Patrick (4 page)

It was then I learned one of life's fundamental lessons: the lord of this world is a coldhearted king, unmoved by the suffering of his subjects, demanding complete homage, unstinting love, and total, unthinking obedience of all who pass beneath his stony gaze, yet lifts nary a finger to lessen the severity of their travails.

If this was the way of things, then I would look to myself for the preserving and sustaining of my life. There was despair in this conclusion, true, but there was freedom, too. For I reasoned I could go my own way and never trouble myself with another thought about God, his church, or any of his insufferable mob of simpering damp-eyed priests, ever again.

And yet…my grandfather's hold on me was stronger than I imagined. His stern, disapproving voice seemed to call to me across the years.
Blasphemy and sacrilege!
I could hear him rumble.
What do you know of things, boy?
What do you know of the world? What do you know of anything?

The thought chastised me sufficiently to amend my harsh appraisal somewhat. I decided to put the Good Lord to the test. I would propose a simple bargain.

God of my fathers, heed me now,
I said within my heart.
Aid me in my escape, and I will worship you with all my soul. Aid me not, and I will turn my back on you forever. Hear me: Succat of Morgannwg makes this vow.

That done, I closed my eyes and slept again for a while, awakening when I heard shouting. I opened my eyes. It was near dawn, and one of the other ships had drawn up beside us; the guards were calling to one another. I looked across the narrow distance between the hulls as the warriors from the other boat hauled a man onto his feet. Gray-faced, his hair matted with sweat, he seemed to be pleading, begging, his voice shaking.

Two brawny barbarians picked him up like a sack of meal and made him stand atop the rail. He balanced there, clinging to one of the mast ropes while they removed his shackles. Even from a distance I could see that the poor wretch's arm was broken; the limb flopped uselessly, and the hand was blue.

As soon as the leg chains were removed, one of the guards raised a spear and prodded the man in the back to make him jump. The fellow refused. He began weeping in anguish, howling like a beaten dog. The coward with the spear prodded him again, harder, poking him in the shoulder.

Still the man refused to jump. There came a cry from the boat, and a woman thrust herself forward. She wrapped her arms around the man's legs and held on to him, crying for the thugs to let him back in the boat.

This went on for a time, drawing great snorts of laughter from the barbarians in both boats. Then, tiring of the game, the warrior with the spear slashed the man in the back of the leg, severing the cords behind his knee. Unable to stand, the wretch toppled into the sea. He came up spluttering and
coughing, flailing in the water with his good arm. The woman screamed and held out her hands to him, receiving a blow in the teeth with the shaft of the spear. Even then she did not desist. She wailed the louder through her bloody lips and stretched out her arms, trying to reach him. When that failed, she leaned out over the rail and would have joined him in his fate—indeed, she was half in the water before the thug noticed; he snagged her by the edge of her mantle and dragged her back into the ship. I saw the butt of the spear rise and fall sharply, and her cries ceased.

I looked back in the water and saw the man's hand flutter above the surface of the waves, fingers reaching for a last, hopeless, fleeting grasp of life. And then he sank from view.

When I saw he would not rise again, I turned my eyes away, my face burning with pent rage at the way he had been treated. When my anger subsided, I saw that the land was now much nearer than before. Soon we were passing through the low scattering of islets and rocks of the darkly wooded coast of my new home.

T
HE BAY WAS
wide and deep, stone-lined and sheltered by a high, craggy promontory on either side. On the rocks stood a rude settlement of mud huts, inhabited, so far as I could see, by barking dogs and barefoot, snotty-nosed brats. There were already four ships in the bay when we arrived, delivering their human cargo to the shore.

I counted the captives as they went ashore; there were more than sixty in the first three ships alone. Then it was our turn. The raiders manned the oars, and the pilot maneuvered the boat to the loading place—a crude wharf where men with ropes and poles held the vessel in place while the boards were extended, one to either end of the boat. With shouting and gestures our captors indicated that we were to disembark. Because of the shackles, most of the captives had difficulty getting onto the narrow timbers; when prodding with spears did not help, the brutes would heave the struggling wretch onto the plank and push him along. More than one captive fell into the water, to the amusement of the ruffians on shore, who made great sport of it before hauling out the half-drowned victim.

I, too, almost fell, but refused to give the thugs any delight in my misfortune, so went down on my knees instead and, gripping the edges of the board with both hands, made my way onto the rocks, where I joined the others. There were almost eighty of us now, by my reckoning. We were made to stand in the sun while the other ships unloaded their unwill
ing passengers. One ship after another entered the bay, and when I thought that must be the end of it, more arrived.

In a little while we were marched a short distance into a clearing in the wood, where we were given water from the hewn-stone basin of a cattle trough. Drinking from such a vessel was humiliating, certainly, but I was thirsty, and the water was clean and reviving. I gulped down as much as I could before I was jabbed with the butt of a spear and forcibly moved on. We were then herded together into the center of the clearing, where we squatted on our haunches beneath the wary gaze of the guards, who cuffed anyone who spoke or moved. The surrounding trees provided a little relief from the sun, but we were given no food, and by this time more than a few were growing faint.

All day long the ships came, and all day long we waited, our numbers swelling with each arrival. For a while, I occupied myself with trying to search out anyone I knew, but it was no use. Few town dwellers appeared among the captives—a dozen or so itinerant merchants, as it seemed to me—and no members of the nobility at all. I wondered about this. Had the noble families simply been slaughtered outright? Or had they been singularly successful in fending off the attack?

Neither possibility seemed likely. Even given the enormity of the attack, some few noblemen must have escaped slaughter, and these would have been rounded up for slaves just like all the rest. Then again, the invaders had overwhelmed the entire countryside, so how was it that only the nobility escaped? I puzzled over this a considerable time as, boatload by boatload, the number of captives grew.

Then it came to me: the poor folk, the rustics, the
pagani
, those without recourse to ransom had been brought to Éire, where they would become slaves. But the noble families, the wealthy aristocracy, the landowners, had not joined us because they were being kept in Britain, where they could be ransomed for ready gold.

Darkest dread spread its numbing tendrils through me, but before it could take root, another thought sprang up: a grave
mistake had been made. I was neither a rustic nor a pagan. I was a Christian from a noble family. I could easily raise the ransom price. A slender shaft of hope, like a beam of light striking to the bottom of a well, suffused my soul. I set the matter squarely before me and marveled at the simplicity. All I had to do was make myself known, and the error would be rectified. I would be taken back to Britain, where my father, the wealthy decurion, would gladly and handsomely pay for my release. Thus encouraged, I settled down to bide my time until I found someone in authority to whom I could explain the blunder.

Toward evening the last ship arrived, and its captives were brought to our now-sizable conclave. I added their number to the rest: seven hundred and eighty-five. It was, I felt certain, the largest raid ever known in Britain.

Yet for all our numbers, there was no outcry or struggling; a thick silence of misery prevailed. Men and women stood or sat, silent, faces impassive, sight turned inward. They seemed to me like houses in which the roofs had collapsed; the walls were still intact, but the interior—indeed, everything that made it a house—was gone.

A hump-shouldered man standing nearby saw me counting on my fingers and seemed anxious to know what I was doing. Despite the guards, I made bold to tell him the tally as I made it. The ignorant lout merely gawped at me like a deaf dog. I explained again, and still he stared, shaking his head slowly and muttering under his breath. I realized then that he did not speak Latin. “Cretin,” I muttered, dismissing him with a sneer.

Little wonder they were such easy pickings for Irish raiders.
Unschooled, backward boors,
I thought.
However do they keep themselves alive?
Nevertheless the insight bolstered my hope, for it served to heighten the difference between myself and the others. No one could fail to see the mistake for the gross error that it was, and I would soon be returning home, where ransom would be arranged and I would be set free.

The guards were now joined by a host of warriors—more than a hundred of them, big brutes in full battle regalia—who stood watch while their comrades came among us and removed the chains of any who, like myself, were still shackled. They then divided the throng into two companies, one somewhat larger than the other. The larger of the two was led apart, leaving the smaller one behind. Some families were divided by this exercise. I saw many women distraught and weeping to have their husbands torn from them. I would gladly have stayed behind to allow two to remain together, but heaven decreed that I was among those chosen to depart, and we marched off into the wood. During this confusion, I lost sight of Drusilla; I determined to watch out for her, but I did not see her in the crowd.

A path led up through the wood into the low hills beyond the coast, and we were pushed onto this path and commenced walking, singly or two together, with the setting sun on our right hand. As I walked along, I listened to the woodland sounds—birdcalls, small rustlings in the dry leaf matter along the path. For all our numbers we passed as silently as fog through the trees—silently, silently, as if we ourselves might disappear in silence.

All the while a blue dusk deepened around us, and still we did not stop. By the time the moon rose, I reckoned we were going to walk all night. With darkness, the way became uneven underfoot. The guards grew more watchful, lest anyone try to escape into the night. Whenever anyone stumbled, the guards ran to thump him with the butts of their spears by way of punishment for his clumsiness, then yanked the unfortunate to his feet and pushed him back onto the path.

The moon was high overhead when we finally stopped to rest. The wood ended, and we came out into a wide clearing on the top of a hill, where in the starlight I saw the rings and ditches of an old
ráth
, or ring fort. The palisade walls were gone and the ditches filled with briars and nettles, but a large, reed-thatched house still stood in the center of the ring, and beside it a small enclosure for sheep and cattle.

We sat down in the long grass to rest while the guards shared out their drink among themselves from the skins they carried. The captives, however, were given nothing. For many of us it had been a long day without food, and our hunger was growing onerous. Some began chewing grass and so received some small comfort that way. Grazing like a dumb animal was beneath me, and I refused.

Even so, I did, I confess, pluck a few leaves on which the dew was beginning to form, and drew these through my lips. It did little more than wet my tongue and stoke the fire in my throat all the more, so I desisted. I lay back and rested for a time, and when the moon had all but set, we were awakened once more. I sat up and looked out at the captives scattered here and there across the hillside like the corpses of a defeated army after a great and terrible battle. The guards moved among them like grim survivors, prodding the bodies with their spears as if trying to rouse the dead. Stirred to life, the dead arose, stood on their feet, and walked.

The trail took us further inland and into heavier wood—larger trees surmounting a thick undergrowth of brambles: hawthorn, blackberry, and elder. The thorny vines of the blackberry snatched at the unwary, scratching flesh and snagging clothing—a trifling obstacle in the daylight but a very danger at night. I walked with my hands before my face and caught more than one swinging branch before it reached my eyes.

After a time the path began to descend, the slope growing gradually sharper until it became clear we were coming into a valley. Soon there arose a cry from far ahead on the trail, and the captives began to shuffle more quickly. And then, passed back along the line, came the word: water!

The mob surged forward in a rush. Like horses with the scent in their nostrils, they put their heads down and charged blindly for the stream that was yet a short distance ahead. Pushing and jostling one another, they ran, heedless of the brush and branches of the undergrowth. Some of the less agile became tangled in vines or tripped up on roots and
went down; these were shamefully trampled by those behind.

Just ahead of me I saw a woman fall on the path; two more fell atop her, and all three were overrun. They screamed and kicked, but failed to slow the onslaught. As I came near, I looked down and saw that one of them was Drusilla. The girl shrieked and reached out to me, her fingers clutching like claws.

“Here!” I cried. “Take my hand.”

She lurched toward me, and I snagged hold of one thin wrist. The mob, desperate for water, plunged over and around us. Tumbled along like a pebble in a swift-rushing stream, I tried with all my strength to haul the young girl upright. I succeeded only in dragging her a few paces down the path before my grip failed.

Jostled, pummeled, knocked sideways by the swarm, I could not fight my way back to her. I watched in horror as the life was crushed from her slender body by the feet of those charging blindly to the stream.

Using the shafts of their spears, several guards forced their way to the place, but arrived too late to save her. Battered and injured, the other two women were at least able to rise. Poor Drusilla, however, was left were she had fallen. Anger and sorrow surged up inside me, and I cursed the senseless waste of that small, insignificant life.

But there was nothing to be done. Driven by their thirst, the crowd raced on, and I was carried along with it. I was well back in the pack, so by the time I reached the ford, it had become a mud bath. In their inhuman haste the fools had churned the small, clear-running stream into a pig wallow. Men and women were flopped facedown in the muck, eagerly sucking up the stuff. Some had drunk too much too fast and were choking and puking on it, fouling the water for the rest; others knelt in the middle of the stream, laving the gunk over themselves. The mire ran in filthy rivulets down their faces and beards and from their gaping mouths.

I tried to go upstream to get at cleaner water, but the
guards refused to allow anyone to move even a few paces apart, so I had to make do with a few mouthfuls of muddy slop sucked from the hollow of my hand. And then, with much shouting, shoving, and threatening, we were moved on once more.

We walked until dawn and emerged from the forest and onto a well-traveled track that passed between two sown fields. The grain was green and high, the fields clean and well tended. In the distance rose a large, conical hill, and it was to this prominence we were led. As we came nearer, I observed that the top of this hill had been leveled; ramparts and ditches formed rings around the upper elevations, and the top was crowned by a high palisade wall of timber lined with sharpened stakes at its base. A great wooden gate, surmounted by a walkway on which warriors strutted and gestured as we drew nearer, formed the entrance.

It was not for us to enter this settlement; we were taken instead to a stone-and-timber cattle enclosure at the base of the hill, where we were watered from a wooden trough and penned up like so much livestock. The enclosure was mean, and we were packed in until there was no room to move about. We stood in mounting misery as the sun rose higher through the clear morning sky, beating down on our sorry heads.

At midday the fortress began to stir. From where I stood I could see through a chink in the enclosure onto part of the road. People were arriving in groups, large and small: most on foot, but some on horseback, and one—I tell the truth!—in a chariot pulled by two fine gray horses. I caught the glint of gold at this fellow's throat and perceived that he styled himself a prince of some account. He was accompanied by six riders bearing spears and large square shields which were painted black and embellished with symbols copied from Roman insignia. The ignorant savages did not know what the symbols meant, I could tell, for the images were all mixed and mingled together: the jagged lightning bolt of II Augusta and the winged
pilum
of XX Valeria Victrix, the
proud eagle of the legions along with the double-ended trident and the triple running foot of the infantry, and others which were not emblems at all but merely letters jumbled up anyhow.

They rode up to the fortress and through the open gate. The others on the path moved aside to let them pass. They were followed by at least seven wagons pulled by heavy horses; these wagons were stacked high to overflowing with the treasure pillaged from towns they had ransacked, and it made my heart sick to see it. More people followed after that, some with lengthy retinues in their wake, but most without. All day long we stood in the cattle pen: thirsty, tired, the hot summer sun striking down through an empty sky. Many captives, weak from lack of food, could not endure this abuse and fainted. There was no place for them to lie, so they remained propped between those on either side, or held upright by members of their family. If that were not bad enough, others who could no longer hold their bladders and bowels relieved themselves where they stood, and the bare earth soon grew wet and rank.