Brendan

by Morgan Llywelyn

  Over the years Brendán had become familiar with the bishop’s style of coercion.

  The covert threat of force sweetened with honey, but force all the same.

  He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m freeborn. I have the right to make my own choices.”

  The bishop’s voice rose. “I am responsible for your spiritual well-being. You must obey me in this matter.”

  Brendán slitted his eyes. “All right. If I can’t be a monk I’ll become a Druid; I might even study to be a brehon, like you. Following in your footsteps, as you said.”

  Erc’s suddenly livid face would have alarmed his wife. “You blaspheme! May God forgive you!”

  “Where’s the blasphemy in being a Druid?” Brendán asked, as casually as if he were inquiring about the weather. “Aren’t Druids ordinary men and women with special gifts—gifts which our God gave them, even if they don’t recognise him?”

  Veins throbbed visibly in the bishop’s temples. “Be careful what you say, young man! Hell yawns beneath your feet!”

  Brendán looked at the ground as if searching for something. Looked up again. “I don’t see it.”

  Erc’s forced smile was like the rictus of a corpse. “If you refuse to be serious, we can talk about this at a later time. I have work to do now. Other people need me.” He walked away.

  Brendán made a rude gesture at his back.

  Each had said things he regretted. Neither would undo his words even if he could.

  When the bishop made his rounds of the parish he asked Brendán to accompany him. It was a formal request, formally accepted. No other conversation passed between them. Erc watched the boy out of the corner of his eye. Brendán was his to shape and mould, and he would not—could not—accept rebellion. He had allowed his godson considerable leeway in the past but it was time to reaffirm his authority. The lamb must not stray from the flock.

  He was determined.

  As they approached the dwelling of Gaeth’s family, the fisherman’s youngest daughter recognised Brendán and ran out to greet him. They had played together in the past, frolicking like healthy young animals.

  He was older now.

  So was she.

  After a moment’s hesitation, the girl flung her arms around Brendán and pressed her parted lips against his. Her mouth was wet and warm. Her breath mingled with his breath.

  Brendán thrust the girl away from him with such force that she sat down hard on the sand. “Don’t do that!” he said in a hoarse voice. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  As they walked back to Tearmónn, Eirc the bishop said, “Your chastity does you credit, Brendán.”

  The boy shot a glum look in his direction.

  I didn’t want to be harsh with the girl, but the ardour of my nature was now apparent to me. My rejection of Gaeth’s daughter wasn’t about chastity. It was about Íta.

  In his journal Brendán related, ‘After informing Bishop Erc of my desire for a monastic life I returned to Slane with him.’

  Being Irish, they found it impossible to make the journey without speaking to one another. After the first few miles they were talking again. Politely. About safe subjects. By the time they reached Slane no one would have been able to tell they had quarrelled.

  The breach between them was not healed but patched over. Neither mentioned it, and after a time the relationship continued—almost—as before, with the exception that Brendán’s future was never discussed. He continued his studies with the bishop. When Erc paid his quarterly visits to Altraighe-Caille, Brendán accompanied him and never complained about being pressed into hard labour.

  Whenever possible he took a boat out on the bay. Letting the sea carry him. Watching the horizon.

  Or standing on the headland of the High Grave. Watching the horizon.

  In the Year of Our Lord 500, the use of incense was introduced into Christian church service. Across the Irish Sea, the native Britons celebrated a major victory over the invading Saxons at Mount Badon. And at Slane, the bishop’s wife coughed her life away in a bloody froth. Eithne died as she had lived: unobtrusively.

  Brige commented, “She never really settled here, Brendán. In her heart she yearned to go back to Altraighe-Caille, where life was hard and the bishop needed her.”

  Eithne was laid to rest in the burial ground behind the church, with Brigid’s cross on her bosom, beneath her clasped hands. After the funeral I walked back to the house with Bishop Erc. The years he had thrown off had returned to him in full measure. His face was ashen; he dragged his feet and stopped several times to catch his breath. Brige had a fire on the hearth to warm him and a pitcher of honey wine to comfort him, but they did him no good. As we sat by the fire, Erc said in an almost inaudible voice, “Eithne was with me at the beginning. She was with me through everything. Now everything is over.” I was shocked to realise he was crying. Huge, silent tears poured down his otherwise impassive face.

  Within a week Erc’s flesh began sagging from his bones. The ruined shoulder stood up higher than ever, a hook from the sky upon which his body hung. His parishioners predicted, “The bishop will die before spring.”

  He did not. He merely stopped being alive.

  While Brendán’s real life was about to begin.

  Chapter 10

  Following Eithne’s death, the bishop carried out his duties as scrupulously as ever, though with an abstracted air. When every bud was pregnant with spring, Erc summoned his godson. “Eithne used to say I was being unfair to you,” he admitted to Brendán. “She thought you had a right to live your own life.”

  Brendán could not help smiling. “I’ve never disagreed with Eithne about anything.”

  No smiles were left in the bishop, who said sombrely, “There comes a time when a man must reflect on what he has done well and where he has failed. If I have made a mistake with you…let me put it this way. You have learned all I have to teach you, yet still you ask questions. Perhaps you can only find your answers in the wider world. Towards that end I have decided you should undertake a peregrination….”

  “From the Latin peregrinator, meaning a pilgrim,” Brendán interrupted excitedly. “You’re saying I can go on a pilgrimage?”

  “If your foster mother approves.”

  Unaccountably—from the bishop’s viewpoint—Brendán’s windburned cheeks flushed red at the mention of Íta. “I’m a man now. Do we have to ask her permission?”

  “Of course we do; Sister Íta’s place in your life is indisputable. I have sent her a letter about the matter and await her reply before proceeding. It is always possible she will not agree, you know. There are dangers to consider. Not only wild animals in the forests, but also outlaws who will kill you for the sake of your few belongings. You could fall in a boghole and drown. Or you might sicken and die in a place where no one will ever find you.

  “There are other less obvious hazards, Brendán. You may meet others who are undertaking spiritual journeys similar to yours, but you should travel alone. I cannot stress this too much. You need to be able to observe and contemplate without distraction. The way of a pilgrim is an education in itself, and the search for truth and enlightenment can lead down many different roads. The value is in making the journey.”

  I had stopped listening. Imagination is a wild horse and mine was running away with me again. I watched Íta reading Erc’s letter, staring into space in deep thought, then putting quill to paper and…no, coming in person to ask…to say…

  What could she ask? Or say? The walls between us had been in place from the beginning. Only a child would think it possible to breach them. And I was no longer a child. I could dream a man’s dreams in the privacy of my head; in my vault of bone.

  Erc was saying, “The experience will be of inestimable value to you in your priesthood, Brendán.”

  Suddenly recalled to the moment, the young man looked blank. “Priesthood?”

  “Why would I send you on a pilgrimage if not to prepare you for the priesthood?”
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  As part of the maturing process, Brendán had learned to think before speaking. “You know my desire for a contemplative life,” he said after a pause, “and you have remarked on my chastity. Surely you must agree that God has fashioned me for the monastery. What do you suppose Eithne would say about it?”

  Erc knew Brendán was attempting to manipulate him; behind those innocent eyes lurked a guileful mind. But the fight had gone out of the bishop. It was enough of a battle to get up every morning, put clothes over his aching body and force food down his unwilling throat; fulfil the endless ecclesiastical obligations he had so willingly undertaken; crawl back into a cold and empty bed at night and struggle in vain to fall asleep. Eithne would say….

  What would Eithne say? He tried to hear her voice but it was very faint. Fading away.

  Gone to God. Fortunate woman. She always had the easier path, Erc told himself.

  “The purpose of a pilgrimage is to seek truth and spiritual enlightenment,” he said aloud, passing an age-spotted hand over his eyes, “which you obviously need. If Sister Íta grants her permission, you may go.”

  “Go where? In what direction?”

  “Wherever God sends you,” the bishop snapped. Would the lad never outgrow his constant questioning? “When you accept that you are meant for the priesthood, come back to me for ordination.”

  In a low voice Brendán said, “Not when. If.”

  Erc pretended not to hear.

  After several weeks the bishop received a reply from Íta. Erc did not show her letter to me. “You have her permission,” was all he said.

  ‘My lessons with Bishop Erc concluded,’ Brendán wrote in his journal, ‘I became a peregrinator. A pilgrim needs a stout heart, a strong walking stick, and sturdy sandals. I equipped myself with these, plus a cape of oiled leather and a belt to which I attached my necessaries: a hand axe, a razor, my pouch of flints, a few strips of soft leather for making small repairs, and a packet of iron fishhooks. Slung over my shoulder was a bag containing bread and smoked fish.

  “Securely strapped to my back was my manuscript satchel, or cumhdach, containing a precious Psalter which I had copied out myself in neat but not particularly artistic Latin script. My cape would protect it in inclement weather.”

  I had also—and without asking the bishop’s permission—copied the list of ecclesiastical communities he had compiled to aid in soliciting recommendations for an abbot for the new monastery at Slane. Monastic foundations adopted the constitution devised by their founder, so the chosen man would be expected to conform to Erc’s tenets.

  Except for Clon Ard—I had no desire to see Ninnidh again—I planned to visit a number of the monasteries on the bishop’s list.

  ‘Religious communities were springing up everywhere. At the edge of the Western Sea a hardy order of monks inhabited offshore islands barely big enough for seabirds. Abbeys in the boggy midlands were being built on narrow strips of solid land surrounded by vast marshes, corresponding to Erc’s dream of a “desert.” Wherever they could, monks and nuns opened schools to offer the gift of literacy to the local population.’

  A person taught to read through the Scriptures became Christian by absorption.

  On the bright morning when Brendán left Slane, only his sister was on hand to bid him goodbye. “The bishop slipped out during the night to visit one of his parishioners,” Brige explained. “He said not to wake you.”

  I interpreted Erc’s absence as a rebuke for my refusal to submit to his will. But as I walked away the bishop already was receding into the past. The unknown future lay ahead. I could hear the sun singing.

  It was good to be travelling again.

  Eschewing roads, Brendán set off across country. Roads were primarily for trade; he was looking for something which could be neither bought nor sold.

  The first monastery Brendán visited was a couple of days’ walk from Slane. Mochta, a Briton and disciple of Patrick, had been in Meath until opposition from a local chieftain forced him to move northwards. There he had been allowed to establish a monastery at a settlement called Louth, in honour of Lugh, the god of the sun.

  Christian peacefully supplanting pagan. Patrick would approve.

  Mochta’s monastery was known as Teach Naomh Mochta— Mochta’s House. Almost as old as Erc, the abbot was a short round loaf of a man, warm from the oven and given to expansive gestures. When he flung wide his arms to greet Brendán the nearest monks hastily stepped out of the way.

  As was required of an abbot, Mochta had shaved the top of his head in an ear-to-ear tonsure and wore a hooded robe and sandals. “Dear brother!” he cried as if he had known Brendán all his life. “Dear, dear brother, how happy we are to welcome you! What news of Slane? And dear Bishop Erc, how is he? I keep promising myself I shall visit him but you see how things are, we are terribly busy, it seems as if a new man arrives almost every day to take his vows here, not that I expect that of you, of course. But come along, we must give you some bread and salt and then there are a few of the brethren I want you to meet…” Without giving Brendán a chance to reply to any of this, Mochta hustled him into the heart of Teach Naomh Mochta.

  The large monastery was thriving. More than three hundred monks lived and prayed and worked among numerous structures of timber, or wattle-and-daub, scattered across a rolling meadowland. Mochta personally conducted Brendán on a guided tour. “You have to see everything,” he kept insisting, “in case you change your mind about Slane.”

  “But I haven’t decided…”

  “Well that’s all to the good then, isn’t it? Here’s our chapel, I know you’ll appreciate the wonderful light inside, everyone does, and…”

  Mochta did not walk; in spite of his age and the dignity of his office, he bounced. He hummed like a hive of bees. I found his joviality, so different from Bishop Erc’s restraint, delightful, and searched my hard-won Latin vocabulary for words to describe the abbot. Ebullient. Effulgent. Effusive. Then, as the day wore on and he was still in full spate: excessive.

  In the dusk we came to the edge of monastery land. A grove of apple trees marked the boundary. Wild and gnarled, each tree growing in its own chosen shape.

  The heady smell of fruit ripening sweetly in the dark.

  I wanted to sit in silence on the grass, just being there. Mochta would not hear of it; we returned to the church to add our voices to all the others singing the praises of God.

  A week later I finally succeeded in extricating myself from Teach Naomh Mochta. I had never been more warmly welcomed. But it was not my place.

  Every day at sundown the pilgrim read from his Psalter. No matter how weary Brendán was, the beauty of the Psalms refreshed him. On clear nights he also read the map of the sky to orient himself. If darkness overtook him in the vicinity of a hostel he accepted hospitality, though he ate sparingly. More often than not, nightfall caught him in the open. Partially covered by his cape, he fell asleep under a bush or in a cave or—once—in the crotch of an immense tree.

  He always set out again before the last star vanished.

  Dawn was a sacred time. The earth held its breath as if waiting to be born. Then sunrise lifted the lid of the day, releasing a flood of light to push back the darkness. In gratitude, a single sweet, piping note of birdsong was followed by an explosion of jubilation as thousands of small choristers defined their territories for the new day.

  Every day required a new definition.

  Freed of supervision, Brendán’s true nature began to assert itself.

  When the sun shone and the earth smelled sweet, I so rejoiced in the goodness of God that I thought my soul would burst from my body.

  If rain brought melancholy—an emotion as common among the Gael as exuberance—he slouched along with his head down, letting the water stream off his leather cape.

  Far too often the wind carried the sound of battle. It might come from any direction but there was a deadly sameness about it. Men roaring and taunting one another; the clash of iron; the
screams of pain.

  War defined the Gael. A tribal people on a small island, they fought for territory and status. When too many young men had been killed and the women were grieving, the warriors might, for a time, practise a highly stylised warfare that resembled sport, but sooner or later they reverted to a more deadly form of combat.

  They gloried in it.

  As a small child I had believed the life the nuns led was typical of life everywhere. Íta’s warrior kinsmen were, I thought, a gaudy exception.

  I had it backwards.

  The first time Brendán heard the cacophony of battle he considered following it to the battlefield and preaching Christ’s message of peace to the combatants. Erc might have. Patrick would have.

  Brendán went in the opposite direction.

  I wasn’t physically afraid. Irish warfare followed explicit rules: during a battle, warriors only attacked warriors. Any other behaviour was dishonourable. But I didn’t have Erc’s gift, much less Patrick’s, and I was very afraid of making a fool of myself.

  Brendán might walk for days without seeing another human being. The major event of his day could be an encounter with a red squirrel who sat on a tree branch and scolded him. At first he tried to interpret every incident as a message from God, but soon realised he was trying to force a meaning where none existed.

  There were mornings when I awoke turgid and brimming with the force that had set the stars alight. Mornings when I was grateful to God for giving people bodies with which to experience, even in a tiny way, the rapture of creation.

  When his food supplies were exhausted, Brendán fished. Tearmónn Eirc had accustomed him to a meagre diet, but walking required considerable energy. By spreading a net at the mouth of a stream during the dark of the moon—eels only travelled in the dark—he caught a bagful of the silvery creatures. He subsisted on these and watercress until the merest thought of eel turned his stomach.