Erc hid his disappointment behind a smile. “Should you someday feel otherwise…”
Lughaidh smiled too; a smile he carefully measured to correspond to the exact degree of cordiality expressed by the bishop. “In that unlikely event, I shall know where to find you,” he said.
As the days passed Erc discovered a physical energy he had thought long lost. He spent the dark months travelling around his new diocese and making plans for its future. When summer came he intended to create a major ecclesiastical community around the Hill of Slane. New priests would be trained for the new parishes he would carve out of the surrounding forest and grassland. Erc also planned to found a monastery which he would endow with a pure gold chalice and paten for the chapel altar.
There was a certain coolness between the bishop and his wife in the matter of that chalice and paten. The bishop had brought them from Tearmónn Eirc wrapped in sacking, and let no one else touch them.
The organisational abilities of the new bishop of Slane were soon recognised. Erc’s geographical proximity to Tara made him the most central senior cleric in Ireland. Other bishops conferred with him about the hierarchal arrangements of the Church; abbots visited him to discuss canon law.
The former brehon was in his element.
Meanwhile life at Slane was easy for Eithne, as her husband had promised. Too easy. She had spent long years learning how to pare a rind of cheese to release the tiniest scrap of nourishment; how to boil fish bones and skin and seaweed together into a glutinous soup that would fill the belly, even if it disgusted the palate. All that was soft in Eithne had long since been discarded. Now when she had enough to eat, she had no appetite. Now that she slept in a cushioned bed, she could not sleep. Nor did she have work to do. The women of the parish fought among themselves for the honour of cleaning and maintaining both the church and the bishop’s house, and were constantly bringing gifts of food.
Even Brige complained—good-humouredly—that her hands were idle. At the bishop’s suggestion she devoted herself to the study of Holy Scripture and long, earnest prayers from which she derived a placid satisfaction.
As soon as winter’s mud began to dry, work began on the new monastery. The site Erc had selected was some distance from his church—and visible from Tara. The bishop laid out every detail with great care. The monks’ huts and refectory would be built of timber, but Erc insisted on a stone chapel. “Christianity must build for the ages,” he said.
Unlike Finnian of Clon Ard, Erc rejected the dual role of abbot and bishop. An abbot’s control was limited to his monastic parish, while a bishop’s control was territorial.
Brendán went to watch the construction of the monastery chapel. He knew nothing of the stonemason’s art but fishing had made him strong, so he offered to help. At first he only lifted and carried. After a day or two a mason gave him a chisel and explained the rudiments of shaping stone. As the walls rose he felt a growing sense of pride.
In my imagination those walls already resonated with music.
On the first day of spring a deputation of nuns led by Brigid, the abbess of Cill Dara, paid a courtesy call on the bishop of Slane. The group included women from several nunneries who jointly contributed a set of embroidered linen altar cloths, the work of their own hands.
I recognised her immediately, even in the distance. That quick, eager step, the roundness of her bosom, the waterfall of hair revealed when her hood fell back…
The abbess of Cill Dara was famous. Some called her “the Mary of the Gael.” Her father, Dubthach, was a king in Leinster, and she had been fostered by a highly respected Druid; a man converted to Christianity by Patrick himself. As soon as Brigid was old enough to return to her family Dubthach had sought a husband for his daughter. His requirements were rigid: a man of property who had the grazing of at least five hundred cattle and was also a poet. Poets were the equal of princes.
Defying her father’s will, Brigid had sought out Mel and Macaille, two of the many bishops ordained by Patrick. She convinced them that she wished to commit her life to Christ. Brigid and seven other noble women then knelt at the bishops’ feet and took solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
The nunnery the women subsequently established at Cill Dara, the Church of the Oak, was the first of its kind in Ireland.
Brigid had become a familiar figure on the high plain where the warrior aristocracy raced their horses. Unimpressed by titles, Brigid repeatedly confronted chieftains and kings, blocked their view of the track, and preached the Gospel to them. She was an indefatigable traveller who founded one religious community after another, sought freedom for slaves and captives, and was renowned for her many acts of charity. Her wise counsel was sought by the leading chieftains of her time.
The bishop often spoken of Brigid in reverential tones. He admired her as he did no other woman. They were of the same class and had made the same leap of faith. Giving hospitality to the Mary of the Gael would bestow vast prestige upon Erc. As he went out to meet her he positively glowed.
The historic nature of the occasion was lost on me. I had eyes for only one woman that day. Brigid and her nuns dressed all in white, but Íta was wearing the grey wool she always wore.
Íta.
She must have been old enough to be my mother, yet she possessed the ageless beauty Christ often bestows on his brides. When I saw her at Slane after so many years I could only stand and stare. Trying—desperately—not to remember my dreams, the torment and ecstasy of my dreams.
My dreams of Íta.
Lost in conversation, Brigid and Erc walked up the hill towards the church. The other nuns followed at a respectful distance while Brendán’s sister trotted at their heels, enthralled.
Brendán approached one of the nuns. “Do you not know me?” he asked.
There had been a time when Íta had to crouch down to meet my eyes. Now she had to look up to me. There was a network of fine lines around her eyes. Tracks left by laughter. They made her even more beautiful to me because I loved her laughter.
“Braon-finn?” she said hesitantly.
“They call me Brendán now.”
“I know. Bishop Erc has kept me informed of your progress. I hoped you would be here with him today.”
Hoped. She said she hoped! My imagination ran away with me.
Íta recognized the blue eyes and black curls, but all else was changed. The little boy she remembered had grown into a strapping youth taller than his years. Strong, masculine features were emerging from the childish softness of his face. He was almost old enough to take up weapons.
Her skin tingled the way it did when there was thunder in the air.
She continued following the bishop towards the church. Brendán fell into step beside her. Neither of them spoke.
At the doorway of the church Erc fell to his knees to pray. Brigid and the other nuns knelt behind him. They look like a flock of white doves, thought Íta. She turned to share the thought with Brendán. When she met his eyes her skin tingled again, almost painfully this time.
“I never forgot you,” he said.
With an effort she looked away. Lowered her eyes and folded her hands in prayer.
Inside the church, Íta managed to interpose other nuns between herself and Brendán. Yet she could feel his eyes on her. Like sunbeams. Like daggers.
Following Mass, the bishop conducted a tour of the still-incomplete monastery. Afterward, the party converged on the bishop’s house for a feast. Eithne had heard Brigid’s name often enough over the years, and was gratified to discover that the celebrated woman was older than herself.
Brigid had a gift for making others comfortable. Upon entering the bishop’s house she made a point of admiring the flowers in the pitchers and the burnished copper bowls piled with apples. She credited every charming detail to Eithne. Before the day was over the abbess of Cill Dara was asking the bishop’s wife for advice on the domestic arrangements in her own abbey.
She also gave Eithne a cross wov
en of rushes; an elegantly simple design of her own.
Throughout the day, Brendán was acutely uncomfortable. He felt certain that Íta was avoiding him. He had to talk to her. But whenever he came close she engaged someone else in animated conversation, or slipped away with other nuns to look at this or that or something else. The woman who had always taken time for him now had no time for him at all.
No one paid any attention to the morose youngster who loitered around the edges of the group. No one but his sister, who brought him a cup of wine and asked if he was hungry. “Not now and not ever again,” Brendán growled. She raised her eyebrows and left him alone.
After Compline the nuns retired to the guesting house. Brendán followed them, sauntering along as if he had no particular destination in mind. Once or twice he tilted his head back to admire the panorama of the evening sky. Arriving at the guesting house as if by accident, he peered around the door.
Íta was crossing the room with a pile of blankets in her arms. She felt, rather than saw, his presence, and turned towards him. The acute distress on his face prompted her to hand the blankets to another nun to distribute. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised.
Spring was in the sunlight but winter lingered in the darkness. She paused long enough to put on a woollen cape before emerging from the guesting house. She had only gone a step or two when Brendán caught hold of her arm.
Gently but firmly Íta disengaged his fingers. “Explain yourself, Braon-finn,” she said in a low voice. “Tell me what’s the matter with you. Perhaps I can help.”
Her face was a pale oval in the darkness. Memory filled in the features. “You’re beautiful,” he blurted.
He had intended to speak as one adult speaks to another, impressing her with his maturity. When the moment came, the words tumbled out beyond his control. He sounded like Erc talking at top speed. “I’m going to be a priest and the bishop will ordain me and I want to take a wife and be part of the community so will you marry me?” He stopped, alarmed by sound of his own words. It had all gone wrong somehow. “Will you marry me then?” he amended.
Íta laughed.
He was so young, so funny and earnest that she could not help herself. The laughter rippled out of her.
Brendán was horrified. He took one step backwards. Then another.
Turned and ran.
Chapter 9
Her woman’s heart realised the situation too late. Íta ran after Brendán, calling to him, but his long legs swiftly carried him beyond the range of her voice. She returned to the guesting house distraught. When she knelt beside her pallet she appeared to be praying, so no one disturbed her. No one noticed the tears running down her face.
Brendán hid in the woods west of the hill until the nuns left Slane, then returned to the bishop’s house. “I went out to see a friend,” he told Eithne. “We had a…misunderstanding, and I needed some time to think it over.” It was as much truth as he could manage.
Eithne made no comment. She understood that the male has things on his mind which do not concern women.
After several days—and nights—of silent suffering, I set out to repair the damage in the only way I knew: through the word.
How I agonised over that letter! I spent an entire morning on the riverbank, selecting gorgeous, poetic words, and stringing them together like beads to make irresistible phrases.
When I was satisfied I spoke my message aloud, the way I thought Íta would hear it in her head. Disaster. The effusive composition was totally wrong; not like me at all. Not like anyone Íta would want to know. I began again, still reciting aloud, changing words here and sentences there, then throwing everything out and starting again until I was weary of the sound of my own voice.
The final text of the letter was simple in the extreme. “Forgive my childish outburst,” I wrote. “I was so glad to see you that I failed to express myself properly. Be assured I seek only your friendship, and offer only the true and unfailing love of a friend.”
Brendán entrusted his epistle to a trader who regularly travelled as far as the Meadow of Deep Soil. He did not fear the man would read it. Traders were good at numeracy but otherwise illiterate.
No reply was made to the letter. Nor did he expect one.
It was high summer in Meath—a lusher, leafier summer than ever experienced at Tearmónn Eirc—before Erc learned a new bishop still had not been appointed for Altraighe-Caille. “My people must think I have deserted them,” he moaned.
“These are your people now,” his wife reminded him, but he was in no mood to listen. He prepared to return to the Altraighe at once.
The members of his new diocese were outraged to think their bishop might travel in an oxcart. They insisted upon equipping him with a pair of fast horses and a high-sided, four-wheeled chariot, plus his own charioteer.
Erc was embarrassed. “Christ lived as did the poor, for he served among the poor. I can hardly do otherwise.”
A local chieftain with more sense than tact pointed out that Erc was not a young man. “If you hope to spend any more years as bishop of Slane, you need to take care of yourself now,” he told the bishop.
Before Erc was a priest he had been a brehon; he could never argue against logic. He accepted the chariot.
Eithne warned, “You will wreck your health entirely.”
“What better sacrifice could I offer to Christ?”
“Then take me with you.”
“Do not be ridiculous, woman; I would not dream of taking you away from your comforts here. Besides, chariots are not appropriate for women.”
For travelling companions Erc had only Brendán and a charioteer with large, square teeth, like those of his horses. The man was a skilful driver but never stopped talking. He even answered his own questions, eliminating conversation. Afterward Brendán retained only two clear impressions of the journey: the speed of a galloping team, and the nonstop monologue of a man with nothing to say.
To the bishop’s dismay, Erc’s sanctuary was growing shabby. The timber-framed gateway was sagging on its hinges; the structures within the lios were giving way to the constant assault of the weather.
The priest Erc had left in charge of the parish was well liked and the Altraighe thronged to the little church, filling it to overflowing, yet they never seemed to notice that the buildings were in need of repair. Their boats were in more need of repair, as were their nets. And the dwellings where their families lived.
Bishop Erc set to work on the same day he arrived. He drew up a long list of tasks and organised a work party that included every able-bodied person in the parish.
Ruan was glad to see Brendán again. “I can read and write!” the dark boy exulted as the two worked side by side clearing a drainage ditch. “Not a lot yet, but enough.”
“You still want to enter a monastery?”
“It’s all arranged. Next month I’m going to Clon Ard.”
“I don’t want to discourage you,” said Brendán, “but…”
Ruan rushed forward on the wave of his excitement. “At Clon Ard they’ll teach me to illumine manuscripts!”
“Ah. Of course.” Brendán decided not to mention Ninnidh. Instead he smiled approvingly and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’m really happy for you,” he said.
The highlight of the bishop’s visit was the ordination of seven new priests; two of them members of the Ciarrí Luachra. Afterwards Erc announced to the congregation, “I plan to divide my time between Tearmónn Eirc and Slane until Rome assigns a new bishop for this diocese. It is an oversight they will soon rectify.”
I think Erc was secretly delighted to have two dioceses. The work was too much for a man of his age, yet after he made the announcement the years seemed to fall away from him.
Is the concept of time something that man invented? Like truth, or justice? Are we as old as we think we are? If the soul is immortal, then the essential Me inside my body is timeless.
As soon as he could slip away unnoticed
, Brendán visited the cairn on the headland. He felt no urge to pray; the site had no connection with Christianity. Yet the Gael in him recognised a sacral place.
“Sister Íta, will God ever speak to me?”
“Perhaps, Braon-Finn. If you open your heart to him.”
“When will he speak to me?”
“When you least expect it.”
“But how will I know his voice?”
Íta had taken the little boy’s hand and held it to her ear. With his small forefinger she traced the intricate whorls. Next she moved the finger to the child’s ear and followed the pattern there. “Every person is unique, Braon-Finn. Every one is made to hear God in a different way.”
Brendán wrote, ‘During that visit to Tearmónn Eirc I made a momentous decision.’ It did not come easily. I tiptoed around in my mind for a long time, afraid of disturbing the new idea being born there. When it was fully fleshed I took it into the light and studied it. Saw the roundness and rightness of it.
Brendán waited for several days before confronting the bishop. He was hoping for a right time but there was never a right time, so he finally plunged in anyway. “You want me to be a priest,” he said to Erc as the bishop was donning his vestments for Mass, “but I’m convinced that God has fashioned me for the contemplative life.”
Erc drew himself to his full height—an effort, because his damaged shoulder restricted his posture—before replying. “You are still only a boy. How can you presume to know what God intends?”
“How can you?” Brendán shot back.
Erc said evenly, “This is a childish rebellion, you will forget it tomorrow.”
“It’s not rebellion, I’m simply acknowledging something I’ve known for a long time. I’m strongly attracted to solitude. That’s the way God made me, so it must be for a reason.”
The bishop’s expression had hardened like drying mud. “Years of work have gone into preparing you to follow in my footsteps; you have been more thoroughly educated than any member of the Altraighe. Listen to me, Brendán. You are going to enter the priesthood. Make no mistake about it.” The mud softened a little; hinted at a smile. “But I promise you this: when the time comes I shall ordain you myself here in Tearmónn Eirc, and invite your entire tribe to share in a great celebration.”
Brendan Page 10