Book of Kells

by R. A. MacAvoy

  “And that reminds me, Derval. I didn’t know there was a native left in Ireland that couldn’t speak English.”

  “There isn’t,” she answered shortly.

  “There’s her,” stated John, as Ailesh picked up the white sheet John had left lying, wrapped it around herself, and settled sighing down on the floor. He was impressed to see she could crouch on her pretty haunches with her feet flat on the boards. It reminded him of his grandfather, and of other native Americans he had met at the fishing stations: Inuit, Micmacs. They sat crouched on flat feet too. But this girl’s broad, spreading feet, while quite handsome in shape, didn’t look like they would even fit into shoes.

  Derval shook her head and said nothing.

  Outside, the iron balustrade rang like a dull bell, and one hoof pawed the concrete walkway impatiently. Derval had for once forgotten about her horse, and the horse didn’t like it. John’s mood lifted a little, for he sometimes felt he was a second-rate competitor with Tinker for Derval’s attention.

  The dark-haired woman turned her head to the window and stood staring out at her impatient beast. “It’s a really good reconstruction of Old Irish she’s…” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  John cast a glance from Derval to the sheet-muffled girl across the room, only to find two round brown eyes meeting his, incomprehensible as the eyes of a bird. He avoided them with difficulty. “Not modern Irish, eh? Well, I’m glad to hear it. After six months of lessons I had hoped I could understand something.”

  Derval hadn’t moved, nor did she seem to notice that big gray Tinker had pulled two of the rusted balustrade posts out of their concrete anchors. Her face was averted from John, but repeated in the glass of the window. “Really good,” she said tonelessly. “And she’s told me just now that she’s escaped a slua of Danes.”

  “Danes?” John echoed helplessly. “What Danes? She doesn’t mean me, does she? I’m not a Dane; I’m a Jack-a-tar from—”

  “No, Johnnie-Joe, not you.” Derval laughed sadly. “Not unless you’ve just taken up plundering, burning, and slave-taking.” She turned around and smiled at him, her tongue thrust firmly into her cheek.

  “Ramlatch. Pure ramlatch!” John replied.

  Chapter Two

  Then that deadly hostile army arose and went to the horses and the quays where the boats were ready for them; and they set afloat their terrible, wonderful, very dreadful sea monsters, and their swift, long, firm barques and their many-coloured sombre ships.

  Cath Maighe Lena,

  Thirteenth Century A.D.

  The girl who called herself Ailesh sat at the kitchen table, still wrapped in a sheet, the look of immense sadness in her eyes warring with a sour expression around her mouth. Derval rinsed sticky honey off a spoon in the sink.

  “I think she still tasted it,” commented John, who had watched disinterestedly from across the table.

  “Of course she did,” replied the dark woman, whose heavy hair was escaping the rubber band to fall over her face. She brushed it back with one thin shoulder, while dabbling her fingers through the running water. “Valium has a taste like lye and ashes. But twenty milligrams ought to do her good.”

  John didn’t like looking into the injured girl’s eyes. He did, however, like looking at the rest of her, or as much of her as he could see under the sheet, which was a bit of cleavage, a hairy little leg, and her arms. Odd, then, that he found his gaze wandering helplessly back to her face, printed with all that mad tragedy. It seemed genuine enough to him. “I didn’t know you still took that stuff, Derval. You told me back at St. John that it was only because travel unsettled you, and—”

  “I don’t, always…” said Derval, fiddling with her hair and glancing away, out the window of the kitchen door. “Just happened to be carrying it.” Her vague eyes focused.

  “I’ll believe she didn’t get in the house this way, Johnnie.” She pointed to the cobwebby door. John shrugged. “It doesn’t work.”

  Derval put her hand to the crazed china knob and worked it. Both John and Ailesh watched her tug, grunting. “I think you could fix it, handy with tools as you are.”

  John Thornburn’s face went more lackluster than usual. “I’m no carpenter.” Then, as Derval’s energetic pulls caused the warped door to spring out, he added, “Could you put the trash outside, eh, since you’ve got it open, Derval? It’s a bit griny.”

  She looked like she had a sharp answer on her tongue, but picked up the odorous basket with one hand and set it on the stoop. Even on the surface the basket was disgusting; John thought it better not even to contemplate its fermenting depths: a green-haired shriveling apple, half a packet of limp potato crisps, beer-soaked cigarette butts from that last evening with Kieran Hakett just a few weeks ago.

  Hakett was the only steady drinking buddy John had acquired in the time he’d lived in Dublin. Derval wrinkled her nose. She despised Hakett for his constant and disrespectful reference to areas of female anatomy.

  “I just thought it would make things more pleasant,” said John.

  Ailesh listened to and watched this interchange closely. John bit down on his thumb and thought about her.

  He wasn’t sure he believed she didn’t understand English. He wasn’t sure he believed anything about her, except that she was female. At the same time he was smitten with the feeling he was being a very bad host. These two influences came to a head together and he found himself asking her, “Do you want some milk?”

  “The word for milk is bainne.”

  “Hush,” John said to Derval, and he watched Ailesh’s face.

  It was disappointing, for the girl met his glance with nothing but animal alertness. She turned to Derval and spoke.

  Derval leaned to John. “She’s asking me what you said. Should I tell her?”

  Politeness overcame John’s detective instincts. “Yes, of course,” he mumbled. “Tell her.”

  Ailesh looked back at John. Her face went suddenly shy. She spoke again. “Nírbo dú dom acht gebhad-sa uait madh maith let.”

  Derval translated her reply. “No, but she apologizes for refusing to take food with you.”

  Then the girl gave a sigh and the sheet rustled as her body visibly relaxed. The alteration meant more of her anatomy became visible, but at the same time her face softened, and John found his eyes straying from the pulchritude to the single tear that hung glistening on Ailesh’s cheek.

  She opened her small mouth and began to speak.

  Derval understood every word the girl was saying. It was becoming easier and easier.

  “Ni fhedarsa cía tainm ńo cía feras in fháilti. Though it is unknown to me who you are or who makes me welcome, whether you are the saints of God, men of the flesh, or sidhe or sacred beings for which I have no name, I will tell you the cause of my grief, that my tears will not be as a shame on me.

  “I am no foolish slave or coward. My father is Goban MacDuilta, son of Ciaran, son of Bascine of the line of artificers to the taiseachs of Muhman, the Eoinachta. As for Sabia, my mother, she also was illustriously connected. Her father was Fiachra MacThuthail, an Ollave of great fame throughout this whole island. And her coibche, her bride gift, was forty prize cows with all their calves, and the calves with collars of silver bells. Though learned, she never gained renown, as she died young. I am the daughter of their union; the only living child. My mother’s sister is married to the taiseach of the Ui Garrchon. Among them I was fostered in the house of his sisters.” She cleared her phlegmy throat.

  Derval gripped the edge of the table.

  “Have no fear, Mo stor gal, my bright treasure,” she reassured her. “We are living people, baptized like yourself.”

  “God be thanked for it.” Ailesh made the sign of the cross as if a terrible fear had been taken away. “Then it must be through lawful power that I was brought to this beautiful house.”

  Derval, at this last statement, could not suppress a snort of laughter and a round-eyed glance through the filthy kitchen.
>
  John could not help but notice her response. “What’s she saying, eh? Eh?” She ignored him.

  Ailesh continued. “Only a little time ago I was in the clachan, taking a steam bath with the other maidens of Ard na Bhfuinseoge. Light and careless was my laughter today. Often is our joy on earth cut short by some unforeseen thing. The Gaill must have docked near the harbor of Na Clocha Líatha and marched south and inland. It was at our bath we were surprised by the enemy, dragged out naked and weaponless to ruin and murder. I was thrown down and forced by one of these hell dogs, but he…he was ignorant of the women of the Gael.

  “Though married against my will I am a widow already. I pulled his own knife and pierced him beneath the armpit so that he got his death. Then I escaped and ran to find my father.”

  In her eagerness to hear the end of the story, Derval almost missed the fact that the girl was confessing to homicide.

  “Pursued by one of the reavers, I found Goban. Never, even if my eyes are blinded with age, will I forget the sight. In the smoke of the burning, he still worked upon the cross of Bridget, hammer and chisel in his hand. Just as I reached him he seized me and threw me against the stone. I passed through it unharmed, and that is how I came here. Whether my father is living or dead, I don’t know.”

  Her face was now channeled with tears. “Our home was a scared place, a community of families given to the service of God. We had few weapons, and no time to take them up. We were helpless before their cruelty.”

  Ailesh broke down and sobbed for a while. She wiped her face and looked into Derval’s eyes, then John’s. “As for myself, I killed my enemy, and though some say that is a sin, I do not regret it.”

  Now she began to wail in earnest. Her voice rang through the kitchen. John sprang out of his chair and made his own little moan. “Ye Gods! Why’s she doing that, Derval? The whole neighborhood will hear.”

  John backed into the refrigerator. He grabbed its handle and wrenched the door open. His rummaging hand found the carton of milk. “Here. Make her drink this. She can’t scream if she’s drinking.”

  “She’s just crying. And after what I have just heard, I wonder I’m not joining her. Truth or madness, it’s the most hideous story.”

  Ailesh, whose eyes had been screwed shut with misery, felt a blast of cold air on her face. She looked up to see John Thornburn with his back against the shelves of the refrigerator, with a bright rectangle sloshing in his hand and the little yellow light peeping out behind him. Out of the cold and confusion she understood one thing: John’s face, lit by a cold hero-light and full of alarm. Her wailing died away and she spoke to Derval.

  “She says she won’t wail if it displeases you.”

  “Nice of the girl,” he muttered, stepping out of the refrigerator. A knock came at the front door.

  John wilted. He sank into the chair beside Ailesh. “Oh shit.”

  Derval’s mouth was rather wide and grew wider as a smile stretched it. “Leave it to me, Johnnie,” she said and swaggered out of the kitchen. “I feel the need for an act of bravery.”

  With the departure of Derval, and thus of all hope of translation between them, a sort of simplicity descended between John and his visitor. The small female with brown eyes and auburn hair sat quietly, her misery smudged but not erased by the tranquilizer. John listened to the voices from the front room and recognized that of Mrs. Hanlon. He rolled his mismatched eyes at Ailesh and put his finger (well-bitten and sore of tip) to his lips warningly.

  But when Ailesh shrank into herself and began to tremble, John realized he had made a mistake. He patted her hand.

  “That’s a good girl,” he whispered. “No need to be frightened. No one’s going to hurt you. Any more, that is. Not you. Just me, maybe.

  “Oh Lord.” He let his head sink into his hand. How could he ever convince the gardai that it hadn’t been him abusing the child? Bite prints, possibly? How? Would they ask him to bite a plate of gell, as he had done in orthodontia? Surely they wouldn’t want to try his mouth against the girl’s…against the girl’s… He gave out a small, involuntary groan.

  John glanced up in surprise to find Ailesh patting his hand. His face colored. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to me. I’m very self-centered,” he said. “And I worry.”

  Ailesh glanced meaningfully over her shoulder and put her finger to her lips.

  “That was your landlady,” stated Derval, returning to the table after five minutes’ absence. “She heard Ailesh. I told her we were practicing for a symposium on ancient customs.”

  “And she believed you?”

  “Very nice lady,” replied Derval noncommittally. “Lost a hen, she says.” Instead of sitting down, she wandered over to the stove. “Dying for a cup of tea,” she said. She found the lidless kettle. Fingered the grease on its sides with some distaste.

  “You know what I think?” Without waiting for a reply Derval continued, “The only thing I can think, without going insane myself. I think…perhaps Ailesh’s background is something like mine.”

  “You mean she’s a language teacher gone potty?” John asked innocently. “Not necessarily a teacher. She could—” Derval suddenly realized what John had implied. “One for you, Johnnie boy. What I meant was, she may have been at some time a student. And a good one, if the perfection of her story is any indication.

  “Though she looks so young… And also, I can’t remember ever seeing her face in a class, and in my field one gets to know just about everyone. But there are other schools than Trinity.

  “And then”—Derval stopped, uncharacteristically unsure— “I read about a case of old Freud’s, where a young girl of German parents suddenly started speaking French, and seemed utterly unable to communicate in her own language. She was very convincing, in her new identity.”

  John frowned. “But she knew French already, didn’t she?”

  “I guess. A bit. And maybe Ailesh here knew a bit of Middle Irish.”

  John Thornburn lowered his thin brows and gazed perplexedly at the redheaded girl. “If going crazy is so good for one’s language skills…”

  Derval smiled wolfishly. “Evidently so, Johnnie. All you have to do is marry a woman who’ll abuse you like this.”

  “Eh? Oh, I doubt it was her husband…”

  “Do you? Little innocent. I don’t doubt it a minute. Things like that happen right here near Dublin every day. I could tell you stories about what husbands and fathers do to women in this country—”

  “You do tell me those stories, Derval. Constantly.” John twisted his limp hair around one finger. “But I hardly believe that a father or husband did this to our Ailesh.”

  The girl, who had observed this interchange with unhappy incomprehension, heard her name mentioned. She shifted in her corner and made a small animal noise. John glanced at her, let the lines of irritation fade from his face, and gave Ailesh a slight, sweet smile.

  Derval looked beleaguered. “Do you have a better explanation?”

  John folded his hands and let his heels kick him right and left on the high drafting stool. The spitcurl he had worried into being hung over his right eye. “I just think she’s crazy,” he said, as though disposing of a complex intellectual puzzle once and for all.

  Derval sighed, giving him up in despair. Dust-ridden sunlight filled the silence. The next person to speak was Ailesh.

  “She asks us why she’s here,” translated Derval carefully. “She wants to know if we’re going to help her revenge Ard na Bhfuinseoge: the Hill of the Ash Trees.”

  John flinched at ugly suggestion of violence. “Can you think of some way of explaining to her—some way that won’t set her off again—that—”

  “I told her we’d help her in any way we could,” replied Derval simply.

  “She didn’t get in behind me,” stated John. “I’m not blind.”

  Derval eyed the positions of the high chair and the door suspiciously. “No, but you’re a demon for concentration when you’re working, Johnnie
. I’m not sure you’d notice a cliff falling on you.”

  “She didn’t get in,” he repeated stolidly. “She couldn’t have, without moving the top of the tracing, which was over the board like this—see?” Effortfully, John Thornburn recreated the situation of his morning’s work. “And though I admit I might not have heard an elephant trumpeting over Furey…”

  “You were listening to the pipes, then?”

  “Yes. You’ll be glad to know I played the record all morning, though I still don’t understand the appeal any more than…”

  Derval strolled over to where the stereo sat on brick-supported shelves. She turned it on and lowered the needle to the record. “You should use a record cleaner,” she commented, and then started backward as the floor-shaking immensity of sound broke out. Her hand groped for the volume control. “Jesus and Joseph!” she said.

  John squirmed. “Well, I was alone, you know. Not trying to carry on a conversation over the noise.” His eye was caught by the sight of Ailesh, in her white swaddling, scurrying around the corner and into the kitchen. “She’s looking for the piper,” he remarked, and then returned his attention to the work at his hand.

  “I was just doing spirals,” John explained to Derval, and as he spoke he suited the action to the word. “Simple spirals in a line—two cycles in, two cycles out. Nothing that required real concentration.”

  “Not for you, my dear,” admitted Derval, with a sly grin. “So then, how’d she get in?”

  “The bathroom window. I said that before.” John set his dimpled jaw and stared at the paper before him. His hand, as though self-propelled, drew the pencil over the same interwoven circles as before. Such was his mastery of this obscure craft that no smudging or thickening of the line was evident.

  “It’s painted shut,” Derval stated, not for the first time. She was left staring at the top of his flaxen head.

  She had known John Thornburn for two and a half years. Her first exaggerated respect for the man’s talent had pushed her toward an intimacy—an intimacy to which John had vaguely acquiesced. He had come to Ireland upon her prodding.