This story deals with both racism and religious predjudice. All views expressed are solely that of the characters, not me, for I stand in every way against bigotry, and have no prefrences or biases for any of the religions mentioned, and I belong to none of them.
Pronunciation guide: Faolàn=Faylan, Tiarnan=Tee-arnan, Caoimhe=Keevy
Chapter One
Drogheda, Ireland. September 3, 1649
Cahira McCann woke with a start. There had been a swift knock upon the feeble door, causing her husband Faolàn to rise from beside her, his copper hair disheveled. His golden eyes opened warily, a confused look on his gaunt face. A visitor at this hour was unusual.
He muttered something incoherent, smiling at his infant son Tiarnan, still asleep in his mother’s arms, before stumbling sleepily to the door.
The tiny, single roomed house was gently illuminated by the early dawn. Minute streams of light passed through the holes in the walls of packed thatch and earth, gleaming pastel pink, like the gathering radiance above the hills.
“Please, come in, Father,” said Faolàn as he creaked open the door, sounding puzzled.
Father Blandon, Cahira’s trusted advisor, and the town's most trusted priest, sauntered wearily in, removing his woolen hood to reveal an exhausted expression upon his aged face. Cahira averted her eyes, a jolt of panic shaking her. This was definitely a very unusual guest.
“Very ill news, I’m afraid,” he informed regretfully, speaking very quickly. “I can’t stay long.”
“What ill news?” interjected Cahira, her soft voice unusually demanding. She walked abruptly to him with Tiarnan still in her arms, her round, cobalt eyes suddenly awake.
Father Blandon met her gaze, uttering frantically: “Cromwell is here! Early this morning a scout came to the church, to warn us--reporting he is now outside the city walls, on this side of the river—he waits for Aston’s surrender—he has brought thousands of followers—Ironsides! He has blockaded the city!”
“Please, sit down, Father,” implored Cahira, her hands now shaking terribly. She set Tiarnan on a red-dyed woolen blanket, while picking up another for Father Blandon to sit on, the home being devoid of furniture, due to destitution.
“I cannot stay,” he repeated unwaveringly, backing slightly away from the blanket. “I have come because I fear the time will be cut short for our next meeting at church. You must leave now. Have you chosen your path?”
“We intend to bring Tiarnan to a Protestant church. But if this is a blockade, how are we supposed to get out?” pressed Faolán, his eyes ablaze with foreboding.
“You must leave for Dublin—all the Catholics have been driven from that town,” declared Father Blandon sourly. “The Ironsides are blocking Drogheda city itself--the city within the walls; you live beyond the boundaries of the city walls. In fact, people of this countryside are selling food to the Ironsides-- ”
“What? No. No—that can’t be true. They wouldn’t betray our forces like that!” cried
Cahira wrathfully.
“I fear it is true. But in this case, it is to your advantage,” replied Father Blandon desolately. “You can slip out unnoticed. Find away around them--you must do this, I tell you now, it will be worse if you stay. I fear it is your son's last chance for freedom. Cahira, you must take the name of your parents, and all the money you have. I still advise you to keep yourselves anonymous, inside Dublin city, and the church. It is inside the once-Catholic churches the Protestants now worship. Take him to the closest one you can find, and I mean the closest. There may be one in the northern fringe of Dublin, if I remember correctly what I was told. I warn you, there isn’t a lot of time.”
“Have you no further advice?” whimpered Cahira, her head now reeling.
“I’m afraid not. And I fear this may be our last meeting,” replied Father Blandon somberly.
“I cannot stay to say good bye. It is too painful to dwell. All I can say is that I have prayed for you, my most pious children.”
“Thank you, Father,” wept Cahira.
“With all our hearts,” said Faolán, tears glimmering on his cheeks.
“Bless you, and your son. May the Lord be forever with you in your journeys,” said Father Blandon, before rushing out the door, hastily pulling his hood back over his head.
For a long while, Cahira stood staring after him, her hand clutching her heart and her mind clouded with uncertainty. Could this have possibly been their last meeting with the man who had done so much to save her son? She could think of nothing but the last time she had met with Father Blandon, in secrecy, less than a week before.
She remembered the rain pouring heavily against the vibrant glass windows of her Catholic church as she waited dolefully for Father Blandon. Her umber hair dripped onto the stone floor as she writhed her hands anxiously.
As the man who had been praying departed reverently, Father Blandon entered.
“Bless me, Father,” began Cahira as he approached, but her voice faltered. She turned nervously away from him.
“What is it, child?” asked Father Blandon concernedly, sitting next to her on the pew bench. Though he was characteristically attentive, his eyes were unusually distant as she turned to face him.
“I-I need your help,” she told him, vaguely comforted by his tone and the safety offered by her church. “I must get my son to safety—away from here. I-I don’t know where.”
“Why away from here?” asked Father Blandon incredulously. “The rest of the world is equal in hostility.”
“Father, we all stand within Cromwell’s grasp!” Cahira took a painful breath, restraining tears. “Folk say he’s in Dublin as we speak! I cannot surrender my son to the life that now awaits us. I don’t want to fail him--folk say the Ironsides are taking slaves—Tiarnan is too young to work, and I fear --” Cahira lost her composure at the thought of what devastation the Ironsides could reek if they reached her village, or her son—he was but four months old.
Father Blandon leaned back in the pew, his old knotted hands passing over his face in frustration. For a long while he sat in silence, furrowing his heavy brow in deep consideration.
Cahira shifted uncomfortably where she sat, waiting for a response.
“You have options,” his weary voice croaked reluctantly, as if afraid to divulge what the choices were. “Options that are—inopportunely limited—by costs.”
“That much we assumed,” assured Cahira. “We have saved as much as possible—lived on crumbs, really.”
“Right then,” he nodded, his voice still troubled. “The first, but mind you, least probable option is to leave Ireland entirely.”
Cahira winced.
“Leave for the Spanish Netherlands, where you will not be persecuted as a Catholic. But the journey, costs aside, is treacherous in itself; if hunger does not take you first, the Ironsides will.”
Disheartened, Cahira waited anxiously for the next alternative, eagerly hoping it would hold more promise.
“Your second option would be to send your son to live within a Protestant church--”
“That was our first thought,” confessed Cahira, peering at Father Blandon searchingly, hoping he would not now question her piety.
“If you were to send him to a Protestant church, it would likely require a donation on the church’s behalf. There, he will grow as a man of their beliefs—their God," he added bitterly. "He will be educated and safe. I do not blame you for wanting to send him there, alas, the only refuge in Ireland, it seems. But getting him there is the hard part. Upon delivering him, you must take a Protestant name—that of your parents, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” replied Cahira sensitively, wishing he had not mentioned her parents. Four years before, when she was sixteen, her parents left for the North, having decided to convert to Puritanism, and resenting Cahira for refusing to join them. Ever since, the feeling that she had somehow failed to be the ideal daughter had beleaguered her, believing she had unintentionally forced them away—that they did not need her, though she needed them.
"But what if we are found out? What are the chances of that?" inquired Cahira impatiently, pushing thoughts of her parents away.
" I would advise you—that if you were to leave your son—and the donation within the church without drawing attention to yourself, he would be protected. I mean, leave him anonymously within the care of the laity. Not even that church would dare harm a child. In fact, maybe that is the better way to plan--that way you have no risk of being caught—unless you intend to leave as well? Perchance, join your son?"
“Protestant or not, Faolán and I are still Irish, and our past will not be easily forgotten. Tiarnan is an infant—he cannot tell them from whence he truly came, or to which religion he was born, when we ourselves cannot hide it,” Cahira professed bitterly, twisting her skirt in her hands. She then bowed her head penitently; she had not meant to take that tone before
Father Blandon, let alone in her church.
“There is much to take into consideration,” Father Blandon acknowledged. “If you would come again next Friday, I will have time to council with those who may perhaps aid you in this. Be not ashamed of your tears—I too feel the weight of the times.”
Cahira blushed, feeling he had read her thoughts. She smiled as much as she could muster.
“I cannot thank you enough, Father.”
“Bless you."
Father Blandon's words echoed with Faolàn's as she was drawn back into the future.
Faolàn placed his malnourished hand lovingly on her shoulder, but when she looked at him, his bleak expression offered little solace, for it mirrored the way she felt.
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