The Wakening Fire [The Dawn of Ireland 2]

by Erin O'Quinn

  He raised his chalice, and my mind immediately froze. I heard no words then except the ones in my mind. The great fires. The fires of Beltane. And, higher and grander, the paschal fires of Patrick. Lord help us! My stomach began to lurch again, as it had on the ship a few days ago.

  On the bench beside my own sat Liam, and I shared the bench of Maine, Liam’s uncle, father of my friend Ryan Murphy. “Liam,” I said in a low tone, pulling at the sleeve of his léine, “I am going outside for a bit of air. Worry not. I will be back right away.”

  As soon as I found an empty space amid the milling crowd, I knelt and spewed the sickness from my stomach. Ah, dear God, what will we do about Patrick? I coughed and choked until I felt better, and then I sat in the ruined grass, breathing in the fresh air of a late-spring day.

  “Cate. Conas tá tú? How can I help?”

  I looked up into Murdoch’s troubled eyes. “I am fine,” I lied. “Help me up, please.” I reached my hand toward him. He grasped it, and he made sure my feet were steady before he released it.

  “Tell me the truth. What is the matter?”

  I told him what Patrick was planning, and how even as we spoke, his community of monks and priests were building the makings of a huge bonfire that would outshine even the fire at Tara. Leary would no doubt have the priest seized immediately, for his act of defiance would be considered a crime.

  “Cate, what will happen, will happen. We cannot stop Patrick’s plans, any more than we can stop the sun from spinning across the sky by day and claiming the land under the horizon by night. And we cannot say anything that will make my uncle Leary change his own plans. But perhaps we can appeal to two stubborn men. One of them may blink.”

  “Not Patrick,” I said with certainty.

  “Let the situation play itself out. Let us deal with it as it happens. Do not forget, Cate, my uncle owes you quite a big favor. He has already said that before a few hundred people.”

  I smiled, “Already I do feel better, Murdoch. Escort me back inside. And tell me a bit about the huge fires.”

  “You name it, Cate—if it will burn, it is thrown into a great heap to make a bonfire.” We walked slowly together back toward the entrance of the hall. “Logs and leaves, of course. Great wedges of boggy peat, heaps of winter weeds. Even animal bones, old, useless rotting hides of long-dead livestock and indeed their putrefied horns—all of this makes its way into a heap of material that grows higher every day. In a way, it is an effective method of removing detritus that may cause disease, and perhaps that is how the ritual started in ages long past. Who knows?

  “We build such fires all across Éire, but the people build the highest stack right here in Tara. I think the king’s fire may well outshine even that of your priestly friend. Would you care to place a wager on it?”

  I was ready to scold him, and then I caught the unmistakable irony in his eyes and the twitch at the corner of his mouth. I laughed outright. “You scamp! If I had three cows, I would wager a cuṁal.”

  His smile widened. “Ah, I am making you laugh, am I? I need not wager, for I have my reward.”

  I flushed, remembering our shipboard conversation, and I turned and shouldered ahead of him into the mead hall, seeking Liam and my vacated bench. I felt suddenly much better as I sought my husband’s hand.

  I heard the assembled crowed roar, “Sláinte!” Someone, perhaps the king himself, had proposed a toast. Then I saw a score of young boys walking along the highly polished table, each bearing a long trencher piled with steaming meat and savory vegetables. The diners stuck their knives into whatever they desired and heaped food on the trenchers lying before them on the table.

  The wine bearers came next, young girls all a-blush, each carrying a small clay jug of deep red wine. Eager hands lifted the jugs from their hands, and they ran to bring back more. I saw that every place at the table had a large curved drinking container made from a cow’s horn resting in a delicate holder designed especially for the horn. Where had I seen such a container before? The memory scratched my brain until I remembered. Yes, it was on the table at Sweeney’s brugh the night I had barged in from nowhere, the night I ruined his farewell to my mother.

  I thought briefly of what my mother had told me, that perhaps it had happened for a reason. Not just their relationship, but my very appearance that night. It had certainly led, slowly yet certainly, to the meeting of Sweeney and Mockingbird. I looked across the table until I caught the eye of Owen Sweeney, and I lifted my horn in a silent toast. With a small smile playing around his mouth, he lifted his own horn to me, and we both drank. To love, I thought.

  Liam turned to me. He leaned across and caught my lips inside his warm mouth, withdrawing with an effort. “Cat, me father will direct the lighting of the fire. Come outside.”

  We left the hall hand in hand before the others had completed their dinner and before the king stood, the signal for everyone to leave. “Take you to see the fire of Beltane,” he said. We walked in the approaching twilight around the twin hills of Tara, opposite to where the mead hall stood on a low rise.

  “I remember this spot,” I told Liam. “This is where the king pronounced his judgment. Yes, there is the Lia Fáil, the stone of destiny.”

  “Tall fire to be lit…there,” said Liam, directing my gaze to the horizon where I knew stood the huge, white, earthenwork structure I had seen last September. Torin had called it Sí an Bhrú, and I knew it was almost as ancient the hills themselves.

  “Important,” said Liam. “Older than druids. Me father…stand here, by the stone, the Lia Fáil. His signal starts the fire.”

  “Let us be sure to stand close to him, Liam. I know he will be angry. You and Torin must stand ready to respond.”

  He put his arm around my shoulder and brought me close against his body. “Not worry, Cat. Torin comes.. I see Father, and a crowd. We…almost ready.”

  The sun had not yet set, but I saw that we were only minutes away from seeing its shining orb disappear under the far hills. Leary stood with a score of white-robed, bearded priests—his latest collection of druids. Torin and Swallow joined us. “When the druids drop their hands,” Torin said, “Father will take his cue. He in turn will signal, and his order will be carried along the entire distance, passed along to those tending the fire.”

  I saw that not only those from the mead hall, but thousands of people had already converged on Tara’s twin hills and spread over the surrounding area. Unusually for such a large crowd, there was absolute silence. It was as though everyone awaited the druids’ signal, and Leary’s royal command.

  The druids, dancing around the Lia Fáil, had their hands raised to the setting sun. But before their hands dropped to their sides, a loud shout escaped Leary’s mouth, and I looked where he looked. I saw a blaze not on the site pointed out by Liam, but beyond, on the distant hill of Sláine, ten miles away. It seemed to light the entire sky, and I began to tremble.

  Just then, the druids dropped their hands, and Leary shouted again. This time, after the space of a score of heartbeats, another huge blaze tore at the evening sky. This was the king’s fire. It was, in a sense, the rival fire, the adversary of Christ.

  Was it bigger, and better, than Patrick’s? Who in the world would know? I knew only that the king was wild with rage. I pulled at Liam’s hand, and we ran to where the king stood with his small army of druids.

  I heard a brief exchange among them, and I turned to Torin, who stood at my other side. “Tell me,” I implored him.

  Torin’s eyes were clouded. “Father asked who would so dare defy the law. His druids spoke as one. ‘The priest called Patrick. And unless ye stop him now, the fire ye see before ye will never be quenched.’ And then Father called for his immediate arrest. He is to be brought here shortly.”

  I bowed my head, and the sobs began deep in my stomach and rose to my throat, stopping my words and my very breath. The last thought I remembered was, “O God, bless Patrick.” And then my world went dark.

&nb
sp; Chapter 30:

  Burning and Scorching

  Why is it, I thought bleakly, that my world goes black in a great crisis? This same swooning sickness had come upon me at the foot of Mount Snaefell, when Grandfather went away to face almost certain death. Then, as now, I felt the crushing weight of helplessness.

  Cool hands touched my cheeks, and my eyes fluttered open. It was Brigid. “Cay, just lie still. Tell me how you feel.”

  “Fine. Where in the world—?”

  “You are on a great feather bed, in the royal bally. No cattle tent for you, my friend.”

  I managed to laugh a little. “No, really, Bree.”

  “The king has bidden you rest. I have chased away Liam and everyone else who seemed to be merely wringing their hands. I told them you needed to be left alone for a while. Moc and I have been administering your own comfort tea, and taking care of your needs. You really have been sick, Cay. Thank God you are awake.”

  “Go raibh maith agat,” I said, genuinely touched. “What has happened with the king, and with Father Patrick?”

  “Patrick will be here soon. The king’s anger has not abated. His drooling druids will not leave his ear. I wish his ollamh were here, for I know he is far wiser than the whole lot of them.”

  I let the tears run down the corners of my eyes, too weak to stop them or even to blow my nose. “What do you think will happen?”

  “I think that two strong men will stand nose to nose.” She put a soft cloth to my face and dried my eyes and rubbed my own leaky nose. “It is a confrontation long needed, my friend. Do you feel strong enough to join us in the mead hall? That is where the king will have Patrick brought.”

  “Just help me a bit, until I find my feet.” She drew me up, then stood my body against her own slight frame and walked slowly until I no longer felt dizzy.

  “By the way, Cay, I have a small secret to tell you. Repeat it when you feel the time is right.” She whispered into my ear then, though there were no others to hear. I let her words tumble around in my mind for a very long time.

  After a while I was ready to walk forward again. “Tá go maith,” I said resolutely. “Let us face the future.” We left for the great hall.

  Inside, I saw that only close family and our friends were here as observers. Besides us, the score of robed, bearded druids stood like sentries around their king, and another score of scowling armsmen stood near the door. All this show of strength to restrain the mighty warrior Patrick. I sat on a high bench next to Liam.

  He immediately encircled me in his huge arms. “Cat, Cat, me love. Brigid would not let me touch ye, or even see ye. Conas tá tú?”

  “Dia duit, I love you…feel well enough to be here.” I reached out and traced his sensuous lips. “I have missed your—I have missed you,” I said with a small smile, and then I returned his searching kiss. “Stop, a ghrá. Wait until later. We must be ready to spring to Patrick’s aid if the need arises. Let us quietly watch, and wait.”

  And so we did. It seemed hours, though I knew it was only fifteen or twenty minutes, before the armed men at the door stiffened, and I heard a shout from the other side of the portal. A guard opened it, and into the immense, gleaming room strode my friend Father Patrick.

  His head was high and his blue eyes were snapping with purpose. His hands were bound behind him, and his prayer shawl hung almost raggedly from his neck. One of the guards reached out as though to touch his shoulder, and he drew back with a quick, almost rough movement.

  “Leave him alone,” said Leary. Torin stood at the king’s side, repeating his words for those of us who would not understand his tongue.

  “Ye stand while I sit,” said the king, his dark-brown eyes stabbing into Patrick’s. “And yet the laws of hospitality require me to bid ye sit, and partake of me repast.” He reached out a languid, ring-filled hand and poked at a trencher on the table. “Will ye?”

  Patrick’s childlike, round face seemed to lengthen and age at that moment. He knew the Gaelige tongue like a native, and yet he spoke the tongue of the Britons, punctuated here and there with an apt word or two of Gaelic. “B’fhéidir when you release my bonds, O Leary. So that I may then hold an eating knife.” His blue eyes were flint cold.

  Torin repeated Patrick’s words so that Leary could understand. “Me druids tell me ye would usurp the laws of our land. Ye would defy the ancient Brehon precepts, an’ ye would replace our gods with yours. How do ye plead on those counts?”

  “I plead only to my God,” Patrick said evenly. “I speak to kings, and to common men alike. But I plead only to Christ, that he forgive your ignorance and hold you to his bosom in his mysterious love and compassion.”

  I felt warm admiration for Patrick. In all the time I had known him, I had rarely seen even a trace of anger. But now I saw it slowly building in his eyes, and in his very demeanor, in spite of his mild words.

  “Then I must bid me guards take ye to confinement.”

  “Even as Herod did, would you so dismiss me?”

  I saw Leary’s face change then, and a flicker of fear or alarm in his eyes. “If I but believed the lies ye spread about a man who died an’ walked again, then yes. Even as Herod.”

  Patrick’s tone changed then, and for the first time he spoke softly, in the fatherly tone so familiar to me. “Thousands of your subjects believe those lies, O King. Would you call them foolish? Misguided? Or do they see something that perhaps you are missing? That Christ is love. Is é grá Chríost. That he asked not for special treatment. That he sought only to teach others about God’s love and forgiveness. That he did indeed die and live again, even as your own god Bel, whom you celebrate as the sun. And so I also celebrate Christ, also the son—the son of God.”

  Leary’s voice was almost pleading now. “Then why do ye flout me laws, priest? Why do ye set your own fires to be higher than me own? How does that show love?”

  “I must love all men, even as my Lord Christ loved. I cannot show you more love than I show your worthy fair-faced advisor.” And he gazed directly at one of the most ugly men I had ever beheld, a hairy-faced druid whose lower lip seemed to emit a constant stream of dribble. A ripple of laughter drifted through the room.

  The druid stepped in front of Patrick then, and he stood on one foot and extended his bony arm, and with the other hand he held one eye shut. “Dóite agus loisceadh ort!”

  “Burning and scorching on ye,” whispered Liam. I heard the note of awe in his voice. The druid’s high-pitched voice screeched almost as effectively as Talon’s own squawk had echoed in this room several months ago. Even I was mildly impressed.

  Then Father Patrick drew himself up to the extent of his slight frame, and his own eyes began to crackle and burn. His tonsured head shone like a ritual fire in the bright light, and his voice rang out as though he were shouting at his enemy from a high rampart.

  Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out!”

  The druid shrank back against his fellows, and all of them began to step backward, until the very wall stopped their retreat. Leary sat, his mouth agape, letting it happen. “My dear Patrick,” he said at last, and he stood. He walked slowly to face the bishop until they truly were almost nose to nose, as Brigid had predicted.

  “Ye turned the burning back on him. The glám dichenn is put on the head of the tormentor, the curser has been cursed. Your fire is indeed brighter than me own.” He turned and spoke to one of the armsmen. “Release this man from his bonds.”

  Father Patrick stood patiently while his hands were untied. And then he said, so mildly that I almost missed it, “Go raibh maith agat, a Lóeghaire. May I greet my friends?”

  I knew he must mean me, I just knew it. In spite of my weak legs, I rushed to my old friend and knelt in front of him, seizing his hand. “Father, Father! You gladden my heart.”

  “Rise, me little frie
nd. Ye gladden me heart even more.” I knew when I heard Patrick’s lilt that his humor and compassion had come back.

  We stood clasping hands for a long moment, and saw that his eyes had regained their luminous, sky-like brilliance. “In case ye had no chance to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, would ye and your friends join me in the Easter mass?”

  * * * *

  Liam and I were lolling among swan-feather pillows, naked, recovering our breath from lovemaking. Propped on one elbow, he lay facing me, toying with my tangled red curls, as I lay back. “God, I missed ye, Cat. So worried.” He leaned forward and kissed me again, as though we had not quenched our desire this last hour or more.

  “Liam, love, I am truly recovered. You will see. Give me another few minutes, and I will show you.” I touched his handsome face and thrilled to the feel of his silken beard and his soft skin. He cocked his head a bit and caught my finger in his mouth. In spite of being spent and languid, I felt a quick smoldering between my legs and all the way up my butt. How could his mouth on my finger feel so like his groin were already penetrating me?

  “I am happy, the way everything turned out,” I told my husband.

  He continued to caress my finger with his tongue, and finally he took my hand in his and held it. “With Patrick, or with Sweeney, Cat?”

  “Both.”

  I thought about our paschal celebration. Father Patrick had stood close to the great Lia Fáil itself as though it were not a druid symbol of—what? The phallus? The finger of their god? I think to him it signified the very power of God, the ageless nature of his being. Near Patrick had stood a small table containing a filled washbasin, a round of bread, and two small wine jugs. I knew the wine and the bread were meant for the holy mass, which he would perform for all baptized Christians after his brief words.

  There was a large crowd around him. And I could not help but notice that several of the king’s clansmen, our own cenél, stood in the crowd, along with my traveling companions. “By the kindness of the High King himself,” said Patrick, “we are met on this sacred ground to celebrate the rising of Christ from the grave. Lo, he died, and after three days he walked again among men. He walked among us to show that we, too, would be so graced by his mighty father.”