world was changing. We believed that a new age had dawned and that our elevation and restoration were now at least conceivable.
The final seduction was simple.
A lone monk came into the glen for refuge. He had been chased thither by ragged wandering pagans and begged shelter. Of course we would never refuse such a person, and I brought him into my own broch and into my own chambers, to pick his brains about the outside world, as I hadn’t ventured out in a while.
This was the mid-sixth century after Christ, though I didn’t know it. If you would picture us then, see men and women in long, rather simple robes trimmed in fur, embroidered with gold and jewels; see the men with their hair trimmed above the shoulders. Their belts are thick, and their swords are always near at hand. The women cover their hair with silk veils beneath simple gold tiaras. See our towers very bare, yet warm and snug, and filled with skins and comfortable chairs, and raging fires to keep us warm. See us as tall, of course, all of us tall.
And see me in my broch alone with this little yellow-haired monk in brown robes, eagerly accepting the good wine I offered him.
He carried with him a great bundle which he was eager to preserve, he said, and first off, he begged me that I give him a guard to escort him home to the island of Iona in safety.
There had been three in his party originally, but brigands had murdered the other two, and now he was wretchedly alone, dependent upon the goodwill of others, and must get his precious bundle to Iona, or lose something more valuable than his own life.
I promised to see that he reached Iona safely. Then he introduced himself as Brother Ninian, named for the earlier saint, Bishop Ninian, who had converted many pagans at his chapel or monastery, or whatever it was, at Whittern. This bishop had already converted a few wild Taltos.
Young Ninian, a very personable and beautiful Irish Celt, then laid out his invaluable bundle and revealed its contents.
Now, I had seen many books in my time, Roman scrolls and the codex, which was now the popular form. I knew Latin. I knew Greek. I had even seen some very small books called cathachs which Christians wore as talismans when they rode into battle. I had been intrigued by the few fragments of Christian writing I had beheld, but I was in no way prepared for the treasure which Ninian revealed to me.
It was a magnificent altar book that he carried with him, a great illustrated and decorated account of the Four Gospels. Its front cover was decorated with gold and jewels, it was bound in silk, and its pages were painted with spectacular little pictures.
At once I fell on this book and virtually devoured it. I began to read the Latin aloud, and though there were some irregularities in it, in the main I understood it, and began to run with the story like someone possessed—nothing very extraordinary, of course, for a Taltos. It felt like singing.
But as I turned the vellum pages, I marveled not only at the tale which was being told to me, but also at the incredible drawings of fanciful beasts and of little figures. It was an art which I loved truly, from having done my own similar form of it.
Indeed, it was very like much art of that time in the islands. Later ages would say it was crude, but then come to love the complexity and ingenuity of it.
Now, to understand the effect of the gospels themselves, you have to remind yourself of how very different they were from any literature which had come before them. I didn’t include the Torah of the Hebrews, because I didn’t know it, but the gospels are even different from that.
They were different from everything! First off, they concerned this one man, Jesus, and how he had taught love and peace and been hounded, persecuted, tormented, and then crucified. A confounding story! I couldn’t help but wonder what the Greeks and the Romans thought of it. And the man had been a humble person, with only the most tenuous of connections to ancient kings, that was obvious. Unlike any god of whom I’d ever heard, this Jesus had told his followers all sorts of things which they had been charged to write down and teach to all nations.