Rebel's Heart - Short Story By Greg Patrick

 

Rebel's Heart

Short Story

By Greg Patrick

1798 West Ireland

"I arise today Through the strength of heaven: Light of sun, Radiance of moon, Splendour of

fire, Speed of lightning, Swiftness of wind, Depth of sea, Stability of earth, Firmness of rock."-

St. Patrick's Breastplate

From aerial perspective an eagle soared through a brooding darkness of grumbling storm clouds then bursting into the sunlight hovered over a lonely figure standing on the windswept summit of mist wreathed Croagh Patrick. It lingered; its majestic wings illuminated like a vision of an illuminated manuscript scribe. The raptor's keen eyes saw the intricacies of the talisman dangling and shimmering over his heart. The eyes of eagle and man met. Its shrill cry swept and rallied his heart as its descending shadow seemed like a dark teardrop flowing down the face of pale stone.

His breath steamed in a sigh in the chill air where old warrior's wounds pulsed. Had one followed red footprints on the mist enshrouded summit of Croagh Patrick one may have found him overlooking the vale below, thinking the resplendent green was no match for the impossibly green eyes of his lost love, Sorcha.

He  remembered when their eyes last met at the gallows. She had been executed on suspicion of stealing bread for sunken cheek weans. He was held at bay by the bayonets of redcoats as she was hanged. Their eyes met amid the drumroll before the drop and her feet kicked on air to the keening of the crowd. When the soldiers left, he steadied her as she swayed in the chill wind kissing her feet. He lingered oblivious to the cold rain as others left and returned to their homes.

Under cover of mist and darkness he returned to the site of her execution. He collected her body by torchlight kissed her cold lips and pressed her pale hands to his heart in farewell before her burial in secret before a long-abandoned pilgrim's shrine in the remote wilds. As if he was haunted by the radiant ghost of her, memories of her came back to him. And she was a vision of rare beauty. Her flushed face and melodious  laughter. Her lilting brogue…the special way her eyes lit up when she smiled.

On the towering summit of Croagh Patrick, he threw back his head suddenly and cried out in anguish that he could display before no one. The roar echoed and re-echoed. He remained silhouetted against the crimson dusk remembering her….how the last layer of earth covered her, and he staggered home cursing their king and his lackeys. Haunted by the visions of a crownless Ireland, he read the note left by a runner in the night naming the secluded place for the gathering of pikes. He crumpled the note and cast it to the peat fire. It ignited and flared casting his face in crimson on his brooding face and lighting his eyes. He found himself feeling for then drawing a rusted sword he had hidden in the thatched roof.

How he thirsted for vengeance…He left his drink untouched. His mind had to be sharp as a sword blade to avenge her. It was close to winter. His sigh steamed in the chill air and old wounds pulsed as the long nights closed in. He sought an elusive solace in the windswept heights of mountains and the solitude of the wilds to compose a song in her honour yet the words provide maddeningly elusive. Shepherds grazing their flocks avoided the ruins of a siege shattered castle because they believed it haunted by the ghost of an eternally lovesick bards for the harp songs they heard in the hollow of its shattered halls, but it was him. As he fell asleep in the midst of composing, he dreamt he was visited by the ghost of a bard who was blinded tongueless and fingerless condemned to never write another rebel song by Norman lords and exiled to wander the wilds haunted his sleep. The apparition touched his fingerless hand to his forehead, and the limb glowed with eerie light infecting him with a poet's inspiration. Yet for that he felt the right words for her was ever a song unsung for there were no words in the tongues of men to do her memory justice. Every place he had a memory was a haunted place to him now. 

One night he returned haggard and dishevelled to the pub. Sitting with drink untouched, His haunted eyes looking over the rim of his cup into the red depths of the flames in the hearth. Then the redcoats entered, demanding the best drink in the house without pay. They sang “God save the king” as men avoided their eyes meekly.

Only when one of them grabbed the barmaid by the hair did he move. Suddenly he rose and began to sing an outlawed rebel song in Irish Gaelic. Others spontaneously joined. Rallied, they rose and overpowered the redcoats in a mob. He grabbed the redcoat officer by the throat and forced his head into the hearth fire. There was a shocked silence after the last of the screams ceased. Then they began to sing again in chorus as they left the pub.

Children and others followed them as their procession became a march. Hidden pikes were uncovered. Stashed rusted swords were pulled from thatched roofs. The redcoats from the garrison expected them to scatter at shots in the air. Yet they dipped their pikes in the flames and lifted them now burning, the blades smouldering red. To the eyes of the soldiers strange crimson lights seemed to hover in the air before them like fireflies. The rebels advanced at a run, their spears impaling the screaming redcoats, the pikes sizzling into their flesh. The rebels marched across the mist-enshrouded burren. The caress of the wind swept his face and soul like a ghostly prophetic lament for the men about to fall on the morrow when they faced British reinforcements.

He had been an eager student of a sacred hedge school before his teacher was cornered and hanged. He was captivated by the legends of old Ireland peopled with warriors, princesses, and tragic High Kings. As he walked the windswept burren he envisioned with daydream haunted eyes horseman of the Fianna riding with them, their tall proud forms silhouetted in the vermillion twilight racing the fall of night. That eve of battle the rebels encamped under the myriad of stars.

He stood aloof from the others his eyes haunted and distant.

“Sing for us will you not?” he was asked.

He nodded and silhouetted against their bonfire he sang a poignant lament for his lost love as they listened spellbound.

“Not so sadly brother. It will infect the men,” their commander whispered.

“Something to rally their spirits instead?”

He sang a rebel song:

“Out from many a mud wall cabin

Eyes were watching through the night,

Many a manly heart was beating,

For the blessed morning light.

Murmurs rang along the valleys,

To the banshee’s lonely croon

And a thousand pikes were flashing,

By the rising of the moon.”

That night he strayed sleepwalking from the camp and came to rest in the midst of an ancient circle of standing stones haunted by strange dreams. As the moon cast its ghostly spell over his sleep he dreamt he was a bard with harp in hand announced into the bannered hall of an ancient Celtic chieftain and the lords and ladies made way before him. The Chieftain flanked by wolfhounds on a proud golden throne beckoned him to pay homage to his muse who he beheld as a Celtic lady of radiant beauty in gold trim gown of green and majestic red hair falling in waves from a golden diadem on her brow.

"Forgive me My Lady for I have not the words..."

The figures dematerialised with the red dawn of battle as if burnt away as he opened his eyes.

The grey morn was ushered in by the chill wind's disembodied lament that caressed his soul. A fugitive priest absolved and blessed them as they knelt in prayer with their pikes. The radiance of the sun undulated in radiance over the array of raised pikes before being immersed by the mist that swept over them like the waves of a ghostly sea. They marched under cover of rain and mist singing an old rebel song. A reinforcement of garrison redcoats had been sent to put their rebellion down. The arrogant young redcoat commander who bought his command flattered himself that he struck a formidable figure. He had every expectation that the rebels would be overawed by the sight of regular redcoats.

“Halt!” he suddenly ordered.

He cursed the mist that swept in, enveloping them, and obscuring the vale. His horse stomped restlessly.

“Something is spooking him…” he fretted.

“I see nothing sir...” his second in command said. His last words.

He was unhorsed, impaled by pikes.

The commander’s horse threw him as Gaelic battle cries erupted in the mist.

He scrambled on top of a rock formation frantically fending off pike thrusts with his sabre and screaming for help.

"Fix bayonets!" he cried out.

"Volley!"

Red lances of musket fire streaked crimson through the mist.

“Cavalry! Charge!”

Horses snorted blood and reared and threw their riders. The redcoats reeled back from the red pikes. The song for her that eluded him for so long came to him in a wave of inspiration, a force of nature like the cold wind that swept the Burren like the ghostly battle cry of warriors who fell on the field centuries before he first drew breath and shuddered through him sweeping and caressing his soul. He envisioned her as the officer's sabre swept down to command a volley, his eyes transcendent. He beheld her, the very essence of a Celtic bard's inspiration in the rapture when songs and poems came to him. He remembered like a poem in crimson and pallor amid burning debris snow hailing her like frozen tears melting in mid air from the flames. The rebels roared from the mist and into a series of volleys ranks fired by the redcoats in succession. When the smoke cleared only ghosts remained it seemed the last Gaelic battle cry cut off. The wind stirred the manes and hair of fallen horses and men.

Still trembling, he accepted a hand down from his perch laughing nervously.
“Well…This victory certainly merits a toast of fine wine at my country manor house and a victory banquet and ball are in order. Foolish peasants. They never really stood a chance...
I wonder why they even tried...”
"Something a man like you would never understand.
A lone figure confronted him in the mist
“Bring him down!”
The British commander fumbled to reload as he strode forward. Musket shots hit him and still he strode gripping a sharp shard of a broken pike. He staggered but steeled himself to endure as he was run through with a bayonet. He looked into the commander's frightened eyes as he lifted the officer's dropped pistol cocked and levelled it at his heart.

“A victory toast you said?”
‘To Sorcha!”
His young eyes burnt with ancient hatred.
He locked eyes on the man with the horse like crossed blades. He saw the confident smile waver.
“You have no honour!”
The words were like a battle cry, before pulling the trigger.

 

Greg Patrick - A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man. He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.