Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [125]
“I’m locking up now.”
“I could lock up later and give you the key afterwards, if you like.”
The old man treated this suggestion with silent contempt. Osgar knew better than to argue. He sighed and, after lingering hopefully a few more moments, went outside.
Silence. The light wind had stopped. The snow fell softly, caressing his face. The last remains of daylight gave the pale scene an eerie glow. His eyes scanned the street and peered down the slope towards the monastery gateway. There was no sign of Sister Martha. Nobody about at all. He sniffed. The air wasn’t very cold. Perhaps instead of returning to the dormitory where he was staying, he’d stretch his legs and go down to the gateway. Pulling his hood over his head, more to hide his face than to protect it from the light snow, he began to walk down the street.
There was no doubt that it was comforting, in these dangerous times, to find oneself safe within the great walls of Kells. Even in the snow shower, it was an impressive place. Extending all over the low hill, with its stout buildings, stone churches, and well-laid streets, not to mention the market and suburbs that lay just outside its high walls, the monastery was not only a walled sanctuary, like Glendalough, but like several of the other great religious houses, it was really a medieval city.
As Osgar knew, this idea went back to the early days of the Christian mission on the island. For when Saint Patrick had begun his mission, he had come as a bishop. All over the crumbling Roman Empire, the pattern was the same: Christian priests and their flocks were guided and led by a bishop, who would be based in the nearest important Roman town. It had been vaguely assumed, therefore, that even in the distant western island, matters would be organised in a similar way. The trouble was, of course, that the island, never having been part of the empire, did not possess such things as towns; and though the first missionary bishops tried to attach themselves to the tribal kings, these Celtic chiefs were always moving about their territories. It didn’t suit the Roman priests at all.
But a monastery was a permanent, year-round centre. You could build a church, living quarters, even a library there. It could be protected with walls. It was self-sustaining, providing workers, priests, and leaders from within the community. The abbot could act as the local bishop himself, or provide a house for a bishop within the safety of the monastery’s walls. For a long time the bishop who oversaw Dyflin had kept his house up at Glendalough. Craftsmen and traders were attracted to settle by monasteries. Markets appeared; whole communities grew up in suburbs around the walls. No wonder that within a century of Patrick’s mission, these monasteries were rapidly becoming the main centres of the Christian community on the island. Until the first Viking coastal settlements, centuries later, the larger monasteries were the only towns in Ireland. Kells had been built upon this pattern.
He went through the gateway into the marketplace. It was empty. Near one side, like a priest at a snowbound offertory, stood a handsome stone cross, and behind it several covered wagons, already white. He looked around. All the stalls and workshops were closed. A solitary lamp shone from a cowshed, but the only signs of human life were the wisps of smoke from the thatched roofs of the surrounding cottages, shuttered against the snow and the dying day. Osgar turned round, took three deep breaths, decided this was enough exercise for the present, and would have been gone in another moment if he hadn’t noticed, just then, a figure emerging from one of the wagons. It wasn’t Sister