Tag: death

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Rordan waited for an answer but none came. Ula merely smiled to see his thumb
caress the top of her hand.
Suddenly aware of what he was doing, Rordan withdrew his hand.
“My problem was with my father,” Rordan said. “He used to get the local bullies
after me just to toughen me up. Then when I wouldn’t fight with them, he’d beat me
with a cudgel. I finally ran away and travelled with a surgeon to the south of France.
I learned a lot from the Saracen doctors in Córdoba but I refused to become a Mohommedan
and had to leave Spain or be made a slave. The only way I could return
to Éirinn was to travel with soldiers, so the very life I wished to avoid was forced on
me. Still, like you, I survived.”
It was through singing that they came to a mutual understanding and respect. Ula
had a beautiful voice and their harmonies echoed through the wooded hills. Sometimes
they made up songs where Rordan would sing the first part and Ula would
complete the phrase:
Thank you birds … for your beautiful songs
Thank you sun … for your warming smile
Thank you trees … for your perfume in the air
Thank you breeze … for blowing through my hair
Thank you God … for bringing us together
Rordan longed to tell Ula of his growing love for her but couldn’t bring himself to
do so. What if she rejected him and thought him strange like Finten and the Brothers
did? He didn’t want to lose their newfound friendship. Ula also had her own feelings
of love but, for the same reason, couldn’t share them with Rordan.
After four frigid months at the hunting camp, the band moved back to their home
by the sea, convinced at last that the devil ship would not return. Upon arrival in the
village, the community of Natives gathered to build a special lodge for the White
Devils who had become Friends of the First Light People.
Through the coldest days, when muted conversations and irritating coughs grated
through the smoky lodges of the hunting camp, Brother Rordan had sat apart, whittling
a piece of deer breastbone with a small flint blade. Now he presented a Celtic
cross to Father Finten. For the first time the young poet could remember, his mentor
offered genuine praise and appreciation, acknowledging this expression of his art.
Finten raised his eyebrows, smiled, and took and blessed the cross. “This is truly
beautiful, Brother. I think your cross should stand above the entrance to our lodge,
that all may see the symbol and be reminded of our crucified Saviour.”
The cross became a meaningful emblem, not only to the Brothers, but also to
everyone in the village. When Bjorn and Ari expressed interest, Finten talked about
Christ. The two Norsemen had been exposed to Christian teachings as children but
had understood little. Finten was careful not to overstep the bonds of friendship by
aggressive preaching.
White Eagle and the First Light people had their own interpretation of the sacred
symbol and likened it to the medicine wheel, which represented the sacred number
four. White Eagle explained that there are four directions and four winds…

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The Unquiet Land

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“Yes. A mile or so outside the village. His farmhand Bill Neely just left, so my father needs someone like you to do the things you’ve just told me you can do. You weren’t lying to me, were you?”
“Oh no. I can find people here to speak for me. Even in Corrymore. My uncle, Seamus Slattery, lives there.”
“Seamus Slattery is your uncle?” the girl cried in surprise.
“My mother’s brother.”
“I can hardly believe it. We lived with the Slatterys until I was six or seven years old. My twin sister, Nora, and I. My father wasn’t the kind of man who could raise two young girls on his own.”
“You had no mother?”
“She died giving birth to us.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. My own mother died six years ago.”
“And your father?”
“He abandoned us.”
“Well, if you’re Seamus Slattery’s nephew, you’re definitely hired.” She smiled at him again, but the frown still rippled his forehead below the yellow curls. She reached into the basket and brought out a light, golden confection. She held it out to him. “Have some yellow-man, yellow man.”
“Thank you,” he said. He tried to pick a lump from the paper, but it was stuck. He had to hold her hand steady and pull the sweet, sticky pieces of confection apart. She looked at him and smiled at his serious face. Michael felt himself blush.
“You have strong hands,” she said.
“I’ve worked with them all my life,” he replied. He felt a quivering inside of him. He wanted to hold her hand again.
“All your life,” she repeated. “You’re not more than twenty years old.”
“Twenty-one,” he said.
“That’s a long time to have worked with your hands.” She was teasing him again. “Twenty-one years of digging and raking and hoeing and ploughing. Twenty-one years of pulling flax and dipping sheep. And look what big, strong hands you have. What will they be like when you are eighty-one?” She had taken one of his hands in hers and was looking at it like a palmist, turning it over and back. “They’re strong hands,” she said. “Are they gentle hands too?”
He did not know what to say. He looked at his boots; cow manure had caked on one of them.

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Arrows

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“Why do you want me to baptize your baby again?” I asked her,
sipping from a cup of hot chocolate sweetened with honey. I knew
well enough that was the usual procedure, but she probably didn’t.
The house was not well located. It was on the perimeter of the
town, near the place where the Indians had made their temporary
encampment. We sat on rickety chairs at the table in her kitchen, her
slave minding the baby outside. I could see them through a window
that was nothing more than a squared opening in the wattle and
daub wall.
Josefa had aged since I last saw her; left behind was the young
woman that shivered every time the monkeys howled or a jaguar
roared in the mountains. This was a weathered woman with hands
reddened and swollen from work. But in her big brown eyes, the girl
lingered, and she could still make me shrink inside when she burst
into tears.
“What? What is it, Josefa?”
She sobbed and wiped her face with the edge of her apron.
“Nothing, really. I’m very happy to see you, Friar Salvador. I
missed you terribly.”
“So am I to see you, but tell me, why are you crying?”
I didn’t have time for this. I was tired from the time spent writing
the letter for Losada and worried by their content. I reached out and
held her hand.
“Josefa, is there something you wish to tell me?”
She stopped sobbing and looked at me, deadly serious, then
glanced through the window.
“Only if it is as a confession. All I tell you in confession is secret,
isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
I was not expecting her to speak so plainly.
“He circumcised my baby. He spoke in a strange tongue and he
circumcised my baby. He is a Jew! And now my baby is a Jew as
well! Am I damned?”

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In Turbulent Times

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‘And Dervla?’
‘Thriving.’ Danny escorted Caitlin into the yard and closed the iron gate behind them. ‘Motherhood suits her. And every day this week she’s had her friend from the cottage visiting.’
Caitlin stopped walking. ‘Her friend from the cottage?’
‘Connie. She and Dervla go way back. They were at school together in Lisnaglass.’
‘Didn’t Connie go home to Belfast with Robert?’
‘No. Robert’s coming back on Monday, so Connie decided to stay in the cottage. Have a short holiday. I would have thought you knew.’
‘Michael must have forgotten to mention it.’ Caitlin turned to the back door of the farmhouse, a frown on her forehead. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Danny. Regards to Dervla.’
‘Thanks, Caitlin. Yes, tomorrow bright and early. Good evening to you.’
Caitlin entered the scullery, placed the eggs on a shelf, and started to make tea for her and Michael. She paused occasionally to look up the hillside, but she could not see the cottage from the scullery window.
Michael came in an hour later, greeted Caitlin with a kiss, and washed and dried his hands at the sink. ‘We’ll finish the shearing tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There’s only a few left in the catching pen.’
‘I don’t know why you don’t hire a professional shearing team,’ Caitlin remarked. ‘There are enough of them around.’
‘I’ve been shearing sheep since I was seventeen,’ said Michael. ‘I can handle it myself. And Danny’s good with the shears too. If we had a bigger operation I might build a shearing shed.’
‘You’ll be glad the shearing’s all done, though, won’t you?’ said Caitlin.
Michael filled a tin mug with water from the tap and leaned his haunches against the sink. ‘Ay, that I will.’ Then he drank thirstily.
‘Danny was tired when I met him on his way home.’
‘He’s worked hard this week.’
‘You didn’t tell me Connie was staying in the cottage on her own since Robert left on Wednesday.’
‘Didn’t I? Didn’t you see her in the loaney? She’s been going down to visit Dervla every day.’
‘I must have missed her,’ said Caitlin. ‘Anyway, let’s eat.’
If Caitlin had had any suspicions about Michael and Connie Hanlon, remembering how Connie had come on to him in the square in Corrymore on Tuesday, she did not show them. She wondered how she would react…

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Redemption

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They travelled in silence, tired. Demetre couldn’t find a way to
take him away from his thoughts, although he surely wanted to talk
to him about Magda. But the young man was in a melancholic mood,
just like the overcast sky over them and the monotonous light rain
of Crete. The monotony that overburdened a heavy heart or a wandering
mind that only knew how to find disturbance and make it its
own, that only found imbalance and made it its own, as was Hermes’s
mind and heart this fine cloudy evening.
And it was that certain heaviness on his chest as his mind travelled
to the years he’d be faraway from this land he was born into and
raised, this land with its poor people for who Hermes had strong feelings
of understanding and empathy, these people for he felt he had
to work his best to alleviate their daily burden by making sure one
day they might carry a lighter burden and they might be able to have
a decent living comparing them to the citizens of other European
countries, since he had spent many hours studying and educating
himself with regards to the standards of living in some European
countries and he knew things could change to the better if the proper
legislature was passed and if new and modern rules were put in place,
he had many thoughts of the how and the when, yet he also knew it
was very difficult to change things people had been doing for eons,
but he also knew he had to try nonetheless because he truly believed
that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, as a familiar saying
went.
When they arrived at his parents’ house, he had in mind to
show them the graduation papers which he had brought along and
which were resting inside his small briefcase. He wanted them to feel
pride for his diploma, something many people would love to have,
yet he had this unbearable weight on his heart and he could see it
with the eyes of his soul, a soul big enough to take in the whole world,
the world with its poverty and disease, with its wars and disasters…

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The Unquiet Land

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“Get out of my sight,” Finn yelled with more passion. “Get out of my sight till Caitlin comes back. And if she doesn’t come back, or if I find out that you’ve harmed her in any way, you’d better stay out of my sight. Otherwise I’ll kill you.”
Michael rose from the table without a word and left the house. He walked like one in a trance as far as the barn, then he leaned against the wall and wept. The tears brought some relief to his tortured mind, but as he climbed the rest of the way to the cottage his fear grew again like a nauseating vision of eternity. Remorse tightened its suffocating lock on his throat. He wished he could die.
Michael opened the door of the cottage and stepped inside. For a heart-lifting second of hope he expected Caitlin to be there, waiting for him by the fireside. But the cottage was empty and cold. In deep despair he was about to flee, about to rush down the hill again and give himself up to the law in Lisnaglass. But fear of the consequences stopped him. Anguished and frightened he lay on the straw-filled tick on his bed and suffered the cruel torture of the demons in his mind.
That which hurt most was Finn’s banishment. To be cast out by such a man was a more atrocious punishment than death. What a strange revenge of fate, Michael thought, remembering the bleak November day when he drove his own father to the railway station and told him not to return. He had used almost the same words as Finn had: “If you come back, I’ll kill you.” His father had not come back. He did not even look back as he walked away from the horse and trap on which his youngest son had driven him to the town. He carried only a canvas bag containing all that his profligate life had left to him. That canvas bag was the last tangible remains of his father that Michael ever saw, for it somehow caught on the door of the train as his father went aboard and fell on to the platform. The stationmaster picked it up and handed it into the compartment.
That memory had returned to Michael frequently during the past ten or eleven years. He often wondered where the bag was and whether his father still owned it. Strange to recall the bag more than the huge, round, florid-faced man who owned it. Stranger yet when the man was as memorable as Thomas Carrick: memorable for his flaming yellow hair and a face that glowed bright red as if burnt by the fiery aureole of his hair; memorable for the mountainous bulk of his body and for the inexhaustible energy with which he drove it to excesses of work, to excesses of drinking, to excesses of lust, to excesses of cruelty.

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Redemption

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He was in his room with his mind wandering to faraway lands
where he might have to go for a while. Yes, he had to accept the offer.
This position was going to be his post. Even if he had to go abroad, it
would be just for a while. He liked the idea of being around the young
people who could be moulded to his way of thinking. He could be a
craftsman who would take soil and plant it into a pot of his liking.
Yes, this was a position he had to accept.
“Everything will go the way it was supposed to go,” Hermes
told himself.
Cleaned and dressed, he went downstairs. His aunt was there.
“Ready to go, my boy?”
“Yes, dear Aunt. I shouldn’t be late.”
“You are right. Go then and try to learn everything, so you
know what you will get yourself into, conditions, demands, everything,
okay? Remember, nobody these days offers you something
without expecting something in return.”
“Yes, I know, I will find out the best I can. Don’t worry. I’ll tell
you all about it when I’m back.”
“Are you going to be late?”
“No, and I’m not going to Eleni’s after this, if that’s what you are
saying,” he answered and went to the door.
Half an hour later, he was at the doorstep of the dean’s house
and rang the bell.
The dean himself opened.
“Good evening, Dean.”
“Good evening, Hermes. Come in.”
He walked in and sat down in an armchair. The house was
rich, lordly, with thick carpets and furniture of a conservative style.
All kinds of paintings hung on the walls. Some of them were classic
styled and coloured pieces, although a couple of them looked
modern, especially one, an abstract painting, flooded by an overhead
light, looked very impressive as it caught Hermes’ glance, which
focused on it for a few extra seconds, not to be missed by the dean,
who smiled and, sitting across from Hermes, asked,

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Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Ari found a special friendship in Grey Wolf, once Grey Wolf learned from Ari that
he had been avenged for the loss of his ear. Grey Wolf and Leaping Water expected
their first child before the end of the next summer.
Throughout the winter, Rordan and Ula created a deep special connection with
Running Deer and the other camp children, teaching them simple songs in the Celtic
of his own childhood. They called Ula, Aira, meaning Of The Wind, because she
could run like the wind and beat almost anybody in a race. She was expert at throwing
a knife and could hit a target at twenty paces. Ula didn’t mind the new name
because both names sounded so similar and she loved the acknowledgment of her
prowess and strength. The Natives gave Brother Rordan the name Mountain Thrush
for his pleasing voice and happy laugh, though many of the elders referred to him as
Ominotago, Beautiful Voice. The children were also fascinated with his blonde hair,
almost the colour of the cotton traders brought from the Lands of Winter Sun.
For the first time in many years, Brother Rordan had found his niche as a singer
and teacher of song among the Natives. Finten regarded the transformation from
surly boy to happy Brother as a miracle and didn’t object that Rordan and Ula
seemed to spend all their time together. Perhaps this was God’s country after all. He
often thought that if singing were praying twice, the singing of the children would
surely bring conversions.
Music contains a power stronger than many medicines and Brother Rordan’s
chanting was healing Ula’s sadness but she still remained wary, especially toward
Father Finten and Bjorn, both so much older than she or the Brothers. It took a
period of fever, when Ula had to be nursed by Chochmingwu Corn Mother, Brown
Bear’s wife, for Rordan to reach a new closeness with Ula. It was then that he saw her
vulnerability, as she revealed her childhood suffering through fevered ravings and as
he witnessed her tears.
Since her daughter’s murder by Illska, Corn Mother had dedicated herself to healing
the village children and young people. It was a testament to her loving heart that
she nursed one of the white strangers. She also appreciated Rordan’s commitment to
the children and so she reached out to his constant companion.
Corn Mother’s herbs worked their magic. Ula began to speak to Rordan of her
past as she recovered from the fever that had racked her for two weeks, and as she
saw the relief and warmth in Rordan’s eyes.
“How did I come to be a slave? No, I wasn’t taken by Vikings. My parents weren’t
killed in an awful raid. I didn’t crawl out of the flames. My pigshit mother thought
I’d make a good nun and sold me to a convent. A good nun, ha! Could you see me
in a convent?
“My father? I had three fathers. All of them were my father. None of those assholes
was. I was traded to the convent for six chickens and a pig. A pig! My mother got the
better of the deal: She got the pig; they got me.
“I was there a whole bloody year. Thought they’d rescued me from a life of shame
following my mother’s trade. I was their prisoner, more like it. Stale straw and kitchen
slops and prayers, prayers, prayers, morning, noon and night. So I ran off dressed
as a boy. Then they were going to hang me up for a loaf of stale bloody bread. The
sheriff sold me to a Norseman instead.

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Arrows

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That was just like Infante, to find a way to turn the tables. So I was
being accused of insensitivity, failing to honour the memory of my
slain friend.
“Exactly what I was trying to do when you interrupted me,
Infante,” answered Losada.
“It is not the place of Friar Salvador to decide the security of this
city,” Infante said. “That is my job. I am sure, Friar, you would take
equal offence if I was to start leading us in prayer.”
There was a good deal of chortling at this remark. I was appalled
by Losada’s lack of control. What was going on? Why did Losada
accept such a tone from his subordinate?
“Friar Salvador, please tell us why are you so sure they are
seeking peace and not our demise?” Losada said.
“I told you. Their morale has been shattered. I can assure you they
are convinced they cannot win. They want to secure the survival of
their people. Some have opted for peace. Others are staying away.”
“Where? Away where?”
“I told you I didn’t come here to lead you to their villages. I
couldn’t if I wanted to. I don’t know where they are.”
“But you know their language, I presume,” Infante intervened.
“I do.”
“I, in the captain’s boots,” Infante said, turning to the others,
“would interrogate the caciques with Friar Salvador’s aid to secure
the safety of the people in the city.”
A murmur of approval spread among the onlookers.
“I will do as I must, don Infante,” answered Losada, indicating
his leniency for insubordination still had its limits. I didn’t like
Infante’s obsequious tone or Losada’s conciliation to it. There was
something going on between the two.
“We are sure you will, don Diego,” Infante conceded. “Our lives
are in your hands.”
Infante bowed and the others followed. It was mockery rather
than respect. This bode ill.
I left Losada disappointed and afraid. Not one day among the
Spaniards, and already I smelled unshed blood.

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In Turbulent Times

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‘Oh I’m in for the long haul, Caitlin. I’ve signed up for twenty-five years. Army life suits me.’
‘You won’t go back to the fishing then?’
‘No,’ Tom replied. ‘The Drumard Maid, your father’s old boat, the one my father bought, she has long since gone. Sold for scrap and probably did her bit for the war effort. No, I’m going to stay in the army.’ Then he turned to his companion. ‘Do you remember Gerard Sweeney, Caitlin? I know you do, Seamus.’
‘I don’t know if I would have recognised you, Gerard,’ Caitlin declared. ‘You’ve been in America a long time.’
‘Not too long,’ said Gerard. ‘Ten years. I was eighteen. Finbar got the farm, and I got sent out to the colonies.’
‘Better not let any Yank hear you say that,’ Seamus warned light-heartedly. ‘You wanted to go to America, if I remember rightly.’
‘Best decision I ever made, Seamus. I love it out there. Married a beautiful woman. I’ve a son aged six and a daughter aged four, a house, a car, a good job when I go back. I’m one lucky guy.’
‘Gerard likes that chick that Michael’s dancing with,’ Tom said. ‘He wants an introduction.’
‘You’re married, Gerard Sweeney,’ Caitlin scolded mockingly. ‘And so is she.’
‘And she’s here with her husband,’ Seamus added.
Tom slapped his friend on the back. ‘Too bad, Gerry, old sod. You’ll have to wait till you’re back in California.’
‘Lots of time, Tommy, my bold soldier laddie,’ Gerard said. ‘As Caitlin has pointed out, this party could go on all night, and what chick can resist a man in uniform?’
‘You’re a reprobate, Gerard Sweeney.’ Tom looked at Caitlin. ‘Don’t listen to him, Caitlin. He’s big-headed like most Yanks. They think they’re God’s gift to humanity.’ Tom paused to pull a swig from his bottle of beer. ‘Well, we just came over to say hello. I’ll call up to the house, Caitlin, before I leave. Have a chat with you and Michael, if he ever let’s go of that girl. And I want to see Nora as well.’
‘She’ll be happy to see you, Tom. And bring Gerard with you.’
‘I don’t know if I should introduce Gerry to Nora. She’s much too pretty.’
‘She’s married too, Tom. Remember.’

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