Once on the street Titus mulled over his morning so far. Being questioned and threatened by a rude and arrogant army captain was not a great start to any man’s day, and he felt a dark mood overtake him. Almost the first Irishman he had spoken to since arriving in this wretched land had somehow contrived to include him in an intrigue that he did not understand, let alone welcome. Well done Titus boy, he thought. Not a wet day in the place (though this would shortly be rectified, given the elements) and already privy to treachery - obviously political and possibly treasonable to boot! The soldier’s tone had certainly been reason alone not to cooperate with his gruff enquiries and thereby protect the innkeeper, he reasoned, but an hour before he had not even known that Collier existed. Now here he was holding evidence against the same man about his person that the local constabulary would obviously be more than glad to acquire – and all in an effort to protect a person with whom he was not even acquainted. The innkeeper could be the ringleader of a gang of cutthroats for all he knew, though even to Titus’ limited knowledge of the man this seemed unlikely. Undeniably however, on the strength of the letter’s contents, he was still obviously in league with men that were being hunted, for good reason or not.

Yet somehow there was something about Collier that had suggested a man more likely to be a friend than foe, and one with whom Titus felt an empathy of sorts. Could it be only that he had trusted Titus with relating the perilous intelligence in the letter? No, Titus knew that there was something much deeper than that guiding his reasoning – a memory of a dark time some years before, when he was a younger man, and desperate enough himself once to welcome the aid of a total stranger in his struggle to escape a fate as dark as the one he imagined awaited Collier. He quickly dismissed the memory with an involuntary shudder. Regardless of the reason, he was acutely aware that he now had the incriminating letter on his person and needed to figure what next to do. It was obviously a dire liability to both Collier and himself as long as it existed - it must be disposed of, that much was plain. And then what? Forget about this morning’s encounter altogether, he reckoned – that would be the logical thing to do. Carry on with his own business as planned; three days in Dublin securing provisions and lodging in the county, and then quit the city altogether.

While preoccupied with these thoughts Titus found that he had rambled through several of the narrow lanes leading to the church of St Nicholas-Within almost without realising it. Here the road opened out into High Street at the ancient Market Cross. Beyond the large weathered cruciform stone he could just make out Skinners’ Row through the rain and the crowds, its narrow reach already thronged with people making difficult headway through the mud and detritus, and the cacophonous bedlam of the traders along its sides, further restricting what was already a perilously slender thoroughfare for what, since its foundation, was deemed one of Dublin’s most important arteries. A carriage was stuck in the thick of it all, its driver shouting oaths at the crowd blocking his progress, his audience equally vociferous in advising him that they would gladly allow him passage if only they themselves had room to manoeuvre. Some children, leaning from windows overlooking the scene, added a piquancy to the tableau below them by shouting catcalls and cheerful oaths at the immobilised assembly and lobbing occasional missiles of spittle on the heads of those trapped beneath them, much to their own amusement and the crowd’s increasing anger. With head bowed, Titus joined this noisy throng and with such force that might normally be reserved for breaking down a locked door, bustled his way tortuously through and around the obstacle. Emerging in front of the Tholsel, the city’s newly refurbished civic headquarters, he spotted a large brazier that had been lit in defiance of the drizzle by workmen who were preparing pitch for roof repairs. Titus approached the brazier with the intention of throwing the letter into its flames, but as he neared the fire one of the workmen straightened up from his labour and eyed the approaching cartographer with what seemed to him an excessive interest and suspicion. Titus thought better of his plan and veered as best he could in the crowd back to the centre of the street, and so past the crew and their steaming barrel of pitch. From there, he could see that the clock on the Tholsel showed five minutes before nine. The disposal of the letter would have to wait for another opportunity. Flitch would be waiting for him back at the castle, where he would need money for arranging the transfer of their goods from Ringsend. He pressed ahead through Skinner’s Row until he was at last disgorged into the network of small lanes that emerged at Cork Hill and the castle entrance.

Flitch was standing at the castle gate in conversation with someone when he arrived. “Mr Perry sir! Hoy!” he shouted when he spotted Titus “Come over here!”
Titus replied with a minimal gesture and paused across the street at the door of a cutler’s shop, he was damned if he would be ‘summonsed’ by his secretary in such a brazen manner on the public street! Did the man not know his place? Titus feigned interest in the display of knives and spoons arrayed in the window beside him as he waited for Flitch to come over, but Flitch remained rooted to the spot with his new companion.
“Hoy! Mr Perry! Come here a moment!” This was unbelievable, who employed whom in this company? Titus gazed even more intently at the cutlery, or what he could see of it through the bottle glass panes.

How had he been lumbered with such an unorthodox helpmate as Flitch in the first place? The man was a thief, an inveterate liar, an unashamed mount-the-bank who ‘liberated’ funds from gullible souls, and to top it all, a man who obviously saw no one as his superior - attitudes that had, on more than one occasion that Titus cared to remember, necessitated his “rescuing”, both in terms of financial bail and surgical repair. Of course the truth was that this last feature of Flitch’s character, his lack of servility, was the one aspect to the man Titus grudgingly admired. And if the man did owe Titus for his livelihood, then the reverse was just as true. Titus was indebted to this excuse for a secretary too, and for much more than a mere livelihood.

Those years ago in the slums of St Giles it was Flitch alone who had recognised the starving drunken wreck of a man in the flop house as an educated man with a trade, or maybe just as a ticket out of the gutter. Either way, it was Flitch who, having befriended him, then cajoled, threatened with menace, praised, humoured and gradually hauled Titus back across the threshold of despair and ruin that he had passed through the year before. He bristled at the fleeting memory of that desolate time; then he suppressed a wry smile at the thought of his unlikely saviour. For all his faults there was no denying that Flitch was in some ways an admirable, if unconventional, secretary. He wouldn’t write a letter or construct a ledger if you were to beg on bended knee, but he could certainly procure the paper and ink for the job at an unbelievably low price. In fact, procurement was the man’s forte and it was a talent that Titus knew better than to attempt to fathom through inquiry. A few weeks ago for example Flitch had arrived at Titus’ rooms with a transit so new that its wood still oozed resin and on which one could catch one’s own reflection in the brass inlays, so newly manufactured was it. In fact, Titus had awoken to find the instrument leaning against the wall in his scullery, but he hadn’t needed to ask where it had come from. Flitch was in the habit of leaving these little ‘presents’, normally as atonement for having ‘borrowed’ some item previously that had never made it back to the office. In his defence, Flitch was particular about those items he “borrowed” from the office. Items Flitch himself had not procured for the practise were never touched, and most especially immune from Flitch’s larceny were those few tools that Titus had been gifted by his father, an old transit and scope which Titus had retained even through his darkest and poorest days in St Giles. Flitch, despite his apparent ambivalence towards matters of ownership and acquisition, understood that there was probably more of Titus invested in those two implements than in any relationship he held with a living soul.

“Mr Perry sir! Over here!”

But damn the man! Why couldn’t he just even feign knowledge of his role in the firm, at least in public view? Titus admitted begrudging defeat in his futile effort to imply and impose his supremacy, and turned to cross the street. He paused to await the passage of a line of carriages taking some dignitaries to the parliamentary offices at Chichester House. The pause gave him opportunity to study the man with whom Flitch was engaged in conversation. By his attire he was obviously a lawyer, by his girth a well fed one too. His stance was that of a man who assumed he was on view – more a pose than a position, as Titus’ father often remarked of his more opulent customers. One hand, clutching a lace kerchief, waved wildly in the air in rhythm with his voice, the drone of which could be heard even this distance away. Curiously, he held a leash in the other, at the end of which was an equally well-fed dog of the spaniel variety. The beast’s eyes followed his master’s gesticulations in a manner that made him appear entranced by his rhetoric. When he saw Titus approach however, the dog shifted his attention to the new arrival and virtually exploded into a swirl of black and white fur and flashing teeth, yelping like a stuck pig in an abattoir. Flitch raised his voice above the canine cacophony from below. “Mr Perry, good morning! Allow me to present the honourable Skin ‘Em MacCarthy!”

Titus was used to Flitch’s strange acquaintances, but surely not so far from his usual haunts, and not one with such a strange appellation? But then Titus had long since failed to be surprised much by who or what his secretary seemed to be acquainted with. The lawyer gave his spaniel a smart kick in the backside, which appeared to freeze it in mid-flight. It landed back on its paws and scurried behind its master in a trice, its bellows seemingly extinguished for now.
“Ah Mr Perry, your associate here speaks very highly of you! High praise indeed! High praise indeed! Though he does me a slight disservice in his introduction – Jonathan Amos MacCarthy’s the name and I’m singularly pleased to meet you.”
The man was plainly an Irishman but his accent suggested some years abroad, a fact that was verified with his next comment. “I acquired that rather unfortunate soubriquet when practising in London some years ago – prosecuting the Popish Plotters would you know? I’m afraid I rather lost the run of myself in my closing speech once and was quoted rather extensively in the broadsheets around London. Mind you, was I wrong sir? Was I wrong? Skinning ‘em would have been too good for ‘em sir, I said it then and I say it now!”
Titus remembered enough about the Popish Plot to know that MacCarthy was certainly exaggerating his role in any court proceedings resulting from it. The alleged “plot” to assassinate King Charles had led to the murder of many Catholics across the land – indeed it had almost put an end to his father’s thriving landscape business when a prominent client had been murdered in his bed with large debts still owed to Perry the Elder. In the end the whole thing had proven to be a fraud devised by Israel Younge and one Titus Oates for their own political ends. Both had been tried for their deception and many of their supporters had been imprisoned. Whatever MacCarthy’s involvement might have been however, both age and social status underqualified him for his claim to have been a prosecutor in the case. The man was obviously liberal with the truth.

“You know my secretary?” Titus merely asked in reply, with an emphasis on the last word and a sharp look at Flitch. To describe himself as an ‘associate’ had been grammatically correct but very misleading, to say the least.
“Oh indeed, indeed! A finer man you’ll never meet wouldn’t you agree? And Mr Fletcher is a great servant of the law sir!”
Titus shot a brief quizzical look at Flitch. If his secretary had noticed the name MacCarthy had mistakenly assigned him he did not betray as much, but stood with a fixed smile on his face, as if flattered by the lawyer’s high praise for his character. He switched his attention back to MacCarthy, who was beginning to seem to Titus like a machine he had once seen at a fair in London’s Smithfield market, which, when filled with compressed air by a bellows, continued to emit musical tones for an inordinately long time and defied all attempts to halt it. For a moment he wryly wondered if the same remedy applied to the master as to the dog in that respect. The hurdy gurdy played on however.
“A great addition to any enterprise as you must know yourself!” (This much at least was true, Titus owned) “Yes indeed, he has been invaluable to me in the past in ensuring the wheels of justice grind to a right and equitable conclusion. What a surprise to see him here in this jewel of a city! He tells me the pair of you are here to chart this fair land of ours Mr Perry. A capital venture, may I say, capital! You will require some assistance of course, it never hurts to have local knowledge you know – contacts, references, road directions, that kind of thing!”
MacCarthy paused at this point, obviously expecting Titus to pursue the topic. Titus just looked impassively at the man, the resulting silence creating a void that he knew MacCarthy could not refrain from filling again with noise. “Well if you should require some assistance you need only seek me out my good man. The court of grace is where I am to be found these days, though there is little of that quality on display there, I can assure you!” He chuckled at his own jest, though in truth Titus did not have a notion of what he was talking about. “In any case – pardon the pun - I’m known the length and breadth of the land, I am! Jonathan MacCarthy of the King’s Bench, everyone knows me! And I ask only one small favour myself!”
“Oh? What’s that?” Titus tried to sound as sceptical as he felt.
“Nothing much.” MacCarthy pulled a fob watch from his waistcoat pocket. “Oh my! Is that the time? Duty calls, my good men. Meet me in the crypt tavern at noon if you will. I must dash. Good morning to you both!”
Titus was about to inform the man that his schedule would prevent this when Flitch chipped in with a “Right-ho, noon it is so!” and a subtle nudge in Titus’ side to indicate that he’d better play along with the arrangement. Once MacCarthy and his pet had waddled off up Castle Street, Titus turned to ask Flitch what the hell was going on but was again beaten to the post by his secretary. “Mr Perry – hadn’t we better get going ourselves? If you give me the money I’ll collect those items we left in Ringsend. You’d better be about liberating some funds yourself from the exchequer – we wouldn’t want to get stuck in this city on the strength of not having extracted our means in time ahead of Easter now, would we?”
Titus sighed. Flitch was right of course. The festival was coming up that weekend and there would be a closure of all the Dublin court’s offices, and a likely increase in demand therefore for exchequer funds from many state servants in advance of it. He’d best organise that immediately. Besides, the rain looked like it was set to worsen as the day progressed, so it would be better to move the equipment with all due haste to the castle. He handed a shilling to Flitch, who snatched it with alacrity and stuffed it into his breeches pocket. As his secretary moved to head off, Titus rested his hand on his shoulder to pause him in his tracks. “Right,” he said, “but I want to meet you at this ‘crypt’ a good ten or fifteen minutes before noon. I’ve a few questions you can answer for me!”

“And just how do you know him Flitch?” They were seated at a long bench in a tavern that plied its trade literally beneath Christchurch Cathedral, the ancient vaults having been transformed into a motley market selling everything from dry goods to haberdashery. Some more dubious trades were also to be found there. “Mother Sparrow, Your Fortunes Revealed” appeared to be selling more than predictions behind her curtain if the noises emanating from her booth were any indication as they passed it, and the vaults were populated by many suspiciously idle characters who appeared neither to be selling nor buying, but who maintained intense interest in those who were. Given the proximity of the cathedral to the law courts next door these could as well be lawyers as thieves, Titus pondered, the two were often difficult to distinguish. No one could say the day had been bright thus far, with its cloud-laden skies and drizzle, but the cathedral vaults made even the dismal day outside seem radiant. The only light to be found in here was from spluttering tallow candles set along the walls and pillars, so ineffective that even after several minutes the two men found it difficult to discern each other in the gloom.
Flitch, as usual, answered a different question entirely. “Mr Perry, this man MacCarthy is dangerous. Believe me, we don’t want to get on his wrong side.”
“Dangerous? A fool and braggart I can see, but dangerous in what way? And why do I need his help for my work here – I have a letter signed by the Duke of Ormonde himself that allows me to declare myself a ‘guest’ of any king’s subject in the country. I have more pressing business to attend to than waste precious hours in this … this…” as he looked around him at the subterranean pit of iniquity in which they sat, humming away beneath the city’s principal cathedral, words momentarily failed him. “Anyway, answer me, who is he and how did you meet?”
“It’s a long time ago Mr Perry. He was what we used to call a “grubber”, a barrister in the Inns who took whatever work he could. It’s a hard trade to break into without the right leg-up and he had one major flaw in his pedigree too.”
“Which was?”
“He was also what we called a “turnfrock”, one day as Catholic as the pope in Rome, the next as Anglican as Canterbury, depending on who was steering the boat. There’s only so many times you can get away with that and MacCarthy used his turns up very quickly.”
“And your involvement with him, Mr Fletcher?”
Flitch looked down at the tabletop as he spoke. “That is how he knows me. It’s a long story, but how shall I put it? When he and I were acquainted first this was the name he was given. I thought it best not to disabuse him of the notion.”
“Oh? And how well acquainted were you?”
“As little as I could manage, which was not little enough. Let’s just say he employed me sometimes to ‘acquire’ evidence.”
“Like you ‘acquired’ my new surveying transit?”
“Yes, no, well something like that. Anyway that was a long time ago, before the Popish Plot, and I can tell you he was known as Skin ‘Em even then too, though I dare say not so proud of it either!”
“I thought his own account of his nickname was a bit fanciful.”
“That was a load of old cobblers’ awls, as well you guessed. No, it was his fees you see. Often in the course of representing a poor devil he would learn more about their past than they might care to have brought up in court if you catch my drift.”
“You mean he blackmailed his own clients?”
“Nothing so crude, he’d say. He simply renegotiated their fees as he ascertained the ‘salient facts’ of the case.”
“It sounds to me like this man falls a bit below even your normal standard of business acquaintance Flitch. Or am I flattering myself?”
“You might say my services were demanded rather than volunteered at the time Mr Perry. I needed a grubber to represent me when I was … defamed by a certain person let’s say”
As usual with Flitch’s past ‘adventures’ Titus preferred not to enquire further, though he had to admit the thought crossed his mind that if Flitch had been operating under a pseudonym while defamed, it would be a strange lawyer who would either take the case in that knowledge, or fail to find out the truth in the process of prosecuting it. Perhaps indeed this had been the ‘salient fact’ of Flitch’s own case. “He blackmailed you too? Now I know there are no depths to which the man will not descend! Anyway, why would you reacquaint yourself with such an obvious turd? I take it this morning’s encounter was not at your instigation then?”
Flitch nearly choked on his ale. “You’re joking sir, and this is no joking matter! MacCarthy hailed me just at the constables’ house inside the gate as I left our quarters this morning. I swear.”
“What was he doing there? To my knowledge all four courts are here next to the cathedral. There are no sessions left in the castle.”
“Exactly sir! And then he acted all surprised like we were two old companions in arms at a regiment reunion.”
“And the favour he requests - obviously the point of this ‘chance encounter’ then. But what do you think it might be?”
“Whatever it is Mr Perry, we should seem to go along with it. Trust me. We’ll not fathom his agenda otherwise, and with men like this it’s wiser to let the line play out than snip it prematurely, believe me!”
Titus knew his secretary well enough to understand when the man was rattled. If Flitch, of all people, recognised a man as an adversary worth one’s wariness, it made sense to follow his direction. “Alright, so this slimy cacologist may have learnt of our presence here somehow, and has concocted a scheme into which he thinks we fit. Still, he presents it as a favour he would ask us. So why then are both of us here like two naughty courtiers summoned by the chamberlain?” Titus waved his hand to indicate the vaults around them and his heart, and hand, froze.

“Oh not a chamberlain I assure you!” It was MacCarthy himself, standing right next to them in the gloom. How long he had been there or how much he had heard neither could tell, but both men experienced a lurch in their belly that must have been obvious to the lawyer even in the darkness of the cellar market. If MacCarthy noticed however, he made no sign of it and sat down beside them. “More a humble clerk I would suggest, an honest servant of the crown who’s only reward is the honour of serving his master in whatever way he can – like Priamus here!” From somewhere in the darkness below there came a yelp of agreement from the spaniel. “Forgive me being somewise late, our judge this morning was a little too much ‘me judice’ and not enough ‘get on with the hanging boys!’ Eh? Anyway, no matter ‘nunc est bibendum’ is what I say! And the gallows at Bagot Rath will have its usual quota of rope stretchers come dawn. Hey garsún, some ale for my friends, and a brandy for me! So a mapmaker – eh? Mr Perry. Something all too rare in these parts up to now I can tell you. I have the greatest admiration for learned men pursuing a livelihood with their talent sir - affiliation also I might add!” Titus winced perceptibly while the lawyer continued. “I was just saying to your colleague, wasn’t I Mr Fletcher, such a noble enterprise deserves every assistance.”

Titus now reckoned he knew where this was leading - he had met similar situations before. Even in England, charted extensively since the time of the Domesday Book, surveyors and cartographers – especially those commissioned by an agency of the crown - often found themselves at the centre of disputes over boundaries. One small slip of a pen on a chart could wipe a lot of value from one man’s estate and add considerably to another’s. And where there were boundary disputes there were bound to be lawyers. It was not even unknown for mapmakers operating with the legal immunity of a crown commission to be approached by more unscrupulous practitioners of the legal trade with offers of remuneration should they choose to be less than accurate with their pen strokes. If this was MacCarthy’s game he was in for a disappointment.

What the admiralty wanted, and Titus’ task, was something that had yet to be done in Ireland – a survey of the island with accurate depictions of topographical features that might have a military application at some future date. So far the most accurate maps were of those counties only that had been longest under English rule, or which contained lands reassigned by Cromwell’s decrees, and even they were now totally outdated in the matter of place names and land usage. Since Cromwell’s campaign Ireland’s population had been radically re-dispersed. Two thirds of the original inhabitants outside the Old Pale, it was reckoned, had been herded into an area west of the Shannon River. In the land that had been forcibly vacated new settlers had arrived from England and many new towns had been born as a result. Ancient land boundaries had been reviewed and reinvented as the old estates and farms were cut up and apportioned to the new landlords. Roads had fallen into disuse, and many more new routes were being opened in their stead. As yet, no reliable maps indicated these changes, or the nature of the land in question. William Petty’s Down Survey gave outlines, but any future military campaign would need more than that. Even Cromwell’s manouevres had been conducted using the most rudimentary maps of the country’s interior – a lack of local intelligence that had cost his army an unexpected defeat at Clonmel. The place cried out for a comprehensive survey of topography, that much was agreed by all, but Titus knew that what they wanted would take the labour of many men a lot of years to achieve. His task, though the admiralty might not yet realise it and though he would in any case do his utmost to retain control, was primarily to assess the size of the job and initiate the process. Even that could take a few years if done correctly and would probably be as much as he could realistically manage, but in doing so he was determined to leave behind a framework of references that those who came after him would be obliged to adhere to on account of their accuracy. His plan of operation was therefore to subdivide this task into logical steps, and these he had already settled on in his mind. He himself would undertake the first step, the accurate delineation of the country’s coastal region, starting with the stretch between Dublin in the east and Lough Swilly in the northwest. This would give him an accurate idea of the two potential obstacles to his task which he most needed to assess, one physical, the climate, and one harder to define but just as much an impediment if it proved to work against him – the willingness or otherwise of the authorities to grant him ready access. Providing he was not hindered by either, he envisaged a team of about two dozen engineers under his command over two years could achieve this and he had already begun the recruitment of these. Even before leaving London he had requested an old colleague of his, now retired from the army and living in County Dublin, to start advertising for labourers to join the project, and he had received a pledge from the admiralty that these men would be employed at fair rate should they be willing. But first he himself would assess the “lie of the land” in every sense. Thinking of Captain Quinn reminded him that there was someone else in Dublin he wished to meet with too before he left the city, but his thoughts were interrupted by the drone to his left which had markedly raised in volume.

“Did you hear me Mr Perry?” It was MacCarthy. “Would you be so kind as to consider this small request?”
Titus, in his daydreaming, had lost the lawyer’s thread of hubris-inspired monologue. “Consider?” He shot a glance at Flitch for help.
“You must understand that Mr Perry cannot say for certain now what his immediate plans are,” Flitch to the rescue, “but we’ll deliver the document of course won’t we Mr Perry?”
“Document?”
“Ah, a gentleman indeed, I knew as soon as we met this morning Mr Perry! You understand the way things work. Well gentlemen, I’m afraid time has come for me to resume my honest toil! I’ll bid you both good day and be assured, I will be forever in your debt! Come Priamus! Thisbe awaits!” MacCarthy stood and simultaneously jerked the leash so hard that little Priamus was catapulted into the aisle between the booths. The dog showed admirable composure in realigning itself however and both he and his master were soon completely enveloped in the smoky gloom.

“What document Flitch?”
“This one Mr Perry,” and Flitch pulled a letter from his pocket.
“And now that we are in the courier business, where are we to deliver this billet doux of MacCarthy’s?”
“Not we sir, you. He was quite explicit about that fact didn’t you notice? And not far – well, it’s not too much out of our way you might say.”
Titus noticed the letter was unsealed. “What does it say, I’m afraid I wasn’t paying our friend much attention. No doubt I’m about to be requested to assist some upstart baron in expanding his estate, or shrinking it even – anything that might produce some lucrative litigation.”
Flitch unfolded the paper and read the contents in a pretty accurate impersonation of MacCarthy’s bombastic delivery.

Rt Hon Jeremiah Wilson Esq., With respect to your grievance I have good news. No further pursuance through the court is required, as your adversary is about to withdraw from the proceedings. I recommend you assist in expediting his withdrawal with a gesture of your own, and one with a permanence that will satisfy all our requirements. You may now, believe me, execute your intended business with impunity and I wish you success in your venture. Your friend ad idem et ab initio, JC

PS – this letter is conveyed by Mr Titus Perry of London, cartographer to the crown. I would be grateful that you extend to him the hospitality for which you are rightly renowned and facilitate him in so far as you can with his endeavours.

Titus was surprised – not a hint of subterfuge at all. It appeared to be merely a communication regarding the outcome of some recent case MacCarthy had prosecuted. “What’s this Wilson’s address?”
Flitch reversed the sheet, “The Manse, of Stamullin, County Meath.”
“Do we know where that is?”
“I believe sir that it is not far, a few miles only from where you hope to lodge with Captain Quinn in the village of Balbrigand.”
“Balbriggan,” Titus was a stickler for correct placename pronunciation and spelling, “and speaking of which, is it not time we alerted Captain Quinn to our arrival? Get that ale down you Flitch, I have an errand for you.”