Dr. Rookwood and the Lucht Siúlta, Part one

Two years ago, West Ireland

Josiah winced as the back of his head conked against the dirt road. He was a mess, dirty, a little damp from having stepped full-foot into a water-filled rut in the worn road.

"I give up!" he cried, but his assailants were ruthless, all four of them piling onto his chest. He looked up at them, half-heartedly shielding his face, and said, "You'll never get away with this! Yarg!" And with a surge of energy, he gathered all four small, giggling boys up in his arms and overpowered them, sitting up and laughing maniacally. "Ah hahaha! You can never escape!" One boy squealed as he got away only to be pulled back by the belt on his muddy trousers.

"Sho-sye!" he screeched, laughing and trying to look demanding at the same time. He twisted and exclaimed something half-Irish, half-Universal Kidtalk.

Josiah grinned. "English."

"Le - mee - GO!" the kid repeated, emphatically stamping his little foot. Josiah didn't actually have a choice, because keeping one hand on the kid's belt left only one arm to corral the other three, and they jostled him so much that he had to let go anyway. Freed, the kid didn't run away, only stumbled forward a few feet and then turned on him and growled like a lion, clawing his little hands up. Inspired, the other three suddenly became lions as well, and Josiah got more than one tiny foot in the gut for his trouble.

"Samhradhán!"

Samhradhán stopped mid-grr, then scampered around to the other side of the prone man to peer at his mother. The three other boys vaulted over to join him, and Josiah winced good-naturedly up at the approaching woman, shielding his eyes from the watery afternoon sunlight.

"Missus Ó Connacháin."

"Mister Rookwood," she replied, smiling grimly. "Thank you for watching the boys," she added, her voice seeming to barely touch English. The boys in question scattered toward the tiny town down the dirt road as she knelt in the damp dust to help him sit up. "You've got your trousers all muddy."

"It's no big deal," he murmured.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't teach my Samhradhán to speak English."

Josiah flushed pink. "Missus Ó Connacháin," he started, but she cut him off.

"He has got only a few more precious years until schooling will force his native tongue out of his head. I should prefer it to be well set-in before then. /Mister/ Rookwood."

Thoroughly chastised, Josiah averted his gaze and folded his hands together, elbows on his knees. "Tá brón orm," he mumbled, clearly contrite. Her face softened, which he didn't see. He didn't agree with her. Learning languages simultaneously wasn't a detriment to either language. It only meant Samhradhán would have the edge he'd need to stay in the school he'd only be able to attend three times a week as it was. He didn't agree. But it wasn't his choice. So he sighed and looked back up in surprise when he felt her hand on his arm.

"Don't think of me unkindly, Mister Rookwood. Thank you for getting him into school." And then she was gone, striding away in all of her deceptively complex grace.

Josiah collected himself gingerly, hugging an arm round his ribcage. Little kids had the unfortunate advantage over grown men, in that they kicked without thought and didn't have to worry about retribution. He shook out his wet foot and looked into the sleepy village that had been his home for the last three weeks. He'd broken the rules of the Gaeltaecht more often than he should have, and only thwarted his punishment by giving painstaking Masses on Sunday mornings. He'd had to spend every night a week translating a Mass he was unfamiliar with into Irish, those weeks he'd been egregiously defiant. No use complaining that he wasn't Catholic, didn't even know the Latin, let alone the English. No use mentioning that the presiding Father would've given the Mass in Latin anyway. Never should have let on his previous life's work.

But it was that, or be thrown out, sent back to Galway, kicked out of the program with a dishonorable discharge. Not that it truly mattered. He wasn't in it for the little embossed piece of paper.

"Not getting sweet on widow Ó Connacháin," said a voice behind him, interrupting his thoughts.

"Oh, no," he replied. He hadn't meant to start a revolution, and of course he hadn't actually done anything of the sort. And it wasn't that his Irish was so abysmal that they could think he mightn't understand them. He was getting pretty good at it, actually. But it seemed he could tell who liked him and who didn't by whether they spoke to him in Irish or English. He'd given the matter some thought and come up with two possibilities. The one he actually hoped was more true was the one where they tried to get him in trouble for speaking English. Simple, straightforward.

"It'll be far too soon for that," the younger man advised, somewhat less than pleasantly.

"I know." Josiah turned to face Aodh, a dark haired youth whom he was aware fancied himself the village's chiefest protector against those who'd try to force change. He considered Aodh frankly, standing up to his full height and just barely cresting the still growing teen. "I'm not after anything, Aodh." He tried a smile. "Let's take a little walk."

Aodh gave him a thoughtful look and nodded after a moment, starting off down a path headed away from town. They didn't talk much, just walked along /almost/ companionably. Josiah didn't expect any revelations or to forge new friendships. He remembered being Aodh's age - seventeen or so, full of thwarted emotion and mis- or undirected drive to... do something. It wasn't true that young men were angry, not necessarily. Aodh, for example, was a fine specimen of that elusive and understated complexity that hung about the whole village. He wanted a simple life, and he wanted to protect the people he loved, and at the same time, he wanted what youth wants - to change the world, to change /something/. And Josiah thought he was kind. That under the stoic, protective-through-intimidation exterior, he was capable of great kindness.

Of course, Josiah thought, glancing at the boy askance, his idealism had made him a poor judge of character in the past.

"So, where're we goin?" he murmured, glancing around. Fields, as far as he could see. The ocean was a dull rumble just under the sound of sea birds and lowing cattle. Stone walls gridded up the countryside haphazardly.

Aodh looked around. "Nowhere," he answered simply. Josiah understood. They'd just been walking without direction, a common past time. Aodh'd know how to get home, no matter where they ended up. The Irish took hours' long walks without even thinking of it, and if Josiah'd remembered that, he might've suggested something else. "Dia duit, Tómmán."

Josiah looked up and over to see Tuama and the rest of the crew hopping over a low fence. About six of them, including Aodh, from sixteen to about eighteen. A pot of barely-surly, subdued frustration. Awesome.

"Ná glaoigh Tómmán--" Tuama complained jokingly, but stopped short when he saw Josiah. He twisted up his mouth and looked away. "Don't call me Tómmán," he muttered more darkly, his accent thicker than Aodh's by a lot and barely understandable even to the linguist. Another villager who didn't like him. Josiah offered him a meagre smile and gave them their privacy as Aodh moved to join them near the fence. Their murmured Irish was too faint and fast for him to make out, which was probably the point.

And then they were moving out, on some kind of mission. Josiah raised his brows and looked around. Crap. Oh man, he was lost. His instincts to leave the young men to their task warred with his more logical drive to not be lost in the middle of the Burren with no food or water and the closest house some hours' walk away, /if/ he chose the right direction. Well, he could always head for the sea and loop round the coast. There were always houses on the coast. If he was lucky, one of them would have a working car, or maybe a pony for rent.

And then Aodh was turning back to him, raising his brows and asking without asking, "You comin'?" Thank goodness for that buried kindness. They walked for another twenty minutes in uncomfortable silence. Clearly, it was only Aodh's presence that had garnered him this rare opportunity to observe the wild young Irishman in his native habitat. Ahead of them, the once colourful signs of an encampment waved in the breeze, and Josiah wrinkled his brow in thought.

"Lucht siúlta stole the ó Cuinn's pig."

Uh oh.

part two
part three
part four
part five