The Book of Dreams (35 page)

Authors: O.R. Melling

The saint was satisfied with her response. “The giant declared you pilgrims, and the Second Sight tells me this is true. Are you practicing
ban martre
?”

It was Dana’s turn to be dismayed. She could translate the words literally but had no idea what they meant.
White martyrdom?
They obviously referred to something medieval that she knew nothing about.

Brendan saw her confusion and explained, “There are three kinds of martyrdom that pilgrims practice. In
glas martre
, green martyrdom, you become a hermit or ascetic. You give up the comforts and delights of life such as family, friends, food, drink. In
derc martre
, red martyrdom, you shed your blood in God’s name. A noble death.
Ban martre
, white martyrdom, is exile. You leave your home, perhaps forever, and journey for a divine cause.”

“You could say I’m in exile,” Dana said, thinking about both Ireland and Faerie, “and what I’m looking for, the Book of Dreams, is something special.”

“You are looking for a book?” Brendan’s voice was both astonished and eager.

With great excitement, he produced a jeweled box from his desk. Inside was a manuscript of fine parchment. The vellum sheaves were inscribed with gold orpiment and illustrated with ornate borders and drawings in colored inks.

“The manuscript is composed of quinions,” Brendan said proudly, “quires of five sheets laid on top of each other and folded. Hence a gathering of ten leaves makes twenty pages.”

Dana’s heart beat wildly. “Is it the Book of Dreams?”

She could hardly believe it. Her quest fulfilled! Just like that! But her joy was quickly dampened.

“No, my child,” he said gently. “It is
The Book of Wonders
. The very reason why I am on this
imram
, this voyage upon the sea which is also a pilgrimage. I will tell you my tale.”

As Brendan spoke, they followed his words through the manuscript, where pictures depicted what he described.

There he was, a younger man, the renowned abbot and founder of many monasteries. An accomplished sailor, he had already traveled to Wales, Scotland, and the Orkney Islands. One day he was doing his rounds in the great monastery at Clonfert, where three thousand monks lived under his rule. Psalms rose from the nave of the church. Pots and dishes clattered in the kitchens. Men delved with hoe and spade in the vegetable gardens.

When he came to the scriptorium, Brendan lingered a little longer. This was his favorite place. He liked to watch the monks at their work, dipping their goose-feathered quills into ink-horns and trimming nibs with their pen knives. The pages of vellum were carefully cut, then ruled with lines. Colored powders were mixed with water to make ink. Most of the young scribes copied psalters or gospels for use in the monastic schools. Only a chosen few, the most gifted artists, illuminated the manuscripts prized by Christendom. The monks wrote in Latin and Old Irish and a hybrid Hiberno-Latin. It was a labor of love, but once in a while they noted their complaints, jotting personal glosses along the margins.

Is scith mo chrob on scribainn.

My hand is weary with writing.

Tria digita scribunt, totus corpora laborat.

Three fingers write, but the whole body labors.

• • •

Brendan stopped at the desk of a young scribe new to the monastery. As he leaned down to peruse the monk’s work, the shock on the abbot’s face told a tale in itself. The scribe was recording the story of a fabulous journey across the sea to a magical land behind a rampart of fire.

Brendan was incensed. “I do not credit the details of this fantasy!” he cried. “Some things in it are devilish lies and some poetical figments. Some may be possible but others are certainly not. Some are for the enjoyment of idiots!”

As he finished his tirade, he seized the pages of the manuscript and flung them into the burning hearth. The young monk hung his head in shame. The others continued to scribble silently, without looking up. Brendan was the abbot. His word was law.

But that night, in his bed, the saint had a dream. He was standing at the front of the monastery chapel. From overhead came the sound of wings. A great bird settled on the altar. Shining with light, it had the shape of an albatross and the wingspan of a swan.

“A blessing upon you, priest,” said the bird.

Brendan fell to his knees. “Are you the Paraclete?” he asked, bowing his head.

“I am the archangel Michael, sent to chastise you for destroying the book. Who are you to question the wonders of life? Between heaven and earth, more things exist than you can know of. Who are you to doubt the boundless power of the Creator?”

It was the saint’s turn to hang his head in shame.

Now the angel charged Brendan with a mission. He was to set off on a sea voyage to seek out the marvels described in the very manuscript that he had burned. By recording all that he saw and experienced, he would restore
The Book of Wonders
for the glory of God. And not until he found the Land of Promise could he return home to Ireland, for only then would the book be completed.

Jean and Dana turned page after page of the manuscript. Each adventure on the voyage was more exciting than the last. There was an island where it was always dark, but the soil was lit up by glittering carbuncles. Then came the Liver Sea, a nightmare of still waters that held the boat fast. Only when prayers from Brendan called up a wind were they able to sail free. In a smoke-filled land where volcanoes spewed ashes, the inhabitants threw lumps of coal to chase the sailor monks away. Friendlier than humans were the herds of sea monsters who surrounded the boat.

“Whales!” said Jean, when he saw the illustration.

“This is the seventh year of my pilgrimage,” Brendan said. “Many wonders have I seen and recorded, but
Tír Tairngire
, the Land of Promise, eludes me still. Thus my voyage continues without end, for a journey is not completed until one goes home.”

He returned the manuscript to its jeweled box.

“And so you see,” he concluded with wry humility, “the penitent became a pilgrim and the pilgrim a writer. Today I shall transcribe the tale of the giant who brought me two young visitors. You will be part of
The Book of Wonders
.”

Dana was taken aback. An idea struck her that made her head spin.

“Could I be like you?” she wondered. “Am I creating the Book of Dreams while I’m searching for it?”

“The dreamer is the dream?” murmured Jean.

Brendan folded his hands in front of him and gazed at Dana thoughtfully.

“To what end do you travel?” he asked her. “I know my destination.
Tír Tairngire
, the Land of Promise. It is a place where there is no grief or sorrow, no sickness or death.”

His words sent a shiver through her. The description fitted Faerie exactly! Were she and the saint trying to reach the same place? The manuscript he had burned sounded like a book of fairy tales. Dana’s head was spinning. He was in her tale even as she was in his! “If I’m writing my own book,” she thought to herself, “I could be a third or even halfway through by now!”

“I think we’re going the same way,” she said, finally. “I think we’re on the same quest.”

The monk smiled at her serenely.

“Indeed, my daughter, we are all going the same way. We are all on the same quest. For life itself is a peregrination through a foreign land and we are all traveling Home.”

“I understand what you say,” Jean spoke up. “It make my heart want to fly like a bird.”

The saint rested his hands on their heads. Though they couldn’t describe what they felt, each suddenly wanted to be quiet and alone.

“Go now and rest, my children. Leave all your worries aside. I will pray and meditate upon this matter. The next step we take, we take together.”

• • •

Out on deck, Dana and Jean were surprised at how mild was the weather and how tranquil the ocean. Warm breezes bathed their faces. The water lapped against the leather hull, rocking the boat gently like a cradle.

“It’s just like Tim said,” Dana pointed out. “The climate was nicer at this time.”

A voice called out from the lookout near the top of the mainmast.

“Na péistí! Ansin!”

“Sea monsters!” said Dana.

The rest of the crew stopped what they were doing and hurried to see. Some looked frightened, but most seemed merely curious.

“There!” Jean cried.

The ocean was alive with leaping bodies. Their appearance was sudden and miraculous, a natural wonder of the far-flung seas. The first to arrive were dolphins, gamboling in the waves like calves in a field. Then came the white-bellied whales that surfaced in bursts of spray before diving again with a huge flick of their tails. To watch them was sheer delight!

One of the monks began to chant quietly. Words and phrases drifted through the air as he quoted from the Bible where it described the leviathan.
His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Sorrow is turned into joy before him. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot. He maketh a path to shine after him. Upon earth there is not his like.

Jean’s eyes shone like the sky. After the school had passed them, he breathed a deep sigh.

“Magique, n’est-ce pas?”

Dana knew what he meant. Wasn’t this what the saint was sent to discover? The beauty of the world? The wonder of creation?

Nearby, two of the crew began to quarrel. One was a big burly man with curls of brown hair. He clutched a manuscript bound with wooden boards. The other was tall and thin with piercing eyes. He had taken a book out of a white satchel. Both were agitated as they pointed at the whales who swam in the distance.

“Never mind those two, they are always at it,” Artán said, joining Jean and Dana.

He leaned on the gunwales with a genial grin.

“What are they arguing over?” Dana asked him.

“Brother Sigisbert has a book he copied in Wales.
The Liber Monstrorum
, a catalogue of curious and unusual animals. He’s an unusual animal himself, being a Christian Saxon. All his people are pagans. Brother Fnör, from the land of Thule, has a book from his own country. The
Physiologus
is a bestiary of fabulous creatures. They like to argue, you see, over the names of the animals we meet in our travels.”

Dana and Jean laughed as they recognized the two men. Sigisbert was a dead ringer for the sailing master, George, while Fnör was the spitting image of Trondur.

Some people are destined to be together, Dana reflected. She glanced sideways at Jean. Didn’t she feel the same way about him?

“Do you get homesick?” she asked Artán, who was so like Boots.

“There are times when I long for the green hills of Ireland,” he admitted. “It has been seven years since I last saw them. But I am a monk of Brendan. I would follow him to the ends of the earth. And I suppose,” the eyes sparkled with mischief, “I am to blame for this voyage.”

“How—?” Dana stopped when the truth struck her. “You’re the young monk who was writing the fairy tales!”

“
Mea culpa
,” he said with a nod.

“Where do you get the story?” Jean asked him. “Do you make yourself?”

Artán’s features softened as he gazed out to sea. It was obvious he was remembering something.

“I was not always a monk,” he said with a little smile.

Jean grinned as he understood.
“Ah oui, je comprends.”

“What?” said Dana. “What?”

They kept laughing and teasing her, but at last Artán confessed.

“It was before I took orders,” he explained. “I met a beautiful girl one day in the woods. She stole my heart and almost my soul. I had to choose if I would stay in this world or join her in another.” He let out a sigh. “I made my decision, yet I never forgot the wondrous tales she told me, or the beautiful songs she sang. It was these I recorded in the scriptorium, when I should have been copying the Epistles of Saint Paul.”

Dana smiled at his chagrin. “It’s just as well you did,” she pointed out. “Think of what you would have missed!”

“Did the abbot not order the two of you to rest?” Artán said suddenly. “On this boat, as in the monastery, we must obey him.”

After all their adventures, a rest was welcome. They slept for hours in the crew’s hut, on mattresses of down as soft as any duvet. At noon, Artán brought them steaming chowder, hot griddle-cakes, and cheese.

As it contained fish, Dana gave her soup to Jean.

“Do I dream this?” Jean said. “Hot food on the boat?”

“When the seas are calm we enjoy our comforts.” Artán grinned. “I can light a fire in the big cauldron and cook over it with smaller pots. When you are finished here, you must go to Brendan.”

Artán handed them their clothes, which had been hung out to dry earlier. Reluctantly, they traded the loaned woolens for their synthetic fabrics.

Refreshed from their rest, they returned to Brendan’s cabin. The saint was looking livelier too. His eyes flashed with excitement.

“A new adventure awaits us! After deep prayer, I have been guided to the way we must go. In
The Book of Wonders
there was a tale about an Island of Glass. This island is the sacred abode of a mighty female spirit who is served by a Druidess. In that cold, white country, there comes a day when the sun does not rise and yet another day when it does not set.”

Brendan closed his eyes for a moment as he chanted.