He squinches his eyes tighter, willing away these uncharitable thoughts. He wishes he were as simple as they say, so simple he had no idea of their resentment and suspicion. He might, he thinks, have just as well stayed home, for he was a pariah there and is one here. He opens his eyes and along the horizon shines the red-gold promise of day. The fog shifts and a shaft of sunlight blazes across the water. The dawn chorus begins as seabirds wheel and cry. The pain in his heart lessens as the sense that God is alive and Christ close by engulfs him. Christ with me, Christ in me, Christ before me, Christ behind me … He places his grief at the feet of Christ, asking, as he always does, that Christ make use of him.
Later, he approaches his amanchara, his soul-friend and confessor, Father Bresal, as he walks the beach collecting seaweed in a basket on his back.
“May I carry that for you, Father?”
“Brother Egan, you gave me a start!” The old monk arches his back and rubs his arthritic hands together. His tonsured head is liver-spotted and peeling from the years of battering sun and wind.
Egan eases the basket from the old man’s shoulders and transfers it to his own. “This is too much for you. You should let the younger monks do this.”
“The pain in my back reminds me of the pain Our Lord suffered carrying his cross.” He smiles, revealing his few remaining teeth. “I cannot mind that.”
For some time they walk the beach together, sun warm on their skin, salt taste on their tongues. The basket slowly fills. They will use the seaweed to feed the cattle, to fertilize the vegetable plots, and to eat themselves. Food is not plentiful here, but they never go hungry.
“Do you need to confess, my son?” asks Father Bresal.
“I have been uncharitable in my thoughts.”
Father Bresal sighs. “Again?”
“It is a weakness.”
“What troubles you?”
“The same trouble. It’s me, I know that, but what to do about it evades me.”
Father Bresal stoops and picks up a white shell. He turns it over and reveals a little crab inside. He walks to the edge of the sea and gently places the creature in the water. “Some things wander into areas that don’t suit them. Like that little fellow. The gulls would have pecked him out of that thin shell in a moment.”
Egan stops and shifts the straps on his shoulders. He looks out to sea, not wanting to meet Father Bresal’s gaze. “Are you saying I’m in the wrong place? That I don’t belong?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m saying you could use a thicker shell.” He reaches up and places his gnarled hand on Egan’s shoulder. “We’ve talked about this. You’re so very … fervent, my son. Which is a good thing, of course it is. Your heart is pure, there is no doubt in my mind of that. But you must temper your enthusiasm. It unsettles others. If you want to be seen as an equal, you might try acting like one.”
Father Bresal has never spoken to him so bluntly. It’s as though his confessor has rapped his knuckles. “How can you say that? All I do is try not to offend, and help and pray for them …”
“But must you be the least offensive, the most helpful?” Father Bresal chuckles. “Living in community is challenging, my son, but always being shown up as not quite good enough by a stranger who arrives on the backs of dolphins and spouts off about visions of angels makes it near impossible.”
Egan steps back. “You cannot be suggesting I deny my vision, deny my angel?”
“No, but perhaps you needn’t wrap yourself up in your piety quite so tightly.” Father Bresal puts his hands on either side of Egan’s face. “Listen to me. You are a good boy. You are, I believe, touched by God, but that’s not an easy thing to be. It frightens people, and frightened people do not behave well.”
“I’ll try harder, Father.”
Father Bresal chuckles. “You might do well not to try at all. All this struggle, all this strain. One might think you don’t trust God to do what must be done without your help.”
Egan’s hands rise in front of him, as though to push away the horror of such a thought. “No, no. It isn’t that. I only mistrust myself, my worthiness.”
“And is not being more unworthy than most a sort of hubris?” Father Bresal turns to face the sea. “Look, Brother Egan, look at the waves. Some larger, some smaller, some rolling, some spraying, all part of the great body of water, each playing their part without worry. You can almost hear them laughing as they reach the shore. Be like the waves, Brother. Be just a little merry. Rejoice and simply do your part.”
With that, Father Bresal raises his hand in blessing and turns to walk back to the compound. Egan understands he shouldn’t follow. He wants to ask his confessor how he can rejoice when his visions have abandoned him. It’s as though he died out there in the water and all that remains is a damaged husk. The image of his mother returns: she throws up her hands in frustration at finding him in tear-filled prayers, kneeling on the rocky outcropping on the cliffs. “Why can’t you be like your brothers, Egan?” she’d cried. “Get into mischief as the other boys do. You’ll draw the Devil to you with all this piety.” He still feels the sting of her palm against his cheek. “Worship the Lord by minding the sheep, for if you lose another it’s your father you’ll answer to.”
He had tried. Truly he had. As he tries now. But it’s never enough. Or the right thing. Or what’s required. Still, there had been peace among the sheep and the cattle. The beasts don’t find him strange or worrying. He learned his Latin, learned the dialects of the Scotus and the Picts and the other peoples of the region. He now spends his days toiling in the scriptorium, but perhaps one day he might be allowed to tend the sheep and cattle as he had done at home. He watches the waves roll and shimmer and play. Perhaps he is simply not suited to the company of men.
The shutters on the south-facing windows are thrown open, and the light in the scriptorium is bright and soft with the scent of sun-warmed grasses and stone. Twelve desks with steeply angled writing boards stand around the perimeter of the room and at each one a monk sits. A large table takes up the centre of the room and on it lie a number of parchment sheets, wax tablets, quills made from geese and swan feathers, pots of charcoal, copperas, vermilion, egg whites, and other tools for writing and illuminating manuscripts. The only sound is the scratching of quills, the song of skylarks as they fly past the window, and the twittering of goldfinches.
Egan has just finished marking the parchment with the back of his knife, scoring the skins to ensure the lines of text are straight. It has taken considerable pressure to impress the lines through all eight leaves. Using a short, sharp knife, he trims the sides of a goose quill to form a nib and then makes a slit up the middle and a square cut across the point. He will have to sharpen the quill sixty times or more before the day’s work is finished.
He transcribes the biography of Columba from a master sheet held to the top of the writing board with a wooden clamp. He works slowly, trying to move his wrist just so, gracefully, so the letters are pleasing and easy to read, although they look more like the scratchings of a chicken than the elegant writing of the other monks. A spot of reddish-brown ink globs onto the page and he catches his breath, using a piece of linen to blot it. It’s not too bad, not ruined. With his knife he scratches away the top layer of parchment, and the offending ink. He tries again.
A calico cat, one of many mousers in the monastery, jumps up on the table beside the angled board, and Brother Egan gasps as it nearly upsets a pot of ink, but it manages to tiptoe around the danger. It settles in a ray of sun and begins to purr.
“What a sweet lady you are,” says Egan, for all calico cats are female. His heart returns to its normal rhythm. He scratches her under the chin. She rolls onto her back, twisting into an arc. Egan strokes her belly and feels the thrum of her purr under his hand, her delicate rib cage vibrating.
Someone clears his throat. Brother Donnan, at the desk in front of Egan, glares over his shoulder. Egan pulls his hand away from the cat, dips his head, and returns to h
is work.
He is not supposed to draw illuminations. He is only to copy the text. He doesn’t have the talent for the more artistic endeavours. And yet. The cat is so beautiful. It speaks of calm and trust. He returns to his work, the nib scratching … Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. He looks again at the cat, perfect simply as she is. This, too, is a kind of praise. Perhaps if he drew just a small cat right there, next to the holy word, just as the cat sleeps next to the holy word as he writes it … Might not some distressed soul, looking for serenity, find comfort in such an image?
He makes a mark on the page, in the margin, the sweep of the cat’s back, curved like a little shell. The tail comes round to her face, trusting, placid, at peace. The little cat opens an eye and looks at him, as though checking on his progress. He chuckles.
“Brother Egan!”
Someone slaps him on the back of his head. He starts and the cat jumps away so quickly it’s as though she was never there. He’s jerked his arm and left a great swath of ink across the page. He begins to blot it, turns to the voice. “Father Kenric, forgive me—”
Father Kenric is a short man with a wide girth and a ruddy face. He has the voice of a much larger man, and now every monk in the scriptorium turns to see what the fuss is about. “What have I told you time and time again? You are not satisfied doing the ordinary work, I see. You fancy yourself above such things. Well, you are not above such things. You are disobedient, Brother Egan. What was it last time? Dogs playing bagpipes. Foxes wearing robes.” Father Kenric’s mouth and brows are pulled down in an expression of grave disappointment. “I have been telling the abbot you are not suited to this work. Do you think you are suited to it?”
“I think you’re wiser than I am, Father.”
“You need humbling, Brother Egan.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Father.”
“Perhaps you’ll find your way among the sheep.”
And so Egan once again has his duties changed. He has spent time in the kitchens and in the gardens, has repaired the fishing boats and nets. Each time he fails. He spills the soup, daydreams in the fields, and tears the nets. Now he has returned to the task of his boyhood.
But lambs, like Brother Egan, have a way of getting into trouble.
It takes him a long time to find the lamb, and when he finally spots her it is well past Prime and the sun has risen. Egan has missed the service, but he cannot leave the lamb in such distress. It has tumbled from the cliff and is wedged between rocks. The little one’s mother shakes her head and paces with nervous, dancing feet, by the drop-off. Egan is afraid she, too, will fall. The other sheep stand in a watchful mass some feet away, their eyes following him. Do sheep pray? he wonders, and then fears this is blasphemy.
He lies on his stomach, with his head and shoulders beyond the stone lip. The lamb’s eyes roll back and periodically it struggles, trying to rise, although it seems its leg is caught in a crevice, possibly broken. He tells it to be calm, that he will find a way to rescue it. He would leave to get help, but every time he turns away, the crying of the lamb is so pitiful and it struggles so much more intensely that he dare not abandon it.
He stretches out, straining, but it’s no use. If he’s to rescue the lamb, he will have to climb down. The wind has come up and whips his scapular and habit around his legs. He will have to remove his garments to reach the lamb. The long sleeves alone, even turned back to the elbow and tied with thong, will impede his movements. He strips off his outer garments and piles them on the ground with his shoes on top, keeping only the long linen undergarment. He rubs his palms to dry them, lies on his belly, and begins inching backwards over the ledge, his toes searching for purchase and finding a little nook. The wind makes his eyes water and the lamb bleats. His linen undergarment catches on a rock and tears. He tests his weight on his foothold, then moves his hands lower on the cliff face. His feet are cramping and bleeding now. He imagines falling through space, flailing, crashing into the rocks and water below, the lamb somersaulting after him. Grope, seek, panic, find, rest. Grope, seek, panic, find … And then, at last, his foot meets the ledge where the lamb waits. Praise God.
He can just kneel down and place his palm on the lamb’s head. It feels fragile as an eggshell. The lamb bleats but doesn’t struggle. Egan doesn’t dare look down, for the drop would make him dizzy. Below, the waves crash and foam on the rocks. He closes his eyes and, when he opens them again, makes sure to focus on the wall and his own feet and the lamb. As he works the lamb’s leg free from the crevice, he suddenly realizes how foolish he’s been. He will need both hands if he is to carry the lamb to safety. How will he hold it, when it will probably buck and thrash? He stops and considers. There is only one thing to do. He strips off his undergarment and ties it into a sling. The lamb’s leg, Egan is relieved to see, is not broken. And now, he prays, climb with me, Lord Christ.
Placed in the sling, the little animal becomes quite calm and rests in the small of Egan’s back. He finds the climb easier going up but cries out as a fingernail rips. He presses on. A curious gull wheels past him and screeches. Nearly at the lip now, his heart thuds, but he feels gloriously alive. A wind gust pushes the gull away over the water and then something flaps overhead, nearly blinds him, and—whoosh—disappears. He presses his face to the rocks, but over his shoulder he catches a glimpse of his habit and scapular sailing on the air. He closes his eyes and knocks his forehead on the rock. He is an idiot.
But he is an idiot who has reached the top of the cliff. He bends his right leg as his foot finds the final hold. He pushes up and strains, grunting, before landing on his stomach in the grass. A single shoe rests before him. There is no sign of the other. He turns and looks into the water. There, far below, are his clothes. For a second the habit takes on the shape of a man before disappearing beneath the crashing waves. He frees the lamb and watches it gambol off to be with its mother, legs kicking with joy, tail wagging.
He sits down on the grass and thanks God. Soon he will have to walk back to the monastery wearing only his undergarment and a single shoe. Lord, he prays, if it is not too much to ask, walk with me when I face the abbot.
CHAPTER THREE
Ad Gefrin
Margawn summons the guests to the naming ceremony with a blast from his goat-horn trumpet. Wilona feels as though a sharp-clawed mouse is running about in her stomach. She lifts the hem of her new linen underdress as she climbs the steps to the great hall. Inside the many-timbered building, the blaze in the centre of the long firepit is welcoming and its flickering makes the figures on the tapestries adorning the walls—the horses and spear-carrying men, the boars and wolves of the hunt scenes—seem to come alive. To the right, six swans roast on a great iron spit over a lesser fire. To the left, three suckling pigs drip fat into the embers below from a similar spit. The smell is rich and wild. Bondswomen in rough-cloth tunics, their hair hidden by scarves, tend cooking pots. Drinking cups line the trestles and those at the high table are made of shimmering green glass.
The guests are awaiting the lord and lady, the rushes strewn on the floorboards rustling beneath their feet. The door opens and Ricbert, the Druid high priest, enters. His beard is grey as granite against his white robes, a wreath of oak leaves adorns his tonsured head, and in his gnarled hand he carries a sceptre made of hazel and topped with silver. His face is a mass of lines and hollows, and his brows float like moth wings above his watery blue eyes. With a measured and solemn gait he takes his place in front of Caelin’s chair. All eyes return to the anteroom door, and within moments, Caelin steps through. For the occasion he wears a diadem adorned with a small but cunningly carved figure of the horned god. His beard has been braided. His sword is richly inlaid with silver and gold, and red embroidery ornaments his robe. He stands with his chest thrust out, his chin raised and his thumbs tucked in his belt.
“Welcome. It is a time for rejoicing and gift-giving. Ricbert, your place is here by me. Lad
y Touilt, who brought the child safely into the world, take the seat across from me, in the brightest light of the fire.”
“I am honoured.”
Wilona stands behind Touilt’s chair. She thinks how like Lord Caelin it is to threaten death one moment and bestow reward the next. At his command, one by one, all the men are seated, the seasoned warriors at long trestle tables to Caelin’s left and right, the younger men on either side of Touilt’s table. The ladies gather near the anteroom door, ready to assume their duties. When the hall quiets, Lady Elfhild appears, carrying the baby. Her plum tunic sets off her blue eyes, and under the thin circlet at her brow, her golden hair, braided on either side of her face, lends her skin a luminous glow. Gold bands adorn her arms, gold clasps rest on her shoulders, amber and glass beads encircle her neck, and from her girdle hang keys and tweezers, a spindle whorl and comb. She smiles at the baby, and then lifts her face to the people.
“Lady Touilt, approach and guard the child while we drink the first cup,” she says.
Touilt takes the child from Elfhild and clucks to quiet it. Elfhild gestures to a servant to bring the great mead-filled bull’s horn, bound with bronze and dappled with blue glass and garnets. She holds the cup out to her husband. “Take this cup, my noble lord, sharer of treasure, gold-friend of men, be cheerful toward your friends, and to the babe newly born.” Caelin drinks and returns the horn to his lady, who faces the gathering and says, “I greet you, who are in kinship with Caelin, and I offer you all to drink for our friendship, in tribute to our daughter. Lord Ricbert, priest, counsellor, and friend, will you drink first?”
Against a Darkening Sky Page 3
