Brigid of Ireland (Daughters of Ireland Book 1) (4 page)

Brigid entered the maidens’ room just as a thought sent a shiver of terror from her head to her feet.
Is he going to have me killed?

Chapter 4

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in the power of your hand to do so.”

Proverbs 3:27

While Brigid was pulling on fresh woolen stockings, she heard a voice. She whirled to face the door. No one was there.

She called into the barren hall. “Who’s there? Cook?” No answer.

“Yer his servant, Brigid.”

Her mother’s voice.
How could it be?

Brigid peeked through the wooden shutters covering the small window in the slave maidens’ quarters. Just beyond Cook’s herbs stood her father’s rig. There was no one there. Dubthach was waiting elsewhere. The voice was either in her head or God himself spoke to her.

Brigid dropped down onto a straw mat. Until now she had long forgotten the words her mother had whispered into her ear the day they separated.

Brigid blinked back tears and inhaled. The musty smell of the damp room made her nose itch.

She tapped her fingers on her head. She had been so young when they separated, but she wanted to remember everything. Now what else?

Her mother’s voice rang so clear that if Brigid hadn’t known better, she would have thought Brocca was in the room. “Ye must remember yer a servant, darlin’. Patrick says the Lord expects us to obey our earthly masters. We’ll be getting our reward when our life on earth is over. The only father ye must concern yerself with is yer heavenly Father.”

There was something else. She curled a strand of hair around her finger as she tried to remember.
Patrick!
Mother had mentioned him. When had
she
met him?

Brigid chewed at her fingers. She and Cook had seen Patrick just a few months ago. Could it be there was another time Brigid had met the holy man? Could she and her mother have gone together to meet Patrick, and she was too young at the time to remember it now?

Brigid changed quickly into a fresh linen tunic. She tied a new bodice around her middle and smoothed back her hair with her hands. She had not done wrong by caring for the Lord’s people. God was really in control, not Dubthach. She’d hold her head high when she met the king.

Brigid joined her father at the reins. He whipped the horses more fiercely than Brian ever did. The old man was silent. Brigid considered jumping out of the wagon and making a run for the woods, but what good would that do? She could never go back to Glasgleann.

Glasgleann. Cook. Brian. Alana. She’d never see them again, and they might never learn why. Would they blame her for taking the silver? She wanted to explain, but she couldn’t. Ever.

A raven cawed overhead. Brigid cupped her hand against the sky just in time to see the bird’s wing tips. The birds had no fears, no concerns. God provided for them. Didn’t the Scriptures say so?

Lately everything she’d learned seemed as snarled as the ball of yarn that Puddin played with. Would God provide for that cat in Brigid’s absence? Or would he punish Brigid forever for stealing from a greedy man? Brigid’s mind wavered from fearing the man who’d hurt her the most to trying to understand her father’s reasons for getting rid of her.

They’d never been hungry. God had even provided a surplus when she handed out food to the starving. She was doing the Lord’s work. Couldn’t her father see that?

The wagon wheels labored along the lumpy road. Brigid clasped her hands around the small railing surrounding her seat. Father was in a hurry to be rid of her.

The smell of moist heather filled her head. On any other day she would have enjoyed a ride in the country. In the distance, gray spots speckled the edges of the road. As they drew closer, those specks took shape and she saw they were people. Common folks, hoards of them, stepped aside as they jolted down the road. Their sad eyes and outstretched hands spoke to her, silently saying, “Help me. I am no different from you. God made me too.”

Brigid’s eyes puddled with tears. She scolded herself for being selfish while people suffered. She was far healthier than those poor souls. Being a slave was the next best thing to being a laird. Slaves had food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest their heads at night. She prayed God would forgive her disobedience. She had not been thankful for what she had.

Her thoughts drifted to Brocca. What about her? Was she still a slave? Was she even alive? Could she be among the discarded people, reaching skeletal arms toward the rich and privileged? Brigid searched their faces. Was there one resembling her own? Dull eyes stared at her above shadowed cheeks. The people seemed to float together, an island of grief, a collection of bones.

Brigid covered her mouth and gasped against her sweaty palm. Cook, Brian, and Alana had not been able fill the void in Brigid’s heart. Just like the unfortunates, she longed for a parent who loved her.

“I must share what I have with them,” she vowed under her breath.

The morning’s vapor gave way to warming sunshine. They drew near to the hilltop castle, and the beggars dispersed. The king’s army kept them at bay, she was sure. The muddy roads gave way to grassy splendor, and streaks of sun burst through the alabaster clouds. Despite the inevitable discipline she was sure to receive after they gained audience with the ruler of Leinster, Brigid calmed as her tears dried in the sunlight.

They traveled on in silence through the rolling plains. Dun Ailinne appeared on the horizon. The ruler could look down from his castle, so near that hill fort, and gaze upon the common people in the distance.

The wagon lurched forward and the little mound in the distance grew larger. Brigid soon made out the regal dwelling against a sky that was as blue as royal robes.

At the limestone pillars of the entrance, her father barked orders. “Wait here! Don’t ye move.”

Brigid sat still, exhausted from her thoughts. She closed her eyes to rest. Moments later she was jolted by a voice. A man in tattered clothing approached.

“Excuse me, miss? Have ye a wee bit of food for a starving man?” The man’s face and hands were terribly disfigured with swollen lumps – leprosy. He shifted back and forth on painful feet.

Brigid’s throat was dry. What could she give the wretched man to ease his misery? She was miles away from her dairy. Slipping her hands beneath her cloak to check her apron pockets, she found them empty. She searched every corner of the wagon. An object under a green woolen blanket seemed to beckon her as it gleamed in the bright light. She scurried to the rear of the wagon as the hungry man eyed her, his delicate eyebrows arched.

There was something cold and hard beneath the blanket – her father’s sword. When she pulled out the blade, the sword’s gem-encrusted handle reflected sunbeams, casting colorful specks on the wooden-planked wagon floor. The weight of the thing surprised her. She had never held a weapon before. She lost her balance and had to drop the sword to the wagon floor to keep from tumbling over the side.

Her actions were misinterpreted. The man jumped back, holding up his arms.

She reached her free hand toward the beggar. “I mean no harm. I’ve no food, but ye can take this.” Brigid lifted the gleaming sword over the edge of the wagon. She offered it to the pitiful man handle first. The leper stared at her for a long moment, then grinned, the expression briefly lighting his disfigured countenance.

“Thank ye kindly.” The fellow scampered off with his treasure.

Her father returned just in time to see the man melt into a crowd of beggars standing behind a border set-up and guarded by the king’s soldiers.

“Thief! Catch that man!” Dubthach pushed a few peasants aside, but neither he nor the guards could find the fellow.

Brigid leaned over the side of the rig and held her arms out toward her father. “Oh, nay! He’s not a thief. I
gave
him the sword.”

Just over her father’s shoulder Brigid spied King Dunlaing, and she sat up straight. He wore a puzzled look as he stood under the arched gateway of his stone castle. The ruler of Leinster bore a beard speckled with the first gray hairs of age, and his sapphire eyes smiled at her with an approving wink. He seemed to think the gift she had made was some kind of joke. He approached the wagon and two servants followed him, carrying the king’s trailing robe on their outstretched arms. Brigid’s father bowed in response to the king’s approach, but the ruler’s eyes never left Brigid. He tapped his golden scepter on the ground and then held it up to her as she sat frozen on the wagon’s seat.

“Touch it,” one of the servants whispered. “It means yer granted audience with the king.”

Brigid had never spoken with him before, knew nothing of royal procedure. She was just a slave girl after all. Her mind drifted to Queen Esther in the Holy Scriptures. Alana had recited the story more than once. Esther had been given permission to speak when the king held out his golden scepter. Brigid stretched her hand, and gently brushed her fingertips across the tip of what looked like an elaborate golden walking stick. She had not been asked to disembark the rig, so she stayed seated.

The king nodded briefly in her father’s direction and he also touched the scepter.

“Why do ye seek to sell her?” the king asked.

Brigid’s father drew a long breath, seemingly measuring his response. “Dear king, she takes my things and gives them to worthless men. Ye’ve just witnessed it.”

Her father’s words were daggers in her heart.
Worthless?
No one whom God Almighty had created should ever be called worthless. Dubthach thought her mother was worthless. He thought
Brigid
was worthless.

The king spoke again with an unfaltering voice, confident from years of settling disputes. “Why do ye do this, lass?”

Brigid returned the king’s stare, peering back at him with an intensity that matched his. She spoke without hesitation. “I tell ye, sire, if I were ye, with all yer power and wealth, Christ, knowing what he’d blessed me with, would expect no less of me.”

The king hung his head. “She’s far nobler than I.” King Dunlaing nodded once more at Dubthach. “From this day forward she shall be God’s slave alone. I remove her from yer service, and I will not take her into mine.”

No one spoke for what seemed like an eternity.

“What are ye waiting for, lass? Ye heard the king. Be on yer way.” Dubthach waved at Brigid but didn’t return her stare. “Better to have ye far away from Glasgleann. Even if I get no compensation.”

The king and his attendants disappeared back into the fortress. Only the masses of people at the edge of the woods remained.

The hearing was finished. This was the end. She was really being cast out. She should have heeded Cook’s warning. She should have listened to her mother. God knew she had not been grateful and now she would pay. Dubthach hadn’t plotted to kill her, but he might as well have.

Brigid lifted the hem of her skirt and stepped down from the wagon. Just as soon as she was clear, Dubthach whipped the horses and thundered off toward Glasgleann, leaving a trail of dust. A crowd of people surrounded her.

“Yer kind Brigid, aren’t ye?”

“We’ve heard how ye give away food. Can ye give us a wee bit?”

Fingernails scratched her arms. Hands pulled at her hair. Her cloak was ripped from her, and then thrown back when they found it held no food.

“Ye’ve got nothing!” they taunted.

Nothing.
They were right. She was alone, unloved, and now she had nothing to give.