Byzantium

76

I will say nothing of our homeward voyage-save that it was at every point the opposite of our outgoing journey. The ship was both stout and swift, the weather warm and mild, the company of Pietro and his crew, cordial-even the food, which the Venetians prepared with skill and exuberance, was more than agreeable. Thus, we enjoyed comforts I had not imagined to exist among seafaring folk.

Though we urged the sturdy little ship's master to put first into their home port for the sake of his cargo, he would not have it any other way but that he delivered us safely to our destination as agreed. The more we tried to persuade him, the more adamant he grew. "You," he declared, "are my foremost concern. I will not rest until you are once again among your brother priests."

Again, I wondered how much Harald had paid to secure this kind of treatment-and what accompanying threats he might have added as further inducement-but, as there was nothing to be done, we simply sat back and allowed the days to drift pleasantly by…until one morning, Pietro came to us and said, "If you would like to see your homeland once again, follow me."

We made our way to the prow where he pointed to a low-rising blue eminence floating on the horizon. "There is lerne," he said. "You must tell me now where you wish to make landfall."

We held council, and decided that Brynach had the best reckoning of the Irish coast, so he should guide the ship to our destination. This he did, and by nightfall we had reached the bay at the mouth of the Boann River.

Rather than tempt the rocky shoreline at dusk, Pietro dropped anchor in the bay and waited until morning. We passed an excruciating night-within shouting distance of our cherished homeland, but unable to cross over until morning.

When dawnlight finally came, we proceeded slowly upriver to Inbhir Patraic and made landfall at the wooden wharf. "See now!" cried Dugal as his feet touched the planking. "We have crossed three seas without so much as getting our feet wet!"

Indeed, in light of our previous voyage, it was a remarkable achievement. We all agreed that our Venetian shipmates were fine sailors, and praised them extravagantly, much to their delight. Pietro liked the look of the settlement, and decided to stay a day or two to trade. He asked if we would translate for him; "I will pay you handsomely," he said. "You have been good company aboard my ship. I would like to do this for you."

Bryn thanked him and said that, tempting though his offer might be, we had been away a long time and were anxious to return to the abbey which still lay two days' walk inland. "Yet, where trade is the subject," he added, "I think you will find that, with the people hereabouts, silver speaks for itself."

We bade farewell to Pietro and all his men in turn, and then climbed up the twisting, narrow path to the clifftop where we were greeted by a small crowd of folk who had seen the ship and gathered in anticipation of news and trade.

The head man pushed his way forward to welcome us. An expression of honest astonishment appeared on his face when he realized who it was that stood before him. "Hoo!" he cried. "Look at you now! Look at you! Returned from foreign lands as hale as the day you left!" Glancing around quickly, he searched among us and then scanned the cliff trail and wharf below. "Michael bless me, where are the others? Where are all the rest? Are they coming after?"

"Greetings, Ladra," Brynach answered. "Yes, we have returned-we four alone. Alas, no more will be coming after."

This caused a ripple of comment through the crowd. Ladra looked from one to the other of us, and said, "Well, well, however it may be, welcome home. You have much to tell, and we would hear it gladly."

"That, I fear, must wait a little," Brynach replied. "Our first duty is to make our return known to our brothers at the abbey. The day is good and we are well rested; I think we must make for Kells straightaway."

Ladra's face fell, and the people groaned. Pointing to the wharf below, I said, "There stands a man with ready silver. Would you keep him standing on the wharf until he grows weary and sails away to find more willing traders elsewhere?"

This caused a mild tumult as the people hastened down to meet Pietro and make him properly welcome. The resulting commotion allowed us to slip through the crowd and proceed on our way unhindered by hospitality, however well-meaning. Shouldering our various bundles, we started off.

Oh, it was fine to feel the soft turf beneath my feet and smell the cool, damp mistful air. Blissful green of every shade met the gaze at every turn, a soothing balm for eyes grown accustomed to the dry, colourless rock-bound wastes of the east. All that day I walked in a wonder of recollection: each hill and every tree seemed a miracle created anew to refresh the soul and delight the senses.

To be in Eire again, and know the place as for the first time-there is no finer thing.

We walked until midday and rested by the river, then walked again until nightfall took the path from us. Though we had no food with us, we did not count it a hardship, for to sleep once more under the summer stars and breath the still, soft fragrant air of that peaceful land was sustenance enough.

Rising before dawn, we proceeded on our way eagerly, and with such vigour and pace that by eventide we came in sight of Cenannus na Rig. We paused at the last hillside to look across the valley at the stone-encircled settlement, too overcome with the upsurge of mingled feelings to speak: the happiness of safe return entwining sorrow for our dear brothers who did not now stand beside us.

Then, even as we stood looking on, there came the clear, clean sound of the abbey bell tolling vespers. At the third stroke, Dugal was striding down the hill, and by the fifth he was running. Down we flew, racing as fast as we could go; I ran behind Dugal, and Brynach and Ddewi followed hard behind. We reached the abbey gate out of breath and weary, but thankful to be so.

"Home!" Dugal cried, his face glowing with the exertion and jubilation. "Aidan, man, we are home!"

His cry brought the porter from his hut. He took one look at us and dashed for his bell and began ringing it to announce our arrival. "God bless you, brothers! Welcome!" he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the bell.

"Paulinus!" hollered Dugal jovially. "Leave off your bell ringing, we cannot hear a thing!"

Brother Paulinus came and stood before us, eager in the twilight, bursting with questions and welcome. From the chapel monks were already streaming towards us, and in less than the space of three heartbeats we were surrounded on all sides by our good brothers, all shouting glad welcome and slapping our backs and praising God and all the company of heaven for our safe return.

Then, even then-in the midst of all the merriment-I felt once more the vile serpent rear its head in my soul. Alas, it had not died with Nikos, it had only slept. To see all those dear brothers, their faces so joyful, and to hear them praise for our keeping the same God who had given so many others over to death made my spirit writhe within me. Even as I stood with the cries of happiness resounding in my ears, I could feel the poison seeping from my wounded soul.

The pain was almost past enduring. It was all I could do to remain among them, smiling, laughing, accepting their good wishes-when all I wanted was escape. I saw Dugal go down on his knees to beg forgiveness of Libir for pushing him down on the rocks-I turned away as the bitter bile rose in my throat.

Then Abbot Fraoch was standing before us, his arms outspread in welcome, acclaiming our arrival. Behind him, grinning with pleasure at the sight of us, stood Ruadh, the abbey secnab and my own dear confessor. "Behold!" Fraoch said, his broken voice raised in a happy rasp of salutation. "The wayfarers have returned! The pilgrimage is completed. Let the Lord Christ be praised for his faithful and steadfast protection!"

There followed a burst of renewed acclaim, which the good abbot allowed to continue a while, before raising his hands for silence. "Brothers, it is right to welcome our kinsmen with praise and thanksgiving," he said. "However, I see that only four have returned where thirteen set out, and it would be a shameful thing not to ask after those whose absence demands explanation."

Brynach stepped forward and related the unhappy tidings that we were indeed the only survivors of the pilgrimage and that all the rest were dead, having exchanged the white martyrdom for that of the red. This brought murmurs of sorrow and lament from the throng-especially for the deceased monks who had set out from our own community.

Bryn then motioned for Dugal to come forward. The big monk shouldered his way to the fore and took the carefully wrapped bundle from off his back and placed it on the ground at Abbot Fraoch's feet.

"Aidan here," Dugal said with a nod in my direction, "was not content to allow our blessed Bishop Cadoc's mortal bones to remain among the godless in pagan lands. We have brought the bishop's relics home to be buried with all honour and respect."

The abbot regarded the bundled bones sorrowfully. "Ah, well," he said. "Ah, mo croi, it is a grief to me, and to us all. Christ have mercy." Raising his eyes once more, he said, "Thank you, Brother Dugal. Thank you, Brother Aidan. It was good of you to be so mindful of the sympathies of others. We are, all of us, beholden to your tender thoughtfulness."

Ha! I thought, anger flaring up within me. Shall I tell you how he died? Shall I tell you how this godly man's life was cruelly torn from him and his body thrown into the refuse pit with no more tender thought than yesterday's joint of mutton? Shall I tell you that the only reason his bones were retrieved at all was so that a band of godless barbarians could salvage their pilfered treasure? Shall I tell you the truth of God's steadfast protection?

I said none of these things, of course, but merely acknowledged the abbot's sentiments with a reverent nod.

Abbot Fraoch then said, "Vespers have been rung, and the prayers begun. Let us go to the chapel and give thanks to God for the pilgrims' safe return."

Everyone began talking at once, pelting us with questions and clamouring to be heard; we were swept up by the well-wishing throng and carried to the doors of the chapel. There I was to endure a time of prayer more onerous to me than a hundred days of slavery in the caliph's mines. At least when it was finally over the abbot allowed us to retreat to the cells which had been prepared for us.

He forbade anyone to ask any more questions of us that night, and dismissed us to our sleep. "I can see you are tired from your long journey," he said. "Go now to your rest, and we will await your tales in the morning."

Thus, I was spared having to talk any more about the tribulations we had survived. I left the church in despair, and made my way to the cells; Dugal walked beside me, pleased to be back among his friends and familiar surroundings once more. "Ah, mo croi," he sighed with contentment. "It is good. Do you not think so, Dana?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I tell you the truth," he declared, "there were times I did not think we would ever see this place again."

"Nor did I," I said, and thought: And now that we are here once more, I wonder what was so important. What were we trying to do? What did it mean?

"Are you sad, Aidan?" Dugal asked.

"No, just a little tired," I said, to avoid further conversation on the subject. "I did not foresee having to answer so many questions."

"You have been to Byzantium," Dugal observed simply, "and they have not. Sure, they are curious. You cannot blame them for that."

There was food in the cell-a loaf of brown bread and a little honey mead for our homecoming. I ate alone by the light of a single beeswax candle and went to sleep thinking how quiet it was…only to be awakened at dawn by the tolling of the matin bell signalling the beginning of the daily round.

I had not heard that sound for a very long time, but the moment I heard it my heart sank-to think that all the time I had been away, the same bell had rung the call to maiden prayers day after day after day, and nothing, absolutely nothing had changed. The monastery was still the same as the day I left; its work went on in the same, unchanging way, as it had before my birth and would after I was dust in an unknown grave.

Despair, renewed with the morning, washed over me in black waves. I had been to Byzantium, and beyond. I had beheld wonders of unrivalled wealth and power. I had served Arab potentates, and endured the life of a slave. I had loved a Sarazen princess-Christ have mercy, had I been a better man, I would be married now! Oh, Kazimain, forgive this wretch of a fool.

Truly, I had partaken of life unimaginable to the simple brotherhood of the abbey. And now, here I was, once more among the monks of Kells, and nothing had changed-save myself, and that not for the better.

I lay on my straw pallet in the pearl-grey light of dawn, staring up at the bleak stone ceiling of my cell, drowning in the futility that whelmed me over and pulled me down and down into the depths of hopelessness. I pressed my eyes shut to stay the tears, but they leaked from beneath my eyelids anyway and rolled down my cheeks.

How could I brave the day? How could I brave the innocent interest my every word held for those who had remained behind? How could I brave the endless, ignorant questions and satisfy the credulous, ignorant curiosity? What was I to do?

I remained in my cell until after the bell for prime, and then went to Ruadh's hut. He was not there, but I went in anyway and sat down on the floor to wait until he came. As I waited, I looked around at the bare stone room with its narrow windhole in the wall and the thin straw sleeping pallet on the floor, the leather bulga hanging by its strap from the wooden peg above the pallet, the shallow basin of water at the foot of the bed, the iron candletree, the stone shelf with its small wooden cross-everything exactly as I remembered it, exactly as it had been the day I had gone away.

The room spoke a lonely psalm to me, a hymn of desolation and barren futility. I felt like running out again, but presently heard footsteps approaching. A moment later, Ruadh entered the room.

"There you are, Aidan," he said, crossing to his chair-as if resuming a discussion that had been diverted by a temporary interruption. "When I did not see you in the hall, nor at prayers, I thought I might find you here."

"You always know me better than I know myself," I told him.

"I always did," he said, and smiled. He folded his hands in his lap and gazed at me for a time, smiling to himself. "Welcome home, Aidan," he breathed at last. "It is good to see you again."

"And good to see you, secnab," I said.

"Is it?" He lifted an eyebrow inquiringly. "The expression on your face tells a different tale." He paused, but when I did not deny it, he continued, "I have been talking to Brynach. He says it was your decision to bring the book home with you."

"Did he say what led me to that decision?"

"Yes," Ruadh answered, "but I would hear it from you."

"The pilgrimage failed," I told him, and all the bitterness I felt came surging up once more. "There was nothing to be done."

"He said you spoke to the emperor alone."

"I did, yes. What else did Brynach tell you?"

"He said you saved their lives."

That day, once so full in my memory, now seemed remote. I shook my head slowly. Here, in the unvaried simplicity of the abbey, my former life was already dwindling away to nothing.

I looked at Ruadh-my anamcara, my soul's good friend-for many years he had patiently listened to my dreams and confessions, guiding me, prodding me, helping me in any of a thousand ways with his wise counsel. He knew me better than any other, but even Ruadh would never understand more than the tiniest fragment of all that had happened. How could I tell him-where could I begin?

"It was nothing," I said. "Anyone else would have done the same."

We talked a little more-mostly about the abbey and resuming my duties in the scriptorium-and when I rose to leave, Ruadh walked with me outside. "It will take time to return, Aidan. You must not expect to come back as if nothing happened."

Over the next days, I avoided talking about the pilgrimage. When anyone asked a question, I replied with vague, dismissive answers, and eventually the brothers stopped asking. Life in the monastery went on, after all, and what was done was done. I resumed my work, and the daily round. The work I had once viewed with such pride and delight was dry tedium to me now, the very scratch of the pen set my teeth on edge and the words I wrote held no meaning. Prayer became merely a way to escape the scriptorium; and though I knelt in the chapel with all the rest, I never opened my heart to God.

How could I pray? I knew God for what he was: a monstrous betrayer of souls-demanding honour and worship and obedience, demanding life and love, promising protection and healing and sanctuary. And then, when need was greatest and the longed-for sanctuary required…nothing. In return for years of slavish devotion, he gave nothing, less than nothing, in return.

Each day as I knelt in the chapel, listening to the simple brothers speak their prayers, I thought, Lies! All lies! How can anyone believe a single word?

Thus, the wounded animal that was my heart sickened and began devouring itself in its misery. I sank further and further beneath the weight of malignant grief. When Brynach and Ddewi departed to return to their abbey in Britain, I did not see them away or say farewell. Dugal chastised me about it later, but I did not care. I was a world of woe unto myself, and the days passed unnoticed and unheeded.

One day I rose to see that winter had come again to Kells, and realized I had not been aware of the season's change. The greyness of the land and sky was the greyness of my own benighted soul. Standing before my cell, I looked out across the muddy yard to our little church and recoiled in disgust. After the glittering splendour of Hagia Sophia and the towers of the Great Mosq, our rude stone structure appeared a mean, ill-made thing. I looked around at all the places I had once thought sublime in their humble simplicity, and found them coarse, ugly, vulgar, and repugnant against the glowing reality of all I had seen and done in Byzantium.

I realized then, to my horror, that the shining verity of my memory was swiftly receding, replaced by emptiness, by a gathering gloom of shadows moving in an ever-increasing void. Soon there would be nothing left-soon not even the shadows would remain, and the darkness would be complete.

Oh, but once my memories had pulsed with the blood-heat of life. In desperation, I forced myself to recall that once I had walked with kings and conversed in languages never heard in this land. Once I had stood at the prow of a Sea Wolf ship and sailed oceans unknown to seamen here. I had ridden horses through desert lands, and dined on exotic foods in Arab tents. I had roamed Constantinople's fabled streets, and bowed before the Holy Roman Emperor's throne. I had been a slave, a spy, a sailor. Advisor and confidant of lords, I had served Arabs, Byzantines, and barbarians. I had worn a captive's rags, and the silken robes of a Sarazen prince. Once I had held a jewelled knife and taken a life with my own hand. Yes, and once I had held a loving woman in my arms and kissed her warm and willing lips.

Would that I had died in Byzantium!

Death would have been far, far better than the gnawing, aching emptiness that was now my life. I bent my head and moaned for the hopelessness of it. That night, I went for the last time to my confessor's hut.