Waves in the Wind (20 page)

Mind reeling, I whispered, “Go? Go where?”

There was no response so I repeated, “Go where?” But I stood alone under the stars in utter silence. A memory came, Corcu Duibne warriors streaming across the fields toward me, and suddenly I remembered. I remembered everything. How much time passed since the attack? Had it come earlier today? The day before? I had no sense or knowledge of how long I might have lain in the field.

Supported by trembling legs I turned about, surveying my surroundings. Uphill in the general direction of where I thought Rath Raithleann should lie, an orange glow lit the dark sky. My heart heavy with the thought of what I might find within the village, I took a tentative step forward, a second and third. At twenty steps I rested and then tottered twenty paces further.

By the time I leaned against a post at the ruined village gates I had a reasonable idea of my injuries. The source of the blood was a deep gash within a large area of swelling just above the base of my skull. Apparently during the attack my lunge with the axe against the swordsman thwarted his blow, but the other rider smashed his war club into the back of my head. The shoulders of my kirtle and plaited braid down my back were stiff with dried blood.

The stench of mixed wood smoke and charred flesh permeated the air and my heart near burst at the sight of the burning village. Nothing remained untouched during the Corcu Duibne raid. On unsteady legs I bent down, picked up a broken lance shaft to use as a staff and hobbled forward.

Only the crackling flames overrode the deathly silence. Onward I went, my searching eyes finding ghostly figures churning within acrid smoke, shadows darting among smoldering cottages—horror exposed by flickering firelight—black blood and death at every turn. Faces, dead eyes staring—known, unknown, might have known—contorted, swollen, charred.

I stumbled down narrow lanes throughout the village seeking someone, anyone…probing for life while my desperate eyes quickly turned from grotesque piles of the dead. My rasping voice called out, the snapping and popping of flames the mocking reply. Time and again I fell, crawled and then rose only to stumble and fall again.

Ceara was there; sprawled on her face near her home. Her small boys lay beside her. Aunt Lou’s home, a tumbled pile, blazed in the night, though whether she and Aine lay beneath rubble I could not see.

My father was at the longhouse, his head atop a tall wooden pike alongside that of the King. Eyes glazed, mouth agape, he hovered over me and I fell to my knees, head throbbing, staring upwards toward him.

Unreasoning maniacal hatred seized me, and I shouted at him. “I loved you and respected your wisdom above all others. Now look at you. Why are you there? Answer me! You would ignore my question now as you did my warning? I say you are up there, foolish man, because you paid no heed to the gods and now you are dead, your family is dead, your King is dead and your village is dead.”

I clutched my head in both hands. Mind reeling, I shrieked, “I trusted your judgment. Oh, how I trusted you as a son should trust his father. Now the burden of this tragedy lies with me as well, for I knew. Yes, I knew and did nothing. Because of you I did nothing.”

A smoldering fire burned through the base of the pike at that very moment and it toppled, its gruesome burden falling to the ground—rolling, rolling, rolling across the scorched ground toward me. Screaming, I lurched backwards from the horrid thing, scrambling away on hands and knees, on and on, my fingers clawing the earth as my father’s head seemed to pursue me across the warm, ash-covered courtyard.

Searing pain cloaking my mind, I staggered to my feet and ran. Consumed by terror I stumbled away from the village into the night, a cowering, mewling, half-dead creature blind to all but the crushing pain blanketing my mind.

How many days, how many nights did I flee the ruins of my life? What matter, for does a mindless brute measure time? If I stole food from farmsteads by which to survive, what of it? Is an animal seeking only to remain alive a thief?

An evening arrived with the smell of the sea in the air, and above the rock-strewn shoreline a cave—a miserable hole within which to crawl as a wounded beast would creep into a hidden place to die away from prying eyes. Such were not my thoughts then, for I had none, nothing more than a dim awareness of my existence.

* * *

Days, weeks, months passed, my mind dominated by pain, driven to madness. That I survived was not by my own hand but by the will of the gods. I ate, though what or how often I cannot say. During more lucid moments I found myself surrounded by the shells of creatures living at the sea’s edge, the bones of fish and remnants of nearby plants.

At last the day came I sat hunched, cross-legged before the cave mouth, rain drawing a gray curtain across the panorama of the sea. Though my head still throbbed my ability to remember and reason was returning.

Desolate were my thoughts, for all I had ever known or hoped to be ended on that final, terror-filled night at Rath Raithleann. Perhaps the gods favored me by leaving me alive as they had at Dún Ailinne, though the hollowness filling me little resembled life, and I found no meaning in it.

Memories and the grief bound within them overwhelmed me as I bent further forward, arms wrapped around my knees, sobbing aloud like a woman. Tears streaming, I rubbed the serpent ring, now a worthless trinket from my past. My future as bleak as the rain, I would remain hidden within my cave, for where else was I to go?

Book Two

Chapter 15

Brendan

I lay on my bracken bed staring at the cave’s smoke-smudged ceiling. Thoughts of the past crowded my mind, memories brought about by the Morrigan’s visit. Had she truly come? Had I actually spoken with her? On many days my mind still grew confused, clouded, but then her words returned. Words I well knew to be true just as her presence in my cave must be true. “Your wounds are healed, your father will not rise from the dead, nor will your sisters.”

Yes, they were dead, but death is such a small thing. That I had learned. Still, a man strives to survive even when it is senseless to do so.

There was much to do so I rose and busied myself. Mussels must be pried from the rocks now that the tide was out. They would be added to seaweed I gathered, by which farmers might enrich their fields, and a bag of carrageen, the kelp prized by women for the thickening of their broth. All to be traded in the nearby village for a moldy loaf and scant jug of ale. It was a village of simple farmers with but a few head of cattle and sheep, merely a place to be.

At midday I started off under a sunlit sky, the seaweed strapped to my back and two woven bags of mussels in hand. Reaching the village required an exhausting walk across high, boulder-strewn ridges.

There was a priest there, one who claimed that Patrick himself had ordained him, but he was old and gave me little trouble. Yet, some in the village still held to the old ways.

When I first came and showed the serpent ring the priest made the villagers drive me away, but some would still sneak to my cave for what little divination I could give them and ask me to read the stars for planting time. Their gifts were meager but many were as poor as I was.

As I came in sight of the village, Beagan came running toward me.

“Go back, Wise One. This is not a day to be here. A new priest has come, a man called Brendan with fourteen followers. He preached last night against the Druids and he will not welcome you!”

He stopped and watched me rub the serpent ring.

I raised my eyes to meet his. “So, Beagan, you have come to drive me away? You, who brought your child to my cave for blessing? And was it not I who gathered herbs for you when your wife was stricken?”

“To drive you away? No! I come but to warn you of the priest’s presence.”

No priest could make me fear him, for there is little to fear when you have nothing. It was not a thing Beagan would understand.

Still, I would know more of this new priest. “So, why should this man come to your little village, which could hardly feed his people for one day?”

“Right you are, for it is little food any of us have following the dark times. Still, he has laid a tithe on us and on all the villages within a day of here. We are to build him a boat and provision it, for he plans to sail to the Northern Isles to carry Christ’s word to them.”

Christ’s word? I knew all too well about Christ’s word. Did Eire not have gods enough already without bringing forth this new one?

I un-strapped the seaweed from my back and set it down beside my two leather bags. “Take these, Beagan, and go through the fields to the back of the village. Find Gair, who I deal with. Give it to him and bring me back my bread and ale.”

Beagan nodded, shouldered the pack, took the bags of mussels and set off.

“Two loaves for the carrageen!” I shouted after him

Exhausted by my trek to the village, I sat beside the trail on a gentle rise above the village and waited with my back against a rock. In the valley below the men worked their fields around the small village, a cluster of wattle and daub, thatched roof huts. Smoke plumes rose from the women’s cooking fires fueled by wood collected from the distant rugged ridges covered in oak, beech and linden trees. Gulls swirled above
Trá Lí
Bay, suspended against the bright sky, but I could not see the curraghs I knew to be there.

Presently, a man came walking toward me. He carried a staff and was muttering to himself.

“Good day, stranger,” he greeted me. “You are not from here, for I have met everyone in the village.”

I shrugged. “I am but a simple traveler.”

“Well, so am I a simple traveler.”

I glanced at his undistinguished, bearded face. He wore a common wool robe but I sensed he was considerably more than a common man.

He sat down beside me, pointing to the west where the sun slid into the sea. “It’s late for further travels, come to the village and eat with me. The women have made a good stew and baked fresh bread today.”

“I would rather not, but thank you for your kindness. There is a priest of the new religion there that I would not meet.”

He looked at me and chortled. “And why would you not meet him, traveler?”

Again I shrugged. “I have my reasons.”

“Reasons will not fill your belly.” He stood up. “Come, I insist. You have my word this new priest will not harm you.”

It was with no intent to mock the man I replied, “And who would you be to guarantee protection against priests?”

“You doubt my word, traveler?” Laughter filled his eyes.

“Not your word, nor your sincerity in giving it. I say again, I am but a poor traveler, a man of little virtue to judge such important matters as words and intentions. I fear you would little value my company.”

“I will judge the value of those I meet. Come, I assure you again there will be no trouble in the village. There is food aplenty and I would share it with you.”

My belly was in conflict with my judgment. “I admit I am tempted by you.”

His staff nodded toward me. “Is it the serpent ring on your hand that creates the conflict within you?”

“You noticed it, then. Yes, in part it is the ring. I was told this new priest speaks strongly against the meaning of it.”

“The new priest is to be feared for his intolerance of the old ways?”

My head shook as I warily chose my words. “Feared? No. But avoided, as must all priests be avoided for those of us who would cling to the old knowledge and the old gods.”

“A time of great change, a wonderful change is sweeping this land, traveler. The priests do but herald the change and in so doing bring new knowledge to replace the old, and the one true God to replace the many pagan gods of the past.” Face turned to the evening sky, arms spread wide, he spun in a slow circle before stopping, his eyes radiating exuberance. “The change to the Truth of which I speak is as inevitable as the winds and the tides.”

I understood then, for the light of his beliefs shown brightly on his face. “You are Brendan the priest…you must be. No other man hereabout could speak such things. Yes, of course…that is how you guarantee my safety in the village.”