The Wakening Fire

by Erin O'Quinn

  I looked up at Brother Jericho, who was regarding her with tortured eyes. His hands were writhing together as if to underscore his feeling of uselessness. “She is reliving the night I came here. She is afraid for me. Or afraid for her son.” I took the cup in my hands and told Brother Jericho to prop up her head.

  He took her little head in his hands and looked into her eyes. Speaking in Gaelic, he said, “Mother, it is the monk Jericho. I have come to help you.”

  She looked at him calmly. “Is cuimhin liom. I…remember.”

  “You must drink from this cup,” I urged her softly. “It will make you feel better.”

  Obediently, she let me tip the cup a bit into her mouth. I did it several times until I assured myself that the potion was sufficient for now. The monk gently let her head fall back and leaned close to her, almost whispering. I had to strain to catch what he said, for it was in Gaelic and barely audible.

  “A mháthair, abair scéal,” he said. I remembered what Brigid had said last night, when I proposed that a story be told. It was the age-old exhortation to tell a tale. Would she respond as generations had before her, telling a story of her youth, a story of her son?

  She spoke, and I thought she said, “To you alone.”

  “Caylith,” said Brother Jericho, “I must ask you to leave us. I think she realizes that this may be her last chance to talk to the Lord, through me. It is not a time to share with anyone but the priest.”

  “Forty years of silence, now broken for the sake of Christ and her own soul. Brother, I will happily talk to you later.”

  I rose and left the room, reluctantly pulling the door closed behind me. I longed to hear her words as she spoke them, but even if I were there, I would understand only a word or two. I knew that Jericho would tell me later, as true to her own words as possible

  I walked quickly to the great room, by now lit with a score of wall candles. I saw that Sweeney’s three sons had returned from the bonfire and that several young people were just then bringing in trenchers of food and setting them on the large, long table.

  I looked up at the tallest of the Sweeney boys, who approached me as soon as I entered the room. His accent was very heavy. “A Chaitlín, mise Muiredach Mac Eóghan.”

  “Ah…” I replied charmingly.

  “Speak her tongue,” called out Cara, laughing at the glazed look in my eyes.

  “Cate. My name is Murdoch. Murdoch MacOwen. I am pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand to me as if to grasp my own—not at all like the O’Cahans, who had bent to kiss my proffered hand. He was as tall as Sweeney would be if he could stand on his ruined legs. His chest, like that of his father, was the size of a wine keg, and I could see the muscles rippling under his skin as he extended his arm. His hair reminded me of my friend Luke’s, and that of several of the Feather clan. It was so dark as to take on blue, metallic tints in the candlelight. It was long and straight, pulled back from his forehead exactly like his father’s.

  His face, too, was remarkably like Sweeney’s—long, somewhat hollow of cheek, his mouth thin and his jaws prominent. As with his mother I wondered whether his mouth would be fuller, more pliant if he unclenched his jaws. Like his father he wore no beard, and his pale skin was not at all darkly stubbled where a beard would have grown.

  I grasped his hand as if he were a friend. “Murdoch, I see the strong resemblance to your father,” I said before I thought about my words.

  “Ah, Cate, I am loath to speak of my father.” His dark eyes seemed to look deep into mine, seeking some kind of knowledge, some answer to his deep questing. “But I know we shall talk of him later. For now, may I introduce my brothers?”

  Two tall, handsome men stepped forward, each also grasping my hand in friendship. Like Murdoch, they were dark of hair and eyes. But each of them wore a neat, small beard. And they wore their hair so that it ringed their forehead instead of being swept back. They were not as oversized as Murdoch, but they were certainly large and strong with sinews in their necks and arms that moved and bunched as they moved their arms and heads.

  “Fergus,” said one.

  “Echach,” the other intoned.

  “I think I have rarely seen such a handsome group of brothers,” I said. “Unless it be the ones I met earlier today.”

  They all grinned, and we sat at the table where the rest were already seated, waiting for us so they could begin to eat. I sat next to Liam, and Murdoch sat across from me.

  Liam leaned to my ear and gave me a soft kiss. “Conas tá Mháthair Suibhne?”

  I sought his hand under the table. “She is feeling better, a ghrá. And she is talking to Brother Jericho. I have hopes that we will hear her story soon.”

  We all sat spooning a really excellent beef stew from our bowls. “Who are the women in the cook house? And whose are the children I see everywhere?” I asked no one in particular.

  Cara said, “The women live here, wives of our drovers. The drovers and all the children are hired to tend our livestock. They have moved here from Limavady, a few miles to the west. They are all holed up here for the winter. But soon the great cattle drives will begin, and they will go to mountain pastures. The women stay behind to cook and take care of the homestead. You know that our bachelor brothers could not otherwise live here on their own.” Her eyes sparkled, and she reached over and fondly touched the face of young Echach.

  “Ah, sister, how you love to mock us,” said Fergus. “How do you think the sheep get sheared, and the cows get milked, and the haggards stay full? How do you think the trenches stay in repair, and the out buildings, too?”

  “With the muscle and thick brains of the bachelor MacOwen boys,” finished Echach with a broad grin.

  I was puzzled by their surname. “Why is it you call yourselves ‘MacOwen’ instead of ‘MacSweeney?’”

  Echach was first to answer. “From the time he was very young, Father knew that his own father wished his name to be ‘Eóghan.’ So from an early age, he taught us that we would always be called ‘MacOwen’ in honor of our unknown grandfather.”

  “Cate,” said Murdoch, leveling his somber, dark eyes on me, “my sisters tell me that our father is alive, after all. We had all gotten used to the fact of his demise. And I need to tell you I am astonished that you would be here on his behalf, after his treatment of your mother.”

  “But you were not here while my mother was in captivity,” I protested.

  “And yet the stories are still being told in Limavady, in Glas-stiall, even as far as Cúil Raithin, and possibly halfway to Tara itself. How the women were herded into a shieling and used in unspeakable ways. Do you now doubt it?”

  “Yes, Murdoch. I doubt it very much. My mother was weak when I found her—but not abused. Nor were the other women.”

  “Our own grandmother attests to his debauchery.”

  “Does she, Murdoch? We will soon learn the truth, for she is telling her story at last to Brother Jericho. Will you tell me about your mother? And why you ran?”

  Murdoch’s eyes seem to cloud over, and his shoulders hunched over his trencher. His mouth moved for a few moments, as if trying to find a way to speak the words. “We all waited one early evening for my mother and father to return. They had gone to the clootie well, where Mother liked to bathe her crippled husband.” His mouth twisted in distaste as he thought about it. “Father used to scoff at the superstition of being dipped in curative waters, but she insisted. Once a month she would fasten his cart to two horses, and they would slowly travel a worn path to the well. I still do not understand how my mother could stand to tend to his needs. But she did. Very lovingly.” He scowled and bent to his bowl.

  Fergus spoke then. “When darkness was close, we realized that something was amiss. Echach and I quickly saddled up and rode to the well. There we found my mother lying on the ground, mortally wounded. Her head bore a great gash, as if he had hit her with his fist, or a rock. Father was on the ground nearby, wailing in great, heaving sobs, crying out the name o
f our mother.”

  Echach took over the story. “When we knelt by him, he grasped my tunic under my chin as if to throttle me. “I killed her,” he said. “It was my fault. I killed her.”

  “Did you press him? Did you ask him how it was his fault?”

  “We were loath to speak to him. He was raving, his eyes, his mouth—the look of a man on the brink of insanity. We all felt we needed to escape right away. He keened all the way home, and as far as I know, he was wailing as he was pushed into the cold sea.”

  “So you ran, and you left him and your grandmother to bury your mother?”

  All the Sweeney children hung their heads. Éva said, “We asked our grandmother to lie for us, to tell him we had gone to Derry. And then we ran like frightened deer for Ballycahan, and we never looked back until we heard he had died.”

  “And did you never doubt that Owen Sweeney had battered his wife—your mother—to death?” Again I felt for Liam’s reassuring hand under the table, and I clung to it very hard.

  Orla shook her head, her eyes sorrowful. “We tried not to talk about it or even think about it. Once we were gone, it was as though we had turned our backs on an old life and welcomed a new one. We married, we changed our names, we tried to forget.”

  I took a very deep breath. “Ah, my new friends. I cannot and will not blame you for past actions. You did what you felt you had to do. But I am here to lift the shroud from the bitter past.”

  Everyone had finished their supper, and now all heads turned to me as I spoke, very slowly, as if still in wonder at the mind of the mysterious Owen Sweeney. “Your father has done everything he can to bring blame upon himself. For your mother’s death. For the captivity of my mother. For the taking and harming of my husband.

  “I think it is somehow his way of dying. If only he can be punished, if he can die by the hands of others—then he will not have to take his own life. It is the workings of a tormented brain. And all of it started with the failed search for his father.”

  “If he is so bent on dying, Cate,” said Murdoch, “then why did he free himself from the currach that would have sent him to the bottom of the indifferent sea?”

  “I think,” I said slowly, searching my mind as I spoke, “…I think as soon as he found he could escape, he did. It was as though some grim sense of survival took over. He himself told me that it was a kind of triumph over stupid men.”

  “And why did he revile you when you went to see him?” asked Éva. “He blamed you for misjudging him. Surely if you are right about his twisted motives, he would seek to further your misjudgment.”

  “That is easy to answer,” I told her. “I believe that your father is not yet really insane—or perhaps his madness has only just begun. His own family, perhaps, has kept him whole. But in the last two years he has lost his dear wife, and then his beloved children. And his own mother lies locked in bitter silence, almost as good as dead. He gets closer to insanity with each passing day. And yet he still longs for someone—even me, his old enemy—to unlock his past. He hangs onto reality, waiting for that secret to be revealed.”

  I saw Brother Jerome enter the room, a look of relief on his face. I rose. “I will now try to find what her silence has been hiding. Please excuse me.”

  I bent to Liam. “Let us listen together, a chuisle.”

  His lips brushed my own. “I will try…understand.” Together we walked to where the monk stood in the middle of the great room, as if uncertain where to sit.

  “O Brother, let us sit here on a comfortable tolg.” I gestured to one of the couches. “What can you tell us?”

  “Caylith. Liam. I will tell you her story as she told it to me.” Jericho sat on a nearby couch, and Liam and I sat across from him, leaning forward in expectation. He cleared his throat a bit hesitantly and began to speak.

  Forty years ago, I was a young woman. Even a beautiful maiden, if you believe the poets. Everyone called me “Nuala.” I lived in the land called Dál Riata, part in Éire and part stretching all the way into Alba, across the few miles of sea. I was a daughter of the Cenél Loairn, the clan families who ruled the middle part of that great kingdom, and my home lay on the lovely green isle.

  One day, I was walking through a glen with my wolfhounds, playing and laughing, when a file of horsemen broke through the far line of trees. I could see at once that they were men of high birth, for the bridles of their horses were silver and the robes of the riders were trimmed in sable.

  They stopped near me, and the lead rider dismounted. He was a man tall as an oak sapling, lithe and fair of skin. His eyes, and his hair, were golden brown, like my favorite horse. He stood and looked upon me, and he put his arms around my waist. “I have not seen such ivory skin, nor such raven hair, in all my life. Who is your fortunate husband?”

  I admit that I blushed, for I had never known a man. “My father Loam has not yet promised me to any swain,” I told him.

  He looked at his fellows and his laughter rang through the glen. “This one is mine,” he told them. “I will make her my second wife.”

  “But your first wife Rídach is still alive,” one of them reminded him.

  “Then Nuala shall be my mistress, my wife of the day, while I lie with Rídach at night.”

  To tell a long story shortly, the noble youth spoke to my father. He plighted such a sum of cattle and coins that my father willingly sent me south with the stranger. The man told me to call him “Cloud,” for he said he was a changeling, never the same from moment to moment, except with me.

  Our trip to his home lasted seven days and seven nights. The nights were fair, and each night he would take me under a tree and lay with me. His hands were gentle, and his loins were strong. By the time we reached his homeland, I loved him more dearly than all my dogs and horses and all my silken robes.

  He had a small teach built just for me, and every afternoon he came to visit me. “When will I see your own home?” I would ask him.

  “Soon, Nuala,” he would tell me. “My wife will be loath to meet you, and so you must remain my secret for now. Will you wait for me?”

  “I love you,” I told him. “And I will wait, no matter how long it may take.”

  Day after day, Cloud lay with me, and we loved each other more every day. One day, I found that I was heavy with his child. When I told my lover, he was filled with dread. “O Nuala, I fear for the safety of our child,” he cried to me. “For Rídach will suffer no child, except from her belly, to call himself my own. I fear she will set her own mother on you, a woman of cunning and wicked ways.”

  That same day, an old woman came to my house. She looked so much like my handsome Cloud that I knew it was his very mother. “Child,” she told me, “you bear within yourself the son of a king. But he must not be allowed to live here, near the queen Rídach and her ambitious mother. For she will have only her own sons be in line for the throne. If ever she finds out about your child, surely his life is forfeit.”

  The old woman reached into her bosom and withdrew a large pouch of precious gems. “I give you this treasure willingly,” she told me, “but it must be spent in another land, far from here. You must go, your unborn son within you, and flee to far Gallia. There you will be taken in, and taught, by the bald priests of the one they call Christ.

  “His father wants your son to know that his name will be Eóghan, and he will be an ollamh, a great scholar, and some day even a king. But if ever he learns about his father, he will be cloven in two like a hoof, by the hand of Rídach’s own mother. Such is her hatred, and such is her power. Go, then, child. Escape while you can.”

  And thus I found myself in the far, cold land they call Gallia, and I gave birth to a beautiful, dark-haired boy I named Owen. I called myself Suibhne, a name from my people’s land of far-off Alba.

  Liam and I had been listening, our fingers entwined, our attention riveted on Brother Jericho. He stopped talking then, and we both edged closer to him.

  “Well, O Brother? What next?” I cried
out, even though I knew the next part of the story from Owen’s own mouth.

  “Um, Caylith, would you, ah, do you mind if I eat a bit of supper before I finish the tale? My story telling ability would be greatly augmented by a bit of stew.”

  I was embarrassed. “I am sorry, dear Jericho. My own purpose is so single minded that I forgot about your own well-being. We will wait for you right here.”

  The monk went to find a scrap of supper while Liam and I sat close together, murmuring about what we had heard. Our traveling companions, along with the MacOwens and the O’Cahans, were on the other side of the comfort room, all engaged in various conversations.

  Liam’s arm slid around my waist. “Story sounds…right,” he said.

  I nodded, settling back against him. “I know just how she felt, lying with her lover under the trees at night, loving him more every day. There is no false note in her tale, a ghrá. I believe her.”

  He put his forefinger under my chin and drew my mouth close to his. “Later we find a place…under the trees.” He settled his sensuous mouth around mine and began to suckle it gently, and a flame sprang to life inside me.

  “Yes, yes, Liam. That is just what we will do,” I told him, speaking into his mouth even as his tongue began to explore my own. We were still nuzzling and kissing when Brother Jericho returned, his story-telling abilities oiled and polished by the rich beef stew.

  He sat as before. And as before, Liam and I leaned toward him, hanging on his words.

  Chapter 21:

  Mother Sweeney Speaks

  Brother Jericho took a few moments to clear his mind. Then, leaning forward on the fur-lined couch, he spoke again as though it were from the mouth of Mother Sweeney herself.

  Our life with the priests was serene. I soon learned to love our Lord, and the monks baptized me, calling me “Noella,” for I had come to them close to the birth day of our Lord. I taught my son to respect learning, and he did learn quickly under the teaching of the priests. I told him that his father had wanted him to be an ollamh and even a king.