Sacrifice

by Philip Freeman

  “Deirdre, what happened? Where is Riona?” demanded the abbess.

  “She’s dead. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to explain now. I’ve got to try to stop this battle.”

  Father Ailbe took Dari from me and helped steady her.

  “Abba, is my grandmother still alive?”

  “Yes, though I’m afraid I’m still not sure if she will live.”

  He handed me my harp.

  “I think you might need this,” he said.

  “Thank you, Abba.”

  “Is there anything you need from me?” Sister Anna asked.

  “Your prayers, please. I don’t see how this is going to work.”

  I ran along the walls to the far side of the monastery and looked down the hill to the wide plain below.

  There were two armies before me. The eastern clans with King Dúnlaing at their head numbered perhaps five hundred men. The lines of the western clans led by Brion were only slightly smaller. The warriors of both sides were magnificent to see. Most were dressed in woolen pants and bright red tunics that would hide the blood from any wounds. Over the tunics were finely worked shirts of black chain mail. Each man had a razor-sharp sword on a belt around his waist and a long-headed spear in his right hand. Their tall shields were made of wood and painted with intricate and colorful designs unique to each clan. Each warrior wore a helmet of polished bronze on his head with loose earpieces that hung down, protecting the sides of his head, and were tied with a leather thong under the chin.

  As I drew closer, I could see that the king and the clan leaders were standing in wooden chariots with their drivers kneeling in front of them. Like most Irish horses, the two animals pulling each chariot were small but thick in the chest for endurance. Chariots were mostly for show and would not be used to charge the lines. The leaders would dismount from them to fight while their drivers waited nearby. There were a few cavalrymen on horses moving around the edges of the lines, but Leinstermen traditionally favored fighting on foot. I saw that a few of the more zealous warriors in the front of both lines had stripped off all their armor and clothing in the old manner to show their contempt for death and were shouting insults across the field to the other side.

  With my bardic robe draped around my shoulders and my harp in my hands, I marched alone down the hill into the space between the two armies. No one would dare to stop a bard. All the sisters and brothers were watching me from the nearby walls.

  I struck the strings of the harp and began to play a somber tune as loudly as I could. When both sides had quieted, I began to sing:

  The stories of old speak of men waging war.

  Brave men, great men, men of honor.

  They feared nothing and bowed to no one.

  But they all heard the words of a bard.

  “Listen to me, all of you!” I shouted. “I demand that the leaders of each army come to me here with their captains.”

  The king and Brion both looked surprised that a small woman with a harp was giving them orders just as they were preparing to fight. Neither side moved.

  “If you do not obey me, I will compose a satire on you all. You and your sons for seven generations will bear the shame of defying me!”

  The leaders looked at the men beside them and at last signaled their charioteers to move forward to the center of the plain. When they came near and stopped, I spoke in a voice both armies could hear. In bardic school I had been trained to make my voice carry when needed. I knew I had to hold their attention and speak quickly. This was not a time for nuance.

  “There is no honor in what you do here today. You fight for a lie!”

  There were some angry shouts from both lines, but I spoke louder still.

  “You think the druids have murdered the sisters of Kildare, but in fact it was one of their own nuns who killed them.”

  There was a gasp from all sides and shouts of disbelief. “Hear me! She wanted to turn all of you against each other. And you have fallen into her trap like rabbits, caught in the snares of a woman.”

  I had always found that the best way to stop men from doing something stupid was to play on their pride.

  “I will explain everything to your leaders, but believe me when I proclaim on my honor as a bard that the druids had nothing to do with these murders.”

  “Even if that’s true,” shouted Saoirse’s father from his chariot, “blood has been spilled. My warriors were ambushed and killed by the cowards of the western clans. Their spirits cry out for vengeance!”

  A shout arose from the men behind him.

  “We curse the spirits of your men,” shouted Brion from the opposite side. “They attacked a great druid—your own grandmother, Deirdre. You speak of cowards, but these men have no honor.”

  Now a shout arose from the ranks of the western clans. Spears began to pound against shields on both sides. This wasn’t going to work. Tempers had gone too far.

  “You want blood?” I shouted, raising my arms for silence. “So be it.”

  I marched up to King Dúnlaing and spoke to him directly, making sure the whole army could hear me.

  “My lord, you are the ruler of this tribe. No man on either side of this field doubts your wisdom and courage. Your eastern warriors demand druid blood, your western clans want Christian blood. I will give you both.”

  I drew my sword and handed it to the king.

  “This is the weapon my father used to defend this tribe against the Uí Néill. He stood beside many of the elder warriors here today, fighting for the lives of eastern and western clans of this tribe alike. He died so that this tribe might prosper as one people—and I will do no less.”

  I took off my bardic robe and spread it on the ground.

  “I am both a druid and a Christian,” I shouted. “Let my blood satisfy what you all desire. Let me be the final sacrifice.”

  I then knelt on my robes at the foot of the king and bowed my head for the blow that would sever it from my body.

  There was a silence across the whole plain. I could feel the eyes of a thousand people watching me, including the sisters and brothers at the monastery. I knew Dari would be there on the walls with Father Ailbe and Sister Anna and the rest of the community. I said a final prayer.

  Then the king spoke.

  “Deirdre, daughter of Sualdam, the blood of your father truly runs in your veins. Rise and stand beside me.”

  I stood up, shaking, and stood next to the king.

  “Hear me, all of you, eastern and western clans alike. I am the king of this tribe and I swear by the gods of this tribe that no blood will be shed today, whether from a bard or a warrior. I pledge to you all my word as king that this ends here, now. There will be no further vengeance by any clan. We cannot weaken ourselves so that outsiders take our land. Divided, we are prey for our enemies. United, we are strong. We are one people and always will be.”

  Dúnlaing then walked to the chariot of Brion and stood waiting. The leader of the western clans hesitated only for a moment, then dismounted and stood next to the king. Dúnlaing held out his hand, and at last Brion took it.

  A shout arose from both sides, building slowly at first, then echoing across the plain. I could hear the voices of the sisters and brothers on the walls join in. It was a roar that must have been heard all the way to the borders of the Uí Néill. These were brave warriors who would have gladly laid down their lives for their clans that day, but they knew that no one would have prospered from this war. The tribe united was the greatest victory of all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I met with King Dúnlaing and the clan leaders in the monastery church a short while later. Father Ailbe and Sister Anna were there as well. Tempers were still raw and there were many questions, but by the end of the meeting I was able to convince everyone of the truth. The king was the last of the nobles to leave.

  “We all owe you a great debt of gratitude, Deirdre.”

  “My lord, you owe me nothing. It was my honor and duty to serve my king. I
only wish I could have found the killer sooner so that there would have been fewer deaths and less grief.”

  He smiled and took a magnificent golden torque from his neck and placed it on mine. I tried to protest, but he would have none of it. He then left me alone in the church with Father Ailbe and Sister Anna.

  “Abba, may I see Grandmother now?”

  “Of course.”

  “Deirdre,” said Sister Anna, “when you are done, please come to my office.”

  I went to the infirmary and found Dari resting on a cot. I hugged her as she sat up in bed. It was only then that I had time to realize how glad I was that she was alive.

  “You were amazing, Deirdre. Weren’t you scared? Did you really think the king would have cut off your head?”

  “I was terrified. And yes, I think the king would have cut off my head to save the tribe. I was ready for him to. I would have done anything to stop the chaos that would have come from the war. Thank God, sometimes being willing to die is just as good as the real thing.”

  Squeezing Dari’s hand one last time, I walked across the room to my grandmother’s bed. Her face was even more bruised and swollen than before. She looked as if she were barely hanging on to life. I sat down on her bed and touched her cheek. Her one good eye opened slightly.

  “Deirdre?”

  “Yes, Grandmother. Don’t try to talk. You were badly hurt. You’re here at the monastery. Father Ailbe is taking good care of you. You need to rest.”

  “Rest. Yes.”

  She drifted off to sleep again.

  I walked away from her to talk with Father Ailbe.

  “Abba, is there anything more you can do?”

  He took my hand in his.

  “I’m sorry, my child, but I’ve done all I can. The bleeding inside has stopped, but she was badly hurt and she’s not a young woman anymore. It’s now in the hands of God.”

  He held me as I cried. Dari joined us and hugged me as well. After a few minutes, I pulled myself together.

  “I need to go see Sister Anna.”

  “What do you think she’ll say?” Dari asked. “I wonder if she’ll let you back in the monastery. I’d think she would have to, after what you did on the battlefield.”

  “I don’t think that has anything to do with being a nun,” I said. “Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek, but Sister Anna is not a forgiving person.”

  I left the infirmary and walked across the monastery yard. Several of the sisters and brothers came up and thanked me. The abbess had just spoken to them all in the church and explained to them what Riona had done. They were all still in disbelief. The healing would take time.

  I knocked on the office door of the abbess.

  “Come in.”

  I entered and walked across the room to her desk. She motioned for me to sit down.

  “Deirdre, I have called you here first to thank you for what you did for this monastery. I still am in shock that Sister Riona was behind these murders, but I will pray that God may yet forgive her for her sins.”

  “Yes, Sister Anna.”

  “I know that this is not the time for important decisions. You have been through a great deal. The recovery of your grandmother is uncertain. You are exhausted. But you may be wondering if I would allow you to return to the monastery as a nun now that the crisis is over, assuming that is what you want.”

  “I bear no ill will against you, Sister Anna. I know I disobeyed you. I have no doubt that I deserved to be expelled from this fellowship.”

  “Indeed you did,” she said. “But you may not realize fully why I took the action I did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was very angry at you. You defied me—and not for the first time. I told you that you would have to choose between being a druid and a sister of Brigid. You have tried to walk a path between two worlds that is, in my opinion, impossible to follow. And yet, as you demonstrated on the battlefield this morning, there may be some advantages to being both a Christian and a druid. I am therefore willing to suspend my judgment on the issue. If you want to return to us, you may.”

  “Thank you, Sister Anna. I am grateful that you would allow me to come back. But as you said, this is a difficult time. May I have a little while to consider it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I stood up and bowed, then turned to leave. But I stopped and faced her again.

  “Sister Anna, you implied there was some other reason you expelled me from the monastery aside from my disobedience. May I ask what it was?”

  “There were two other reasons, actually. The first was so that you might work to solve the mystery of the murders free from the constraints of monastic life. I wanted you to be able to focus all your energies on that task without being a nun. We all suspected that the killer was a druid. I wanted you to have the freedom of a druid as you pursued the killer.”

  “Yes, I see. That does make sense, Sister Anna.”

  “I’m so glad you agree.”

  “But, if I may, what was the other reason?”

  Sister Anna stared at me for several moments before speaking.

  “I did it to protect you. I knew that a murderer was seeking the lives of the sisters of this monastery. I feared there was nothing I could do to save them, try as I might. The only way I could shield at least one of them was to cast her out, publicly humiliating her so that the whole province would know she was no longer a nun. I wasn’t certain it would work, but I hoped it might.”

  I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say.

  “You mean you did it to keep me safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because you are the most troublesome nun ever to reside inside these walls. If I expelled Sister Darerca or one of the others, the killer might have suspected that I wasn’t in earnest. But you—oh, yes—you have been such a well-known thorn in my side that there would be no doubt about my sincerity.”

  She continued to scowl at me.

  “But more than that, Deirdre, let us say that even an abbess can have her favorite.”

  She returned to her desk and began to work on her abacus. I stood by the door with my mouth half open.

  “Sister Anna, I. . . .”

  “You are dismissed. I have much work to do.”

  I bowed again and left, closing the door carefully behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grandmother, let me do that. You’re still not strong enough.”

  It was a month after the death of Riona, and my grandmother and I were in her new home, making dinner for our guests.

  “I can do it, Deirdre. I may not be back to my old self quite yet, but I can still make sausages.”

  That morning, we had slaughtered a young sow in the yard. While my grandmother supervised, I had slit its throat and held its head while the blood flowed into a large bowl. We would use most of this later for a tasty pudding. When the pig was dead and the blood thoroughly drained, I dipped the carcass into a cauldron of boiling water to remove the hair and hung it by the feet from the low branch of a tree. I then began butchering the animal. Within minutes, the head had been severed, the carcass split down the middle, and all the organs removed. Nothing went to waste. The bulk of the meat was salted and hung in her smokehouse over a low beech fire to cure for the coming winter, while the loops of intestines were removed and carefully washed to make sausage casings. The head meat would be used for a kind of sweet jelly, the lard rendered to eat with bread or use as a salve, and the skin set aside to fry later with beans.

  We were ready to stuff the sausages, and my grandmother insisted that she was perfectly able to blow into one end of the wet intestines to inflate them and make them easier to stuff.

  “All right, Grandmother, but don’t do too much. Father Ailbe says you have to take it easy.”

  “Ailbe is a mother hen. I think I know what I can do.”

  After a minute, she was out of breath and sat down in a chair by
the fire.

  “Well, maybe I will let you do the rest while I catch my breath for a moment.”

  My grandmother’s new hut was very much like her old one, but had the fragrant smell of fresh wood and thatch. Men from all the surrounding clans had come to build it about a week after the battle, when it was clear that my grandmother would recover. Saoirse’s father had brought his grown sons, and they did much of the heavy work themselves. Brion had also sent men from the western clans to labor on the project. The best craftsmen of the tribe had made her new furniture and metal utensils, while a local farmer gave her a fine milk cow. When Grandmother had returned home a couple of weeks later, she complained to me that everything was out of place, but I could tell that she was deeply moved by the generosity of everyone who had helped.

  After I had washed at the well, I took most of the organ meat and a small bowl of blood back to the kitchen to make the sausages. There was a brief argument with my grandmother about whether or not to use the spleen for the sausage or cook it separately. I wanted to add it to the rest, but my grandmother liked it fried with onions and nuts. As usual, Grandmother prevailed.

  Soon we would fry the sausages and serve them hot, along with leeks and other side dishes. Grandmother had even told me to bring out the jar of Spanish wine that King Dúnlaing had given her.

  “They’ll be here any minute, Deirdre. Set the table and get out the cups.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Grandmother insisted on getting up to answer it herself.

  “Ailbe, welcome. Dari, come in. Things aren’t quite ready yet, but we’re working on it. It seems I’m still trying to teach my granddaughter how to cook.”

  Dari kissed her on the cheek, then came to give me a hand frying the sausages.

  “Just like old times, eh?”

  “Yes, Dari, though I’m trying to be more patient now.”

  She smiled and looked up and down at me.

  “I like you better in your nun’s habit again. Not as flashy as the bardic robe, of course, but still stylish.”