Tower of Thorns (37 page)

“Grim,” says Ríordán. “Drink.” He puts a cup in my hands, like you'd do with a two-year-old. “One sip, come on.”

I drink. Had mulled ale before, but nothing like this. Warm, tasty, spices go right to my head. Need to drink slow.

“Eat,” says Fergal. He breaks up bread, spreads butter, passes me a platter.

I do as I'm told. Manage to get a bite or two down.

“Tell me why you chose those particular animals,” says Ríordán, as if none of the rest of it's happened. “Dove, salmon, raven and cat.”

I go through it for him. “In that story, the one about the great flood, Noah sent ravens and then a dove. Raven's for clear eyes; suits a house of scholars. Dove for peace. Salmon for wisdom. Not book learning, but the kind that's in the bones of the land. A fish, that's a Christian thing. A sign.”

“And the cat?” asks Ríordán.

Feel my mouth twist. Tears close again. “Bathsheba,” I say. “For Brother Galen. He loved her like a child.” Manage to say his name. Long breath in; long breath out. Feels like climbing a mountain. “Used to sit right next to him when he was writing. Watching the quill move, one way, the other way. Wanting to stick out a paw and bat at it, but not doing it. Purring deep down.”

Nobody says anything for a bit. I eat and drink some more. The two of them do the same. Voices outside but nobody comes in.

“You said you were no hero,” Ríordán says after a while. “That's not how other folk understood it. What they saw was a man who fought hard to save his friends. Fought on and on against impossible odds, until he in his turn was cut down. A man who gave everything he had to give.”

Something wrong with this tale. “Nobody saw,” I tell him, the scene clear in my mind, coming to and finding them all dead. Every single one. The place as still as the grave, but for the scrabbling sounds of those hurt pigeons, poor little sods. “Nobody there, after. Only me.”

“Where did you go?”

“Away. Couldn't live with what I'd done. Couldn't face up to it. Got into trouble, on and off. Lost my way. Like that sheep, the one who strayed from the path. Only Jesus didn't find me and lead me back. Why not? Because the day the raiders came, I stopped believing he could.”

“And now? Here you are, back among us.”

“Only chance. Found Blackthorn. Got a reason to go on now. She needs me. And this, the thatching . . . Hard to come up here. Kept seeing them. All the time. But she wanted me to do it.”

Silence again for a while. “You're wrong about that day, Brother Conall,” says Ríordán, quiet-like. “Someone did see. One of the lay helpers, hiding up in the tower, knowing if he came out he'd be slaughtered along with the others. He stayed up there a long time, too frightened to come down. It was only after folk from the local village arrived that he emerged to tell the remarkable tale of how you stood up to a band of thirty armed raiders, and kept them out of the scriptorium until, at long last, you were overcome and collapsed. Dead, he thought; but by the time he came down from the tower, you were gone. Gone before anyone could thank you. Gone before anyone could acknowledge your remarkable courage. They found Brother Galen laid out with his hands crossed on his breast, and Bathsheba beside him, wrapped in a man's shirt. A torn fragment of manuscript in his fingers.”

“They took his book. His beautiful book with all the little
pictures. Not even for reading, only for the cover. I loved that book. He put his soul in it. You know what the Norsemen do? Just toss the pages on the fire.”

“His soul is in Heaven now,” says Fergal.

I say nothing. I may not believe in God anymore, but I can't believe a good soul like Brother Galen's could go anywhere else, unless it's to be a lark singing high in a perfect sky or something of that kind.

“That's what it is to be a hero,” Ríordán says. “It's fighting on even when you're hopelessly outnumbered. It's seeing your friends dying all around you, witnessing the most shocking cruelty you could imagine, and still finding the courage to go on. It's doing the very best you can.”

“Didn't feel that way,” I say, but his words are some comfort. Someone was there. I wasn't alone, not quite. “Felt like defeat. Felt like failure.”

“And you've borne it on your shoulders ever since,” says Fergal.

That's the truth. Funny thing, though. The burden feels a bit lighter now.

We finish the bread and butter. Drink a second cup of mulled ale each. I'm warming up at last. Can feel my feet. Outside, it sounds as if the worst of the rain might be over. Be a muddy old walk back.

Still a lot of questions to ask. So many I don't know where to start. Think about Blackthorn, not myself. “Who else knows?” I ask. “Who I am and where I came from, I mean.” Even Blackthorn doesn't know that story. Hadn't planned on telling her. Or anyone.

“You mean here at St. Olcan's? Very few. The two of us. Father Tomas. Brother Eoan who looks after the pigeons. I believe that's all.” Ríordán looks at Fergal.

“We thought it best kept to a small number,” Fergal says, “since it was plain you did not want to share it. We knew the story of St. Erc's, of course; it was one of the cruelest raids.”

“Does Flannan know about me?” If he does, then Blackthorn's going to find out soon enough. Don't want anyone else telling her the story. Only me.

“Master Flannan?” Ríordán half smiles. “We would not share your story outside our own brotherhood, Conall. Besides, Flannan has been so absorbed in his work that I doubt he would have taken in the tale even if we had told it. He seems a man on a mission, blind to all else.”

Never seemed like that to me. But I'm guessing they mean this translation Flannan's doing. True, I've hardly seen him since he got started on it, so maybe he's putting in long hours. And he was a bit odd when he crossed my path yesterday. “Thank you,” I say. “For not spreading it around. I'll tell Blackthorn in my own time. Not anyone else. And best if you don't call me Conall. That name's gone. Done.”

They look at each other. Fergal pours more ale. “As to that,” says Ríordán, “it might not be gone and done. Not unless that's what you want. You could resume your novitiate here. Father Tomas has said so. Not only because your practical skills would be a great asset to our community, but because we believe you have all the qualities required. We would welcome you as one of us, Grim.”

I'm gob-smacked. This is too much. A second chance, a home, a community, the stories, the pictures, the singing . . . All that I lost, given back so easily. “I'd bring down ill luck,” I say. “Be a blight on you, like that sad creature in the tower. Soon as you let me in, soon as I get comfortable, something bad will happen. Always does.”

“I don't believe that for a moment,” Ríordán says. “How could you be in any way responsible for the raid on St. Erc's? Nobody in his right mind would have expected one man, however big and strong, however remarkably brave, to fight off thirty armed Norsemen.”

Maybe nobody expected that. Thing is, though,
I
expected it. Or that I'd go on fighting until someone killed me. Should have died protecting them. Then I'd have done my best. But I'm here, and they're dead.

“What would Brother Galen want you to do?” asks Ríordán.

Big question. Too big to answer. To Brother Galen I was good. Whole. No missing parts, no wrong parts, no bad parts. He taught me
to love learning. If I told Brother Galen I didn't believe in God anymore, he wouldn't be shocked. He'd talk through it, listen to what I had to say, offer his own ideas. While we talked he'd paint his little pictures, so magical. Something about those pictures . . .

“He'd want me to do what felt right,” I say. “Inside, I mean. Deep down. Got a question for you.” Man with the head of a bear. Creature like a cat in a snail shell, sticking out its tongue. Row of horses in hats, kicking up their feet. “You know the little pictures scribes put in manuscripts? Sometimes angels, folk praying, chapel bells. But sometimes odd things. Old things. Strange creatures, maybe fey folk. Brother Galen put lots of those in. Don't know if the fellows here do that too. Just thinking, where do they get the ideas for those?”

They don't laugh at me. “Did you ask Brother Galen that same question?” says Ríordán.

“Didn't think of it then. He was always telling stories, knew hundreds. Some of them from scripture. Some not. Liked to mix them up. But the pictures were so real. Did wonder later if he'd ever seen them. The fey, I mean. Never got around to asking.”

For a bit they've got no answer. Then Ríordán says, a bit disapproving, “Father Tomas would tell us such beings are manifestations of the Devil and should be shunned. At the very least, they represent primitive beliefs. Unhealthy beliefs.”

Then they go quiet again. Want to ask,
But what do
you
think?
Only that seems rude, so I keep my big mouth shut.

“Brother Galen had a different view,” Ríordán says. “He used to say, God is everywhere. In the work of your hands; in the beating of a bird's wings; in the roots of an oak and in the stones of the riverbed. In the rising of the sun. In the heart of a man. In the wonders we know, and those that are beyond our knowing.” He sighs. “I cannot tell you if he ever saw beings of the kind he loved to draw, Grim. But if he did, I am quite certain he would say they too were part of God's creation, and should be treated with respect.”

“I like that,” says Fergal. “God is in the work of your hands. We
feel that every day in the garden, in the richness of the soil, the wonder of new growth, the circle of the seasons.”

Got no words. Nearly in tears again. All very well, all very comforting. But why would God let them die? Why would he stand by and let Brother Galen be struck down?

“A good teacher lives on in every one of his students,” Ríordán says. “In me. In you. In all the others to whom he was mentor and friend. We carry him in our hearts. As we carry God, deep within us.”

“Not me,” I mutter. “Not after St. Erc's. How could I be a man of God if I don't believe in him?”

“Ah,” says Ríordán, and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You may no longer believe in Him, friend. But be certain He believes in you.”

We're quiet a long time then. Not sure how it happens, but after a bit I start telling them about that day, the day of blood. Not sobbing and screaming and running away, just saying what happened, what I saw, how it felt. The three of us have some more to eat, and I keep talking and talking until it's all out. They knew the story already, of course. Messages go from one monastery to another all the time. Pigeon if it's urgent and short. For proper letters, folk like Flannan bring them. But they didn't know my side of the story. Good listeners, the two of them. Like Brother Galen.

“That book, he loved it as much as he loved Bathsheba,” I say at the end. Feeling wrung out, like an old cloth that's been pounded and pummeled and washed half to shreds. “Makes me sad to think of the little pictures all shriveling up in the fire.”

“I understand,” says Ríordán. “It is sad. But there are other scribes, those to whom he taught his craft, those who teach others in their turn. And there are other books.”

“Maybe,” I say, thinking of the odd things he put in his drawings, the magic of them. “But not the same.”

Ríordán looks at Fergal. Fergal looks at Ríordán. What I see is,
Do we tell him?

“What?”

Ríordán clears his throat. “We have one of Brother Galen's books in our collection, Grim. The original, not a copy. A book of saints, which one might expect to be illustrated in quite a conventional manner, but . . . Galen was Galen.”

Again, I'm dumbstruck. Not like he was alive again, but . . . feels that way, all the same. Wish I could see it. Love to see it. Can't ask.

“It's locked away, of course,” Ríordán says. “We consider it very precious. After the raid on St. Erc's, I made a copy. We sent that south to St. Brigid's in Laois, which as you'll know is the monastic foundation closest to the site of St. Erc's. It will be well looked after there. I lacked the skill to reproduce Galen's paintings perfectly; I did my best.” He smiles. “Would you like to see the original?”

“Me?” Can't believe he's offering.

“Provided you do so under my supervision, in the scriptorium, and wear gloves to turn the pages, I don't see why not.”

Fergal chuckles. “Now you've really surprised me, Ríordán. I think this may be a first.” He turns to me. “Our head archivist here is famous for his reluctance to let anyone near his precious collection. Your friend Flannan only got a look at his mysterious document because nobody else had a word of Armorican, if indeed that's what the language is. Count yourself a scholar for the day.”

I say nothing at all. Next to this I'm small. This is so big you can't measure it. If I could write, if I could draw, if I could ever make my own book, I'd have a picture of a monk and a cat, and a story to go with it.

“Now, if you wish.”

The two of them are standing, waiting for me, and I've been off in a dream. I get up and follow them out. Still in my borrowed clothes. Then I see where the sun's got to. Shadows creeping; cows coming into the barn. Day's all but gone while I've been talking away.

“Need to get back to Lady Geiléis's house,” I say, feeling bad. Want to see the book more than anything. Might be the only chance; they might not ask again. But Flannan was going to finish the translation and come down to tell us the story, and by the looks of it, he'll be doing that soon. Blackthorn will be wanting to hear what this document says straightaway. She'll want me there too, listening. Means I need to go back when Flannan does. “Promised I'd be back to hear the story.”