by J. C. Hanna
Victoricus came to a sudden stop. Tarish raced towards Patrick. The angel turned and walked away. As he did so, the storm once again closed in around the boat.
“What’s going on?” Patrick asked as Tarish reached the craft.
“Tall and shiny says that the storm will take us to our destination,” Tarish said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
The fairy shrugged its shoulders.
“And you didn’t think to ask?”
Tarish scowled at Patrick.
For the next two hours, the little boat hopped from the crest of one mighty wave to another. Patrick held on as best he could, but the feeble strength of his youthful arms was no match for the violent motion caused by the storm. He was sore, and sick, and confused—why didn’t Victoricus simply calm the storm? Why couldn’t they travel to their destination in comfort and safety? He asked the questions in silence, and with fear-driven anger.
Their turbulent voyage came to an abrupt conclusion on the east coast of Ireland. A monstrous wave lifted the boat and the craft cruelly smashed against a crop of black rocks. Patrick rolled clear of the impact, across the rocks, and onto a pebble beach. Cold, wet, and sore; the youth was also exhausted. He looked up towards a rocky cliff face. There was a figure with a lantern standing on the clifftop. At first, Patrick thought the figure to be Victoricus, but when two more figures appeared, also carrying lanterns, he knew that he was mistaken—Victoricus always appeared alone, and he had no need for lanterns.
As the men moved towards him, Patrick simply rolled over and closed his eyes in exhausted defeat. He had landed on the coast of the Kingdom of Mourne. The men were not on a mission of rescue; they were coming to enslave him. It was their right to claim any salvage on their shoreline; wine; wood, animals, or human beings.
For the next ten years, Patrick would be at their command, and at their mercy. They brutalised him into submission. To stay with those people and to learn about their culture and their religion, was his mission. To forsake his homeland and all those that he loved, the price of serving God.
For ten long years, he never spoke about his faith—he prayed silently in the small room that became his home. He prayed in hushed tones when he was alone on the mountains, and in the forests. He waited patiently for instructions. He learned the language of his captors, and he fell in love with a local girl—though she never dared to love him back—it would have meant disgrace for her, and death for him. And so, he waited. And he waited. And the years passed by slowly. In all that time, none of his captors knew anything about his mission. They were to learn very little about the quiet, Roman boy. They didn’t even learn his real name. When first asked, he said that that he was called Rufus. He wasn’t sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to say—why tell the cruel barbarians anything but the lies that they deserved?
His time with the people of Mourne came to a sudden end late one night in a springtime. Victoricus appeared to Patrick in his room.
“It is time to go,” announced the angel.
“Go where?” Patrick asked.
“Back to the land of your birth. Back to your family.”
The angel led Patrick through a forest, alongside a wide, fast-flowing river, and then back to the beach where he had first landed in Ireland. There was a large merchant ship moored off the shoreline. A smaller vessel, anchored by the edge of the black rocks was waiting to take Patrick to the ship. He had no idea who had arranged it, but he trusted explicitly in the escape plan.
As he sat on the deck of the ship as it sailed towards England, Patrick looked back. He was exhilarated to be free, and very excited by the prospect of seeing his family again. He felt a bitter pang. Ten years was a long time to spend with a people, regardless of the circumstances. He would miss them. But he would miss them from afar, and as a free man.
His family recognised him at once. Others took longer to accept that the wild man, with long hair, work-hardened hands, and thick arms, was their Patrick. Some never accepted the truth of his story.
With time, he missed the people of Mourne, but he did not pine for them. There were many times when he felt great anger towards them. His anger did not come from the brutality that they had used to break him; his anger was born out of something much more precious that they took from him. His beloved grandfather, Rufus, had died during Patrick’s captivity. The old man never got over the loss of his grandson. He was heartbroken, riddled with guilt, and muttering Patrick’s name as he drew his last breath.
Chapter Twenty-eight: The Gauntlet
Tara: Seat of the High Kings of Ireland, 441 AD
Ronal shifted nervously in his seat as he sat by his king’s side in the Great Hall. It was early morning and a large crowd had already congregated outside the hall. The creatures of the old faith had retreated to the woodlands, and to the mountains, and to the rivers. Their time at Tara had passed. They cowered in troubled anticipation in the places where they took refuge. The certainty of their way of life was now at an end, and from that time on they would be hunted and persecuted.
A wave of idle speculation from the expectant crowd beyond the doors of the hall filled the space with a growing sense of foreboding. News of the events of the previous night was spreading fast, and with one wise man already dead, the people feared for what might follow.
“And you are confident that he can be defeated?” asked the king, in a demanding, almost desperate tone.
“You have my word, Sire,” Ronal replied, with forced confidence. “I have spoken to the most powerful wise men. They agree. He can be overcome. He will be defeated.”
The king nodded in agreement with his adviser, but a look of deep concern, present from the beginning of the exchange, did not shift from the monarch’s face. He was less than convinced by the reassurances given by Ronal. Both men were condemned to be content with the fragile delusion.
A warrior dressed in animal skins entered the hall with noisy haste. The point of his broadsword caught the uneven floor causing the weapon to clash with the metal studs on the wooden shield that hung from his hip. The clatter annoyed the king.
“My Lord; the stranger has arrived,” announced the warrior.
The king stood up. Ronal casually followed his master’s lead.
“Bid him enter,” ordered the king.
Patrick, flanked by six of the king’s fighting men, walked into the hall, confidently. Patrick had no support. He had instructed his followers to remain at the camp. He had also said, with ominous fortitude, that if the Lord did not favour him in the battle, then they were to flee north, and not look back. Safe passage to England or Scotland would follow.
Patrick walked up to the king with quiet poise. The holy man did not bow or kneel before the ruler. It was a slight that did not go unnoticed.
“This may not be your king, but he is King here,” Ronal rebuked.
Patrick smiled.
“You are of course correct,” Patrick replied. “He is not my king.”
Ronal moved forward suddenly, and with malicious intent—a dagger was in his grasp. The king grabbed Ronal by the arm, pulling him smartly back into line. Their eyes locked in a moment of tension. The wise man was defending the honour of an entire way of life and not simply the honour of one man. Ronal eventually submitted to the will of his Lord. The dagger slipped back into Ronal’s cloak.
“Forgive my man,” said the king. “You are not to know how things are done.”
“Majesty, I spent ten years of my youth as a captive in this land. I know exactly how things should be done. But you see, I have only one King. I would only disrespect you if I were to pretend otherwise and feign reverence before your Majesty. It is a truth that burns in my heart, and I would beg that you will not judge me harshly for remaining true to what I believe.”
“Ah yes, I have been informed about your mission, and of your strange beliefs. I will not judge you for what is in your heart. I will judge you for the crimes that you have committed against my faith
. No more than that. You have been to all parts of this Island. My kingdom. The name Patrick has been whispered to me from the lips of my brother kings. Each lord tells me that they have instructed you as to who is High King in this land. There would be nothing disrespectful about kneeling before the lord of such a great land. But if that is your way, then I will let it pass.”
The king picked up a clump of shamrock from the floor. He plucked a head.
“Your god has three heads? Like this fragile little plant.” began the king, derisively.
Patrick nodded. The king plucked a leaf from the head of the shamrock.
“An invisible Father?” he quizzed.
He let the leaf fall to the ground. He plucked another leaf.
“An invisible Son?” he continued.
He dropped the leaf. Plucking the final leaf.
“An invisible Spirit?” he added.
The leaf fell to the ground.
“And what are we left with? A tiny, insignificant stem. A nothing faith,” growled the king.
Patrick smiled.
“I like that,” Patrick began. “The three in one, god-head part, I mean. The rest? Well, we shall just have to see how empty my beliefs are. How invisible the Almighty truly is. It was my most earnest prayer that it would not come to this. God, it would seem, has other plans. There will be conflict.”
The king stepped forward and he placed a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.
“There is no time like the present,” said the king, through a joyless grin.
The king marched out of the Great Hall, quickly followed by Patrick, Ronal, and the soldiers. They walked for several minutes until they came to a stop by the edge of the settlement. Next to a small lake there stood two wooden buildings.
“My men constructed these two houses overnight,” said the king. “One house protected by your God, and one under the protection of our gods.”
There was a commotion from behind the buildings. Two soldiers appeared. They were holding onto the king’s youth that Patrick had converted.
“This is a simple test,” said the king. “Your follower will be placed into one of the houses, and Ronal will enter the other house. Both houses will be set on fire. If your God truly loves his follower, as you have been preaching, then the boy will live. If my gods are mightier, then Ronal shall appear unharmed, and the boy will perish.”
“And if both should die in the flames?” Patrick asked.
“Then we shall have to come up with a different test,” said the king.
The soldiers dragged the youth into one of the structures. Stout lengths of tree trunks were piled up in front of the door. Ronal walked calmly into the second house and the door was made fast in a similar fashion to the first. Two soldiers with flaming torches approached the buildings.
Chapter Twenty-nine: Showdown
Tara: Seat of the High Kings of Ireland, 441 AD
All at Tara crowded the muddy patch of earth in front of the two wooden structures.
“I must warn you,” Patrick said. “My God does not like being tested.”
The king smirked.
“This is not your God’s realm. He will be tested, or He will be condemned as a fraud,” said the king, with growing confidence.
The words had only just left the king’s lips when a thick bolt of lightning ripped through the cloudless sky towards the wooden buildings. The lightning forked above the structures, setting them ablaze as it struck. The crowd gasped and they stepped back. Some, that had gathered by the back edge of the throng, began to move away from the burning structures. When a mighty growl of thunder rolled through the valley, it bent every blade of grass and shook the people to their bones.
“Or perhaps He is willing to be tested on this occasion?” Patrick said, calmly, to the troubled king.
Ronal sat on the floor of the burning building. He muttered spells and prayers. The wise man did not have faith in his own words. His confidence lay more in the fact that the building that he was sitting in had been constructed from freshly cut wood and layered with water-soaked moss that had been stripped from the rocks around Tara during the hours of darkness. He also sat on a thick carpet of wet moss. The men of Tara doused the entire structure with water from the lake for most of the night. The building housing the boy was tinder dry. As smoke entered the building, Ronal grew concerned. As the flames started to close in around him, he was terrified. He began to scream.
Both buildings burned ferociously. The boy remained silent. Ronal continued to scream. The screams grew louder until finally there was certain, deathly silence. On realising that the plan had gone dreadfully wrong, the king ordered his men to save Ronal—he, and his men knew that it was too late, but they had to make some kind of effort. Four soldiers ran towards the building in which the wise man was imprisoned. Both buildings exploded, instantly incinerating the soldiers. The crowd gasped again. Total panic set in as hot splinters rained down.
Patrick smiled widely as the youth walked out from the remains of the burning building. His clothes and hair and skin had not been troubled by the intense fire. In tragic contrast, there was no movement from what remained of the other building. Patrick turned to face the king.
“My people will not accept this,” began the king, meekly. “One miracle will not turn them from their faith. How many must you kill before you own their hearts?”
“That is not what I am asking from you,” Patrick said.
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to be able to travel through your kingdom without fear. My followers too. I want to preach my message with freedom, and in safety. We will not force anyone to convert to our faith. We will not use miracles to try to bend them to our truth. To speak my message in peace. That is all I ask.”
The king was deeply distressed, but he could see no other way. He had to submit to Patrick’s demands.
“I agree,” said the king, simply.
Facing off, across the valley, on opposite mountain tops, stood Victoricus and the demon. As they looked down on the scene at Tara they did so with very different convictions. Victoricus saw a great victory. Freedom for the one true faith across the island had been secured. The demon, dressed in a heavy black cloak to shield it from the early morning sunlight, saw only the war that was about to commence.
Chapter Thirty: From Man to Legend
Ireland, 461 AD
For twenty years Patrick’s mission spread across the island of Ireland, without major incident. There was suspicion felt by some, and there was an annoyance felt by others, but for the most part, the people followed the decree issued by their king as they listened to what Patrick’s followers had to say, in peace. The suspicion and annoyance eventually gave way to tolerance, and then to acceptance. Day by day the teachings and traditions of the old faith lost ground to the message of Patrick. The creatures from the ancient lore were increasingly mistrusted by the people, and many were hunted, or in other ways persecuted. Their sacred forests were cut to the quick, and their rivers and mountains were thoughtlessly exploited, but the creatures themselves endured—they lived in the open by night, and avoided the hostile humans by day.
Patrick had left Tara with only one destination, and one life, in mind. As he stood on a mountaintop looking across the sea lough at the blue mountains of Mourne, he knew that he was home. As he arrived at the settlement where he had once been held captive, few people recognised the cloaked and fast-aging man as the skinny youth who had once lived amongst them as a slave. Those who did recognise him called him Rufus, for they did not know the connection between Rufus and the legendary Patrick. From that time forward he became two men—the future Saint of Ireland, and the former slave.
Rufus quickly established a small church next to the river that ran through the town. His sermons were loving and peaceful, and his tolerance of the Pagan beliefs quickly established his reputation and good standing with the people of the town. He felt great joy that his message was finding a place in the hearts of the people,
but he felt great sorrow for the fate of the beings that were being driven to despair and towards extinction through no fault of their own. He was home and he longed so very much that the creatures would also find somewhere safe to call home.
When he had been living in the town for ten years, his small, but loyal congregation banded together and they built a small house for Patrick in a nearby forest. It was the perfect location. Ancient woodland around him; a natural pond at the front of the house; a small mountain as a backdrop. He believed it was his reward for having lived such a faithful, and often troubled life.
The domestic and social bliss came to an end exactly twenty years after the events at Tara. Rufus was walking along the winding trail that led to the top of the mountain behind his home. It was a warm autumn evening. Red squirrels jumped from branch to branch as they stocked their winter larders with the autumn bounty. Clouds of swallows devoured flying insects as they accumulated energy for the long migration south for the winter. Crisp leaves carpeted the path ahead of Rufus. With staff in hand for support, the gentle gradient of the trail posed little challenge to the aging holy man.
He came to a sudden stop when a large wolfhound stepped out from the forest some fifty yards in front of him. When the animal looked back to size-up Rufus, it began to wag its bushy tail. Sensing that the dog posed no danger to him, Rufus slowly walked towards the animal. The creature turned and lazily padded away from Rufus. He followed the dog. It eventually came to a stop in front of a rocky cliff face by the side of the trail. The cliff face was small—twenty strides wide and twenty strides high—it was little more than a slight imperfection on the side of the mountain.
The dog walked towards the wall of rock. It then walked through the rock. The stone face shimmered slightly as the animal passed into it. The wolfhound vanished. Cautiously, Rufus approached the rocky outcrop. He stretched out a hand and touched the rock with a single finger. A strange tingling sensation ran up his arm and he instantly pulled back.