Saint Brigid's Bones (9 page)

“I will do my best, Sister Anna.”

“I hope that will be enough. You see now how the vultures begin to circle. Even if the abbot isn't responsible for the theft of the bones, he is certainly quick to take advantage of the situation. Others will be as well. We have precious little time. You must find those bones.”

D
ari, did you pack the cheese?”

“Yes, Deirdre,” she sighed. “Both the soft kind you like so much and some of hard stuff. If we don't eat the latter we can use it to fight off robbers. I got enough of both from the kitchen to last us for a few days, plus some loaves of bread we had left over from dinner.”

Dari hadn't wanted to come on the trip back to the Sleaty church with me. She rolled her eyes when I told her about the dream. But I didn't want to go alone and at last I talked her into it.

After all the turmoil around the monastery since the theft of the bones, it was restful to be walking through the Irish countryside on a bright autumn day. The grasslands near the monastery were full of flowering white and yellow daisies and red clover. Cattle and sheep grazed in the meadows near scattered farmhouses and golden plovers whistled a plaintive cry as they flew overhead.

After we had settled the matter of the cheese, Dari and I enjoyed the silence of the fields and forests for the next few hours, happy with each other's company and feeling no need to talk. We stopped for lunch near a small stream. A few clouds were moving in from the south and I feared we would have a storm before the day was over.

“Deirdre, exactly what are you hoping to find at Sleaty? It's been two weeks since the fire. There won't be any footprints left with all the rain we've had, and anything someone might have dropped would have been burned to a crisp in the fire. Did this mysterious voice give you any hints about what to look for?”

In spite of her deep faith in God, Dari was a very practical person who didn't believe in signs, wonders, or voices in the night. I knew she was going on this trip just to keep me happy.

“No, the voice didn't go into any details. Look, Dari, I feel as silly about all this as you do, but my grandmother is no fool. If she believes I should go back to Sleaty, that's what I'm going to do.”

“Deirdre, you know I think the world of your grandmother, I just don't believe that dreams are a very good guide for how to live our lives.”

“Normally I would agree, but I've been thinking about the voice I heard. I wonder if it was Brigid?”

Dari looked at me skeptically.

“So you think Brigid came back from the dead to whisper to you in your dreams?”

“I don't know, Dari. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if the fire at Sleaty is somehow tied to the missing bones then maybe she did.”

Dari began packing our food back into her satchel.

“Well, if we're going to make it to the campsite before sunset we should get moving. I don't like the look of those clouds.”

We walked for most of the afternoon along a low ridge and arrived at the forest glade where we had planned to spend the night just as the first cold raindrops began to hit us on the head. Dari looked at the sky and frowned.

“Our tarp isn't going to do us much good if the wind picks up. You know, Deirdre, there is a dry place nearby where we could spend the night.”

“Dari, no, please. I don't want to stay with Tuán. I'd rather get wet here in the woods.”

“You're going to get soaked here in the woods and so am I. Come on, Tuán isn't so bad. At least his hut is warm and dry.”

By now the rain was starting to fall harder. In a moment of weakness, I agreed, and so we set off down a side trail into the woods.

Tuán was an old monk who lived alone in a small hermitage in the nearby forest. He had been there as long as anyone, even Father Ailbe, could remember. He came to the monastery every few months to bring us honey, beeswax, and fresh mead. He made the mead himself from the honey he cultivated in dozens of hives around his hut. The wax he brought was essential for making votive candles and the writing tablets we used in our school. Like Brigid, he had an extraordinary gift for working with animals. I had been to his home only once before and had marveled at the ravens, squirrels, and hares that followed him around his little glen. He was a genius at taming wild creatures. He was also completely mad.

It was almost dark when we came to Tuán's home. He was outside, feeding by hand the largest deer I had ever seen. The animal almost bolted when it saw us, but Tuán whispered something in its ear and it quickly calmed down.

“Sisters, welcome!” He grabbed our arms and began to pull us towards his hut. “The birds told me you were on your way. Come inside and put your things on my guest bed. I've got a
stew cooking over the fire and fresh bread on the coals. You must have a cup of mead with me while we wait for dinner. I get so few visitors here.”

“Brother Tuán, you're so kind, but please don't go to any trouble. Sister Dari and I would be happy just to get out of the rain for the night.”

He ignored my protests and continued to pull us up the path past the constant hum of his beehives.

“I've made some new friends since your last visit,” he said as we stooped to enter his hut. Indeed, there was a red fox curled up in one corner and a huge badger rooting around under his bed.

He poured us each a generous portion of mead in wooden cups and sat down next to us by the fire. We thanked him and took a long drink as he watched us with pleasure. I have to admit he made the best mead I'd ever tasted.

“Tuán, I don't suppose you know anything about the theft of holy Brigid's bones, do you? They were taken from the church and I've been put in charge of finding them. Do you have any idea who might have taken them?”

I don't know why I was asking a crazy man who lived alone in the woods about the missing bones, but I didn't want to leave any stone unturned.

He hummed a little tune as he stared at the ceiling. I thought he hadn't heard me or was lost in a world of his own. Then he started to sing:

Bones, bones, beautiful bones.

Where have they gone to?

Will they come home?

The birds, the beasts, the fishes say,

look in the place the nightingales play.

Dari glanced over at me and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Tuán, that's all very good, but …”

“Deirdre,” he interrupted me with a smile, “have I ever told you the story of how I came to Ireland and what happened to me after I arrived?”

“Yes, Tuán, last time I was here and several times at the monastery when—”

“It's really an amazing tale,” he continued. Dari looked quite smug as she sipped her mead.

“It all began a thousand years after Noah's flood. There was no one in Ireland back then, not even the síd folk. I came on a ship from Greece with Agnoman son of Starn as our leader along with fifty other men and women. It was such a fertile land—and so new! We could graze our cattle year round and had to drag them from the pastures each night so they wouldn't overeat and explode.”

The exploding cattle of Tuán were a favorite joke among the children of the monastery.

“It was a wonderful time with more babies each year than anyone could count. I had three wives myself and at least a dozen sons and daughters. Everything was going so well until the plague arrived. In less than a month everyone was dead. Everyone but me, that is. I went insane being alone—hard to believe, isn't it? I wandered naked through the mountains and wastelands for years living in caves and fleeing packs of savage wolves. My hair grew down to my waist and my nails became like claws. At last I grew old and lay down in my favorite cave to die.”

“This is fascinating, Tuán, but you really don't need to—”

He ignored me as he scooped us each a steaming bowl of stew from the pot over the fire. There was no meat in the stew, but it was a delicious mixture of cream, vegetables, and barley. He also took the bread off the fire and tore the small loaf in half for Dari and me. Tuán continued his story for what seemed like
hours, telling us how he had been transformed into a mighty stag, how he had watched waves of new settlers arrive, and how he had become a wild boar, a hawk, and finally a salmon that was eaten by the wife of a local king. He claimed he was then reborn to the queen as a human baby and became a great druid who was converted by Patrick when he first arrived in Ireland. It was useless to interrupt him. Giving the lonely old man a chance to tell his story yet again seemed like a small price to pay for a hot meal and a warm bed.

When he had finished his story, Tuán lay down and fell asleep on his bed with a smile on his face. Dari drained the rest of the mead from her cup and tiptoed quietly towards our bed. One by one, all of Tuán's animal friends, even the badger, curled up next to him and watched me as I banked the fire and blew out the single candle before crawling under the covers with Dari.

We walked all the next day and reached Sleaty just as it was getting dark. There wasn't enough light to do any searching that day and the smell of wet, burnt wood from the church was still strong, so we made our camp a little way off in the forest. We made a porridge for supper, then wrapped ourselves in our blankets, thankful that the rain had finally stopped.

I didn't sleep well that night. I had strange dreams of running through a forest covered in snow trying to find a young girl who kept calling out to me.

When I woke up at dawn, Dari was already heating water over the fire.

“I won't asked how you slept, since you spent most of the night tossing and turning. What were you dreaming about, or do I want to know?”

I rubbed my eyes and took the cup of broth she offered me.

“It was strange. I was in the woods trying to find a little girl. It was freezing. I wonder what it means?”

“Obviously Brigid wants us to go to the North Pole.”

“Very funny, Dari. I know not every dream means something, but this one was odd.”

“Deirdre, the dream just means you're frustrated about not finding the bones yet. It also means you kicked off your blanket in the night and were cold. That's all.”

“Maybe. Let's finish up here. I want to start searching the ruins of the church.”

We drank our broth, then Dari knelt on the grass. I joined her and sang the morning psalm, then prayed with her for the sisters and brothers back at Kildare and all of those in need. I added a plea to God that he would help us find something that day that would lead us to the bones. When we finished, we walked down to the banks of the Barrow to wash up.

The site of the Sleaty church was much as we had left it. Brother Fiach's cross still stood tall in the clearing like a lonely sentinel guarding the charred pile of wood behind it.

We began by walking slowly in circles around the church searching the ground for clues. Aside from sheep droppings and the remains of a rabbit recently killed by a falcon, there was nothing to be seen. We then began the filthy task of sorting through the burned remains of the church. It took hours. By the middle of the afternoon Dari and I were both covered in soot. We had searched under every scorched plank twice and found nothing. I had somehow thought that the embroidered cloth of Brigid might have survived, but I knew this was foolish. It would have been the first thing to burn.

“Deirdre, I'm sorry, but there's nothing here.” Dari had collapsed on the ground at the foot of the cross. “We did our best, but I'm afraid your grandmother was wrong.”

I sat down next to her, exhausted, frustrated, and not a little embarrassed about the whole expedition.

“I guess you're right, Dari. I was so sure we'd find something.”

I rubbed my dirty hands through my blackened hair feeling as foolish as I ever had in my life.

“Let's go wash up,” Dari said. “I brought some lye soap along. We need to try and clean our tunics as well.”

We walked back down to the river and stripped off all of our clothes. As we stood in the cold water trying to rub off as much grime as possible, I couldn't help but laugh at seeing Dari naked. Her head, face, arms, and legs were as black as pitch, but her mid-section where her tunic had covered her was white. She looked down and laughed at herself and me as well. After a long scrub, we climbed out and cleaned our clothes as best we could, then hung them to dry on the bushes.

At that moment I heard a twig snap in the trees behind us. I caught Dari's eye and motioned for her to circle to the right while I moved around to the left. Still naked, we made our way silently to either side of where I had heard the noise.

Crouched behind a thicket of elderberry bushes was a teenage boy with a shepherd's staff holding himself very still in hope that we wouldn't see him. I sprang at once, tripped him as he rose, and threw him on the ground beneath me as I straddled his chest. Dari ran up beside me, picked up his dropped staff and stood above him, aiming the staff at his head. He looked so frightened at the sight of two naked women pinning him to the ground that I almost laughed, but I wanted him scared.