Saint Patrick Page 3

  On the evening of the third day, a huge wave carried us all the way onto a beach. Something made a ripping, scraping, grinding sound below the hull. The stony beach had torn the bottom of the boat. Luckily, we were in shallow water, and everyone managed to scramble ashore without injury. But the boat was destroyed. As we watched, the mast snapped in half, sending the sail tumbling into the water.

  The men swore angrily, glaring, blaming me for their misfortune. “How will we ever be able to leave the island now?” they demanded. The captain was standing beside me, his dark-tanned face expressionless.

  “Do you know where we are?” I asked softly.

  He turned to look inland, searching for something he might recognize, and then he shook his head. “I’m not sure. But the winds blew us south and the tides took us to the east, so we may be somewhere in Gaul.”

  Gaul was the land across the sea to the south of the Land of the Britons.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Walk,” he replied grimly. “Walk until we encounter a town or village.”

  We walked for twenty-eight days.

  Although we came across no buildings or houses, there was plenty of evidence that men lived in this wild country. Occasionally, we would find traces of campfires, or the remains of animals that had been cooked. And while we saw no humans, plenty of wild beasts roamed in those dark, primal forests. We were attacked three times: twice by wolves and once by a pack of wild boar. It was only with God’s help that we survived.

  And God helped us in more ways than one.

  We ran out of food ten days into our journey. The weather wasn’t warm enough for any berries or fruits to have ripened, so there was nothing to pick or forage. No birds sang in the trees; no creatures rustled through the bushes. The men laid traps but caught nothing. They set bait in the muddy streams, but no fish came. The ancient forest felt empty of all life.

  Soon we were close to starvation, reduced to chewing leaves and gnawing on branches. Our lips were green by now, and we were doubled over with stomach cramps.

  Still the men blamed me again for their misfortune. They had never had this bad luck before I had arrived, they grumbled among themselves. First they had wrecked their boat, and now they were going to die of starvation. I was cursed; I brought bad luck, they said. Surely I was some foul spirit, a demon or an imp.

  “Let’s see your god help you now,” they taunted. “If your god is so powerful—let him give us food.”

  Finally, the captain, who was kinder to me than the rest of his crew, took me to one side. “I am not sure how much longer I will be able to control my men. Can you ask your god to show the men a sign, possibly even bring them some food? Hard to remain angry with a full belly.”

  “All I can do is ask,” I said.

  “Does your god answer?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Then this would be a good time.”

  And so I prayed to God to bring us food.

  Later that day, as we were marching through the seemingly never-ending forest, we walked right into a herd of wild pigs, the first animals we’d seen for days. With shouts of joy, the men raced among them, but the beasts, squealing loudly, scattered in all directions.

  “We need the food,” I murmured, bowing my head and praying to God. Immediately, four of the animals changed direction and raced toward me—and fell dead at my feet.

  We survived on that meat for many days.

  The sailors kept their distance after that, and treated me with respect, touched with more than a little fear. The Celtic gods they prayed to had not been able to help us, but my God had. Didn’t that mean He was more powerful? No one wanted to risk angering this mysterious new god.

  We continued, marching ever deeper into that huge, dark forest. It was a miserable journey, with hot, rainy days and cold, damp nights. During the day the flies danced around our faces, biting every piece of exposed skin. At night, other strange insects kept us awake.

  And then, when I thought that nothing worse could happen, we were captured.

  One moment we were alone in the forest, heads bent, trudging silently…and the next, we were surrounded by a band of wild-haired, pale-eyed men carrying spears and short, stabbing swords. To our surprise, the tribesmen just stood, watching us. What were they waiting for? I wondered. Perhaps they were trying to size up our strength and our weapons. All of a sudden, they broke into terrifying screams and howls that froze us to the spot—which was exactly what they wanted, of course.

  The crew I had traveled with was too tired and hungry, too cold, wet, and miserable to fight. Their weapons were quickly snatched away by the tribesmen, and their wrists were bound in thick ropes. Because I was dressed like a slave, the tribesmen didn’t seem to be too interested in me. No one bothered tying me up. When they had rounded up the crew and marched off, I trudged along behind them. There was nothing else I could do.

  These strangers were Gaulish tribesmen, I discovered: men who roamed the dark forests, living in villages of wood and grasses, wearing the skins of beasts as their clothing, surviving off whatever the forest gave them. And the forest had given them a rich prize this time. A dozen strong and healthy men would command a fine price.

  Was this to be my life again? Was I to spend the rest of my days a slave, running from one place to another, feeling the constant pull of hunger and cold?

  When our blond captors camped for the night, I bent my head and prayed, asking God the same question. In a dream that night I saw a forest—or perhaps it was not a dream at all, but a vision. I saw the angel Victoricus moving white and ghostly through the trees.

  His voice whispered in my head. “Sixty days you will spend with these people. Learn their language and their ways of living and surviving in the wild, for they are lessons that will serve you in later years.”

  The following morning, the tribesmen marched us to a nearby village. We had already sensed what was coming next: the captain and his crew were indeed sold off as slaves. The man who purchased them was a dark-skinned, dark-eyed southerner who spoke in a strange language. I eyed him nervously. But the tribesmen hadn’t even offered me for sale—perhaps they thought I wouldn’t command much of a price, being small and already a slave.

  As the ship’s captain was being led away, I turned to him. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  “For what?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “If I had not sought passage on your ship, then you would not be here.”

  “But your god directed you to our ship and ensured that we could not leave the bay without you aboard. So clearly this is your god’s will, not only for you, but also for us. Your god has a mission for you. And perhaps for us too.”

  I appreciated his generous words. We nodded at each other one last time, and I watched him until he became nothing more than a tiny speck on the horizon.

  * * *

  —

  I remained with the tribesmen, carrying out their simple instructions, watching and learning from them. They did not treat me badly, and seemed to accept me easily as one of their own. I later learned that many of them had been taken as slaves in the past, so perhaps they felt empathy for me. For the first time in years I had enough food and a warm blanket to sleep under at night. I learned valuable lessons from them: how to hunt and trap, how to fish and cook for myself. As a slave I’d survived off the scraps my master send out with feed for the sheep, and I’d been too far from the coast to fish. I learned which fruits and nuts were edible and which ones were poisonous. They taught me how to decipher whether men or animals had passed along a path and how to recognize footprints and animal tracks.

  Everything I learned then would prove useful to me later on.

  Sixty days following my capture, I awoke to find that the Gaulish tribesmen had gone. They had walked away in the middle of the night, leaving me sleeping under a
bush.

  The angel’s prophecy had come true.

  I was finally free.

  Chapter Five

  Dreams and Letters

  Thirty years later I returned to the Land of Erin.

  I sometimes think I have lived three lives. The first was before I was captured, when I was a privileged youngster who didn’t know much of the world; the second was during my time as a slave and the years that followed; the third was when I returned to the land where I had once been held captive.

  I have happy memories of my childhood, my first life; my family was wealthy, and I wanted for nothing.

  The early days of my enslavement were very harsh, but—without much of a choice—I soon adapted to them. Toward the end, in fact, I had even grown used to it and had almost accepted it.

  The years that followed my captivity took me on a new path. It was during these years that I trained to be a priest under Bishop Germanus, that saintly man. From there, I began preaching on the continent.

  My third lifetime began when I returned to Erin.

  It was Victoricus who called me back there. The angel had been my constant companion through the years, always appearing when I was in trouble or danger. The form he took was never quite human. I wasn’t sure what it was besides ghostly, a chill breeze on the back of my neck. He saved my life on many occasions, and I had come to look on him as a friend—but an invisible friend. For if I spoke to him in front of others, they thought I was mad. Only then did I realize that I alone could feel his presence.

  Victoricus began appearing in my dreams more and more during my last trip home to Briton. My father, though very old now, was still alive, and three of my sisters, Darcera, Lupita, and Tigrida, had joined the church. We had not been together as a family for many years. It was a bittersweet encounter because I think we all realized it would probably be the last time we would be together. My father’s health was failing, and my sisters were talking about becoming missionaries. In those times, the life of a missionary was a dangerous calling.

  The dreams started the very first night I arrived home.

  In one, people stood on a cliff looking down on me, while I floated in a tiny boat on a rough sea. The crowds were moaning, “Come back to Erin, Patrick Come back to Erin.”

  For three nights this dream haunted me. On the fourth night, Victoricus appeared. I was sitting on the windowsill of my childhood room at the villa, overlooking the town of Bannavem Taburniae. Suddenly, a cold breath touched the back of my neck. I turned quickly. The angel sat perched on the edge of my hard bed. His robes were blazing with light, although I noticed that none of the light was reflected into the room. He held a thick sheaf of parchment pages.

  “You have been troubled by dreams, Patrick,” he said, though his lips did not move. His voice shivered in my head.

  I nodded. I didn’t need to speak to the angel; he knew my thoughts. But I never got used to the idea of speaking—if that’s the right word—mind to mind.

  “What do you think the dreams mean?” Victoricus asked.

  “I don’t know. Are they a message?” I asked.

  The angel’s head moved in a nod.

  I turned to look out the window again. The sun was sinking in the west, turning the warm red stones and soft granite of the town a deep bronze and painting the distant sea liquid gold. It looked beautiful, peaceful.

  “You must return to the Land of Erin!”

  I remained looking out the window. The angel’s reply had not surprised me. I think I had almost been expecting it.

  Victoricus and I sat in silence while we watched the sun sink into the sea. I knew this view like the back of my hand, and it held intense memories. It was where I had been raised and played as a child, and it was where I had been kidnapped by pirates all those years ago.

  Finally, the sun disappeared in a blaze of colors. The stars lit up, pale and twinkling against the purpling sky. “When do you want me to leave?” I asked the angel finally, without turning to him.

  “On the first tide tomorrow.”

  “So soon?” I spun around in surprise, but he had vanished. The bundle of parchment, however, remained, scattered on my bed, proof that he’d been there. I picked up a page. The writing on it shimmered and twisted. Elegant Latin faded to angular Greek, and then to the scratched Ogham lines of the Celts. But the words were clear: Come back to Erin, Patrick. Come back to Erin. Walk again amongst us.

  Chapter Six

  Return to Erin

  The morning I returned to Erin, the weather was cold but sunny. A fresh breeze blew behind the boat, pushing it to the rocky beach. I took this to be a good sign, as if God Himself was hurrying me toward the island.

  I had not returned to Erin alone. Twelve young men accompanied me. They had all been made priests only recently, and they were eager to attempt to convert this pagan country, where people still believed in many gods. Unlike me, my companions had never been here before, and they didn’t know what to expect. There was fear in their eyes as we approached.

  We sailed our craft into the nearest shelter, which I later discovered was the mouth of the river called the Vartry. We tried fishing there for something to eat, but we caught nothing, so we continued. Finally, we came to a stop at the largest of a small group of islands off the coast. Locals called it the Skerries, or the Reefs. We rested there for a day and a night before sailing on, looking for a safe place to land.

  Close to the mouth of the River Boyne, we spotted a smoothly sloping beach with fine golden sand and rounded stones. We had been sailing almost continuously for three days, and we were tired and stiff. The idea of stretching our legs and feeling solid earth beneath our feet was irresistible.

  The waves swept us to shore. Before stepping onto the beach, I said a quick prayer, thanking God for having kept us safe on our voyage. Some of the brothers went off in search of fresh water. Others were content to wander around the beach, breathing air rich with the scents of the nearby forest. I stayed by our boat, examining it for cracks or splits in the leather skin.

  Suddenly, I heard a scream, a brother’s voice echoing down the beach.

  I turned and ran toward the sound. Some of my younger brethren ran the other way in fear, heading back to the boat. Near the edge of the forest I found Finan, one of our youngest, facing a wild-haired, wild-eyed creature waving a thick, knobbed stick. It took me a moment or two to realize that the creature was, in fact, a man. He was smaller than I—and I am not tall—and completely covered in hair. Two cruel black eyes peered at us through tangled locks.

  He pointed his stick at Finan and me. “Be off with you,” he growled in a harsh version of the Irish tongue.

  “We are men of God,” I replied in the same language. “We mean you no harm.”

  “Which god is that?” Surprised, the creature stepped closer. He hadn’t expected me to be fluent. Finan and I moved back, though not out of fear: his smell was overpowering, as if he had never washed in his life.

  “The One God, the True God,” I said proudly. “The Creator and Maker of All Things.”

  “There is no one god,” the man grumbled in disgust. “There are many gods.”

  “There is One God.”

  The man shook his stick. “A curse upon your god,” he spat, and immediately tiny spots of red fire danced on the end of his stick.

  “A magician…a wizard,” Finan moaned in dread.

  I made the Sign of the Cross.

  For a moment nothing happened, and then the ground simply opened up—like a giant mouth—and swallowed the man whole. The crack continued into the forest, opening a great crater. Trees snapped, crashing down. Bushes were uprooted. Birds exploded into the sky by the thousands, and the air was filled with bellowing, snorting, roaring, and squealing. I took Finan’s arm and almost dragged him out of the forest. “Watch where you’re going, “I warned him sternly. �
�Stay close behind me.”

  The eleven other brothers were already waiting in the boat. By now, the noise was terrifying: it sounded as if the forest concealed every evil and dangerous animal in the world.

  We pushed off the beach, back out to sea. The waves were choppy, splashing in over the sides of the craft. As we sailed farther and farther from the shore, the sea became calm again.

  We were headed north. Something was calling me back to the place where I had been a slave. Perhaps I felt guilty because I had run away from Miliuc. Or perhaps I felt somewhere deep down that I was still a slave, and that the only way for me to be truly free was to buy my freedom back from my old master. I knew Miliuc would be an old man now. For whatever reason, I wanted to see him, to explain to him my reasons for running away all those years ago and for returning now.

  The sight of Slemish brought back a flood of memories. Not all were bad. I remembered the sheep leaping about the green hills. I remembered my conversations with the angel, and the moments of peaceful beauty as I lay in the grass looking up at the sky.

  We sailed into shore and beached our craft. Instructing my brothers to stay back, I set out to find Miliuc’s fort, each step taking me farther into the past.

  I had been walking for no more than a few moments when I got the feeling that I was being followed. Thinking that perhaps my brothers had disobeyed my commands, I stopped and turned. All around me was the dark ancient forest that covered most of Erin. Sunlight slanted through the branches, highlighting patches of color, leaving others in shadow. Everything was still except for the whispering leaves. A whole army could have been hiding among the trees, but I saw no one. I hurried on.

  Still, I got the feeling that I was being followed, so I began to move more quickly. A branch snapped behind me. Instead of running, I simply changed direction, turning away from the sound. Then I heard another snap, this time to my right, and changed direction to the left. Abruptly, I realized what was going on: I was being led somewhere. I dodged around a tree and found myself in a small, round clearing in the middle of the forest. On the far side of the clearing was an ancient and battered wooden barn. With nowhere else to go, I darted across the clearing and slipped inside.