A new cruise ship had berthed in Ballyfin. The passengers were having a night ashore in the Spa Hotel, and Cassie, Margot, and the hotel’s beauty therapists were inundated with bookings. Cassie, who’d been due to do a morning shift, was asked by an apologetic Margot to work through lunchtime. ‘Actually, if you could hang on till four I’ll call it a double shift. And I’ll order a sandwich from the café, so you won’t die of hunger.’
‘No problem. I was going to buy a roll and eat it on the beach but something expensive from the café will do just fine.’ The hotel’s café went in for smoked salmon and rare beef, whereas the little place Cassie had intended to go to produced less sophisticated fare. But, in the event, she hardly had time to appreciate her expensive sandwich because she and Margot worked straight through from ten a.m. till three. The sandwich was snatched in the few minutes she’d grabbed to take a loo break, and the pot of delicious coffee, which came with it, was left to go cold on the tray.
When the worst of the rush was over, Cassie saw Sharon signalling from the desk. Leaving Kate to sweep round her chair, she went to see what was up. Sharon waved a piece of paper at her. ‘That American guy Bradley Miller? He wanted to speak to you. I offered to pass on a message but he said just to tell you he’d rung and you’d know what it was about.’
Cassie wrinkled her nose. ‘Would you call his room and say I could see him in Lissbeg later?’ She explained that Brad had asked her for an introduction to Hanna. ‘I guess he wants to fix a time. The library closes at five thirty, so I’ll call Hanna and see if I can bring him in around then.’
‘How come he wants to meet her?’
‘He’s setting up some cultural tour package and he’s interested in the psalter.’
‘Okay, so.’ Sharon reached for the phone. ‘He’s quite a looker, isn’t he?’
‘I guess.’
‘Oh, come on! He’s gorgeous.’
Cassie grinned. ‘That’s because he got himself a really good haircut.’
At four forty-five, when she stepped out of the lift into the hotel’s reception area, Brad was waiting by the door. Cassie told herself that he did actually look pretty cool. He also had excellent manners: as they went out, he held the door for her and, when he heard that she’d worked through lunch, he looked concerned. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I bet you just want to get home now and chill out.’
‘No, I’m good. I grabbed a shower in the staff room so I’m re-energised.’
* * *
Hanna had already locked the library door and was working at her desk when Cassie texted to say she and Brad were outside. She let them in and shook Brad’s hand when Cassie introduced him. He was pleasant and personable and concerned not to trespass on her time. ‘Your psalter sounds like the perfect focus for one of our cultural tours. I wondered if we could talk about setting up private viewings, maybe with an accompanying talk?’
Hanna smiled. ‘Obviously it’s a public-access exhibition but I’m sure something could be arranged. I’d have to consult the donor and the county librarian. Now that you’re here, would you like to see the psalter?’
She led them through to the exhibition space and pressed the switch to illuminate the display in the centre of the room. The book, written on vellum and bound in gilded leather, stood on a carved lectern within a protective glass case. It was about the size of a novel you’d buy in an airport. Since the opening of the exhibition Hanna had turned a new page each month, sometimes revealing dense text with minimal decoration, and sometimes pages on which glowing illustrations spilled into the margins. It was a huge draw in tourist season, but local people loved it, too, and Hanna could still scarcely believe that such a treasure had been placed in her care. She gestured at the wall-mounted screens around them. ‘So, the entire book has been digitised for the exhibition, with interactive images that allow you to zoom in on detail, and translations of the text accessible in six languages.’
‘Quite impressive for a little public library.’
‘We had a very generous donor.’ Hanna led Brad and Cassie to the case. ‘Obviously, the psalter isn’t handled more than necessary. You can see for yourself that each page is a detailed work of art.’
They looked at the book, which lay like an open jewel-box, its vibrant colours gleaming in the low light. Though clearly impressed, Brad simply nodded appreciatively, but Cassie bent forward, drawing in her breath. ‘Wow! I haven’t seen these pages!’
On the left-hand side were lines of text, beautifully written in black on the ivory-coloured vellum, and dominated by an initial letter densely surrounded by dots of red ink. The letter was decorated with red-brown plait-work picked out with touches of blue and gold. Hanna looked at the text over Cassie’s shoulder. ‘That’s part of Psalm Eighteen. The second verse, I think. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. Look at the pictures on the opposite page.’
The right-hand page had a single line of text enclosed in a painted frame of flowers entwined on a trellis of twigs. All of the rest of the space was taken up by illustration. On each side was a tower on a rock, drawn so the viewer seemed to be looking at them from below. One was rendered entirely in burnished specks of gold and, radiating from its painted stonework, streaks of golden light encircled the building. On the opposite side, the second tower was unrelieved black and surrounded by weeds growing up through the rock. Both towers had narrow windows and crenelated ramparts from which tightly packed armed soldiers peered down. Bending closer, Cassie could see that the dank weeds round the dark tower had crimson and purple flowers and the soldiers on its ramparts had forked tails and goats’ horns on their helmets.
Across the top of the page a chain of dancing animals pranced along on their hind legs, accompanied by a band of birds playing pipes and drums. There were hares in hoods and jerkins, with leather boots on their feet. Cats were dressed as fine ladies with long, streaming veils. Six hedgehogs stood on each other’s heads, to be tall enough to join in the dance. There was a lumbering bear and something that looked like an elephant, and hounds in hats, with bows and arrows slung across their backs. Tumbling down each margin, on either side of the towers, was a series of little pictures enclosed, like the central text, in a flowering trellis. Birds’ beaks and glittering eyes poked out between the twigs. The flowers, outlined with dots of gold leaf, combined the four seasons of the year. Marsh marigolds jostled with mistletoe, and irises with rose hips, and the pictures they framed appeared to be random vignettes. One showed a monk working at a high lectern with a white cat curled around his feet.
Cassie turned to Hanna. ‘Isn’t there a picture like that in one of the kids’ books in the library?’
‘You’re thinking of The White Cat and the Monk. That story’s based on a marginal poem in another medieval manuscript. I expect that most monasteries with libraries had cats to keep down the mice.’
The thought of children’s books had produced another connection. Staring at the two towers, Cassie asked if Hanna knew a book called Elidor.
‘Well, yes. It’s a children’s classic.’
‘And doesn’t it have a dark tower in it, and a tower of light?’ She looked at Brad. ‘You said the tower at Mullafrack made you think of The Lord of the Rings. But when we met, I’d been thinking of Elidor. I had it when I was a kid, but I didn’t read it properly.’
Hanna nodded. ‘Well, the names of the towers in Elidor originate in early Irish storytelling. And Tolkien said The Lord of the Rings has some of the same influences.’
‘Jack said The Lord of the Rings influenced Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.’
‘That’s the way storytelling works. Ideas and images influence and modify each other.’
‘But where do these towers in the psalter fit in?’
‘Well, the monks who made it may have known the early Irish stories about the Tuatha Dé Danann. They were a mythological race who carried treasures to Ireland from four magical fortresses, one of which, called Findias, radiated light. But, obviously, those stories were pagan. For the monks, the tower of light would have signified the Christian Heaven, and the dark tower full of devils would have been Hell. Ultimately, in both traditions, they’re symbols of good and evil.’
‘Is that how they work in the other books as well? Modern ones, I mean.’
Hanna laughed. ‘You’ll have to read them and make up your own mind. Symbols can be fluid, and different people see things differently. Anyway, life’s too subtly shaded to be summed up as black and white. Even the Christian monks knew that: for all their orthodox symbolism, nuances creep in. There’s nothing pious about those dancing animals – or the way the cat appears in another picture down in the corner, holding an open book in one paw and turning a screaming mouse on a spit with the other.’
Brad had walked away from the book to inspect the screens on the walls. ‘I hadn’t realised the text was in Latin. But you said there’s access to translation, right?’
Hanna went over to demonstrate the interactive processes, leaving Cassie still bent over the book. She called across to Hanna, ‘Is this the kind of writing that used to be used for the Irish language? Pat said she was taught it in school.’
Hanna shook her head. ‘Not exactly. But what they call Gaelic script is descended from the script you’re looking at. That’s called insular majuscule. It was developed here around the time that the monks created the psalter, and you’ll find it in manuscripts all across Europe.’
Brad looked interested. ‘You mean it was developed right here in Finfarran?’
‘No, of course not. I meant here in Ireland. But this is quite an early example.’
‘And there’s no proof that it wasn’t developed in Finfarran?’
Hanna raised her eyebrows at him. ‘No. And no proof that it was. I hope the material promoting your tours wouldn’t suggest otherwise.’
Brad grinned. ‘Cassie said you were a stickler for accuracy.’
Finding a balance between promoting the psalter as a tourist attraction and preserving its integrity hadn’t been easy, and Hanna had had more than one tussle with the tourism board’s marketing teams, which, at one stage, had proposed the slogan Feast your eyes on Finfarran’s Feisty Friars. She’d once mentioned it to Cassie over coffee, and it seemed that the depth of her outrage had been passed on to Brad. Now she could see Cassie looking anxious, so she gave Brad a reassuring smile. ‘Cassie’s perfectly right. But facilitating tours like yours is part of my job description, so I do hope we can get something off the ground.’
Brad held out his hand. ‘So do I. And perhaps, when we do, you’ll be prepared to give the accompanying talk? You’re clearly more than competent. And, obviously, we’d offer a suitable fee.’
It was charmingly said yet, without knowing why, Hanna stiffened. Then, not wanting Cassie to feel that things had taken a difficult turn, she relaxed. ‘As I said, the decision on whether or not to give private access wouldn’t be mine alone. You do know that groups can book in for our regular exhibition tours, which are hosted by volunteers?’
‘Of course.’ Brad shook her hand warmly and tucked his arm into Cassie’s. ‘And I’ve no doubt they’re top of the range. But I’m all about exclusivity and, I have to tell you, Miss Casey, I never settle for less.’