Fortunately he found a farm where the woman of the house filled his bag with cheese and blood pudding and freshly baked bread. “We’ve had pilgrims here before,” she said cheerfully. She was squint eyed and flat chested, but her voice was as sweet as a meadowlark’s.
“Are you a Christian?” asked Brendán.
“I believe in everything,” she said.
He began to meet other wanderers. The first of these was an exceedingly thin man with a round red face, like a ripe apple on a spindly branch. The man was sitting crosslegged on the ground, dolefully examining the sole of his foot.
Brendán sat down beside him. “I am Brendán, son of Finnlugh. If you are in difficulties can I be of some assistance?”
“I am Gowrán, son of Echrí,” the other replied. “God has put a splinter in my foot.”
Brendán was intrigued. “How do you know God put it there?”
“Who else could have?”
“I would assume you stepped on the splinter yourself.”
“I did, Brendán. But God ordained that my foot should touch the ground on that exact spot.”
“Is the splinter causing you pain?”
“Only when I put weight on my foot. Perhaps that means God doesn’t want me to go any further. What do you think?” Gowrán looked earnestly into his face.
“I think you can’t sit here forever. Let me have a look.” Brendán took the grimy foot into his hands. “Have you no sandals?”
“I had soft leather boots until I met an old woman who was barefoot.”
At first impression Gowrán appeared to be slow-witted or holy or both, as sometimes happens.
After Brendán removed the splinter from his foot Gowrán said, “God sent you to rescue me. That means he wants me to go on walking.”
“Are you a pilgrim, then?” Brendán asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’m just…going.”
Disobeying Erc’s injunction—when did I not?—I invited Gowrán to accompany me for a way. Not out of charity, but of curiosity. Good acts don’t necessarily arise from good impulses.
Gowrán was not a talker. He preferred to listen, and replied only if a reply was expected. Brendán knew how to communicate with a quiet man, so he carried the bulk of the conversation yet listened attentively when Gowrán spoke, and was content to share long, undemanding silences.
Gowrán, Brendán learned, was six years older than himself and the youngest son of devout Christian parents. He possessed a rudimentary knowledge of Church Latin. His thinness was deceptive. In hilly country they found a narrow defile which would save them a steep climb, but a boulder blocked the way. Gowrán lifted the massive stone as if it were a pebble and set it aside. When Brendán remarked on his strength he was embarrassed.
Gowrán had nothing of the warrior’s arrogance; modesty ran all the way through him. Brendán hazarded a guess: “Do you come from a clan of farmers?”
“I do,” Gowrán affirmed. “They don’t travel.”
“Then why do you?”
“To see more,” he replied.
Gowrán could find food and drink whenever he wanted. He was adept at extracting soft fruits from a thicket of brambles without getting scratched, and could scamper up a tree and shake down enough nuts for a meal by the time Brendán had spread his cape on the ground to catch them. His keen nose could usually lead them to the nearest stream, but if none was available, he could detect an underground spring by a change of temperature in the bare earth.
Brendán knew how to fish but Gowrán was an expert at snaring small game. He adjusted each trap to its intended prey, utilising angles and leverages without any training in mathematics.
My first impression of the man had been wrong. Gowrán was intelligent, not merely educated. His body was attuned to the world around him; his spirit saw far beyond. On an afternoon when rain played the drums of forest leaves, Gowrán stated with absolute certainty, “Heaven smells like summer rain.”
I believed him.
After a few days in Gowrán’s company Brendán concluded that he himself talked too much; to his own ears he sounded as pompous as Bishop Erc. “Have you ever noticed,” he remarked to Gowrán, “that we tend to talk like the people we know?”
“Adults do,” Gowrán replied. “Children talk like themselves.”
When they came to the shores of a large lake, Brendán turned south. Gowrán turned north. “I’m going this way,” said Brendán.
“I’m not,” responded the other man.
Brendán did not question his decision. The friendship they had developed was based on respecting each other’s boundaries. “I’ll be sorry to lose such amiable company,” said Brendán as they parted.
“We live on an island,” Gowrán pointed out. “If you keep travelling and I keep travelling we’ll meet again sometime—provided we don’t jump off.”
Yet many years later, that is exactly what we did.
After many days at sea we came to a rock-ribbed island that contained the ruins of a village and a stone fortress. We searched the island and found no living being, yet inside the fortress were beds stuffed with clean straw and covered with woollen blankets. The larders were filled with cheese and butter. The stone ovens, still warm to the touch, contained loaves of freshly baked bread. Silver bowls of summer fruits and golden goblets brimming with wine were on the table.
In the best tradition of Gaelic hospitality, a cauldron of heated water waited just inside the door, so we could bathe our hands and feet.
“This feast is a reward for our faith,” I told my companions.
They ate and drank their fill, making up for many days on short rations. Afterwards they went to bed, covered themselves with the soft blankets, and soon fell into a deep sleep. Just as I, the last of them, was about to close my eyes, I saw one of the uninvited monks get up. I said nothing but lay in the shadows, watching. Moving stealthily, he approached the table and took one of the gold goblets. He hid it in his clothing and then lay down again.
I did not sleep well that night.
Three days later, as we were about to leave the island, I asked my companions to return anything they might have taken from the place. “Nothing here is ours,” I reminded them. “Everything we have used must be returned to its rightful owner.”
“But who is the rightful owner?” Fursu asked. “We have seen no one since we arrived.”
“The owner’s name does not matter, nor do we need to see his face,” I said. “These things do not belong to us.”
They assured me they had taken nothing. “One of you has been tempted to steal,” I said with a heavy heart, “and must return what he has taken. Then the devil will leave you. We cannot allow a man who is possessed by Satan in our boat.”
The brothers exchanged glances. The man who had stolen the goblet contrived to look more innocent than anyone else. “I for one am an honest man,” he announced. He looked around as if daring anyone to contradict him.
I waited, unmoving, prepared to wait until day turned to night and back again if necessary. At last the thief fumbled with his clothing and withdrew the golden goblet. “Forgive me, Little Father,” he said in a broken voice. A moment later he gave a great cry. Dropping the goblet, he clutched at his chest and fell forward onto his face. He never moved again.
I knelt beside him and felt his throat; turned him over and listened to his chest. My eyes filled with tears. “Our friend is dead,” I told the others. “The devil has left him and he is at peace.”
We buried the first of the three uninvited monks on the island and raised a cross to mark the spot.
Then we sailed on.
Chapter 11
Brendán rambled on, accepting hospitality where he found it, tilting his face up to the sun, baring his head to the rain. Listening to the calls of inland birds, the melodious lark and thrush and warbler, and missing the screech of the gull. The belling of the silver-horned stags.
Perversely, once I had attained the solitude I craved I began to lo
ng for the sound of a human voice. Once or twice I doubled back to revisit some clan I had met earlier, to warm myself by a family hearth and share the trivia of family life.
When he came to a river too deep or too rapid to ford he went looking for someone with a boat. Talking with men who fished the river was like coming home. He could spend the better part of a day examining the construction of a boat; learning its strengths and weaknesses and how it differed from the vessels he knew. He might help to mend a damaged boat or tie a torn net. Or go home with a fisherman and spend the night with him and his family, still talking boats. And water. And weather.
The great constant: weather. A man walking across Ireland learned to know weather as intimately as the lines on his own palms.
Mindful of his calling, Brendán always sought a way to introduce Christianity into the conversation. He might not have Erc’s gift for preaching to a crowd but he was comfortable talking on a more intimate level, where he could get direct responses.
When he came upon a man tending a flock of sheep he noticed a clumsily fashioned wooden cross on a thong around the shepherd’s neck. Pleased by this sign of the spreading faith, Brendán said, “I see you believe in Christ.”
Without taking his eyes off his flock the shepherd replied, “No. But I believe in men who believe in him.”
How does one acquire faith? Is it taught or does it come from personal experience? Does the source make a difference in the quality?
How had I come by my faith?
Responding to an intuition, one morning he threw down his staff and stretched his body full length on the ground. He was not tired. He was wide awake and full of energy, as a man should be when he seeks to absorb knowledge.
The way of a pilgrim is an education in itself.
Lying on the grassy hillside, he listened to the frantic scrabbling of insects scurrying away from the sudden giant in their midst, the faint sigh of the grasses he was crushing, even the tiny shifts of grains of earth adjusting to his weight. Brendán focussed his entire attention on the unfolding events around him….
…until he became aware of another sound, at the furthest reaches of audibility. He strained to hear.
The earth was humming.
The earth was humming!
The sound was faint yet distinct, similar to but not the same as water running through an underground river. Or blood through veins. From time to time the sound climaxed in a discernible pulse.
Why did I never notice before? All of Creation sings. Countless different voices but one song.
He lay enraptured. The sun above sang, the earth below hummed, and Brendán was a pinpoint of consciousness transfixed between them, not merely himself but part of an immense Whole.
The emotion he felt was too enormous for joy.
At last the awareness of time passing dragged him to his feet. Dark clouds were gathering over the distant line of mountains and a cold wind had sprung up. He began walking again.
Time.
Do we progress through time? Or…and did I not wonder about this before…do we circle around it?
Consider the act of walking. One step after another. During just one step an entire life can be lived in the imagination; indeed, entire but miniscule lives are being lived under our feet. In God’s time are our lives no longer than theirs?
God’s time…
Brendán was so preoccupied he failed to notice the standing stone half-hidden by a growth of holly. Unaware, he passed from one tribeland to another. Grassland gave way to woodland. When the moan of the wind became a howl, Brendán hurried towards a stand of ancient oaks. He could shelter among them until the storm blew over. Propping his staff against a tree, he searched in his food bag for a bit of cheese.
Why is it you can find everything else, but not the one thing you are looking for?
As silent as fog, they came up behind him.
The point of an iron spear touched the back of Brendán’s neck. With a violent start, he whirled around.
The spear was levelled at him by a man so tall his feet almost touched the ground on either side of his small brown stallion. He was arrayed in the multicoloured regalia of a Gaelic warlord. The solid gold torc around his neck was as thick as an infant’s wrist. Accompanying him were a dozen warriors on foot, armed with spears and short swords.
“Your name and tribe,” their chief demanded. Brendán did not recognise his accent.
“Brendán of the Altraighe.”
“Judging by your speech, you’re a long way from home,” the man observed. “What sort of name is Brinn-donn?”
“Latin. I mean, it’s the Latin version of…”
“You’re a foreigner,” said one of the warriors. He drew his sword from its sheath with a rasping sound.
“He’s not a trader, though,” another observed. “No cart and no merchandise. And no weapons.” He spat on the ground in contempt.
Their chieftain shifted weight on his horse. “What are we to do with you?” he asked Brendán in a conversational tone. “You’re trespassing on our territory. We could kill you, but is there any benefit to be gained by it? I can see from here you have nothing worth owning.”
“I’m only a pilgrim.”
“A pilgrim.” The man on the horse sneered beneath his extravagant moustache. “And what’s that when it’s at home?”
“A person who travels in search of…” Brendán hesitated, aware how ridiculous this was going to sound to a dozen heavily armed men. “…in search of truth and enlightenment.”
The chieftain turned to his followers. “Now where would a man find truth around here?” he asked with exaggerated seriousness. “We’re all honest, aren’t we? Perhaps Brinn-donn would like to meet our friend Innatmar. There’s a man who knows a thing or two about enlightenment. Bring him!” He slammed his legs against the horse’s sides and trotted away.
Two burly warriors seized Brendán. He was strong but they were stronger. They bent his arms up behind his back with seasoned expertise and hustled him along after the man on the horse. His protests were ignored. He might as well have been a bullock going to slaughter. To avoid being dragged he straightened up as best he could and broke into a shambling run.
One warrior followed close behind Brendán, reaching out every few steps to poke his neck with the tip of a sword. The skin in that area became acutely sensitive. “Stop that!” Brendán shouted.
Up ahead, the chieftain gave a harsh bark of laughter.
He led them deeper into the forest.
There were no bushes in the deep shade; only ferns and brilliantly green moss amidst timeworn stones. The air was damp and peaty. Brendán noticed an unpleasant residue of acrid smoke. Something had burned here recently.
No birds were singing.
In a small glade lit by a slanting sunbeam, the chieftain halted his horse. “I strongly advise you to show respect, Brinn-donn. You wouldn’t want to insult Innatmar. He has unpleasant ways of retaliating.”
The men who were holding Brendán released him and stood back. He straightened his disarranged clothing and ran his fingers through his hair. His staff was lost; left far behind. Perhaps when this was over he could find it again.
He waited.
His captors looked expectant.
Nothing happened.
Brendán felt sweat trickling down his back. At last he said, “Where is Innatmar?”
“Here,” replied one of the trees.
It took a moment to realise that the speaker was not a tree, but a man wearing a hooded robe the colour of tree bark. He emerged from among the oaks with a peculiar, gliding gait. The chieftain saluted him with a nod of the head. His warriors did the same, though they nodded twice instead of once.
The robed figure did not salute anyone. “What have you brought me?” he asked the chieftain. His voice was the rustle of leaves.
“This person is called Brinn-donn, and claims to be looking for enlightenment. I thought he might require the services of a Druid.”
&nb
sp; The warriors sniggered.
Innatmar thrust his face into Brendán’s. His breath was like damp earth. “You are not of our tribe,” he stated flatly.
“I come from….”
“Therefore I am not obligated to give you the benefit of my gifts.”
“I’m not asking for….”
“Hospitality must be observed, however,” the Druid continued inexorably. “Tell me what you need.”
“Actually I have everything that….”
The Druid looked towards the chieftain. “Enlightenment?” he queried.
“That’s what he said.”
“Ah. Light for the head. Wisdom.” Innatmar turned back to Brendán. “No one can have enough wisdom, nor could you begin to contain a fragment of the knowledge I possess. What do you most want to know?”
After all the years and the unanswered questions, a real Druid stood before me, offering explanations. I could not help staring at him. He was clean shaven; even the hair of his head had been shaved away in front to make his forehead a high, bare dome. The hood prevented me from seeing if he was entirely bald. His face was unremarkable, with deeply lined skin and a gently curving mouth…
…that smiled at me.
Suddenly I was chilled me to the bone.
Until that moment I did not realise that Erc’s prejudices had become mine. The questions I should have asked dried on my tongue.
Brendán forced himself to speak. “Your knowledge means nothing to me, pagan.” He meant to sound defiant but his voice faltered.
The Druid raised his hand. Brendán shrank back. The warriors seized him again and held him immobile.
Innatmar touched the young man’s right temple with one bony forefinger. Pain lanced through Brendán’s head; he felt nauseous. Tiny swirls of blue and green light danced around the perimeter of his vision.
Brendan Page 12