Dublin (35 page)

  There was only one problem. He didn't feel like a hero at all. In feet, he had never felt worse in his life. Nor, as the days went by, did he feel any better.

  He had killed a man. He wasn't guilty of any crime. He had done what he had to do. Yet for some reason the dead man's face with its staring eyes seemed to haunt him. It came to him in his dreams, but also when he was awake-pale, horrible, and strangely insistent. He assumed that after a while it would go away, but it hadn't; and soon he found himself imagining the rotting body as well.

  But the worst thing was not so much the memory as the nagging thoughts that accompanied it.

  Revulsion. Absurd though it was, he experienced all the horror and disgust he would have felt if he'd committed murder. He never wanted to do such a thing again. He vowed to himself that he would not. But in such a violent world, how could you be sure of keeping such a vow? Andwiththe revulsion came another disturbing thought.

  He had been a hair's breadth away from death.

  What if he had died? What would his life have been?

  A few meaningless years, ended by a stupid brawl.

  It had nearly happened then; it could happen tomorrow.

  For the first time, he was afflicted by a terrible, urgent sense of his own mortality. Surely his life must have some purpose; surely he should be serving some cause. When he thought of the passion he experienced when he was studying the natural forms or the illustrations that he loved, the daily, humdrum life he was leading at Dyflin seemed to be lacking an essential ingredient. He yearned for something more, something lasting, that could not be so pointlessly snatched away. He didn't quite know what it was; but his sense of unease had continued to grow, as if a voice deep inside him were whispering, "This is not your true life. This is not your destiny. This is not where you belong." He had heard it, again and again, but he hadn't known what to do.

  And now, suddenly, this business with Caoilinn seemed to be bringing matters to a head. He wasn't sure why, but an instinct told him that his decision about their marriage was going to decide everything else, too.

  If he married now, he was going to settle down with her at Dyflin, have children, and live there for the rest of his days. An honourable life of domestic bliss.

  It was an attractive option. It was what he had always wanted. Wasn't it?

  The two monks came by the little monastery the week after his interview with Caoilinn's father. They had been staying in Dyflin for a few days and were returning southwards to their monastery at Glendalough.

  Osgar had only been to the great lakeside monastery in the Wicklow Mountains once. The abbot of Glendalough had the right to visit and inspect their own little monastery, and when he was a boy of eight, his uncle had taken him there; but it had rained for the entire time, Osgar had been bored, and perhaps because of this depressing memory, he had never made the effort to journey down there again. Now, however, feeling the need for a change of scene while he made up his mind about the question of Caoilinn, he asked if he might accompany them to visit the place, to which they readily agreed; and so, telling his uncle that he would be back in a few days, he set off in their company.

  The journey was delightful. They had chosen the lower road that led southwards along the slopes of the great volcanic hills below the Liffey estuary, with wonderful views eastwards over the coastal plain.

  They went about twenty miles before resting for the night and then continued the climb that led to the high ground. It was midmorning when, pausing by a turn in the mountain track, one of the monks beckoned to him and pointed.

  There was still a morning mist over the floor of the narrow mountain valley, and the wooded sides which rose steeply from the waters appeared to be floating in the clouds. The two small lakes were invisible under the mist, but the treetops around them, drenched in dew, emerged into the morning air. From where he stood, Osgar could also see the roofs of several of the stone buildings: the main chapel, which they called the abbey, with its little turret; some smaller churches, the high arch of the gatehouse; and a few small chapels. And dominating them all, rising a hundred feet into the air, stood the solitary guardian of the valley, the round tower.

  So this was Glendalough-the valley of the two lakes-the loveliest monastery in all Ireland.

  The secluded position of Glendalough was not unusual. Irish monasteries were sometimes founded on former pagan holy places; but, as in other parts of Christendom, they were often set up on lands that had not been much used before-marshy riverbanks, borderlands, and isolated mountain places. It had been founded, about a century after the mission of Saint Patrick, by a hermit.

  The tradition of the Church in Ireland, ever since the days of Saint Patrick, had been a kindly and peaceable one. Saints there had been, and scholars too numerous to mention, but few if any martyrs.

  There had also been hermits. There were many hermits in the Celtic Church. The practice had come to the island, through Gaul, from the early Christian anchorites, as these solitary desert dwellers were called, of Egypt. And as there had never been much need for Christian martyrs in Ireland, it was natural, perhaps, that the role of a mountain or woodland recluse should have appealed to men, heirs to the druids of older times, who wanted to make a radical commitment to their religious faith.

  Like many holy men, Kevin the hermit monk had attracted followers; and so it was that the mountain refuge had been arranged in two parts. Beside the upper lake, which lay deeper in the narrow valley, was the hermit's cell, overlooked by a tiny cave in the steep hillside, known as Kevin's Bed. A short walk down the valley, past the lower lake and where the stream from the lakes was joined by another, lay the main monastic community with its various buildings stoutly constructed, nowadays, of stone.

  When they reached the entrance, Osgar had received his first surprise. Isolated the monastery might be, but small it was not. Its huge, impressive gateway proclaimed its power. "Don't forget," his companions reminded him, "the bishop has a house up here as well as the abbot." The bishop, Osgar knew, oversaw most of the churches in the Liffey valley.

  And yet, as soon as they had passed through the impressive gateway into the great, walled enclosure, Osgar felt as though he had entered another world. Resting on the grassy meadow between the two streams as they joined each other below the smaller lake, the monastery's grounds seemed like an enchanted island. After they had made themselves known to the prior, one of the novices was summoned to show him round.

  There were a number of churches and chapels, a sign of Glendalough's long standing and importance; nearly all were solidly built of well-dressed stone. As well as the big main church with its handsome doorway, there was a church dedicated to Saint Kevin and a chapel for another Celtic saint. They inspected the dormitory where many of the monks lived; though, in the usual Celtic manner, some of the senior monks had small, free-standing timber and wattle cells of their own on the grounds.

  The most impressive building in the lower monastery was the huge tower. The two young men had gazed up at it solemnly. The tower was circular and very tall.

  Sixteen feet in diameter at its base, tapering gradually towards its conical top a hundred feet above, the sheer sides of the great stone tube seemed to dwarf everything else.

  "We call it the bell tower," the novice explained. Osgar thought wryly of the modest hand bell that summoned the monks to prayers at his family's monastery. "But it's a watchtower, too. There are four " windows at the top, under the cone. You can see the approaches in every direction from up there."

  The round towers of Ireland were becoming a notable feature of the landscape in the last few generations, and that of Glendalough was one of the finest. These towers with their corbel-constructed cones had been invented by the Irish monks. They were mostly about a hundred feet high, the circumference of their base being almost exactly half their height. As long as the foundations were good, these proportions made for a very stable structure. The walls were sturdy-at Glendalough they were three and a half feet thick.

  "If there's an attack, we put the valuables inside," his guide explained. "And most of us can get in, too. It has six floors." He pointed to the doorway. It was twelve feet off the ground, reached by a narrow wooden ladder. "Once the door's barred, it's almost impossible to break in."

  Is Glendalough attacked much?" Osgar asked.

  By Vikings? Only once in the last hundred years, I believe.

  There have been other troubles. The lands around here have been disputed by several of the lesser kings. A few years ago they came I and made a terrible mess of the mills down the valley. But you won't see any sign of it today. We're mostly pretty quiet up here." He smiled. "We don't seek a martyour's death." He turned. "Come and see the scriptorium."

  This was a long, low building in which half a dozen monks were at work copying texts. Some, Osgar noticed, were written in Latin, others in Irish.

  His uncle, of course, had several books, but though Osgar and one of the old monks could write a fair hand, they did not make any new books. He observed the expert calligraphy with admiration. But it was a single monk, sitting at a table in a corner, who now caught his attention. In front of him was an illustration he was working on. The outline of the design was already complete and he was beginning to fill in one corner with coloured inks. The broad abstract border fascinated Osgar. Its lines seemed geometric, but his practised eye saw clever visual hints everywhere of natural forms, from the gentle geometry of a scallop shell to the powerful stress lines of a knot of gnarled oak.

  How complex the thing was, yet how pure. He gazed at it, rapt, and thought how wonderful it must be to spend one's life in such a way. He had been there for some time when the monk looked up, gave them a frown for disturbing him, and they tiptoed away.

  "Come," said the novice when they got outside. "You haven't seen the best yet."

  He led Osgar across a little bridge over the stream and turned right, onto a track that led up the valley.

  "We call this the Green Road," he explained.

  As they proceeded past the lower lake, the valley narrowed. On their left, the steep wooded slope was almost a cliff and Osgar could hear the sound of a waterfall. On his right, he noticed a grassy earth circle, like a little rath. And then, just as they passed through some trees, suddenly: "Enter paradise," his companion said softly.

  For a moment, Osgar caught his breath. The upper lake was large, about a mile long. As its quiet waters stretched before him between the high, rocky slopes that rose through the trees, it seemed I as though they might have emerged from an entrance into the I mountain itself.

  "There's Kevin's cell." The novice indicated a small stone structure some way off by the lakeside. "And up there," he pointed to where Osgar could just see the entrance to a small cave under a rocky ledge overlooking the water, "is Kevin's Bed." It looked a hard place to reach; the rocky slope beneath it was almost a cliff. He noticed there were banks of sorrel growing down below, and nearby those, a swathe of stinging nettles. Following his gaze, his companion smiled. "Some people say that's where the saint threw himself in the nettles."

  Everyone knew the story of Saint Kevin's youth.

  Tempted by a girl who wanted to seduce him, the young hermit had driven her away and, stripping himself naked, had rolled in a bed of stinging nettles to cure his lust.

  "He used to stand in the shallows of the lake to pray," the young monk went on. "Sometimes he'd stand there all day." It wasn't hard, Osgar thought, to imagine such a thing. In the perfect peace of the lake he, too, he felt sure, might do the same.

  For some time, the two young men stood together, drinking in the scene, and it seemed to Osgar that he had never known such a sense of perfect peace in all his life. Indeed, he hardly noticed the sounding of the bell from down the valley until his companion gently touched his arm and told him it was time to eat.

  His interview with the abbot had taken place the next day. He I was a tall, handsome man, with curly grey hair and a kind but stately manner, who came from an important family. He knew Osgar's uncle, and welcomed the young man warmly and asked after the affairs of the family monastery.

  "What has brought you to us at Glendalough?" he enquired.

  As best he could, Osgar explained to the abbot his situation, his hesitation about his marriage, his sense of disquiet and uncertainty; and he was relieved to see that the older man listened in a manner that suggested he did not think his concerns were foolish.

  When he had finished, the abbot nodded.

  "Do you feel called to the religious life?"

  Did he? He thought of his life at the family's little monastery beside Dyflin, and of his possible future there. Was that what the abbot meant by the religious life? Probably not.

  "I think so, Father Abbot."

  "You think that if you marry, it will…" the abbot considered a moment, "take you away from the conversation you wish to have with God?"

  Osgar looked at him in wonder. He had not formulated the thought in that way, yet it was just how he felt.