Sacrifice

by Philip Freeman

  “Riona, are you fit to ride to the king? I hate to ask you to do it, but he’ll want to see you right away. He needs to hear what happened directly from you, to make the testimony valid.”

  In Irish law, nuns and monks were considered equal in status to druids. As witnesses, they were outranked only by a king. The fact that Riona’s father had been a respected warrior made her testimony even stronger.

  “Yes, I’m feeling better now,” she said. “But you should ride double, behind me, so you can steady me if I need it.”

  We set off down the road at a fast canter. We stopped twice so she could rest and drink some water, but by early afternoon we were at the king’s feasting hall.

  Dúnlaing was waiting there, surrounded by several of his most trusted warriors, including Saoirse’s father. He placed Riona in his own chair and called for a slave to bring her a cup of wine. She was exhausted from the ride and her voice was still hoarse from the rope, but she drank the wine gladly and said she was ready to talk.

  “Riona, daughter of Oisín, do you swear to speak only the truth before your king and these witnesses?”

  “I do, my lord.”

  “Who was it who tried to kill you this morning?”

  “It was Finian, the druid sacrificer.”

  “Is there any doubt in your mind that it was Finian?”

  “None, my lord.”

  “Was there anyone else with him?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “And you make this testimony knowing that to speak falsely before your king brings a sentence of death on your head?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I’ll have one of my servants take you to my guest house and watch after you.”

  “Thank you, my king.”

  He clapped his hands and an old woman appeared to lead Riona away. The king then bade his men and me to sit at the table. A slave brought each of us a cup of wine.

  “Thank the gods this is over,” the king said.

  “Only if we can catch Finian,” Saoirse’s father said.

  “We’ll catch him. Besides the men out looking for him, I’ve posted guards on all the border roads and sent word to the neighboring kings to hold him if he comes to their lands. They won’t risk war by defying me. No one would protect a murderer in any case.”

  He turned to me.

  “Deirdre, it goes without saying that I expect the full cooperation of the Druid Order in this matter.”

  “Of course, my lord. We would never harbor such a fugitive. Finian has brought shame on all of us.”

  The king then talked with us for an hour or more, asking our advice on how best to restore calm and order to the kingdom. He was insistent that there was to be no retribution against the druids after Finian was punished. He wanted the matter to end there. He looked at Saoirse’s father as he said this, and the man finally nodded his head in agreement. Dúnlaing spoke of the need for cooperation between people of different faiths and pledged to help the monastery of Brigid recover.

  We heard horses approaching from outside the feasting hall and rose from our chairs. The lead guard from the monastery and his men marched into the hall with Finian held in chains between them. His face was covered with bruises, but he wore a look of pure defiance.

  “He was at his farm, my lord. The fool didn’t even try to run—though he wasn’t cooperative.”

  The king took his place on his chair at the front of the hall and ordered Finian brought before him. Saoirse’s father stood near, fingering his sword.

  “Finian, son of Esras, you stand here accused of the murder of four women, sisters of the monastery of Brigid. What say you?”

  Finian spat blood onto the ground along with two of his teeth, but said nothing.

  “You understand,” said the king, “that silence will be taken as an admission of guilt?”

  Finian stood there, saying not a word.

  “So be it,” said Dúnlaing. “You are sentenced to die for your crimes. Take him into the yard.”

  The men led Finian out of the hall. Saoirse’s father approached the king and spoke.

  “My lord, let me do it. This man killed my daughter and defiled her body. I claim the right to end this man’s life. I want to hold his bloody head in my hands after I sever it from his neck.”

  The king put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “My old friend, normally I would be glad to let you deal with this criminal, but that would be too quick a punishment in this case. Come with me into the yard. I have something better planned.”

  We followed Dúnlaing into the large space in front of the feasting hut. I saw that a small crowd had assembled near a tall wooden post that was being stacked around with dry kindling. When all was in place, the king spoke.

  “Bind him to the stake.”

  The men pushed Finian forward and fixed his hands behind the pole with iron chains. As much as I despised Finian at that moment, I couldn’t help but admire his courage. Burning was not a common form of execution in our land. It was slow and horrifically painful and reserved only for the most heinous of crimes. Yet Finian stood tall, gazing up to the heavens with a look of calm determination on his face.

  “Do you have any last words, druid?” the king asked.

  Finian said nothing.

  “Light the fire,” Dúnlaing said.

  The king’s men brought blazing torches and placed them at the edges of the pyre. Sometimes kings would pour oil on a pyre to make it burn faster and hasten the death of a victim. Sometimes they would use water once the fire had caught hold, to make dense smoke and suffocate the condemned man before the flames reached him. Dúnlaing did neither.

  I watched as the flames worked their way slowly to the center of the pyre. When they reached Finian, I expected him to scream in pain as his clothes caught fire and his flesh was seared. But in spite of the indescribable agony he must have felt, he uttered not a sound. In the last moments before his body was engulfed in the fire, he turned his head to look at me with an expression of pure hatred. And then he was gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was almost a week after the death of Finian before I could sleep through the night again. The images of his execution and the murders of the nuns kept jarring me awake at all hours. But life was beginning to return to normal, though the scars remained for us all.

  I was still expelled from my life at the monastery, of course. Just because the killer had been caught didn’t mean Sister Anna was going to change her mind. I didn’t really blame her. She had told me that I had to choose where my loyalties lay—and I had. But what would I do now?

  The king’s guards left the monastery, and the solitaries returned to their hermitages. Riona had recovered nicely from her ordeal. A shepherd had given her three adorable sheepdog puppies, and she was busy training them at her farm. Parents were no longer afraid to send their children to school, so Dari and the rest of the teachers were busy again with classes. The only visible sign of the horrors of those few days were four new crosses above four freshly dug graves in the monastery cemetery just outside the walls of Kildare.

  A few days later, I was happy to see Father Ailbe walking down the path to my grandmother’s house with two fishing poles in his hands. I ran out the door and gave him such a hug that I almost knocked him over.

  “Abba, it’s so good to see you. How have you been?”

  “Fine, my child. It’s wonderful to see you again, as well. Those robes look very impressive on you.”

  I twirled around like a girl showing off a new outfit for a festival.

  “Thank you. I’m trying to get used to them again.”

  Father Ailbe was my teacher and mentor from my earliest memory. Not having a father or grandfather of my own, he was both to me, and much more. He believed in me when few others did and was always on my side. He urged me to question tradition and try new things, though it sometimes got me into trouble.

  I remember when I was ten years old, sitting in druidic school one
day, listening to an Irish story about warriors fighting over the best cut of meat from a pig, I began to wonder why we wrote down only Latin texts at the monastery. Hadn’t anyone ever tried to write in Irish? When I got back home that evening, I took out my wax tablet and began to write in Roman letters the beginning of the Irish tale I had heard from the bard that day:

  There was a famous king of the Leinstermen.

  His name was Mac Dathó.

  I was surprised at how well this worked. By bedtime, I had managed to write out the whole story of Mac Dathó’s pig in Irish on a piece of old parchment.

  I was so proud of myself that I showed my work to the chief druid the next day at school. He was horrified and ripped the parchment to pieces in front of the class. He then lectured me on the evil of trying to capture the matchless beauty of Irish stories in the scribbling of the Christians. We were oral poets, he proudly declared, wagging his finger in my face. If we began to write down our tales, our memories would become as useless as a fat stallion at a horse race. When he was done shaming me, I returned to my bench in tears while the class snickered.

  But when I told Father Ailbe, he said that writing in Irish was a wonderful idea. He said a monk named Mesrob had done the same thing with Armenian a century earlier for his Bible translation. He told me that there would be great challenges in devising a system for written Irish, but that I could do it if anyone could. After that day, I began to experiment and refine my Irish alphabet, though I didn’t dare tell any of the bards what I was doing. I doubted my Irish alphabet would ever become widespread, but it was just the sort of project Father Ailbe was always encouraging me to pursue.

  “So, Abba, are we going fishing?”

  Father Ailbe loved to fish. Ever since I’d been a little girl, I would go with him to the stream flowing through the trees behind the monastery and fish for trout. He would always catch a basketful and bring them back to the sisters for supper. He was never so happy as when he held a fishing pole in his hand.

  We walked back down the path to our favorite fishing spot. We sat down by the stream and baited our hooks, then cast them into the water.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I went fishing for crocodiles in the Nile?” he asked.

  “No, Abba. Tell me.”

  “It wasn’t exactly fishing, I suppose, though we did use bait of a sort. I went with some villagers near Elephantine in the far south one autumn just after the annual flood had subsided. I had traveled upriver to arrange a grain deal for my father and had struck up a friendship with some of the peasants I met there. Downstream in Thebes, they still worshiped crocodiles and mummified their bodies. But the people of Elephantine had no such scruples. For them, it was a grand adventure and a chance for fresh meat.”

  “How big were these crocodiles?” I asked.

  “Well, Herodotus says they grow to more than twenty-five feet, but you can’t believe anything he writes. Still, a few of the adult males I saw were at least eighteen feet long from nose to tail. They are fast and ferociously strong. I once saw one grab a farmer who had gone down to the river bank to gather papyrus reeds. The creature practically exploded from its hiding place in the water and had the poor man by the legs before he could even scream. It quickly pulled him back into the river and began to roll over and over. The farmer tried to grab its jaws and pull them apart, but it was no use. A single child can hold a crocodile’s jaws shut, but it would take a dozen strong men to pry them open. His friends just stood watching in horror, knowing there was nothing they could do.”

  I shuddered at the thought. The most dangerous thing you could find in an Irish river was an ill-tempered otter.

  “On the night we went fishing, the villagers took along two small pigs and a length of sturdy rope with a large hook on the end. When we got to the river’s edge, they slaughtered one of the pigs and ran the hook through its back. Then they threw the bloody carcass into the river.

  “I had supposed the other pig was spare bait, so I was surprised when they began to beat on the animal with a stick. Its squeals were so loud, they echoed across the river. I was about to demand that they stop this cruel behavior when one of them pointed to the middle of the stream. A large crocodile had appeared, swimming toward the carcass of the dead pig. I realized then that they had used the noise made by the live animal to attract the attention of the crocodile—and it worked. The jaws closed on the bait and it began its death-roll, only to find that it had a hook stuck in its throat. The crocodile roared in pain and anger, but the sharp point was fixed deep in its gullet. When it had at last exhausted itself, the villagers pulled it to shore with the rope and quickly covered its eyes with mud. Once blinded, it was easy to kill.”

  I always enjoyed Father Ailbe’s stories. We then sat in silence for a long time waiting for the fish to bite.

  “Abba, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think a person can be both a druid and a Christian?”

  He was quiet for a minute, moving his line to lure a trout he had seen hiding beneath the opposite bank.

  “I suppose it depends on what you mean. There are many druid teachings such as the dignity of the individual, compassion for the poor, and an emphasis on others rather than oneself that are very similar to the teachings of the Gospel. In some areas, such as a respect for the sanctity of nature, I would say that druids are well ahead of Christians. But if you’re talking about strict theology, there is no place for a single God, the incarnation of Christ, or heaven as we know it in druid teachings.”

  “Abba, I believe in Christianity, but I’m not sure it has to be the only religion. Couldn’t God have appeared as a man in Palestine five hundred years ago to make his teachings known, but also speak to other people at other times and places in different ways? I mean, what about the untold generations of humanity that lived before Christ was born or those who live now still beyond the reach of Christian missionaries? Are they doomed to hell because they were born in the wrong time or place?”

  Father Ailbe was having no luck persuading the trout to come out of its hiding place. He slowly moved his line back to our side of the stream.

  “I think, Deirdre, that there is too much talk about eternal punishment in Christian circles. Jesus hardly ever mentions it in his sermons. He was much more concerned about how we live this life. Now, I believe in an afterlife, and it’s very possible that some of us may have to do some more suffering before we’re ready for heaven, but the current Christian preoccupation with fire and brimstone isn’t helpful. I prefer to try to love God and my neighbor as best I can. I’ll leave heaven and hell in the hands of one greater than myself.”

  “I agree with you, Abba, but I guess I’m talking more about my own life than I am theology. Sister Anna says I should choose between being a Christian and a druid. When I talked to Finian, he said I was the worst kind of hypocrite, trying to be two things at once. So I’ve got both Christians and druids saying I’m a fool. What do you think?”

  He looked out at the stream again.

  “You’re trying too hard, Deirdre.”

  “But I’ve got to know the truth.”

  “No, I mean you’re pulling too hard on the line. You’ll never catch a fish that way. You need to give it some slack.”

  I loosened my grip and waited.

  “I think, Deirdre, that you remind me of a man I met once in Persia. He was a Zoroastrian priest from a long line of their clergy, but he had been impressed by the teachings of the church and been baptized as a Christian. He tried to carry out his priestly duties every day, offering prayers before the sacred fire of Ahura Mazda and singing the Gatha hymns at holy rituals. Then he would go to church, where he served as a deacon, reciting the creed every Sunday and faithfully receiving the Eucharist.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I heard that a few months after I left, he was stoned to death as a heretic by both the Zoroastrians and Christians.”

  My eyes grew wid
e.

  “Abba, that’s horrible. Do you think that’s my fate as well?”

  He smiled.

  “No, my child. Ireland is a much more tolerant land than Persia. I think you’ll live a long and happy life here as both a druid and a Christian. But I don’t think it will be easy for you.”

  Just then, the trout he had been wooing swam across from the opposite bank and took the bait. He played the fish until it was exhausted, then pulled it out of the water with a single flick of his wrist and removed the hook from its mouth.

  “Fresh fish for dinner,” he said. “But I need to catch a few more.”

  “Abba, assuming I can walk this line between two worlds without falling on my face, what should I do about being a nun?”

  He baited another line.

  “Do you really want to be a nun, Deirdre?”

  “I think so. The monastery was a refuge for me after my son died. I was lost and didn’t know where else to go. After that, I decided that being a nun was something I truly wanted to do. I saw it as a way to serve God and fight for the vision of Brigid on this island. And after the events of the last few weeks, I think Kildare needs nuns more than ever. I don’t mean just to replace the four we lost, but as a statement to the world that the work of the monastery is important. But Sister Anna quite publicly expelled me from the community. She’s not the sort of person who changes her mind.”

  “That is true,” he said. “Would you like me to talk with her?”

  “Maybe not yet. I think I should let things settle down a little more at the monastery. And I have to admit, I like wearing these robes.”

  “They do bring out the blue in your eyes.”

  I laughed and moved my line yet again. I was having no luck at all in catching anything.

  “Deirdre, are you there?”

  Dari was coming up the path behind us.

  “Over here, Dari. Do you want to take over my pole? You can’t help but do better than me today.”