‘Well done.’ Eadulf clapped his hands. ‘You will soon be able to converse fluently.’
Muirgen sniffed in disapproval. ‘I don’t see the sense in stuffing the boy’s head with that nonsense,’ she said. ‘What avail is this Saxon gibberish when you are trying to buy cattle in Cashel market?’
Eadulf said sadly, ‘I swear, Muirgen, you must broaden your mind a little. To speak other languages is a great asset. Besides, it is the language of my people – the Angles.’
‘It’s all right for you, Brother Eadulf, but you no longer live in the land of the Angles. The boy lives here and it will not help him. Surely, there is no room for a child’s mind to be filled with something that will stop him learning his own language properly. He’ll be mixing things up next, not knowing what words to speak. Too much learning damages the mind.’
Eadulf chuckled. ‘Do you suggest that my mind is damaged or, indeed, that the lady Fidelma’s mind is damaged?’
Muirgen flushed. ‘I have suggested no such thing at all,’ she bridled.
‘But the lady Fidelma speaks her own language; she also speaks Latin, Greek and also some Hebrew – the three languages of the Faith. She even speaks my own language, which gives her some knowledge of that of the Franks and, indeed, she has knowledge of the language of the Britons. According to your philosophy, she should be unable to absorb these languages for they would damage her understanding.’
‘The lady Fidelma is a wise and an exceptional person,’ replied Muirgen undeterred. ‘But have not the priests warned us of the confusion of the Tower of Babel? They say it is God’s will that we should all speak one language, but that it was the Devil who made us speak many tongues.’
‘Now I heard a similar story,’ corrected Eadulf. ‘In that version it was God Himself who scattered the language of Babel to the four corners of the earth to create many languages.’
‘That is not what the priest told me, Brother Eadulf. He said that after the dispersal of the language it was our great King Fenius Farsaid who sent scholars to the four corners of the earth and, with God’s blessing, they gathered a knowledge of the seventy-two languages that had come from the dispersal and had then put together the best of each of them, trying to recover the one true language. And they did so and the language was called after Fenius’ fosterling Gaedheal Glas, and that is why our language is called after Gaedheal for he brought the language to this country.’
‘So what language did God mean us to speak, Muirgen?’ Eadulf tried to sound solemn but he knew laughter was not far away.
Muirgen saw his expression and flounced off in annoyance. At once Eadulf felt contrite. He realised that he should have known better than to make sport of other people’s beliefs and he called her back with an apology.
‘I meant no disrespect to you, Muirgen. All I say is that, in place of a common language, the more languages we can absorb the more we can understand and communicate, especially with our neighbours. I believe it will be a sad day when languages are destroyed because we do not appreciate them. Why, just think what would be lost if, in the fullness of time, the very language of the Kings of Éireann is destroyed and its culture lost?’
Muirgen turned with a laugh. ‘Now you are making fun, Brother Eadulf. Sooner will the mountains disappear than that will ever happen. But I will allow that Alchú, if his mother so wills it, may speak what languages he likes. That is because the lady Fidelma is a noble, the sister of a king and a descendant of kings,’ the woman said, as if that was the explanation.
‘And is not Alchú my son as well?’ Eadulf found a note of hurt creeping into his voice. He felt guilty once more for snapping at the woman, for she was a simple soul and did not mean to rouse his insecurity. Under the law of the country he had been classed as a cú glas, literally a ‘grey fox’, which meant an exile from over the seas without any rights and no honour price. On his marriage to Fidelma, her family had acknowledged him and he was elevated to the status of deorad Dé, exile of God. He therefore was bestowed with half the honour price of Fidelma’s rank, but without the rights or responsibility for rearing his own children. It was Fidelma who had the final say in such matters. But Muirgen would not, perhaps, have known this. She would not have questioned him on that account. Nevertheless, it was often difficult for Eadulf, as a foreigner in this land, to feel totally secure.
He was about to frame another apology when the door opened and Fidelma herself came in.
‘Are you ready, both of you?’ she asked brightly.