Innisgarbh (Prince Ciaran the Damned Book 1)

by Ruari McCallion

  Innisgarbh

  A Prince Ciaran story

  by

  Ruari McCallion

  ©Ruari McCallion, 2016

  All rights reserved

  Contents

  Innsigarbh page 4

  Notes on pronunciation p117

  About the story and the author p118

  Acknowledgements p199

  1

  The horror had its origins in Innisgarbh, which I first saw nearly forty years ago. It rose out of the marshes like a fortress. There had been rain, falling into the mist that gathered at its feet. Sliabh Gaoil rose from the mists and its peak was lost in the low-hanging cloud. It just hung there, between heaven and earth, its foundations hidden in the fog and its top lost in the sky.

  Innisgarbh, the Isle of Rock. A bastion of the Old Religion, a redoubt against the spreading tide of Christianity in Ireland. It rose hundreds of feet from a trackless mass of fens and marsh that guarded it from the surrounding countryside. The frequent mists and impenetrable fog prompted superstitious fear in the people, who wanted only to tend their families and farms undisturbed by the powerful and mysterious Druids of the place. No-one would even try to approach the island itself, far less the cluster of buildings gathered within the woods and low hills at its heart unless they had very pressing business.

  My uncle, the king of Donegal, had sent us here to learn our crafts at the hands of the Druids. My first clear memory of it was when my cousin, Coivin, and I were led to a dormitory of the Druid College. The building was made of stone, thatched, with unglazed windows and a cloth over the entrance, no different from half a dozen others arranged either side of a central green, flecked now with damp mud. It was a low, grey structure set in a dull, muddy, misty autumn day. We were barely seven years old, nervous, and older boys were craning their necks around each other and over walls, gathering like crows. We were preceded by a tall, bearded man with long dark hair shaved back to a line running over his head from ear to ear. He wore the robes of an ollamh, a junior druid. He didn’t stop to see if we were following him: if we hadn’t, we would have had an early taste of the leather strap that would dominate our lives for as long as we were in the care of our new teachers. I remember that we ran to keep up with our guide’s rapid pace, our small bundles making progress awkward. We stumbled more than once but we managed to catch up as the druid reached the entrance.

  The cloth hanging at the door was thrown back and we were ushered in. Two rows of pallet beds extended down either side, just in from the entrance. Two of the beds had occupants, who were struggling to their feet. A group of four older lads looked us over and came quickly to attention as they saw the druid. I leaned towards Coivin and took his hand for comfort as my apprehensive eyes took in our new surroundings. Coivin looked calmer - he always did, then - but I knew he was disturbed as well: he regarded the half dozen or so occupants of the dormitory with wary interest. Our guide spoke.

  “Gentlemen: may I present your new colleagues. Prince Coivin,” he indicated my foster-brother, who was a little taller than I, ”and Prince Ciaran. They are of the royal house of Donegal. Prince Coivin is King Fergus’ son, Prince Ciaran is his cousin and Dark Twin. I know you will treat them with the honour that is their due.” The words were courteous but delivered with a sardonic sneer which was reflected in some faces. A couple of the older boys guffawed. One or maybe two - at the most - regarded us with something that could have been pity. I had no idea what may have prompted these looks but we would find out soon enough.

  “Finn!” the druid called to the group at the further end of the dorm, and one of them stood to attention. “I ordered that their room be prepared. Is it ready?”

  “Yes, brother,” the boy replied. He was about eleven or twelve years old, and looked nervous.

  “So if I inspect it, I will be satisfied?”

  “Yes, brother.” His hands were trembling, very slightly, for all that he held them rigidly by his side.

  “Good. Show them to their quarters.” With that, he impelled us forward. “If you have any problems, you need only come and ask.” Then he turned and was gone. The boys in the dorm exhaled as one.

  “Come on here,” Finn said to us, “let me show you how well we prepare for princes,” and he smiled as he waved us on. I held back but Coivin tugged me forward. I stood my ground and stared at Finn. There was something about him but I didn’t know what.

  “What’s the matter?” Coivin asked me.

  “I don’t know. I have a feeling,” I replied. Coivin laughed.

  “You and your feelings! It’ll be all right. What would they dare do to us?” He tugged me on and I followed reluctantly.

  “In here.” Finn indicated a doorway with a flourishing bow. “Your royal chamber waits you to grace it with your presence.” We went in. “Your beds are against the wall there, by the window.” There were two pallets either side of a square hole cut in the wall, through which watery sun and weak drizzle trickled. There was a dark patch of damp on the earth floor between. We hesitated at the door. “Go on. They’re yours. Make yourself at home,” he laughed unpleasantly and turned his back. A burst of spiteful snorts erupted from the main dorm. We looked at each other and stepped the short journey to our beds with rising apprehension. I pressed on the cloth that covered the bed to the left.

  “Not too bad,” I said. Then “Oh.” Where I had pushed down on the cover there was a small but definite dark spot. I pulled back the covers to examine the straw beneath. It was damp, and smelled. A farmyard smell. I looked at Coivin, who inspected his own bed and found the same. We had to do something about it. Together we went out into the main dorm and approached Finn, who stood almost a foot taller than we did. We looked up at him and Coivin it was who spoke.

  “You told the Father that our room was ready. It isn’t. The beds are wet. The straw smells. It’s disgusting.” The group of four burst into unrestrained laughter.

  “The ‘Father’?” he laughed again and shook his head at his companions. “Brother Lucius, a Father!” and they all laughed again.

  “Brother, then,” Coivin replied. Colour was rising in his cheeks. He could have been on the verge of tears but he stood his ground and glared belligerently at Finn. “Whatever he is, you lied to him! You told him our beds were ready!” Finn assumed a serious impression.

  “So they are,” he said, and Coivin drew breath to argue but before he could, this boy, Finn, continued. “But if you have any complaints, why not take them to Brother Lucius? That’s what he said, isn’t it? Any problems, just ask?” Without another word, we set off to do just that.

  We found Lucius in the yard just outside the dorm, talking to an older boy. We waited for him to finish his conversation and then asked if we could speak to him. He bent down and listened attentively as we related their tale. He stood and looked down, smiling. It was an unpleasant smile.

  “Well, we must make sure that we are all clear on how things should be, must we not? Come with me,” and we ran after him as he strode into the dorm. The six boys were gathered together at the far wall. An argument may have been in progress but it stopped as they entered. “Gentlemen,” Lucius called, ”I fear it is necessary to impress upon some of our residents the way things are at the College. Finn, come here.” Finn walked down the passage to stand before the druid. “Sean MacBride, you too.” He indicated one of Finn’s earlier group, who strode confidently to join them. “You assisted Finn, did you not?”

  “I did, Brother,” came the reply.

  “Right. Finn, you take that one -” he indicated Coivin “- and Sean, you take that one. On the bed there.” We struggled as we were dragged to one of t
he beds and hauled over it. We were small and no match for our captors.

  Lucius flicked up Coivin’s short tunic and pulled down his loincloth. He produced a thick brown leather strap, split into two from halfway down its length, and proceeded to thrash him with it vigorously for nearly a minute. He repeated the operation on me. Each loud slap as leather met flesh brought a cry of pain. He became almost frenzied as he laid into our rumps, beating and beating until our white skin was swollen, deeply reddened, and bleeding from half a dozen cuts on each backside.

  The druid was breathing heavily when he stopped. It could have been the effort, it could have been something else. We were crying out loud. He made a gesture and we were hauled to our feet and brought to face him. He knelt down to bring his eyes to our level and thrust his face close to us. I remember he had bad breath.

  “Stop snivelling, you little runts.” He spoke quietly but there was a sneering malice in his voice and his lip curled as if presented with something particularly offensive. “You’re not at Donegal’s court now. You have been sent here to learn and your first lesson is this: you have no servants here. Don’t expect anything to be done for you, because it won’t. You are the lowest form of life in this place. Your second lesson,” he continued, “is this: if you have a problem, deal with it yourself. Don’t come crying to me, or any of the Druids. We don’t have the time and we don’t want to know.” He stood again, towering over us. We sniffed and wiped our noses with our bare arms. Our loincloths hung around our ankles; our humiliation was total. Lucius resumed his verbal flaying.

  “You are here to learn. Do as you are told - by me, by your teachers, and by your elders - and it will be better for you. Now, get out of my sight. If you don’t like your beds, sleep on the floor.” We pulled our loincloths back up to our waists and ran awkwardly back to our room. Lucius turned and left without another word. Finn made to follow us but one of the others put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “That’s enough for today, Finn.” I heard him say. I remember seeing him make to jerk his arm out of the grasp and continue but the grip tightened. “I said that’s enough.” Finn met the eyes of the other and his mouth tightened into a line. He stared for a moment, then dropped his face. This time, he was allowed to pull his arm away and he went to rejoin his companions, leaving us to our misery.

  We were miserable. Miserable and shocked. We had never been treated this way before. Until our arrival at Innisgarbh we had been in the care of Coivin’s mother: I had been taken from mine before I was five years old. I had been born at the same hour as Coivin, our mothers were sisters. My contemporary birth marked me out as Coivin’s Dark Twin and we were destined to rule together. That we were cousins as well strengthened the mystical bond. So I was taken to be fostered with my cousin and we had been together since childhood, had shared the same food, had drunk the same milk. We were foster-brothers, closer than kin in the our tradition. Until this day we had known only kindness and tolerance. An occasional harsh word when we got under someone’s feet or had played at fencing when we should have been practising swordfighting, but any punishment had been deserved, recognised and accepted. Arbitrary sadism had been completely outside our experience - until now: we would find that it was a fact of everyday life at Innisgarbh.

  Now, we had no mother to comfort us. No grand-dam, no tolerant uncle, no womenfolk to console us and soothe our hurts. We only had each other. Whimpering, sniffing and choking back sobs we set to making one decent bed from the damp straw of two. Whatever the dampness was, it was at the head end of each bed. We pulled the dry stuff from the lower parts and packed it into the one mattress. We piled the rest into the other, put our bundles of belongings beside us, and went to sleep, wrapped in each others arms for comfort.

  The following morning, our bundles were gone and we were thrashed for sleeping together. It didn’t stop us sleeping together in the years ahead - particularly in the first two or three, while we were still young and small - but we learned to wake well before dawn and retreat to our own allotted place before Lucius, or Angus, or Berec, or Diarmuid, or whoever was in charge of the dormitory rose and made his early morning rounds. If we were caught together, we were beaten.

  Beating was the routine. We were beaten for failing to learn the Law. We were beaten for spending time learning the Law when we should have been practising swordskills. We were beaten for practising swordskills when we should have been reading. We were beaten when someone decided we should have been writing rather than reading. We were beaten for looking up in thought when we should have had our noses pointed firmly at our books. We were beaten for a sideways glance, real or imagined. And we were beaten for writing rather than learning the Law. We were beaten for all reasons and for none at all. We had no idea when we would be beaten, nor when we would be unexpectedly forgiven for acts which would, on another day or in another hour, be viciously punished. Our life was brutal and confusing.

  2

  Lucius was our first and worst tormentor.

  We had been at Innisgarbh for three years without any break at all, nor any contact with our home or family at Donegal. We had become absorbed into the life of the College and now thought rarely about our old life. It still gave us some cause for regret, especially after a particularly vicious and arbitrary punishment, but we tended to look to each other for comfort and support. I think the Druids noticed that Coivin was the more truculent and it isn’t unfair to say he was the cause of more punishments. He would argue and refuse to co-operate and publicly take his punishment defiantly. I was roped in. We were treated as one and, whatever the merits, both of us would be punished for the misdemeanours of either.

  Inevitably this treatment put some distance between us. In class one day Coivin had, as usual, stumbled over a recitation of the Law. The two of us were called out to the front of the class. Our teacher - I can’t remember which one it was - produced his belt from his pocket and indicated to me that I should put my hand out, then he swung above his shoulder and brought the strap of leather down with his full force. He did so again three times. Then he turned to Coivin and repeated the procedure. He was breathing heavily - they all did, all the ones who thrashed us, always - and he ordered us back to our desks. We returned to our places, Coivin with a dark scowl on his face. My punishment was unmerited and unjust but we had both long since learned not to expect justice in this place. Later in the day it was my turn to incur displeasure, during writing practice. My chalk slid off his desk and fell to the floor before I could catch it. In the silence the noise was bound to attract the attention of their teacher, who indicated that we should come to the front again. We were thrashed on the hands, four strokes each, as in the morning. We returned to our places as before. Coivin kicked me under the table and whispered

  “I’ll have you for that, tonight. It was your fault.”

  “What was that, Coivin?” the druid asked. Coivin looked as innocent as he could manage.

  “Nothing brother.” We were called forward again.

  “Dishonest, as well as noisy,” our teacher observed and gave us six strokes each. “Go back and be quiet.” We did so, and Coivin delivered an even more vicious kick to my shins. This time, he said nothing. I made no reaction other than a small jerk at the sudden pain. Our hands were now so swollen we could hardly write but we managed to finish our lesson without further incident.

  All our fellows were treated in much the same way, except the oldest and a few who had been selected as favourites but the difference was that we were treated as one and each punished for the offences of the other. We were thus twice as likely to be punished as anyone else but with no greater justification. It would be difficult to imagine how our teachers could be any more unjust - or malicious.

  After dark, Coivin was as good as his word. He crept across our small room and tried to pinion my arms under my thin blanket.

  “I told you I’d get you!” he hissed as he launched a vicious assault, pinching and kicking, but I was ready: I had kept my arm
s out from under the covers where they would be vulnerable, and I fought back. A couple of punches to the head were sufficient to put him off. Nothing would be said the following morning but the incident would be repeated whenever it was me who caused the punishment. I put up with the situation but Coivin brought more trouble on our heads by his defiance. He was truculent, angry and cheeky. He promised our tormentors that they would pay when he was king of Donegal. They would thrash us all the more, and Coivin would take it all out on me.

  I was finishing some late revision in the library one evening when Lucius came in. He looked briefly through a couple of shelves before casually selecting a codex. He called me over. I felt a cool shiver and was reluctant: I didn’t know why. It was just another of my feelings. I did as I was told.

  “Ciaran, come with me. There’s something I want you to do. Leave your books,” he added as I went to gather my things up, “you can collect them later.” I knew better than to debate the point, even though I was concerned at leaving them to be found by any of my schoolmates - Coivin in particular, for all that he was my cousin. Anyway, I followed dutifully to the druid’s cell but the sense of unease growing.