daughter—my only natural child—into the marriage ring? I have no alternative but to do so.”
“Why do you believe you have no free will in the matter of my future?” Brigid answers her. It is the first time she has dared to truly challenge her formidable mother.
“Politics and the survival of our people leave me with little choice. If you make an advantageous marriage, you may assist our future greatly. Had we other children, perhaps I could have sheltered you better.”
“Why did you bother to raise me with the belief that I would be able to choose my own path? Why did you expose me to so many callings? I would have been better off knowing little but the domestic realm if this was to be my fate.” Brigid wants—has always desired—to please her family, her oft-absent father in particular. Yet she has always hoped to achieve that goal not through marriage but through her own accomplishments in her studies, or on the battlefield.
“Do you remember the story of your birth? Born neither within nor without the house?” Broicsech references the tale Brigid knows well. Broicsech’s labor was fast and early, forcing her to bear Brigid alone on the house’s hard stone threshold.
“Yes.”
“I had to prepare you for all worlds, Brigid. For I do not know—I have never known—upon which you will settle.”
ix
GAEL
A.D . 456
BRIGID: A LIFE
The return to the
cashel
does not bring the usual excitement of returning rulers, at least not for Brigid. For their homecoming also brings the parting ceremony for Oengus, months before originally planned. His parents, adherents of the old gods, want him back early, long before Patrick revisits Dubtach and his family. Though Brigid paints a smile upon her face during the banquets and entertainments and offers good wishes to her foster brother and his family, she feels empty and sad. Without Oengus, Brigid is alone, now more than ever.
She retreats into her studies, though this means time with Broicsech. Her mother acts as ever, yet Brigid senses the distance between them. Logically, she understands the reasons for her parents’ plan and even concedes that measures toward Gaelic unity may be necessary. Still, she cannot help but feel betrayed that her own mother would sacrifice her to that end, no matter how noble, without heed to her desires.
Never discussing their rift, they continue with the examination of the sacred manuscripts in Broicsech’s collection. Periodically, Broicsech interrupts her textual instruction with more practical training inthe divergent forms of Christianity and the battles brewing—or already brewed—between the Roman Church and its outliers. She explains to Brigid that the heresy most associated with Gael is that espoused by the late Briton Pelagius, who argued that individuals have moral responsibility over their own actions because God gave them free will. Though mother and daughter agree that Pelagius’s tenet bears a certain logic, akin to the Druidic beliefs, they agree to keep such accord private so as not to risk alienation.
Queenly duties periodically force Broicsech to break from their studies. Whenever they do stop, Brigid flees the library with a text in hand. She longs for the openness of the plains and the coolness of the early spring air to free her from her anger and sorrow, and finds solace in reading His Words outdoors in His creation.
She rediscovers the manuscript handed to her by Broicsech on the day of their departure. Sitting in a knoll by the Liffey riverbank, she opens the small book titled the Gospel of Mary the Mother. She hears the leather-bound spine crack a bit as she turns to the first page. Her eyes strain as she attempts to decipher the cramped Latin script, the ink and vellum faded with age. Yet from the first moment she makes sense of its prose, she is entranced.
As Broicsech had promised, the manuscript contains the story of a woman, a most impressive female from the world of Jesus Christ. The text
“Why do you believe you have no free will in the matter of my future?” Brigid answers her. It is the first time she has dared to truly challenge her formidable mother.
“Politics and the survival of our people leave me with little choice. If you make an advantageous marriage, you may assist our future greatly. Had we other children, perhaps I could have sheltered you better.”
“Why did you bother to raise me with the belief that I would be able to choose my own path? Why did you expose me to so many callings? I would have been better off knowing little but the domestic realm if this was to be my fate.” Brigid wants—has always desired—to please her family, her oft-absent father in particular. Yet she has always hoped to achieve that goal not through marriage but through her own accomplishments in her studies, or on the battlefield.
“Do you remember the story of your birth? Born neither within nor without the house?” Broicsech references the tale Brigid knows well. Broicsech’s labor was fast and early, forcing her to bear Brigid alone on the house’s hard stone threshold.
“Yes.”
“I had to prepare you for all worlds, Brigid. For I do not know—I have never known—upon which you will settle.”
ix
GAEL
A.D . 456
BRIGID: A LIFE
The return to the
cashel
does not bring the usual excitement of returning rulers, at least not for Brigid. For their homecoming also brings the parting ceremony for Oengus, months before originally planned. His parents, adherents of the old gods, want him back early, long before Patrick revisits Dubtach and his family. Though Brigid paints a smile upon her face during the banquets and entertainments and offers good wishes to her foster brother and his family, she feels empty and sad. Without Oengus, Brigid is alone, now more than ever.
She retreats into her studies, though this means time with Broicsech. Her mother acts as ever, yet Brigid senses the distance between them. Logically, she understands the reasons for her parents’ plan and even concedes that measures toward Gaelic unity may be necessary. Still, she cannot help but feel betrayed that her own mother would sacrifice her to that end, no matter how noble, without heed to her desires.
Never discussing their rift, they continue with the examination of the sacred manuscripts in Broicsech’s collection. Periodically, Broicsech interrupts her textual instruction with more practical training inthe divergent forms of Christianity and the battles brewing—or already brewed—between the Roman Church and its outliers. She explains to Brigid that the heresy most associated with Gael is that espoused by the late Briton Pelagius, who argued that individuals have moral responsibility over their own actions because God gave them free will. Though mother and daughter agree that Pelagius’s tenet bears a certain logic, akin to the Druidic beliefs, they agree to keep such accord private so as not to risk alienation.
Queenly duties periodically force Broicsech to break from their studies. Whenever they do stop, Brigid flees the library with a text in hand. She longs for the openness of the plains and the coolness of the early spring air to free her from her anger and sorrow, and finds solace in reading His Words outdoors in His creation.
She rediscovers the manuscript handed to her by Broicsech on the day of their departure. Sitting in a knoll by the Liffey riverbank, she opens the small book titled the Gospel of Mary the Mother. She hears the leather-bound spine crack a bit as she turns to the first page. Her eyes strain as she attempts to decipher the cramped Latin script, the ink and vellum faded with age. Yet from the first moment she makes sense of its prose, she is entranced.
As Broicsech had promised, the manuscript contains the story of a woman, a most impressive female from the world of Jesus Christ. The text
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