Saint Patrick

by Michael Scott

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Michael Scott

  Cover art used under license by Shutterstock.com

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Ebook ISBN 9780593433119

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Preface

  Chapter One: Captured

  Chapter Two: Captivity

  Chapter Three: Escape

  Chapter Four: Captured Again

  Chapter Five: Dreams and Letters

  Chapter Six: Return to Erin

  Chapter Seven: The Burning Fort

  Chapter Eight: The Druids

  Chapter Nine: One the Road to Tara

  Chapter Ten: Tara

  Chapter Eleven: Miracles

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Preface

  The young monk hurried down the long, chilly corridor, sandaled feet whispering over the straw-covered polished stones, his breath pluming around him in white clouds. A sliver of lightening sky was visible through the tall arched windows. There was the merest hint of a purple dawn in the distance. Although the boy was expecting it, the tolling of the monastery bell startled him. The bell had dictated his every waking moment since he’d entered the monastery when he was ten years old. He felt a vague twinge of guilt: he should be at morning prayer. In his six years here, he’d never missed Matins, not even when he’d once caught a fever. He found himself automatically whispering the prayers as he turned into an unfamiliar part of the old building.

  Brightly lit reed torches lined the corridor. He guessed that they had been had been lit for him. Following their light, he found himself passing through a dark tunnel. At the tunnel’s end stood a single arched doorway framed by two more lit torches.

  He paused outside the wooden door to quiet his breathing. The elder brothers taught that a monk must always be calm and measured. Inhaling deeply, he focused on the heavy dark wood before him. It was of a type he’d not seen before in Ireland. His father had been a carpenter, and he’d grown up surrounded by the smells, shades, and colors of the Irish woodland. This wood was so dark that it was almost black, studded with thick, round metal rivets that looked like tiny shields. The swirling pattern in the wood reminded him of the ancient stone monuments that could be seen throughout the countryside. The pattern was unusual. There was no decoration anywhere in the monastery, and he found himself mesmerized, tracing the circular design toward the center. Oddly, it soothed him.

  Finally, he braced himself and tapped on the door. The wood was so hard it hurt his knuckles.

  The door was opened almost immediately by a middle-aged man wearing a rough brown robe, belted around the middle with white cord. “You are Brother Conor? We have been expecting you.”

  “Yes, I am Conor. Brother Conor,” he replied quickly. He knew all the monks in the small monastery, but he’d never this man before.

  “I am Benin.”

  The young man’s heart thundered. Benin was the abbot, and the most powerful man for a hundred miles in every direction. Even the ferocious Irish chieftains in the surrounding clans respected him.

  Benin stood aside, allowing Conor to enter before closing the door firmly behind him. It whispered shut without a sound. “This way,” he said softly, leading the young monk through the small, empty room into another, larger chamber.

  Conor blinked, eyes watering. The room was bright with dozens of candles, the air heavy with the scent of beeswax. There were only two pieces of furniture in the room: a simple bed and a stool beside it. The only ornament was a plain wooden cross on the wall above the bed.

  And sitting up in the bed was an old, old man.

  He was small and thin, his skin tanned and deeply wrinkled, as if he had spent all his life out of doors. His hair and beard were snow white, and his eyes were a brilliant gray. His hands were resting on a small, beautifully bound book, but he was gazing out at the pale morning sky. He turned to look at Conor, smiled kindly, and pointed to the little stool beside the bed.

  “Sit, please.”

  Conor looked back at Benin, asking for permission. The older man nodded. “You may do as he says—this is Bishop Patrick,” he said quietly.

  Astonished, Conor turned to look at the old man in the bed. People throughout Ireland were already beginning to call this man a saint. There were many stories and legends growing up around his name. “Saint Patrick?” he asked in a whisper.

  The old man smiled again. “Just Patrick,” he said. He waited until the young monk had settled himself on the three-legged stool. “You are Brother Conor.”

  The young man nodded nervously.

  “How old are you, Brother Conor?”

  “Six and ten summers.”

  “Hard to believe, but I was once your age,” the old man said. “I believe you speak Irish and Welsh, and understand the Viking tongues.”

  “God has given me a gift for languages,” he admitted.

  “And you can write in Irish, Latin, and Greek?”

  “I can.”

  “Did you bring your writing tablet and stylus?”

  Conor nodded and produced a thin slate covered with a film of beeswax and a metal-tipped stylus. Using the stylus, he would scratch words into the wax. Later, they could be copied onto preserved animal skins called vellum. He saw Bishop Patrick eyeing the chewed end of the stylus and felt his cheeks warm with color.

  “Used to do the same myself,” the old man said with a chuckle. “Got plenty of splinters in my tongue.”

  Conor beamed and felt himself relax. The idea of the legendary Saint Patrick with splinters in his tongue suddenly made him seem much more human, and less intimidating.

  Patrick straightened himself in the bed. “I am an old man now,” he began. He spoke Irish with just the hint of an accent. “I am not long for this world, so I have decided to leave an account of my life. I want you to write my story. I will try to keep it in one tongue, but I may slip into the languages of my youth….”

  Conor’s ey
es widened, but he nodded seriously. He settled the tablet on his knee and raised his stylus.

  “Let us begin, then.” Patrick looked at the gathering dawn, the morning sky turning his gray eyes dark and distant. When he spoke again, his accent was a little stronger. “I was born in a place called Bannavem Taburniae, on the west coast of the Land of the Britons….”

  Chapter One

  Captured

  I was born in the town of Bannavem Taburniae, on the west coast of the land of the Britons. My family were Romans, and the name given to me at birth was Magonus Succatus Patricus. Succatus was my family name. Magonus is the name I was usually called. Patricus was a title. It meant that we were of patrician blood, or nobles.

  I never knew my mother, Conchessa. She died when I was very young, and despite many offers, my father never married again. I think he must have loved her very much.

  Bannavem Taburniae was a small town with a sheltered harbor, and it was always busy with fishing boats and trading ships. Most of them came from the other small towns along the coast, but there were others from the Land of the Scots to the north, and the Land of Erin to the west. Occasionally, one of the great Roman warships would sail by, or rest at anchor beyond the harbor, and the captain would come ashore and dine with my father.

  My father, Calpornius, was the decurion—the tax collector for the region. In many parts of the Roman Empire, the role of tax collector was much sought after, and families made themselves wealthy by overtaxing the people in their district. But my father hated the role. And I know that if there was a shortfall in taxes, he often made up the difference himself. Eventually, however, Calpornius discovered a way to get out of the position: he became a priest. Priests were not allowed to hold positions of authority within the government.

  And it was from him that I first learned of the Christian God.

  Although we were not very wealthy, we were not poor either. We lived in a lovely home, a villa on a hill on the edge of town. When the sun was sinking into the sea in the west, its white walls and red tiled roof would burn gold and crimson in the light.

  It was an evening like that when the raiders came.

  The sun was low on the horizon, burning the sea a bright, sparkling red. No birds sang and there was no wind. All the world seemed still. I was sitting on the beach, skimming stones on the surface of the water, when I saw black dots on the distant horizon.

  At first I thought I had been staring too long at the sun. I squeezed my eyes shut and looked again. This was no trick of the light—the spots were still there, but they were still too far away to make out any details. I knew that there were no ships due in harbor for the next few days: my father had traveled south and east to Londinium on business, and he certainly wouldn’t have left if he had been expecting anything to arrive.

  The ships might simply be merchants or traders. Or they could be pirates. Several towns and villages up and down the coast had been raided by pirates and slavers from the land of Erin.

  The ships were closer now, and I began to make sense from what I was seeing.

  I felt the first stirring of panic well up inside me. What was I supposed to do? I counted six long, narrow boats, each with a square sail striped red, blue, or green. Along the sides of the crafts were small round shields. Rows of long, thin oars stuck out on either side, making the ships look like giant insects marching across the waves.

  I looked again, shading my eyes from the glare of the sun, which had now almost disappeared below the horizon. There were men lining the sides—huge, ugly men, I could see, with long hair and ragged beards, wearing clothes of rough wool and leather. The sun was glinting and sparkling off the spears and swords in their hands, and I knew for sure who they were then: pirates!

  I turned and raced up the beach, as hard and as fast as I could, shouting warnings to anyone who would listen. There was a group of fishermen sitting on their upturned boats, mending their nets at one end of the beach. They didn’t move as I ran to them. Some stopped what they were doing and looked at me curiously; others simply smiled and shook their heads. They weren’t going to be fooled again. They knew I was the decurion’s son and that I had played jokes like this before, certain that no one would punish me because of my father’s position. In frustration, I grabbed one of the fishermen and almost dragged him down the beach and around the sand dunes.

  And we were just in time to see the first of the ships sail right up onto the beach in a crunch of sand and pirates come pouring over the side.

  Though Bannavem Taburniae was a small town, Roman soldiers were often stationed there to defend it. On this particular day, though, I knew that only a few soldiers remained. Too few to stand a chance against the pirates. Also, because the attack had come late in the evening, the men coming home from the fields would be exhausted and without the energy to fight.

  I didn’t need to shout any warnings now—the pirates were making enough noise to wake the dead. They ran through town screaming and howling like beasts. Some of them grabbed townspeople right off the road, taking them prisoner. Others charged from shop to shop, from house to house, throwing all the goods they wanted out onto the street, to be collected later. The few soldiers and townspeople who attempted to stand against them were struck down without mercy.

  I fled off the main street. Our villa was up on the hill. If I could just creep up there, I knew I could hide in the cellars, or in the ice house cut deep into the hillside behind our home. We stored milk and fruit there and had a fresh supply of ice all year round.

  Though I’d darted off the main road, I wasn’t yet free from the pirates. Looking back over my shoulder, I could see them coming. I dropped and rolled beneath the bushes before the men could see me. They were so close their feet threw dust and grit against my face as they ran by. Peering after them, I could see them clearly for the first time. They were all huge and tall, with blond or red hair and beards. They wore short leather jackets, and leather or wool trousers. None of them was dressed as I was, in a short woolen tunic belted around the waist and with soft leather sandals on my feet. I wore no jewelry, but most of the pirates wore gold rings around their upper arms or had thick bracelets on their wrists, and some had beautifully carved and shaped pins holding their cloaks. In tight fists, they gripped sword and axes, spears and knives.

  By the time I reached home, the usual fresh salt and fish smells of the village were tainted with the stench of burning wood and cloth.

  Crouching behind a rock, I looked onto the town below. Bannavem Taburniae was burning, tall bronze and yellow flames dancing in the air. A thought rose in me: Surely all this destruction meant that they would be leaving soon? What else could they possibly want? It was an ugly, selfish thought. I wasn’t paying any heed to the lives lost and destroyed. My only care was that I might escape!

  From the distance, it had looked like my father’s home had been left untouched. Now, as I drew near, I saw that our polished-oak main gate had been cut and scarred. Someone must have chopped it open with an axe or sword.

  I ducked into a clump of bushes, watching the house for movement. Everything was quiet. No lights burned. In the silence, my mind raced. What had happened to the servants? Had they been taken prisoner—or had they run off? I whispered a prayer of thanks that my father had taken my sisters with him to Londinium.

  In this moment I was truly alone.

  Shivering, I slipped from the bushes and crept around the side of the villa. The red glow of the burning town below was clearly visible. A long line of white dots was snaking through the town, heading in the direction of the beach. It took me a few moments to process what I was seeing: the pirates, carrying torches, were gathering their spoils—and leaving.

  I climbed up the ancient apple tree that grew outside my room. Hanging from a branch, I peered into the darkness, listening intently. There was no noise from within, no movement. Carefully, wincing every time the branch
creaked, I climbed indoors.

  With no lights, it was difficult to see anything clearly. But from what I could make out, nothing seemed to have been touched. My room looked exactly as I had left it earlier that day. Tip-toeing across the floor, I lifted the latch and squinted out into the hall. It was brighter there. The white walls and polished marble floor reflected what little light there was. None of the statues or the huge pots my father had brought from Greece had been touched. Tapestries that had come from Rome itself still hung from the walls. It was strange. Had the pirates missed our villa? Then what about the gashes on the wooden gates? Suddenly, a vague murmur of voices drifted in from the back of the house. My heart almost stopped with fright. They echoed again. I immediately guessed that it had to be the servants, hiding in the cellars, waiting for the pirates to sail away.

  I hurried along the hall and down the stairs. The voices were clearer now, and while I couldn’t make out the words, the language didn’t sound like the harsh, barking language of the men of Erin. I slipped through the kitchen and the small doorway that led to the cellars. The voices stopped at the sound of my sandals flapping down the stone steps. I pulled open the cellar door, stepped into the round room, and immediately threw up my hand to shield my eyes. The cellar was ablaze with light.

  Rubbing my watering eyes, I said, “Hello…it’s me, Magonus.”

  Someone laughed. And it was an ugly sound.

  Rough hands grabbed me from behind, lifting me right off the ground, turning me around in a swirl of movement. The cellar was full of pirates. They were sorting through the stone jars that held the wine.

  I struggled, kicked and shouted, but the men only laughed—they knew no one could hear me or save me now.

  A huge red-bearded pirate carried me outside. He smelled so bad I could barely breathe: a mixture of sweat and sea salt, rancid fish and too much of my father’s wine. I tried speaking to him in Latin and Greek and even tried the few words of Gaulish I knew, but he only laughed, shaking his head. When I persisted, he finally snapped at me in his strange, guttural language. I didn’t understand the words, but I knew what he meant. Shut up.