Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [54]
Their life on the island worked surprisingly well. The late-summer rains had not troubled them. The cleft in the cliff provided protection as well as concealment and there, above the tiny cove and beach, Conall used branches from the island’s small supply of trees to build a cabin of mud and wattle that would certainly see them through the mild winter. The widow was glad to supply Conall with simple food which he could supplement by periodic trips inland where, as a wandering druid, he could purchase supplies without difficulty. On the island he could catch fish and he also planted beans and peas. Two other necessities were dealt with in the following way. To collect water for drinking, he found several places where rainwater ran off the rock face and dug three good-sized pits which he lined. For boiling vegetables or meat, which he was sometimes able to obtain, he constructed another, much smaller pit. Filling this with water, he would then transfer stones, heated red-hot in the fire, into the pit, which would bring the water to the boil and maintain it at that heat for some time. Those boiling pits were a speciality of the island people and were as effective as they were simple.
No one came near them. There was no reason why they should. The nearby headland was deserted. On the main shore opposite, there was no one but the widow. A little farther up the coast there was a much larger island opposite an inlet. Nobody lived on the island, and the few fishermen by the inlet only occasionally went out to it.
Even if anyone had thought of venturing in their direction, Conall had taken care to tell the old woman that he wanted to be alone, and she had no doubt passed this information on to the fishermen at the inlet. Druids who lived as hermits were not unknown; and it would be a foolhardy person indeed who risked a druid’s curse by disturbing him when he wanted to be left alone.
The only thing, for the time being, that concerned Conall was that their island was so small. There was a beach to walk around, a grassy headland to climb, and a few trees, but that, and some rock pools, was all. Wouldn’t Deirdre grow restless? Surprisingly, it did not seem so. She appeared to be content. But several times, on moonlit nights, he had taken her in the curragh across to the headland, and they had climbed up to the top and from there they had gazed together not only northwards, at their little refuge, but southwards across the whole sweeping bay past Dubh Linn and the Liffey’s estuary to the southern headland and the silent, volcanic shapes of the Wicklow Mountains stretching down the coast, bathed in the silver moonlight.
“It is a pity you cannot visit them,” he had remarked the first time, gesturing towards her family’s rath, dimly visible above the estuary.
“It does not matter,” she said. “I have you.” And he hoped that it was true.
Yet as the months went on, in addition to his happiness with Deirdre, Conall was surprised to discover another profound contentment. For if he had always supposed that the company of a woman would somehow interfere with the contemplative thoughts that occupied his mind, so far this had not proved to be the case. Quite the reverse in fact. Partly it was the silence of the place; certainly the fact that she instinctively understood that he needed to be left alone with his thoughts; and perhaps also, more than he realised himself, the fact that he was now free of his old identity. But whatever the causes, in the rhythm of their life he found a sense of peace, of freshness and renewal. His disguise, indeed, had become a new reality; for effectively he had now become a druid. Each day, in his mind, he would go over the vast stock of knowledge he already possessed.