The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [16]
“Her husband died a long time ago, Emer. She once had a perfect match like I do, and the rest of the mothers here do. The most important thing to remember is that Emer didn’t allow her father to marry her off to a man she didn’t love, and she didn’t marry Cuchulain, either, until he proved his honor. She had a mind of her own and could wield it as sharply as any sword.”
“So girls fight different than boys.”
“That’s right.”
That night, when Emer closed her eyelids to sleep, she imagined her embroidered cape, just as she had every night since she’d vowed to stitch it. It was thick with flaxen threads woven into the most colorful design anyone had ever seen, and she was inside it, wielding her wisdom and beauty to fend off the thousand suitors lined up and down the valley wishing for her hand.
Emer could hear loud cannons firing as she tried to sleep. Padraig shifted about beside her, sometimes jumping a bit when the noise echoed between the church and their small cottage next to the castle. They stayed silent for some time before Emer sat up and said, “That one sounded close.”
“No, it didn’t. They’d be a lot louder than that.”
“Are you sure?”
Padraig swallowed. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“I can’t sleep, anyway. Do you want to play a game or something?”
“No. Try to sleep. We’ll need our rest.”
Emer lay back down, listening to the little man that her brother had become. How did he grow so serious so fast? Only a few months before, he’d been chasing her around and teasing her like a proper ten-year-old. Now he said things like that. We’ll need our rest. Try to sleep. It was as if the cannons miles away were pounding the childhood right out of him.
She waited a minute and then replied, “We’ll need our rest for what?”
“Just try to sleep.”
“What will we need it for?”
“Emer, just be quiet.”
“But I’m scared.”
He reached out and held her tiny hand. “Don’t be scared. Nothing bad will happen to us.”
“But Mammy and Daddy?”
“Emer, just go to sleep and think of something happy.”
“Okay, Padraig. Good night.”
Every time she pictured Oliver’s soldiers, she thought horrible thoughts and heard terrible screams. Since the young man on the horse came, she’d had such bad dreams that Padraig often had to wake her and caress her back to sleep, repeating the same advice: think of something happy.
She curled up and thought of the happiest thing she could: what she would look like as a full-grown lady wearing her hand-embroidered cape.
The next morning, she woke to the same loud reports. They had been hearing them for over a week now, and for the past fortnight, twenty-four hours a day (even in the drenching rain), someone manned the tower, looking out.
All anyone saw from up there was smoke—lots of smoke. In three directions. It rose in different colors—black, gray, and white—and sent a rank smell across the frosty valley, curling noses and making thoughts wander. Secretly, some were claiming that they could smell the burning flesh of animals, people, babies. Grown-ups walked with far-away looks, barely watching where they stepped.
So far, in each town that Cromwell took, he tried his very best to cleanse every Catholic—even the children. Some escaped death, and were moving west to a designated place for Catholics. Many had passed through their parish since Christmas, headed for the Shannon River and what lay beyond it, warning that no village would be spared.
It took a bit of life from everybody. Emer noticed that grown-ups never smiled anymore, her mother most of all. Most days she had to help Mairead in the yard with the stock. Several hens weren’t well, and Emer minded them along with two orphaned ewe lambs. She was still allowed to look out from the tower, but it had proved less fun with adults around. She wasn’t trusted to watch on her own anymore, and in a way, she didn’t want to see what was coming. Every day, after one look at the smoke, she retreated down the staircase to her animals.
Her father was on duty at the Carabine Bridge a mile away, and when she climbed the tower that morning she waved to him and he waved back.