“Tell me, I can still listen and maybe even help. Understanding doesn’t require much physical effort.” And so I did. He seemed to find the sound of my voice comforting. His breathing relaxed and the crackly threat of another attack subsided. Just as I finished there was a light knock at the door. It opened at my word. A young novice stood there, breathing heavily from a recent dash across the yard. He spoke as quietly as he could in order to give the invalid the least possible disturbance.
“Brother Anselm, the Abbott sent me. He says to come to him as soon as you can, please. Brother Roghan will be here directly to look after Brother Padhraig and I’ll stay until he gets here.” I turned to Padhraig.
“It appears I am summoned. Will you be all right?” he waved his hand weakly.
“You’d better get on. It doesn’t do to keep an Abbott waiting,” he smiled, weakly. “Tell him about your Vision. He’ll probably help, but I think your wool is unravelling already.” He closed his eyes and gained a kind of peace in a bubbling sleep. I stayed long enough to be sure that his breathing was as steady as it could be and then left to see the Abbott. I went out into a cold grey dawn with the wind whipping in off the Atlantic, scouring the rocky foreshore, bending the skinny shrubs and combing smooth the coarse-fibred machair grass. It chased me across the rocky grass of the yard to the chapel and the Abbott’s office off it.
The monastery on Iona was arranged simply, along the lines laid down by the Irish missionary Columba more than half a century before. The chapel was its heart; a low building of stone with stout thatch over, the roof being weighted down with nets and stones against the wild Atlantic storms. The altar within was indicated on the roof by a small stone cross within a circle, set to the eastern end. The chapel itself lay across the southern end of a square formed by it, the infirmary and library building on the slightly sheltered eastern side, the barn to the north which was used for the storage of food and shelter for the animals, and the monastery offices and strangers’ accommodation to the west. The resident monks’ accommodation was in small beehive shaped huts dotted around the island. In the library, novices learned the art of copying and illuminating manuscripts. If a visitor walked through the maze of storage shelves, books and manuscripts, each corner would reveal another monk, head bowed over his raised desk, painstakingly copying out a new mystery revealed in a different page of Scripture. I arrived at the Abbott’s door and entered when my soft knock was answered by a quiet word of invitation. Cunnian stood to greet me.
“Brother Abbott, you asked to see me.”
“Brother Anselm, yes. Thank you for coming so promptly. Please sit down.” When I’d done so he looked at me sharply, his red albino eyes like points of fire. “My business can wait. Would you like to tell me first, what you have Seen?” I recounted the vision and the Abbott’s brow furrowed as he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hand across his mouth thoughtfully and. Some parts were as clear to him as to me: the skein of wool indicates a journey, or a quest. That part was to being almost immediately; the Abbott was sending me on a journey, which is why he had sent for me. But it also indicated possible contradiction.
“I know where I am sending you but where you are going might not be in my hands,” he said. I wondered if my quest was not to start just yet, to which he replied with a raised eyebrow.
“Not yet, Anselm? Hardly likely, on past experience. I would rather that we did have notice of your undertakings, if that is not questioning God’s purpose. It would enable us to plan better.” He stood and walked the three steps to the window. “This could be most inconvenient. But I am concerned about the bleeding child.” After a moment’s silence he turned to me again. “A great burden may be on your shoulders. Will it interfere..?”
“Maybe it’s tied in with whatever task you had for me?” My voice softened the short silence. Cunnian thought for a moment and nodded.
“Possible. In fact, quite likely. I had intended to send you alone but now it may be better to send a companion with you. But who?”
“There was no-one with me in the Vision. I was alone,” I reminded him.
“What about the others?”
“Statues.”
“Ah, yes. Alone you must be, then. Unless it is symbolic solitude? Something you may have to work out alone? That doesn’t preclude you having company?” I had a memory of pain at my temples and rubbed them with one hand. I held up the other and shook my head. Cunnian turned again to the window and continued. “My task for you is important: very important. I would rather that you weren’t distracted, not even for the best of motives.” I waited patiently in the silence that followed. It was best to let him think uninterrupted.
“As you know,” he continued quietly, still looking out of the window, “we don’t get on well with our cousins, the Roman Christians. Too much emphasis on order and authority, on secular power and material glory. Too much silk, and altogether too much gold for my taste. And they ride everywhere, above and aloof from the common people.” He turned from the window and sat at his desk again, leaning forward on his elbows with his hands interlocked. “Imperial habits die hard, it seems.” He swept his hand over the dome of his shaved forehead and the long hair that flowed onto his shoulders like a white mane. “Just this tonsure enrages them, it seems. They accuse us of following Simon Magus, the Manichees and who knows what else.” I nodded. He indicated a parchment on his desk. “Whatever our differences, these matters may all be resolved, soon. I want you to go to our brother community at Lindisfarne and then on to the abbey at Whitby. King Oswy of Northumbria has called for a great synod to be held there, with bishops, priests, monks and clergy from all over Britain attending. You are needed.”
“Me? Why me?”
“As a translator. There will be British, Irish, English, Saxons from the south, at least one Frank and possibly delegates from Rome, too.”
“Quite a Tower of Babel. But why me? I’m not the only one with the gift of tongues. Melrose has British and English and some Latin speakers, too. Lindisfarne has English, Irish and British and Colman speaks Latin, maybe better than I do.”
“There aren’t enough and they’re mostly inexperienced. They barely understand themselves, never mind the ways of kings and the rivalries of our two churches,” he said. “You have wandered the earth and can speak easily with high and low-born, family and foreigner, and you have the ability to see the intent behind the word. No-one else is better at sniffing out lies, almost before they’ve been spoken. To do with your Sight, I’m sure.” I nodded agreement and Cunnian continued. “I also need you to go to the court at Dumbarton and ask for our right to roam in Strathclyde to be renewed.”