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ten years old. The last thing I remember before they marched us to their boat was the sight of my chickens bound by the feet and hanging over the shoulders of one of the raiders as he carried them away.
    â€œI barely remember the miserable trip across the Eastern Sea and I don’t know where we landed, though it must have been somewhere on the coast of Ulster. We were herded into a pen with other female captives to wait for the auction that would come the next day. I clung to my mother and sisters, but they were in no shape to provide me comfort. The raiders had been particularly hard on my mother, probably because she was older and wouldn’t bring them much of a profit. Shehad grown sick on the voyage from Britain and burned with a fever. By morning she was dead.
    â€œI was sold to a druid who pulled me away from my sisters as I begged them not to let me go. I never saw them again and don’t know if they are still alive somewhere on this island. I hope for their sake they are not. I will spare you the details of my captivity since you know how slaves are treated in your homeland. They are the lowest form of life, a class beneath contempt, given no more respect than a dog, often less. I did as I was told or was beaten. I was frequently beaten anyway. I learned to keep quiet and tried to be invisible as I performed the most menial chores around the farm, often grinding grain on the quern for hours until my hands were raw. They even took away my name, calling me only cumal , which I thought was a name itself until I learned it was just the Irish word for a female slave.
    â€œMy master was a respected member of the Order. He frequently entertained high-ranking guests at his farm. I was a pretty girl then, so he often gave me to his visitors—most of them druids—as entertainment for the night. Over the next ten years, I was pregnant several times but thankfully never carried a child to term. Why would I have wished a living soul to be born into such a life? I prayed at first to God to free me as he had freed the Israelites from captivity in the land of Egypt, but there was no escape. Even if I could have fled, I would have been an élúdach , a runaway slave. Where could I have gone? According to your laws, even a king could not help me if he found me on the road, not that he would have wished to in any case.
    â€œOne autumn, my master took me with him when he officiated at a religious ceremony not far from here. He used me on such trips to cook his meals and to provide ‘portable recreation,’ as he called it. On the road he met a druid friend ofhis, and the two sat down to have a drink of honeyed wine. His friend kept looking at me in a way with which I was all too familiar and soon asked if he might have a few minutes with me. My master was glad to oblige and told me to take off my clothes and accommodate him. I don’t know why, but something in me snapped at that moment. I shouted that I would rather sleep with one of his stinking pigs than give myself to another of his friends. He rose up red-faced and angrier than I had ever seen him. Not only had I dared to disobey his command, but I had shamed him in front of his companion. He grabbed me and began to hit me with his fists, then took an iron shovel from the back of the cart, beating me on my arm and face and breaking both my legs. When I fell to the ground, he kicked me again and again. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up hours later in a ditch beside the road. My master had left me for dead. As I lay in the mud, I prayed that God would let me die. A farmer and his family passed by in their wagon, as did a group of druids, hurrying to some sacrifice, no doubt. No one gave me a second glance.
    â€œThen as the sun was setting and the cold was beginning to creep up my limbs, a sure sign of the end, a small woman appeared, wearing a strange hat. I thought she must be an angel come to take me to heaven, but she