Brigid of Kildare (12 page)

BRIGID: A LIFE

She stands on the plains of Cill Dara. One hand on her hip and one hand to her brow, to shield her eyes from the unseasonable brightness, Brigid surveys the vast, uninhabited expanse of lush grass and foliage. Her gaze settles on a craggy, ancient oak tree near a bluff.

Its branches stretch like arms reaching for the sky. The oak seems to yearn, and reminds Brigid of the oak presiding over the cherished knoll near her family
cashel
. She smiles. Of all the lands she has appraised in recent days, this feels most like home. And the oak tree, forever sacred to the Gaels and the Druids, bodes well for the people’s adoption of the spot as hallowed.

She calls for Cathan, her first follower and her most loyal. “Rejoice, Cathan. Our Lord has directed us to the lands that the late Bishop Patrick ordered us to settle.”

“Truly, Brigid?” Cathan asks. Brigid insists that all her adherents address her informally and certainly not with her formal title of “Bishop.” She wants none of the hierarchy and differentiation of treatment rife in Roman institutions—including the Church—for her establishment.

“Truly.” The women beam at each other in relief. They have spent many long months searching for the most suitable land on which to build the abbey commanded by Patrick. Converts of many southern and central provinces have offered Brigid pieces of their territories, but none called to her until now.

“Race you to the others?” Brigid challenges Cathan, with a mischievous grin. She feels light and youthful again for the first time in many years. She longs to sprint across the fields—her fields.

“It will be my great pleasure to beat the new abbess of Cill Dara on her own land,” Cathan retorts, her playful mood matching Brigid’s. The women hitch up the hems of their long robes, tucking them into their belts, and dash across the plains.

Brigid delights in the design and construction of her abbey. During the years tramping across the Gaelic countryside, seeking souls to save, she had often dreamed of building a sanctuary where strangers would receive a Christian welcome, monks and priests and nuns could pray in solicitude, and scholars and artisans might celebrate the Words and beauty of His Kingdom. Her abbey will be that haven.

Brigid garners stores of timber and stone from wealthy new Christians eager to pay their way to their new God’s heaven. She sets about assembling teams of laborers and craftsmen to assist her and her followers, who plan on working alongside them at every stage. She accumulates provisions to feed her crews through the easy months of spring and summer as well as the barren months of fall and winter. All this she accomplishes with surprising ease, as if the Lord Himself provides.

Though she believes in the protective power of Jesus Christ, she is practical and understands the warlike nature of her countrymen and their thirst for plunder, and so she oversees the creation of a stone
cashel
around her planned abbey. Once her teams complete the fortifications to her satisfaction, she guides them through the building of her ideal structures. Around the
cashel
’s inner perimeter she places huts for the religious folk, so they may pray and rest in solitude. She arranges the communal buildings—the refectory, the storehouse, the abbess’s quarters, the guesthouses—closer to the busy center. And at
the abbey’s heart, she positions her church—a soaring, light-infused edifice with room enough for religious and commoner—and her most treasured space, her scriptorium, where His Words will be studied, copied, and celebrated.

Yet she forgets not her mother’s cautionary words to honor the people’s gods as she worships the Lord. She selects one of the people’s traditional means of venerating the goddess Brigid: the eternal fire. Constructing a stone firehouse near her church and scriptorium, but not close enough to endanger them, she vows that a fire will blaze in Brigid’s honor in perpetuity.

Brigid allows herself and her women one week of rest and prayer upon the abbey’s completion. She spends this week alone in the scriptorium. Brigid crafted this space with the utmost care, drawing upon memories of pictures of the great ancient libraries she had studied from her mother’s tomes. Working closely with her master builder, she designed numerous, unusually sloped apertures to allow for maximum daylight while still safeguarding the interior from the elements. She ordered the construction of ingenious wooden cabinets and hanging leather shelves, in which she will store and protect the many sacred texts she hopes to collect. And, of course, she provided ample working tables, chairs, and bookstands for the scholars and scribes, along with braziers to warm their hands during the cold winter months. Sitting alone in the scriptorium’s waiting splendor, Brigid believes that, of all the work she has undertaken for His glory, this handiwork may be her finest. She thanks the Lord and prays that the scholars and scribes come.

At the close of Sunday’s services, her time of reflection ends, and her real labors commence in earnest. Brigid begins by forging alliances with the neighboring chieftains. The strength of her father’s name and reputation carries her only so far—into their
raths
unharmed—and she knows she must convince the warriors of her merits and her peaceful motives. She enters their
raths
in her ethereal guise, much as she had throughout Gael’s countryside. Once within the guarded walls, she does not preach but speaks to the leaders of their shared heritage and training, of her disdain for Roman and barbarian rule, of her plan to
leave the Gaelic gods alone if the people reject her Jesus Christ, and, above all, of their like desires to fashion a Gael that no outsider would dare try to conquer. Her plain speech expels from their minds any suspicions that she is Gael without but Roman within.

Once Brigid secures the abbey’s safety—insofar as safety is possible in Gael’s shifting warrior culture—she turns her attentions to practical matters. She ensures adequate farmlands to supply the abbey’s daily needs. She trains small groups of nuns to take over her work of combing the countryside for poor to feed, bodies to heal, and souls to save, though always cautioning them to rein in any behavior that might anger the chieftains. She starts holding High Masses every day in her newly wrought church, and encourages all to attend, often with generous feasts at holiday time. And on every wall, every gate, indeed, every surface, she guides her artisans to sculpt swirling shapes, exotic creatures, intricate foliage, and the Words of the Lord; she wants her abbey to shimmer and dazzle in its dedication to Him.

By day, Brigid is the essence of the fire and the cross, a living embodiment of the Gaelic goddess and the Christian God. She knows that she cannot waver in her conviction of these dual roles. Yet in the darkest hour of the night, she is only human, the Brigid of her birth. Alone, she kneels before her private altar, abject and afraid, praying that her work satisfies Him and her promise to her parents.

Alex waited for her expert to arrive at the Shelbourne hotel. Like most appraisers, she had a go-to list of consultants when a piece strayed outside her area of expertise. Keepers from the National Museum of Ireland and professors from Trinity College Dublin appeared on that list, but she could never confer with them on her “borrowed” manuscript. Her situation required that she seek out an expert with his own shop who wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Tourists and locals alike packed the deservedly famous Lord Mayor’s Lounge at midday. The sumptuous, confectioner’s-sugar setting—with its crystal chandeliers and rococo wall moldings mounted on damask—lured them as much as the lavish afternoon tea. Alex listened to the relaxed chatter of older ladies mixed with the clipped discourse of businesspeople, a mélange that spoke of attempts to maintain the economic luster of the fading Celtic Tiger more than anything, as she stared out the window at the daffodil-carpeted Saint Stephen’s Green for signs of her appointment.

Her expert was notoriously late, so Alex had armed herself with reading materials to pass the time productively. She’d stopped at the nearby Trinity College Library Shop just before her meeting and picked up the key texts on seventh-and eighth-century illustrated
manuscripts. Part of her had been tempted to peek at the famous Book of Kells or its lesser-known counterparts, the Book of Armagh and the Book of Durrow, for a quick comparison with her manuscript. But she couldn’t risk running into one of the researchers or conservators she knew who worked in the Old Library, where the books were housed. She’d used them for expert advice in the past, and they’d want to know all about her latest assignment.

She’d given up her watch and delved into the first scholarly text in the pile when she heard her name: “Alexandra Patterson, you’ve become a tourist at long last.”

Alex stared up into the eyes of Declan Lamb, who was staring down at her tower of Trinity College books. “Good to see you too, Dec.”

“Is this seat taken?”

“By you. Although it’s been empty for”—she looked down at her watch in mock irritation, though, in truth, she’d expected a longer wait—“half an hour.”

“Ah, Alex, you’ll never become accustomed to Irish time, will you?” he said with a winning smile that bore no hint of apology. Not that Alex expected one from the devil-may-care Declan, who proudly wore this distinctive Irish characteristic like a flag.

“I do try,” she said with an equally wide smile.

Declan settled into the deep upholstered chair next to hers. He sized her up without any pretense or subtlety. She’d purposely chosen an outfit that was professional rather than appealing, but it didn’t deter him. “You’re looking well, as always, Alex.”

She returned the stare. “As are you, Dec.” Although she mirrored the slightly taunting tone that Declan nearly always used, she meant it. His black hair and blue eyes might have overpowered his natural fairness, but for the fact that his cheeks were eternally ruddy from countless afternoons on the rugby pitch. He wore a battered brown tweed blazer, decrepit jeans, and a rumpled blue-checked shirt, yet somehow he managed to do it as though with the help of Ralph Lauren stylists. He frustrated and charmed simultaneously—only his brilliance saved him.

The waitress appeared. “Your food will be ready in another fifteen minutes. May I refresh your Earl Grey?” she asked Alex.

“Please.”

The waitress had begun pouring the steaming water into Alex’s freshly filled tea strainer when Declan interrupted: “Give us a pint, luv?”

“A pint?” Alex blurted out, then wanted to take it back. Although she’d specifically chosen teatime to avoid Declan’s notorious Saturday afternoons in the pub—she needed him present and sharp—she hated to sound like a prim schoolmarm.

“You’re right—what am I thinking, Alex? We’ll have the champagne.”

Alex groaned in protest, but in truth, she enjoyed the champagne. Three years had passed since they’d worked together on a cache of inscribed liturgical vessels found in the ruins of a Derry church basement, and the drinks softened the edge between them. She was more at ease asking about his “decision” to leave a coveted posting as assistant keeper of the treasury at the National Museum of Ireland after his hasty departure from a professorship at Trinity College. And he felt more comfortable answering with a bullish proclamation that he wanted to start his own business—though she suspected that the real explanation lurked in too much time on the rugby pitch and in the pubs mixed with his own dislike of playing academic games. The latter Alex could relate to.

Alex skirted the reason for their meeting as long as she could. She needed his renowned translating skills desperately, but she didn’t trust him entirely. He always played the rogue, and she wasn’t sure if it was an act or the truth. Still, she had no one else.

“Dec, I need you to be serious for a minute.”

“Don’t tease me, Alex. You know I’d love to get serious with you.” He was only half-kidding; she knew he’d happily pass through any door she opened. He’d made that clear enough in the past.

“I mean it.” She allowed her voice to become raw and solemn.

“Okay.” The haze evaporated from his eyes, and she saw the serious scholar behind them emerge.

“I need you to translate an insular majuscule Old Latin manuscript for me.”

“That’s my stock-in-trade. If that’s all you need, there’s no cause for concern.”

“You can tell no one about the manuscript, Declan. No one.”

“All right then. It’ll be our little secret.” The somber moment over, he took a swig of champagne and allowed his natural joviality to escape. He teased, “What’d you do, Alex? Steal it?”

She’d gone this far—what was a little farther? “Something like that.”

They left the Shelbourne and walked through Saint Stephen’s Green on one of its manicured serpentine pathways. Declan told her that they were headed to his office, but it seemed a meandering route until he took a quick left out of the park. The exit deposited them in front of a row of Georgian town houses, and Declan strode directly to an attractive four-story brick building covered with ivy on the verge of turning green after a long brown winter.

He pulled his keys from the pocket of his tweed jacket and unlocked the front door. Alex was astonished that Declan could afford an office of this caliber. Saint Stephen’s Green sat in the heart of Dublin, and its real estate had become exorbitant in recent years; even basic flats and office suites had cost in the millions of euros. Perhaps there was a grain of truth in the long-circulated rumors that he came from money, or maybe he dabbled in the black market side of their business. As long as he did his work and kept his mouth shut, she didn’t much care.

She followed his lead up two steep flights of stairs that seemed increasingly residential in feel. Then he unlocked a nondescript oak door and ushered her into a handsomely decorated foyer. After she refused his offers to take her coat and bag or get her a cup of tea, he guided her
into a large rectangular room with park views that obviously had once been the parlor but now served as a combination office, sterile laboratory, and reference library. She barely recognized this professional Declan.