Pride of Lions (29 page)

The moment his fingers closed on the holy symbol, words seemed to flow into his mouth. "...

Unless you are willing to renounce your idolatry of sun and tree and embrace the true faith?"

No sooner did he utter the words than the abbot was suffused with a warm glow. His imagination leaped ahead to the spiritual rapture of conversion: impassioned prayer, patriarchal instruction, the opportunity to emulate sainted Patrick and bring the light of Christ's message to the benighted. God worked in mysterious ways. Perhaps the destruction wrought upon Kill Dalua and Kincora had been for the express purpose of drawing Thomond's remaining pagans out of the hills and delivering them to Cathal's ministry.

But Torccan was shaking his head. "We are not interested. You have your beliefs; we have ours. They have nothing to do with rebuilding Kincora."

I must keep my patience with these people, Cathal warned himself. An injudicious remark now might destroy a Godsent opportunity.

"I remember your father as a Christian.

Surely he would not deny his children the benefits of faith?"

Onchu, who had fierce blue eyes and a wedge-shaped jaw, spoke up. "We have faith, the Old Faith," he informed the abbot. "And we have knowledge, the true knowledge that comes from earth and sky and not from the minds of men no better than ourselves."

Druid rantings! thought Cathal, refusing to be insulted. He kept a firm hold on his cross. But at that moment he heard the wind moan on the slope of Crag Liath, and in spite of himself cast a superstitious glance in the direction of the mountain.

Following his glance, the youngest brother spoke.

"You hear the voice of the gods," said Daman.

"The old gods speak to us through the elements in language we understand; we need no Church to translate for us."

Daman was shorter than his brothers, thickset and stolid in appearance, but his face was stamped with an indestructible innocence. Be gentle with this one, Cathal cautioned himself. Be persuasive. Find common ground upon which to build, as the saints did in their first contacts with the pagans of Ireland.

"In the words of the blessed Patrick for whom your own father was named," Cathal said in his kindest tones, "our God is the God of all the people and also of the sun and the moon and the stars, of the high mountains and the deep valleys."

Daman blinked like a sleepy ox. "Then you and I worship the same gods already."

Cathal inhaled sharply. "Not gods. God.

One God! He has one Son who is

coeternal with Him, and together with the Holy Spirit they

..."

"I thought you said one god," remarked Torccan, shifting weight from one hip to the other and folding his arms. "Now you're talking about three."

"Three in One, the Trinity. It is a great mystery that will be clarified when ..."

"Mysteries are not meant to be clarified," a smiling Torccan said as if he was instructing a child. "Mysteries are necessary to remind us that there are things beyond our understanding and to keep us from being arrogant; they encourage the ecstasy of worship.

We worship life. We enjoy everything it brings us, from the warmth of the sun to the refreshment of the rain.

We do not know the source of either, but we hold them both holy and are enraptured by them.

"You Christ-men gain power by channeling man's inborn need to worship through yourselves as sole interpreters of the spirits. You erect buildings and claim they house your god--as if a god could be contained in a building. But are you not discouraging people from learning to hear the voices of the Otherworld for themselves? And I wonder--do they find as much joy in your roofed rituals as we do in the singing of the grass?"

Cathal started to voice a protest, but Torccan went on relentlessly. "I must tell you, we find your custom of celebrating the torture of your god and then eating him repellent. But if such practices make you feel better, that is your business--provided you do not try to force them on others. As for us, we neither need nor want your services. We only want to offer assistance to Prince Teigue."

The words of the despised pagan demonstrated such misguided intelligence and reasoning ability that Cathal was severely tempted to abandon his Christian forbearance and hit Torccan in the mouth.

But at that moment the woman in the cloak stepped forward. Pushing back her hood to reveal her face, Cera inquired sweetly, "Please, can you tell me if Prince Donough postponed his trip to Alba to help rebuild Kincora?"

Cathal was disconcerted. "What business is that of yours? What possible ... ah ... did I not see you at his wedding?"

When Cera lowered her eyes her thick lashes swept her cheeks. "We were outside. We were not allowed in."

A horrified Cathal was hastily fitting pieces together in his mind. "And his young wife died not long thereafter. You were angry at being excluded, so you put a curse on her. A pagan curse!" His face suffused with blood. "I demand you leave this place now and never return!"

Onchu said in a good-natured drawl, "I thought you wanted us to convert to Christianity."

Suddenly Cathal understood everything. These were demons sent to torment him. There had never been any hope of conversion; indeed, they were probably responsible for the wind that kept tearing the new roof off the chapel. They outnumbered him but he was not afraid. He would not let himself be afraid. He was Dal Cais, born to be a warrior. And God was with him.

They might tear and rend his body but they could not harm his Christian soul!

Shouting, "Begone, demons!" the Abbot of Kill Dalua brandished his walking stick like a spear and crouched in anticipation of their attack.

The four stared at him but made no move.

When the tension became unbearable, Cathal dropped to his knees and bent his head in prayer, beseeching God to be with him.

Torccan exchanged glances with the others, then with no word passing between them, the four edged away from the man who knelt like Saul on the road to Damascus.

Cathal did not hear them go, for his heart was pounding too loudly in his breast. To the best of his knowledge no Christian had yet died at druid hands in Ireland; perhaps this was a special honor God had reserved for him. He waited, alternately cold with terror and hot with exultation. Time passed. A great wind soughed along the roadway, ruffling the trees on either side and lifting the hair at the edge of Cathal's tonsure.

He opened his eyes.

He was alone.

*

They followed the winding pathway up the shoulder of Crag Liath. Torccan led the way. As he shouldered through holly and hazel and hawthorn he could feel the summer-life draining from them, flowing back into the earth which would keep it safe until the next leaf-spring. There was peace on the mountain, the peace of time measured in seasons.

Over his shoulder he said, "It would be a mistake for us to go to Kincora now; it would only cause trouble."

"It would," Onchu agreed. "The abbot hates us."

Daman chuckled. "We did nothing to encourage him to like us." In a more sober voice he added, "We don't try to convert Christians, so why does the abbot want to convert us?"

"It is a tenet of the Christ-faith," replied his oldest brother, "that they must extend it to everyone."

"Why?"

"They think only they know the truth."

Onchu barked a laugh. "But there are as many truths as there are people! As soon insist we all have the same shape of teeth."

A mist descended, damp and clinging. Cera licked her lips to taste the moisture clinging to them. Sweet; so sweet.

Water in all its forms was holy.

The quartet emerged from a clump of trees to find themselves facing the bare gray rock for which the crag was named. As if at a signal, the mist lifted. When they turned around Thomond lay spread out below them. "I can see Kincora!"

Cera cried with delight. "Och, Torccan; are you sure we cannot go there?"

"Father told us to stay out of trouble, especially since you are with us. It would have been better, little sister, if you had stayed at home with him."

"Failenn's at home with him," Cera replied with a toss of her head. "Besides, I insisted."

Daman chuckled again. "And we all know how stubborn you are."

"What if I am? Life is stubborn."

She took a few steps down the slope and gazed toward the sprawling fortress below. Was he there?

Would he feel her on the height above him?

But when she searched with her mind and spirit, she could feel no trace of Donough Mac Brian.

Her shoulders drooped.

Torccan said briskly, "Come now, Cera, we have things to do."

With a sigh, she turned and made her way back up to her brothers. From a pack on Torccan's back Onchu took a parcel neatly wrapped in deerskin. The others crowded close, each placing a hand on the parcel so that together they laid their offering before the stone.

Then they stood for a time in silence; Being With.

At last Daman said, "If we can't go to Kincora, how can we take part in the rebuilding as Father wanted?"

Cera smiled. "I know the answer to that question.

We shall send strength to the builders."

Torccan nodded his approval.

"Will we do a pattern?" Onchu asked his sister.

"A wheel of strength," she affirmed.

"Sunwise round." She reached for Daman's hand and took a step forward, bare foot against bare earth. Torccan and Onchu fell in behind them. With unselfconscious grace, Padraic's children began a druid dance. The rhythm they would follow was as old as time, and deep in their bones.

They sprang lightly off the ground, landing on the toes of their feet. The earth cushioned them.

In perfect harmony they raised their right feet and placed them to the second beat of the silent music within them, then followed this step with a lightning-swift placement of the left foot. Right and left again for seven beats, ending with the left foot as they were turning to the right; sunwise.

Then one, two, three, backwards and forwards, flying feet, bodies as light as air, leaping, sidestepping, weaving through an ancient pattern.

When one full wheel was completed and before they began the next, Cera lifted her voice in song.

Below in Kincora, the men laboring to rebuild the damaged fort heard the larks of summer singing, though the day was chill with autumn. They redoubled their efforts, feeling more energetic, as if new life flowed through their veins.

The leader of the construction crew had just received a tongue lashing from the Abbot of Kill Dalua and was in no good mood, but even he relaxed and began to hum under his breath as he worked, forgetting the recent unpleasantness.

On his way back to the monastery, Cathal heard a sound which seemed to emanate from the dome of the sky. He paused, turned around, looked up. Saw nothing. But a chill ran up his spine and he began to trot, pounding the end of his walking stick into the ground with every step he took.

The sound followed him. He thought it a shriek, a moan, a demon's voice. By the time he reached the sanctuary of Kill Dalua he was red-faced and sweating.

"The ban shee!" he cried to an alarmed Brother Declan. "I heard the ban shee, and I am Dal Cais!"

Chapter Thirty-eight

In the autumn of 1017, Donough's hired longship had followed the Irish coast as far north as Rathlin Island, where they took aboard additional supplies, then struck out across open water. Upon reaching Islay, they had turned north again, hugging the deeply indented coastline and putting ashore at night to make camp.

In spite of Ragnald's frequent

exhortations to Odin, the wind had been against them.

Most of the time the ship relied on oar power rather than its one square sail. Beneath darkly overcast skies, daylight hours were defined by the relentless rhythm of the oars.

Donough's plan had been to circle northern Alba and come down the eastern shore almost to the Firth of Tay, which would put them near Glamis.

A sea voyage had seemed preferable to a long and dangerous overland trek in unknown territory.

In actuality sea travel could be more hazardous than traversing the land, as the ship's owner reminded his passengers once their fare was paid and they were underway. "Raiders abound in these waters," said Ragnald, an axe-faced Dane with dark gold hair and a thrusting, predatory nose. "Not me, you understand," he added quickly.

"I don't go Viking, I'm just a hard-working trader." His weatherbeaten face shone with unconvincing sincerity. "But as we round the northern coast of Alba we'll pass very close to the Orkneys, and no matter what the season, the Orkneymen take to the sea like sharks in search of prey."

"My son is well able for them," Gormlaith assured him. But Donough spent considerable time clutching the gunwale, scanning the horizon and speculating on just how one fought off Vikings at sea.

As the weather worsened he, like the rest of his party, had another reason for clinging to the gunwales. Their stomachs rolled and lurched like the waves beneath the boat. Even Ronan turned a peculiar shade of green.

Only Gormlaith did not surrender to her stomach. With a mighty effort of will, she stood erect in the dragon-headed prow with her face to the gale as if she was enjoying every moment. Her unbound hair whipped behind her like a banner. When nausea overcame her she simply leaned forward and pretended to be examining some object of intense interest in the waves.

"I love storms!" she proclaimed.

"That woman is a storm," Fergal muttered as he sat slouched in the bottom of the boat, hugging his stomach and tasting bile.

At the helm, Ragnald silently concurred.

They had been underway less than a day when he realized his female passenger was none other than the infamous Kormlada. Old she might be, but it was said no female in Ireland was more skillful in pleasuring a man's private parts.

The very first night they camped ashore he had sidled up to Gormlaith as she sat amid a small collection of bags and boxes she insisted on unloading and keeping with her at all times.

Her eyes had been fixed on the campfire, but she cut them in his direction.