Brigid of Ireland (Daughters of Ireland Book 1) (27 page)

He paused.
The gods.
Ardan could take no chances. He’d need to offer a sacrifice before he visited Brigid. He stuck the end of his torch into the ground and crept through the forest, holding open an empty linen sack. He searched for a small animal to capture and held the sack out, planning to throw it over the creature. Normally he’d hunt in daylight for a proper sacrificial animal, but he hadn’t planned ahead. He had to resort to bumbling around the woods like a lad trying to snare a fairy.

“God of the simple-minded fowl,” he called out, “hear yer servant! Send to me a proper sacrifice for the Others.” He hoped the god would hear. The Others, living in the seas, lakes, and under the rocks, had to be appeased if Ardan wished their help. His ultimate prey, Brigid, was a powerful woman. One who required the spell of the Others to subdue her.

Hours later the forest was completely dark, save for the light given off by Ardan’s torch. No birds of any type lingered where Ardan could snag one. Near a pile of branches, a pair of eyes flashed.
Badger!
Ardan was off and soon bagged the fellow, suffering wounds to his forearms in the process. But the linen bag did not hold the animal’s diggers – he escaped, scampering off and slithering beneath brambles.

Sweating, with blood dripping from elbow to wrist, Ardan retrieved his golden sickle, used for spiritual sacrifices, from his travel bag. A small animal was not a worthy sacrifice anyway. He eyed the horse. To sacrifice him, Ardan’s transportation, would surely be a worthy and acceptable offering.

Ardan lifted his arms to the stars, little pinholes of light in the night’s blanket. He chanted holy words known only to druids, and beckoned the Others to draw closer to him and help with the task. And to help him possess the power that Brigid had.

The sharp blade of his sickle sliced into the horse’s side, and Ardan felt detached, as if someone else was performing the ritual. Ardan chased after the injured animal, shouting praises to the gods. Pools of blood gushed out as the horse whimpered and collapsed near a stream. The tributary changed from dark and moist to thick and sluggish – red with sacrifice. The offering was poured out directly to the Others under the river.

Ardan stripped off his clothes and bathed in the stream.

After most of the blood passed by him, a light rain fell. “Pleasing, aye, it was. The gift was received.” He laughed out loud, pulling his chilled body from the water and grabbing onto the torch that sizzled whenever a raindrop struck it.

A twig snapped nearby. Ardan waved the torch in all directions but saw nothing. A red deer or a boar perhaps. Whatever watched, be it earthly or otherwise, seemed to have vanished.

Ardan left his white robe behind. The garment was no longer worthy of a great druid as it was no longer pure white. He dragged his leather traveling bag a distance from the slain horse until he found shelter under a hefty hawthorn bush. After dressing in a linen tunic and a thin black cloak he used for traveling, he remembered the golden sickle. He’d left it at the site of the sacrifice. The tool was more valuable than druid sticks, and he’d need to retrieve it before visiting Brigid.

Chapter 25

“Is ceirin do gach creacht an fhoighne. Patience is a poultice for all wounds.”

Old Irish proverb

Brocca was relieved that Ardan had left her. His continual questions and taunting were nauseating. She would gladly put up with him, however, if it meant he would stay away from Brigid. Brocca had no idea if he’d return.

The island where she was held captive was small enough that she heard waves pound on all sides. Even at night, while she was bound to her sleeping board, she heard the tide, knew the ocean was near all around.

Ardan had sailed days ago on a rudderless boat, heading east to a harbor near the river leading back to Brigid. She’d heard him say Brigid’s name just before he left. “Curse!” he had wailed again and again until the sounds of the ocean birds grew too loud for her to hear him any longer. What had he meant? Perhaps he called down a curse on Brocca and her daughter for refusing to yield to his power.

As she sat alone on her bed, her guard gone to fish for breakfast, Brocca recalled the miserable nights she had spent listening to the druid condemn her beliefs before he left.

“Yer god,” he’d said, “he is not here on this island, aye?”

She’d answered surely. “The One True God is here and everywhere. No one can hide from him.”

“If yer god is here, why does he not free ye? Why does he allow
me
the power to hold ye?”

“I will wait upon him for deliverance.”

Ardan huffed, paced the tiny hut, and then sat down close enough for his damp dog smell to permeate her nose. She smelled it still. “Ye’ll die first.”

“Perhaps, but still I wait.”

Her answer had surprised him. He paused and cleared his throat. The druid’s voice lowered. “What good does it do ye? Ye’ll wait forever, and still he will not come. I am a great druid. I commune with spirits great and small. Because of this all people will revere me. Ye cannot do this, Brocca.”

She had wondered then how Ardan had come to be so arrogant. Bram never put himself ahead of people, even those he considered not spiritually endowed. He believed himself their servant.

“I serve the God who is the Creator of all,” she had replied.

Brocca heard the sounds of Ardan packing a bag. She was pleased he was leaving.

Suddenly, his hands were at her throat. She tried to push them away, but he held her legs still with his thigh. She couldn’t draw a breath, and still he taunted her, whispering in her ear that she would one day serve him and not any other, not even a god.

Just as she was about to faint, he let go, spilling her back onto the solid wood sleeping board. Her head pounded the board so hard her teeth rattled.

He snarled like a mad dog. “Just remember what I told ye.

She sensed someone else in the hut at that time – the driver who was now her guard.

Ardan whispered, but since Brocca had lost her sight, she heard things others didn’t. “I’m taking the small craft. I’ll sail up to Hook’s Head then take the river back to the settlement.”

Ardan then raised his voice to the man, and Brocca heard the thud of a body hitting the wall. “Remember what I told ye.”

The driver’s voice cracked. “Aye. Ye can trust me.”

Since that day, the guard said little. He cared for Brocca, bringing her fresh roasted fish and allowing her privacy when needed. She could not escape, and he knew so too because he tied her only at night.

At first she feared what he might do to her, the two of them on a lonely island, but he never touched her improperly, never spoke a harsh word.

One evening on the beach, over a supper of scallops, Brocca probed for information. “What are we doing here?”

He sucked the flesh from a shell and answered with a mouthful. “Don’t know.”

“Then why don’t we leave?” “Can’t.”

She sighed. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? Ardan could not overhear. “Don’t we have a boat?” She knew they did. She could hear the ocean rocking the wooden vessel. It was tied up on the south side of the island.

“Aye, we do.”

“Then let’s go, before Ardan gets back. Surely ye have a family to return to.”

He coughed, gagging on his food. “What know ye of my clan?”

“Nothing. I just figured a young man like you had someone waiting for him.”

He scooted closer, sand grinding under his weight. She had the sensation that he was holding something in front of her.

“Can ye see this?”

“Nay. I see nothing.”

“Ye don’t know what it is I’m holding in front of ye?”

“I told ye I cannot.” She threw her empty shells in the direction of the water and wiped her hands on her tunic.

“How do ye know if I’m young or not? Ye can’t tell by my voice, now can ye?”

“Sometimes ye
can
tell, especially if the speaker is quite young or quite old. But I can tell in other ways with you.”

He laughed. His voice moved farther away. He was putting the cooking fire out. Grains of sand hit logs.

He mumbled, but she heard him. “’Tis getting dark. Let’s be off to bed.”

After she had retired to her sleeping board and he had wound leather strips around her ankles, a nightly routine, he spoke to her from the other side of the hut. He’d never spoken to her so much in one day in all the time they’d been together.

“How can ye tell my age, then?”

She shifted to her side even though doing so caused the ties to cut into her skin. She could hear him better if she faced his voice. “Will ye tell me yer name?”

“Suppose there’s no harm. ’Tis Erc, though ye’d better not be speaking it when Ardan’s about.”

Ardan! May he stay away.
Brocca drew a deep breath and answered. “Ye work hard, always chopping wood or hunting, so yer not too old, but old enough to know the value of a good day’s work – something sometimes lost on the young.”

“Is that the way it is? Ye could be wrong.” “I could be, but I’m not.”

He groaned as his large frame plopped down on his sleeping board. “What makes ye so sure?”

“I hear ye speak to yer lass in the wee hours of the morning when ye go outside, though she must be far away. Only a young man in love would do that, rehearse what he’ll say to her and how he’ll make up his time away. I hear ye say ye’d protect her and yer children with yer own life. Such are the heartfelt words of a young man who has not yet been separated from his mate for long periods.”

She heard his feet hit the dirt floor. He was sitting up. “How could ye know that? Yer tied up in the cabin in the early hours of every new morn. Magic! Yer a witch for sure.” “Nonsense, man. My ears are keen. I hear things ye ignore because ye have eyes to depend on.”

Erc was quiet for a long while. When he spoke, his voice was choked with tears. “Yer right. I have a young wife and two daughters, twins, born two summers ago. I have not been able to feed my family properly. Desperate as I was, I accepted employment from Master Ardan. Bevin, my wife, begged me not to. She feared Ardan.” He punched something solid, his board perhaps. “But my lassies, they cried for bread, begged for cream – and we have no cow. So I went. But, ah, she was right, that woman. I should never have done it.”

He was opening up. Maybe he’d let her go. “Then why don’t we leave tonight, go and return to Bevin and the wee ones?”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’ve said too much.” His voice echoed off the wall. He had his back to her.

Brocca’s nighttime discussion with Erc was a lone occurrence. He returned to his usual silence, feeding her but otherwise ignoring her. Brocca pleaded with God to end her isolation.

Brocca was almost asleep when she noticed that the salty breeze brought another smell, a strong greasy smell. She tried to imagine what it could be.
Smoke.
She called to Erc, “There’s something out there!”

“I hear nothing.”

“A smell. Like burning grease – fish flesh.”

“Like whale blubber?” He threw back the window shutters. “By the gods! Raiders! I’ve seen them before, I have. They burn whale blubber in barrels for light on their ships and attack seaside settlements at night.”

“Will they kill us?”

“Might.” He untied her. “I’m not waiting around to find out.”

He led her to the door.

“The boat’s not far,” she said.

“No time. They’ve seen it, that’s why they’re coming. Only chance we have is to hide.” He pulled her, first one way, then another. They seemed to be headed toward high ground in the center of the island.

“Where will we hide?” She tried to catch her breath. They had been climbing for some minutes.

He tugged some more. “There’s an abandoned cabin up here.”

“Won’t they find us there? Maybe we should greet them instead. Plead for mercy.”

He squeezed her hand. “Foolish, that. There’s a hidden room in the cabin, beneath the floor. Found it when I was hunting. ’Tis our only chance. I see the lights on the beach. They’re in our old hut.”

She heard a door squeak open, and he pulled her inside. The cabin was musty and smelled like rotting wood. She bumped into something. Furniture?

Erc nudged her elbow. “Careful. Come this way.”

She heard a creaking sound. They dropped to their knees.

He stretched her arm out for her. “There’s an opening here. Feel for the ladder. It leads to a hollowed-out room.”

Brocca did as he said, feeling along the cold earthen floor until her hands hit empty space. She wiggled her fingers until she hit upon the ladder.

“Hurry, now!” He was right behind her as she descended.

Brocca hesitated. “Are there rats down here?”

“Don’t know. But rats follow people, and from the looks of things there’s not been anyone human here for a long time.”

Her feet hit solid ground, and Erc drew the trap door closed. Bits of dirt showered her, landing in her hair and stinging her nose.

She shook the soil from her hair. “Will they not see that door, like you did?”

Erc rubbed stones together and sparked a fire. Snapping and popping sticks meant he’d lit a torch.

“And won’t they see that light?”

“Hush, woman. I’ll put it out soon. Got to see what’s down here with us. Hmmm. How about that?”

“What do ye see?” She pulled on his sleeve.

“This place used to hide thieves, I’d say. Though likely in a time even before my seanathair was born. Crafty fellows they were, those old ones. We’re well hidden.”

She felt along the wall and down to the floor until she was satisfied that she’d found a safe place to sit.

Erc continued hmm-ing and clicking his tongue while he moved about. “Well, the dust has not been stirred, not even by animals. There’s a chest over here with a lock on it – some ship’s chest, I’d say. There’s some holes here… ” He grunted as though moving something. “Holes in the wall for air. When I shove this stone in front of them, we’re sealed off. I expect there’s another to cover the trap door. Be right back.”

He grumbled some more from overhead. She heard the sound of rock grinding against dirt and then more soil fell on her head.

He grunted. “Clever bunch, them that built this. Seems the trap door swings from either side.”

She sneezed and coughed, and he offered her water from a sheepskin flask.

She swallowed and then turned to him. “Who’s to say the raiders aren’t of the same clan who built this place?”

Erc sat beside her and stomped out the torch. “Can’t say. But ’tis our only chance.”

Brocca prayed. “For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.”

Erc made his own plea for deliverance. “Whatever god yer praying to, may he hear us and not Ardan.”

Brocca reached for his hand. “Why do ye say that?”

He didn’t answer, but sobbed softly, as though trying to hold back.

“Erc, what are ye talking ’bout?”

He sniffed. “It’s not the time to talk.”

She listened instead, into the darkness, remembering how long it had taken them to get there, imagining where the intruders might be at that moment. The smell of burning whale blubber was stronger. When they made port, they kept the fires burning. Or was it torches she smelled, bobbing up the hill in the hands of violent marauders?