Saint Brigid's Bones (19 page)

“Hmm, maybe,” he said. “I still don't trust him. No king ever did me any favors.”

Fergus got up and walked a few steps away. I could tell he was trying to work up the nerve to say something to me.

“I don't want to beat a dead horse, Deirdre, but, like I said before, you can always come back here if the monastery doesn't make it. I could have your old hut cleaned out in a few days. I could fix up the garden so you could plant some more flowers in the spring. I know Boann and Ness would enjoy your company again. So would I.”

“Fergus, seriously, what's going on?” I asked. “Why are you so eager to get me back?”

He looked down at the ground as he spoke.

“Deirdre, I meant what I said back at the monastery. I do love you, but there's more to it than that. Last winter was hard for me. I lost six cows and ten calves. Then the barley crop this fall was poor and I had to give up my lease on the land near the river. I even had to sell my last two slaves. I don't have much grain left in storage and if things don't change soon I'm going to have to hire myself out to work for one of Dúnlaing's men. I've been a free farmer all my life, as was my father and his father before me. I don't mind hard work, but I don't want to spend the winter staring at the ass-end of some rich man's sheep just to feed my family. I've got nine children on the farm now with the three babies born this autumn. I don't want them crying because their bellies are empty. I'll do whatever I have to do to take care of them, but it would be a great help if you were back with us. The payments you could bring in as a bard could see us through until summer. I know I'll be alright then. I just need a few months to get back on my feet.”

I knew Fergus was having a hard time, everyone was, but I didn't realize things were so bad for him. Still, I had to end this and the only way I knew was to be brutally honest with him.

“Fergus, I appreciate how hard things are for you. Maybe I could get a few chickens from my grandmother and bring them by, for the sake of the children. But let me say this again—
our marriage is over
. It doesn't matter what happens at the monastery, you are no longer my husband and I am never coming back to you. I don't love you. I'm not sure I ever did.”

For a long moment he looked like I'd punched him in the stomach. Then he was in front of me with fire in his eyes. He grabbed me by the front of my tunic and lifted me off the ground with one hand and held me against the wall of the barn.

“You're never going to find those bones, Deirdre. You want to starve to death when the monastery closes? Fine by me. I
gave you a chance. Keep your damn chickens. I won't let my children go hungry. I'll work all winter long shoveling pig manure for one of Dúnlaing's pretty boys if I have to. I don't need you. I don't want you.”

He threw me down on the ground.

“Now get off my farm.”

I got up, brushed the dirt off my cloak, and spat on the ground in front of him.

“Go to hell, Fergus.”

Then I turned and walked away.

I was eager to get back to Kildare, but I knew I had to make one last stop. It was a place I hadn't been to for over three years. It had been too painful before. I walked down a short path past a field of barley stubble. There, beneath a willow tree on the edge of the farm, far from the noise of children and cattle, I found the tiny grass-covered mound ringed with stones and topped by a small cross.

I knelt and placed my hands gently on the grave, then gave myself over to tears. For what may have been hours, I lay on top of the mound. Then, as the sun began to set, I took out my harp and sang his favorite lullaby:

Sleep in peace, my darling,

Sleep in peace, my love.

With a final kiss to the warm ground beneath me, I gathered myself together, and walked back to the monastery.

C
hristmas was only three weeks away and the wind was colder than ever. The monastery was still feeding all the widows and needy who came to us, but the porridge was getting thin. We had bread only twice a week now and meat was just a pleasant memory. I knew we couldn't go on like this. If pilgrims didn't return to Kildare soon with their gifts of food, we might not even make it to holy Brigid's day at the beginning of February. We were hungry now—soon we would be starving.

So I made a decision. I had found no witnesses to the theft of the bones in my search of the farms around Kildare. Nobody had seen anything. It seemed pointless to go to Armagh and confront the abbot, at least not until I had better proof that he was responsible. That left only one possibility open to me.

I had heard nothing more from Cormac about his attempts to contact Lorcan. If the pirate leader had the bones on his
island, the only way I was going to get them back was to go there myself and ask for them.

I admit, the prospect terrified me. I had never heard of anyone actually seeking Lorcan out before. Indeed, most people avoided him like the plague—and for good reason. Unlike the lovable scoundrels of Irish legend, real outlaws were ruthless men who didn't take kindly to people knocking on their doors. I knew visiting his camp would be dangerous, but I had confidence that my status as a bard and a nun would protect me.

I didn't tell anyone what I was planning. I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye to my grandmother or Father Ailbe for fear I would burst into tears. I didn't even tell Dari where I was going. As far as they would know, I would still be searching the farms around Kildare.

I thought about wearing my best robes embroidered in gold to impress Lorcan and remind him that I was a poet of the highest rank, a member of a noble, untouchable family of druids. But I finally decided to take a more subtle approach and bring only my harp as a sign of my office. I chose my most tattered nun's robe and no ornament other than my plain wooden cross. I hoped Lorcan might respect me as a Christian sister of holy Brigid, though I had my doubts. Outlaws worshipped Crom Crúach and other dark gods and cared little for the beliefs of others.

At sunrise with my harp and satchel, I headed east, trusting in God. Towards evening I passed a remote lake with a small island in it that I had seen several times before but had never visited. Old stories said that no one on that island could ever die. In ages past, it was said desperate souls would journey from across Ireland to the place. People burdened with age and illness would spend the last of their treasure and strength to travel there and lie down on its cold rocks. But although
no one would perish on that island, no one was ever healed either. The sick and diseased continued as they were, in pain and misery, day after endless day. All of them in time begged the ferryman to take them back across the water so they could die in peace and end their suffering.

That night, as I sat by my fire under a moonless sky, I wondered what kind of reception I would receive from Lorcan and his pirates. As I thought about it, I realized I had never met an outlaw before, though I had once seen three of them beheaded by King Dúnlaing for cattle theft.

Outlaws were renegades from Irish society who rejected everything the tribal system stood for. They lived by hunting, plundering, and hiring themselves out to the highest bidder. People called them
ambue
or cowless men since they cared nothing for the traditional measure of wealth and status. Sometimes they were known as the
cú glas
or grey dogs of Ireland since they were more animal than human. Some people said they could even turn themselves into wolves. They had broken all ties with families and tribe to set out on their own. Often they formed into groups for protection from the outside world and to better carry out their work. For an outlaw band, there were no rules except the survival of the strongest. They had no loyalty to anyone, even their own leaders, and were kept in line only through cruelty and intimidation.

And I was on my way to see the most vicious outlaw of all.

On the morning of my third day from Kildare, I climbed to the top of a hill near the eastern coast. In the distance was Lambay, a small island a little over a mile offshore. It had cliffs on three sides where sea birds nested in the spring. Before the pirates came, local farmers had collected eggs there and left their ewes on the island to give birth away from mainland predators. But that was many years ago.

What had started as a clear morning quickly turned cold and grey as I walked down the overgrown trail. Fog rolled in from the sea and a light rain began to fall. I pulled my cloak over my head and prayed as I walked, calling on all the saints in heaven, especially Brigid, to watch over me that day.

The sea was calm as I came to the rocky shore. The water was a beautiful shade of greenish-blue. There were no homes on the coast that I could see. I wasn't surprised that no one wanted to live so close to pirates, but I needed to find someone to take me across to the island. At last I came upon a small hut above a narrow cove with a path leading down to the sea. At the bottom of the path was an old man sitting on a rock mending a currach. Another like it was pulled up onto the beach near him.

I had seen currachs before when I visited my uncle on the Aran Islands. They are small boats made from cowhides stretched over a wicker framework and tightly sewn together. They can leak terribly if they aren't tended properly and are devilishly hard to steer since they lack a keel. The currach this man had was old, made for no more than two people with loops of rope on the sides to hold the oars in place.

“Blessings upon you, Grandfather,” I called out in the traditional greeting for elders as I approached him.

He stared at me with hard, narrow eyes. He had only a horrid scar where his nose had once been.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I am a bard and a sister of the order of holy Brigid at Kildare. I come on business of my monastery seeking passage to the island so that I might speak with Lorcan.”

When he spoke again I could see that most of his teeth were gone.

“No one goes to that island. Only a fool would sail the seas around here.”

“But you sail here.”

“Then I must be a fool.” He looked quickly out at the sea. The fog had covered the strait between the mainland and the island.

“Listen to me, young lady. I don't know what you think you're doing, but if you value your life you will turn around right now and go back to where you came from. You're lucky the fog rolled in, otherwise those damn pirates might have spotted you by now and be on their way to take you. They do nasty things to trespassers, especially women.”

“Then why do they allow you to fish here?”

“Because I'm old and poor. I've got nobody left to care whether I live or not. I don't much care myself. Those pirates destroyed everything I ever cared about.”

It took him a long time before he could continue.

“My daughter—she was twelve, only twelve years old. She wasn't even pledged to a man yet. Those animals took her when they first came here years ago and made her a slave on the island. I tried to ransom her, but they laughed when they saw all I had was a basket of fish. They wouldn't even let me see her. I tried to sneak over there a few nights later and rescue her, but they caught me and did this.” He pointed to his nose.

“Then they tied me to a pole and brought out my little girl. She screamed when she saw what they had done and tried to reach me, but they knocked her down in the mud. They raped her there in front of me, four or five of the beasts, while I tore at my ropes and cursed them. When they were done, they slit her throat.”

He sat down on a rock.

“They let me go so I could tell others what they did. When my wife saw me and heard the story, she was in my boat before I could stop her and was rowing across to the island with a kitchen knife. They killed her too.”

He turned to look at me.

“That was over thirty years ago. I've lived here alone ever since and have never been back to the island. So listen to me and get away from here now. They won't care that you're a bard. You think your harp or that cross around your neck will protect you? They won't.”

I sat with him for a long time on that rock.

Did I really want to risk speaking with Lorcan? Even if he had the bones, were they worth my life? But I knew in my heart that without the bones, everything Brigid had dreamed of, all we had worked for, would come to an end. People were depending on me. Didn't I believe God would protect and watch over me—or were those just empty words I prayed?

“I know you're trying to keep me safe from harm, but I must get to that island.”

He shook his head again.

“I won't take you there.”

“But that's where I must go and you have the only boat on this coast.”

I stood up.

“I am a bard from an ancient line of bards. I come from a family of powerful druids and noble warriors. I command you by the authority of King Dúnlaing to take me to that island.”