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In the early days of the Mute’s recovery when he was more ghost than man Diarmuid would brush his fingers against his lips to make certain that he was still alive. To feel his breath—labored, heavy, slow, rattling and wet, but always there, praise God.
When he regained consciousness—when his fever broke and his skin lost its deathly pallor, when the wound in his side had mostly healed, when the light returned to his eyes and he could sit up—Diarmuid wondered, as the other man watched him with utter adoration and kissed the pads of his fingers, what words his mouth might have formed, what sounds might have been forged along his teeth and tongue.
Geraldus and Raymond de Merville had spoken French, and the Mute had understood it. Diarmuid had always known him to be a stranger in these lands. The currach in which he’d washed ashore had been unlike any Diarmuid had ever seen. Faded paint, smooth, light wood, no animal hide covering. And Irish had utterly bewildered him in those first few months at the monastery.
There was no country or people that Diarmuid had not assigned to the Mute during all their years of friendship. All his knowledge was limited and second-hand, and he ruled out no area. Perhaps Rome, or Greece, or Cappodocia, the Kieven Rus, or even those far off lands to the East where there lived dog-headed men and people with no heads at all but only faces on their torsos. But that he had once been in the same circles as the likes of Raymond de Merville—Diarmuid would have never guessed that. He couldn’t imagine it. That sneering, threatening, hateful language that de Merville spat emitting from his friend’s throat.
They were no longer at the monastery. Diarmuid would not take his vows. He was a novice no longer. But his companion seemed intent on keeping his own vow of silence. Still the Mute did not speak, and Diarmuid never pushed him to. He was afraid that, somehow, if he asked too much, if his friend opened his mouth and let him hear his voice, then the wound in his side would open up as well, and the lifeblood would leach from his body and spill to the earth.
But he would always be curious. As the Mute wrapped his arms around him, eyes heavy with sleep but still gazing at him as if his presence were the sweetest lullaby, Diarmuid pressed his fingers to his lips once more and felt his friend huff a quiet laugh, felt his mouth stretch into a smile, and wondered what his voice sounded like.
There was a village nearby, and though Diarmuid had done his best to keep their existence hidden, one day a group of hunters chased their quarry right to their garden.
The stag looked just as shocked as everyone else. It bellowed and kicked at the dirt with its hooves and then rushed right through the wooden fence protecting the herbs and vegetables from rabbits and rushed off into the forest.
One of the hunters cursed and drew his bow. The Mute, slightly thinner after months of illness but still taller and broader than any of them, made a snarling noise that cowed even the barking, baying hounds. In one hand he held an axe. With the other he shoved Diarmuid behind him.
“Let it go,” ordered their leader. “Let it go, now. We’ll find it again. By God’s wounds, Imchad, put that bow and arrow away, or the big man is like to tear you limb from limb.”
The archer, Imchad, hissed but did as he was told.
Irishmen all. The big man, the leader had called the Mute. Fear mór.
Diarmuid cupped the Mute’s cheek, shook his head—they meant no harm—and said to the group, “Forgive us. We were surprised.” His own voice was rough from disuse. When the Mute had been recovering Diarmuid had only whispered prayers inside his heart, and when he was finally well they expressed their love without words. Hands and lips against bare skin, pressed together, heartbeat to heartbeat, only soft gasps and moans and quiet laughter.
“No, lad, forgive us. We’ve crashed right through your land.”
“You didn’t know we were here.”
“That’s true. We didn’t. But it looks like you two have made a cozy home for yourselves.” Diarmuid felt his face warm. The Mute attempted to shield him from view. He bared his teeth like a dog. “Easy, now, I didn’t mean anything by it. How’d you come to settle here?”
The Mute looked at Diarmuid and tilted his head ever so slightly. The axe in his hand shifted. Diarmuid knew him well enough to discern the question. “It’s okay,” he murmured.
Their interaction wasn’t unnoticed by the group. “The big man,” the leader said. “He doesn’t talk?”
Diarmuid replied, “No. We were traveling and—crossed paths with the grey foreigners. They killed most of our band. They hurt my friend. He’s still recovering. He hasn’t spoken since.” It wasn’t technically a lie. He just hadn’t spoken beforehand, either. “We’ve nowhere else to go so we—just made a home here.”
This was good enough of an explanation for the men. They grumbled their own greivances against the Normans, expressed their condolences for Diarmuid and the Mute’s misfortune. The leader gave a sigh. “Ah, sorry to hear it, lad. Truly. You and yours are welcome here, I promise you. I’m Segan.”
“Diarmuid.”
“And your big fellow there?”
The name appeared readily on his lips. “David.” Daithí. Swift, nimble. Beloved. Did his friend know all the meanings of the name? Perhaps, perhaps not, but as with anything Diarmuid gave him he accepted it.
More names were exchanged, hands shaken, promises to visit made.
This was no monastery on the coast. Diarmuid was no novice. And David had a name and a place beside him. It was a new world entirely, a life together that Diarmuid had stolen, had snatched from death’s jaws with both hands, and he was determined to guide the both of them through it.
They were a welcome pair in the village. A duo, never one without the other. Diarmuid quickly gained the reputation of a learned man and a healer. Ciarán’s teachings served him well. He knew not only which herbs were helpful and which harmed, but also how to grow what couldn’t be foraged and how to prepare them into poultices and tinctures. That he could read and write and speak Latin was more of an oddity or a clever trick, and if any of the villagers suspected that not too long ago he was set on the path to monasticism they did not mention it.
David’s stature spoke for him. The hunters returned to the village and told the whole story of the stubborn stag and a cottage tucked away in the trees and a young man and a big man, absolutely enormous, all hulking muscle and sinew and mute, yes, mute, but the sheer size of him—
But Diarmuid knew he was not the man he once was. At the monastery for all of his height the Mute had walked with eyes downcast, like a dog grateful for every scrap of meat and affection thrown its way. Now David walked, if not exactly tall and proud, than with more ease and self-assurance. Still, there were times when he had to move with Diarmuid’s arm wrapped around his waist, helping him along, holding him up, and it seemed to Diarmuid that perhaps that was the way it would be for the rest of their lives—supporting and protecting one another.
That was just fine with him.
People asked for David’s assistance in plowing the fields, or cutting stone, or at the blacksmith’s forge, and while they made a point to ask David himself the man would always turn and look to Diarmuid for an answer.
When they first started visiting the village he’d been more cautious. David had not yet been at full strength and the people, while friendly, were strangers. Diarmuid permitted nothing too strenuous, citing David’s still healing wounds. But as time went on and the scar on David’s side faded and his stomach gained welcome a layer of fat—when they had made a place for themselves and were greeted not with pleasant surprise but with warm camaraderie—Diarmuid allowed him to take over whatever tasks he wished.
“You don’t have to continue asking me,” he whispered one night, wrapped in David’s arms. “You may do as you please.”
And David just kissed his forehead and smiled, so perhaps what pleased him was having the ability to take Diarmuid’s opinion into account. Not permission, per se, but another indication of their relationship. That he and Diarmuid belonged to each other.
But there was also the fact that, after five years as a laybrother, accepting every request made of him without complaint, David had trouble giving a firm refusal. He would look to Diarmuid with dark, pleading eyes and Diarmuid would know to play the overbearing, high-handed partner. He would gladly be that buffer, that shield. Let them think that Diarmuid always spoke for the both of them.
After asking yet again if David would stay a bit longer, share another drink with them, and after receiving another shake of the head in response, Segan said with mock affront, “Diarmuid, lad, you’re worse than my wife! Let the poor man have a drink to take the edge off the day, for pity’s sake.”
He laughed. “You misunderstand. David doesn’t need my permission to get drunk and rowdy with the lot of you. It’s just that the best way for him to take the edge of a day is to spend time with me. Isn’t that so?” He took David’s hand in his and squeezed it.
David, slightly flushed with ale, went a bit pinker but smiled shyly.
Segan groaned. “God preserve me. I’ll wait another year to ask. Let some of the passion clear from your hearts. You’ll be begging me to keep him out of the cottage, then.”
There were two languages flowing through Diarmuid’s head like the forks of a river. Irish and Latin, both as much a part of him as any of his limbs. Moving somehow consciously but unconsciously, like idly grabbing mortar and pestle or slipping his boots onto his feet. He continued to smile with good humor and thought, riamh. Numquam.
Never. Never.
For years David had guarded him, protected him, cared for him. His stalwart friend, his loyal companion. Diarmuid had pulled him back from oblivion by God’s grace and sweat and blood and tears. They were forever entwined, linked by loss and held together by love—by so much love.
This was a new page in the annals of their lives. It was Diarmuid’s turn to hold David when he needed comfort, to shield him when he needed peace and quiet. If David still preferred to work the fields and the forge in silence, if he remained recalcitrant in the company of the villagers, then Diarmuid would be both delegate and spokesman. His voice was always David’s to use.
The monastery had been truly isolated—secluded from those who were not already aware of its existence and who would not risk braving the wilds for a blessing and a meal of dulse and razor clams and whatever vegetables were fresh from the garden. But whereas at Kilmannán they had accepted travelers the village encouraged them. They brought trade, the news of the world, and excitement.
There was a difference, however, between a traveler and an outsider.
Gaill glassa. Gray foreigners. That was what they called them—the men like Baron de Merville and his army, those in armor and chainmail and who spoke French and who sneered at the Irish and their backwards, pagan ways.
Upon seeing the man in the village square a dark murmur went up among some in the crowd—gaill glassa, gaill glassa—even though the man was not wearing warrior gray but Cistercian white.
The hem of his robes were stained with mud and muck, his hands were dirty and weathered, and from how he was standing it appeared that he’d been on horseback for far too long. He cleared his throat to speak.
There was some part of Diarmuid that felt pity for him—to have traveled to this country to preach and to be regarded with suspicion and hostility. And yet another part of him was reminded of Geraldus, pressing the sword into David’s hands, speaking with a serpent’s tongue, dripping venom in his ear, and David turning, turning away from him with tear-filled eyes and a roar of anguish.
He was reminded of Geraldus, berating him for trying to free Ciarán, of Geraldus’s hands wrapped around his throat, and he hoped, angry and spiteful, that the priest in the village square choked on his own spit.
Diarmuid tugged at David’s tunic. “Let’s go,” he said.
But for once the older man did not heed him. He stared at the priest, stock-still and fixated as though he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“David?”
Imchad, who had elbowed his way to them, said, “Ah, there you two are. You missed the play. They did an—ah, I don’t know. Morality play, says my sister. But there was a dragon. They slayed it.”
“Was the Devil, Imchad. In the shape of a dragon,” the girl muttered with all the irritation of someone who had a sibling.
“How’d you figure? I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying. But I saw a man slay a dragon. Wooden sword, he had. Ah, see, now, Diarmuid, this is why we were looking for you. Can you understand him?”
The priest’s sermon was underway. In an Irish village, where most of the people could not read the language they spoke and many who eschewed church to pray to God in their own way, the Cistercian droned on about blasphemy, about sin, about heathens in Christendom in French-accented Latin.
Why, Diarmuid wondered, of all the men he had brought with him had he not brought a translator?
There were very few in the crowd who could understand his speech. Some words would be familiar to all—Deus, Iesus, Christus—but would any truly understand what the priest was asking? For them to set aside their lives here and fight against the—the Cathars in Languedoc?
This was not a place of noblemen, who were taught many languages during their youth, or monks, who had learned Latin by candlelight and for whom it was a common tongue. This was a village in the Irish wilds.
Someone asked again, “Diarmuid, can you tell us what he’s saying?”
“There is trouble in the south of France,” Diarmuid began, attempting to stitch the priest’s words into Irish. “He wants people to come to the aid of the good Christians there. These Cathars are heretics. They have been blinded by—the Devil. They think they worship God but—”
He broke off, suddenly overcome with memories that he’d tried hard to bury deep in his heart. The pope had wanted the relic, and now, it seemed, he wanted soldiers. Diarmuid clapped his hand to his mouth and suppressed a shuddering sob. Hadn’t enough people died for this crusade? Hadn’t Brother Rua and Brother Cathal and Ciarán been enough?
Imchad’s sister placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Geraldus hadn’t spoken a single word of Irish, either. The Cistercian had sneered at their ways and their land, mocked the aos sí, mocked their history, their beliefs. Diarmuid began again, “They are putting together a crusade. Those who take the cross to assist in sweeping the land of these blasphemers will stand alongside God in Heaven.”
Diarmuid had heard him roar on the beach. A battle cry and a sign that he was still alive, and would continue fighting until he was no longer.
But the first word that Diarmuid heard from him was one of accusation, an enraged, rasping growl of judgment.
“Liar.” Mendax.
It was deep and loud and obviously directed at the priest. The man’s surprise at being addressed in Latin quickly turned to anger at being insulted. He turned to his native tongue in rage. “Qui te prends-tu pour me parler ainsi?”
“Un soldat de Dieu.” The Mute’s lips were curled into a snarl. “Alors ils ont dit.”
The words sounded as though they were clawing their way from this throat. Harsh, ragged, biting.
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Diarmuid fought a wave of panic. Gaill glassa. The language of the invaders, straight from David’s mouth.
“What’s he saying, Diarmuid?” Imchad asked.
He didn’t know it all. He said, “The priest is a liar.”
David turned to him, eyes wild and desperate. “Please.” Le do thoil. “Tell them he lies. There is no absolution in war.” Dic mendacium. Nulla absolutio in bello.
“Diarmuid?” The crowd had turned from watching the priest to watching them, struggling to communicate with one another in three languages.
Swallowing his nerves, Diarmuid translated both David and the priest’s words as best he could. “The priest is lying,” he said again, “There is no absolution in war. The priest wants people to take up arms against the Cathars in the south of France. He says that they have blasphemed. That they are heretics.”
“And are they?”
“I don’t know. I’ve not heard of them before.”
Someone spat on the ground. Segan, with his lip curled and his arms crossed. “Neither have I. But I know these Normans. I know that they butchered Amalgaid and his nephew for poaching. And I know that Sarnat’s daughter went missing while traveling near one of their camps and hasn’t been seen since. They want me to leave what’s mine and fight some people who haven’t ever done any harm to me? To Hell with them! May these Cathars leave their bodies to rot.”
There were rumblings of approval and disagreement. Someone asked, “How can a man of God be a liar?”
Imchad chuckled “He preaches with God’s tongue and curses with the Devil’s. See, now.”
Diarmuid didn’t have to know French to understand that the priest was berating them. His speech had been memorized, a rote address to one crowd for one day and to another the next. Here he sputtered and spit and stamped his feet—not at David, but at him. “Traître! Qu'est-ce que tu chuchotes? Tu défies le Pape? Tu défies Dieu? Satan avait aussi un beau visage!”
David became a veritable beast, snapping his teeth, foaming at the mouth as he snarled, “Ne lui parle pas! Menteur! Trompeur! Tu massacres le beau et le sacré—Pas ici! Pas lui!”
Diarmuid held him. His fingers were bunched into the other man’s tunic. “David,” he said, “David.” He feared what would happen if he let go. David, lost in rage and memories, might launch himself at the priest, tear him limb from limb. The crowd, already agitated, might riot, either for the priest or against him. Segan and Imchad and the rest might realize that David, too, was speaking the Devil’s tongue with fluency and react with as much, if not more, hostility.
But Segan only pushed through the crowd and pointed his finger at the priest. “If you’re as learned as you act, you ought to leave. No one here gives a whit about France. Run to your fellows before this gets ugly.”
And the priest, who knew not a word of Irish, had to turn to Diarmuid for a translation. David clutched him all the tighter as Diarmuid said, “Hoc est a admonitio. Ab hoc loco. Non tutum est hic tibi.” This is a warning. Leave this place. It's not safe for you.
The narrowed eyes said that the man understood. Still, he had to get in the last word. He turned his eyes toward Heaven, fell to his knees, and prayed, loud and clear, for the souls of the bewitched and bedeviled and the wicked.
Perhaps his audience understood the meaning of it. Perhaps not. After all, it was in Latin.
Afterwards, Segan wanted to talk. He caught them as they were trying to sneak back unnoticed to their cottage. “Let’s get a drink, the three of us. We can discuss what happened today. A miracle, surely. Your David’s regained the power of speech. And God has blessed him with two tongues. Truly a miracle.” He said it with good humor, but Diarmuid was in no mood to joke. All the anger seemed to have drained from David’s body along with his energy. He clung to Diarmuid, his eyes wet, his breathing interrupted by halting sobs.
He wanted nothing more than to get David back to their home, away from curious questions and quizzical stares and potential hostility. This was not a place where Normans were welcome—David’s French could be enough for them to be viewed not as friends and allies but spies, informants, a danger to the people in the village.
The panic must have been plain on his face. “Here, now. If you must leave, then leave, but come back to us, all right? The both of you have been great friends. Don’t be frightened of—of—” Segan cursed and rubbed his beard, searching for the word.
Diarmuid offered, “Retribution? Revenge? This isn’t a safe place. You said so to the priest.”
“Yes, but, well. He’s one of them. You know.”
“Tell me, then, what is David?”
Segan sounded incredulous. “Strong as an ox and gentle as a lamb. And—yours. And Diarmuid, you’re our—our healer. A man of letters. You serve Christ.”
“So does the priest.”
“Lad, now you’re just being contrarian. I understand, this rattled the both of you. Shook David right into speech, eh?” His chuckle faded in the face of Diarmuid’s frown. “Sorry, but—ah, well. I said what I said. No one will judge you for this. I swear it. Eochu got drunk off his ass on market day, once. Now that was a scene. We’ve all faced hardship. We know you two have suffered more than most. And we know you’re good. The both of you.”
Diarmuid was wary, still. He was always wary now. One could not be too guarded, too reserved, after what they had been through. And always, always he had to think of David, who had been accepted in the monastery’s own little community but who was even more of a stranger to Ireland proper than Diarmuid was and obviously so. He had to be careful.
But that did not mean that he could not recognize a friend.
He thanked Segan with a smile, bid him good day, and took David’s hand and disappeared into the forest.
His hand did not leave David’s during the entire walk back to their cottage. Diarmuid wanted to feel him, every rough callus, every scar, and never let go. And he wanted to provide the same comfort to David, to let him know that he was there by his side and would be there always.
On the currach Diarmuid had heard him screaming—roaring on the beach as he turned the sand and tide red with blood. But he had not heard David speak.
Liar. The first word from his lover’s lips to reach his ears, and it had been one of rage. And everything after a muddled, frantic combination of language of French and Latin and Irish.
But his first word to Diarmuid had been please.
Le do thoil.
A call for help, for aid. That David trusted him with that, looked to him for that—it was a precious gift that Diarmuid had been bestowed.
When the cottage came into view, Diarmuid heard that deep rasp from behind him. “I’m sorry.” Tá brón orm. He whirled around. David could not meet his eyes. He spoke to Diarmuid’s boots. “Diarmuid, I’m sorry.”
It was the first time he had ever said his name. Diarmuid’s heart swelled at the time tears sprang to his eyes. He reached forward and cupped David’s cheek. “For what?” he asked. “What are you sorry for?”
“For my—” David paused, searching for the word. “Anger.” Fearg.
“Please, don’t think that way. That man upset you. You reacted. That’s all that happened,” Diarmuid murmured.
“Brought his attention to you.
“You asked for my help. And you will always have it. Always. I love you.”
They were both crying now, weeping openly under the forest canopy. Diarmuid blinked to clear his vision, felt his tears roll down his cheeks, watched as David’s own were lost in his beard.
For better or for worse, the priest had caused the dam to break, and now David’s words left his throat in a flood. He repeated, “I’m sorry. Can’t bear to hear it. Not again. Diarmuid, I’m sorry. Couldn’t stand it. And I hate—” He cursed, lapsed into his other tongues. “La sensation. The—the feeling.” In sensu.
In Irish it was an mothú. Diarmuid took David’s hand and brought it to his mouth and said it again and again, let him touch the words as they sprang from his lips. An mothú. An mothú. He brushed his fingers against David’s own lips, felt his teeth, the flick of his tongue, and said, “Then I will help you lay it to rest. There’s no need of it here. Not between us. We will speak only gentleness, only affection. I’ll not let you hear anything else.”
David’s voice trembled. “Yes, my love,” he said, and he said it in the language of their home, of the trees rustling in the breeze and the flowers blooming sweetly and the roots and bones in the earth underneath their feet.
Sea, mo ghrá.
God had spoke light into being. Diarmuid would speak it into David’s heart, would fill it with love, with peace. There was no vow of silence, no pain to be borne alone, only the two of them, together, voicing their hope for a bright future.