Sacrifice (6 page)

D
ari and I were up early the next day for morning prayers in the church. I placed more logs on the hearth and banked the fire so it would burn until evening, when another sister would come and spend the night in the temple. We gathered our bedding to take back to the nuns' sleeping quarters before the service. I couldn't hide anymore. It was time to face whatever lay ahead.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Dari asked as we walked through the muddy monastery yard. It had rained hard in the early morning hours, and the muck was even worse than usual.

“Not much. Maybe tonight will be better. Are you still holding classes this morning?”

Dari was the teacher of the youngest children at the monastery school.

“Oh, yes. The children are scared and confused, of course, but it's important that we go on as always. Little ones need consistency in their lives.”

“Don't we all? I'm actually looking forward to getting back to work in the barn today. While I'm figuring out how to investigate this murder, I'm going to clean out the cattle stalls and patch up the fence on the far side of the pig pen. I'm not going to bother bathing until tonight.”

I saw that Dari was no longer beside me but a few steps behind, staring into the distance.

“Deirdre, what is that?”

She was pointing to a tree trunk about a quarter of a mile away on a low rise south of the monastery. It was an ancient oak that had been struck by lightning a few years ago. The tree was dead, but the scarred remains of the bare trunk still rose like a blackened stake hammered into the ground by some angry god.

There were crows circling the tree. On the top fork of the trunk was some object I couldn't make out at that distance.

“I'm not sure, Dari. Maybe an animal? Hunters sometimes tie a deer to the tree to gut the carcass.”

“I don't think so.” Her eyes had always been better than mine. “Whatever's on top looks yellowish, like golden hair.”

We dropped our blankets and began to run.

Brother Kevin must have seen it at the same time we did, since we all arrived at the tree together. For a moment the three of us just stared, trying to understand what we saw in front of us. Then Dari fell to the ground and threw up.

The naked body of a young woman was tied with thick ropes to the broken trunk of the tree. A crow that had been perched on her right shoulder had flown away when we came near.
Signs and emblems, all of which I knew were sacred druid symbols, had been carved into the flesh around her breasts with a knife. But there was no head on the body.

On the sharp point at the top of the tree, higher than I could reach, was the missing head of the woman, fixed as if on a pike. The golden blond hair was blowing in the wind, wrapping itself thickly around her face.

Others from the monastery were running to the tree now, including Sister Anna, who came and stood with us. I could also see Father Ailbe coming down the path as fast as he could.

The abbess took in the scene in a moment and made the sign of the cross on her chest.

“Sister Deirdre, how long have you been here?” she asked.

“I just arrived, along with Dari and Kevin. We were spending the night in the fire temple and saw the body as we left for morning prayers. I don't know—”

“Enough. I'll have more questions for you later.”

She turned to Father Ailbe, who had just arrived. He was out of breath but walked around the tree, examining the body from every angle.

“Father, is there any reason we need to have this young woman exposed like this?”

“No,” he said. “The cause of death is obvious. The heavy rain has washed away any tracks around the trunk. We can bring her down.”

Sister Anna took off her own cloak and wrapped it around the corpse as best she could. She then asked Kevin and one of the other brothers to hold the body while she cut the ropes. Once it was released, they lowered it gently and placed it in a patch of grass a few feet away.

“Brother Kevin, can you reach her head?” she asked.

He nodded. He was easily the tallest of the brothers at the monastery. He reached up and began carefully wiggling
the head to ease it off the top of the tree. It made a horrible sucking sound when it finally came loose.

“Sister Darerca, may I borrow your veil?”

The abbess was the only one at the monastery who called Dari by her given name.

“Yes, of course.”

Dari gave her the linen veil we normally wore around our necks except when we covered our heads at prayer. The abbess folded it in her arms and asked Kevin to place the head there. She began to gently push the hair away from its face, careful to keep it from the bloody stump, so that she could reveal the identity of the young woman. But she already knew. We all knew.

“Saoirse.”

The newest member of our monastic family, Saoirse was a strikingly beautiful young woman in her early twenties, from a warrior clan just to the east of the monastery. She had been a student at Kildare and was loved by us all. She was particularly drawn to the stories of the holy women of Egypt who had gone into the desert alone to follow God. Her parents were Christians, and her father was one of the most prosperous cattle lords of our tribe. He was also a proven warrior at the side of the king in battle. He had received generous offers for bridal payments for his daughter since she was twelve, but, being an indulgent man and loving father, he had agreed to the wishes of his child and not made her leave the school. When she turned eighteen, she asked him if she could become a nun. He was none too pleased at first, but he was a devout man with several older sons and daughters. He agreed at last to her marriage to the church and had wept tears of pride as she took her vows at Kildare just a few months earlier. She decided to live as a solitary in a hermitage not far from her family farm. Although she was most sincere in her wish to seek God apart from the
world, she came to the church for mass every Sunday and was a frequent visitor to her family's holdings as well.

Sister Anna cradled Saoirse's head in her arms and wrapped the folds of the veil over her face.

“Brother Kevin, can you carry her body back to the infirmary?”

We all walked together back to the monastery, with Sister Anna and Kevin leading the procession. When we reached the infirmary, Kevin carried her body inside. Sister Anna then asked Father Ailbe and me to join her to examine the body.

“Sister Anna, may I send for my grandmother?” I wanted her to look at the signs carved on Saoirse's chest.

“No, Sister Deirdre, you may not.”

We entered the hut, and the abbess placed Saoirse's head gently on the side of the examination table next to her body. Father Ailbe began by unwrapping the veil from her face. The look of the young woman was again one of complete peace. I had seen people beheaded before as punishment for some heinous crime. The look that remained on their faces after death was always one of terror.

“No blows to the back of the head or elsewhere on the cranium,” said Father Ailbe. “The decapitating blow was made with the single stroke of a broad and very sharp axe. The tendons, vertebrae, and spinal cord were all severed cleanly, with no need for further sawing or cutting. Death was instantaneous. She did not suffer.”

He bent down and kissed Saoirse on the forehead, then covered her face with the veil and moved to her body, pulling back the cloak.

“Aside from these symbols carved in her skin, there is no visible trauma to her upper or lower torso. The limbs are similarly unremarkable. Once again, no cuts or lacerations on the hands. The carved symbols show swelling around the edges, indicating that she was alive when they were made.”

I helped him turn her over.

“No trauma of any kind to the back of the body.”

We turned her over again.

“We should examine her stomach contents,” said the abbess.

Father Ailbe and I did the same procedure as with Sister Grainne. The odor was identical.

“Mistletoe.”

I covered her again except for her chest. There were six markings artfully carved into her skin. There were two above her breasts, one below, and one to the right and left; these were graceful swirls, figures, and lines of simple design. Between her breasts was a sixth carving twice the size of the others.

“Deirdre, do these symbols mean anything to you?” he asked.

“Yes, Abba, they are druidic signs.”

“Signifying what?” asked Sister Anna.

“Sister Anna, I . . . I can't tell you. But I can say that we are all in grave danger. There will be more deaths if we can't find the killer.”

She stared at me as if she was weighing something in her mind, then pointed to the sign above Saoirse's right breast.

“This is the head of a crow, the symbol of the Morrigan. Even those of us outside the Order can recognize the sign of the goddess of battle. Do you betray any secrets by confirming this for me?”

“No, you are correct, Sister Anna. It is the symbol of the Morrigan.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about these other signs?”

“Sister Anna, I would if I could, but—”

“Get out, Sister Deirdre.”

“But I—”

She held the door open.

“I said leave us. Leave the monastery. Now. You are expelled from the order of holy Brigid. You are no longer one of us.”

The whole community of Kildare was gathered outside the infirmary, again waiting for news. They had all heard the final words of Sister Anna. They parted silently as I walked through the crowd. All the brothers and sisters turned their heads away, except for Eithne, who spat at my feet. Only Kevin and Macha reached out to touch my arm as I passed. Dari was at the end of the line and started to hug me, but I shook my head. She was going to have a hard enough time from the others as it was. I walked across the yard to the sleeping quarters of the nuns and took my harp and satchel from the wall above my bed. I left everything else from my life as a nun behind and walked out through the gate, down the path to my grandmother's hut.

Chapter Seven

W
ould you like some more wine?”

I was sitting by the hearth fire at my grandmother's house that same evening. She had made roasted chicken with apricot sauce, my favorite, and we had just finished washing the dishes.

“No, thank you, Grandmother. I think three cups is enough for one night.”

I had a sense of hazy unreality after the events of the day, as if I couldn't wake up from a bad dream—and the wine wasn't helping. I had seen the results of a brutal human sacrifice and been stripped of my life as a nun, all since sunrise. I had come to my grandmother's house because I had nowhere else to go. It had been three years since I had lived in this place. I had gone
from here to the monastery after the death of my son because I needed a new life and a new beginning. Kildare had become my home and my world, the nuns and brothers my closest friends. Now all that was gone.

But my personal problems paled in comparison to the deaths of two innocent women and what the future held for us all.

“Grandmother, we need to talk about what to do next.”

I had told her about everything that had happened that morning, including a description of the symbols carved onto Saoirse's body. As fellow druids, we could discuss all the details freely without betraying any secrets. If she had been shocked by the murder of Grainne, the sacrifice of Saoirse was even worse. We both knew what it meant and the chain of events that had now been set in motion.

“Yes, we don't have much time. I've sent word to the leading druids throughout Ireland, including Cathbad. The death of Saoirse and the symbols on her body make it clear that Grainne's death was not an isolated incident. The druid who carried out these killings intends to perform the full cycle of sacrifices.”

“Is there any way to know the order he intends?” I asked.

“Yes, the sequence was always fixed, assuming that this renegade intends to follow tradition. He's already violated it by using unwilling victims. There were six symbols on her body. He didn't include the death of Grainne since that had been completed. He has already performed the second sacrifice with Saoirse, so that leaves five signs and five more sacrifices. The Triple Death was always the first, followed by the offering to the Morrigan. Tell me again exactly what you saw.”

“Six symbols, Grandmother. The first, above her right breast, was the head of a crow.”

“Yes, the Morrigan. Saoirse was a sacrifice to the goddess of war. It looks like the murderer hopes to bring about armed conflict.”

“The second, over her left breast, was a spiral line circling inward on itself.”

“Life. The symbol of the three mother goddesses. That will be the next sacrifice.”

“The third was a triangle with a circle in the center.”

She shuddered when I said this.

“Blood. The mark of Crom Crúach. We've got to stop this before that sacrifice happens.”