a glance that they werent simple peasants. They made
an odd couple. The younger of the two was a tall, broad, selfassured man with a certain air, whose high-bred chestnut
hunter was worth far more than any Irish farmer could have
afforded the Penal Laws had made it illegal for many years
for an Irish Catholic to own a horse worth over 5. His older
companion, a smaller, much slighter bespectacled fellow jolting
uncomfortably along beside him astride a bay mare, had the
look of a parson or a schoolmaster, and certainly not one from
these parts.
What no observer could have guessed, though, was the deadly
secret nature and equally deadly purpose of their mission. A
mission that had taken many months to engineer, and was
now about to become complete.
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Although they knew each other very well, few words had
passed between them during the ride. The older man seemed
ill at ease in the saddle and kept nervously checking his silver
pocket watch and twisting round to glance over his shoulder,
as if he expected to spot someone following. All he saw was the
deserted road snaking away for miles behind them until it
disappeared into the green hills.
He wanted to say something. The words were right on the
tip of his tongue: Edgar, this plan ... I have terrible misgivings. Im just no longer sure that were doing the right thing.
But he swallowed his words, kept silent. He knew what the
reply would be. He couldnt afford for his commitment to come
into doubt. Things had advanced much too far for that.
The younger man halted his hunter by a rickety gate and
glanced around him. Here, was all he said to his companion.
They dismounted, led their horses to the gate and tethered
them up where they could munch at the long roadside grass.
The younger man reached into his saddlebag and took out
a box-shaped object wrapped in cloth. Handling it with care,
he passed it to the older man, who clutched it anxiously as he
waited for his companion to vault over the gate into the field
beyond and then handed it back to him.
The time to express any last-minute doubts was definitely
past.
The older man awkwardly clambered over the gate and
scurried to join the other, who was already striding purposefully towards the middle of the field with the cloth-wrapped
box under his arm.
All around them the leafy plants were springing up in the
regularly spaced furrows the Irish called lazy beds, full of
the same vitality and vigour that could be seen across the
whole countryside. Even in the miserable patches of land sown by
the poorest tenant farmers, the dark green leaves and purple
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blossoms were healthy and erect. The men walked in silence to

the middle of the field, the older one having to trot to keep
up. He was out of breath by the time they halted.
The younger one gazed back at the road. There was still not
a soul in sight. Silence, except for the soft breeze. The horses
were grazing contentedly in the distance.
Lets get it done, he said.
The two of them crouched among the plants, so that nobody
could have watched them from the road even if the landscape
hadnt been deserted as far as the eye could see. The younger
man unwrapped his package to reveal a small casket made of
varnished oak with brass fittings. He set it carefully on the
ground and opened its lid. Inside, protected by the red velvet
lining, was a row of small glass phials containing the precious
substance.
Each phial held just a few fluid drachms. That was all that
was needed.
He picked one out of the velvet folds, holding it gingerly so
as not to crush the thin glass. For such a large, powerful man,
his movements were surprisingly delicate and exact. He carefully removed the cork stopper from the phial, keeping it well
away from his nose.
The thick, glutinous substance inside looked faecal, and
smelled worse. The older man looked on with a frown as his
companion emptied the contents of the phial into the ground,
scattering it among the bases of the crop stalks where it quickly
soaked into the moist earth. He restoppered the empty phial,
replaced it in the box with the others.
That done, he closed the lid, wrapped the box back up in
its cloth and stood up with the package under his arm and a
look of grim satisfaction.
The older mans expression was quite different as he got
stiffly to his feet. He couldnt take his eyes off the ground where
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theyd poured out the substance. Hed broken out into a sweat
that wasnt caused by the warm sun. He felt a sudden chill
and nervously thrust his trembling hands into his waistcoat
pockets.
And so it begins, he muttered solemnly. May God forgive
us, Edgar.
You talk too much, Fitzwilliam. Lets go. We have a lot
more work to do.
They walked in silence back towards the gate.

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