Brigid of Ireland (Daughters of Ireland Book 1) Read online

  Brigid of Ireland

  Cindy Thomson

  Copyright © Cindy Thomson 2006.

  The right of Cindy Thomson to be identified

  as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs

  and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in the UK in 2005 by Monarch Books (a publishing imprint of Lion Hudson plc),

  Mayfield House, 256 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DH Tel: +44 (0) 1865 302750 Fax: +44 (0) 1865 302757

  Email: [email protected] www.lionhudson.com

  Ebook version © Cindy Thomson, 2014

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society.

  Used by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by Kim M. Draper Cover Model/Stock provider Janna Prosvirina

  eBook Interior Design by Penoaks Publishing, http://penoaks.com

  Used by permission Interior Artwork by Deirdra Doan

  Used by permission

  Prologue

  “If God sends you down a stony path, may he give you strong shoes.”

  Old Irish proverb

  “Does it bother ye? Being a slave, I mean?” The aged druid guided Brocca’s way while she rode horseback through the rocky slopes spanning the southern part of the Irish isle. He was her new master now.

  Brocca gazed down into the man’s frosty blue eyes as he traipsed alongside the horse.

  He glanced away. “Just wondering.”

  A chilly midday mist coated Brocca’s eyelashes. She wiped away the moisture and patted her large belly. How should she answer? Her lot as a slave would soon cost her dearly. Didn’t the old man know?

  The child within her bounced with every hoofbeat, but riding was far easier than stumbling along a rugged trail. She thought of her previous master. How could he have been so heartless to force her to leave Leinster while she was expecting his child?

  Brocca took comfort in one thing. If this druid, her new master, had meant to be cruel, he would never have allowed her to ride.

  Brocca clutched the mare’s blond mane and cleared her throat, causing the druid to glance back at her. She swallowed hard, hoping to steady her voice. “Nay, it does not bother me to be a slave. Patrick taught that if one accepts baptism in the Lord’s name, one may dwell on the promise that long-suffering for Jesus will result in a reward in heaven.”

  The druid shook his cloaked head, aiming his words at the ground. “I do not understand ye Christians.”

  Their conversation waned as they plodded through mossy fields. The druid’s statement hung in the air like fog in a gulch, and Brocca thought once or twice she’d explain. But just as soon as the words were about to come forth, she closed her mouth tight. Every explanation she could think of paled against the backdrop of what her former master had planned.

  The horse whinnied. The druid patted her nose. “That’s right. We’re almost home.”

  They approached a dense grove of budding trees, and the druid’s voice rose above the chatter of rooks roosting there. “Tell me about this Patrick.”

  A welcome distraction. “He had a glow about him.” Brocca leaned forward as the horse suddenly picked up its pace.

  The stubby man ran alongside until he finally persuaded the animal to slow. “She knows we’re close. Knows a warm barn and a feast of hay await her, she does.”

  Just beyond the grove Brocca spotted Cashel, the high point occupied for many years by various kings and used as a lookout. Just a rocky patch topped with green turf, yet so important to men who sought to control other men. The man she spoke about, Patrick, had visited that same hill, even baptized a royal poet there.

  “Ah, I see.” The druid rubbed his milky beard. “’Twas magic, then. Patrick – a sorcerer, was he?”

  Brocca smiled. Truly, this pagan knew little of the Holy Spirit. She lifted her head to breathe in the dampness, filling her lungs as much as the growing babe would allow. “Patrick? Nay, man. He did not use any magic. He had the glow from our Lord.”

  Her new master arched his snowy eyebrows. Brocca knew that talk of serving only one God sounded foreign to his ears. One day she’d explain, perhaps even introduce this druid, whom pagans called a priest, to Patrick. There was so much to tell about the holy man who roamed Ireland preaching the good news of Jesus the Christ.

  But now her body ached. The child within her was too large to move about any longer. Brocca knew the time of birth was drawing near. Winter had been long and hard, but spring, and her baby’s arrival, approached.

  The druid urged the mare through saplings and down a lane toward a thatch-covered cottage. Smoke bellowed from the house’s roof, beckoning them with the promise of a warm turf fire. Brocca accepted the druid’s wrinkled hand as she wiggled down from the horse’s back.

  He tipped his head toward the dwelling. “Go on in, now. I’ve got another slave maiden in the house who’ll serve ye some broth.”

  Brocca lowered her chin to her chest and waited a moment while the old man led his horse into a tiny barn. The cries of cattle echoed off the stone-speckled hills. That barn would be her domain. Her purpose was to tend the druid’s dairy.

  Brocca feared the worst part of her relocation. Before she left with the druid, she’d pretended not to hear her former master’s words. But she had heard. His pronouncement still echoed in her head. She held her hands over her ears, trying to drown out his voice. “The unborn child has not been sold,” he’d said. “When the time comes, he’ll return to me in Leinster.”

  Brocca rubbed her swollen belly. Tears filled her eyes as she turned her back to the dairy. Perhaps the child would not be a boy. She breathed a sigh of relief. That cruel man would likely reject a girl. At least she hoped he would. Brocca wrapped both her arms around her middle and stepped slowly toward the house, longing to hold on to what she feared would soon slip away.

  The wind brought the smell of spring to her senses – warm dirt, moist grass – and she pushed the thought of parting with her child to the hidden places of her mind. Pulling her colorless shawl over her head, she followed the smell of mutton broth.

  After a few mornings of forgetting where she was when she awoke, Brocca adjusted to her surroundings. Then one day, just as she had settled into a routine and convinced herself that nothing would come between her and her baby, a dark figure approached the house just after milking time. Brocca scooped up her buckets and padded toward the kitchen as quickly as her large body allowed.

  “Cook,” she puffed, out of breath, “a man is nearing.” Brocca trembled, fearing the baby’s father had sent someone to take possession of his offspring.

  The cook never looked up from the black pot she was stirring. “A prophet from the woods, that’s all, dearie. Calm yourself. He’s just come to speak to the master. Does that often. Ye spook easily, don’t ye?” She grunted and lifted the kettle from the coals, sending sparks dancing across the dirt floor.

  Brocca let her shoulders droop. The man entered, welcomed by the old druid, and Brocca immediately noticed the stranger’s eyes. They were probing, curious, windows to the man’s thoughts. He was searching for something.

  The druid motioned to stools near the peat fire. “Come, sit.”

  Bro
cca kept busy with her butter churn while she listened in on the conversation. The prophet was common, but his presence still bothered Brocca. Was he here to steal her child? His glare landed on her, and she looked away.

  “That girl,” the prophet said to the druid, pointing in Brocca’s direction.

  She dug her fingers into the wooden butter paddle, desperately trying to focus on her task. The man’s gaze disturbed her, and the child within her seemed to endeavor to free itself. She blew a puff of air, and a crimson strand of hair resting on her forehead stirred. Not yet, darlin’ child. The time has not come. No one can take ye when yer not born yet.

  The druid waddled toward her. “My dairymaid. Bought her from a laird up in Leinster.”

  The visitor rose, leaving the snug fire to get a better look at her. The man Cook called a prophet was as mysterious as a mountain pass when he leaned over her. Brocca bit her lip. Why had the room grown so hot? The paddle seemed to stick, and push as she might, it wouldn’t budge. Why doesn’t he leave? Vanish back into the dreary forest?

  She sensed the prophet bending over her, although she tried to ignore him. He crept so close that their faces nearly touched. Brocca stole a quick glimpse. He parted his dry lips to speak. “Special, the child this one will bear. Could be a blessing or a curse. Fate will tell.” He backed away, his voice pitched high like a cackling hen’s. “The child is not to be born within the house.” He waved his cloaked arms toward the doves roosting in the beams and boomed, “But not to be born outside.”

  Such nonsense. The child poked Brocca from within, and she rubbed down the spot where the baby’s tiny limb bulged. Her child was a blessing. But what about the prediction of the birth? What could it mean?

  The man droned on, as if in a trance. “The child will be born at sunrise tomorrow.”

  “Oh, splendid!” The druid smacked his leathery palms together. “Her state has kept her from carrying out her duties effectively. ’Tis good the baby’s coming so soon.”

  Brocca covered her mouth with her hand. Long-suffering.

  Reward in heaven. She clung to Patrick’s words and prayed to God for strength.

  Before the next morn’s sun crested the new grass on the surrounding hills, Brocca had dismissed the odd man’s prophecy. She completed the milking and shut the stone barn door behind her. The cook needed her delivery of milk to thicken a special first-day-of-spring stew.

  Brocca breathed deeply while she toted two wooden buckets toward the house. They were filled to the brim, and Brocca watched the milk run up to the top of the bucket and then recede back again with every step she took.

  She halted, freezing in her tracks. As gently as she could, she set the buckets down, and then took another breath. How strange. The baby seemed to have moved away from her lungs and the discomfort she had experienced the day before had subsided.

  Brocca leaned down to retrieve the buckets’ rope handles, and then gazed up at the sky. She admired the pink horizon and remembered to thank God for the new day.

  She continued, the rain-soaked soil squishing under the thin soles of her shoes. Brocca lifted her mud-caked foot and stepped onto the stone threshold. Her other foot refused to follow. Being precariously out of balance, Brocca lost her footing and plunged to the ground. A sharp pain shot up her middle like a thousand daggers. Brocca’s bloated body had landed half inside the house and half outside.

  In that position Brocca’s daughter came forth, the dropped buckets providing a baptism of milk for the squalling baby, whom Brocca named Brigid.

  Chapter 1

  “Ni heaspa do dith carad. There is no need like the lack of a friend.”

  Old Irish saying

  Brigid would never forget that day. Yet the memory of her mother’s face and the sound of her voice were fading like the sun-bleached pebbles she plucked from the water’s edge.

  “Hush now. Bear up, child,” she remembered her mother saying as she was led away.

  Ten summers and childhood innocence had caused her to forget the details of their separation. Even so, she recalled the smells: her mother’s hair, heather-scented from her homemade soap; the stench of cattle pulling the wagon her mother rode on; the aroma of cabbage cooking in her father’s kitchen. Brigid couldn’t stomach a meal of cabbage since. One whiff sent her running outside, clutching her stomach, tears running down her face.

  But her mother’s face? She couldn’t remember it. Brigid squinted her eyes and gazed out at the clouds skimming the Irish Sea. The white drifts took on images. Brigid tried to discern them, imagining each one a face. Was her nose long? Her hair curly?

  “Hurry along, lass! We’ve got to finish our chore and get back to Glasgleann. The master wants his supper,” Cook called, holding a string with several fish attached.

  They’d been gathering all day – she, Cook, and Brian, her father’s coachman. Brian, an excellent fisherman, had been allowed to drive them to the shore. Brigid’s father had a taste for fresh fish, eels, and clams, so Brigid and the others had been chosen to do his bidding.

  Brigid gathered the clams she’d dug and plopped them into an open-weave basket. “Coming.”

  She stowed her catch in the back of the flatbed wagon, then clambered inside. Cook filled several wooden crates with her strings of fish and then covered them with flat lids.

  Brian secured them by pounding wooden pegs into the top. “No fear of losing the treasure on the rocky ride home.”

  Brigid watched the young man work. Brian’s face was as red as hot fire coals. His pale skin reflected the summer sun and trickles of sweat dripped from his wispy beard. At his feet, five bags wiggled. She knew he’d been successful in his eel hunt, and she wanted a peek. “What did ye catch?”

  Brian struck the last peg with his hammer and loaded Cook’s fish. “Ye mean in here?” He pointed at his feet.

  “Aye, in there. Caught a dog, have ye?” Brigid stuck out her tongue and pulled her hands to her chest, doing her best puppy imitation.

  He threw one bag onto her lap and she jumped to her feet. The sack hit the wagon floor with a thud. The creature inside was still alive, wiggling frantically. “Should I take a look, then?”

  “Nay!” He sprang up and snatched the bag.

  Cook laughed as she crawled in to sit beside Brigid. “Brian fears he’ll lose his catch. What would the master say then?”

  “I do not fear the master.” Brian seized the bag and untied the rope. He reached inside and pulled out an eel, black as the ocean’s depths. Brigid nodded her acknowledgment, and Brian stuffed the creature away.

  Cook held up a sun-scorched hand. “Fear the one who holds yer future.”

  Brian took his place in front and leaned over to pat the horse. “I do that.” He made the sign of the cross on his chest. They trundled back toward Glasgleann, the estate her father had named for its green valleys, and Brigid tried again to picture her mother. Was her hair red? Her eyes blue? Or were her mother’s locks golden like her own? Perhaps her eyes were green, matching Brigid’s.

  “Cook? Do ye remember my own mother?”

  The old woman gazed at her. “Why would ye be asking such a thing?”

  Cook was much older than Brigid’s mother. She had to be. She had grandchildren, lots of them, running about her skirts while she baked brown loaves of honey-sweetened bread in Glasgleann’s kitchen. Cook’s daughter helped out in the dairy. Brigid rubbed the back of her neck, burnt by the sun during her clam digging. Why had Cook’s family been allowed to stay together? They were slaves, same as her.

  Brigid noticed Cook glancing up at Brian who was busy guiding the horses. He hadn’t heard them. The old woman fingered her linen apron, smoothing out the wind-driven wrinkles. She spoke, and Brigid had to lean in close to hear. “I suppose ’tis no harm to tell ye a bit. Seeing as yer father cannot hear us.”

  Cook squeezed Brigid’s arm so tightly it turned numb.

  Brigid was stunned and tried to wiggle free.

  Cook kept up her grip. “But pro
mise ye’ll not repeat what I tell ye, Brigid.”

  “I’ll not. I promise.”

  Cook let go and Brigid rubbed the red impressions left on her skin. She stared in surprise at the woman, who had never treated her so harshly before.

  Cook’s eyes narrowed and her voice lowered to a whisper. “If ye ever heeded me, child, do it now.”

  Brigid nodded. Her eyes blurred, her heart raced. Her voice caught in her throat and she forced out the words. “Tell me, did she do something wrong to be sent away?”

  “Ah, child. ’Tis a shame, it is, ye being apart. Yer father had a wife, still does, though she doesn’t live at Glasgleann.”

  “What? I have never heard of this.”

  Cook tapped Brigid’s hand, and Brigid pulled away, fearing she’d squeeze too tight again. “Ah, lassie. That’s not something we should be talking about.”

  Brigid’s chest ached, as though something had been cut from her. “But please, I have to know.”

  Cook silently stared down the grassy trail ahead of them. Her lips moved, as though she was about to speak. Then the old woman bit her lip and gazed at her lap. She turned sharply and looked directly at Brigid, pulling the girl’s face into her open palms. “Dearie, Brocca was with child and our master’s wife would not have it. She urged him to send yer mother away.” Cook’s dark eyes glowed. “Master cares about his wealth. Would not lose two good slaves, so he sent for ye.” She released Brigid and held a wrinkled finger to her parched lips. “Even though the mean, old wife lives elsewhere, we cannot speak of this at Glasgleann.” Cook pressed her lips together. She meant what she said.

  Brigid rubbed the back of her neck again. The story was confusing. “When she and I parted, were we not at Glasgleann?”

  “Aye. Yer dear mother dropped ye off. She had to return to her master in Munster.” Cook stole a quick glimpse at Brian, and then motioned for Brigid to scoot to the rear of the wagon.

  They nestled themselves between crates and spoke in mumbles. “I once lived with her in Munster? I don’t remember it.” The smell of the catch was starting to distress Brigid. Or was it the thought of that terrible day? Brigid massaged her queasy belly through her dull linen dress.