Waves in the Wind (14 page)

The battle was ours and the bitter thought of the slaughter to come became more than I could bear as, once again, unbidden the question came. Why? My horse cantered into the fighting. I pointed my staff at Christians fighting alone and in small groups, and shouted, “Yield! Will you yield?”

Desperate, grimy faces lifted to mine, amazed and uncertain at my remarkable offer. Clemency was an unheard of thing. Precious time elapsed while more men fell, but I was determined to stop the fighting. “Drop your weapons and back away.” To my own men, I demanded, “Give quarter to all who will accept it.”

Throughout the battle scene, amid the swirling, fighting groups, time and again I repeated my offer and demands. My captains, hearing my words, echoed them, taking up the cry.

“Yield!”

“Yield!”

“Quarter for all who yield!”

Many Christians immediately grasped the opportunity to live and dropped their arms while others, their faces snarling like cornered beasts, continued to fight until they were battered down. In the distance our horsemen struck down all who tried to escape to the rear and I galloped toward them.

“Stop it! Let them go!” Back and forth I rode, repeating my order. Horsemen drew up, staring at me in amazement as battle lust faded from their eyes.

A horse raced towards me. Torcán, his face taut with fury, raged, “What are you doing? We kill them today or face them again tomorrow.”

I laid my staff across my lap, leaned forward in my saddle and met his glare. “You will do precisely as I say—do it now, and without further said about it.”

His fury turned to wonder as he tried to divine my thoughts before he turned his horse, galloped away and, like any good man, obeyed my orders. Relief flooded through me, my shoulders sagged. Perhaps Torcán was right, perhaps we must fight against those same fleeing men again, but I prayed otherwise.

I walked my horse back to the battlefield where Christians stood in dispersed groups, uncertain of their lot as prisoners. My warriors surrounded them, unsure of what to do with prisoners. Dead and wounded lay everywhere—hundreds of them.

Within a group of prisoners, I spotted a black robe. As I rode closer I recognized the Christian priest who met me prior to the battle. He sat upon the ground, head down, and didn’t look up as I reined-in my horse beside him.

“So priest, you sit there like a lump while your followers suffer?”

For a moment he remained motionless, and then he turned his head and spat upon the ground. The hatred filling his face reached out to me as he looked up. “Damn your cold heart. You cannot chastise me, pagan. Only God Himself can do that.”

“I will chastise any priest, Christian or Druid, who idles while men urgently require his aid.” The death’s head staff pointed ’round the battlefield. “See for yourself. Your wounded and ours call for water and care. Stand up like a man! Treat your men, pray over your dead, but do something of value!”

It wasn’t until he stood and staggered in doing so that I saw that the lower portion of his robe had been burned away. His exposed leg, cherry red and covered in large blisters. My staff gestured to it. “See me later. I have burn salve and herbs to allay the pain.”

A Christian warrior stooped, picked up a javelin and handed it to the priest, who grasped it and leaned upon it with both hands. His stoic face turned to me. “Keep your magic potions, for I will have nothing to do with them. God will provide all I need.”

He turned his back to walk away, and I asked, “What is your name?”

“Joseph. They call me Father Joseph.”

Chapter 11

The Brightening

The graves of our dead stretched across the meadow in three long rows. Each warrior lay buried with his weapons, that he might have them in the afterlife. I offered up prayers as I proceeded down the rows, naming each man in turn and invoking the gods’ blessings upon him. The ceremony ended with my brief, final prayer.

Gods of our fathers,

O Lords of the Everlasting,

We humbly ask your blessings on one hundred thirty-four of our comrades,

Valiant warriors all, who fell fighting for you.

We ask for their release from the darkness,

We pray they might all arrive safely,

And become one with the Golden Ones,

Upon the blessed shores of Tír na nÓg.

* * *

Warriors massed about the small group of captains gathered around a central fire. Two days had passed since the battle, two nights during which I remained awake, my heart torn by all that had occurred and what might lie ahead. Of one thing I was convinced. The fighting must stop, not through our surrender but through a truce with the Christians. If such a thing were possible, it would be my responsibility to bring it about. First though, I needed support for such a thing from my own men.

I revealed my thoughts to them and a warrior shouted, “The Christians must turn their backs on the new god before peace can be restored. I say if they do not, we kill them all!”

“You would impose religious tyranny upon our people? Kill all whose beliefs differ from your own?” I shook my head. “No, dear companion. That is not the way.”

“It is the way of Christians who began this war!” another warrior shouted.

“Yes, but it is not the right way. People will and should fight when their right to live and freely believe as they choose is threatened.” I pointed into the distance. “Our dead lay buried there, men who fought to defend our freedom to worship our beloved Lordly Ones. However, to deny others the right to worship Christianity or any god of their choosing would make a mockery of the freedom those men died for. That is not a vision for the future for our land that I could support.”

Torcán stood nearby, arms crossed over his chest. “What is your vision?”

“It is vague at best, though shamed I am to admit it. However, this I do know. I see the futility of continuing a war wherein both sides merely strive to enslave the other. Innermost beliefs are not a matter to be decided upon a battlefield but within individual souls. I pray that yesterday’s battle and all those that came before will finally reveal that truth to our enemies. Perhaps the best we can hope for, though, is that the horrible consequences of the battle will give them pause, cause them to consider that now is a time for reason, not further fighting.”

An older warrior, a captain with graying hair and somber eyes, slumped by the fire. His son fell in the fighting and the personal tragedy of it weighted his words as he spoke to the others. “I share Ossian’s hope for the future, for what other choice is there? To fight on and on with no hope of winning by either side?”

A great sigh escaped him as he paused. “What manner of men are we?” His hand swept ’round to capture the group. “We fought to defend our honor and our beliefs in the Lordly Ones. Those are good causes and righteous ones, I’m thinking. Now? There is no righteousness in continually killing others because of what they hold in their hearts. If the Christians learned by their defeat that we are men who will rise up to defend our gods, and if they stop their depredations against us, then I say there have been enough deaths. Let this battle be the end of it.”

Around the fire the old warrior’s words were greeted with silent nods, and I looked to Torcán. “What say you, my friend?”

He looked up with a shrug. “If the war ends today, then so be it. Call upon me later if you need me and I will be back. Otherwise,” he rose to his feet with the effortless grace of a superb swordsman, and, ever the warrior, continued with a grin, “somewhere there will always be a need for a man with a horse and a sword.”

“I shall send a message to the Christian bishop at Tara, relate to him what was said here today and request there be a truce between us.”

* * *

I stood upon the massive bole of a fallen tree. Before me more than two hundred captive Christians massed together under the gray afternoon sky, their faces sullen as I carried my message to them.

“Do not mistake my words. They are not offered in kindness, repentance or as an offer of friendship, for I hold none of those things in my heart. You are my enemy. You fought against me, you killed my friends and, most importantly, you dishonor my gods.

“I ask you this. What have you gained by coming here to do battle? What did you hope to gain?” My staff gestured toward the distant battlefield. “Hundreds of men fell upon yon fields, your men and my men, but to what purpose? Battles do not change men’s faith regardless of their outcomes. You surrendered because of your good sense and desire to live. However, despite all the deaths and the horrors of battle you did not surrender your trust in the Christian God, and my men remain true to the Lordly Ones.

“You fought gallantly so I hold you are honorable men. Again I ask you, where is the honor in killing without purpose? Ask yourselves that question again and again as you return to your homes.”

For the first time, faces brightened among the prisoners and they turned, chattering and slapping one another on the back. Until this moment they undoubtedly assumed they would be massacred or enslaved.

I raised the staff calling for silence. Then, I gestured to Father Joseph, who stood among the throng, and motioned him forward. That his burns pained him greatly was obvious, as, once more leaning on the javelin, he slowly hobbled to the front of the prisoners where he stopped and looked up at me.

I spoke loudly that all might hear my words to him. “Priest, your men are free to leave at your discretion. I leave it to you. However, there are many wounded among you who cannot be moved and require care. If you abandon them here, they will not be treated for they are not my concern.”

His face was as cold as his reply. “I do not need a Druid to remind me of my Christian duties.”

A heated retort almost escaped my lips but I held it in check. “Perhaps you think now to rebuild your army and return to attack us again. If that be the case, then so be it, for you have already seen we do not fear facing you. We fear only the wasteful necessity of doing so.”

My attention shifted back to the mass of prisoners. “This war began in the darkness, never-ending night that clouded minds and sowed fear throughout the land. Now each morning dawns brighter than the day before. I ask that each of you pray to your god as I do mine that, with the return of the light, wisdom will replace fear, a desire for peace will overwhelm hatred and understanding will lead to tolerance, one for the other.”

My words met utter stillness. Maybe I was wrong in freeing these men. Helplessness filled me for by their silence it seemed likely I would confront them in battle again.

* * *

“Joseph.” I rolled the foreign-sounding name on my tongue and turned to Laoidheach. “My friend, I am placing much hope in the priest Joseph. I pray the gods will give me the wisdom to sway him.”

He sat cross-legged on the ground under my canopy running a tiny bone needle and thread through a rip in his tunic, and looked up from his work with a grunt. “Baile of the Honeyed Speech blessed you with the gift of the Blarney. If you cannot sway him, such a thing cannot be done.”

I settled onto a wooden bench with a sigh. “I fear it will take more than the Blarney to convince him. He has complete trust in the words of his god and none in those of Druids. Now we soundly defeated him in battle and his heart is hardened even more against us.”

“Then, you must melt his heart.” He squinted in the dim light cast by a single candle, and stretched the thread to its full length as he drew the needle through his tunic with practiced ease. “Augh. Now my patches have patches. I fear that I will soon be forced to remain naked for more than just battles.”

“If that be your condition, please favor us all by completing your needle work. Tell me, ‘O bard among bards, how would you suggest I melt the priest’s heart?”

He lay his mending aside. His long legs stretched before him and crossed at the ankles as he leaned back and rested upright upon his elbows. “You recall the story of Tea, daughter of Lughaidh?”

My mind reached back. “I remember a bit about her. It was the Age of the World 3502; Tea demanded the hill Druim Caein as her dower from her husband, King Eremhon. Later the hill was renamed Teamhair in her honor, for therein she was buried. Of course we now call that same hill Tara.”

“Aye, that’s the same girl, though there was much more to her story.” He reclined onto his back, clasped his hands behind his head and spoke upwards to the canvas canopy. “It seems Tea, daughter of Lughaidh, son of Ith, was chaste, beautiful and well known for her sweetness. She was desired by all who saw her. Her father had great hope that she might marry well and took her to meet Eremhon, who became king of all Eire after he defeated Emhear at the Battle of Geisill. Eremhon was known to despise all women and he greeted Lughaidh and Tea in his chambers with great rudeness. Forthwith, they were dismissed.”

I fidgeted at the open entrance to my canopy as Laoidheach told the story. “So in the end, Tea overcame Eremhon by her loveliness and sweetness. I doubt I can do the same with the priest.”