Erinsong (24 page)

Suddenly a new scent
reached them, a sweetish
smell that
reminded Brenna of roasting meat.

Burning flesh.

She clamped a hand over her
mouth, fearful she’d be sick. The faces of the kindly nuns, old
Murtaugh the sexton, and even imperious Father Ambrose
reeled before her eyes. They were all totally
without harm and obviously without any defense as well.

“Sweet Jesus,” she
breathed. “Who could do such
a
thing?”

“We both know the answer,” Jorand said, his
mouth tight. “Northmen.”

“Aye, the raiding party,”
she nodded. “But that
was days ago. Surely
something could be saved. The
nuns and
monks wouldn’t let the fires burn unabated
unless...”

“Unless they’re all dead,”
he finished for her. Firm hands on her shoulders, he turned her
from the bleak vision. “There’s nothing for you here. Let’s go
home,
Brenna.”

“No, someone may yet be alive and need our
help.”

Jorand manned the sculls while Brenna leaned
against the steering oar to bring the prow to the beachhead.

Someone must have been
spared. Otherwise, she’d
never know what
had become of her sister’s bairn.
That
little ghost would dog her dreams for the rest of
her life.

Please, God, let there be someone.

Only the library was still ablaze, but smoke
curled from the remains of a dozen buildings. Save for the pop and
sizzle of flames devouring the literary wealth of the abbey, there
was no other sound as Brenna and Jorand trudged through the abbey’s
broken arch. Even the birds seemed to have forgotten how to
sing.

“Here,” Jorand said as he draped a wet cloth
over her nose and mouth and tied it behind her head. “This will
help.”

It did seem to block out smells and most of
the smoke, but Brenna’s eyes still stung.

The wooden structure that
was home to the nuns and novices, the veritable rabbit warren of
cells in
which her sister had given birth,
was a mass of charred
rubble. On the far
side of the tower, a smoldering pile
caught her eye. When she recognized a set of
black
ened stubs as the remains of a human
rib cage, she jerked
her gaze away, hand
to her heart.

A scream clawed at the back
of her throat, but she
choked it down. She
had to maintain an illusion of calm. If she collapsed in a keening
heap, Jorand would certainly carry her back to the vessel and she’d
never know the fate of Sinead’s child. Surely the babe had been
fostered out, not hidden away in
some
secluded cell on the abbey grounds. Surely they
wouldn’t have been able to keep it from her if the
child
had been secreted there. Brenna
prayed it was so.

Her ears pricked to a
sound. It was faint, but regu
lar, a
rasping singsong.

“Do ye hear that?” she asked.

“It’s coming from over there.” Jorand pointed
toward the graveyard, a small piece of consecrated ground dotted
with standing stones.

Brenna lifted her skirt and
broke into a trot. The sound was clearer now. Definitely a human
voice,
but one so marred with grief and
smoke, she couldn’t
tell whether it was
male or female. A broken string of
words
floated to her ears.

“O God of all spirits and all flesh,” the
voice droned, “... trampled down death and ... the devil, and given
life to Thy world...”

Brenna recognized part of
the Matins for Those Who
Have Fallen
Asleep, an office for the dead. But matins
were for the morning. The sun was sinking in the
western sky. If worship was called for, vespers
would
be more appropriate to the
approaching twilight.

“Lord, give rest to the
souls of Thy servants,” the
voice croaked
in a sad parody of chanting. “... in a
place of light, in a place of verdure... whence all
sick
ness, sorrow and sighing have fled
awa—” The wor
shipper broke into ragged
sobs.
“Mea culpa, mea
culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

Brenna rounded the tallest
of the standing Celtic crosses and found the abbot, Father
Ambrose,
sprawled in a miserable lump,
eyes covered by soot-begrimed hands. She knelt beside
him.

“Father,” she said softly.

He peered at her from between grubby fingers,
nails all broken and torn. The abbot struggled to sit up, a
questioning look of both recognition and disbelief on his pudgy,
sallow features. When Jorand came into view, the priest cowered
back, shielding his head with his hands.

“Deliver us, O Lord, from
the terror of the North
men.
In nomine Patri, et Fili, et Spiritu
Sancto,”
he
chanted with vehemence.

“Don’t fret yourself,
Father,” Brenna said quickly.
“This is
Jorand. Ye’ve naught to fear from him.”

“No more
Finn-Gall
demons, for
Christ’s pity,” Am
brose nearly shrieked,
crossing himself repeatedly.

Jorand let his arms dangle
unthreateningly at his
sides in an effort
to look less imposing. Brenna
decided he
was less than successful. With
his height,
coloring and strong Norse features, there was no disguising what he
was. Even in a passive
state, her husband
had the look of a formidable warrior. She sent him an invisible
plea for some privacy
and he blessedly
took the hint.

“I’ll be nearby if you need me,” he promised,
and strode away, stopping within earshot.

“Father,” she said, taking
one of the abbot’s shaking hands in hers. His eyes rolled wildly
and there was no glint of recognition in them now. She was sure it
was because she’d been in the company of a
Northman. “ ‘Tis only me. Brenna of Donegal. Do ye
mind me now?”

A faint light came into his
rheumy eyes. “Oh, child,
ye have chosen an
ill day to return to the House of God.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“They fell upon us just
after
nones
two
days ago.”

“Northmen?”

“Aye, the thieving
hell-spawn,” he said with force,
clearly
feeling braver now that her Northman was out of sight. “Of course,
we barred the gate at once but they battered it down. We had no way
to fight
them. We are a peaceful community
of scholars and
saints.” He sniffled into
his dirty sleeve. “What did we do to deserve this?”

The same question had
niggled at her for months
following her
sister’s rape. Jorand’s comforting words
came back to her.

“ ‘Tis not a question of
deserving. Only bad luck
placed ye in the
path of evil,” she said. “There will al
ways be those who are determined to harm others.”

“But how could God have allowed this to
happen?” he bleated.

Brenna was amazed she
should be giving lessons in faith to one who had been her spiritual
guide.
“The Almighty gifted us with the
right to choose. Just
because some choose
evil in the world, it doesn’t make God any less good.” She stroked
the back of his hand in an effort to soothe him. “That’s what ye
always tried to teach me.”

“Did I?” His gaze darted
about in a confused man
ner. “I think ‘tis
a long time since I taught ye any
thing.
Why have ye come back? Has God given ye a
true vocation at last?”

“No, Father. I’m a married lady now.”

“Ah, well, that’s grand
then, isn’t it?” His eyes fas
tened on hers
with a more lucid gaze. “So God has
been
pleased to work everything for your good. Who
is the blessed fellow He chose for your husband?”

“Ye just met him,” she
said. “Jorand the Northman. He’s helped me see that not all
Northmen are
evil, any more than all
Irishmen are saints.” Her gaze
swept over
the desecrated abbey. “Though ye certainly encountered some
wicked
Ostmen
here. Was anyone else saved alive?”

His round face sagged. “Only Murtaugh.”

Brenna sank down beside him
and wept for the loss
of the nuns and
monks who had been her friends.

“I suppose ye wonder how I
was spared. ‘Twas not
for mercy’s sake, I
assure ye.” He hid his eyes again as fresh spasms of grief washed
over him. “They made me watch.”

Brenna bit her bottom lip
and patted his forearm in
comfort. She’d
never have dared be so informal with
the
abbot when she was a novice here, but suffering
was a great leveler. It erased all difference in rank
between them. They were just two victims of Norse
ter
ror, but the tables had turned. Now it
was Brenna’s
turn to console and help him
heal if she could.

The abbot dropped his hands
and stared into the
endless sky. “The ones
they didn’t kill in the first rush
of the
raid, they slaughtered later for sport. Mother Superior, they
stripped and paraded around the
chapel.
Then they disemboweled her.” His voice was
flat, as though if he thought about the words and
their terrible meaning, he’d be unable to go on
speak
ing. “The novices ... ye of all
people should know what happened to them.”

Brenna nodded grimly.

“I thought the heathen
might carry them off as
slaves. ‘Tis often
the case,” he said. “But after they’d
been
defiled, the Norse devils cut their throats. Like spring lambs in
an abattoir.”

“What of the monks?” she asked.

“They were hanged alive
from the top of the tower
and then set
ablaze.” Father Ambrose clamped his hands over his ears, to keep
out the remembered
screams, no doubt. He
shook his head slowly.

“ ‘Twas was
my fault, all my fault.”

The abbot slumped down on
the grass and passed
into delirium,
babbling incoherently and beating his
chest.

Brenna stood and motioned
for Jorand to come.
When the big Northman
came into view, Father Am
brose gasped
twice and lapsed into unconsciousness.

“We can’t leave him here,” Brenna said. “Can
ye carry him?”

“
Ja.”
He bent and slung the inert body over his
shoulder as dispassionately as if the abbot were a
sack of millet. “Where do you want
him?”

“The sexton’s cottage.”
Brenna strode away, leading Jorand back through the compound and
out the battered gate. “Father Ambrose is in no shape for
questions. Maybe Murtaugh will have the answers
I
seek.”

Murtaugh lived alone in a
tiny house snugged up
against the abbey’s
stone walls. It was Brenna’s firm
belief
that the wiry old man had cared for the grounds and the garden of
Clonmacnoise since the Flood. If Murtaugh had a second name, no one
had ever heard it. He was not a member of the religious
order and was known to pepper his speech with
out
rageous blasphemies, but abbots came
and went at
Clonmacnoise while Murtaugh
stayed on. He was as
much a fixture in the
abbey as the relics in the now desecrated library.

Behind the compound, Brenna
saw the stone walls
of his cottage still
standing. Even the thatched roof remained intact. Murtaugh was
seated on a stump near the open doorway calmly stirring a pot
suspended over a small cooking fire.

Since they were upwind from
the smoke, Brenna pulled the damp kerchief from her face so the old
man might recognize her. A bobbing nod and loud
harrumph
told her he did.

“Is Himself dead?” Murtaugh asked loudly.

“No, only fainted,” Brenna
answered in an equally loud tone. The sexton often pretended to be
deaf as a
rock, though Brenna knew better.
“Can we lay him inside?”

“Suit yerself,” he said
with a shrug and returned to
his
work.

Brenna led Jorand into the
interior of the cottage.
She had come here
often to sip tea with the ancient
gardener
and glean what she could of plant lore from
him. He did not part with his knowledge willingly.
She had to bully and cajole him into sharing his
wisdom with her on more than one occasion.

The
cottage was still bursting with seedlings and
oddments, the walls lined with shelves to hold
all the
old man’s vining projects. But the
packed earthen floor was swept clean of debris. There was a
simple
table with two stools, a chest for
storage, and a fresh
pallet in one corner.
Jorand deposited the abbot there
and
followed Brenna back out. They rejoined Murtaugh by his
fire.