Saint Brigid's Bones

by Philip Freeman

  He screamed and turned to run, shouting behind him as he fled.

  “I know nothing! I know nothing!”

  Sometimes it was fun to be a druid.

  But now I was worried. If Roech knew of some plot to ruin the monastery, that probably meant King Dúnlaing’s sons were involved. They had been scheming for years to take back the lands of the monastery, though Roech’s cocky tone made me think that this time it was something more.

  Chapter Five

  I walked for half an hour past Roech’s farm to a small spring-fed well. It was the most peaceful place I knew and I had often come here in the past to think when I was troubled. It had been a holy place for women since ages past and was still frequented by those seeking help or healing.

  There beneath a canopy of trees was an altar dedicated to a goddess whose name was long forgotten. Visitors would often leave an offering or tie a piece of cloth to the tree above the well as a kind of prayer. Brigid herself had come many times. When I was a girl, I once asked her how she could pray at a pagan shrine, but she only smiled and said the whole world was sacred to God in heaven. After she died, so many Christian women had begun to visit the place that soon it became known as Brigid’s Well. There was even a small stone cross next to the altar of the goddess.

  The water from the spring flowed into a creek that I followed to the home of my grandmother. She was a wise woman of sound advice, though I didn’t listen to it often enough. Her house was in a clearing surrounded by oak trees beneath a small hill. Although it was off the main road, there had been a constant stream of visitors to her door for as long as I could remember. Like her mother and her mother’s mother before her back to the beginning of time, I suppose, my grandmother was a druid skilled in prophesy and visions. She also had more common sense than anyone I had ever met, with the possible exception of Brigid. Often when someone came to her looking for answers, she didn’t even need to sacrifice the chicken or rabbit they had brought. She would just sit down and talk with them, listening carefully to what they said and didn’t say, then tell them what they should do. People were so grateful for her help that she developed a reputation all over the island as a great seer. She travelled frequently around Leinster and the other provinces to preside at rituals of birth, marriage, and death, often with me beside her before I became a nun.

  I had lived with her in that house from the time I was an infant until I got married. My father had died just before I was born while he was fighting with King Dúnlaing against the Uí Néill along the Boyne River. My mother had moved back home with me after his death even though she and my grandmother often argued. She had dark red hair like me and was beautiful enough to attract suitors from the whole province after my father died. She sent them all away so that she could live a quiet life on our farm with no man to rule over her.

  I wish I could remember my mother better. I have an image of her in my mind holding me in her arms and telling me stories before I fell asleep. I also remember her holding my hand as we walked through the wet spring grass to look at flowers. But mostly I remember her and my grandmother arguing.

  Much to the annoyance of my grandmother, my mother never had any interest in being a druid. To make matters worse, she had become a devout Christian as a teenager and attended worship regularly at the monastery. I had been baptized there and later instructed in the faith by Father Ailbe and the sisters of Kildare. My mother had died of a fever just before my fourth birthday. On her deathbed, she made my grandmother promise to raise me as a Christian. To her credit, my grandmother kept her vow and didn’t try to turn me away from the faith.

  As I approached the home I had lived in for so long, I saw the smoke coming from the hole in the center of the thatched roof and smelled roasted chicken, my favorite dish. I knocked on the door, then entered the cozy hut. My old bed was on the right, while my grandmother’s was at the far end of the single room. There were dried herbs and a smoked ham hanging from one of the rafters. The cooking cauldron was at the center of the hut over the fire and next to it was my grandmother.

  “Well, look who’s come to visit at last. I thought I would die alone some cold, dark night without ever again seeing the face of my only granddaughter.”

  I kissed her on the cheek and took off my cloak.

  “Grandmother, it’s only been two weeks since I was here. You know I would have come sooner but I was across the Barrow River at Sleaty.”

  “Yes, I heard about the church. But it seems to me you have greater troubles now, since Anna has put you in charge of finding Brigid’s bones.”

  I looked at her in surprise. She was shorter than me, barely up to my shoulders. Although as healthy as a yearling horse, she was over seventy now, with silver hair and a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  “Is there anything you don’t know? I met with Sister Anna just this morning.”

  “Oh, my dear, the spirits tell me many things. I also spoke with Brother Kevin a little while ago when he stopped by. He filled me in on everything.”

  I remember a family friend once said that the secret to being a successful seer was to be an irrepressible gossip.

  “What am I going to do, Grandmother? Those bones could be anywhere by now.”

  “The first thing you’re going to do is have some supper. I know the monastery has fallen on hard times, but I don’t think they’re feeding you enough. You’re as skinny as a newborn calf. Come help me with dinner.”

  It was good to be busy while we talked. Conversation is so much easier when you have something to do with your hands. The main meal in my grandmother’s house was always eaten in the afternoon, as in most homes. Our food was simple, mostly bread, butter, cheese, and milk, sometimes mixed into a porridge. We ate meat more often in the winter, usually chicken or salted pork, but it was not a large part of our diet until after the first frost. My grandmother made a wonderful relish of garden vegetables and honey that we always ate with our bread.

  That afternoon, I churned the cream to separate the butter from the buttermilk, then strained, washed, and pressed it while my grandmother prepared the loaves.

  No one could make bread like my grandmother. The day before she had dissolved a pinch of yeast in warm water and mixed it with a handful of barley flour for leavening. She kneaded it briefly, then shaped it into a ball. She placed this leavening into an earthenware pot and pressed her thumb on top of it to make a small indentation, then poured water into the hole. After this she covered the leavening with a lid and let it ferment in a warm place near the hearth until the next day.

  When I arrived, she went to her pantry and brought out a large jar of barley flour as well as her precious supply of fine flour made from wheat, a difficult grain to grow properly in cool, wet Ireland. When offered a cow or gold for her services as a druid seer, she would often request wheat flour instead. She told me one milk cow was enough for an old lady living alone and that good bread flour was more precious to her than gold.

  She had sifted the wheat and barley flour together in equal amounts with warm water, then placed the dough on a wooden board to work. After she had kneaded it, she worked in the leavening and put it into a clay pot to rise. The smell of yeast soon filled the air.

  When I had finished with the butter, I pulled the silk ribbon out of my pocket.

  “Grandmother, whoever stole the bones replaced the ribbon on the chest with this.”

  She wiped the flour off her hands and took the ribbon from me, holding it up to the light streaming in through her window to examine it closely.

  “Silk, the best quality too. Whoever the thief was has good taste.” she said.

  “Can you sense anything from it?”

  She held it in the flat of her palm as she looked at it closely.

  “Strange,” she said. “All I sense from this is sadness.”

  “But can you tell anything about the thief from it?”

  “No, it does narrow down the suspects considerably though. Only a member of the nobility could affo
rd this.”

  “Sister Anna and I thought so too. What about this?”

  I handed her the piece of tartan cloth. She studied it for a minute.

  “A Leinster weave, though I’m not sure about the pattern. It looks like one of the clans on the southern edge of Dúnlaing’s kingdom or maybe across the border in the Wicklow Mountains. Where did you get it?”

  “From a hawthorn tree on Tamun’s farm. He chased a warrior away with a hoe on Michaelmas evening.”

  “That sounds like Tamun.”

  She held it as she had the silk ribbon and closed her eyes.

  “Hmm. A tall man, dark hair, confident, loyal.”

  “Grandmother, that describes half the warriors in Ireland.”

  “True, but you don’t know the owner was connected to the theft of the bones in any case, though it is strange to have someone like that skulking around the monastery.”

  I left my grandmother while the dough was rising and went outside to feed her chickens. Then I walked down to a small grove behind the hut and picked a basket of wild apples for her. These were small sour fruits unlike the sweet red apples we grew at the monastery, but they were quite tasty when dried and sprinkled with honey.

  I put the apples in her pantry and sat down on the bench near her.

  “Grandmother, do you have any idea who might have taken the bones?”

  “No, but perhaps you do.”

  “What do you mean? If I knew who took them I wouldn’t be here having dinner.”

  “I mean that you’re a smart girl. Think about who has something to gain from taking them.”

  “That’s the same thing Sister Anna said.”

  “A wise woman, for a Christian.”

  Grandmother was actually on very good terms with Sister Anna and the rest of the members of the monastery in spite of her aversion to our religion. She and Father Ailbe were fond of each other as well, which pleased me greatly.

  “At least I know that whoever took the bones couldn’t have been a Christian,” I said. “A believer would see them as sacred objects. It would be like defiling the Eucharist or cursing God to his face.”

  “My child, I think you have too much faith in the presumed goodness of Christians. I’ve known many of your faith in my time, some of whom I wouldn’t trust to milk my cow. Don’t you remember that Christian King Coroticus from Britain back in Patrick’s day who kidnapped all the young Irish women in Ulster and sold them into slavery?”

  “And Patrick roundly condemned him for it,” I countered. “He wrote him a scathing letter threatening the wrath of God on him and his men if they didn’t return them.”

  “So, did he bring the women back?”

  “No.” I sighed. “Coroticus said he was within his rights as a king to do whatever he wanted in Ireland. He also got the British bishops to support him.”

  “My point exactly. Anyone can justify their actions to themselves if they want something badly enough. So don’t cross the Christians off your list of suspects.”

  “But Grandmother, Coroticus was an exception. He wasn’t a true Christian, even Patrick said so.”

  “Don’t lecture me about Patrick, young lady. I knew him long before you were born. He wasn’t bad looking, even in his later years, with piercing blue eyes and a thick head of wavy hair. You know, if I hadn’t been with your grandfather, I would have taken him back to my hut and showed him my—”

  “Grandmother!”

  “Oh peace, child,” she chuckled. “Patrick had his faults—a bit moody at times and a fierce temper when you crossed him—but he was sincere in his strange devotion to celibacy, in spite of my considerable charms in those days.”

  She laughed again and sashayed across the floor to the hearth like a young maiden at a spring dance.

  Now that the dough had risen, she shaped it into two loaves and placed them over the coals of the hearth with a heated brick above them to make sure the baking would be even.

  “Grandmother, do you think druids could be involved?”

  “I seriously doubt it, my dear. The druids always respected Brigid and her work. There are a few malcontents who feel threatened by your faith, but our way is always open to new ideas. Some of your Christian stories are actually similar to our own. I always thought your Jesus would have made a fine druid if he’d been fortunate enough to have been born Irish.”

  She basted the chicken as I continued.

  “But what Christian would do such a thing?”

  “I’m not saying your thief was necessarily a Christian, Deirdre. It’s just that you have to consider the possibility. There are other Christian groups in Ireland besides the followers of Brigid, like the monks at Armagh. They could be behind the missing bones. They’re one of the largest landholders in Ulster and have plenty of gold. Their abbot—a vile little man—probably has a whole drawer full of silk ribbons. They’ve always resented Brigid’s monastery as a rival to their own power and would love to destroy it. If they didn’t steal the bones themselves, they could have hired someone to do it for them.”

  She went out to the barn to feed her cow while I cleared off the table and brought out some plates. When she came back, I asked her who else she thought could have taken the bones.

  “My money would be on King Dúnlaing’s men, maybe even his sons,” she said. “They would profit greatly from seizing the monastery lands. I know the king himself would condemn the theft, but if one of his men, especially one with lands near the monastery, thought he could serve his own interests by stealing them, it wouldn’t be hard for him to slip in and out of the church one night with nobody the wiser.”

  “I saw Roech on the way here, Grandmother. He acted like he knew something I didn’t.”

  “Roech is an idiot. You need to talk to Dúnlaing himself.”

  “And what am I supposed to do? March into the king’s feasting hall and ask him if any of his men stole the bones of Brigid?”

  “Why not? You’re a bard. Threaten him with satire if he doesn’t turn over the thief.”

  “And if he decides to cut my head off instead?”

  “Then he’ll owe me twenty cows as your next of kin.”

  We both laughed. No king would dare lay hands on a bard.

  The bread was starting to smell wonderful. I could tell it was almost done.

  “Grandmother, there’s something else, though it’s probably nothing.”

  “And what would that be, my child?”

  “Last night, just as I was falling asleep, I thought I heard a voice speaking to me.”

  My grandmother suddenly looked very serious.

  “What kind of voice? What did it say?”

  “Well, it was an old woman, a voice I didn’t recognize. She told me to return to the fire, whatever that means. But honestly, I probably just dreamed it. I feel silly even mentioning it to you.”

  My grandmother put down the pot she was washing and sat next to me.

  “Deirdre, my love, never dismiss the power of dreams or voices in the night. That’s how the spirits most often speak to us. Give me your hand and say the words again.”

  She took my right hand in hers and closed her eyes. I repeated the words of the old woman slowly several times while my grandmother mumbled something I didn’t understand. Finally she opened her eyes and spoke.

  “The fire she spoke of is the church at Sleaty. Something happened there that isn’t right, isn’t what it seems to be.”

  “Why? What do you see?”

  “The images are dim, like shadows. I see someone watching you as you sleep, looking down on you, full of hatred, coming near. He isn’t alone, others are outside. I see fire, a candle against fresh wood, flames growing. Someone was there with you in the church. Someone who set the fire. Someone who wanted to kill you.”

  “Grandmother, that’s not possible. I was the one who burned down the church at Sleaty. There wasn’t anyone else there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I think so. I mean, I didn�
��t see anyone else, though I thought I heard something outside at one point. I suppose someone could have snuck in quietly while I slept. I was very tired.”

  “Deirdre, you’ve got to listen to that voice. Someone else burned down the church, not you. Someone who wanted to kill you as well as destroy the church. You’ve got to go back to Sleaty and find out.”

  “But how? What would I look for in a pile of charred ruins?”

  “I don’t know, but there must be something there or the voice wouldn’t be urging you to return.”

  I sat beside my grandmother for several minutes taking everything in. Could I really be innocent of starting the fire at Sleaty? Would anyone believe me if I claimed I didn’t? I couldn’t very well say I heard a voice in a dream that said I wasn’t guilty. No one would believe me. I didn’t really believe it myself. I needed proof before I could talk to Sister Anna. And who would want me dead?

  “Grandmother, I can think of a few people on this island who don’t like me, but I can’t think of anyone who would actually want to kill me. Am I in danger?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t think so, at least not at the moment. The feeling I got was that whoever burned down the church wasn’t expecting to find you there. It was more of a sudden rage, some deep anger that seeing you provoked. But you have to be careful. Whoever set the fire at Sleaty might try to kill you outright next time, especially if he knows you suspect him.”

  “But who would want to burn down the church?”

  “Who would want to steal the bones? If you can answer the first question it might help you with the second. Maybe the two are related.”

  As she said this, she rose and took the bread from the hearth. Underneath the brick were two perfect loaves with a soft crust on top. In spite of my new worries, my mouth began to water. I took some of the butter and placed it in a dish for both of us. If there is something closer to heaven in this world than my grandmother’s hot bread with fresh butter and honey relish on top, I don’t know what it is.