by Wade McMahan
The word came clearly though at first it held no meaning for me.
“Ossian,” the soft, coaxing, feminine voice continued. “Rise up, Ossian.”
A groan escaped my lips, faint awareness returned and I wished the voice away.
“You are gravely injured, Ossian, but can stand if you will.”
Again a groan and once more my eyes opened to confusion and darkness.
“You must stand. Do it now.”
It was a kind voice, a caring voice, a voice begging compliance. “Yes. Of course.” Was it my response I heard? I wasn’t sure but placed my palms against the ground, flexed my legs and pushed myself upward until I rested upon hands and knees. Lights flashed before my eyes and I barely stifled a shriek as insufferable pain streaked throughout my skull.
“You are doing well, Ossian,” the voice encouraged. “Now, rise. Stand to your feet.”
My senses swirled ’round and ’round. Remaining suspended on hands and knees, again I retched.
“Overcome the weakness. You must battle against it. Stand. Stand.”
Once more I pushed upwards, fighting my own frailty until I stood upright. Flashing lights and whirling senses returned and I staggered backwards, falling where I lay gasping.
“Again,” the soft voice pleaded. “You must try again.”
The source of the voice meant nothing. Be she goddess, fairy or mortal I thought only to reward her encouragement. Great weariness weighed me down but I renewed my fight against it, finally rising to my feet. Again my head ached and swam. Once more I staggered about though this time managed to remain upright.
“Now, you see? You did it, Ossian. You did it.”
“So it seems, yes.” My hand went to my pounding skull.
“You cannot remain here. You must go, go now.”
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 e
nrich 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.”
“Yes, I am Brendan, I am a priest and I am still hungry.” His eyes once again reflected humor. “Come traveler. Let us eat while we talk of the old times and the new.”
I placed no confidence in the promises of Christians, but Brendan I felt I could trust, not as a priest, but as a man of his word, a man worthy of respect. And the lure of the stew was irresistible.
* * *
Firelight reflected from the hovel’s stone walls as a woman, her woolen shawl drawn taut to her face and slumped shoulders, flitted like a spirit around our rough table. She brought bowls of stew, fresh bread and mugs of ale.
Brendan sipped his ale. “Who are you, traveler?”
“I am called Ossian and I live in a cave near the sea.”
“Ossian. Ah, but that is merely a name, and a cave is merely the place where you live. I asked who you are.”
“I fear the answers you seek are of no more account than fancied phantoms in yon evening’s mist. I am what you see before you and no more—a poor man, a fisherman and gatherer who lives alone and strives only to survive.”
Brendan shook his head. “A poor fisherman who wears the serpent ring?”
“The ring is not for you to speak of.”
“I think not. I am a Christian priest, yes, but well I know the old ways too, and know that the serpent ring may only be worn by a chosen few.”
I sat quietly, sipping stew from the bowl.
“Ossian.” Brendan rolled the name on his tongue, “Hmm. It is said long ago a man of that name stood alongside Finn Mac Cumhaill to found the Fianna at Almu. It is also said that same Ossian was a renowned Druid leader, a man of ballads and songs. Are you, Ossian of the serpent ring, such a man yourself?”
I ignored his question. The stew was good, the best I had eaten in many months. “Have you tried the stew? I believe you will find it fine and to your taste.”
Brendan’s eyebrows lifted and his humor returned. “Hah! A Druid and man of ballads and songs you may possibly be, but even if so, you are a hungry one.”
“I thank you for inviting me to j
oin you. It is a rare treat.”
Brendan spoke as he munched his bread. “I merely invited you to the table. God provided the meal. A timely meal it is, too, from the looks of you. You are overly thin and stooped. Are you ill?”
Earlier, as I stood beside him, it was necessary to raise my eyes to meet his though he was but average height. Still, I cared nothing about my stooping posture and would tell little to this priest. “I am recovering from…that is, yes, I have been ill.”
“Then I shall pray for your speedy recovery. Tell me, Ossian the fisherman, have you a boat?”
“A crude curragh I found abandoned on the shore. I made a few repairs to it and take it on the sea when the weather permits.”
“You fish the nearby bays and inlets?”
“Yes.”
The priest swiped his bread through his bowl to capture the moisture of the stew. “You travel beyond the sight of land?”
“At times, depending upon the weather.”
“Are you afraid of being lost at sea?”
“There is the sun.” I shrugged. “What is there to fear?”
“You know the positions and movements of the stars, as well?”
And so. It wasn’t fishing that held his interest; he knew of the Druids’ preoccupation with the stars and would gauge my knowledge. “I know no more and likely far less of the stars than most who fish these waters.”
“The villagers here are building a large curragh for me and my followers that we might sail to the Northern Isles to spread the word of Christ there. Perhaps you’ve heard of this?”
“A little…no more.”
“The voyage will require several days. Which stars would we follow to reach the Isles?”
It was another of his tests. “You will have a pilot aboard. He will know better than one such as I, who has never been to the Isles.”
“God is my pilot in all things—”
A light rap at the door interrupted Brendan’s comment, and a cowled monk entered. “I apologize for interrupting your meal, father, but—” and then he noticed me.
“Yes, Brother Erc, what is it?” Brendan asked.