Tempted though I was, I came to the conclusion that it was a risk too great. I would go on foot. With the raid to occupy them, I could be well away before anyone thought to look for me. So as night descended over the camp, I set about collecting a few provisions to take with me.
One of the lords had brought a small, two-wheeled wagon that was loaded with food—hard bread, salt pork, and the like. It was to this wagon I went, hoping to filch a few loaves and some meat. As expected, there was no one near the wagon when I arrived, so I took what I could carry, stuffing it into the grass bag beneath my tunic. I turned to hurry away, making for the perimeter of the camp, where I thought to pause and wait until darkness was complete and I could slink off unseen.
I darted around the side of the wagon and ran headlong into three warriors. I humbly excused myself and begged their indulgence, turned and started away again—only to be yanked backward by a strong hand on my arm.
“I know you,” said a too-familiar voice in my ear. I froze. My captor spun me around to face him. Disaster clasped me to its thorny breast—in the form of my old adversary Cernach. “All that time looking for you, and now here you are.”
“I can explain, Cernach,” I said.
“Good,” the beefy warrior said, his voice thick with menace, “Lord Miliucc will be glad to hear it.”
“Let me go.” I appealed to the other two warriors, who stood looking on with puzzled expressions on their faces. “He is making a mistake.”
“You are the one who has made a mistake, my slippery friend.” The deeply malicious grin widened on his face. “And now you are going to pay.” He turned to the two with him and said, “He’s a runaway slave.” The two nodded knowingly, quickly losing interest in the affair.
In that instant Cernach’s grip loosened slightly. I took the chance and pulled my arm free, ducked around him, and raced off toward the center of the gathering, hoping to lose him in the general confusion of the massed warhost. I reached the near edge of the assembly and dived into a clump of warriors standing on the periphery. I wormed through them and out the other side, sliding deeper into the knotted clusters of men standing around the fire ring, where the flames were just being kindled.
I heard shouting behind me, but I ran on, flitting around the circumference of the ring. I reached a fair-size group and pushed in among them as they stood watching a wrestling contest. I could hear Cernach and his two friends shouting as they worked their way through the crowd. As they came nearer, I squatted so as not to be seen.
My intentions were mistaken, however, and one of the warriors looked down and, seeing me, cried, “Here! What are you doing?”
Laying his hand to my slave torc, he jerked me to my feet and shoved me out from among them. I fell to the ground, and before I could gather my feet under me, Cernach pounced. He clasped a heavy hand to my slave collar and hauled me upright.
He held me with one hand and punched me in the stomach with the other. The first blow forced the air from my lungs; the second brought bile to my mouth. I swallowed it down and, gasping, cried for someone to help me—thinking that if any of Eoghan’s men were near, they might come to my aid. But if they heard me, they did not heed my cries.
“Cernach, please!” I screamed. “You have caught me. Enough!”
“No, boy, I say when it is enough. We are just getting started.” With that he drew back his fist and smacked me on the side of the face, splitting my lip and loosening the teeth in my jaw.
“Cernach, please! I surrender!” I spluttered, spitting blood.
The sight of blood seemed to satisfy the two who were with him. “Leave off,” said one of them. “You might kill him.”
“Save your strength for tomorrow, brother,” the other advised.
Cernach gave me a last, halfhearted punch and then pulled me roughly away. “Come, you,” he said. “We will see what Miliucc will do with you.”
King Miliucc, although surprised to see me, hid his astonishment behind a frown of regal rebuke at my disloyalty. He was standing with two other lords, one of a number of noblemen, and clearly did not wish to deal with me then and there, however much he might have preferred it. He glanced at me indifferently and said, “Chain him.”
Cernach, exulting in his authority over me, imagined it was his superior cunning which had allowed him to capture me. He dragged me to the place where Miliucc had established his camp and, with a mouthful of boasts and curses, passed one end of a chain through the ring on my slave torc and proceeded to tether me to a tree. And there, with a kick in the ribs for good measure, he left me.
When he had gone, I tried to find how he had fixed the chain, but it was not long enough. I could kneel down but not sit, and I could not reach around the tree to find the end of the chain, nor could I move it one way or the other. I was well and truly caught.
Disappointment sharp as the burning ache in my side surged through me, and tears came flooding to my eyes. No criminal destined for the chopping block ever felt worse than I did then. I knelt whimpering in shame and misery, cursing my luck and wishing I had taken the horse after all. If I had followed my first instinct, I would have been far away from the camp and out of reach of the bloody-minded Cernach. I cursed him, too, and damned him to hell for his infernal interference.
All through the night, the warriors stoked their courage. I remained by my tree—sometimes standing, sometimes kneeling, as the chain permitted—and listened to the sounds of the warriors as they lashed themselves to fighting frenzy. The cries echoed into the surrounding wood and resounded in the empty hills ’round about: loud, bellowing, bloodlusting cries.
They left at dawn—close to two hundred mounted warriors riding out in ranks and waves—and an uncanny silence descended over the camp. The few of us left behind settled back to await the warhost’s return. I tried to get one or another of the servants to release me. Every time someone would pass, I would plead and whine to be let go, but no one heeded me. A chained slave is a forlorn and fearful sight, and few will make bold to free him, lest they suffer a similar fate.
I languished through the day, forsaken and alone.
As the sun began to slide down behind the rim of rocky hills, the lords and their warbands returned—fewer in number than when they rode out, to be sure, and far less zealous. Some of the dead were brought to camp; the majority were not. I suppose they had fallen in the most hotly disputed places, and retrieving their bodies was not possible.
Despite the losses, the raids seemed to have produced the desired effect, for the victors came leading sheep and cattle, and carrying bags of treasure: objects and ornaments of gold, silver, and bronze which they had plundered, along with weapons they had taken from the dead on the battlefield.
Immediately upon their return the warhost set about preparing to leave. I suppose that, having made a most successful sortie, they did not wish to linger any longer than necessary in case the Connachta tribes regrouped and came looking to reclaim their stolen goods. The warriors washed in the stream and bound their wounds, some of which were fearsome indeed: One man I saw had a long, ragged gash in his side that oozed blood with every movement; another had lost three fingers on his left hand, and the rags he wore were stained bright crimson.
I stood watching as the warriors went about their business, and I wondered whether Lord Miliucc would return and what would happen if he did not. For a brief moment I entertained the hope that I might yet evade the king’s wrath—but that was folly, and it swiftly vanished at the appearance of Miliucc and his warband with the last of the raiders. Like the others before them, the tired warriors bathed in the stream and hastened to break camp.
The entire gathering moved out, and I with them. Whatever words passed between my former master and my new one, I never learned; from the moment Cernach caught me, I did not see Eoghan again. I was unchained from the tree by one of Miliucc’s warriors and led away behind a horse, and that was that.
Exhausted by the day’s fighting, the warhost did not travel
far—just far enough to put some small distance between them and any retaliation the Connachta tribes might attempt. The night passed quietly—but not without event for some; morning found three dead among the warriors. They had expired in the night. The kings would not countenance their burial so far beyond the borders of their own realms, so the dead were rolled in their cloaks and tied to the backs of their horses.
We broke camp once more and started off. I was tethered to the warrior who held the end of my chain. As the day passed, the various warbands dispersed one by one, going their separate ways, and taking with them the cattle and plunder each had won. Just after midday, Lord Miliucc bade farewell to his brother lords and turned his face to the north. The clouds closed in soon after that, and it began to rain.
Thus we made our way back to the Vale of Braghad. When the wide green valley opened before us, my spirits were as low as my chain dragging in the mud. I had tried not to think what would happen to me when we reached the ráth, but now that it was in sight, a deep and sickening dread came upon me. Images of the beating I was to receive pushed their way into my thoughts; as fast as I could quench one, another would spring up to take its place.
Oh, but as violent as was my imagining, the ordeal, when it came, was far worse.
We rode up to the fortress to be welcomed by the entire tuath. The king announced that the raid had been successful and that though they had lost four good warriors, they had acquired enough plunder to meet the boru tribute. He then dismounted and embraced his queen, who had the welcome cup ready. She placed it in his hands, and he drank. The people cheered their lord’s success with shouts of praise and acclamation for him and the warband.
Then, turning to the warrior who held my chain, he said, “I will deal with the slave now. Bring him to me.”
I was dragged to where the king waited. They forced me to my knees before him, and he stood gazing down at me, his expression calm but determined. “Three times you have run away, and three times you have been caught. What I do now, I do for the last time. If you should ever defy me and escape again, I will catch you. And when you are caught, you will be killed. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Hear me,” he continued. “You are my shepherd, but you abandoned your flock. A good shepherd never leaves his sheep. He watches over them through all things. Do you understand?”
Again I nodded. Abject and wretched, I nodded.
Then, with a gesture, he summoned four warriors. “Spare nothing but his life.”
The first blow took my breath away—the shaft of a spear brought down hard on the top of my shoulder. I screamed in spite of myself and struggled to my feet, only to receive a sharp jab in the gut from the same spear shaft. The second warrior joined in. Taking up the end of my chain, he pulled with all his might, yanking me backward off my feet. I tried to rise, but he kept pulling the chain, dragging me by the ring attached to the iron collar around my neck. I had to hold on to the torc to keep from being choked.
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.
SEVENTEEN
THE 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 goi
ng 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?”