6. The vanished vellum.

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Chris Lawlor

Diversion 6. Something a bit lighter today! This diversion is a little different. It’s not Dunlavin-based at all. In fact, it’s not history either. Some of you will know that I am a member of Dunlavin Writers’ group and have taken to writing short stories, poetry and prose since I retired. I was lucky enough to be included in the ‘Ireland’s Own’ Short Story Anthology last year, and am delighted to say that I am also to feature in the 2020 volume when it is published DV. Here is a short story I wrote some time ago. It’s a mixture of historical fiction and whodunnit! The main character, Brother Aidan, tells us when he’s solved the mystery… will you, the reader, have solved it by that point too? Enjoy today’s diversion…

Brother Aidan leaned back and surveyed his work. It was finally finished. Two months of painstaking, slow, tedious labour had yielded fruit. The monk was well pleased with the result of his labour of love. As he examined the illustrated and illumined vellum page before him, he reflected that it would not be out of place in any great library in Christendom. Brother Aidan was a master illuminator whose work was much sought after, but even he drew in his breath sharply when the evening clouds parted and a shaft of sunlight struck the vellum, lighting up the whole scene which seemed to be momentarily enveloped in a warm glow of riotous colour. The page was stretched and ready for insertion into its book, but Brother Aidan knew that the bright blue pigment needed a little more time to dry. Having worked in the scriptorium for twenty years, he was an expert on pigmentation, extremely knowledgeable about the many plants, herbs, minerals and extracts which produced the various colours, and about the mixing of those colours to produce the innumerable hues and shades needed to produce a page like the one before him which showed the Transfiguration of Christ, with areas of red, blue and yellow merging sublimely behind the figure of the glorified Messiah.

The artistic monk also knew that pride was a sin, so he averted his eyes and quickly muttered under his breath ‘Not for my glory but for Thine, O Lord,’ before surreptitiously stealing another glance at the page. He thought it was his best work yet and he knew that it had no equal in his own remote mountain monastery. In fact, he thought he had only seen its possible equal in four places: a wonderful nativity scene at far-famed Clonmacnoise on the floodplain of the great River Shannon; a crucifixion page on Lindesfarne – the Holy Island monastery founded many years before by his own great namesake, Abbot Aidan – which he had visited while crossing wild England on a journey to Gaul; a resurrection scene in the great library of Annegray, a beacon of Christianity deep in the forests of the Vosges Mountains and, last but by no means least, an Irish vellum in Bobbio, holy Columbán’s final foundation on the great plain of Lombardy, showing the Madonna and Child and with intricate interlacing to die for, unsurpassed anywhere in all of the monk’s long experience. His memories were interrupted suddenly by the tolling of the vespers bell from the nearby round tower.

Leaving the fabulous page to dry fully, Brother Aidan hurriedly put away the inks and the tools of his trade before emerging from the scriptorium. Blinking as the last rays from the low sun met his eyes, he dutifully made his way to the church and partook in vespers, but he found his mind wandering back to the beauty of his newly finished masterpiece. He made a mental note to confess these distractions at his next confession and when the final Gloria was finished, he headed towards the refectory in the company of Brothers Kevin and Colman. Kevin had spent most of the day on the farm and the observant Aidan, seeing the dark green stain that betrayed contact with Equisetum, knew exactly where Kevin had been working. Aidan also knew by the rock dust on the front of his habit that Colman had been outside the walls with the stonemasons before the latter verified the fact by disclosing his whereabouts during the day in conversation. The smell of pottage emanating from the refectory reminded Brother Aidan that he was hungry, for even master illuminators have to eat. He took his place at table and the silence that descended before grace was sung enabled him to study the new arrivals – the three visitors who had arrived that day and would stay overnight, and who had joined the monastic community for their evening meal.

The first was Fiachra, a young novice, journeying south to a salty lagoon on the coast of Loch Garman which he claimed Our Lady had shown him in a vision. He was a weedy, dreamy youth – a visionary according to himself – with a habit of suddenly falling silent and staring into space. He had done so three times since his arrival at the monastery, the first time when he was visiting the scriptorium and beheld Brother Aidan’s marvellous vellum, and twice since that. The second visitor, Cormac, was older, more grizzled and wearier. He was a monk from a monastery in the west of Ireland, returning from a pilgrimage to Rome. He carried a small leather pouch on a string around his neck in which, he had informed his listeners, he carried a piece of the true cross procured in the Eternal City. He too had visited Brother Aidan putting the finishing touches to the vellum in the scriptorium earlier. The final visitor, Aodh, was a travelling stone mason on his way northward to the fertile plains of Midhe, where he hoped to find work at the renowned monastery of Kells. A master craftsman himself, perhaps he had appreciated the fantastic vellum more than the others when he called into the scriptorium on his tour of the monastery. All three did justice to the meal served up to them before retiring to the guest house for the night.

The following morning as usual Brother Aidan rose early for matins and then he headed to the scriptorium to check on his newly-finished treasure. His legs weakened when he saw the empty space on the bench. The vellum had disappeared overnight! He fleetingly thought that it was so good that the Lord had taken it for himself, but he was a rational man and the truth dawned on him very quickly. There had been a thief in the night! He rushed across the monastic grounds and entered the abbot’s cell to report the catastrophe. Abbot Jarlath was aghast, and declared that a full search of the monastery and everyone within its confines would be initiated immediately. The bell tolled to call everyone together and the situation was explained to the monks and their visitors. Two and a half hours later, Abbot Jarlath and Brother Aidan reluctantly admitted that the search had been fruitless.

Neither of the monks suspected any of their brethren, most of whom had been in the monastery for many years. An outside thief was unlikely, though the gates had not been barred overnight. Unusually, it was a time of peace, with no monastic war in Leinster and no disputes with local chieftains to worry about. Of course, Brother Aidan realised that this also meant that someone could have crept out of the monastery under cover of darkness and hidden the vellum somewhere well outside the monastery’s defensive rath, before returning to his bed. Suspicion rested squarely, in Brother Aidan’s mind, on the three visitors, all of whom had admired the work during the previous day… but which of them was the culprit?

They would all be leaving today, and could not be stopped without proof of wrongdoing.

Later than anticipated, because of the search, with the sun approaching its noonday zenith, the three visitors walked through the gates of the monastery in its cul-de-sac valley and up the hill to where the track divided in three. A final search of their belongings as they exited had yielded nothing. Cormac’s scrip contained nothing untoward, Aodh’s bag contained nothing but the tools of his trade and Fiachra only had a spare robe in a small bundle tied onto a stick which he carried over his shoulder. Abbot Jarlath stood at the crossroads and bade them all farewell. Brother Aidan stood beside him observing closely as the three figures parted in the bright sunlight. The sun’s rays illuminated every little detail: the minute red stain on the front of Aodh’s cloak, the faint blue stain on the cuff of Cormac’s sleeve and the smattering of yellow on the back of Fiachra’s habit. As the three moved away, young Fiachra ambling southward seemingly in a dreamlike state, the footsore and slightly limping Cormac heading westward and the powerful frame of Aodh striding manfully northward, a discernible glint was noticeable in Brother Aidan’s eyes. Tuning to Abbot Jarlath, he said simply ‘I know.’

The afternoon was advanced and Cormac was panting a little from the steep climb towards the great gap in the mountains when he heard a noise behind him. He turned around and was surprised to see four figures hastening towards him. He recognised them at once – Abbot Jarlath, accompanied by Brothers Aidan, Colman and Kevin. Each monk carried a stout staff to help with the gradient and the abbot called on Cormac to wait for them. He stood stock still as the monks advanced the final few yards to join him. ‘God be with you good brothers’ said Cormac. ‘What brings you up the mountain?’ Brother Aidan replied in a quiet voice ‘You do.’ Abbot Jarlath’s voice was anything but quiet as he roared ‘Open your scrip again.’ Out of options and confronted by four men with staves, Cormac reluctantly opened the scrip and Brother Kevin snatched it away and pulled out the missing vellum. Seeing how they looked at him, Cormac began to plead ‘Have mercy on me Brothers,’ but Brother Colman interrupted viciously: ‘We should send him to hell unshriven!’ Abbot Jarlath took command: ‘No. He has been caught taking Brother Aidan’s vellum, so his fate rests with Brother Aidan.’ Colman turned terrified eyes toward the master illuminator.

The half minute or so of silence seemed longer to Cormac, but at last Brother Aidan spoke. ‘There will be no bloodshed’ he decreed. ‘This is a man of God and a Roman pilgrim, but he has stolen something of great value. Its honour price demands that it be paid for with something of great value. Give us the relic of the true cross’. Abbot Jarlath smiled, wryly observing ‘A noble solution indeed’. Looking horrified, Cormac slowly took out the piece of ancient wood and handed it to Brother Aidan. ‘Now’ said the abbot ‘be on your way and never let any of us see you in these parts again.’ Cormac quickly began to scrabble up the hill, but he was not quick enough to avoid a kick in the backside from Brother Colman to send him on his way. The monks began their descent, with Brother Aidan tightly clutching the precious relic, which would from that day onward be venerated on the high altar of their church.

They had covered about a hundred paces. ‘Tell us how you knew’ Brother Kevin requested, and Brother Colman added ‘Yes, please do.’ Brother Aidan glanced at the abbot, who nodded back at him. ‘Well Brothers, I just noticed the colours on their cloaks this morning. I saw that Fiachra had lain down in a wildflower field with many yellow blossoms. That did not surprise me – I’ve seen that trance-like state of his before in a lady in Gaul, where it was looked on as a sickness and nothing to do with visions. I also noticed that Aodh, whose strong hands are more suited to the chisel than the shaving knife, had cut himself shaving. However, the blue stain on Cormac’s sleeve told me he had handled the vellum because the blue section was still a little tacky and not totally dry’. Brothers Colman and Kevin looked at each other in awe of Brother Aidan’s observational skills as he continued ‘Cormac had evidently taken the vellum and hidden it somewhere beyond the parting of the tracks above our monastery gate. He only had to retrieve it on his onward journey today’. Abbot Jarlath looked at his monks and said simply ‘Thank God’, to which his companions all replied ‘Amen’. The four monks approached the monastery gate, bearing a piece of the true cross and looking forward to a dedication ceremony in the church sometime in the near future.

At about the same time Cormac, now safely over the brow of the hill, stopped and picked up a piece of rotten wood from the side of the track. For the third time since he had left Rome, he replaced the relic in his leather pouch. Realising that he had escaped very lightly, he resumed his journey toward faraway Ros Comáin.