The promontory of Ard Fert was much nearer.
Brendán managed to slip away without being noticed, though Préachán nearly ruined it by flying after him. He walked to the strand—a totally different strand now, reconstructed by wind and tide—and turned northward.
It wasn’t there.
Even from a distance I could tell that the headland had vanished. I began to run.
Préachán flew with me, keeping pace. We went a great distance along the beach until my breath deserted me entirely, then I turned and slowly walked back, scouring the shoreline with my eyes. There was no strip of high ground jutting into the sea. No little cairn of white stones. Nothing but strangeness and emptiness.
The sea had taken the High Grave of the Milesian. And the other memorial as well.
Gone forever.
The Ciarrí Luachra demanded an exorbitant price—three years’ supply of salt—for the necessary oxhides, and the fishermen fell to work rebuilding their boats. It might be a long time before they brought in another good catch. Men spoke in gruff voices when they spoke at all. Women, jealous of their food stores, were less welcoming to visitors. Even Brendán was not urged to share a meal.
While his followers went to Diadche to repair any storm damage to the oratory, Brendán set to work on his own currach. Mending the frame, fitting additional oxhides, sealing the joins with holly resin and smearing rancid fat over the hull to make it watertight. The removable mast had survived but he had to make a new sail. Triangular in shape, it consisted of the hides of small animals. Oxhide stiffened when exposed to seawater and lost flexibility, but the skins of wolf and fox were impervious to salty spray.
When the new sail was ready, Brendán wrapped it tightly around the mast and stowed them in the bottom of the boat.
Préachán kept him company, overseeing the labour with a glittering eye. If Brendán was in a mood to talk the raven held up his end of the conversation with a complex repertoire of clicks and croaks and chuckles. If Brendán was quiet the bird was quiet too.
When his currach was seaworthy Brendán rowed to the little harbour below Diadche. “Are you ready to go ashore?” he asked his companion.
Préachán gave himself a vigorous shake and lifted his wings as if to fly. Instead, he settled back onto the prow and fixed unblinking eyes on Brendán.
The man stared back at him. Turned to gaze up at the mountain. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “This isn’t our place. Not really.”
Brendán beached his boat and climbed towards the oratory. Préachán followed, though reluctantly. Ruan saw them first and hurried to meet them. “There’s been no damage, Brendán,” he reported happily. “We built well—I mean, you built well. The oratory is just as it was. It looks like one of the clocháns leaked a little, but we’ve fitted new stones. We’ve even dug a cess pit.”
“Stay here as long as you like, all of you,” said Brendán. “You have my blessing.”
“Aren’t you going to stay with us?”
“Not now, Ruan, I’ve decided to make another pilgrimage.”
“I’ll come with you!”
Brendán shook his head. “I’m going by water this time and you hate the sea; I wouldn’t ask that of you. Besides, a pilgrimage is best undertaken alone.”
The remainder of the little band was now crowding around them. Molais and Sechnall, and Aedgal the sharp-eyed, Liber and Anfudán and Dianách the runner, Eber the tall, and Cerball the clever.
They implored me not to go; not to leave them.
Why are the most important things the most difficult to explain?
If you do explain, they don’t believe you.
Chapter 17
Brendán put a new edge on the knife he kept in his scabbard and mended a long-neglected tear in his heavy woollen cloak. He scraped the hair from six deerskins and stitched them into bags to hold fresh water. The manuscript satchel containing his Psalter was treated to an extra coating of wax to keep it waterproof and then fitted into a carved wooden box. He would carry no maps.
I had no particular destination in mind. I would simply go, entrusting myself to the will of God.
Bishop Molua was unhappy about his impending departure. Brendán was a great asset; his presence attracted new people to Tearmónn Eirc, a gift which the bishop lacked. “I don’t understand why you’re going,” he complained to Brendán. “You’ve already been on one long pilgrimage.”
“I have been on a long pilgrimage. I’ve eaten food too, but that doesn’t keep me from needing more.”
“We need you here,” Molua stressed.
“I’ll be back.”
“How can you be sure? The sea is unforgiving.”
“I know that as well as anyone does.”
“Have I said something…done something…is there any way I could persuade you…”
“You’ve been the soul of kindness, Molua, but please believe me: the journey is necessary. If I stay in one place I can teach, but when I travel I can learn. How can I do one without first doing the other?”
“The only lesson you may learn is how to die,” warned the bishop.
On the afternoon of Brendán’s departure a crowd of old friends and recent followers gathered to wish him well. As he was about to launch his currach a little boy gripped the side of the boat and clung with all his might. “Take me with you, Brendán! I won’t be any trouble, I don’t eat very much.”
The child was not yet ten years old. His audacity reminded Brendán of himself at that age. Smiling, he asked, “Why do you want to go with me, Fursu?”
“Just to be going!” cried the boy.
Fursu’s mother was running down the beach to reclaim him. “Don’t worry,” Brendán called to her, “Your son will stay here.”
As he gently removed the child’s clutching fingers from the boat, Brendán whispered, “Finish growing and study the patterns of the stars, Fursu. I’ll be back.”
He shoved off as the bells were chiming Terce.
We went out with the tide, Préachán and I. When the big waves near the mouth of the bay hit us I half expected the raven to fly away but he stayed with me. Like myself, he was not easily frightened.
“Now we wait,” I told him.
Since childhood I had been able to recognise different currents not only by their colour, but also by a subtle change of water texture against the boat. Dubán had laughed the first time I made that claim. Gaeth had believed me.
We did not have long to wait. Through the leather hull of the boat I felt the water change. A powerful current took hold of us and swept us around the coast of Corca Dhuibhne, between the last outstretched finger of land and the flock of tiny islands that lay in the Western Sea.
We were away!
A series of deeply indented peninsulas extend from the southwest corner of Ireland. The Irish have fished these waters for millennia, but no human has mastered them. They are obedient to only one power.
In his journal Brendán wrote, ‘After leaving Altraighe-Caille we journeyed along the southern coast of Ireland, relying on a combination of sail and current. At night I beached the boat wherever I could and Préachán and I slept ashore. Sometimes I was offered hospitality.’
And sometimes I had to make a run for my boat with my robe flapping around my legs and the raven flapping above my head. Ireland was becoming Christianised—not pacified. Among the Gael one did not necessarily imply the other. The majority of baptised warriors continued to seek battle, and saw no contradiction in their behaviour.
We clerics were fond of referring to ourselves as “Warriors for Christ.”
Perhaps that was a mistake.
By assiduous employment of the currents, Brendán rarely needed to raise his sail. There was time for contemplation.
Viewed from a boat, Ireland took on a different aspect. Her eroding ramparts predicted the future. Land was intractable, but sea was relentless; constantly moving and endlessly adaptable, it combined a bold frontal assault with subtle undermining. The
sea was destined to win the battle.
Ireland, Brendán realised, would disappear.
“I mourned the destruction of the promontory of the High Grave,” Brendán said to the raven, “but nothing will survive forever—except our souls. And the Church, of course.”
Préachán cocked a questioning eye at him.
Is the Church the creation of Our Lord? Is it not, at least partially, the creation of the men who write its laws?
But…
God is implicit in the fact of having created Man. He also gave us the imagination to develop a religion which satisfies our emotional needs. Therefore he made the Church.
But…
What about the religion of the pagans? Was it not developed in the same way?
Do trees and rocks have a religion?
What about animals?
I wondered if deer have souls, but that was before I found Préachán. He taught me that he is a person in his own right. So is every living creature. We are all God-kindled.
The animals were not thrown out of Paradise—only humans were. Unconfused by trying to make their creator resemble themselves, birds still sing their morning song to the true God.
One evening they camped in a sandy cove encircled by low cliffs. The wind tingled with the possibility of sleet. Brendán tipped his boat onto its side and propped up one end with driftwood to provide shelter for the night. At dawn the raven began searching for edibles along the fresh tide line. The man left the cove and walked inland with two empty water bags.
Instead of fresh water Brendán found a solitary ash tree. Straight as a spear and leafless. Silhouetted against an amethyst sky were twelve large blackbirds perched on the outermost twigs: tiny twigs which could not possibly bear their weight. Evenly spaced, they formed a perfect halo around the top of the tree.
Below them on the grass was a broken circle of standing stones.
Brendán felt a dizzying convergence of pagan and Christian time.
Or was it all the same?
He ran back to the cove to tell Préachán, “I have seen the twelve apostles!” His face was lit with wonder.
“Churrk,” commented the raven.
They resumed their voyage.
As the boat reached the last outcrop of land the waves gathered strength. The colour of slate and crested with foam, they rolled on towards an empty horizon. Yet the sea between the island of the Gael and the much larger island of the Britons was said to contain a number of lesser islands, many of them ignorant of Christianity.
Brendán shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed towards the east. Nothing; nothing but water.
The traders said otherwise and the traders knew their business. They were as trustworthy as the stars when it came to geography.
“If God desires it, we might reach an island before sundown,” Brendán said to Préachán. “We could be out of sight of land for a long time, though. You can turn back now if you want to.”
The raven’s staccato croak sounded remarkably like a laugh.
Brendán studied the waves, mentally pitting his strength and that of his boat against the power of the open sea. He was about to make the outward leap…when intuition bade him re-set his sail and head north along the Irish coast instead. Past hill and forest, past fishing harbours and the trading settlements of the Leinstermen.
For once he regretted listening to an intuition. When he beached the boat for the night he found no hospitality, only unrelieved darkness and the cry of some helpless animal caught in the grip of a predator. Man and bird huddled close to their tiny fire at water’s edge. The raven did not tuck his head under his wing. He stayed awake. Watching.
The next day was much the same. The night was worse. When the sun rose it gave no warmth. Brendán’s exhalations formed a silver cloud in the air.
The voyage continued. Past river mouth and tidal bay, past the war camps of the Ulaid and deserted promontory forts from an earlier era. The waves grew higher, piling upon one another. The leather boat rode the crests but dropped sickeningly into the troughs. Préachán muttered to himself.
“I’m sorry I brought you here,” Brendán told him. “You were safe in Altraighe-Caille.”
Releasing his grip on the prow, the raven flapped onto Brendán’s shoulder. His size and weight made handling the boat awkward. When he gently stroked the side of Brendán’s face with his beak, all was forgiven.
When the waves eased, Brendán briefly closed his eyes to rest them. They opened on a changed scene. Dense fog lay like a shroud over the sea. The water was flat. Instead of wind there was silence. The transformation was shocking.
Usually I am impervious to the weather. It is part of God’s creation; even the most miserable day is beautiful to me. But fog fills me with foreboding. Fog distorts reality. What is near appears to be far away; what is small appears immense. Thought is suspended in favour of instinct.
Like a sail without wind, my piece of iolite was useless. I turned it every which way, hoping for some tiny ray of reflected sunlight to reveal our position, but the stone was dull. Dead. I began to row with absolutely no idea in which direction I was going.
I wondered if we were still in the world at all. Préachán was a shapeless shadow at the front of the boat. In my imagination he suddenly vanished. Leaving me alone in Nowhere.
The terror I had never expected to feel again clenched my bowels. “Préachán!” I cried.
He answered immediately. I knew his vocabulary by this time; his resonate croak was unafraid. My own nerves steadied. I rowed on.
There are only two directions: forward and back. I was not going back.
‘My first landfall outside of Ireland,’ Brendán wrote in his journal, ‘took place on one of forty islands, many of them uninhabited, off the coast of Alba—the land the Romans had called Britannia Minor. Cúchulainn of Ulster was trained in the arts of war on an island in this group, and was now called Skye.
‘Like the Gael, these islanders belong to the Celtic race. Those in the west make their living from the sea; those who live on islands further east hunt red deer and wild goats and weave a sturdy cloth from the wool of small sheep. Their climate is too cold for many crops, so root vegetables are a staple. The islanders do not think of their lives as hard, but of themselves as hardy.’
Fortuitously, Christianity was already established on the first island I visited. As I beached my boat I noticed several beehive huts on a hillside. I went ashore with a wooden cross prominently displayed on the leather cord around my neck—and the raven on my shoulder.
I was met with broad smiles and outstretched hands. Préachán’s welcome was even warmer than mine. Missionaries were no novelty to the islanders; tame ravens were. When they spoke to him he talked back, in his fashion. The children loved him. They trooped along behind us, laughing. Like an eddying current we drew in their mothers too, and then their fathers as well.
It was like a homecoming. Tangible proof that we World Enders belonged to a much larger tribe. Not only Gaelic, or even Celtic, we were part of the expanding network of Christians—enthusiastic participants in a radical revolution.
I was eager to see how far it extended.
And help to carry it further.
Brendán spent many weeks sailing among the islands, searching out and evangelising those who were still ignorant of the word of Christ. He founded a monastery which he called Ailech and helped a grieving widow to establish a nunnery so she could begin a new life.
Brendán’s sandaled foot left a lasting imprint on many shores.
Inevitably the day came when the wind from the west smelled of Ireland. He provisioned his boat, including a supply of strips of dried meat for Préachán, and the islanders assured him that the northern coast of Ireland would be visible on the next clear day.
So he set sail.
But there were no clear days, only mist and rain. At night Brendán beached the currach on a spit of land and built a fire. By its wavering light he made some necessary repairs and
adjustments to the currach before setting out again. While he worked, Préachán preened himself, making repairs and adjustments to his own travel equipment. From time to time the raven rolled an eye towards the man to see if he was watching.
Brendán sat back on his heels and laughed.
The following day a fisherman told him, “Look sharp. Do you see where I’m pointing? That dark line is a peninsula and the last stepping stone before Ireland. It’s no great distance; you can camp there tonight and cross the channel fresh in the morning.”
In the morning. Ireland, in the morning.
Brendán was dragging his boat ashore on the peninsula when disaster struck.
Chapter 18
From the corner of his eye Brendán saw a sudden blur of dark wings close to his head. A moment later he heard a deadly thud.
He made a dive for Préachán, catching him just before he hit the ground. “No! No no no God no!”
The arrow had passed through the raven’s wing and pinned it to his body. Brendán found the arrowhead embedded beside the jutting breastbone. Préachán was limp in his hands. Grief stricken, he spread his woollen cloak on the ground and placed the bird on it, then gently folded the fabric over him.
He straightened up and screamed at the empty land, “Where are you, you maggot! Come out and face me!” His hand sought the knife in its scabbard.
Préachán gave a muffled cry.
Brendán dropped to his knees and turned back the cloak. “I’m here, I’m here! Keep breathing.” He fumbled among the feathers until he felt the stuttering beat of the raven’s heart. “I’m here. Keep breathing. You can live if you want to.”
If he removed the arrow he had to be ready to staunch the flow of blood. He cut a section of fabric from the cloak and folded it into a thick pad. Then, with infinite gentleness, he began trying to work the arrowhead free a little at a time.
Préachán’s beak opened in a silent scream.
“All right,” said Brendán. “All right.”
Brendan Page 18