Patrick (16 page)

Meanwhile the other warriors began kicking me and thrashing me with spear shafts. I rolled on the ground, trying to avoid the blows, but to evade one was to open myself to another. No part of my body was safe. One of them landed a kick to my face; my jaw clacked, my head snapped back. Blood filled my mouth. Another kick caught me full in the ribs; I heard a dull, meaty pop and felt something give way deep inside.

Curling on my side, I tried to make myself as small an object for their abuse as possible. Each time I gained a modicum of protection, however, the chain was pulled to strangle and straighten me.

I gathered my strength and made one last attempt to climb to my feet. Confused, my vision blurred, I struggled upright
and too late saw the butt of a spear swinging toward my head. The fire-hardened ash struck the back of my head with a crack that opened a rift in my skull and set my stomach churning. I vomited over myself, and my sight dimmed. My ears filled with a loud, juddering roar, and I was once more back on the beach in Britain on the night I was taken. I smelled the rank seaweed and heard gulls shrieking overhead as bloodred stars streaked to earth.

“I surrender,” I gasped as my last conscious thought sped from me.

T
HE OCEAN'S CEASELESS
soughing filled my ears through the night. I woke with the sun in my eyes and blood on my tongue. My lips were gashed and puffed. My legs were numb, but my side ached with a fiery fury—as if a live coal had burned its way through my skin to lodge beneath my ribs. My hair was stiff with sweat and blood, and I lay on cold damp ground. I tried to sit up, and the movement brought a dazzling torrent of pain. I cried out, and this started my lips bleeding again.

From somewhere below me I heard the bleating of sheep, and knew that I was outside the shepherd's bothy on Sliabh Mis. They had returned me to my place and left me to live or die as I would.

I chose to die.

Indeed, I was as good as dead already. My breath was but a shallow thready wheeze that rattled in my chest; any attempt to draw air more deeply made the ache in my side flare with an agony that brought tears to my eyes. My left arm tingled oddly; it felt as if mice were nibbling at a place just below the elbow. But most worrisome was the feeling in my head—as if a fog of wool enfolded every wispy thought, blunting it, stifling it. I drifted in and out of a waking sleep, aware but distant, drifting, dreaming. Everything seemed remote and insubstantial, as if the world were as thin as the surface of water and the slightest movement would shatter it into millions of tiny reflections.

Sleeping or waking brought no comfort. My side burned, my head boomed with a hollow noise that was at once a gnawing ache and a soporific balm; the crack in my skull had grown a lump the size of a swan's egg. My mouth tasted foul from the sick-sweet blood I had swallowed; I longed for a sip of water to wet my tongue. The acrid stink of vomit was rank in my nostrils. My clothes were clammy with sweat and bile and blood.

My bladder, unrelieved since the day before, stretched uncomfortably taut, but I could not move. Instead I drifted into a reverie in which I strolled beside a clear stream winding its way through a peaceful valley in the full blush of summer; I came to an apple tree and stopped to smell the fragrance of the delicate white blossoms. When I woke, I found that I had pissed myself.

Unable to move, I lay wet and cold beside the dead ashes of the fire ring, whimpering like the beaten dog that I was. I do not know how long I remained there—a single moment stretched to fill whole days of agony—but once I felt a shadow move across my face as a cloud passed before the sun. The momentary cessation of heat caused me to open my eyes. I looked up to see a disembodied face gazing down at me. A fiery corona of living light blazed all around the angel's head.

“So you are still alive.” The voice seemed to come streaming from an immense distance. Even so, it hurt my ears.

“Are you an angel?” I asked, my voice little more than the creak of a dry reed.

“I was worried about you,” replied my visitor, and I felt a cool, feathery touch on my forehead.

“Have you come for me?”

“Yes.”

There was a swift movement, which I tried to follow with my eyes, but the angel was gone. I drifted back to the weird, sleepful waking which extended an eternity; a thousand suns burned through the sky path, spinning like firebrands thrown through the empty heavens. Suddenly I was being lifted up and held close. A bowl was pressed to my lips.

“Drink,” commanded a voice. I opened my eyes to see that the angel had returned with a bowl of water.

I obeyed the command and opened my mouth to let the cool water slide down my throat.

“Again.”

Once more I dutifully obeyed. I drank down the clean water, and the sick-sour taste in my mouth was washed away. I looked up into the face of the angel to see that her large brown eyes held an expression of motherly concern. What is more, there was something about the face of this angel that made me feel I had seen it before, but I could not think where, or when.

“I am going now,” she said; her voice, though gentle, pierced me to the marrow, and I cringed from it.

“Take me with you,” I whispered.

I felt myself lowered back to the damp earth that was my bed, and Madog's old fleece was placed over me. “There is water in the bowl beside your head.”

“Please,” I gasped, “I want to go with you.”

“Rest now. I will come back soon.”

The angel vanished, and I sank into an unquiet, pain-filled sleep in which I dreamed strange, portentous things: ferocious, pelt-covered men battling with clubs and spears against steel-clad Romans…morning sun striking through a cloudless sky, filling a silent dolmen with light…a great beacon flame burning on a high, windy hill in the dead of night…an enormous basilica of red brick without a roof, its walls slowly crumbling, sinuous tree roots lifting its colored mosaics….

I woke in darkness to the sound of crackling flames. The forest seemed to be on fire; the heat of the flames scorched me, but I could muster neither strength nor will to move out of its path. I closed my eyes instead and consigned myself to the inferno.

Sometime during the night the fire ceased. I dreamed of warriors bathing in a stream, washing the blood from their battle-weary limbs, and I awoke once more to the touch of a
cool, wet cloth on my forehead. I opened my eyes to see that the angel had returned, and she had brought another angel with her. He was large, with wide shoulders and strong hands; his face, too, was curiously familiar, but I could not place it. They hovered in the air above me, the light of the morning sun filling their eyes, their countenances grim and disapproving.

“Forgive me,” I croaked.

“Has he eaten anything?” asked the larger angel, drifting from my sight.

“No,” answered the other, vanishing on the word.

“Soak some bread in sheep's milk,” he advised. “See if he can eat that.” His darkly angelic face moved into view again. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to live, Succat?”

“I want to go with you,” I said. “Please, don't leave me here alone.”

“If you want me to stay, I will,” he said. “You must eat and drink something.”

Suddenly the bowl was at my lips. I opened my mouth, and water gushed in—too much; I choked on it and coughed. The cough awakened the pain in my side. It felt as if a spear point lodged between my ribs was being twisted in the hands of an enemy. I screamed aloud. The bile rose in my throat; my stomach heaved, but it was empty, so nothing came up. I gasped for breath, but the pain was excruciating. Cold mist descended over me, and I passed from consciousness.

Sometime later I revived. I opened my eyes on a brilliant golden sunset and the smell of meat roasting on the fire. I moaned as I opened my eyes to find the large, dark angel hovering over me. He held a bowl to my mouth and dipped out a morsel of milk-soaked bread, which he pressed to my lips. I opened my mouth and allowed him to put the soggy tidbit on my tongue. The milk and bread were warm. My jaw was stiff and aching, but I chewed and swallowed, and
the procedure was repeated—once more and again—until I could eat no more.

“That is better,” said the angel.

“Am I dead?”

“Almost,” he replied, then smiled. “Almost, but not yet.”

The mice which had from time to time been nibbling on my arm returned and began gnawing with a vengeance. “My arm tingles,” I said.

“Let me have a look.” He pulled away the fleece covering me and lifted the arm. I could see it from the corner of my eye, and I no longer recognized it as my own: The limb was swollen, discolored, and misshapen, with an odd, bulging knot in the middle. He laid the palm of his hand on the knot, and instantly the tingling sharpened to a throbbing ache that made me cry out.

“Move your fingers,” he commanded.

I obeyed, but nothing happened.

“Again.”

I worked them again, but they moved only very slightly.

“It is as I thought,” he said. “The bone is broken.”

I understood the words but could not think what they meant. “The bone is broken,” I repeated.

“Yes,” the angel replied, “and two or three of your ribs.” He lowered the all-but-lifeless limb gently to my side and replaced the fleece. “The arm is more worrisome, but I can help it to heal,” he said. “The pain will be unbearable.”

I looked up at him, wondering why he appeared so pleased with my wounds. “Where is the other angel?” I asked.

“Sionan?” he said, and laughed. “She has gone to get supplies.” He produced the bowl again and said, “I want you to eat some more. We must strengthen you for the trial ahead.”

Sionan
, I thought,
is my angel—she who came to me, she who brought help and healing to me.

“And is it Cormac?” I asked.

“Cormac and none other,” the dark angel replied. He gave me another milksop, and I swallowed it down.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Are you not one of the Good God's creatures?” he asked, pushing another gob of milk bread into my mouth. “How else should I behave?”

I chewed and swallowed. “You could just let me die.”

“No,” he said, his smile quick and light, “that would be a sin.”

This small exchange exhausted me, and I lapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep, waking once in the night to see Cormac, wrapped in his cloak, gazing up at the stars, his face illuminated by the fire. His lips were moving, and a soft droning sound issued from his lips—a gently undulating tone that rose and fell like the ocean's swell; if there were words, I could not make them out. The sound was pleasing, however, and I quickly fell asleep again.

Sometime later I was shocked by a shattering pain which brought me screaming from my sleep. I woke to find Cormac crouched at my side with my broken arm in his hands. Sionan knelt at my head, holding my shoulders firmly to the ground while Cormac straightened the arm, grasping it tightly above the wrist. Ignoring my cries, he reared back with a mighty heave, pulling on the injured arm with all his strength.

I felt a grating, grinding sensation in my forearm and heard a dull snap—like the sighing crack of a damp twig—and a pain unlike any I had ever known stole the breath from my mouth. I screamed, but no sound emerged. The agony seemed to last forever, but in a moment the fiery torture had dulled to an angry, livid, throbbing ache, and I lay on my back on the ground and wept. Meanwhile Cormac busied himself over me, deftly binding my arm to a slightly flattened rod with short strips of cloth he had prepared.

“There, now,” Sionan said gently, cradling my head in her hands. “The worst is over.” She raised my head a little and pressed a bowl to my mouth. “Here, drink this. It will help dull the pain.”

I drank, and the thick sweetness of honey mead filled my
mouth; I tasted also the dark tang of another substance mixed into the mead, but I was past caring. I emptied the bowl; Sionan set it aside and laid my head in her lap. Then she began to sing, very softly, very gently—and stroked my head until I fell asleep a short time later.

More herbs and elixirs followed, and slowly, achingly slowly, my body began restoring itself. In my waking times, which were few and brief, either Sionan or Cormac attended me, hovering like the ministering angels they were. I ate and drank what was given me and, having eaten and drunk, I eventually had to get up to relieve myself. As it happened, only Sionan was there with me, and though I put it off as long as possible, the time came when I could hold it off no longer.

“When will Cormac return?” I asked.

“Tonight,” she said, adding, “perhaps. He had duties with his master.”

“I see.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“No, it is just that—”

“If you are uncomfortable, Cormac said I could give you some more of the potion.”

“I have to relieve myself,” I told her.

“Oh.” She looked at me for a moment. “Well, we will get you up, then. Here”—she bent near and took me beneath the arms to raise me—“let me be your strength.”

With a deft movement she lifted me into a sitting position, where, despite the ferocious ache in my side, I remained panting to catch my breath.

“Are you certain you want to do this?” she asked, the corners of her mouth bending down in sympathy. “I could bring you a bowl.”

“I will not pee into a cup like a child. I want to stand.”

It was a tedious procedure, fraught with pain and not a few curses, but in the end I was on my feet—dizzy, swaying, half faint with exhaustion. Every bone and sinew in my body hurt, every muscle ached. My bruised skin stretched tight on
swollen limbs. The splint held my broken arm at an unnatural and uncomfortable angle, but I was on my feet.

Resting my weight on Sionan's shoulders, I hobbled a few steps beyond the edge of the fire ring, then stood in humiliation to pass water while she bore me up. That finished, she helped me pull up my trousers and stagger back to my place.

“Would you rather lie in the bothy?” she asked.

“No, I like it better by the fire. It is warmer.”

“Wait a little,” she said on our return to the fire ring. “Stand here and do not move.”

Sionan darted away, retrieving Madog's shepherd's staff, which she put into my hand. “Lean on this while I prepare you a proper bed.”

I stood gripping the staff with my good hand while she rushed around making up a bed for me from stuff she had gathered. Upon a bed of fresh pine boughs she placed several armloads of dry reeds, which she covered with the pelt of a red deer and some fleeces from the bothy. Then the excruciating act of lying down commenced. By the time I was settled again, I was shaking and sweating, and one or two of the wounds had reopened, but I felt as if I had conquered an entire army. I knew then that I would live and not die.

The bed of pelts and pine boughs was more comfortable by far than the damp bare ground. “Thank you, Sionan,” I said. “If not for you, I would be dead long since.”