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In the end, it took six brothers to lift the man and carry him from the beach. No doubt, they all wished they could have brought him up on the hay cart. The path through the dunes was too narrow and uneven for anything but foot-traffic, and Brother Ciarán had insisted they not drag their new arrival, so he was carried, and with no small amount of muttered oaths. Of all the people who could have washed up on the shore it would be a man bigger than most of them had ever seen, with no power to help and soaking wet besides.
Diarmuid had only seen the last moments of the group's slow, careful progress, standing in the doorway of the infirmary. He'd tried to help at first, after Ciarán had gone back with news of the battered currach and returned with half the monastery in tow. Brother Berach had put a stop to his efforts almost immediately.
“Keep back, Diarmuid. We don't need you underfoot now.”
How it stung to be so quickly dismissed, shooed away like an unwanted child. Diarmuid was nearly thirteen! He might not have been tall but he was capable enough. And he was the one who'd found the man in the first place. He'd realized he was alive and sat watch beside him while Ciarán went for the others. Why shouldn't he be able to help now?
As a rule, novices were not meant to talk back to their superiors. Diarmuid knew this well, even if he tended to forget in moments of frustration.
“But why can't-?”
“What did I say, boy?”
Brother Berach glared at him with a face like stone. He looked stern on the best day but now Diarmuid could only close his mouth and regret he'd ever opened it. Thankfully, he was saved from any further rebuke by the intervention of Brother Ciarán.
“Diarmuid," he said from where he was crouched beside currach, "I want you to go to the infirmary. Cathal is already there. Help him with whatever he asks you to. We'll need blankets as well, and dry clothes, as big as you can find.”
Ciarán's voice was calm. How he always managed to keep it so, even in the midst of tension and disquiet, Diarmuid could not fathom. He often wished he'd been so blessed with the skill, instead of his own tongue that always seemed to speak when it was not wanted.
But here, now, he'd been given a task: help Cathal prepare the infirmary. He could do that. Perhaps Ciarán would even let him help tend the man once they finally got him back to the monastery. He'd begun to teach Diarmuid simple remedies, how to care for the most common injuries and illnesses they encountered here. Diarmuid took to it naturally, Ciarán said, and he was eager to learn. Surely that would count for something?
With a hurried “Yes, Brother Ciarán”, Diarmuid raced back up the dune path. He found Cathal, who was rather startled when he burst into the infirmary with his breathless message, and went about trying to find spare clothes and blankets while the other man continued tending the fire.
Eventually, the shore party reappeared, Ciarán at its head. Diarmuid waited expectantly at the door after they all went in, but his hopes were dashed yet again. No sooner was the man laid on the rickety pallet beside the hearth than the infirmary was cleared. Only Brother Ciarán and Brother Cathal and the abbot remained.
Diarmuid marvelled that he managed to hold his tongue. Would it never end! He could not recall ever being so disappointed in his life. Even the summer he'd fallen from one of the apple trees beyond the wall and broken his arm seemed insignificant. He'd spend several miserable weeks with the limb wrapped and splinted, able to do little and forever being subjected to lofty sentiments about what came of greed and unbounded ambition.
Only Brother Ciarán seemed to have any sympathy for him. He had his sentiments as well, but they were spoken once and then put away. Mostly, he was just relieved that Diarmuid had not been hurt worse; or killed from striking his head on the stones that littered the wild orchard. If not for Ciarán, the whole ordeal would have been unbearable.
¤¤¤
As the rest of the monks dispersed back to their duties, most of them still muttering this or that about the strange man, Diarmuid found himself in the hands of Brother Rua. There was to be soup for supper tonight and the turnips would not peel themselves. They were already behind with all this excitement and bluster.
Diarmuid knew better than to argue. He wasn't nearly as afraid of Rua as he was of Berach, but neither did he wish to have any more ire brought down on him today. He sat sullenly on a bench now beside the older man, a basket of peeled turnips at his feet and another of waiting ones before them both. Every so often, he glanced towards the infirmary.
“You're going to take a finger off if you keep doing that.”
Rua was watching him with an unimpressed expression. He'd said little since they'd started, and Diarmuid was grateful for it. He didn't know if he could take much more today without making a fool of himself.
“If anything happens, I'm sure we'll hear it first,” Rua said pragmatically. “Now, watch what you're doing. God knows they don't need to tend you as well.”
Diarmuid didn't reply. A good novice would have said “yes, Brother Rua,” and reflected on the reprimand, and perhaps apologized, but he couldn't even find the heart to speak. He did pay more attention as he worked his way through the rest of the turnip. Despite everything, he didn't relish the thought of cutting his fingers. When he'd finished and picked up the next, he asked, “Where do you think he came from?”
Rua didn't look up. “Who?”
“The man.”
“Does it matter?”
“He had to have come from somewhere?”
Rua grabbed another turnip, inspecting it briefly before cutting out a bad spot. “Of course he did. And I couldn't care less where it was. All the miles of shoreline to beach himself on…”
Diarmuid's resignation cracked. “But what if he didn't choose to be here? He didn't have any oars.”
“Just as well. For all we know he's carrying some horrible sickness. Or what if he's a murderer? Once we help him get his strength back he might kill us all in our beds.”
Diarmuid, who still often struggled to grasp Rua's particular wit, looked horrified. “But wouldn't he be glad that we helped him?”
“Can't ever tell with murderers. And think, anyone following might kill us just for harboring him.”
“He's not a murderer, Brother Rua. He can't be.”
“Oh? And what makes you so sure?”
“Well…well, he….”
In truth, the idea that the man could have been anything other than lost or the victim of some accident had not fully occurred to Diarmuid. He'd spent some time pondering as he sat on the beach beside the currach. Perhaps the man was a sailor, the lone survivor of a ship sunk in a great storm. He might have been traveling in the currach all along and been blown far off course. Or maybe someone had tried to kill him and set his body adrift assuming he was dead.
“The point is that he could be anything.” Rua said curtly. “No one knows. And if he is sick, truly and terribly sick, then you're much better off over here than you are in there.”
Diarmuid had no retort to this. What would he have said? That he in fact wanted to be sick? He very much did not. Nearly above all other things, he hated to be sick. Besides, Brother Ciarán always worried when he was sick, and he had more than enough to worry about now as it was.
The argument was moot. Diarmuid knew from experience that pushing further now, even just for spite, would only make Rua double his efforts. And then Diarmuid would once again say something he regretted. He hoped dearly that the man was not sick beyond recovery. He'd looked so pale on the beach, so drawn with exhaustion. But could that not have come from being tossed about in the cold and waves? Diarmuid had seen many brothers grow ill from exposure to the elements; this newcomer was no different. Once he was warm and dry again, once Ciarán and Cathal had given him teas and broth to strengthen him, he would get better. He must get better.
¤¤¤
The hours passed slowly, afternoon into evening into night.
Diarmuid was never allowed back into the infirmary. He listened carefully during the evening meal, as Ciarán spoke to them all at the abbot's request. The man was sleeping now. They had dried him and warmed him and patched his wounds as well as they could. There was little more to do now except wait.
Eventually, the meal was cleared away. The brothers fell into their usual routines. Chores were tended to, evening prayers were sung. After that should have come sleep, a reward taken for another day's toil. It did come for many, in the end, but not for all.
Diarmuid lay in the darkness of the clochán he shared with Brother Ciarán. He was alone. Ciarán, as he usually did when someone grew ill enough to warrant staying there, had chosen to sleep in the infirmary. Their visitor might wake in the night and it would be better that he was not alone when he did.
Though Diarmuid closed his eyes and pulled his blanket close, he could not fall asleep. His mind was too full; both from things he had heard, openly or not, and things he had seen.
The man's face was one of them. Over and over, Diarmuid saw it as it had been on the beach: worn and scarred, half covered by a thick, dark beard. His sodden hair was dark too. And his eyes…what color were his eyes? Diamuid had barely seen them. He'd touched the man, shook his shoulder gently and startled at the groan and movement it brought in return. The man had looked at him, Diarmuid was sure. It had only been a moment, but he'd looked right at him, squinting through half-open eyelids reddened by the sun.
Diarmuid knew little of the world as it existed beyond the bounds of the monastery. Most days, he was glad of this. If it really was as dangerous and chaotic as some of the brothers’ tales made it out to be, then it seemed best to heed their warnings and not wander. Still, there were days when Diarmuid felt he would go mad if he could not follow the rocky path leading east and walk until he lost sight of everything he'd come to call home.
This man, whoever or whatever he might be, was of the world beyond. It wasn't as though Diarmuid had never seen others not of his cloister. Most of their visitors over the years were monks, but there had also been a few travelers seeking shelter, ready to move on again after a night's food and rest. Regardless of their calling or status, all of them had come from the path and all of them had left by it again.
No human being had ever washed ashore before in Diarmuid's lifetime, living or dead. Even just for that, the man now lying in the infirmary was more profound than any other visitor before him. He may as well have come down from the stars.
Diarmuid stared into the shadows above his head. He was convinced now that he would never fall asleep so long as he stayed here. His limbs twitched for want of movement. It was dangerous to go wandering in the dark, even with the moon sometimes showing through the scattered clouds, but the infirmary was not so far away. If he kept quiet, no one, not even Ciarán, need ever know that he had left his bed.
Waiting until the moon was hidden once again, Diarmuid padded noiselessly through the scattered huddle of clocháns and outbuildings. It was cold, but that did not matter; he would only be out a short while.
He reached the infirmary without any trouble. A fire still burned in the hearth. It had fallen low enough to leave the corners of the room obscured in shadow, and Diarmuid paused inside the doorway, glancing to where a figure lay huddled on a raised pallet.
Ciarán was fast asleep. His breath came slowly, even and familiar. Diarmuid had come to know it well after so many years. It was doubtful that Ciarán would wake now unless he was shaken, and there was little fear of that.
Keeping a careful eye as he passed, Diarmuid crossed the tiny room to the other sleeping figure. He'd wondered, during the moments that passed between his running from the beach and the return of the brothers with their unconscious burden, how such a large man could possibly fit on the pallet kept in the infirmary. The simple answer was he didn't. He filled the whole of it, with another blanket rolled up and placed beneath his feet like a bolster to keep them off the ground.
Diarmuid crouched beside the pallet and gazed at the man. How different he looked now. The fire cast a warm glow on his skin and hid the deathly pallor he'd had on the beach. His hair and beard were dry, and so unruly that he appeared like some sort of wild beast. One of his arms had been bandaged and left outside the tucked blankets. His hand, scraped and scarred, lay half-closed at his side, but even then it was enormous; more like a bear's paw or a wolf's. It would have enveloped Diarmuid's hand completely.
Diarmuid shivered involuntarily at the thought. He did so again as Brother Rua's words came back to him. Even in the dim light, he could see the corded muscle in the man's free arm. He must have been very strong. Could he have murdered someone; perhaps even without a weapon? If so, what would they do if he decided to try again?
“Diarmuid?”
A startled hare could not have turned so quickly. Even as he did, Diarmuid prayed that he had merely imagined the voice, or that what he had heard was spoken in the throes of sleep. He had tried so hard to be quiet.
Ciarán was watching him. It was too dark to see his face fully, but the emberlight gleamed in his dark eyes as he stared at Diarmuid in shock.
“My boy, what are you doing here?”
While he was still in bed, after he'd made up his mind to go and see the man's state for himself, Diarmuid had thought briefly of what he might say if he was unfortunate enough to be caught. He could think of nothing now. Every elaborate lie was gone, burned from his mind like bits of straw.
My boy.
All his life Ciarán had called him that. Even before Diarmuid could understand the words, they had brought him comfort. Ciarán spoke it less these days, and those times he did were thus all the more precious. To hear it spoken now with such disappointment….
Shame burned through Diarmuid's face. He really was just a child, wasn't he? Not a young man of nearly thirteen, more than old enough to be given responsibility and trusted by his elders to do as he was asked, but a wilful child too curious for his own good, sneaking about in the night when he ought to have been asleep.
Eventually, after it seemed that he'd stared at Ciarán for an eon, Diarmuid finally found his voice.
“I'm sorry, Brother Ciarán. I couldn't sleep. I…I was worried.”
How was it possible for the truth to sound so hollow? Diarmuid couldn't even look up by the end of it. He felt like a bird in a snare, torn between struggling flight and stillness in hopes of staying hidden.
There was rustling across the room; wool blankets were being pushed back. Then came a heavy sigh and a soft groan as Ciarán rose from the pallet.
Diarmuid watched him warily for a moment before looking down at his own clenched hands. Ciarán had so far kept his voice to a near-whisper, not drawing anyone else's attention, but he feared that this might be the moment when the man's patience with him finally ran out. Ciarán might go to the abbot. He might bar Diarmuid from the infirmary altogether, if not permanently then at least until Ciarán felt he could be trusted to follow the simplest of instructions without disobeying them. Perhaps such a day would never come.
Footsteps stopped at Diarmuid's side. He did not look up. He swallowed, waiting for whatever must come next, ready to accept it without complaint, no matter how awful it might be.
“Has there been any change since you've watched him?”
Diarmuid blinked. He kept his eyes down, unsure if he had heard correctly. Did Ciarán not mean to rebuke him? He certainly deserved it. Most of the other monks would have already done so by now, the abbot included. Instead, Ciarán moved to kneel beside him, once again groaning as one of his knees gave a soft pop.
“Well?”
Diarmuid could only stammer at first. Of all the things that might have happened, this certainly felt the most absurd. “I-I…I don't think…no, there hasn't.”
Ciarán inspected the man briefly, peering at his face and checking the state of his bandaged arm as he adjusted the blankets.
“His breathing is still even?”
Diarmuid nodded. He was confused, and still wary, but Ciarán had never been one to trick people. He would not have asked such questions without expecting answers.
“Yes. But very slow.” Diarmuid paused as Ciarán gave a soft hum of acknowledgement. “Is he going to die?”
Ciarán's face was solemn when Diarmuid finally found the courage to look at him. He gazed down at the man, neither hopeful nor sorrowful.
“You know that I have done all I can. And Brother Cathal as well. He is in God's hands now. We can only pray for him and for his soul.”
Diarmuid nodded. Of course Ciarán would have put forth every effort to help the man. There was no reason to doubt it. He should have been encouraged that so wise a healer was in their midst, and yet he felt as though he might start to cry. He frowned and sniffed quietly to stop himself. Nonetheless, Ciarán noticed.
“Is there something else troubling you?”
Diarmuid rubbed his eyes. Earlier, he might have avoided the question, eager to prolong his presence in the infirmary as little as possible. Now, he heard himself speaking freely.
“Tonight, after the meal, I heard some of the brothers talking. I didn't mean to, I don't think they knew I could hear them, but they were talking about him.” He nodded to the man. “And they were angry.”
“Angry?”
“Yes.” Diarmuid hadn't gone far enough around the side of the outbuilding to know for sure which brothers he'd heard; the thought of being seen had frightened him too much. It was clear, however, that none of them were merely speaking as Brother Rua did always, blunt to a fault. “They said it would be better if we had left him on the beach. That he must have been close to death anyway and it was foolish to waste medicine on him.” Diarmuid had to pause as the first tears came despite his efforts. “Would God really bring him all this way just to die? He could have died a dozen times in the sea, drowned or starved or-”
“Yes,” Ciarán said gently, putting a hand on Diarmuid's arm. “But he did not. He was carried here to us. And you were led to find him.”
“I don't want him to die.”
Diarmuid barely heard himself speak the words. He assumed he'd merely thought of speaking them. He certainly wouldn't have voiced such a thing, if only to avoid the shame of having to explain his reasons. It was only when he felt Ciarán's hand move to squeeze his shoulder that he realized he must have spoken aloud.
Diarmuid held his breath. He did not want to have to explain himself, even to the man who had been as much a father to him as a teacher. All of his reasons- his curiosity, his desire for tales of the world beyond- seemed foolish now; even worse, they felt horribly selfish.
But the moment of explanation never came. If Ciarán had wondered at Diarmuid's concern, why it would show itself so poignant now, and for a complete stranger, he kept the thought to himself.
“We cannot ever hope to fathom the mind of God, Diarmuid. No one can; whether they be peasant or king, lord or beggar. It is not for us to dwell on whys or if-onlys. We can only choose what we will do. Shall we be cruel or merciful? Shall we show an injured stranger scorn or meet them with compassion? Sometimes we may not wish to do the things we know are right. They may seem foolish to us, even dangerous, but we still do them because they are what is asked of us.” Ciarán's voice softened. “I do not doubt your capacity for compassion, Diarmuid, nor for kindness. They are precious gifts in this world. And I believe they serve you well. Do you understand?”
Diarmuid nodded. “Yes, Brother Ciarán.”
“Good.”
Diarmuid brushed away the tears that lingered, willing the rest away with a resolute breath. He still did not want the man to die, but his worry had settled now so that it no longer filled his chest.
“I know I wasn't supposed to be here.” he ventured quietly. “I'm sorry.”
Ciarán glanced at him. “I forgive you.”
They sat a few moments longer in the dying light. Beside them, the man slept on, oblivious to what had been spoken of him, to anything except whatever dreams might be drifting through his mind.
At last, Ciarán rose. Diarmuid followed him, taking Ciarán's hand when it was offered. He paused, and then, only half-thinking, embraced the older man.
If Ciarán was surprised, he did not voice it. He embraced Diarmuid in return, holding him tightly as he had when Diarmuid was just a toddling thing, prone to scrapes and bruises and bad dreams and unfortunate encounters with the monastery's proud rooster. Even after they'd stepped apart again, Diarmuid felt as though he'd been wrapped in a warm mantle. Such a wonderful thing it was to be reassured.
He went without complaint when Ciarán finally ushered him to the door.
“I want you to go back now. And stay there this time. Worrying will not help, and you need your rest, as I do. And as he does, too.”
Diarmuid glanced at the sleeping man. He looked…serene. There was no fear or worry on his face, as if he knew in his heart that he was safe now. Safe from the fury and chill of the sea, with a fire and blankets to warm him and a solid roof over his head. Safe and no longer alone.
Diarmuid bid Brother Ciarán goodnight. He hurried back through the dark, and was soon huddled once again in his own bed under his own blankets. After the warmth of the infirmary, the night air and the clochán were rather cold, and it was several minutes before he finally warmed up enough to stop shivering.
The restlessness, thankfully, was gone. Diarmuid felt his eyes grow heavier and heavier as he lay in the shadowed stillness, listening to the soothing rush of distant waves against the sand.
Let him be alright, he prayed as he drifted away into sleep. If he is in danger, let him be safe. Let it not follow him here. Let him be at peace.