Most of all Ruan hated the incessant roar of the waves. Unlike the rest of his tribe, he had never learned to ignore the elemental voice which filled his waking hours and underscored his sleep.
The voice Brendán loved: the belling of the silver-horned stags.
Who knows why two people become friends? Perhaps it is shared interest, perhaps shared experience. Perhaps just familiarity.
Or perhaps friendship is a gift from God.
One day Brendán remarked to Ruan on the increasing number of would-be monks at Tearmónn Eirc. “I’ve never seen a monastery myself,” Brendán said, “but I suppose they’re rather like Tearmónn Eirc. In places where there’s more stone than timber, that’s what they use to build them.”
“Must be dark inside,” Ruan commented.
Brendán laughed. “They must have lamps, or at least candles, for those who are copying manuscripts. Prayer is the main occupation of monks, though, and they don’t need much light for that; only peace and quiet.”
Ruan raised his heavy eyelids. “Would a monastery be very quiet, then?”
“I suppose so.”
Ruan shifted weight from one foot to the other. “How does a man become a monk?”
“He’d have to be a Christian, of course, and I suppose it would help if he could read and write.”
In that moment Ruan knew he had found his calling. “I’m a Christian, Bishop Erc baptised me. But I can’t read and write. Would the bishop teach me? If you asked him? Remind him that my father helped save your life.”
Brendán regarded his friend with astonishment. “Why would you want to be a monk?”
Ruan shrugged. “It’s that, or fishing.”
The arrangements were soon made. “By the time you leave Tearmónn Eirc you will be welcome in any monastery in Ireland,” the bishop assured Ruan. “But you shall have to work very hard, very hard indeed.”
Ruan shrugged. “I’m used to hard work.”
When Brendán offered to help tutor his friend, the bishop agreed. Ruan learned quickly, like a man grabbing a lifeline. Their work together cut into the time Brendán spent on the bay, but he did not begrudge it. He simply got up earlier and stayed out longer.
How did I manage to cram so much into those days? Was it merely the energy of youth—or was time flexible, expanding to suit my needs?
Is there even such a thing as time? Is it not just a point in eternity? We believe our years march forward through time but do they not, perhaps, circle around it instead?
Brendán could not ask such questions of Brige, whose mind rejected abstractions, or of Ruan, who was fully occupied with the simple task of opening his mind at all. So Brendán phrased his query within his own head and waited for God to answer.
One day when the two friends were in the scriptorium studying a manuscript, Ruan asked, “Why do you want to be a priest, Brendán?”
“I’m destined for the priesthood.”
“I was destined to fish. But I’m not going to. That’s what I want to do,” he said, pointing at the page open before them. Elaborate black letters written on creamy vellum. Swirls of coloured inks entwined like ivy. Gleaming gold leaf. “The bishop says we should devote the work of our hands to God. I have two good hands. God’s welcome to use them. I’d rather make something beautiful than gut fish.” He flashed his rare, radiant smile.
While young men like Ruan prepared for the monastic regimen that one day would give Ireland an unequalled reputation for scholarship, the barbarian tides continued to roll across Europe.
The last of the food the angel gave us was only a memory by the time Aedgal caught sight of an island on the horizon. A favourable wind promptly filled our sails. Our boat glided over the water as smoothly as milk glides down the side of a pitcher.
I smiled to myself, recognising the hand of God.
When we drew near the island we saw a huge number of fat sheep. They were as large as cattle and covered the ground like drifts of snow. “Where could they have come from?” Brother Molais wondered. “There cannot be enough grass on the whole island to produce such magnificent creatures.”
Brother Solám wondered, “Where is their shepherd?”
But they were alone.
As we beached our boat, the sheep turned their faces towards us. Calm, gentle faces, filled with the patience animals know but Man has forgotten. They placidly watched us come ashore. A few lambs even walked forward to greet us, extending their tiny muzzles to sniff our fingers.
“Today is Maundy Thursday, the beginning of Eastertide,” I reminded the brothers. “We shall conduct divine service here. As you see, we are being presented with the Spotless Sacrifice.”
The sheep watched me with their yellow eyes.
I sent the monks out among the flock to select one. “Bring me the finest animal you can find,” I told them. “The sacrifice must be worthy.”
Eventually they selected a mighty ram. He offered no protest when they tied a rope around his horns and led him back to me. I placed my hand on the forehead and gently scratched the animal between his great curving horns.
I said Mass while the ram stood quietly beside me.
Afterwards I removed the rope and set him free.
And we sailed on.
Chapter 7
In a sun-drenched city on a hot spring morning, two men in heavy clerical robes sat on opposite sides of an olivewood table. The table’s surface was lost beneath an avalanche of documents. The older priest, who was plump and red-faced, withdrew a scrap of soggy linen from his sleeve. “Today is even hotter than yesterday,” he remarked as he mopped his brow.
His newly-assigned secretary was quite young, yet habitually wore the expression of an old war horse during a bad day on the battlefield. “If you were not so fat the heat would not bother you,” he said cruelly. Although the secretary resented any suggestion that he had obtained his position through family connections, he was oblivious to offending others. “Here, can you explain this?” He handed a thin sheaf of documents across the table.
The older priest gave it a cursory glance. “These are changes of appointment. What do you not understand?”
“The last item on the second page.”
“Ah yes. Finisterre, the end of the world.” He smiled. “Patrick’s place.”
“Patrick?”
“Patricius the Briton, have you heard of him?”
The secretary suspected he was being patronized. “My grandmother’s brother knew Patricius very well,” he claimed through tight lips. “They were the greatest of friends.”
“In Rome?”
“Of course in Rome.” The reply was too hasty.
Liar, thought the older priest. He mopped his brow again. “Your grandmother’s brother was fortunate in his friendships,” he said dryly. “Patricius has become something of a legend. After he went to Ireland he ordained over three hundred bishops. Some of them are still living, I believe, such as…” He ran his eyes down the list. “This one. Erc, bishop of Altraighe-Caille. Make a note: he should receive a copy of the new Missal when they become available.”
The secretary gave a derisive snort. “What extraordinary names those people have. ‘Erc’ sounds like a bone caught in the throat. Why is he on the list?”
“It is puzzling,” his superior agreed. “He must be quite old by now. Such decisions are made higher up, of course, and we have no way of knowing the reasons behind them.” Just as I will never know why I have been burdened with a clod like you, he added silently. “All we need do is sign and stamp the document and pass it on.”
“Our good deed for the day,” the younger man grumbled.
His colleague gave him a sharp look. “Do you have any objection?”
“I never heard of this man before. How can we know he is worthy? I should not like to have my good name connected with a mistake in judgement.”
It already is, the older priest thought to himself. He gazed out the nearby window at the dusty, torpid street, where a lean brown dog
cowered before a group of boys who were taunting it. The leaves of the trees drooped in the heat.
The dog abruptly bared his teeth and snarled at his tormentors. They backed away.
The priest laced his fingers across his chest. “Why not take the day off,” he suggested, “and visit your relatives? Surely they can tell you everything you want to know.”
The young priest gave a disdainful shrug. “When I have served my time here I might like to travel like Patricius, and make the whole world my classroom. Surely I could arrange such an appointment for myself.”
“I’m certain you could,” the other man replied. Under his breath he added, “and the sooner the better.”
In his journal Brendán wrote, ‘During the years I spent at Tearmónn Eirc Ireland prospered. Life remained hard on the rim of the Western Sea, but elsewhere, to use the words of the poets, “the rivers were fish-full, the kine milk-full, the trees heavy-headed.”
‘In the Year of Our Lord 496, Pope Gelasius, the bishop of Rome, introduced the Gelasian Missal, a book of prayers, chants, and instructions for the celebration of the Mass. By the time copies of the Missal reached Ireland, Gelasius would be dead, but another decision of his was having powerful repercussions.
‘In late autumn of 496 Erc learned he had been appointed bishop of Slane. The appointment came as a surprise to us.
Surprise is an understatement. We were thrown in a heap.
“Why are they doing this?” Eithne wailed when her husband gave her the news.
Years had passed since the last time Rome responded to any of his reports on conditions at Tearmónn Eirc. Erc was as baffled as his wife by the new appointment. “Rome never explains, Eithne,” he reminded her, trying to conceal his own dismay.
But she knew. “How dare they transfer you to another diocese after all this time and all the work you’ve put in here!”
“I assume they need me,” Erc said quietly.
“There are plenty of other men.”
“Few with my experience, and certainly none who have such an intimate connection with Slane.”
“What about your intimate connection to me!”
“Ah, Eithne,” said the bishop. That was all. “Ah, Eithne.”
Brendán happened to witness this exchange. He made no comment, but he remembered.
That night Eithne greeted her husband at the door by saying, “You’re not being asked, you’re being ordered. Even a fish can decide where to swim, but not you. Rome decrees, so we must leave our home and these people and the church you helped to build with your own hands. Your church, husband!”
A muscle twitched in the bishop’s jaw. “It is Christ’s church,” he said.
When he awoke the following morning the first words he heard were, “I’m too old to be dragged across Ireland and start over again from nothing.”
Erc tried to placate her. “I have been thinking about that, and decided not to ask it of you. You can stay in this house, where you feel at home, and Brige will remain behind to look after you. When a new bishop is appointed for the diocese you will be given the house at Fenit to live in. It’s a fine house, Eithne.”
Under her tongue his wife kept a list of the many small injustices her husband committed against her over the years. Unremarked, his crimes had multiplied to fester in the darkness of her mouth like a miser’s fortune. Treasures hoarded against the time of greatest need.
The time was now.
“How dare you suggest such a thing?” she shrieked at him. “Would you abandon me as if I have no value? My father was a cattle lord, or have you forgotten? You’re very good at forgetting what’s inconvenient to remember. When we married my father provided me with a dowry of gold because the Druids predicted you would be chief brehon someday. What happened to that dowry, Erc? What happened to it? You can’t tell me you’ve forgotten about that!”
He looked away.
“For our wedding I had a silk gown dyed with sloes and embroidered with gold thread. Do you remember my shoes laced with silver? And how your fingers trembled as you unlaced them?”
Erc braced himself like a man facing into the teeth of a storm, but said nothing. A man cannot lose an argument if he does not take part.
The storm gained force. Eithne began pacing back and forth, wringing her hands as she spoke. “When the high king summoned you I thought we would join the court at Tara, which shows how wrong a person can be. I expected our daughters would marry princes of the Uí Néill someday. But oh no. Instead you met some lunatic on the Hill of Slane and came running home to tell me you’d found a new god. The high king was furious and so was I—not that you asked my opinion.
“Before the year was out I’d been half drowned in cold water to make me a Christian and you were calling yourself a bishop. We left the mildest climate and richest soil in Ireland to come to this bare, bitter place. For a while we were in actual danger—did you think I was unaware of it? People gathered outside the lios, muttering and burning fires.
“I’ve worked myself grey-headed turning this house into a home for you. Did you ever notice? Did you ever say ‘Thank you, Eithne’? You thank God for every little thing but you never thank me.
“And that’s not the worst. Instead of joining the clan of the high king, our girls married into the Ciarrí Luachra and we never see them anymore. We are an embarrassment to them, Erc! Crazy Christians ranting at the end of the world!”
Eithne stopped walking; turned to face her husband. Her voice sank to a moan. “Once I ate apples and soft bread every morning, and fat meat and honey wine at night. I used to be plump and pretty; when I arranged my hair young men begged for strands from my comb. Do you remember?”
Erc dare not show pity. She would cry if he did, and he had no defence against a woman’s tears. “Come with me and you will have apples and soft bread again, Eithne,” he coaxed—though for all he knew it was a lie. The documents from Rome in their precise Church Latin had carried no practical details. Nothing concerning living arrangements.
His wife’s body, so vulnerable a moment before, went rigid. “I won’t go with you, ever, and that’s that. I simply will not go.”
In the end, she did. It was Eithne who packed their clothes and necessary household goods—pitifully few of either, she thought to herself as she worked. With Brige’s help she loaded them into an oxcart; the same cart that had brought the priest who would take over the parish of Tearmónn Eirc. Both men assumed a new bishop would soon be appointed for the diocese of Altraighe-Caille. In the meantime Ruan was to continue his studies along with the other novices, under the guidance of Erc’s replacement.
“An ordinary priest,” Eithne muttered under her breath to Brige. “As if just anybody could do what my husband does. And an oxcart! Everyone who is anyone rides a horse or has a chariot at his command, but not a bishop, oh no. If my husband were still a brehon…” She set her lips in a thin line.
Brendán was almost as unhappy as Eithne. What could replace the beloved smell of the sea, or the belling of the silver-horned stags?
With heavy heart he sailed one last time to the narrow harbour at the foot of Diadche. As usual, the summit was concealed by a swathe of mist. During the years Brendán lived at Tearmónn Eirc he had planned to explore the peak, yet somehow never did. He always promised himself, “Tomorrow.”
Now his tomorrows were claimed.
We think we have forever. But we don’t.
Brendán made his way around the bay to say goodbye to his friends the fishermen. Sundown found him on the little promontory, standing with bowed head beside the cairn of white stones.
Goodbye. God be with you. Goodbye.
The following morning Brendán assured Ruan, “I won’t forget you.”
“I won’t forget you,” his friend echoed. Ruan stood in the road and watched the oxcart dwindle into the distance. A long time passed before it disappeared. Oxen walk slowly.
The bishop’s family began their journey in silence, cocooned in their privat
e thoughts. Erc rode in the front of the cart with a bundle wrapped in sacking carefully placed between his feet. Eithne sat behind him, facing backwards by her own choice, while Brige and Brendán walked with the yoked bullocks. From time to time Brendán tried to provoke them into a trot by slapping their haunches with a willow rod.
The cart lurched and jolted on its wooden wheels.
Eithne clenched her teeth.
As they left the sea behind, the sky lost its nacreous glow. For the sake of hearing a human voice in the midst of wilderness, Erc said, “We have a lot to think about. A Christian community should provide a perfect home for religion, education, and industry, and is best established in a location with no outside distractions. That may be difficult in the Boyne Valley, which is good ploughland and well populated. Yet we must aspire to what our brothers in the east call a ‘desert’ a diseart, a deserted place where one can hear the voice of God. Monasticism was born in the desert for good reason.”
Eithne sighed.
Brendán thought about the headland of the High Grave, and the harbour below Diadche.
Furze yielded to forest. When the trees closed around them the bishop stopped lecturing. The bullocks swung their tails at tiny, sharp-biting flies.
“Is this the right direction?” Brendán asked. “Are we going outwards?”
Erc’s temper frayed. “Must you question everything? A Christian submits. We are going in the direction the Church sends us.”
Night caught them in the mountains.
The only hostel they found was a damp timber hut with sleeping pallets laid on the bare earth. The only luxury provided was the mandatory basin of water for washing.
The bishop lay awake much of the night. The more he thought about his situation the worse it seemed. The hopes he could nourish by daylight evaporated in the dark.
Brendan Page 8
