By the time Lucius and Aífe reached the court of In Medon, Gaine was already failing. The news had gone out to the kingdoms, and tribesfolk were gathered in dense, sad clusters outside the perimeter of the nemed.

Aífe held Gaine’s withered hand and stroked her forehead, caressing the aged face as if she were a child.

“Gaine,” Aífe said gently, using the words she had been taught by Ethne to ease the passage from this life to the next. “You were sent to this life from the Otherworld, and now it is your time to return from whence you came. Your family and relations are waiting for you in that beautiful land where the apple trees are ever in bloom and where it is always high summer.”

But Gaine’s gaze was already fixed on something that none could see. “Mother?” she asked in a wondering tone, with an expression of awe on her face, as if she saw a presence at the foot of her bed. And then her head fell suddenly to one side, and all her breath escaped in one long sigh.

A blue spirit light floated out of Gaine’s mouth. Everyone saw it. Aífe quickly reached out to capture the globe of light in her hand and carefully held it close to her heart for a moment. Then she released it from her two hands. The globe hovered in midair for a heartbeat, then winked out. Gaine was gone.

Aífe’s loss was tempered by Lucius’s presence. “At least you got to meet her before she passed over,” Aífe said as Lucius reached out his arms to enfold her in a comforting embrace.

A Drui stepped outside and began reciting a long, intricate poem of the transition from this life to the next. The people understood that the end had finally come, and a wail went up from woman to woman—keening that would continue for days.

Máel Ísu was elated at the news of Gaine’s death, though he tried not to let his feelings show out of deference to the mourners gathered in the rath. Most of them were women.

Typical, he thought. Only the weak and credulous cling to the blind superstitions taught by the Druid. But I wish they would stop that infernal yowling! He had not yet spoken with the Ard-Ri, Cadla, about Gaine’s death, but he was already issuing orders to the monks.

“Cut down the hedges that separate the nemed from the king’s enclosure,” he said. “Leave that old ash tree because the people are used to gathering under it, and it will attract them to our new chapel. Dismantle the fire altar; it is the center of superstitious nonsense. I don’t want people putting offerings into the fire ever again or using it to engender hallucinations.”

Gaine’s body still lay on her small cot in the hut as Máel Ísu moved to abolish her work. He would not allow the all-night vigil that was customary. He shuddered at the idolatry within the Druid-led burial rites.

“Send her body back to her people,” he commanded. “Let them take her to her kin-lands for burial. That will distract the most determined of her followers for a while, and we can begin building in peace.”

The elderly women of the tuath lovingly washed and dressed Gaine’s body, covered it in a shroud, and then placed it on a wooden cart for transport to the kingdom of Torcrad. They twined sprays of flowers and bunches of greenery around the bier and body, and tucked offerings of honey, mid, and artemisia brew in and around the blossoms as grave offerings and to help the funeral celebrations of her kin. In a loving touch, her hair was braided with the lavender sprigs she had worn in her younger days.

The protective hedgerow of rowan, hawthorn, and elderberry that had circled the nemed for generations was already being hacked to the ground as Cadla emerged from his hall to pay respects to Gaine. A profusion of red berries spilled over the ground, fast being ground to a pulp under the feet of the workers.

Despite the preparations that had gone on for several turnings of the sun, Cadla found it strange to see the destruction of the ancient nemed. The kingdom was moving so swiftly into new, uncharted ways. He had anticipated the construction of the new chapel for many sun-cycles but secretly felt there was something dishonorable in the way the old Ard-Ban-Drui had been shunted aside. He still recalled the youthful Gaine of his boyhood, with flowers in her braids and offerings of sweet honey biscuits to go along with her stories and teachings.

“I declare that the Ard-Ban-Drui shall have a full retinue of warriors to escort her to her kinlands, and I myself will ride with them!” he proclaimed loudly from the steps of the Great Hall.

He knew this would please the people and enhance his popularity with the tribes. He had planned the gesture months ago with Máel Ísu. It was a convenient way to distract the people from the construction of the new chapel, and if he was absent when the work started, they could hardly place the blame on him.

A swirl of mourners prepared to follow the cart on foot. Warriors’ horses stationed to the sides of the bier shied and sidled impatiently, raising a small cloud of dust. Two carnyx players took their place at the head of the procession, with their curved trumpets gleaming against their saddles.

Cadla was glad that the main roads had been recently refurbished. Now the journey would be unimpeded by ruts and fissures, and the newly cleared roadsides would provide ample space for onlookers. It would be a great display of magnanimity. He had commissioned cooks and provisions to feed the crowds along the way.

All the while, the monks and their hired hands would be busy building the stone chapel in the very heart of the nemed.

Lucius and Aífe stayed near the nemed to comfort the bereaved, and both planned to follow the funeral procession. Aífe helped the women weave funeral garlands to put around the necks of the horses, and Lucius helped the men fill skins of water for the journey. As Lucius bent down to pour water from a wooden bucket into a large goat-skin, he heard a familiar greeting that came from another place and time:

“Dominus vobiscum.”

He spun around. Isidore, Martinus, and Teilo were standing in the harsh sunlight of the courtyard.

“Hah! We knew it was you!” said Teilo, pointing at Lucius’s blond curls.

“Thanks be to God, we have him at last,” said Martinus, turning his eyes piously towards the heavens before grabbing Lucius by the ear and pulling him to a standing position.

“We have searched high and low for you these many months, from Gallia to Cornubia, and finally here, to the shores of Hibernia! We knew you would turn up sooner or later. You are in terrible trouble with Abbot Mihael. He can’t wait to have you back. He told us not to rest until we’d found you.”

Martinus was in his glory seeing that the ancient nemed was being cleared away. He felt that his proper vocation was destroying the old religion wherever he found it, to purify the land and the people, and make them ready for his god.

“I am a free person,” Lucius said. When he straightened, the others stepped back. There was something in his face and the set of his shoulders that told them to be wary. “I will not go back to Inissi Leuca or to the Abbott Mihael. He was kind to me, like a father, but my path now lies elsewhere.”

“Do you think you can choose?” Martinus asked. The confidence in Lucius raised a rage in him. “You are nothing. You belong to the monastery and to the brothers who fed you and raised you. Not even the fishermen wanted you. You owe the abbott your life.”

Martinus grabbed Lucius’s hair and bent his head back as Teilo pinned his arms. “Your place is to serve the monastery, serve us, and do as we charge you. You will instruct these heathens in the true religion. The nobles may have seen the light, but the peasants clearly have not. I recently saw them dancing and drinking at their so-called ritual fires. Look at how they moan over the death of that old witch! And you know better than to talk of free will; such talk is heresy. I think your travels have undone all the good lessons you have been taught. Now you even look like one of these ignorant people! Isidore, call the guards over. I want to make sure that Lucius does not get away again.”

They force-marched Lucius into the prisoner’s mound, where Cadla’s sons, Tanaide and Eógan, took a personal interest in the stranger, installing themselves at the entrance as his guards. Martinus intended to restrain him until the chapel was finished and then escort him personally back to Inissi Leuca. He sent a messenger to Abbott Mihael, informing him that his charge was at last safe.

When the iron gate closed behind him, Lucius felt a surge of rage such as he had never known. He knew that his entrapment would hurt Aífe, and that cut him to the very core. He was livid with Martinus. He cares nothing for me; he has no respect at all for my person. He has no respect for anyone but himself! Teilo and Isidore are nothing but thugs! he fumed.

Then Amalgáid’s words came into his mind: You are allowed to be angry for as long as a line can be drawn upon water.

He used his will to let the rage seep out of him, sending it deep into the earth, to she who can bear and absorb all human troubles. Sitting in the dark, he cocooned within himself, thinking of súil inmedónach, the test of inner vision and inner sight. There’s no use wasting energy in useless emotion, he thought. I will harbor my strength by going within. I know that there are many kinds of prisons—this mound, an unwanted task, even my own mind and body. None of these can bind me, because my spirit is already free.

He moved into the ancient cross-legged pose and pushed his awareness to his third eye, transcending his circumstances. He would wait until an opportunity to escape arrived. Then he would act quickly.