Authors: Heather Terrell
The carvings indeed depicted Jesus Christ’s twelve apostles. On their sturdy backs stood a silver and gold chalice and paten, the sacrosanct articles of the Mass. Though I found the details hard to discern from a distance, the items seemed of excellent workmanship, equal to what I’d witnessed during my walk with Ciaran.
Bells pealed. Knowing well this signal of the service’s commencement, I rose along with the others. The procession started down the center aisle, and the incense drifted toward the high arched ceiling as the celebrants passed. I breathed deeply of its heady scent, and it drew me into the pleasing ritual of the Mass, with its attendant proximity to God.
A white-robed priest stood before the altar and uttered a few words. They were strange in their pronunciation but familiar in their cadence. I closed my eyes and folded my hands in prayer, feeling closer to our Lord than I had for some time. Then a woman began speaking from the altar.
A woman, brother.
My eyes opened. I strained to see the altar over the sea of tonsured heads and hoods. Try as I might, I could not discern the source of the forceful voice. Yet I could not help but notice that it did not alarm the other worshippers.
Knowing the importance of securing the trust of my new peers, I maintained my composure. This will not surprise you, brother, who knows my reserve so well. I confess, though, I writhed within at the thought of a woman performing the Mass, in clear violation of all Roman precepts and all church tenets. In the apostle Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, does he not instruct, “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says”?
Without warning, the worshippers knelt in prayer, affording me a fleeting view of the altar. I lifted my eyes while keeping my head locked in a respectful nod. The woman stood, arms outstretched, each one bearing a sacred vessel, uttering the secret words of transubstantiation. Garbed in white, her brow encircled by a gold headdress, she was undoubtedly Brigid, the abbess of Cill Dara I had come to learn about. But to my surprise, I recognized her face.
She was the girl from the plains. And she recognized me, for she stared directly at me with the ghost of a smile upon her lips.
Brother, I hope you understand the import of this account. It is heresy enough that a woman performed the sacrament of the High Mass, turning wine to blood and bread to flesh. This profanation I will report to Gallienus when I am able, and the news will surely assist him in his directives. But there is more. Brigid’s challenging gaze unnerved me, setting me to wonder whether she guesses at the reasons for my presence in Cill Dara.
So I leave you to your undoubted laughter at my missteps, my amiable brother. For myself, I am left to my prayers that my gaffes today with this girl from the plains—this Brigid—do not cost me the work God calls me to undertake.
Pray for me brother, as I will for you.
Decius
BRIGID: A LIFE
A shake wakes Brigid from a deep slumber. She sits bolt upright but cannot will her eyes to focus. She rubs the sleep from them with her fists; when her pupils finally adjust, she stares into the face of her mother’s maid, Muireen.
“The queen wishes your presence in her quarters.”
“At this hour? What cannot wait until morning?”
“I know not the nature of the summons, Mistress Brigid, only its urgency.”
Brigid throws a cloak over her bedclothes. She walks to her parents’ quarters as her mother’s maid holds a candle aloft to light the way. Muireen steps aside so Brigid may push open the door to her mother’s bedchamber. She finds Broicsech fully dressed in her queenly finest, necklaces, armlets, crown, and all.
“Mother, what is going on?”
Broicsech gestures to the chair before her. “Please sit, Brigid.”
She lowers herself with trepidation. She guesses at the worst: the death of her father or the overthrow of his kingdom. Dubtach has been
undertaking the dangerous business of assessing his cattle for many long days, so either end is possible.
“Your father has returned to the
cashel
with wonderful news,” Broicsech announces, though Brigid hears little delight in her voice. “Eaghan’s son Cullen has made a most generous offer for your hand in marriage. A union with a son of your father’s favorite chieftain would be blessing enough, but it carries even more gifts. Cullen was foster son to Cormac, king of the Connaught province. Cormac just passed on, leaving Cullen as his heir. Cullen has agreed that his marriage to you will allow your father to join our lands and cattle with that of the late king Cormac—making your father high king of two of the five provinces of Gael and you and Cullen queen and king beholden to him. Dubtach will have unprecedented strength to fend off any invaders. We must act with haste, to ensure no revocation of the offer.”
Brigid is unable to speak. She has feared news of a marital union for some days and, in fact, has fashioned a plan to stave off its seeming inevitability. Yet this announcement carries such deep implications for her father’s rule—indeed, Gael’s rule—that she finds herself oddly immobilized, as if in a terrible dream.
“Brigid, did you hear me?”
“Yes, Mother.” The two words are all Brigid can manage, though her heart speaks silent volumes.
“I have already sent my serving girls to assist your maids in the packing of your goods. All you need do is to allow Muireen to dress your hair and help you into this gown.” Her mother points to an ornately embroidered robe, one of Broicsech’s finest, rarely worn except for high ceremonies.
“Ah, my beloved Brigitta,” her father bellows as he bursts into the room. Dubtach has not called Brigid by her childhood nickname for some years, and it further unsettles her. He lifts her from the chair and swings her about the room, making her feel like a cloth doll stuffed with hay.
“You have brought your father unbridled happiness on this day. Cullen desires your hand so fervently, he is willing to cede high rule of
his new province to me. Gael will be well suited for the fight, should it come.”
Dubtach lowers Brigid to the ground with a gentleness not seen since her milk-tooth days. She still finds herself unable to speak, so he talks for both of them. “I am well pleased with you, Brigid. But not a mention of your recent baptism, do you understand? Eaghan’s people hold to the old gods, and I do not want your faith to put Cullen off the marriage.”
He leaves the women to their ministrations, calling over his shoulder, “We will leave at first light.”
The odd malaise that settled upon Brigid during Broicsech’s announcement does not lift during the long ride to Eaghan’s lands. Her mind whirls with the conundrum in which this union has placed her, but her body does not reel in accordance. She knows not what course to take; even constant prayer yields no solution to her puzzle.
The regal procession of king and queen, followed by Brigid and a trail of warriors with banners flying and horns sounding, arrives in the borderlands between Dubtach’s original lands and Eaghan’s. Two large tents, one crimson and one amethyst, stand in a flat field adjoining a grove. The warriors dismount at Dubtach’s signal and escort Brigid and Broicsech toward the tent woven of rich purple cloth.
Before she passes over the threshold, Brigid turns around. She watches as her father nears the other tent. Eaghan himself pushes back the tent’s opening and stretches out his hands in welcome to Dubtach, his imminent kinsman.
Brigid steps into the darkness of the tent’s interior, so black it matches her despair. Her mother has taken a place on the rich carpet covering the forest floor and motions for Brigid to join her. Brigid declines the invitation, preferring to remain closer to the fresher air outside.
“You are unnaturally quiet, Brigid.”
“I thought that is what you wished, Mother.”
Her mother stands. “I did not raise you to docility and meekness, Brigid. I raised you to strength. Strength, however, does not mean that we always get to pursue our will. Strength means that we must follow our destined path with fortitude and grace.”
“And strength sometimes means that we must act as our conscience and our God dictate—even if that course does not accord with the designs of our family or our land,” Brigid says in a near whisper. With her words comes the insight she seeks.
The warriors’ horns call for them. Broicsech leaves the tent with Brigid and a bevy of maids in her wake. The women make a colorful stream as they weave across the field to the ceremonial mound where the men await.
Dubtach and Eaghan stand at the flattened top of the mound. Their crowns and jewel-encrusted swords gleam in the dying light of day. A place awaits Broicsech next to Eaghan’s queen in the semicircular terrace just below Dubtach and Eaghan on the mound. With a warrior at each elbow, Broicsech climbs to her position.
And at the mound’s base stands Cullen, waiting for Brigid. He is handsome, with his black hair, green eyes, and crooked nose. As she stares at him, Cullen smiles at her with gentleness and curiosity. She thinks that he looks a kindly man, and in another life he might have made her a good husband. Yet she knows with certainty that this union is not the path to which she is called.
Custom requires the exchange of commitments between Dubtach and Eaghan before Brigid takes her position at Cullen’s side. Disregarding the ritualistic order, she approaches Cullen directly. She hears her mother gasp and her father call out to her, but she continues her advance.
Standing before Cullen, Brigid says, “I am so sorry, Cullen. You seem a good man, and I wish I could honor my father’s vows. But I cannot.”
“What—what do you mean?” he stammers in shock, making Brigid like him all the more. No false warrior’s bravado for him. “If you act out of doubts as to my feelings toward you, I promise you that they are true.” His pledge of affection makes her task more difficult, for only a gentle man would reassure her rather than lash out at the insult to his honor.
Ignoring the protests of her parents, she reaches for his hands. She squeezes them and says, “I do not doubt your feelings, Cullen. And your words make me wish even more that I could enter into this marriage.
I am fortunate that a man such as yourself wants me for his wife.” She smiles at him, and a tiny, hopeful grin appears at the corners of his lips.
“Then be my wife,” he says.
Tears form in Brigid’s eyes at his sincere plea. They course down her cheeks as she says, “Cullen, I would like nothing more than to be called to a traditional life. But the decision is not in my hands. I am newly baptized in the Christian faith, Cullen. And my God summons me to a different existence, an existence that requires my total commitment. It will be a life where I will pledge to follow the original calling of Mary, the Mother of God, and take no husband.”
“No husband?” He seems shocked and relieved at once.
“No husband.” Brigid touches his cheek with her finger. “ Goodbye, Cullen.”
Before her parents or her emotions can overtake her, Brigid runs from the ceremonial mound, across the field. She spies her horse, hitched along with the others. Without even bothering to secure her belongings other than the small bag still strapped to the horse, she mounts her steed and rides away. To where, she does not know.
BRIGID: A LIFE
Brigid rides aimlessly for days through forests and plains. She eats what little she can forage and stops only when exhaustion demands. Prayer alone sustains her through the hunger and fatigue, and the distress over her family’s certain displeasure, but it does not provide her with a path.
She never wavers in her decision to reject Cullen’s hand, but as the days pass, she begins to despair. She longs for a clear way to her new existence as a servant of God. The dream of following in Mary’s initial footsteps—taking the veil and serving only the Lord—begins to seem rash and foolhardy. And she does not feel that she can turn to Patrick, the only Christian leader she knows, to shine a light on her path: he is too strongly allied with Broicsech. She falls to her knees beneath a bright half-moon and entreats God to show her the way to serve Him.
Hours later, Brigid awakens in a landscape somehow familiar. She recognizes the distinctive shape of an oak tree overhead and the unique roll of the hill at her feet. She does not remember coming to rest in this place.
After all these days of riding, she has unwittingly returned home.
Her fatigue and anguish had blinded her to the recognizable features of her familial terrain.
It is not yet dawn. Gauging the time remaining before day’s light breaks and her father’s vassals rise, she dashes down to the riverside. She stoops and drinks of the cold water, slaking her thirst. Dipping her hands in one last time, she rubs her wet fingers over her weary eyes.
Her eyes open to see Broicsech staring into them. Brigid starts to run, but her mother is quicker than her regal manner would suggest. Broicsech catches the wide fold of Brigid’s sleeve and pulls her to the ground. Mother and daughter tumble down the knoll and land in a heap.
Panting from her exertions, Broicsech says, “Brigid, you have no need to fear me. I am not like one of your father’s raiding parties, ready to cart you off to a life of enslavement.”
“Mother, I did not intend to pass so close to the
cashel
. I beg you to let me leave before Father finds me on his lands.”
“He knows you are here.”
“And he permits me to stay? Without being taken into his custody?” Brigid is astonished. She would have guessed that if he discovered her trespass, her father would have ordered his warriors to return her to the
cashel
for punishment or another try at marriage to Cullen.
“For the moment—”
“I would have thought him furious beyond measure.”
“He is indeed. The injury done to his honor exceeds any from the battlefield, I can assure you. But he remains your father.”