Fidelma grimaced with humor.
“You are abbot of one of the great teaching monasteries of Ireland. Professors of all manner of subjects reside here with students from the four corners of Ireland. How can you be lacking stimulating discourse?”
Laisran chuckled.
“These professors tend to lecture; there is little dialogue. How boring monologues can be. Sometimes I find more intelligence among our students.”
The great monastery on the plain of the oaks, which gave it the name Durrow, was scarcely a century old but already its fame as a university had spread to many peoples of Europe. Students flocked to the scholastic island, in the middle of the bog of Aillín, from numerous lands. The Blessed Colmcille had founded the community at Durrow before he had been exiled by the High King and left the shores of Éireann to form his more famous community on Iona in the land of the Dàl Riada.
Sister Fidelma fell in step beside the Abbot as he led the way along the great vaulted corridors of the monastery toward his chamber. Brothers and laymen scurried quietly hither and thither through the corridors, heads bowed, intent on their respective classes or devotions. There were four faculties of learning at Dur-row: theology, medicine, law and the liberal arts.
It was midmorning, halfway between the first Angelus bell and the summons of the noonday Angelus. Fidelma had been up before dawn and had traveled fifteen miles to reach Durrow on horseback, the ownership of a horse being a privilege accorded only to her rank as a representative of the Brehon Court.
A solemn-faced monk strode across their path, hesitated and inclined his head. He was a thin, dark-eyed man of swarthy skin who wore a scowl with the same ease that Abbot Laisran wore a smile. Laisran made a curious gesture of acknowledgment with his hand, more as one of dismissal than recognition, and the man moved off into a side room.
“Brother Finan, our professor of law,” explained Laisran, almost apologetically. “A good man, but with no sense of humor at all. I often think he missed his vocation and that he was designed in life to be a professional mourner.”
He cast a mischievous grin at her.
“Finan of Durrow is well respected among the Brehons,” replied Fidelma, trying to keep her face solemn. It was hard to keep a straight face in the company of Laisran.
“Ah,” sighed Laisran, “it would lighten our world if you came to teach here, Fidelma. Finan teaches the letter of the law, whereas you would explain to our pupils that often the law can be for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of fools, that justice can sometimes transcend law.”
Sister Fidelma bit her lip.
“There is sometimes a moral question which has to be resolved above the law,” she agreed. “Indeed, I have had to face decisions between law and justice.”
“Exactly so. Finan’s students leave here with a good knowledge of the law but often little knowledge of justice. Perhaps you will think on this?”
Sister Fidelma hesitated.
“Perhaps,” she said guardedly.
Laisran smiled and nodded.
“Look around you, Fidelma. Our fame as a center of learning is even known in Rome. Do you know, no fewer than eighteen languages are spoken among our students? We resort to Latin and sometimes Greek as our lingua franca. Among the students that we have here are not just the children of the Gael. We have a young Prankish prince, Dagobert, and his entourage. There are Saxon princes, Wulfstan, Eadred and Raedwald. Indeed, we have a score of Saxons. There is Talorgen, a prince of Rheged in the land of Britain…”
“I hear that the Saxons are making war on Rheged and attempting to destroy it so they can expand their borders,” observed Fi-delma. “That cannot make for easy relationships among the students.”
“Ah, that is so. Our Irish monks in Northumbria attempt to teach these Saxons the ways of Christ, and of learning and piety, but they remain a fierce warrior race intent on conquest, plunder and land. Rheged may well fall like the other kingdoms of the Britons before them. Elmet fell when I was a child. Where the Britons of Elmet once dwelt, now there are Saxon farmers and Saxon thanes!”
They halted before Laisran’s chamber door. The Bishop opened it to usher Fidelma inside.
Fidelma frowned. “There has been perpetual warfare between the Britons and the Saxons for the last two and a half centuries. Surely it is hard to contain both Briton and Saxon within the same hall of learning?”
They moved into Laisran’s official chamber, which he used for administrating the affairs of the great monastery. He motioned Fidelma to be seated before a smoldering turf fire and went to pour wine from an earthenware jug on the table, handing a goblet to her and raising the other in salute.
“
“Amen,” echoed Sister Fidelma, raising the goblet to her lips and tasting the rich red wine of Gaul.
Abbot Laisran settled himself in a chair and stretched out his feet towards the fire.
“Difficult to contain Briton and Saxon?” he mused, after a while. In fact, Sister Fidelma had almost forgotten that she had asked the question. “Yes. We have had several fights among the Britons and the Saxons here. Only the prohibition of weapons on our sacred ground has so far prevented injury.”
“Why don’t you send one group or the other to another center of learning?”
Laisran sniffed.
“That has already been suggested by Finan, no less. A neat, practical and logical suggestion. The question is… which group? Both Britons and Saxons refuse to go, each group demanding that if anyone leave Durrow then it should be the other.”
“Then you have difficulties,” observed Fidelma.
“Yes. Each is quick to anger and slow to forget an insult, real or imaginary. One Saxon princeling, Wulfstan, is very arrogant. He has ten in his retinue. He comes from the land of the South Saxons, one of the smaller Saxon kingdoms, but to hear him speak you would think that his kingdom encompassed the world. The sin of pride greatly afflicts him. After his first clash with the Britons he demanded that he be given a chamber whose window was barred from ingress and whose door could be bolted from the inside.”
“A curious request in a house of God,” agreed Sister Fidelma.
“That is what I told him. But he told me that he feared for his life. In fact, so apprehensive was his manner, so genuine did his fear appear, that I decided to appease his anxiety and provide him with such a chamber. I gave him a room with a barred window in which we used to keep transgressors but had our carpenter fix the lock so that the door could be barred from the inside. Wulfstan is a strange young man. He never moves without a guard of five of his retinue. And after Vespers he retires to his room but has his retinue search it before he enters and only then will he enter alone and bar the door. There he remains until the morning Angelus.”
Sister Fidelma pursed her lips and shook her head in wonder.
“Truly one would think him greatly oppressed and frightened. Have you spoken to the Britons?”
“I have, indeed. Talorgen, for example, openly admits that all Saxons are enemies of his blood but that he would not deign to spill Saxon blood in a house of God. In fact, the young Briton rebuked me, saying that his people had been Christian for centuries and had made no war on sacred ground, unlike the Saxons. He reminded me that within the memory of living man, scarcely half a century ago, the Saxon warriors of Aethelfrith of North- umbria had defeated Selyf map Cynan of Powys in battle at a place called Caer Legion, but then profaned their victory by slaughtering a thousand British monks from Bangor-is-Coed. He averred that the Saxons were scarcely Christian in thought and barely so in word and deed.”
“In other words …?” prompted Fidelma when Laisran paused to sip his wine.
“In other words, Talorgen would not harm a Saxon protected by the sacred soil of a Christian house, but he left no doubt that he would not hesitate to slay Wulfstan outside these walls.”
“So much for Christian charity, love and forgiveness,” sighed Fidelma.
Laisran grimaced. “One must remember that the Britons have suffered greatly at the hands of the Saxons during these last centuries. After all, the Saxons have invaded and conquered much of their land. Ireland has received great communities of refugees fleeing from the Saxon conquests in Britain.”
Fidelma smiled whimsically. “Do I detect that you approve of Talorgen’s attitude?”
Laisran grinned.
