by Wayne Grant
At the top of the hill, the Abbot halted beside a newly-erected high cross. At the base of the cross was a mound of carefully chosen stones marking a gravesite. Carved in the centre of the stone cross was the name “Padraig”. Declan had been ten years in England with occasional forays to the Holy Land and into Wales, but his heart remained Irish. He felt a lump in his throat as he looked upon the final resting place of Patrick.
Abbot Layton stood beside the grave in silence for a long time waiting on the gathering flock still trudging up the hill. The abbey monks fell silent. When the crowd settled, the tall churchman raised his hands to heaven.
“Today, we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven!” he exclaimed in English. The crowd remained silent. The Abbot gestured for Anselm to come forward and he took the bell shrine from the monk. He raised the ornate shrine over his head.
“And we celebrate,” he continued, his voice rising to a triumphant shout—"Naomh Padraig!”
Saint Patrick’s Bell
Finn Mac Clure watched as Abbot Layton raised the shrine and shouted Saint Patrick’s name to the masses in poorly accented Gaelic. He had caught up with the processional as it reached the northern end of the abbey grounds and followed the monks up the hill, forcing his way through the crowd to get a better look at the ceremony. He squeezed through to the front rank of onlookers just as the Abbot made his dramatic presentation to the gathered faithful.
All around him people turned their gaze up to look upon the holy relic and murmured prayers. Finn kept his eyes to the front scanning the crowd anxiously. Then he saw him! At the top of the hill, among a cluster of monks was the red-haired knight who’d given him silver back in Carrickfergus.
In his excitement, Finn was tempted to break away from the crowd and run to take this news to Sir Roland, but he hesitated. No doubt word that his friends had been located would be well received, but why not wait for the end of the ceremony and simply take the Irish knight to where Sir Roland was waiting? Surely it was the sort of thing a good squire might do for his master. He decided to wait.
Satisfied with the effect Patrick’s bell shrine had had upon the locals, Abbot Layton rushed through a final benediction and ended the service. He and his gaggle of monks turned away from the crowd and made their way across the top of the hill to a side entrance to the church. Finn watched them file inside with Sir Declan, the skinny monk he’d seen in Carrickfergus and a nun trailing behind them. He found a nice spot beneath a sapling and sat down to wait and watch.
***
It took a moment for Declan’s eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight on the hilltop to the interior of the church as they passed through the narrow side door. Most of the monks had dispersed to other duties without entering the church, but the relic bearers gathered at the door to the sacristy to put away their treasures until the next holy day.
Abbot Layton, pleased with the ceremony, had a rare smile on his stern features.
“Did you see how they wept at the sight of this?” he asked, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. “Our benefactor, Prince de Courcy, knew what a prize he had when he took it from a dead heretic on the field of battle and placed it with us. The bell is proof that God guides our hands and that we are the true heirs to Saint Patrick!” he exclaimed.
Declan stole a look at Margaret. The dead heretic had been her father. The girl’s face was turning a bright shade of crimson and her jaw muscles worked as she fought to contain her fury. No one seemed to notice, as all eyes were on the bell shrine. He laid a gentle hand on her arm, but she jerked it away.
He’d feared that bringing her here was a mistake. He knew now that it was. She’d come for a last look at the bell that meant so much to her family, but seeing it in these men’s hands must have felt like a sacrilege. Seeing it thus would give her no peace. He felt sorry for the girl, but there was nothing to be done.
The Abbot handed the shrine back to Brother Anselm, and turned to Cyril.
“These public ceremonies are a drain,” he said, wearily, “but I will be refreshed on the morrow and will look forward to consulting with you, Brother Cyril.”
“I’m honoured, Father Abbot,” Cyril replied.
Declan felt his tension ease a bit as this engagement with the Abbot was ending. By morning, he planned to be well on his way back to Carrickfergus, leaving the Abbot to wonder what had become of his visitors from Chester. Then he saw Margaret lay a dainty hand on Brother Anselm’s arm as the man was turning to enter the sacristy and his tension flooded back.
“Brother Anselm, could I possibly hold it?” she asked the monk sweetly. “Just for a moment—it’s so beautiful!”
Cyril cast a worried glance at Declan. This was not part of the plan. Declan scowled and tried to catch the girl’s eye, but she ignored him. Brother Anselm looked to the Abbot for guidance. For a moment the tall cleric stood stone-faced, then gave a reluctant nod. Anselm turned back to the girl.
“Why, yes, Sister, but please do be careful. The gold scrollwork is very delicate.”
He placed the shrine gently in Margaret’s hands and beamed down at her. Margaret Maelchallain hardly looked at the shrine. Instead, she kicked the monk in the crotch. Anselm howled and bent double, then crumpled to the floor, writhing in agony. Abbot Layton looked on, his mouth agape, but recovered quickly. With a snarl, he lunged at Margaret, his hands reaching for the bell. Declan moved to shield her, but Brother Cyril was quicker. He stepped between the Abbot and the girl and punched the startled churchman in the nose. A bright spatter of blood fell on the man’s immaculate black robes as he reeled backwards.
“Oh good God!” Declan blurted and whirled around to see who might have witnessed this sudden assault. There was a monk and one of de Courcy’s men-at-arms standing in the main doorway of the nave. They had been engaged in conversation, but turned together to see what had caused the sudden uproar inside. The monk’s eyes grew large when he saw one of his brethren writhing on the floor and the Abbot leaning on a bench for support, holding a hand over his broken nose. The guard was not so slow to react.
“You there!” he ordered. “Don’t move!”
Declan moved.
He grabbed Margaret by her wrist and bolted toward the side entrance of the church with Cyril following close on his heels. Behind him he heard the guard raise a hue and cry. There had been a dozen or more armed men from de Courcy’s garrison assigned to keep watch over the feast day activities at the Abbey and they would now be alerted to trouble.
The three fugitives burst out into the daylight at the side of the church and stopped. A boy sitting under a sapling sprang to his feet and stared at them. The crowd of worshipers had mostly dispersed, but a little ways down the hill a few of the laggards caught sight of them. One gaped at Margaret and pointed at the object she held tightly to her chest.
“An clog!” he shouted in awe and crossed himself.
“Damn!” Declan cursed. Saint Patrick’s bell and Margaret Maelchallain were about to get them all killed! His first thought was to flee north. That side of the hill was empty all the way to the berm at its base, but the land beyond was hemmed in by the river and marshes and their horses were in the opposite direction. Without mounts they would not get far, but to get to them they would have to pass through the heart of the abbey. Now that an alarm had been raised, de Courcy’s guards would surely be gathering there. Still, without the horses they were doomed. South it must be.
He turned to his left and, keeping close to the west wall of the church, headed south. He still held Margaret’s wrist and she did not try to resist as he pulled her along behind. Cyril brought up the rear, casting anxious eyes back toward the side entrance of the church should pursuit come from that direction.
When they reached the front of the church Declan stopped and looked down the long sweep of the hill. Near the first line of buildings, ten men-at-arms were forming a loose line and moving uphill toward them. A hard looking man, no doubt a sergeant, saw the three at the top of th
e hill and barked out an order. His men spread out further, intending to come at their quarry from front and sides.
Declan released Margaret and drew his broadsword.
***
Forty paces behind the three fugitives, Finn Mac Clure stood frozen to the spot, watching in horror as the Irish knight drew his sword. He couldn’t believe his ill luck. He’d found the folk Sir Roland had asked him to find and now they were all about to be killed! This would be a black mark against him for certain and that was something he couldn’t abide. He set off down the western slope of the hill until he was out of sight of the approaching soldiers. Once there he broke into a sprint. No one paid any attention to the skinny boy running like the Devil was on his heels toward the south entrance of the abbey.
***
For an hour, Roland had kept watch from a small patch of woods a quarter mile south of Down Abbey. He’d seen the processional reach the south entrance to the abbey and turn west. There had been a cluster of black-clad monks trailing behind a raised Crucifix and a large crowd of locals swirling around the edges, but that was all he could make out. If Declan or Cyril or Finn was there, he could not see them.
He watched the crowd disappear around the hill and could do nothing but wait. Finally, people appeared, coming over the crest of the hill in ones and twos at first, then in larger groups. A half dozen boys chased each other down the slope and out the south entrance to the abbey grounds. Crowds of locals followed them and begin to stream out of the abbey grounds, marking the end of the feast day services. All seemed as it should be as he waited anxiously for Finn’s return.
Then an uproar broke out near the top of the hill.
Something he could not see had caused an alarm to be raised and soldiers who had been lounging around the abbey grounds were suddenly running towards the church. He could hear shouted orders and saw the men-at-arms forming up just below the crest of the hill.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
He swung up on The Grey’s back and dug his heels in the gelding’s flanks. The horse broke out of the trees and bounded across the open field that lay between the woods and the abbey. As he rode, Roland scanned the hill to his front. The soldiers had shaken out into a line and were moving cautiously up the hill. He could not yet see what their target was.
Could it be Finn?
He doubted an unarmed boy of ten would call for such an extreme response from de Courcy’s garrison troops, but something was amiss and Finn had not returned. He gave The Grey a slap on the haunches and the horse broke into a gallop, eating up the ground even faster. A half minute later, he reined in near the cut in the berm. A big farm boy was sitting on the berm eyeing him leerily. Near the boy were three horses staked to the ground. The little Irish pony meant nothing to him, but the chestnut mare he knew well. It belonged to Declan O’Duinne and the long-legged bay was Brother Cyril’s mount.
He swung down off The Grey, strung his longbow and draped his quiver over his shoulder. The farm boy did not wait around for his promised coin. He scrambled down off the berm and ran. Roland climbed to where he’d been sitting and drew an arrow from his quiver. A hundred paces to his front, he saw a familiar figure.
Finn Mac Clure was running down the hill toward him, his skinny legs churning.
***
Declan stood at the top of the hill and watched the soldiers closing in. A few of those on the flanks looked to be local boys, recruited to help man the garrison, but a half dozen in the centre he marked as trained men. He could tell by the way they moved and the way they held their weapons. The sight made him wish he hadn’t left his mail hauberk rolled up and lashed to his saddle.
He looked over his shoulder to see Cyril and Margaret huddled a few yards behind him, the girl still clutching Saint Patrick’s bell to her breast. He wondered what they would do to her if she were taken. It would not be pretty. Abbot Layton would see to that.
“If I can cut a hole in their line, we run for the horses,” he called back to them. “If they cut a hole in me, fend for yerselves.”
“God will not fail us!” Margaret assured him.
“We’ll see,” Declan muttered to himself and began to move down the hill toward the advancing soldiers. It was always best to take a little of the initiative away from men coming to kill you.
***
A young soldier on the left end of the line was unsettled by the sight of the man striding down the hill toward them. A moment before, he’d been thrilled at the prospect of killing or capturing these folk who had committed some transgression on the abbey grounds. The son of a pig farmer, he’d joined the garrison at Down to escape the filth and boredom of his life and to impress a local girl, but a year of guard duty at the motte had proven to be more boring than slopping hogs. It had left him longing for something to relieve the tedium. When the sergeant sounded the alarm and ordered him into ranks beside nine of his comrades he’d felt no fear—only excitement.
But now the man was only thirty paces away and the wicked steel blade he swung looked deadly. The boy felt his gut twist and his legs start to go wobbly. In a panic, he cocked his arm and launched his spear at the man’s chest. It never reached its mark as it was slapped aside with the flat of the man’s sword as though it were an annoying fly. The sergeant screamed a curse at the boy, who turned and fled down the hill.
***
Declan watched the lad break and run. The local boys who remained all looked nervous, but the half dozen men at the centre of the line did not waver. They were veterans and would know how to use their spears. He broke into a trot straight at them then cut to his right. The man to his front lunged forward with a hasty underhand thrust of his spear. Declan brought his blade down in a quick chopping motion, slicing cleanly through the spear’s wooden shaft, its iron point falling harmlessly into the grass. He shifted his weight and launched a vicious backhand slash that caught the man on the side of his helmet, dropping him in a heap.
From the left, another spearpoint came at him in a blur. He jerked backwards from the waist, but the blade ripped the front of his tunic, cutting a furrow across his chest. He grabbed the shaft and yanked its owner toward him. This soldier was no green pig farmer and neither was he a fool. He let go and scrambled backwards. Two more spears were thrust at him, narrowly missing and forcing him to move back uphill.
“Throw down yer sword and ye’ll live,” the sergeant called to him while motioning for his men to circle around on either side.
“I doubt that,” he replied, nodding toward a tall, black-clad figure hurrying up behind the line of soldiers. It was Abbot Layton, his face a mask of fury and still smeared with his own blood. “I believe we’ve upset the Abbot.”
The sergeant shrugged.
“That’s between you and the Abbot,” he said.
“Kill him,” the Abbot screamed at the sergeant. “He has defiled the church of Saint Patrick!”
The sergeant shrugged again.
“I take me orders from Sir Randolph Quincy at the fort and he takes his orders from the Prince. If this lot will come peaceable, we’ll put ‘em under lock and key and ye can take it up with them.”
Abbot Layton sputtered and issued threats, but the sergeant stolidly stuck to his duty as he saw it.
Declan smiled at the man as he edged backwards.
“You’re a good man, sergeant, but I doubt we would fare any better with de Courcy than with the Abbot, so I’ll have to refuse your invitation to lay down my sword.”
The sergeant shrugged and signalled to his men to close in. He’d taken two steps forward when a scream escaped his lips. He dropped his spear and staggered, then went down on all fours, an arrow protruding from his hindquarters. As the sergeant groaned and fell on his side, Declan looked down the hill and wanted to weep. Roland Inness was standing on the berm there and his bow was drawn.
Seeing their sergeant take an arrow, the veteran soldiers on the hill instantly recognized their danger. They wore no mail and had no shields. They threw th
emselves to the ground and made themselves as small a target as possible for the archer down the hill. The new men, seeing the veterans rooted to the ground, tried to burrow into the hillside as well. Abbot Layton’s face turned ashen and he began backing away toward the church. Declan turned to Cyril and Margaret and motioned them forward.
“You were right, Margaret,” he said as she reached him. “God did not fail us. He sent us Roland Inness.”
***
Roland saw the men-at-arms drop to the ground and lowered his longbow. He watched Brother Cyril and what looked to be a nun stepping gingerly between the soldiers hugging the grassy hillside. None rose to stop them as they joined Declan. Together, the three ran down the long slope to the berm where their horses were tethered. When they reached the bottom of the hill, Declan, grabbed Roland in a bear hug.
“God knows how ye got here, Roland, but yer a damned welcome sight!”
“He dropped from a privy!” Finn put in cheerily.
Declan arched an eyebrow.
“Now there’s a tale I’ll want to hear,” he said, releasing his friend and looking back up the hill where the garrison troops were beginning to rise from the ground. “But no time now. The Prince’s men will be along ‘for long and they’ll bring shields I’d wager.”
Roland looked past his friend and saw two soldiers being dispatched on the run to carry the alarm to the garrison a mile down the road.
“You’re more right than you know, Dec, the Prince’s men are coming and not just the men from the motte east of here. Five shiploads of English mercenaries landed at Carrickfergus just two days ago. De Courcy has summoned Irish troops from Antrim and when they arrive he said he would march against Tyrone. He wanted me to join him!”
Declan grimaced.
“So soon? I’d hoped to get clear of here before the next war began.”
“Might be sooner, once this news reaches him,” Roland said, standing back and looking at Declan’s bloody shirt. “We need to see to your wound.”