Bright Arrow
Recipient of the Andrew Murphy Prize for Fiction
Originally Published in On Concept's Edge
The damp, cold air clung to Brigit’s curls as she stepped out from under the thatch roof of the merchant’s shop. Even a few days before Midsummer’s Eve, the village of Kildare was still chilled. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen the sun. It must have been before the Romans had arrived. They had been pacing the streets for a month, preparing to build a monastery to worship some god she had never heard of.
She kept her head down when she walked past them, like her father had instructed. The bronze Roman Catholic soldiers were fascinated with their porcelain Irish women and would use them until they broke. One in particular, with copper hair instead of the usual black, always looked at her too long. She would have found him attractive if his smile didn’t make her mouth dry with fear. The soldier’s whispers buzzed in Brigit’s ears. She tried hard not to imagine what they were saying about her. Looking at the ground, Brigit smirked at their purple toes. This was not the sunlit shore they had been used to; if new supplies and uniforms didn’t arrive for them soon maybe the whole troop would freeze to death and the people of Kildare would be free again.
“I brought the ribbon you asked for,” Brigit said as she stepped inside their cottage. Her sister continued with her weaving without acknowledging Brigit’s existence.
Brigit watched Fili’s nimble fingers as they plucked the wool on the loom the way the musician plucked at a lyre. Fili took a breath and told a story.
“When the foreign king landed on the shores of Ireland, he demanded the hand of the sky goddess, Áine, as tribute. He seemed to be more stone creature than man – skin almost gray with a wide, angular body. He was sleek, not a trace of hair on him. Áine refused to marry that monster. He raped her. She became his prisoner in a castle he had claimed. One night, during a banquet, Áine challenged him to leaping contest before all of his guests. The black waters of the River Camóg struck the base of the castle. It wore down the walls and churned the stone into its depths. With a running leap Áine flew over its raging waters, her white hair trailing behind her like a cloud. She landed so gracefully on the opposite bank not a blade of grass quivered. The king leapt after her, but he fell into the water. He turned into a goose as he went under. Reemerging, he squawked and hissed, flapping his new wings. Then he charged toward Áine. Calling upon Ériu, goddess of Ireland, Áine dipped one slender toe in the water, and the Camóg disappeared along with the foreign king. A green valley filled with yellow wildflowers grew where the black water had been. She reclaimed the castle, and the hill upon which it rests became known as Cnoc Áine – the very hill which you will travel to, to complete your rites and join Áine’s cult.”
When Fili spoke, Brigit no longer feared the Catholic soldiers outside their door. Their watchful eyes seemed a world away – back in Rome where they belonged. Her right eyebrow twitched.
“We will be fine,” Fili said. Brigit broke eye contact with her sister; she hated how Fili could read her perfectly, just by one look in her gray eyes. “All you need to worry about is getting to Munster.”
“There’s just one road from Kildare to Munster. I’ve already packed enough food for a three day journey. I will be able to rest and eat with the followers of Áine when I arrive,” Brigit said. She had been studying her father’s map and preparing for this moment for the last few years by participating in fasts and tending to the goddess’s perpetual flame with the elderly priestesses of Kildare.
If she completed her rites at Cnoc Áine, she would be the first woman in the village to join the cult since her mother. She would be blessed with the same healing powers that her mother had. Twisting her chestnut curls between her fingers, she paced back and forth behind Fili’s loom.
“I’m almost done, I just need to fasten that ribbon you got me,” Fili said. Her red lips parted in an amused smile.
“I just don’t want to run out of sunlight,” Brigit said.
Fili wrapped the green cloak with the cream ribbon around Brigit’s shoulders. The soft scratch of the wool made her smile. “Every string here is a story, and these stories will keep you safe,” Fili said. She pulled Brigit against her chest. Brigit felt a tear spill from Fili’s porcelain cheek onto her own forehead. “Now, I won’t keep you much longer. I know how anxious you are to leave.” Fili wiped her eyes. She tried to smooth down Brigit’s curls and the creases in her white ceremonial dress. Brigit let her. With her raven hair pulled into a tight braid, Brigit couldn’t help but notice how much Fili looked like their mother.
“What if I can’t do it?” Brigit asked softly.
“And what if Áine hadn’t leapt?” Fili asked, her eyes sparkling. Brigit nodded slowly, stunned that she would be leaving her sister’s side for the first time in her life. Fili pulled her in for one last embrace. “I’ll see you soon. Be safe.”
Brigit’s father’s shop was at the edge of the village to keep the embers of his smith’s forge away from the thatched rooves of Kildare. Inside, she was greeted with pleasant warmth not found anywhere else in the village. The heat from the forge made the creases of her elbows sweat. She was filled with the urge to roll up her sleeves and work alongside her father. After Brigit’s mother died during her final attempt to have a son, Brigit had sunk into a sadness from which she couldn’t be shaken. Her mother had been the midwife to the village, saving every woman’s life at least once. Where had they been when her mother’s unborn child had killed her? Even though Brigit was only eleven at the time, her father had allowed her to work in the shop with him to give her something to do in her grief. He hadn’t known he would take his younger daughter on as an apprentice. With his back to her and his hulking frame lumbering by the forge, Brigit felt a surge of gratitude.
“In the ten years I’ve worked with you, I’ve never seen you in the shop this early in the morning,” she teased. Her father jolted in surprise. She laughed.
“Well, when I know you’ll always get here before me why should I bother getting up?” he asked. He mopped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. Spending his life in front of a fire meant her father’s cheeks were always red, giving him the appearance of being good-humored despite his imposing build.
“I promise I’ll be gone for no longer than a week. Then you can go back to waking up late.” She straightened out the tongs and bolster plate on his work bench as she spoke.
He asked if she had everything she needed, but was unsatisfied with her answer. “There are a couple more things I can think to give you,” her father said. He disappeared back into the cluttered shop and emerged a few minutes later with a bow and quiver of arrows in one hand. His other hand was behind his back. “Áine gives us prosperity, so these will not miss.”
Suspicious, Brigit slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder, watching her father carefully as he removed his hand from behind his back. She gasped when she saw what it was. “I can’t believe you kept that old thing,” she said as he handed it to her. The sheathed sword felt familiar in her hands; its metal was warm to the touch. The hilt was slick from her father’s sweaty palms. She didn’t mind though. Running her fingers across the scabbard, she traced the trinity knot she had carved ages ago.
“Do you really think I would get rid of the first sword my daughter made? Do you know how times I took this to the pub with me? The other blokes would be bragging about their sons and I would take this out and wave it around. Look what my daughter made, you fools! Oh, I shouted at the top of my lungs,” he bellowed. “Your sons wish they were as good a smith as my daughter!”
“Papa, I don’t think I’ll be able to hunt anything with this,” Brigit said. She buckled the sword around her waist anyway. The extra weight on her hips was comforting.
“Eh, you could use it on any Romans you meet along the way,” he said with a stomach shaking laugh. Her father had a laugh so mighty, Brigit was always surprised that the forge didn’t tumble down around them. “You’ll have to make sure you come back quickly. They might have that monastery up before you return.”
“Papa they haven’t even started building it yet.”
“That’s because the other village leaders and I keep giving them hell. But they’re persistent and the have an entire empire behind them. Say a prayer to Áine for us, will you? Ask her to turn all of these Catholic invaders into geese.”
“Of course Papa, I will,” Brigit said. He stooped down to hug her, enveloping her in the scent of sweat and smoke.
“Oh I almost forgot!” he said. Despite being twice as wide, his fingers were as nimble as Fili’s. It took him no time to untie the dark, thick cord around his neck. “I want you to take this with you for safe keeping,” he said as he fastened it around his daughter’s neck.
“Mother’s sun cross?” Brigit asked. She played with the small reeds, bound together by twine. The cross, which had rested against her mother’s chest, her father’s, and now hers, was worn down so that the back of the reeds were flat and white. After ten years, the sun cross still smelled like her mother – primrose, dirt, and fresh wool. Brigit knew there was magic in the world when her mother’s cross could smell like her for so long.
“She would be very proud of you making your rites to Áine,” her father said. He sniffled and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Ah, I’ll see you in a week and you’re losing daylight. Get a move on child.” He took her by the shoulders and steered her to the door. “Slán abhaíle!” he called after her. “Safe home!”
As Brigit walked back through her village, heading to the road, she took strength from her people. Kildare was her home. She waved to her neighbors and the village that had helped to raise her. Every chicken that crossed her path brought her joy, and the parade of children following it made her laugh. A soft voice sang Hó-bha-ín, a lullaby, to a fussy baby. It was the same song her mother sang, off-key, when Brigit had nightmares. The smell of brown bread wafted from open windows, and her stomach panged with hunger for the bread and fear of leaving home.
If she looked straight ahead, she could ignore the soldiers at the corner of her vision and pretend that everything was as it should be. But she couldn’t hide from their voices. Their Gaelic was rough; it wasn’t the language they spoke with each other. They used it now to torment her.
“Going somewhere, pretty?”
She raised her chin and walked faster, earning chuckles from the soldiers. Clenching her jaw in frustration, she walked on. Neighbors disappeared into their homes when the Roman Catholics began following her down the street.
“Don’t want to talk?”
“How about more than talk?”
“Celtic swine.”
“Pagan devil.”
The road was in sight. Beyond that was a short stretch of Donadea Forest. The soldiers wouldn’t dare follow her farther than the road and risk leaving their post. Brigit kept walking. The weight of the sword at her hip, tucked beneath her cloak, comforted her.
“Blacksmith’s daughter?”
Ice ran through Brigit’s body at the mention of her father.
“That bastard.”
“Always making trouble.”
“Fighting the monastery.”
Her vision blurred. Muscles twitched after every jab at her father. The road was almost there. Brigit dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palms. They were covered with crescents of rage.
“We should kill him so we can build the damn thing.”
Brigit heard the metallic ring of sword against shoulder plate before she realized she had swung. In the eternity that followed, as her boiling anger turned to shock, the soldiers stood still in awe. The copper haired soldier, upon whose shoulder her sword rested, licked his lips. Down in the village, she could see heads peeking out of door frames, wondering who had started the fight that would bring their demise. Past the rows of thatched houses, in the middle of the street in front of the forge, a figure raised his massive hands to his mouth.
“Run, girl, run!” her father’s voice called up to her. It shook her from her trance.
The eternal instant was over. Brigit ran without looking back. Behind her, she could hear the clanking of armor, the unsheathing of swords, the cursing of soldiers.
Donadea Forest spread out before her. Brigit charged into the depths of it like a hunted animal. She had spent her life beside this forest. She knew the placement of every fallen tree, loose stone, and briar bush. She ran steadily, the heels of her boots encrusted in the soft earth. The snarls of the Roman behind her sounded like lions. Even when the soldiers grew quiet in the distance, Brigit would not turn around. As the alder and yew trees began to thin at the edge of Donadea, Brigit charged ahead. Out of the protection of the forest, she focused solely on ridding herself of the soldiers behind her.
They were coming. She could hear them approaching over the slam of her heart against her chest and the rasping of her throat for air. Beyond Donadea started a stretch of farmland – rolling hills for sheep to graze that left no protection for fugitives. Her legs wobbled as she climbed up the first hillside. Her muscles burned as she neared the top.
She collapsed. Her fingers sunk into the ground and black earth caked under her fingernails. Arriving at the peak of the hill, she turned around to see the soldiers emerging from the tree line. She couldn’t outrun them.
Her hands shook as she fixed an arrow and pulled back the string of her bow.
“Áine, protector of Ireland’s sovereignty, help me hit my mark.” She held the bow taut, the string cutting into her lip as she aimed. There was one arrow for each soldier. One chance to save herself.
Brigit aimed first at the one who threatened to kill her father.
The twang of the string sliced the corner of her mouth as she loosed her arrow. It curved through the air towards its target. Brigit fixed another and aimed again.
Before she could let another fatal shot fly, something happened to the arrow in midair. Its smooth curved path stopped. It hung in the air for just a moment suspended by faith alone. Its tail lifted, the arrowhead pointed straight down. Plunging toward the soldiers, it buried its shaft in the earth at their feet. The feathers on the end burst into blue flames that spread in a perfect circle, surrounding the soldiers. They waved their swords wildly at it.
Brigit looked up at the sky, toward her goddess. Fear was replaced with overwhelming gratitude. The sheet of gray had been split with a streak of pale blue. Knowing the soldiers would be occupied for some time, she followed the blue line in the sky towards Munster.
Brigit ran for some of her journey, fearing that the soldiers would be able to escape the fiery ring, but had to stop after a few miles to wretch. Her head pounded and her body ached with exhaustion. Her palms pressed against her thighs, keeping her from pitching forward. Sweat clung to the back of her neck, matting her hair against her cold skin. Where could she go from here?
The soldiers were sure to follow her – perhaps first returning to Kildare to hurt her family to punish her actions, but they would follow her. Áine had seen fit to bless her with aid, and now the Romans would view her as unnatural, magical. A dangerous pagan.
Áine. She had to reach Cnoc Áine so she could complete her rites. She could call upon the sky goddess to rid Ireland of the Catholic soldiers, to heal Ireland of the invaders that spread through her land like a disease.
They plagued not just Kildare, but all of Ireland. She had heard stories of what they did to people in other villages. Seers and healers denounced as witches and devils. All banished from their homes by foreign men who arrived on their shores with a Brit named Patrick. He had made a pilgrimage through Ireland, claiming to free them all of an animal that never existed on their island, and pronouncing their ignorance at divine trinities, plucking clovers from the ground to explain it.
Áine was part of a triple goddess, and so was Ériu. Her people understand the power of the trinity – just not the Roman Catholic’s trinity, and that was what made them heathens. Celtic swine, the soldiers had called her. Pagan devil. Threatening to kill her father.
Brigit began to understand, it was not the love of this foreign god that made her people convert, it was the fear of his emissaries.
She vomited again.
She slept her first night in a ditch along a cabbage patch. Covering the ditch with the tall grass, she looked for stars through the open slits, but they were blocked by the clouds. The ground was damp but the peat-earth kept her warm, trapping her body heat. She clutched her mother’s sun cross in her hand until it was imprinted there. Humming Hó-bha-ín to herself to ward off nightmares, the scent of her mother lulled her to sleep. She woke the next morning with dew clinging to the fine hair on her body, and her curls matted with mud. Stepping out into the fog, she felt the earth had tried to reclaim her overnight. The journey began again.
Brigit reached the valley of the mountain Baunreaghcong as the sun was beginning to set on her second day. Her throat burned. Her feet bled. She dragged herself into the small village halfway between Kildare and Munster. There were no signs of the Romans behind her, but she knew it wouldn’t be long. People who created an empire were not so quick to let off pagan girls who shot fiery arrows at them.
The village had no inn since it was so small that it rarely received visitors. But in her ceremonial dress, Brigit was welcomed. They all knew that she was making a pilgrimage to Cnoc Áine to complete Áine’s rites. Even though it was an elderly couple’s turn to host a guest – it had been several months since the last one arrived – a robust young woman with four daughters insisted that Brigit stay with them. Brigit was shocked that, though this woman was only a few years older than her, she already had four little girls and a belly ripe with a fifth child.
“I like to see young women making their rites.” The woman looped her thick arm around Brigit’s waist. “I would greatly appreciate it if you told the girls a story about Áine.”
Protected by the shadow of the Baunreaghcong, Brigit ate at the family’s table in between the mother and the father. She salivated over the thick stew in front of her and gorged herself on a second helping when it was offered. After dinner, the seven of them gathered around the fire. Each of the little red-headed daughters clung to Brigit’s dress when she told them of the miracle Áine performed through her the day before. As four sets of sleepy eyes watched her, Brigit’s heart flew back to Fili and her stories. When it was time for everyone to go to bed, she was given a blanket and a spot on the warm earthen floor by the chimney. The heated hearth relaxed the muscles in her legs.
She woke to a scream.
As she was flung back into consciousness, she realized the single cry was a continuous noise made by the whole village. She rushed to the door with her hosts and their daughters. The stifling stench of smoke choked her, and she pressed her sleeve against her mouth to keep from coughing. A farm house just beyond the village was burning and the ash whipped in the wind, carrying with it sparks that set the tall grass on fire.
A cluster of figures walked out of the flames, their edges blurred like shadows. The people of the village gathered in the streets to watch the bodies, flickering bronze in the blaze, stride towards them. Brigit recognized the men as they came into focus at the entrance of the village.
The Roman soldiers.
Brigit halted. Her tattered feet rooted themselves as the villagers ran around her. All sound was drowned out by the shrill ringing in her ears.
They were here for her. They would hurt everyone until they got to her. Brigit could not move.
The youngest of the four girls tugged on her sleeve. The world seemed to dip away from her when she looked down. A bitter taste rose in the back of her throat and she swallowed it down hard. The little girl tugged again. Her eyes begged for a miracle.
Brigit stumbled forward, putting herself between the soldiers and the village.
“I will not let you attack these people,” Brigit said. Her voice was carried away on the wind as it left her mouth. She stood in the middle of the street with her curls whipping wildly about her face and her cloak flapping around her body. At any moment, Brigit was certain she would sail into the sky.
She heard the crackling of the fire in the distance and the heavy breathing of the Roman soldiers. She stood close enough to them that she could smell the sweat rising off of their soot stained bodies, steam filling the air around them in the cool night.
The soldiers did not answer her.
The screaming ceased and people of the village began to whisper. Above the wind, she heard one word: draíochta. Magic. The words sunk into her skin and filled her bones. Deep in her marrow, it made her feel human again.
“I will not let you attack this village,” Brigit said again, louder. Perhaps they had not heard her. Perhaps they were at a loss with their Gaelic.
They began to laugh. Or perhaps she looked like a fool trying to stand up to a group of twelve soldiers.
“No,” the copper haired soldier said. He appeared to be the leader.
Brigit’s cloak waved violently in the wind, threatening to tear itself from her body. Fili had told her every thread was story. Áine’s story protected Ireland from invaders.
“Will you spare as much land as my cloak can cover?” she asked. The soldiers roared with laughter. The people of the village began to gather around her. They knew the power of a woman about to complete her rites. “Do I have your word that you will spare it?” Brigit demanded as the lead soldier wiped a tear from his eye. Her heart drummed against her mother’s sun cross. It seemed to vibrate against her chest.
“Yes,” he told her. He smiled, curling back his top lip to show a row of yellow teeth.
Brigit untied her cloak and called over the four daughters of her hosts. She gave them each a corner and told them to run in four different directions. They looked nervous, but their mother encouraged them.
“Bàthaidh toll beag long mhòr,” she whispered to her girls as she nudged them towards the billowing cape. “A little hole will sink a big ship.”
The oldest girl nodded at her mother and took the first corner. Her three sisters joined her. On Brigit’s command they took off running – and the cloak spread. It unfurled in waves, rippling like the surface of the sea. The people of the village cried out. They watched as eternity was pulled from a finite space. Brigit locked eyes with her hostess who wailed thanks to Áine. The cloak Fili had woven from Áine’s story stretched as far as the corners of the village, lifting up in gusts to cover the houses. Green wool blocked out the cold night sky. Underneath the village was warm.
The few soldiers who had not fled stood in amazement. One removed his helmet. It clanged against the ground. Another whispered prayers under his breath; his hands shook as he touched his forehead, chest, and both shoulders. She could hear the other soldiers’ whispers. Pagan devil. Witch. Sorceress.
Only the copper haired leader did not react. His bright green eyes looked up at the cloak, as though unimpressed. He looked as though he had seen magic before. Brigit’s throat tightened at the betrayal – he was Celtic.
“Go from this place. Your quarrel is with me, not these people,” Brigit said, under the canopy of her cloak.
“We will honor our word,” the lead soldier said. In his gleaming eyes she recognized the desire to conquer everything he saw; the kind of desire that would lead a young man to betray his family and people for a position of power. The backs of her knees prickled with the urge to flee. She knew that the foreign king had looked at Áine that way.
Brigit stood guard at the edge of the village, watching the soldiers return to the farm they had destroyed and stamp out the remaining flames. They would camp there for the night, she knew. One by one, families went back into their home, but not before placing their hands on her shoulders and crying, “Go raibh maith agat.” May good come to you.
Her host and hostess appeared behind her, their daughters in tow. All four girls had clover-green eyes that were open wide. They had helped her perform a miracle – no one would ever be able to keep them from making change in the village.
“You’re going to need to get a head start if you want to beat them to Cnoc Áine,” her host said. His dark brow furrowed as he squinted at the soldiers’ campfire in the distance. “You may be safe in the village, but they will come for you as soon as they realize you are gone.”
“You will always be welcome here,” his wife said. She clasped Brigit’s hands in her own. “My husband will give you his horse. You can get to Cnoc Áine by midday.”
Wrapped in purple darkness, Brigit rode the horse out across the peat. The rhythmic fall of the horse’s hooves rocked her to the edge of sleep so that she was carried in a dreamy daze toward Munster. The cold night air whipped at her face, but Brigit felt warm. It could have been the mead the village elders gave her as she left but she suspected that the cloak was doing all it could to keep her safe. In the grass that rippled on the hills – green one moment, showing white underside the next – she thought perhaps Ériu was waving to her. Ireland herself was urging her forward.
The dull echo of horses’ canter and armor clatter reached her ears, brought on the same wind that carried the soft smell of dying flames. Brigit refused to turn around. Riding on into the night, she told herself that her land would protect her.
The afternoon of Midsummer’s Eve was gray. Brigit thundered along and wondered how long it would take for the sun to burn through the clouds and grace them with light again. There hadn’t been a hint of sunshine since the Romans arrived; her summer had been spent in a cold mist.
Exhaustion was beginning to set in again. Her legs ached from her long journey this morning. She had stopped only to let her horse drink or when her legs trembled so badly she was afraid she would fall off. All she wanted to do was reach the castle in Cnoc Áine so she could complete her rites. She would beg Áine to banish the Romans from her home.
“Celtic swine!”
The call behind her froze her blood. A cold sweat began on the back of her neck.
The Romans were there. They rode at her like an arrow. The Celtic traitor was the flint tip.
She approached the base of a hill. Standing proudly on top was Cnoc Áine Castle – a single square stone tower. As she rode closer, she realized that the earth was beginning to invade the castle. Ivy crept up the eastern wall and tall grass was growing out the roof. Ériu was trying to reclaim it.
Breaking the crest of the hill, Brigit stared out at the patchwork farms below her, at the small thatched roofs of Munster. She had made it. The Romans shouted behind her.
The threats from the soldiers reminded her she didn’t have long. She dismounted her horse, smacking its flank as she did. It galloped toward Munster. Hopefully someone would come looking for its owner. Brigit swallowed hard as she saw the soldiers riding up. By the time anyone found her, the soldiers would have had their way with her.
She remembered the hungry eyes of the Celtic traitor last night. Escaping thoughts of him, she fled into the castle. It reeked of mildew from its years on the banks of an ancient river. Her bare feet slapped against cold stone in places where she had worn holes in her shoes. In the center of the castle stretched the rotting remains of a banquet table covered with flowers and tributes to Áine. Brigit could hear the fabled banquet in her mind. The slosh of drink. The crunch of meat skin. Áine’s challenge to the king. It was all true.
Through a narrow window, Brigit could see the Roman soldiers surround the castle. Brigit sprinted up the stone stairs, fighting through the vines growing inside the castle walls. Briars clung to her sleeves. Stinging needles drew pricks of blood. Her legs burned. She should have been dancing right now. She should have been singing instead of screaming. She should have been honoring her mother’s life instead of mourning her own impending death.
The sound of sword on stone sliced through the castle. She turned to find the lead soldier behind her, slashing through the briars. Brigit tripped, her ankle wrapped in vegetation. Her head crashed against a stone step.
She blinked herself back into focus and gingerly touched her forehead. A small trickle of blood ran down. The red dropped onto the gray steps. The soldier reached the landing below her. Pressing her scraped palms against the steps, she pushed herself back to her feet and continued her run up, looping outside through a narrow doorway and led up to the roof of the castle.
The parapet was covered in grass and bordered in thistle thorns. The roof itself was yellow, covered in every sort of wildflower: buttercups, cats-ear, ragwort, and primrose. She collapsed in the flowers, taking some small comfort in the cool press of their waxy petals against her skin. The light smell of primrose brought back a vision of her mother. Her sun cross weighed heavily against her chest. She couldn’t catch her breath.
This was it. This was how she would die.
She knew, around the base of the castle, the Roman soldiers had trapped her. The lead soldier would come up the stairs at any moment to rape her. Maybe she would be his prisoner. Maybe he would kill her. She preferred the latter. Her body seized, rigid with fear.
Under her breath she whispered death rites that she had heard at the funerals in Kildare. “In ár gcroí go deo, siocháin síor duit.” In our hearts forever, eternal peace to you. Incurable tremors of panic rocked her slim frame. She forced herself to sit up in jolts. Weeping into the flowers, she dragged herself to her knees. She had failed the priestesses, she had failed Áine, she had failed her mother.
Petals shook violently in her hands as she gathered the wildflowers into a funeral bouquet. Her mind was blank other than the sheer feeling of white hot panic. Slowly, a thought emerged above it all.
Would her father and Fili ever know what had happen to her? Would they know that she made it to Cnoc Áine only to be killed on top of the castle where Áine leapt across the Camóg to her freedom?
Áine leapt to her freedom.
The copper haired soldier’s head appeared above the edge. Brigit thought she felt the whole castle shake when he stepped onto the roof. His face struck her like a bolt of lightning in the chest, splitting her open. Erratic heartbeats stabbed her with every out-of-place pulse.
“Aiteann,” he snarled when he saw her. Brigit’s stomach churned against the insult. If there had been any doubt of his intention, it was gone now. He was going to rape her.
Brigit stood shakily to her feet, keeping her flowers in a tight fist pressed against her chest. The blood from her forehead poured down into her eye but she refused to wipe it away. It wouldn’t do her any good now. The inevitability of it all soothed her. There was only one thing to be done.
The soldier pointed at her and curled his finger back towards himself, expecting her to come to his call. Brigit watched him closely, returning the gaze he was so quick to thrust on her. With her gray eyes fixed on his green ones, she wondered how quickly this Celt turned into a Roman. How could he have changed so easily and completely that he was prepared to rape her on Cnoc Áine? Hadn’t he ever called on Áine for protection? Didn’t he remember the stories? It didn’t matter. She was about to give him a new one. She turned her back to him and he swore at her again. His footsteps clanged towards her. Her last thought of him was one of pity.
She took a running start.
Brigit leapt over the thistle-edge of the castle, cloak and gown billowing behind her. The soldiers below looked like wooden toys. Swords pointed to the sky, they brought a welcome end. She spread her arms wide, scattering wildflowers over their heads. Her mother’s sun cross warmed her chest. Stomach dropping, she fell towards the earth.
The sky caught her.
Brigit found herself standing upright in midair, poised above the soldiers just like her arrow had been. The sky felt soft but solid beneath her, holding her up. She began to chant. Her rites to the sky goddess would be performed here.
Her mother’s sun cross felt hot against her skin and she pulled it out from under her neckline. As soon as the cross was out in the air, the reeds and twine caught fire. They burst in a brilliant ball. To Brigit’s amazement, she was able to cup the flame in her hands. She chanted louder, looking up to the sky. She held fire.
Below her, the Roman soldiers fell to their knees.
The clouds parted, not just in a sliver, but across the whole sky, sending down the yellow rays of the afternoon and warming the fields in an instant. She felt the warmth on her skin and deep within her core, heating her from the inside out. Becoming light itself. “Thank you Áine,” she whispered to the sky. As she rose up into the clouds she could hear Ireland answer back, “Erin go bragh.”
Ireland forever.
The soldiers arrived back in Kildare a few days later. Fili and her father were waiting for them at the road. They had not moved from that spot since Brigit had left; the people of the village had brought them food and hot drinks as they kept their watch.
“Where is my sister?” Fili demanded as the soldiers marched out of Donadea Forest. There was no longer fear for herself, only Brigit. Her father placed a hand on her shoulder, holding her back should she charge at the soldiers as her sister had.
The Catholics looked solemn, heads downcast, lips mumbling in prayer. A light haired soldier who had always looked a little too closely at Brigit when she walked by – Fili had noticed this – spoke first.
“Your sister was called to God.”
Fili felt as though one of their swords had sliced through her. She dropped to her knees. “You killed her,” she whispered. Life rushed out of her. Her father stood, frozen. His hand still hovered in the air where Fili’s shoulder had been.
“No. Our heavenly Father called her back home. We must build the monastery to worship your sister. She performed miracles and He called her back into the sky.”
“The sky?” Fili asked. Her eyes grew wide. The soldier nodded. Fili clutched her father’s hand, intertwining her spindly fingers with his cracked knuckles. Her heart slammed in her chest, pulsing pride through her body. Fili stood, unravelling her braid, letting her hair fly in wild curls like Brigit always had.
Brigit had made the journey. Brigit was home with their mother.
“Build your monastery if you must,” her father said. “We have our own ways of honoring our daughter.”
The soldiers bowed to the blacksmith and left them.
Her father choked out laugh. “They will take her and make her one of their symbols.” Her father’s neck was mottled red with anger. For the first time in her life, Fili realized how powerful her father was. Her fingers fluttered over his face, wiping tears from his cheeks before they could drip into his beard.
“She is ours for now, Papa.” She took her father by the elbow and turned to lead him back into the village. As she looked out at Kildare, she found herself staring at a tapestry of green grass and embroidered with a ribbon of blue river. Fili could not weave a better remembrance for Brigit than the land had already done.
She tilted her head toward the sky, squinting into the sun.
She kept her head down when she walked past them, like her father had instructed. The bronze Roman Catholic soldiers were fascinated with their porcelain Irish women and would use them until they broke. One in particular, with copper hair instead of the usual black, always looked at her too long. She would have found him attractive if his smile didn’t make her mouth dry with fear. The soldier’s whispers buzzed in Brigit’s ears. She tried hard not to imagine what they were saying about her. Looking at the ground, Brigit smirked at their purple toes. This was not the sunlit shore they had been used to; if new supplies and uniforms didn’t arrive for them soon maybe the whole troop would freeze to death and the people of Kildare would be free again.
“I brought the ribbon you asked for,” Brigit said as she stepped inside their cottage. Her sister continued with her weaving without acknowledging Brigit’s existence.
Brigit watched Fili’s nimble fingers as they plucked the wool on the loom the way the musician plucked at a lyre. Fili took a breath and told a story.
“When the foreign king landed on the shores of Ireland, he demanded the hand of the sky goddess, Áine, as tribute. He seemed to be more stone creature than man – skin almost gray with a wide, angular body. He was sleek, not a trace of hair on him. Áine refused to marry that monster. He raped her. She became his prisoner in a castle he had claimed. One night, during a banquet, Áine challenged him to leaping contest before all of his guests. The black waters of the River Camóg struck the base of the castle. It wore down the walls and churned the stone into its depths. With a running leap Áine flew over its raging waters, her white hair trailing behind her like a cloud. She landed so gracefully on the opposite bank not a blade of grass quivered. The king leapt after her, but he fell into the water. He turned into a goose as he went under. Reemerging, he squawked and hissed, flapping his new wings. Then he charged toward Áine. Calling upon Ériu, goddess of Ireland, Áine dipped one slender toe in the water, and the Camóg disappeared along with the foreign king. A green valley filled with yellow wildflowers grew where the black water had been. She reclaimed the castle, and the hill upon which it rests became known as Cnoc Áine – the very hill which you will travel to, to complete your rites and join Áine’s cult.”
When Fili spoke, Brigit no longer feared the Catholic soldiers outside their door. Their watchful eyes seemed a world away – back in Rome where they belonged. Her right eyebrow twitched.
“We will be fine,” Fili said. Brigit broke eye contact with her sister; she hated how Fili could read her perfectly, just by one look in her gray eyes. “All you need to worry about is getting to Munster.”
“There’s just one road from Kildare to Munster. I’ve already packed enough food for a three day journey. I will be able to rest and eat with the followers of Áine when I arrive,” Brigit said. She had been studying her father’s map and preparing for this moment for the last few years by participating in fasts and tending to the goddess’s perpetual flame with the elderly priestesses of Kildare.
If she completed her rites at Cnoc Áine, she would be the first woman in the village to join the cult since her mother. She would be blessed with the same healing powers that her mother had. Twisting her chestnut curls between her fingers, she paced back and forth behind Fili’s loom.
“I’m almost done, I just need to fasten that ribbon you got me,” Fili said. Her red lips parted in an amused smile.
“I just don’t want to run out of sunlight,” Brigit said.
Fili wrapped the green cloak with the cream ribbon around Brigit’s shoulders. The soft scratch of the wool made her smile. “Every string here is a story, and these stories will keep you safe,” Fili said. She pulled Brigit against her chest. Brigit felt a tear spill from Fili’s porcelain cheek onto her own forehead. “Now, I won’t keep you much longer. I know how anxious you are to leave.” Fili wiped her eyes. She tried to smooth down Brigit’s curls and the creases in her white ceremonial dress. Brigit let her. With her raven hair pulled into a tight braid, Brigit couldn’t help but notice how much Fili looked like their mother.
“What if I can’t do it?” Brigit asked softly.
“And what if Áine hadn’t leapt?” Fili asked, her eyes sparkling. Brigit nodded slowly, stunned that she would be leaving her sister’s side for the first time in her life. Fili pulled her in for one last embrace. “I’ll see you soon. Be safe.”
Brigit’s father’s shop was at the edge of the village to keep the embers of his smith’s forge away from the thatched rooves of Kildare. Inside, she was greeted with pleasant warmth not found anywhere else in the village. The heat from the forge made the creases of her elbows sweat. She was filled with the urge to roll up her sleeves and work alongside her father. After Brigit’s mother died during her final attempt to have a son, Brigit had sunk into a sadness from which she couldn’t be shaken. Her mother had been the midwife to the village, saving every woman’s life at least once. Where had they been when her mother’s unborn child had killed her? Even though Brigit was only eleven at the time, her father had allowed her to work in the shop with him to give her something to do in her grief. He hadn’t known he would take his younger daughter on as an apprentice. With his back to her and his hulking frame lumbering by the forge, Brigit felt a surge of gratitude.
“In the ten years I’ve worked with you, I’ve never seen you in the shop this early in the morning,” she teased. Her father jolted in surprise. She laughed.
“Well, when I know you’ll always get here before me why should I bother getting up?” he asked. He mopped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. Spending his life in front of a fire meant her father’s cheeks were always red, giving him the appearance of being good-humored despite his imposing build.
“I promise I’ll be gone for no longer than a week. Then you can go back to waking up late.” She straightened out the tongs and bolster plate on his work bench as she spoke.
He asked if she had everything she needed, but was unsatisfied with her answer. “There are a couple more things I can think to give you,” her father said. He disappeared back into the cluttered shop and emerged a few minutes later with a bow and quiver of arrows in one hand. His other hand was behind his back. “Áine gives us prosperity, so these will not miss.”
Suspicious, Brigit slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder, watching her father carefully as he removed his hand from behind his back. She gasped when she saw what it was. “I can’t believe you kept that old thing,” she said as he handed it to her. The sheathed sword felt familiar in her hands; its metal was warm to the touch. The hilt was slick from her father’s sweaty palms. She didn’t mind though. Running her fingers across the scabbard, she traced the trinity knot she had carved ages ago.
“Do you really think I would get rid of the first sword my daughter made? Do you know how times I took this to the pub with me? The other blokes would be bragging about their sons and I would take this out and wave it around. Look what my daughter made, you fools! Oh, I shouted at the top of my lungs,” he bellowed. “Your sons wish they were as good a smith as my daughter!”
“Papa, I don’t think I’ll be able to hunt anything with this,” Brigit said. She buckled the sword around her waist anyway. The extra weight on her hips was comforting.
“Eh, you could use it on any Romans you meet along the way,” he said with a stomach shaking laugh. Her father had a laugh so mighty, Brigit was always surprised that the forge didn’t tumble down around them. “You’ll have to make sure you come back quickly. They might have that monastery up before you return.”
“Papa they haven’t even started building it yet.”
“That’s because the other village leaders and I keep giving them hell. But they’re persistent and the have an entire empire behind them. Say a prayer to Áine for us, will you? Ask her to turn all of these Catholic invaders into geese.”
“Of course Papa, I will,” Brigit said. He stooped down to hug her, enveloping her in the scent of sweat and smoke.
“Oh I almost forgot!” he said. Despite being twice as wide, his fingers were as nimble as Fili’s. It took him no time to untie the dark, thick cord around his neck. “I want you to take this with you for safe keeping,” he said as he fastened it around his daughter’s neck.
“Mother’s sun cross?” Brigit asked. She played with the small reeds, bound together by twine. The cross, which had rested against her mother’s chest, her father’s, and now hers, was worn down so that the back of the reeds were flat and white. After ten years, the sun cross still smelled like her mother – primrose, dirt, and fresh wool. Brigit knew there was magic in the world when her mother’s cross could smell like her for so long.
“She would be very proud of you making your rites to Áine,” her father said. He sniffled and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Ah, I’ll see you in a week and you’re losing daylight. Get a move on child.” He took her by the shoulders and steered her to the door. “Slán abhaíle!” he called after her. “Safe home!”
As Brigit walked back through her village, heading to the road, she took strength from her people. Kildare was her home. She waved to her neighbors and the village that had helped to raise her. Every chicken that crossed her path brought her joy, and the parade of children following it made her laugh. A soft voice sang Hó-bha-ín, a lullaby, to a fussy baby. It was the same song her mother sang, off-key, when Brigit had nightmares. The smell of brown bread wafted from open windows, and her stomach panged with hunger for the bread and fear of leaving home.
If she looked straight ahead, she could ignore the soldiers at the corner of her vision and pretend that everything was as it should be. But she couldn’t hide from their voices. Their Gaelic was rough; it wasn’t the language they spoke with each other. They used it now to torment her.
“Going somewhere, pretty?”
She raised her chin and walked faster, earning chuckles from the soldiers. Clenching her jaw in frustration, she walked on. Neighbors disappeared into their homes when the Roman Catholics began following her down the street.
“Don’t want to talk?”
“How about more than talk?”
“Celtic swine.”
“Pagan devil.”
The road was in sight. Beyond that was a short stretch of Donadea Forest. The soldiers wouldn’t dare follow her farther than the road and risk leaving their post. Brigit kept walking. The weight of the sword at her hip, tucked beneath her cloak, comforted her.
“Blacksmith’s daughter?”
Ice ran through Brigit’s body at the mention of her father.
“That bastard.”
“Always making trouble.”
“Fighting the monastery.”
Her vision blurred. Muscles twitched after every jab at her father. The road was almost there. Brigit dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palms. They were covered with crescents of rage.
“We should kill him so we can build the damn thing.”
Brigit heard the metallic ring of sword against shoulder plate before she realized she had swung. In the eternity that followed, as her boiling anger turned to shock, the soldiers stood still in awe. The copper haired soldier, upon whose shoulder her sword rested, licked his lips. Down in the village, she could see heads peeking out of door frames, wondering who had started the fight that would bring their demise. Past the rows of thatched houses, in the middle of the street in front of the forge, a figure raised his massive hands to his mouth.
“Run, girl, run!” her father’s voice called up to her. It shook her from her trance.
The eternal instant was over. Brigit ran without looking back. Behind her, she could hear the clanking of armor, the unsheathing of swords, the cursing of soldiers.
Donadea Forest spread out before her. Brigit charged into the depths of it like a hunted animal. She had spent her life beside this forest. She knew the placement of every fallen tree, loose stone, and briar bush. She ran steadily, the heels of her boots encrusted in the soft earth. The snarls of the Roman behind her sounded like lions. Even when the soldiers grew quiet in the distance, Brigit would not turn around. As the alder and yew trees began to thin at the edge of Donadea, Brigit charged ahead. Out of the protection of the forest, she focused solely on ridding herself of the soldiers behind her.
They were coming. She could hear them approaching over the slam of her heart against her chest and the rasping of her throat for air. Beyond Donadea started a stretch of farmland – rolling hills for sheep to graze that left no protection for fugitives. Her legs wobbled as she climbed up the first hillside. Her muscles burned as she neared the top.
She collapsed. Her fingers sunk into the ground and black earth caked under her fingernails. Arriving at the peak of the hill, she turned around to see the soldiers emerging from the tree line. She couldn’t outrun them.
Her hands shook as she fixed an arrow and pulled back the string of her bow.
“Áine, protector of Ireland’s sovereignty, help me hit my mark.” She held the bow taut, the string cutting into her lip as she aimed. There was one arrow for each soldier. One chance to save herself.
Brigit aimed first at the one who threatened to kill her father.
The twang of the string sliced the corner of her mouth as she loosed her arrow. It curved through the air towards its target. Brigit fixed another and aimed again.
Before she could let another fatal shot fly, something happened to the arrow in midair. Its smooth curved path stopped. It hung in the air for just a moment suspended by faith alone. Its tail lifted, the arrowhead pointed straight down. Plunging toward the soldiers, it buried its shaft in the earth at their feet. The feathers on the end burst into blue flames that spread in a perfect circle, surrounding the soldiers. They waved their swords wildly at it.
Brigit looked up at the sky, toward her goddess. Fear was replaced with overwhelming gratitude. The sheet of gray had been split with a streak of pale blue. Knowing the soldiers would be occupied for some time, she followed the blue line in the sky towards Munster.
Brigit ran for some of her journey, fearing that the soldiers would be able to escape the fiery ring, but had to stop after a few miles to wretch. Her head pounded and her body ached with exhaustion. Her palms pressed against her thighs, keeping her from pitching forward. Sweat clung to the back of her neck, matting her hair against her cold skin. Where could she go from here?
The soldiers were sure to follow her – perhaps first returning to Kildare to hurt her family to punish her actions, but they would follow her. Áine had seen fit to bless her with aid, and now the Romans would view her as unnatural, magical. A dangerous pagan.
Áine. She had to reach Cnoc Áine so she could complete her rites. She could call upon the sky goddess to rid Ireland of the Catholic soldiers, to heal Ireland of the invaders that spread through her land like a disease.
They plagued not just Kildare, but all of Ireland. She had heard stories of what they did to people in other villages. Seers and healers denounced as witches and devils. All banished from their homes by foreign men who arrived on their shores with a Brit named Patrick. He had made a pilgrimage through Ireland, claiming to free them all of an animal that never existed on their island, and pronouncing their ignorance at divine trinities, plucking clovers from the ground to explain it.
Áine was part of a triple goddess, and so was Ériu. Her people understand the power of the trinity – just not the Roman Catholic’s trinity, and that was what made them heathens. Celtic swine, the soldiers had called her. Pagan devil. Threatening to kill her father.
Brigit began to understand, it was not the love of this foreign god that made her people convert, it was the fear of his emissaries.
She vomited again.
She slept her first night in a ditch along a cabbage patch. Covering the ditch with the tall grass, she looked for stars through the open slits, but they were blocked by the clouds. The ground was damp but the peat-earth kept her warm, trapping her body heat. She clutched her mother’s sun cross in her hand until it was imprinted there. Humming Hó-bha-ín to herself to ward off nightmares, the scent of her mother lulled her to sleep. She woke the next morning with dew clinging to the fine hair on her body, and her curls matted with mud. Stepping out into the fog, she felt the earth had tried to reclaim her overnight. The journey began again.
Brigit reached the valley of the mountain Baunreaghcong as the sun was beginning to set on her second day. Her throat burned. Her feet bled. She dragged herself into the small village halfway between Kildare and Munster. There were no signs of the Romans behind her, but she knew it wouldn’t be long. People who created an empire were not so quick to let off pagan girls who shot fiery arrows at them.
The village had no inn since it was so small that it rarely received visitors. But in her ceremonial dress, Brigit was welcomed. They all knew that she was making a pilgrimage to Cnoc Áine to complete Áine’s rites. Even though it was an elderly couple’s turn to host a guest – it had been several months since the last one arrived – a robust young woman with four daughters insisted that Brigit stay with them. Brigit was shocked that, though this woman was only a few years older than her, she already had four little girls and a belly ripe with a fifth child.
“I like to see young women making their rites.” The woman looped her thick arm around Brigit’s waist. “I would greatly appreciate it if you told the girls a story about Áine.”
Protected by the shadow of the Baunreaghcong, Brigit ate at the family’s table in between the mother and the father. She salivated over the thick stew in front of her and gorged herself on a second helping when it was offered. After dinner, the seven of them gathered around the fire. Each of the little red-headed daughters clung to Brigit’s dress when she told them of the miracle Áine performed through her the day before. As four sets of sleepy eyes watched her, Brigit’s heart flew back to Fili and her stories. When it was time for everyone to go to bed, she was given a blanket and a spot on the warm earthen floor by the chimney. The heated hearth relaxed the muscles in her legs.
She woke to a scream.
As she was flung back into consciousness, she realized the single cry was a continuous noise made by the whole village. She rushed to the door with her hosts and their daughters. The stifling stench of smoke choked her, and she pressed her sleeve against her mouth to keep from coughing. A farm house just beyond the village was burning and the ash whipped in the wind, carrying with it sparks that set the tall grass on fire.
A cluster of figures walked out of the flames, their edges blurred like shadows. The people of the village gathered in the streets to watch the bodies, flickering bronze in the blaze, stride towards them. Brigit recognized the men as they came into focus at the entrance of the village.
The Roman soldiers.
Brigit halted. Her tattered feet rooted themselves as the villagers ran around her. All sound was drowned out by the shrill ringing in her ears.
They were here for her. They would hurt everyone until they got to her. Brigit could not move.
The youngest of the four girls tugged on her sleeve. The world seemed to dip away from her when she looked down. A bitter taste rose in the back of her throat and she swallowed it down hard. The little girl tugged again. Her eyes begged for a miracle.
Brigit stumbled forward, putting herself between the soldiers and the village.
“I will not let you attack these people,” Brigit said. Her voice was carried away on the wind as it left her mouth. She stood in the middle of the street with her curls whipping wildly about her face and her cloak flapping around her body. At any moment, Brigit was certain she would sail into the sky.
She heard the crackling of the fire in the distance and the heavy breathing of the Roman soldiers. She stood close enough to them that she could smell the sweat rising off of their soot stained bodies, steam filling the air around them in the cool night.
The soldiers did not answer her.
The screaming ceased and people of the village began to whisper. Above the wind, she heard one word: draíochta. Magic. The words sunk into her skin and filled her bones. Deep in her marrow, it made her feel human again.
“I will not let you attack this village,” Brigit said again, louder. Perhaps they had not heard her. Perhaps they were at a loss with their Gaelic.
They began to laugh. Or perhaps she looked like a fool trying to stand up to a group of twelve soldiers.
“No,” the copper haired soldier said. He appeared to be the leader.
Brigit’s cloak waved violently in the wind, threatening to tear itself from her body. Fili had told her every thread was story. Áine’s story protected Ireland from invaders.
“Will you spare as much land as my cloak can cover?” she asked. The soldiers roared with laughter. The people of the village began to gather around her. They knew the power of a woman about to complete her rites. “Do I have your word that you will spare it?” Brigit demanded as the lead soldier wiped a tear from his eye. Her heart drummed against her mother’s sun cross. It seemed to vibrate against her chest.
“Yes,” he told her. He smiled, curling back his top lip to show a row of yellow teeth.
Brigit untied her cloak and called over the four daughters of her hosts. She gave them each a corner and told them to run in four different directions. They looked nervous, but their mother encouraged them.
“Bàthaidh toll beag long mhòr,” she whispered to her girls as she nudged them towards the billowing cape. “A little hole will sink a big ship.”
The oldest girl nodded at her mother and took the first corner. Her three sisters joined her. On Brigit’s command they took off running – and the cloak spread. It unfurled in waves, rippling like the surface of the sea. The people of the village cried out. They watched as eternity was pulled from a finite space. Brigit locked eyes with her hostess who wailed thanks to Áine. The cloak Fili had woven from Áine’s story stretched as far as the corners of the village, lifting up in gusts to cover the houses. Green wool blocked out the cold night sky. Underneath the village was warm.
The few soldiers who had not fled stood in amazement. One removed his helmet. It clanged against the ground. Another whispered prayers under his breath; his hands shook as he touched his forehead, chest, and both shoulders. She could hear the other soldiers’ whispers. Pagan devil. Witch. Sorceress.
Only the copper haired leader did not react. His bright green eyes looked up at the cloak, as though unimpressed. He looked as though he had seen magic before. Brigit’s throat tightened at the betrayal – he was Celtic.
“Go from this place. Your quarrel is with me, not these people,” Brigit said, under the canopy of her cloak.
“We will honor our word,” the lead soldier said. In his gleaming eyes she recognized the desire to conquer everything he saw; the kind of desire that would lead a young man to betray his family and people for a position of power. The backs of her knees prickled with the urge to flee. She knew that the foreign king had looked at Áine that way.
Brigit stood guard at the edge of the village, watching the soldiers return to the farm they had destroyed and stamp out the remaining flames. They would camp there for the night, she knew. One by one, families went back into their home, but not before placing their hands on her shoulders and crying, “Go raibh maith agat.” May good come to you.
Her host and hostess appeared behind her, their daughters in tow. All four girls had clover-green eyes that were open wide. They had helped her perform a miracle – no one would ever be able to keep them from making change in the village.
“You’re going to need to get a head start if you want to beat them to Cnoc Áine,” her host said. His dark brow furrowed as he squinted at the soldiers’ campfire in the distance. “You may be safe in the village, but they will come for you as soon as they realize you are gone.”
“You will always be welcome here,” his wife said. She clasped Brigit’s hands in her own. “My husband will give you his horse. You can get to Cnoc Áine by midday.”
Wrapped in purple darkness, Brigit rode the horse out across the peat. The rhythmic fall of the horse’s hooves rocked her to the edge of sleep so that she was carried in a dreamy daze toward Munster. The cold night air whipped at her face, but Brigit felt warm. It could have been the mead the village elders gave her as she left but she suspected that the cloak was doing all it could to keep her safe. In the grass that rippled on the hills – green one moment, showing white underside the next – she thought perhaps Ériu was waving to her. Ireland herself was urging her forward.
The dull echo of horses’ canter and armor clatter reached her ears, brought on the same wind that carried the soft smell of dying flames. Brigit refused to turn around. Riding on into the night, she told herself that her land would protect her.
The afternoon of Midsummer’s Eve was gray. Brigit thundered along and wondered how long it would take for the sun to burn through the clouds and grace them with light again. There hadn’t been a hint of sunshine since the Romans arrived; her summer had been spent in a cold mist.
Exhaustion was beginning to set in again. Her legs ached from her long journey this morning. She had stopped only to let her horse drink or when her legs trembled so badly she was afraid she would fall off. All she wanted to do was reach the castle in Cnoc Áine so she could complete her rites. She would beg Áine to banish the Romans from her home.
“Celtic swine!”
The call behind her froze her blood. A cold sweat began on the back of her neck.
The Romans were there. They rode at her like an arrow. The Celtic traitor was the flint tip.
She approached the base of a hill. Standing proudly on top was Cnoc Áine Castle – a single square stone tower. As she rode closer, she realized that the earth was beginning to invade the castle. Ivy crept up the eastern wall and tall grass was growing out the roof. Ériu was trying to reclaim it.
Breaking the crest of the hill, Brigit stared out at the patchwork farms below her, at the small thatched roofs of Munster. She had made it. The Romans shouted behind her.
The threats from the soldiers reminded her she didn’t have long. She dismounted her horse, smacking its flank as she did. It galloped toward Munster. Hopefully someone would come looking for its owner. Brigit swallowed hard as she saw the soldiers riding up. By the time anyone found her, the soldiers would have had their way with her.
She remembered the hungry eyes of the Celtic traitor last night. Escaping thoughts of him, she fled into the castle. It reeked of mildew from its years on the banks of an ancient river. Her bare feet slapped against cold stone in places where she had worn holes in her shoes. In the center of the castle stretched the rotting remains of a banquet table covered with flowers and tributes to Áine. Brigit could hear the fabled banquet in her mind. The slosh of drink. The crunch of meat skin. Áine’s challenge to the king. It was all true.
Through a narrow window, Brigit could see the Roman soldiers surround the castle. Brigit sprinted up the stone stairs, fighting through the vines growing inside the castle walls. Briars clung to her sleeves. Stinging needles drew pricks of blood. Her legs burned. She should have been dancing right now. She should have been singing instead of screaming. She should have been honoring her mother’s life instead of mourning her own impending death.
The sound of sword on stone sliced through the castle. She turned to find the lead soldier behind her, slashing through the briars. Brigit tripped, her ankle wrapped in vegetation. Her head crashed against a stone step.
She blinked herself back into focus and gingerly touched her forehead. A small trickle of blood ran down. The red dropped onto the gray steps. The soldier reached the landing below her. Pressing her scraped palms against the steps, she pushed herself back to her feet and continued her run up, looping outside through a narrow doorway and led up to the roof of the castle.
The parapet was covered in grass and bordered in thistle thorns. The roof itself was yellow, covered in every sort of wildflower: buttercups, cats-ear, ragwort, and primrose. She collapsed in the flowers, taking some small comfort in the cool press of their waxy petals against her skin. The light smell of primrose brought back a vision of her mother. Her sun cross weighed heavily against her chest. She couldn’t catch her breath.
This was it. This was how she would die.
She knew, around the base of the castle, the Roman soldiers had trapped her. The lead soldier would come up the stairs at any moment to rape her. Maybe she would be his prisoner. Maybe he would kill her. She preferred the latter. Her body seized, rigid with fear.
Under her breath she whispered death rites that she had heard at the funerals in Kildare. “In ár gcroí go deo, siocháin síor duit.” In our hearts forever, eternal peace to you. Incurable tremors of panic rocked her slim frame. She forced herself to sit up in jolts. Weeping into the flowers, she dragged herself to her knees. She had failed the priestesses, she had failed Áine, she had failed her mother.
Petals shook violently in her hands as she gathered the wildflowers into a funeral bouquet. Her mind was blank other than the sheer feeling of white hot panic. Slowly, a thought emerged above it all.
Would her father and Fili ever know what had happen to her? Would they know that she made it to Cnoc Áine only to be killed on top of the castle where Áine leapt across the Camóg to her freedom?
Áine leapt to her freedom.
The copper haired soldier’s head appeared above the edge. Brigit thought she felt the whole castle shake when he stepped onto the roof. His face struck her like a bolt of lightning in the chest, splitting her open. Erratic heartbeats stabbed her with every out-of-place pulse.
“Aiteann,” he snarled when he saw her. Brigit’s stomach churned against the insult. If there had been any doubt of his intention, it was gone now. He was going to rape her.
Brigit stood shakily to her feet, keeping her flowers in a tight fist pressed against her chest. The blood from her forehead poured down into her eye but she refused to wipe it away. It wouldn’t do her any good now. The inevitability of it all soothed her. There was only one thing to be done.
The soldier pointed at her and curled his finger back towards himself, expecting her to come to his call. Brigit watched him closely, returning the gaze he was so quick to thrust on her. With her gray eyes fixed on his green ones, she wondered how quickly this Celt turned into a Roman. How could he have changed so easily and completely that he was prepared to rape her on Cnoc Áine? Hadn’t he ever called on Áine for protection? Didn’t he remember the stories? It didn’t matter. She was about to give him a new one. She turned her back to him and he swore at her again. His footsteps clanged towards her. Her last thought of him was one of pity.
She took a running start.
Brigit leapt over the thistle-edge of the castle, cloak and gown billowing behind her. The soldiers below looked like wooden toys. Swords pointed to the sky, they brought a welcome end. She spread her arms wide, scattering wildflowers over their heads. Her mother’s sun cross warmed her chest. Stomach dropping, she fell towards the earth.
The sky caught her.
Brigit found herself standing upright in midair, poised above the soldiers just like her arrow had been. The sky felt soft but solid beneath her, holding her up. She began to chant. Her rites to the sky goddess would be performed here.
Her mother’s sun cross felt hot against her skin and she pulled it out from under her neckline. As soon as the cross was out in the air, the reeds and twine caught fire. They burst in a brilliant ball. To Brigit’s amazement, she was able to cup the flame in her hands. She chanted louder, looking up to the sky. She held fire.
Below her, the Roman soldiers fell to their knees.
The clouds parted, not just in a sliver, but across the whole sky, sending down the yellow rays of the afternoon and warming the fields in an instant. She felt the warmth on her skin and deep within her core, heating her from the inside out. Becoming light itself. “Thank you Áine,” she whispered to the sky. As she rose up into the clouds she could hear Ireland answer back, “Erin go bragh.”
Ireland forever.
The soldiers arrived back in Kildare a few days later. Fili and her father were waiting for them at the road. They had not moved from that spot since Brigit had left; the people of the village had brought them food and hot drinks as they kept their watch.
“Where is my sister?” Fili demanded as the soldiers marched out of Donadea Forest. There was no longer fear for herself, only Brigit. Her father placed a hand on her shoulder, holding her back should she charge at the soldiers as her sister had.
The Catholics looked solemn, heads downcast, lips mumbling in prayer. A light haired soldier who had always looked a little too closely at Brigit when she walked by – Fili had noticed this – spoke first.
“Your sister was called to God.”
Fili felt as though one of their swords had sliced through her. She dropped to her knees. “You killed her,” she whispered. Life rushed out of her. Her father stood, frozen. His hand still hovered in the air where Fili’s shoulder had been.
“No. Our heavenly Father called her back home. We must build the monastery to worship your sister. She performed miracles and He called her back into the sky.”
“The sky?” Fili asked. Her eyes grew wide. The soldier nodded. Fili clutched her father’s hand, intertwining her spindly fingers with his cracked knuckles. Her heart slammed in her chest, pulsing pride through her body. Fili stood, unravelling her braid, letting her hair fly in wild curls like Brigit always had.
Brigit had made the journey. Brigit was home with their mother.
“Build your monastery if you must,” her father said. “We have our own ways of honoring our daughter.”
The soldiers bowed to the blacksmith and left them.
Her father choked out laugh. “They will take her and make her one of their symbols.” Her father’s neck was mottled red with anger. For the first time in her life, Fili realized how powerful her father was. Her fingers fluttered over his face, wiping tears from his cheeks before they could drip into his beard.
“She is ours for now, Papa.” She took her father by the elbow and turned to lead him back into the village. As she looked out at Kildare, she found herself staring at a tapestry of green grass and embroidered with a ribbon of blue river. Fili could not weave a better remembrance for Brigit than the land had already done.
She tilted her head toward the sky, squinting into the sun.