‘Your God has been kind.’
His statement was matter-of-fact. The voice he used was no different from the voice he had used all day, to question, to clarify, to record. But something in his eyes spoke louder, less dispassionately. It told her what she was already coming to recognise, that something had come to help her in her deepest need. She had no idea what it was, but it had come, just as Merdaine had promised. Some would call it a miracle.
She looked at the brehon steadily and saw the weariness which dragged at his body. It looked as if his life was draining away. She who had been given back life, could not bear what she saw.
‘Sir, I thank you for your kindness to me . . .’
She paused and grasped more firmly the brooch in her right hand.
‘Sir, I would take an offering to the God and bring you back a draught from the well.’
The brehon laughed. The sound was short and brittle.
‘Would you heal me then of the cares of office? Will you give me back sleep and pleasure in food? Have you a wound salve for the heart, then?’
‘The God has all these things.’
‘And he will give them to you, if the offering is large enough?’
‘No, sir. The God gives, the God takes away. It is His wisdom, not the offering, but we who serve are permitted to ask, for those who will give us leave.’
The brehon glanced round the empty hall as if he were making an inventory of the blackened rafters, the wooden benches and the empty drinking horns.
‘And if I say yes, what offering will you take?’
‘I do not know, Sir. When I have held your need in my heart, the God may tell me what he wishes, and then I will go to the well.’
‘And bring back healing in a pitcher?’
‘If the God wishes.’
The brehon repeated the words thoughtfully and considered them, as he considered everything. On the face of it, it was quite obvious. The girl believed a traditional set of superstitions known to the tribe for centuries. Most women did. Quite unfounded in the face of any real danger, but no doubt useful for day-to-day ailments. One had to admit some of these things worked. Some didn’t. One could see that quite clearly. The girl herself was a different matter. Not clear at all. There was something unusual about her. She was almost enough to make one imagine the unimaginable.
‘If I say yes, when will you go?’
‘Tomorrow, Sir, as soon after the noon hour as I can finish my tasks.’
‘Very well, then. Come to me at this hour and we shall see if your pitcher brings back my appetite. Go now and eat. May your food bring you strength.’
‘Thank you, Sir. May your sleep bring you peace.’
Deara smiled at the brehon and bowed her head as she returned the evening greeting. Then she walked from the Hall of Council into the swirling woodsmoke of the cooking fires and the red flame of the sunset, carrying in her left hand the Royal brooch of Emain.
When I saw Deara walk from the Hall of Council, a free woman under the protection of the King himself, after all the anxiety she had suffered throughout that long day, I was so relieved and so excited I wanted to stand up and cheer. I wanted to run after her and throw my arms round her and challenge anyone who might have slighted her, and tell them to their face, ‘There, I told you so’.
What actually happened was very different. I opened my eyes only to find myself under the hawthorns, exactly where I’d sat myself down when the awful agitation came upon me and I’d started making a mess of everything I tried to do.
Plainly, I couldn’t chase after Deara, so I made no move at all, just went on sitting in the dappled shade, looking out over the lawn and enjoying the splashes and patches of colour in the flourishing borders. But I was so grateful something had come to help Deara in her need. At the same time, I couldn’t help being totally absorbed and enthralled by the remote world in which she lived. I found I was running through the whole of her time in the Hall of Council once again, minute by minute, detail by detail.
I was intrigued by the unwritten law Morrough administered in such an extraordinary fashion and the customs and practices of the people over whom he ruled. I was appalled by Conor the Druid, curious about this person, Alcelcius, whose home was soon to be Deara’s, and absolutely intrigued by Sennach the brehon with his tally system for reckoning wealth and his new language he had taught himself over the last three winters.
There was so much more I wanted to know, so many questions I was dying to ask. How I wished I’d been able to see those documents on his table, particularly the one in Merdaine’s hand. I love old documents of any kind. Regardless of their content, I feel they bring you so close to the person who wrote them. I’ve often imagined how exciting it would be to touch something really old and precious, the kind of thing now kept behind security glass with alarm systems like the Lindisfarne Gospels, or the Book of Kells, or the one I should like to handle most of all, the Book of Armagh itself.
Sennach was such a precise character, meticulous and methodical. His long, pale face reminded me of a man who used to work with Daddy in the shop. Poor man, he never looked well, but he was still alive, able to dig his garden despite his eight decades while Daddy was long gone.
I sat on and on, with so much going through my head I couldn’t begin to sort it all out. Suddenly, everything cleared and words took shape just as if someone had spoken them out loud. It was the advice Merdaine had given to Deara just before she died. ‘If you do as your heart speaks, then in your sorest need, help will come. But you must trust that it will come.’
I repeated the words aloud to myself. They made perfect sense, however many centuries might have passed since Merdaine herself had spoken them. Help would come for Deara, but only if she believed that it would. And if it would come for Deara, then it would come for me were I to believe that it would. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me Merdaine’s advice applied as much to me as to Deara. I had to confess to myself that I’d lost my hopefulness over the years, my confidence that things really would or could come out right for me. Oh yes, I’d achieved many things. I was successful after the fashion of my own world. I had a decent job and earned a reasonable income. But so much potential happiness was marred by my doubts and anxiety.
Suddenly and very sharply, I saw that Merdaine’s words were telling me it would be better for me to cherish hope, to develop new confidence and take a chance on failure, than to go on in my normal, cautious and considered way.
As the shadows lengthened across the lawn, reluctantly I went back into the house. As I came through the kitchen into the hall I stopped in my tracks and stared at a striking, arched arrangement of pear blossom and dark petalled tulips, set against the well-polished mirror above the hall table, as if I’d never laid eyes on it before. I laughed at myself.
For days now, all I could think of was getting through the cleaning jobs in the house so I’d be free to go out into the garden. And without being quite aware of what I was up to, I’d brought the garden back in with me. All the rooms were fresh and full of light. With the windows open, the smell of blossom and flowers outdoors mingled with the perfume from the branches and posies I’d arranged and placed in every possible corner.
‘No wonder the estate agent was so complimentary,’ I said aloud, as I passed down the hall. I pushed wide the sitting room door. Gone was the electric fire Mother had parked in the hearth, the clutter of small tables that fell over at the slightest provocation, the assorted ashtrays and piles of product catalogues that were her constant companions. Out in the garage I’d found the wrought iron companion set from the hearth and the old willow basket that once served the open fire.