Brigid of Kildare (28 page)

Entering the Vatican, Alex experienced a surge of déjà vu. Although the warm welcome Alex received at the side of a respected nun bore no resemblance to the anonymity of her visit with Declan, she was constantly reminded of him. And there was a tiny, rebellious part of her that questioned whether she’d been harsh in her judgment. She tried to shut her feelings off by replaying his last words, but they squeezed through nonetheless.

Numerous priests and nuns emerged from their desks and offices to greet Sister Mary as they walked through the Vatican hallways on the way to their appointment. Alex shot the nun a puzzled look at the breadth of their reception, but Sister Mary only smiled and whispered, “I’ve spent a lot of time here lobbying for my Brigid and for recognition of the early Irish Church. Some take to my message and others abhor it.” She smirked and said, “The latter are hiding in their cubicles. Or maybe they’re all cowering in the office of Father Benedetti.”

A young priest escorted them directly into the office of the secretary-general of the Secret Archives. From the sumptuousness of his office and the obsequious treatment by his underlings, Alex deduced that the older priest clearly held a senior role, though he wore no visible evidence of his rank. Father Benedetti stood when they entered, and he and Sister Mary shook hands with seeming respect, but they immediately squared off like old enemies.

“You requested a meeting to discuss a matter of some urgency?”

“Father Benedetti, I’ll leave it to my expert, Alexandra Patterson, to explain just what we’ve got at Kildare.”

Alex made the presentation she’d rehearsed repeatedly with Sister Mary back in Kildare. She stressed the historical and artistic importance of the Book of Kildare, the Life of Brigid, and the Scribe Letters, as they’d come to call them. But she was ever cognizant of her audience,
and tried never to overstate the religious implications of the finding or even mention the Gospel of Mary the Mother. She allowed the texts to speak for themselves.

Father Benedetti stayed silent for a time, staring at Alex and Sister Mary as if waiting for some information more befitting his station. Then he begrudgingly turned his attention to the appraisal. He reviewed it with excruciating slowness, designed, no doubt, to unsettle. Alex started to get uncomfortable, but Sister Mary remained as still as a statue.

“How can I help you with this book of yours? Books, I should say,” he added in a belittling tone.

“We’re not here asking for help,” Sister Mary explained. “We are here out of courtesy. My order insisted that we notify you that we are planning to sell the texts.” Her tone made clear that she did not agree with the necessity for such an announcement. “And Miss Patterson here tells me that, at auction, the texts will garner considerable publicity—and bidding. We just wanted you to be apprised.”

Alex knew that the nuns of the order wanted Sister Mary to do more than just forewarn Rome of the sale; they wanted theological guidance and approval. But Sister Mary would never deign to ask for it. For all her adherence to the Catholic Church and her faith, she bore the old Irish distrust of Rome. The Irish should be left to the Irish, she believed.

“I do appreciate your courtesy visit. But you understand, of course, that the church can never sanction the sale of these items.”

“We are not asking for sanction. We are merely providing you with information and notification.”

“Then I am sorry to inform you that we will have to ban the sale,” he said, although he looked anything but sorry. He looked delighted.

“On what grounds?”

“That the theology on which the manuscript and its imagery are based is heretical.”

“Interesting. Well, you have no legal basis on which to ban the sale.”

“What do you mean?”

Sister Mary handed him a legal opinion prepared by a solicitor of
Alex’s recommendation. It set forth the Order of Saint Brigid’s unbroken chain of title to relics—and thereby the manuscripts—for over a thousand years. The church’s awareness of the relics and its failure to assert any claims of ownership to them barred it from making such claims now.

Father Benedetti no longer appeared delighted. “If we cannot operate by law, then we will operate by God. We will declare you in breach of your vows.”

“My particular vow is not to Rome but to God and my order. I will try to abide by Rome’s views, but I will sell these pieces.”

“Even if you are deemed disobedient?”

“To my way of seeing, that’s not a label you’d like to slap on an old nun like me. Wouldn’t it just draw unwanted public attention to the manuscript? Everyone would scurry off to steal a peek at a book so scandalous that the church censured an old nun for selling it. You might be getting lots of requests for information about why the church banned the Gospel of Mary the Mother in the first place, and why it continues to do so. In this climate, you might not fare so well.”

His eyes narrowed in anger, but he said nothing. He understood that this was her opening move.

Sister Mary knew that it was time to crack open the door just a bit. “You’d be better off going along with my sale. I’m not unreasonable, you know.”

“Do you have a proposal?”

“I may be a gambler, but I’m not a fool. I don’t think I’ll start off by bidding against myself.”

“I see. You’ll leave it to me to bid against myself.”

“Exactly.”

Father Benedetti shot Sister Mary a look of such unbridled loathing it astonished Alex. “Please excuse me.” He rose and left his office through a back door disguised to blend in with his extensive bookshelves.

Alex turned to Sister Mary to ask a question, but the nun placed a finger on her lips to silence her. She nodded toward the shelves as if to say, The books have ears.

Within a half an hour, Father Benedetti returned with a red folder.
He made a show of pulling out a report and reviewing it before speaking. “It has been drawn to my attention that the Holy See will be publishing a paper in our newspaper,
L’osservatore romano
, suggesting that the church’s position on the Virgin Mary might not be inconsistent with the Protoevangelium of James, the successor text to the alleged Gospel of Mary the Mother. In that paper, His Holiness explains that the Virgin Mary has
always
been specially venerated by the church and points to the Infancy Gospels—including the specifically named Protoevangelium of James, as well as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew—as evidence of her special place in the hearts and devotion of all faithful. His Holiness even notes that one of the earliest depictions of the Madonna and Child—the painting in the Catacomb of Priscilla—offers confirmation of the early church’s adoration of the Virgin Mary. In this way, permitting the circulation of an image such as yours—one founded on the Protoevangelium or its predecessor, or even its successor, for that matter—is consistent with the papal view.”

Alex was flabbergasted. Could it just be sheer coincidence that the church had at the ready a position paper that addressed the controversial issues raised by the Book of Kildare? If not, how had the church known what she and Sister Mary would say in their meeting? Then it dawned on her. The Vatican had had access to her black bag, containing the manuscripts, for nearly a day and a half while she and Declan had waited for Father Casaceli and had reviewed the
Liber diurnus—
and it had had the impetus to search it after Declan had told the librarian priest about their fifth-century finding. The church must have undertaken a cursory interpretation of the books before Alex and Declan returned to get them. Father Benedetti had come to their meeting well prepared.

Although Alex believed that Sister Mary understood this as well, she gave no sign of it. “That is welcome news indeed.”

“Might you be amenable to a sale that would place certain conditions on the buyer?” Father Benedetti asked. “Conditions that might position the object in the context of His Holiness’s recently expressed—though long held—opinions?”

“Depending on what those conditions are, I might.”

“What if the church were given the chance to explain its historical
and emerging view on the person of the Virgin Mary as part of a larger exhibit displaying the Book of Kildare, the Life of Brigid, and the Scribe Letters?”

“Would you deny that the Gospel of Mary the Mother ever existed?”

“No, the church would not.”

“Even though we do not have a copy?”

“Even though you do not have a copy.”

“Would you in any way undermine its depiction of a strong, forceful Mary?”

“No. His Holiness has decided that the time might be right to embrace a more generous image of the Virgin Mary—one that might prove more appealing to our younger female constituents. And, as I am sure you can see from His Holiness’s recent opinion paper, the church has always welcomed the view found within the Protoevangelium of James and its progeny, the purported successor texts to the alleged Gospel of Mary the Mother.”

“Even though it once banned the Gospel?”

“The condemnation of the Protoevangelium and the PseudoMatthew was the decision of an earlier Holy See, a product of a different time. We will make that distinction abundantly clear.”

“Then Miss Patterson and I will ensure that whoever purchases these manuscripts will provide the church with an opportunity to explain itself.”

Brother
,

I labored over the image’s completion, brother. I confess this small deception to you only. I knew that my long days with Brigid would cease when she became satisfied with our Mary, even though my actual departure from Gael might be months away, when Gallienus’s next ship came for me.

But I could not bear parting from Brigid yet. Not yet. Just one more layer of lattice border, I told myself. Just another palm frond in an angel’s hand, I said in silence. Just a spare copy of the painting so Brigid may have one for her own collection, I whispered to the walls. I prayed that my slow brushstrokes could deliver just one more week, one more day, even one more hour with her. Though, in truth, the two images, identical in every aspect, drew as close to perfection as I believe I am capable.

And I do not regret my dishonesty, though I was frank with Brigid in almost all other respects. For we had so many happy hours in each other’s company in those last three months. We were free to roam the countryside under the pretext of abbey business and our project—though none knew of its nature. Measure by measure, Brigid revealed to me the hidden treasures in the mild rolling hills near Cill Dara’s
plains, and I described to her the searing beauty of our family’s lands in the summertime, born of a heat unfathomable to her.

Though we could not join our words or our bodies in an expression of our emotions, we could join our minds and secret hearts. And so we did. Those twelve weeks were the happiest of my life. Yet no matter my efforts at delay, the end came sooner than I could have ever supposed.

After evening Mass on a particularly stormy evening, I returned to my hut. I’d lowered myself to the floor, ready to assume my prayerful position to help cast out the temptations of the day, when I heard a rapping noise. One of Cill Dara’s few rules, albeit unwritten, forbids the interruption of the religious once they retire to their hut, thus I attributed the tapping to a wayward branch blown against my hut’s outer walls by the fierce wind. Yet I heard the noise again, more purposeful this time, and I knew it was someone knocking.

I rose and opened the door. A man dressed in monk’s garb, thoroughly drenched from the downpour, stood outside. Though he was unfamiliar to me and his appearance at my door most unusual, I motioned for him to enter; such hospitality is the Cill Dara way. I handed him a cloth with which to dry his face, and asked in Gaelic, “May I help you, Brother?”

He pulled back his cloak and wiped his face clean of rain. He then answered in Latin: “You may indeed, Brother Decius.”

He spoke with such familiar address that I grew confused. Had I met this monk before? Given my distracted state and the constant influx of religious to the abbey, it was possible I had forgotten the introduction. “How may I assist you, Brother? I am at your disposal.”

“Please join me in a short journey to the coast, Brother Decius. Gallienus diverted a ship destined for Britannia to Gael—to secure your homecoming to Rome.”

Brother, I was shocked. Only three months had passed since Valens’s departure, and I’d never anticipated that a return voyage could be secured so readily. I’d believed I had at least three months left in Gael, three joyous months left with Brigid. But my joy was of no matter. Our Lord called me to His mission—different from the one upon which I’d embarked—and I must follow when He calls.

The monk grew impatient with my silence. “Are you ready?”

I wanted to say no, to cry out that I needed more time with my Brigid. But I knew that our work demanded that I give my accord. “Yes, Brother. I am ready.”

“Good. Gather your belongings, and let us go. The ship awaits us, and the seas are rough.”

“I will need but an hour.”

“An hour? We have little time.”

“For safety, I have not kept all the necessary documents here in my hut. I must collect the remainder.” I spoke in generalities, as I knew not what information Gallienus—or Valens, for that matter—had made him privy to. He seemed to understand, and nodded his acquiescence.

“One hour. Let us meet near the large oak in the curve of the hill to the east of the abbey walls. Do you know the one?”

I did indeed. It was a tree much beloved by Brigid. “Yes. I will be there in one hour.”

The monk, if he was in fact a monk, let the wind slam the door to the hut behind him as he entered the night. I waited until enough time had elapsed to be certain of his departure, then assembled my few possessions, including my carefully crafted “evidence” for Gallienus, and ran from my hut. To Brigid.

One thought coursed through my mind over and over again as I hastened to her. How can I leave her? She has become more than just my world; she has become my true
anmchara
. Yet I knew I must. I knew I must marshal my limited skills at artifice, infiltrate the world of Gallienus, and make him believe. Believe that, though mildly heretical, the Abbey of Cill Dara posed no threat to Rome’s Catholicism. Believe that Gael did not make a useful tool in the church’s machinations to secure power, whatever the forthcoming political landscape. And believe that the church must embrace Brigid’s and my own image of the Virgin Mary.