The Book of Killowen (Nora Gavin #4) (45 page)

Diarmuid Lynch asked, “May we see her?”

“Of course.” Anca Popescu’s body was draped, but her face—pale bluish in hue, bruised and scraped—silenced them all for a moment.

Claire reached out and touched Anca’s hair. “She was so often sad. And who could blame her, with the life she had? But if you could see the work she’d done for Martin. There was a quality to it, almost like there was something so immense within her that it couldn’t be contained. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

Nora asked, “Are you planning any sort of observance?”

“Yes,” Claire said. “We’ll wash the body and wake her tonight.”

“If you need help,” Nora said, “I have some experience. I know what to do. Why don’t I come back with you now?”

Following Diarmuid and Claire in the van, with the simple wooden box visible through the back window, Nora felt herself part of an odd funeral cortège, a small procession that wound its way through the hills that had been crossed in turn by chieftains and cattle herders, monks and raiders, croppies and yeomen, all characters in the great book of human events.

Cormac was in the Killowen car park, loading his site kit into Niall Dawson’s vehicle, when he heard a voice behind him: “I need to show you something.”

Cormac turned to see a figure on the bench outside the door. Martin Gwynne seemed to have aged forty years in the space of a day. He stared out toward the oak wood as Niall Dawson joined them. Gwynne said, “Anthony’s back from hospital. And he has something that he’d like you both to see.” He turned to Cormac. “Perhaps you’d bring your father along, too.”

When they arrived at Beglan’s farm, Anthony stepped outside. “You’re all right with this, are you?” Martin Gwynne asked. “I want to make sure, Anthony, because it’s bound to change things. I just need to know that you’re prepared.”

“I uh-uh-AM prepared!” Beglan said, his chin thrusting forward.

The kitchen looked exactly as it had been left by the crime scene investigators yesterday, with remnants of Beglan’s everyday life everywhere: bread crumbs and tea mugs and a buttery knife beside the sink. A basin of water stood on the table, along with a bowl of oak galls and a small Bridget’s cross that Cormac had not noticed before.

Dawson zeroed in on the objects on the table as well and turned to Anthony. “Were you making ink here?”

“No, it’s the cuh-cure,” Beglan said.

“A cure for what?” Dawson asked.

Beglan grimaced and pointed to Cormac’s father, seated at the kitchen table. “Eeh-he can’t talk right. I have a cuh-cuh-cure for it.” He smiled. “I know, cuh-cure myself first, right? But it hum-huh-doesn’t work that way. Un-fuh-fortunately.”

“What way does it work?” Cormac was genuinely curious.

“Be patient. You’ll see the connection very soon,” Gwynne said.

Beglan fetched a bundle from the next room and set it down on the kitchen table. He began peeling back the canvas until he had revealed
what was inside. On the table lay an ancient manuscript, its worn leather wrapper closed with three buttons. Cormac could see a knot-work design faintly scratched in the surface of the cover. He glanced at Niall Dawson, who appeared dumbstruck.

“My God,” Dawson finally managed. “Is this . . . ?”

“A legacy,” Gwynne replied. “An unimaginable treasure, a responsibility laid upon the Ó Beigléighinns, descendants of the little scholar, more than a thousand years ago.”

“And was the book shrine connected to this manuscript?”

“Yes, but the police have that. The
Cumdach Eóghain
and its contents had been separated for centuries—Anthony’s grandfather only succeeded in reuniting them in 1947. It’s strange. There’s been so much squabbling over the shrine, with its gold and precious stones, when the real treasure was what lay inside it all those years. Gentlemen, I give you the Book of Killowen.”

Cormac felt a surge of adrenaline. He couldn’t imagine what Niall must be feeling.

“I thought we’d found our missing manuscript when we came across that Psalter in the bog,” Dawson said. “So where does this book fit in?”

“I believe the artifacts you found in the bog—along with this book—tell a story.” Martin Gwynne motioned them to sit. “It’s a story of philosophical rivalry and heresy and hatred. Let me begin with my own story. I came to this place nearly twenty years ago in search of a dazzling creative thinker, an Irishman with a Greek name, Eriugena—it means ‘Irish-born.’ I followed him here, based on a brief passage in a medieval history, a mention of his return, at the end of his life, to the place where he had been born in Ireland. That birthplace was named for the first time. And it was this place, an area known as An Feadán Mór—Faddan More.”

“This medieval history you mention, it wouldn’t happen to be a revised edition of
Gesta Pontificum Anglorum
by William of Malmesbury?” Cormac asked.

“Ah, so you know of my disgrace,” Gwynne said. “Yes. But I didn’t take the
Gesta Pontificum
. It disappeared a few days after I’d made my discovery, and I don’t believe that was pure accident. Someone else must have intended to make it look as if I’d helped myself. After all, I was the last to consult that manuscript, at least according to the library records.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Cormac asked.

“I have a few theories, all unprovable. Perhaps archaeology as a field of study is less contentious than medieval history,” Gwynne said. “I hope so for your sake. History and philosophy are full of treacheries, rivalries I knew nothing of. And there are certain factions within institutions like the Church who make it their business to carry philosophical feuds from a thousand years ago into the present. People who feel threatened by the ideas presented in books like this.”

“I can’t believe you actually came here looking for Eriugena,” Dawson said.

“And I was not the only one—others followed the same trail. I should explain that Tessa and I lived here for some time before I resumed my work again,” Gwynne said. “After my dismissal from the library, and our daughter’s . . . injury—” He paused. “It was really all I could manage, looking after Derryth, and Tessa, as best I could. But after a while I began to see signs, undeniable evidence that the man I sought had been here and had left his mark. The first clue was at the chapel.”

“That doorway,” Cormac said. “The carving of the scribe—the initials
IOH
. And the letters. Eriugena was one of the few Greek scholars of his time.”

“Yes, and so I began to suspect that there was some little truth to the story of his return. But there was no grave, no name carved in stone, no other physical evidence to say that the figure was Eriugena. So I started digging through the old texts, the
Dinnsenchus
and the
Annals of the Four Masters
, and the work of antiquarians like O’Donovan. Through their research, they were able to discover accounts of a mysterious manuscript called the Book of Killowen and trace it right back to the ninth century. O’Donovan reported that the book had been burned, the shrine sold and melted down, because that’s what the Beglans wanted everyone to believe. It was their family’s sacred charge, you see, to protect the book from harm. I only convinced Anthony to show me his book about two years ago.”

Dawson’s gaze was still riveted on the manuscript. He glanced up briefly to address Anthony Beglan. “May I have a look?”

Anthony nodded, and Martin Gwynne placed the codex carefully into Niall Dawson’s outstretched hands. The cover was rather ordinary, plain leather, more like an envelope than a bound cover. Apart from the one scratched design, there was no gaudy gold or stamped embellishment of any kind. Dawson gingerly undid the buttons and opened
the wrapper. His eyes glinted with the curator’s heightened passion, a feverish curiosity bordering on greed.

Gwynne said, “I think you may be surprised at what you find inside.”

Cormac felt his breath halt as Dawson lifted the front cover to find a page inscribed in Latin. It began with a fantastically decorated capital and contained several margin notes in a tiny hand. “Looks like insular minuscule,” Dawson said, his voice filled with awe. “The text is definitely not Psalms. And am I mistaken in thinking there are two hands here?” he asked Gwynne.

“No indeed. The first part of the book has been set down by two different scribes, but the primary hand disappears about two-thirds of the way through. The last portion is completed by the second scribe. Some people know him by the name Nisifortinus—”

Dawson’s head turned sharply. “You realize what you’re saying?”

“I do,” said Gwynne. “And as I’ve had ample time to study the manuscript, I feel no qualms about making that claim.”

“I wish I knew what the hell you were talking about,” Cormac said.

Dawson turned to the title page and read aloud:
“Periphyseon. Liber sextus . . . ”
Dawson’s voice wavered when he spoke again. “My God, you know what this means?”

“That last bit is ‘Book Six,’ ” Cormac said. “If I’m remembering right.”

“But there were only five books in
Periphyseon
,” Dawson said. “There was never any mention of a sixth book, only a note from Eriugena himself at the end of Book Five that he hadn’t covered all the topics that he’d promised to write about.” He began to turn the pages, ever so gently, studying the handwriting on the vellum surface. “If this is truly authentic, it’s earth-shattering. In all sorts of fields—philosophy, history, paleography. I can’t even get my head around it properly.” He turned to Martin Gwynne. “If this truly is Eriugena’s last work, are you thinking he finished it here, in Ireland?”

“Not quite. I’m afraid he might have died before he could complete it,” Gwynne explained. “I’ve gone over the handwriting again and again.” He turned to Cormac. “There are often two Irish hands in Eriugena’s major works, two individuals that paleographers have dubbed i
¹
and i
²
. Some scholars think one of them might be Eriugena himself, and the second his pupil and protégé, the man some call by the name Nisifortinus, for the way he introduced his additions,
‘Nisi forte quis dixerit’
—Unless,
perhaps, anyone shall say that . . . I’ve often wondered if this mysterious second hand wasn’t perhaps founder of the monastery at Cill Eóghain. As I said, the first hand disappears partway through this book, and it’s completed by the second hand. I think you may find, when you have a closer look at your bog Psalter, that it may be the work of Nisifortinus as well.” Gwynne paused. “I have a theory—entirely unprovable, but plausible all the same, I think—about what transpired here back in the latter ninth century. You’ll forgive my wild speculation. I am only a scholar, after all, and not a scientist.”

“Enlighten us, please,” Dawson said.

“I see two men, scholars and scribes, camped at the edge of this bog. They had come here to withdraw from the world of men, returning to the place from which they’d sprung. But they were not alone. One day while his young companion is absent, the older man is approached by the men who’ve followed him here, paid ruffians who fall upon him and stab him to death and fling his body in the bog. Since your recent discoveries, I have imagined the book and satchel flung after him, perhaps in frustration, because a Psalter, wonderful though it might have been, was not the book the assassins sought. They were after a book full of dangerous, heretical ideas, mistaken in the notion that they could destroy those ideas by destroying the written word.”

“And where was this dangerous book, sought by assassins?” Dawson asked.

“Perhaps the younger man had it,” Gwynne said. “One book, one satchel looks much like another. It’s true even today. But as I said, I have no proof. I merely speculate.”

Cormac said, “So, if our bog man is indeed this philosopher, Eriugena, what reason would anyone have had for killing him? Was there such great harm in what he wrote?”

“His ideas questioned the very foundations of the church in Rome,” Gwynne said. “To church theologians, Eriugena’s writings skirted too close to pantheism. They were condemned by two separate councils in his lifetime. His argument against predestination, his thoughts about the presence of God in nature, about the nonexistence of evil—these things were considered subversive, heretical, dangerous. They remain so to this day.”

“So how did you come to know that Anthony was in possession of this book?” Dawson asked.

“I had noticed that Anthony shared a name with the heirs of the termon lands, the Ó Beigléighinns of Killowen. And I thought it a little strange that Anthony hadn’t learned his letters, being the descendant of scholars. Perhaps it should have been no surprise that schoolteachers always underestimated Anthony, because of his tics and stammers. But as it turned out, here was a man possessed of knowledge that none of his ignorant schoolteachers dared dream of. I heard him speak it, when he didn’t know I was listening.” He cast a weary glance at his friend. “Would you grace us with a bit of that knowledge now, Anthony?”

Beglan had been standing to one side, an arm’s length from them, watching the commotion over the ancient book, listening to the story. Now he looked self-conscious, as if he’d rather have been anyplace but the spot where he was standing. “Where shall I stuh-start?” he asked Gwynne, his jaw flexing as he spoke.