Mahon found him there, at last.
CHAPTER FOUR
The monastery of Killaloe sat in silence at the foot of that great lake known as Lough Derg, near the outgo of the Shannon. Situated on a lush green meadow, embraced by dark pines, it dreamed in contemplative serenity undisturbed by the bustling river traffic. At birth of day the bell sounded the call to matins; at twilight the swallows glided overhead, crying softly to one another as they sought their nesting places.
The red stain of Boruma’s dying had been a signal that reached even to Killaloe. The monks had gathered fearfully to stare at the night sky and pray for the victims before their abbot dispersed them to carry the monastery’s few treasures into safe hiding. The gold crucifix and chalices, the silver basin and small collection of precious Gospels must be protected even before the lives of the brothers, for they were God’s property. But God was merciful, and for once the Northmen did not fall ravening upon the unprotected community of holy men.
The darkness, the ancient enemy, crouched over them, hiding foul deeds, but with the first flush of light in the eastern sky two of the brothers were sent out, armored by prayers, to offer what assistance they could to the surviving Dalcassians—if there were any to be found.
The ground was still spongy underfoot from the night’s storm, and although the sky was clear overhead, a bank of clouds to the south was heavy with the threat of more rain by evening. The air smelled fresher than new vestments. Tiny flowers starred the green turf, so that Brother Cael, who was in the lead, was forced to pick a very circuitous route in order to avoid trampling their delicate upturned faces.
Brother Cael was tall and thin; Brother Columb was short and stout. His stubby legs had not been designed by his God to keep up with the rangy meanderings of Brother Cael, and he soon found himself growing winded.
“Brother Cael, if you please! Let us slow down just a little, shall we? And tell me, my friend—why ever are you walking in serpentines?”
Brother Cael halted abruptly and turned to peer unsmiling at his companion. “We are on a mission of mercy, Brother, lest you have forgotten. It was only through God’s grace that our monastery did not rise to the heavens in flames last night as did Boruma, for surely that was the work of the Northmen. But even in my haste to offer succor to our brethren I have been careful to avoid all the new flowers the rain brought out. Surely you noticed them. It would be a cruel thing to smash them on their first day in God’s sunlight.”
Abashed, Brother Columb looked down. The flower faces looked up at him, trustingly. He felt like a gross ingrate and a potential murderer. Sweat was puddling in his armpits and his coarse brown robe made him itch. He turned his face toward the river, hoping for a cool breeze as he tugged at his robe, and so it was he who first saw the straggling line of refugees approaching on the river road.
They came at a pitifully slow pace, leaning on one another, emerging painfully from the shelter of the trees into the light of the rising sun. Even at a distance it was obvious that few among them were uninjured.
Brother Columb stared slack-jawed. Then his heart leaped with pity and he grabbed Cael by the arm. “Look, oh, look, Cael!” he cried, beginning to run over the grassy earth as fast as his legs would carry him, puffing prodigiously. After one quick glance Brother Cael set off behind him, passed his comrade within a stride, and flew on, murmuring incoherent sounds of distress.
The refugees from Boruma did not seem to notice the two brownclad figures hurrying toward them. They walked in a daze in the general direction of Killaloe, oblivious of everything around them, locked alone in their pain.
At the head of the pathetic column was a tall young man, stained with blood and smoke, carrying the body of an older man in his arms. Behind him two stripling boys supported a third between them, a lad whose legs still stumbled forward although his head bobbled unconscious on his breast. An ox-cart, drawn by two bleeding and half-naked men, was filled with wounded.
Behind the cart trudged two little boys, hand in hand, both stained and sooted but seemingly uninjured. The larger child clutched a crucifix in his free hand and mumbled prayers as he walked, his eyes screwed tightly shut. The smaller boy guided him, watching the road with a blank stare from which it seemed all youth had fled.
No young women were among the group, and few men of an age for battle. Less than three dozen survivors had been able to leave the ravaged community and seek aid. They had already outwalked their strength; the most seriously wounded were falling behind, and there was no one to carry them. Yet they struggled on, fleeing nightmare, haunted by the smell of roasted flesh.
Cael reached the leader and jerked to a halt, signing the Cross. With an effort, Mahon focused his eyes on the monk.
“This is Cennedi, king of the Dal Cais and prince of Thomond,” he said formally, indicating his burden. His voice was roughened by smoke. “I bring him to you for aid. Our physician is dead. Many … most of our people are dead. The attack was so sudden, they could not even get down into the souterrains to hide beneath the earth. All the land of our tuath was raided. Northmen.”
He paused, coughing for breath, and Cael tried to take Cennedi from him but Mahon refused. “Help the others,” he insisted. “This man is mine to carry.”
By the time a panting and red-faced Columb reached the group, Cael had determined that there was little to be done for any of them until they reached Killaloe. The two monks supported the stragglers, and they continued their painful journey.
Guided by Brian, Marcan walked with closed eyes, mumbling over and over, “I prayed, and God spared us. I prayed, and God spared us.” He repeated it ceaselessly, a litany whose very meaning was lost to his shocked mind. Brian took a firmer grip on his hand and led him toward the monastery.
When the refugees neared the gates, Brother Cael hurried ahead to give the news to the abbot. As the monastery was primarily devoted to prayer and contemplation rather than education and religious ministration to pilgrims, it had only one small guest house. The abbot was hard pressed to accommodate the sudden influx of people, though fortunately the good brothers included in their number several who were skilled in the healing arts and could tend the wounded.
Brother Cael gladly offered his own tiny, beehive-shaped cell for the Dal Cais chieftain. There was no bed or pallet, as the monks slept on bare earth, but the abbot brought a mattress of straw and feathers that had been made in hopes of luring a bishop to Killaloe. On this Mahon at last laid down his burden.
The tired young man dropped to his knees beside Cennedi and studied the ashen face. “Will he live?” Mahon asked of everyone and no one. Brother Hugh, Killaloe’s ablest physician, knelt by him and felt the man’s pulse in his throat. Then he rocked forward and laid his head on Cennedi’s breast, listening for the determined beat of the heart within.
“If he is not dead by now, I expect he will live, God willing,” Brother Hugh reassured the anxious watchers. “The sword thrust went right through him, but miraculously it is in a good spot—if such a thing can be said. It may have missed his vital organs altogether, and if we can keep the wound from putrefying he will recover.” He peeled away the bloodsoaked cloth and examined the wound and the wad of fabric Mahon had desperately wedged into it to stop the flow of blood. “Who did this, you?” he asked.
Mahon nodded. “The blood was just pouring out. I could think of nothing but plugging it up somehow.”
“Your instincts were right. We can cleanse the wound now, and bind it, and then I want to look at the others.”
The most gravely injured had been put into the monastery’s guest house, where they lay groaning or weeping softly. Brian and Marcan were left outside until someone had time for them, and that someone proved to be Brother Columb.
Marcan was sitting slumped on the ground, holding his cross and whispering something to himself. Brian stood beside him empty-faced, regarding his brother.
“Is he all right?” Brother Columb asked nervously.
“He wasn
’t wounded. I don’t know why—they just left him alone.”
“I prayed, and God spared us,” Marcan rasped aloud.
“Praise be!” Columb ejaculated. “Was he the recipient of a miracle, then?”
Brian shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what miracles are. Marcan seems to think so, but he’s always thought he could talk with God, anyway.”
“It is a precious gift, granted to a few,” Columb told him soberly.
Marcan’s face brightened, and he put out a hand to touch the monk’s robe. “You understand! I prayed to God! The men came in with swords and axes, and they meant to kill us all, but I prayed to God and they hit everybody once or twice and then went away. I know that God spared us. Even when the Northmen set fire to the house, it only smoldered until Mahon got there, so that he had time to get us out before the roof caved in. I prayed to God!” he reiterated feverishly.
“Was all your family spared?” Columb asked Brian with a sense of awe.
The little boy took a deep breath, feeling the clean, smokeless air burn all the way to the bottom of his lungs. If he could just keep breathing slowly and deliberately, perhaps he wouldn’t cry. He kept his eyes fixed on the rope knotted about Brother Columb’s midsection as he answered, “Fiacaid is dead.”
“The great seanchai? Ah, that is a loss. There was no poet or historian in Munster to equal him.”
Brian nodded acknowledgment, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “And two of my brothers, they were killed. And my … and my …”
He did not cry, but he could not continue. With a mighty effort he tried to suck back the tears behind his eyelids. If they ever started he thought he could not stop them until he had cried out all his insides and died. As long as he did not cry, as long as he did not mourn, death was not complete.
“Your father will live, my child,” Columb told him, eager to impart some good news to counterbalance the contained grief in the little boy’s eyes. “But I haven’t heard anything about your mother—perhaps you would like me to inquire?”
He started to go and ask someone about her, but suddenly his wrist was clamped in a grip of astonishing strength. He looked down alarmed and met a pair of ice-gray eyes glaring up at him. “No!” Brian said in a voice of command incredible in so young a child. “Don’t talk about her!”
As Brother Columb told Brother Cianus later, he almost expected the child to foam at the mouth and attack him like a wild dog. Shaken, he freed himself as best he could and hurried off to perform other, less disturbing, acts of charity. Outside the oratory he met Mahon and drew him aside.
“The small boy who is with the other, the praying one—is he your brother?”
Mahon glanced across the courtyard at them. “Yes.”
“Well, I fear his mind has been injured in some way; perhaps he was hit on the head and the bump has not yet risen?”
“He wasn’t wounded at all,” Mahon told him. “Like me, he was not in Boruma at the time of the attack.”
Mystified, Brother Columb repeated the conversation he had just had with Brian. To his dismay he saw Mahon’s eyes fill with the tears Brian had denied himself.
“Our mother, the princess Bebinn, is dead,” Mahon said in a voice bruised with pain. “She was savaged and her neck was broken. I could not hide her from the child; he insisted on going to her, and I was too busy with the wounded to stop him.”
“Ah, the poor lad!” Brother Columb twisted his plump hands together in sympathy. “And, your other brothers? You had a large family, did you not?”
“They are all hurt, some very badly, but only two are dead. I brought the rest here. It was no good trying to take care of them at the compound—everything was still burning, awful.” He shuddered at the memory and wiped his hand across his eyes. “But I must go back now and prepare the dead for burial.”
Brother Columb was horrified. “How can you do such a thing, after all you’ve just been through? Surely we can spare you that. Not I myself, of course,” he amended hastily, “but we have able bodied monks here who can go this minute and fetch your dead, and of course we will hold the funeral rites here.”
Mahon shook his head. “You don’t understand. We were all but wiped out; there are far too many to carry here. We must pray over them at Boruma, and put them into the ground as soon as possible.”
“I will arrange everything!” Brother Columb glowed with joy, at last able to be of real service. From the corner of his eye he spied the abbot, Brother Flannan, hurrying across the yard. “Of course the abbot will think of it himself as soon as the injured are cared for, but I will anticipate him a little and take that burden myself.” He reached out to pat Mahon’s arm. “You stay here and rest, my friend, while I make the necessary arrangements, and then we will go together to chapel and commend the souls of Boruma to God.”
By sundown the funeral party had not returned. The monks shared their simple meal with those survivors of the raid who were able to eat, then gathered for evening prayer. Marcan joined them, irresistibly drawn.
Brian was allowed a brief visit with his brothers. Niall had had an ear sliced away and tossed in pain, moaning; Lachtna had yet to regain consciousness; but Donncuan was awake and clear-eyed, and when saw his littlest brother he lifted a hand weakly in greeting.
“You’re not wounded?” he asked Brian.
“I wasn’t there,” Brian replied, feeling embarrassed by the admission. He had gone off to have an adventure while his family suffered and died, and he was aware of a guilt he could not fully understand.
“I wish, I hadn’t been there,” said Donncuan, sighing. Beyond him, wrapped in blankets and coughing fretfully, Anluan awakened and called for his mother. A monk hurried to bend over him, soothing him in a low voice. Brian’s eyes met those of Donncuan.
“Where is she, Brian? Did they take her?”
The little boy shook his head. If he stayed one moment more, Donncuan would ask the next question, and the unbearable answer would have to be given. “I must go!” he barked, turning away so abruptly that the very violence of his action told Donncuan all he needed to know. As Brian ran from the room, Donncuan lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, trying to see his mother’s face in the smoked underside of the thatch before she faded away forever.
Alone, superfluous, Brian wandered about the monastery. He heard the chanting of the monks rise in solemn beauty from the oratory, echoing from the stones until it sounded unearthly and far removed from the realities of living. The oratory was the central building of the monastery, a rectangular stone structure with a corbeled roof supported by a propping semicircular vault. The architecture was responsible for the unusual acoustical effects, but to Brian the results were miraculous. He stood in awe while in the inhumanly beautiful chant rose as with one voice to the clouded heavens. A wave of incense drifted to him, smoky sweet.
He tilted his head back and looked up. No stars, no moon. No spirits winging past him on their way to God. Where was Mother, then? And Fiacaid? If he had been a good boy and stayed in his bed, would he have died with them and be accompanying them now? To heaven?
Looking into the sky, he concentrated all his being into one knot of power and tried to propel himself out of his own skin, to leap upward into the night and fly in invisible freedom to God’s sheltering arms. He closed his eyes tightly and made a mighty effort, feeling certain he could undo the mistake of his being alive if only he tried hard enough. He waited, breathless, for an upward swooping, but nothing happened.
The cold, damp wind swirled around him. He shivered and opened his eyes. Around him stood the monastery, placid and substantial, a large circular enclosure whose embracing arms sheltered a cluster of buildings not unlike the community of Boruma, except for the beehive cells of the monks. He stood, earthbound, and pondered the fact that heaven did not want him.
The glow of light beckoned to him from within the buildings, and the night beyond the walls was full of surprise and death. He wanted to turn his back on
the darkness and run to the light, to be safe and protected, a little child who did not have to deal with the awesome matters of life and death.
But only part of him wanted that. Something else was coming to life in him, something feral. He had been dreadfully shocked, his being uprooted, and all he had taken for granted destroyed; the insult to his mind and his spirit might have been deadly. But it was not.
Within the youngest son of Cennedi a deep rage smoldered. A desire to fight back, to balance the scales, to pit himself against that which frightened him and fight. And fight. And fight.
The emotion that had been damned within him all the long day broke to the surface at last, and the little boy threw back his head and howled with a dreadful animal cry that raised the hackles on the necks of all who heard it. The sound tore through the oratory, disrupting the service, splintering the music of God, and replacing it with a primitive voice that acknowledged no god, only fury and pain.
They came running to find him, then. They wrapped him in blankets thrown over him as he fought, biting and kicking with uncontrolled wildness. Brother Thomaus, who professed to have a way with children, carried Brian to his cell and tried to calm the child with song and prayer, but it was a battle he won only when the little boy collapsed in exhausted slumber. In the morning, Brother Thomaus’s face and hands were scratched and a bad bite had enpurpled his forearm. Brian was sorry for the monk when he saw this, but he could not connect it to any action of his own.
Cennedi’s wound did not fester, but healed cleanly. When the haze of pain lifted he immediately demanded to know the fate of Boruma. They sent Mahon to him, and the young man stood before his father with a bowed head and clenched fists as he recited the long list of the dead.
With each naming Cennedi signed himself with the Cross, though the pain made him groan aloud. When Mahon told him of Bebinn both men fell silent, unable to look at one another.
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