Byzantium

3

Dugal and I returned to the abbey, and to the daily round. Although the abbot had relieved me of my duties for the day, I thought best to resume them, and indeed, to increase them if I could, and in this way prepare myself for the rigours of the journey. Dugal took himself off to the brewhouse, and I continued on to the scriptorium intent on taking up my work once more.

The sun skimmed the low hilltops, casting a deep yellow light and blue shadows over the yard; I reached the door as the bell tolled none. Pausing at the door, I stepped aside, and a moment later my fellow scribes began trooping out into the yard. Others came from their various chores, talking loudly as they toiled up the hill to the chapel.

"Returned so soon, Aidan?" I turned to see Cellach, the Master of the Library, watching me, his head held to one side as if pondering a philosophical complexity.

"Ah, Brother Cellach, there is a task I would finish."

"Of course." Cellach started away, tucking his hands into his sleeves.

When everyone had gone, I entered the scriptorium and went to my place. The unfinished manuscript lay on the board. I picked up my pen and stood contemplating the line that I had last been writing. The neat black letters, so graceful in their simplicity, seemed perfectly conceived to carry the weight of their inspired message. Into my mind came a scrap of verse I had written numerous times: Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my Word shall never pass away…

Word of God's Word, I thought, I am the vellum and you are the Scribe. Write what you will, Lord, that all who see me shall behold your grace and majesty!

Laying aside my pen, I sat in the empty room, looking and listening, remembering all that I had learned and practised in this place. I gazed at the clustered tables, each with its bench, and both worn smooth, the hard, hard oak polished through years of constant use. In this room everything was well-ordered and precise: vellum leaves lay flat and square, pens were placed at the top right-hand corner of each table, and inkhorns stood upright in the dirt floor beside each bench.

Thin light slanted in through the narrow windholes high in the four walls. The dying wind whined as it circled the scriptorium, searching among the chinks in the timbers for entrance, but many hands over many years had pressed tufts of raw wool into the cracks, frustrating all but the most savage gales.

I closed my eyes and breathed the air. The room smelled of peat from the small fire of turves glowing red on the hearthstone in the centre of the room. The pungent white smoke drifted up through the smokehole in the roof-thatch.

It had been my chore, when I first came here, to carry the turves, guard those embers, and keep that fire going through the chill winter days. I would sit in the corner on my pile of peat, and watch the faces of the scribes at their labour, all sharp-eyed and keen as they copied out Prophet, Psalm, and Gospel, their pens scritch-scratching on the dry vellum leaves.

I saw the scriptorium now much as I had seen it then: not a room at all, but a fortress entire and sufficient unto itself, a rock against the winds of chaos howling beyond the monastery walls. Order and harmony reigned here.

After prayers, my fellow scribes returned to their work, forsaking their talk at the door. In the scriptorium no voice was ever lifted above a whisper, and then rarely, lest the sound disturb or distract. A momentary lapse in concentration could mean the ruin of a page, and days of meticulous labour.

Taking up my pen once more, I undertook to complete the passage before me, working happily until vespers. We secured our work for the night and left the scriptorium, joining our brothers in the chapel. After prayers, we gathered at table to break bread for our evening meal: a watery stew of brown lentils and salt pork. Brother Fernach read from the Psalms as we ate, and Ruadh read from the Rule of Colum Cille, then dismissed us to our cells for study.

I was reading the Canticle of the Three Youths, to which I applied myself intently, and my diligence was rewarded, for it seemed as if I had only just lit the candles when the bell sounded compline. Laying the book carefully aside, I left the cell and joined the brothers on the way to the chapel. I looked for Dugal among them, but the night was dark and I did not see him. Nor did I see him afterwards.

Prayers were offered for the coming journey, and it put me in mind to make petition myself. So, after the service I sought out Ruadh, our secnab, and requested the night vigil. As second to Abbot Fraoch, it was Ruadh's responsibility to appoint the readers and vigilants each day.

Crossing the yard, I proceeded to a small hut set a little apart from the abbot's lodge. There, I paused at the entrance to the cell and, pulling the oxhide covering aside, I tapped on the door. A moment later, Ruadh bade me enter. I pushed open the narrow door and stepped into a room aglow with candlelight. The air smelled of beeswax and honey. Ruadh was sitting in his chair with his bare toes almost touching the turf fire on the hearthstone at his feet. As I came to stand before him, he put aside the scroll he was reading and stood.

"Sit with me, Aidan," he said, indicating a three-legged stool. "I will not keep you long from your rest."

Ruadh was, as I say, secnab of our community, second only to Abbot Fraoch in the monastic hierarchy. He was also my confessor and guide-my anamcara, my soul friend, responsible for my spiritual health and progress.

I drew the stool to the fire's edge and held my hands to it, waiting for him to speak. The room, like most of the others, was a bare stone cell with a single small windhole in one wall, and a straw sleeping pallet on the floor. Ruadh's bulga, his leather book satchel, hung on its strap from a peg above the pallet, and a basin of water sat at the foot of the bed. Candles stood in iron candletrees, and on stones on the floor. The only other adornment in the room was a stone shelf which held a small wooden cross.

Many and many were the times we had sat together in this simple hut, deep in conversation over a point of theology, or unsnarling one of the numerous tangles in my wayward soul's knotted skein. I realized that this might be the last time I would sit with my soul friend. Instantly, a deep melancholy overcame me and I felt another pain of parting-oh, and there were many more partings to come.

"Well, Aidan," Ruadh said, glancing up from the fire after a moment, "you have achieved your heart's desire. How does it feel?"

"Sure, I am delighted," I replied; my sudden lack of enthusiasm declared otherwise, however.

"Truly?" Ruadh wondered. "It seems to me you express your joy in a most dour manner, Aidan."

"I am well pleased," I insisted. "It has been my only thought since I first learned of the bishop's plan, as you well know."

"And now that you have won your will, you begin to see another side to the thing," he suggested.

"I have had time to consider the matter in greater detail," I said, "and I find the abbot's decision has not made me so happy as I expected."

"Did you imagine it would bring you happiness? Is that why you wanted it so badly?"

"No, Confessor," I protested quickly. "It is just that I am beginning to understand how much I am leaving behind when I go."

"It is to be expected." He nodded sympathetically. "Indeed, I have heard it said that in order to go anywhere, one must leave the place where he is and arrive somewhere else." He pursed his lips and stroked his chin. "Although I am no authority in such matters, I am persuaded that this may be true."

My heart lightened somewhat at his gentle wit. "As always, your wisdom is unassailable, Confessor."

"Remember, Aidan," he said, leaning forward slightly, "never doubt in the darkness that which you believed in the light. Also, this: unless the pilgrim carry with him the thing he seeks, he will not find it when he arrives."

"I will remember."

He leaned back in his chair once more. "Now then, what preparations will you make?"

I had not given a thought to any specific preparations. "It occurs to me," I began slowly, "that a fast would be appropriate-a tredinus, I believe, would prepare me for-"

Ruadh stopped me. "A three-day fast is truly commendable," he agreed quickly. "But as we are even now observing Lent, rather than adding fast to fast, might I suggest another discipline? A spiritual fast, if you like."

"Yes?"

"Make peace with those you are leaving behind," he said. "If anyone has hurt you, or if there is anyone you hold grievance against-now is the time to set matters right."

I opened my mouth to object that I bore no one any ill, but Ruadh continued: "Hear me, my son, it is not a thing to be dismissed lightly. I would have you regard this as a matter worthy of your highest consideration."

"If you insist, Confessor," I replied, somewhat confused by his vehemence. "Still, I think a fast would be most beneficial. I could do both."

"You are not thinking, Aidan," he said. "Think! There is a time to fast, and a time to feast. The journey you will make is most arduous. Hardship and privation are the least dangers you will face."

"Certainly, Secnab, I am well aware of the dangers."

"Are you?" he asked. "I wonder."

I said nothing.

Ruadh leaned towards me across the fire. "Now is the time to gather strength for the journey, son. Eat well, drink well, sleep and take your ease while you may-store up your vigour against the day when it will be required."

"If you think it best, Confessor," I said, "then I will do it."

As if he had not heard me, Ruadh said, "Soon you will leave this place-perhaps forever, it must be said. Therefore, you must go with a free and easy heart. When you leave, leave with peace in your soul so that you may face whatever dangers come upon you with courage and fortitude undiminished, secure in the knowledge that you hold no enmity for any man, and no man holds enmity for you."

"As you will, Confessor," I replied.

"Ah! You have not heard a single word. Do not do it for me, son-I am not the one going to Byzantium." He regarded me with mild impatience. "Well, think about what I have said." He took up his scroll once again, signalling an end to our conversation.

"Trust that I will do as you advise," I replied, rising to my feet.

"Peace be with you, Aidan."

I stepped to the door. "God keep you this night, Secnab," I said. Suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue, I yawned and decided not to request the night vigil after all.

Turning his head to look at me, Ruadh said, "Rest while you may, Aidan, for the night is coming when no man can rest."

I walked out into the darkness and raised my eyes to a sky bright-dusted with stars. The wind had died away and the world lay hushed and still. On a night such as this, any talk of danger and hardship was surely exaggerated. I returned to my cell and lay down on my pallet to sleep.