The Monk (Prince Ciaran th Damned Book 3) Read online

  The Monk

  A Prince Ciaran story

  by

  Ruari McCallion

  Copyright ©Ruari McCallion, 2016 and 2017

  Ruari McCallion has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  “The Monk” is not a history book. It is a story, set against an historical background.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted.

  We apologise for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  Author’s Note:

  The central character has The Sight. Episodes when he is experiencing Sight are represented in the narrative in italics.

  For our daughters, Jane and Catriona, who have waited a long time to see this in print!

  Thanks to Ann for advice, suggestions, queries, editing and proofreading.

  The Monk

  TABLE of CONTENTS

  The Monk11

  Author’s notes:

  Legends, History and Characters398

  Map of Anselm’s Britain 405

  1

  Sacrifice

  He cleared the altar and signalled for the gift. The two servers brought the pure, holy body, laid it carefully on the altar and assumed positions at either end. A third held the chalice for the blood. He put his hands over the offering, closed his eyes, tilted his head back and silently recited the prayer. He spread his hands, palm upwards, and turned towards the circle of his followers. He dropped his eyes to the ground and spoke.

  “This is our body which we give up to you.” They repeated after him. One of the servers rang the bell and he knelt, bending his head in concentration and silent invocation.

  He stood and reached for the scabbard. He raised it above his head in both hands and pulled the curved knife clear. The server rang the bell again and the circle knelt and bowed their heads. He turned back to the sacrifice on the altar, brought the knife down and cut straight into the body at the base of the ribcage. The child - a boy: young, unsullied and perfect - jerked in spasm and tried to curl away but the servers had him held secure. He slashed down to the groin then reached with his left hand into the wound and felt up under the ribs until he found the heart. He inserted the knife into the wound and quickly, but carefully, cut the veins and tissue away and pulled the heart free. It fitted easily into his palm.

  He put the knife down and showed it to the boy, whose blood had flowed out of the gaping gash down his stomach. Before he died he managed a small whimper. The priest raised the dripping lump of flesh high above his head, holding it in both hands. The bell rang again and the heads of the kneeling congregation bowed and raised again. The heart still pumped a little, spasmodically. Their chants rose higher and the heart gave out one final, convulsive heave. A gout of blood shot out and splashed onto the child’s body, which might have twitched a couple of times. The servers turned it over and the third collected the ebbing blood where the central channel emptied at the end of the altar.

  The priest brought the heart down to his mouth and bit deeply into it. Power started to flow through him like fire as he chewed and swallowed and bit again. It gained in intensity and his hunger for it was so great he forced the rest into his mouth, chewed perfunctorily and swallowed it almost whole. He was filled with terrible glee. His own blood burned in his veins. He was trembling with power but he knelt again and managed to offer the prayer though his brain was on fire and he turned eagerly to the server who handed him the chalice, now filled with the victim’s blood.

  He snatched it out of the acolyte’s hands then raised the cup above his head, as he had done with the heart. His hands were shaking and a couple of drops spilled onto his upturned face. The bell rang and a sigh went out and round the circle in a great release but he was not done yet.

  He drank eagerly and some blood spilled round his mouth and down his jaw and some drops fell to the ground which responded with two great booms! As he drank, the Power collected itself within him, curled, gathered and then sprung like a torrent throughout his body. It raged through every fibre, every muscle, every vein, every hair, every pore, every cell and burst through his skin to burn him with its strength, with its fire, burn and burn and burn him.

  Blood was spilling out of his mouth and rolling down his chin. He spread his arms wide and threw back his head and screeched an ecstatic yell of triumph. The circle looked on with awe, with terror and with horrible, consuming delight as their leader became transparent, incandescent and pulsated with the Power. His triumph was theirs. Their hearts’ desires were his to grant. They saw him transformed. He glowed and he seemed to grow. No, he didn’t grow. Something grew out of him. It took shape around him and he was enveloped in it. The eyes glowed with hunger as he surveyed the circle and all of them knew that he would take them as soon, as eagerly and as easily as he had taken their sacrifice, for he was one of them no longer: He was the God who Walked, He was the god who ruled the ancient land, He was Cromm Cruaich, Moloch, eater of souls and Master of the Pit, cast down but risen unbowed. They had burned the Wicker Man to him and they would again. They would fill it with the living bodies of their enemies and burn them to his glory. He could give and he could take away and nothing could stand before him.

  He looked around the circle. He threw His head back and roared in defiance, the roar that had shaken the foundations of Heaven before the Earth was made. He sent his spirit hissing into the air looking for who would challenge him, for there could be none. He looked down on the circle, the stick figures, no more than kindling for his fire. He knew what they wanted and granted their desires with a thought. A petty advantage for this one, a woman for that one. Something lost to be found. And gold - there was always gold. They loved their gold. Some reward must be given. They asked so little and brought so much, they would never understand the bargain they made until it was sealed in their own souls and in blood. He wanted souls and he wanted blood: the blood of sacrifice, of murder and of death in battle. The sweet, warm taste of blood. He gave the vessel the Power that he wanted; the Power to See into men’s minds, to influence and to conceal, and to See the future that he decided. He went higher, higher and higher and looked out over all the land. It was dark, silent and fearful, as it should be when he walked. He grinned at the service they did him, knowing or not, the blood that flowed into the ground and would trickle down to his ever-eager maw. Who would dare to stand against him!

  There were points of light in the darkness and he felt outrage. He felt fear. Only a god could throw down a god and he had looked in the face of the One who had cast him down and the sight had sent him crazed and gibbering into the darkness to join his fellows.

  Some of the points of light sent weak fingers out. They touched others and coalesced into larger spots, which grew and drove the darkness back. He remembered he was in possession of the man’s body and what he thought may filter back into his mind. He turned his eyes away, so that darkness was all they saw. He threw back his head and roared again, in triumph, in defiance and in horrible delight. The light was small, and weak, and pitiful, and in the hands of these brittle weaklings! Then he returned to the earth and left the vessel with thoughts and visions that he provided, that would fill him with despair and would bind him to his god for ever.

  The priest shuddered as the entity left him. He would never get used to the feeling of omnipotence and he cou
ld never get enough of it.

  He tried out the Power, tentatively and then with exploding confidence. He could See again! He could See, he could See, he was no longer blind! He sent his Vision up to look over the land and into the future.

  He saw wave after wave of humanity swarming over the seas to his island, swords rising and falling, rising and falling, rising and falling again and again as the invaders slaughtered his people and pushed them into the hills, into the sea and into the earth. They came again and again, wave after wave. They came in ships, more and more, then they filled the air and rained fire down on his people. The land was consumed with fire from end to end.

  He would stop it. He would strengthen his kingdom and use the Power against its enemies, against those who would crush and slaughter. He would drive out the invaders, force them back into the sea and restore the land to his people, its rightful people. He would drive them back and feed their children to Cromm Cruaich. They would not go down into the dark. He would raise the greatest army the world had ever seen and sweep all before him, march triumphant to the gates of Rome itself, throw down its walls and take possession of its riches. Nothing would stand in the way of the Power.

  He fainted in reaction to his possession, still with anger and despair coursing through his veins. They would not go down into the dark, they would not, they would not, they would not.

  In the hidden glade in the hills of Strathclyde the circle carried the unconscious body of their leader back to his home. The empty husk of the child they had no more use for. Its soul had gone to feed their master. They carried it out through the hidden path and left it in the woods for the wolves to dispose of. In their arrogance they did not bother to conceal their passing.

  2

  Iona

  My feet made no sound. The ground was covered in needles and I was surrounded by dark, silent trees that watched me with sombre, velvet awareness.

  A light bounced and bounded slowly through the trees ahead. It was blue and it shrank as it approached until it landed at my feet and it was a ball of wool. I bent to pick it up but it rolled away ahead of me, just beyond my grasp. I took a step forward and tried again but once more it rolled away just as I thought I had my fingers on it.

  Once more I tried and again it rolled away from my reach, picking up speed as it trundled down the hill.

  The trees were gone. Instead there were people standing as still as statues, caught in frozen conversation. Some I recognised but could not name, some names came as easily to my lips as my own although the faces were unfamiliar.

  The trees were there. The ball of wool was out of sight but it had left a trail of its yarn as it ran. It was important that I find it though I did not know why. I picked up the yarn as I went, rolling it over and over my hand until it got too big and then I rolled it end over end on my arm. I hadn’t realised there was so much.

  A statue blocked the path and I tried to go round it but it was still in my way. I tried the other side and there it was again. Then knew I must look at the face and know it for what it was. I looked up and saw a crudely carved block of stone with slashes for eyes, pits for a nose and a gaping maw lined with teeth that had been so heavily soaked in blood that it was ingrained. I turned and tried to run but my legs would not carry me, they were glued to the ground, which was lush grass in a clearing. I had to face it again. I squared my shoulders, asked for courage and turned to find - the statue was a simple block of stone, shorter than I, with nothing to distinguish it from the others lying around the wide open field. The thread of wool was there and I followed it once more, winding as I went, wrapping it round my body now until I could see the ball again, bouncing merrily along the path through the bushes and down to the waterside where it gave one last skip and splashed into the lake. I wrapped the wool round and round myself as I followed. I could hardly move with the weight of it.

  My eyes swung stiffly to my right and I saw a naked child run down to the water’s edge and into it, splashing after the bright blue ball that bobbed near the shore. The child barely got its ankles wet as it bent down and picked it up and turned to hand it to me as I approached with a smile.

  The child smiled in return but it could not smile with its eyes for it had none. Just above its plump cheeks were two weeping, gaping gashes from which blood flowed like tears. The child’s face was covered in it, red as death and raw as winter, and the blood flowed all down its chest and soaked into the ground which was red, red, and flowed into the lake which was a sea of blood. I never knew there was so much blood in the whole World, so much there was in the lake that stretched as far as I could see and beyond what my mind could imagine and I jerked forward with a start and a screaming, searing headache gripped my temples and held my head like a vice.

  “It’s just to your right, Anselm. I prepared it while you were away.” I groped for the small phial, downed the liquid in one swallow and, after a few moments, sighed with relief as the medicine worked its cure.

  “Thank you, Padhraig, but you shouldn’t. You’re too ill to be getting up and about.” The monk lying in the simple bed tried to smile but settled for a heavy breath or two.

  “It was no trouble. I know where you keep it.” There was dryness and weakness in his voice. His face was as white as bone and with an unhealthy sheen to it. I got up from my chair, rubbed my eyes and shaven forehead and ran my hand over my long, dark and slightly greying hair as I looked out at the dull steel skies of the western sea.

  “What time is it?” I asked. “Has it been long?”

  “I woke an hour or so ago and you were in the trance, Away, and still there when I woke again a short while since.” I allowed myself a small snort of amusement as I turned back to my friend.

  “An hour at least! Maybe two! It seemed much less to me.”

  “What did you See?” Padhraig asked from his bed.

  “Some of it I understand, some I don’t - yet. As usual, God teases me with mysteries before showing his intent.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Padhraig asked but then his body was shaken by a fit of coughing. It started quietly and never reached any sort of volume, but left him exhausted and breathless and with a faint trickle of thin blood at his lips. His face was covered in sweat and he breathed as deeply as he could as he tried to gain enough strength to weather the next attack. I got him a drink infused with herbs, lifted his head from the pillow and helped him to a few small sips. He lay back with a sigh.

  “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 that
ch 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..?”