Free The Secret of Kells by Eithne Massey Page B

other monks, was to keep a careful eye on him at all times. The Abbot gave strict instructions that he did not wish to see Brendan unless he was ready to promise not to see Aidan or go to the Scriptorium, and each time he asked Tang if this was the case Tang shook his head. The rest of the monks knew that Brendan spent most of his time with Aidan. They helped to smuggle him in and out of the cell. The monks brought him berries for ink and feathers for quills. They came and looked at the Book and stood in awe of Brendan’s skill.
    ‘It’s like Heaven,’ they said. ‘It is the work of angels!’
    ‘You are a better illustrator, a hundred times better illustrator, than any of us,’ said Leonardo. Brendan didn’t know what to say.
    ‘It’s not me, it’s the Eye,’ he said finally.
    ‘No, child,’ said Aidan. ‘It is not just the Eye. It is your own inner eye that has the imagination to see these wonders.’

    The winter came. It was a cold winter, so cold, with the frost so hard, that everyone said that the Northmen would surely not come to Ireland until the spring thaws. There were rumours that they had gone back to their own cold countries. Ships had been seen, sailing away over the wild ocean, laden down with gold and silver and precious stones and even more precious children from the Irish monasteries and villages that they had plundered.
    The wolves howled in the forest, and the birds no longer sang, except for the black crows which cawed warnings of disaster from the trees and the single robin that would come to the Scriptorium window and watch Brendan at work on the Chi Ro page. In turn, Pangur would watch the robin as it sat there, planning to pounce, but the robin was always too quick for her. Pangur had slightly better luck with the mice that sometimes ran acrossthe floor. Brendan and Aidan had to rescue quite a few of the small, soft creatures from her sharp teeth and claws.
    Brendan was happy, although he missed Aisling. He still slipped into the forest when he could, but he never managed to see her. So instead, he watched the changes in the forest through the seasons. The trees that changed from glorious reds and yellows and coppers to the stark beauty of bare branches, to the absolute stillness of winter, gave him new ideas every day for his work.
    And as Brendan worked on the Book, his uncle worked on the wall, and it grew higher and higher, until it blocked out the sun and the whole monastery lived in its shadow. There was only one entrance, a great wooden gate that was kept heavily barred and bolted. It was rarely opened. But as winter came in, more refugees from the raids of the Northmen arrived. It began to seem as if the icy cold and rough seas had not stopped their terrifying raids. The lines on the Abbot’s face deepened and increased and he worked as hard as any of the monks on the wall. Indeed, he worked harder, as if he was punishing himself forsomething. During the evening, he sometimes went to the door of the tower, where he thought Brendan was still locked away, and listened. The monks watching him thought that he might open it, and held their breath in fear. But he never did. At the last moment he would turn away and go back to work on the wall.
    ‘A stubborn child, that Brendan,’ he would say to Tang. Tang would reply quietly, ‘I wonder who he got that from, Brother Abbot?’

10 The darkness from the sea
    I t was a snowy day in December. Outside the walls of Kells, the forest was covered in a white blanket. The small streams that had raced noisily through the trees during the summer were frozen into silence. The world was very quiet and still, as if holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for it to stop being so very, very cold.

    Brendan and Aidan were in the Scriptorium. Even though a wood fire burned in the grate, the Scriptorium was still freezing. It was noon, so the room was very bright. They were working as hard as they could, as the dark days meant