Brynach opened his mouth, and then closed it again without speaking. He rose and went back to his place at the cooking pot. I thought the matter ended there; however, I was gravely mistaken.
63
My mind squirmed like an eel caught in the eagle's grasp. Upset by Brynach's talk, disturbed, angry, I walked a long time, watching night descend through a ruddy desert sky, trying to regain my peace and composure. The more I walked however, the more agitated I became-but obscurely so: I did not know what I was anxious about, nor could I discern the source of my aggravation. All the while, my thoughts spun and shifted, flitting first one way and then another, but never finding rest.
Once, I felt as if I were about to burst with a sudden blazing insight. I waited, almost panting with anticipation. But nothing came, so I made my way back to camp and found a place to be alone with my troubled thoughts. Was it, I wondered, something Brynach had said that now sat so ill with me?
Tossed by the turmoil of my unsatisfactory meditations, I heard, but did not attend, a soft, strangled sound. It came again, and I turned to see Dugal, his head bent, shuffling towards me, hands covering his face. Even in the darkness, I could see his broad shoulders curved down as under an unseen burden. He came to where I sat on my solitary rock a short distance from camp.
"Dugal?"
In a moment, he raised his face. I expected tears, but his eyes were dry. The torment he felt was etched in every line of his face, however, and his voice was raw when he spoke. "Christ have mercy!" he said. "It is all because of me."
"Sit you down," I told him sternly. Still preoccupied by my own concerns I had no inclination towards gentleness and understanding. "Tell me now, what ails you?"
"All the evil that has befallen us-" he said, his voice cracking with regret, "it is all because of me. God have mercy on my soul, I am the cause of our afflictions."
"Tch!" I clicked my tongue at him. "Listen to you, now. Even if you were the Devil incarnate, you could not have wrought such havoc."
In his shame, he bent his head to his hands, and covered his face, murmuring, "Jonah…I am Jonah."
Rising to my knees, I leaned towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Hear me, Dugal," I said firmly. "The fault is not yours. The misfortunes which have befallen us are the work of a zealot who shrinks not from murder, or any other crime, to further his wicked purpose."
"The man you describe is me," came the muffled reply. "I am that Jonah."
"Do not be a fool," I told him bluntly. "The man I describe is Komes Nikos. The iniquity is his alone."
Dugal, however, would not be comforted. "You do not understand," he said, his cry a very wound. "From the beginning-before ever we left Eire…" He shook his head, overwhelmed by misery.
"Stop that, Dugal. Look at me." I spoke severely, trying to brace him with sharp speech and firm purpose. "Look me in the eye, man, and tell me what you did."
Slowly, a man crushed by his burden of guilt, Dugal raised his head. There were tears in his eyes now. He pushed them away with the heels of his hands.
"Well? I am waiting."
"I cheated my way onto the ship," he said at last.
"What ship?" I could not imagine what he was talking about.
"Our ship-Ban Gwydd," he said; once loosed, the words came tumbling out. "I knew I would never be chosen like you, Aidan. But I knew also I could not let you go on pilgrimage without me. So, with God as my witness, I schemed and plotted night and day for a way to get aboard that ship. I steeled myself to do whatever vile thing came to hand so that I might be included with you. The Devil placed the chance in my hand and I seized it." Dugal gazed forlornly at me with damp eyes. "God save me, I did the deed without thinking twice."
"You pushed Libir on the path," I said, remembering our leave-taking, and the slippery rocks leading down to the little ship.
The change in Dugal's demeanor was wonderful to behold. The pain in his eyes passed through bewilderment and arrived at amazement. "You knew?"
"Dugal! I have always known!"
"You knew," he said again. "Yet, you never breathed a word."
"Of course, I knew. Listen to me now: Libir was old; he could not have endured the journey-he would have died in the shipwreck, and if not then, he certainly would have been killed any number of times after. Most likely, you saved his life."
Dugal stared, not willing to believe what I was saying.
"Did you really think God would curse us to ruin because you took an old man's place in a boat?" I demanded.
"But I hurt him," he replied dully. "I hurt him, Aidan. Our misfortunes came upon us through my prideful sin."
"Put that out of your mind," I told him. "Whatever happens in this world happens. That is all. The only misfortune is thinking God cares. Hear me, Dugaclass="underline" He does not care. Still less does He intervene in our affairs one way or another."
My words stung him; I could see it in his eyes. He did not expect such venom from me, and was shocked by what I said. After a moment, he said, "I would feel better if I confessed."
"You have already confessed," I pointed out, my anger subsiding.
"Would you hear my confession, Aidan?"
"No," I told him. "But confess by all means, if it will make you feel better; get Brynach to shrive you. I want no part of it."
Dugal nodded glumly and climbed to his feet. I watched as he approached Brynach; the two talked, whereupon the elder monk led Dugal a little apart, and the two knelt together to pray. God help me, I could not bear to see them, so turned my back, pulled my robe around my shoulders, lay down and tried to sleep. The cool desert air was still and soft, the sky bright, and my mind kept circling, circling endlessly, unable to alight and unwilling to rest.
In the end, I gave up and simply stared at the stars. Even that was no good. For, though I watched the glowing opalescent sky, I saw only the black chain of deceit stretching back and back-to Byzantium. I thought of Nikos and his treachery, but instead of allowing myself to renew my rage and hatred-which is what I always did whenever his memory crossed my mind-this time I considered him dispassionately: a riddle to be solved, rather than a serpent to be killed.
Strangely, my mind ceased flitting restlessly from thought to thought, and a profound calm eased into my spirit. I began to see the difficulty in a cool, clear light. It came to me that both Eparch Nicephorus and Bishop Cadoc had been betrayed by Nikos. Why? Neither man, so far as I knew, had ever so much as heard of the other, and yet Nikos went out of his way to destroy them. What was it that united the two men as objects of Nikos's treachery?
Well, there was only one answer: both men knew Governor Honorius. Indeed, both had been going to see him, and both had been attacked. Honorius, then, lay at the centre of this mystery.
So then, what was it about the governor that Nikos feared? Whatever the answer, I reasoned, it must be terrible in its import: hundreds of people had died to keep it hidden-and those were just the ones I knew. How many more had been sacrificed, and why?
Try as I might, I could not get beyond the why?
Gazing up at the glowing sky-vault above me, my mind turned again to my vision of the afternoon: Amet standing in the centre of the marketplace, hailing me, calling me. Come to Sebastea, he had said. Sebastea…
I was on my feet before I knew it, and stumbling through the sleeping camp. Kneeling over the sleeping Brynach, I took him by the shoulder. He came awake at my touch.