“You’re into town early, brother.” The fellow lounged just inside the gate of a paddock, apparently associated with the nearby rhamshackled inn.  “What brings you to Bellhaven so early?” 

Iamerge stopped and looked at the fellow.  “Well, I’m looking for somebody.  A business matter. . .”

“Business?  Well, then you’ve met your man.  Why, I’m the mayor of Rat Town.”

“Rat town?”

“Sure sure, this ain’t Fish Town, this ain’t the Square, this ain’t the Hill, it’s Rat Town.” The man chuckled to himself, “Truth is t’was rats voted me mayor, so it ain’t rit down or noth’n.  Still, you ask anybody who’s the mayor of Rat Town and they’ll say old Jim is.

“Yes, well good to meet you. . .”

“Jim, Jim Cooper is my name.  I make my way, sure I do.  I know what’s what, and who, that I do.  If you need know’n you talk to old Jim. You ask anyone who the mayor of Rat Town is, they’ll tell you, old Jim is, sure enough.

“I’ll remember your honor.”

Cooper laughed at that and jumped to his feet, “I like you.  Most of them brothers don’t want noth’n to do with old Jim, but you ain’t no brother at all are you?”

Iamerge whirled on the man who was standing in the gate now, not lounging, on his guard, “Why do you say that?” 

Cooper laughed again,  “Well you can take the monk out of the habit, but you can’t take the habits out of the man.  Most of your brothers cut the front of their hair off.  You look like nobody cut your hair for awhile.”  Cooper’s chuckle lost its humor, “No brother’d have much to do with old Jim, but that don’t mean we in town don’t know their worth.  You aren’t likely to find no friend around here if you did them ill.  So how’d you come dressed like a brother to Bellhaven lad, and don’t try to tell Jim no tale.” 

“I’m looking for a man, just looking for him,”  Iamerge stepped back toward the center of the street.

“Now that’s not what I asked,” And Jim Cooper, or whoever he was, moved after, staying closer than Iamerge liked.

“I’m staying with the brothers, with Gospels,”  He said, defensively. There was a rumbling, but Iamerge’s attention was on old Jim, who moved like a fighter and not that old either.  The rumbling sound was louder, drawing his attention, He saw horses and men bearing down, and in that moment Cooper had a fist full of Iamerge’s garment and was yanking him into the paddock.

The monks were chanting morning offices and had not yet set out for work so that Smoke, Iamerge he had to remind himself, was free to grab a few bites off of the table in the guest house and head for town.

The yellow sun was tinting the thin veil of clouds in morning colors and the air was fresh and clean as he walked out from the beehives and stacked stone oratories.  Iamerge whistled as he walked toward docks and people and noise of the little port.  He was penniless and in borrowed clothes, but he had planned for nearly this condition though loosing his boat and the things he had aboard was a blow.

Still, he was alive, despite the odds.  He had made a friend, he felt, that would reward him personally and perhaps with the sort of information that had helped him in the past when it had become necessary to shed a life, like a snake sheds his skin, and begin anew.

“Iamerge,” He tasted the new name in his mind and laughed, “odd how chance brings about a path, like this one.  Iamerge.  Iamerge.  Iamerge the Merchant?  Maybe.  Iamerge the scribe?  Iamerge dressed like a monk today.” he thought. 

“I am Iamerge” and saying it made it so.

Iamerge’s beginnings, it appeared as he approached the small port, would be humble.  He had grown up in the stinking narrow streets of a port city, perhaps the largest in the world.  This was far from that in more ways than one on the face of it.

There were a few boats drawn up to the quay.  None of them looked like a trader to Iamerge.  Fishing seemed the mainstay of the harbor though the quay was a little larger than what fishing boats would need.  There were a few large buildings near the stone and wooden artificial spit that reached out into the calm waters. 

As Iamerge approached the town, nodding to the occasional farmer on his way out to his fields, he saw that the fishing fleet mostly used the beach and not the quay at all.  The town ran along the beach so that from the end as Iamerge had approached it had looked much smaller than it truly was.  Much of the town was hidden behind the large quayside warehouses.  The farmers he was passing turned out to be from a community, of sorts, before the town proper, a small attached farm village.

He was somewhat surprised by the lack of interest in a stranger, as he passed, until an old woman heading for the well bid him, “Good morn’ brother,” and he remembered he was dressed in the borrowed habit. Beyond the well there was a low palisade of logs atop a slight bank.  The gates were actually movable parts of the wall rather than true working gates with hinges and bolts.  It looked to Iamerge that they were never closed and stood wide as he walked through into the town.

The yellow sun was a good hour passed dawn and the town, as towns tended to be, was behind the farm village, but was beginning to shake itself from slumber.  Immediately within the gate was a larger than normal house that Iamerge guessed was an inn.  Likely it was cheap and shoddy, relying on its position not its service.  Then too it was away from the quay, which he expected would, anchor a trade district or market square along with the warehouses.  Traders and the moneyed would look for lodging there.  Iamerge walked on.

Smoke was pleasantly surprised by the fare.  The monk’s table was bountiful it seemed the brotherhood was much more generous with its guests than it was with its brethren.  Gospels ate too, but Smoke noted his restraint despite having learned that he had been fasting while they were on the rock.  These men thought nothing of self-sacrifice, indeed that seemed to be the point of it all.

There were some 100  or so brothers, guest brothers, and novices here at the monastery.  The weather was most likely milder, but they lived in the same beehive huts, two or three together, and spent their lives in prayer and industrious work that supplied their physical needs with enough left for guests and to procure other needful things, at least in their minds, not luxuries, or niceties, but books and scrolls and writing implements, inks, and dyes.

Smoke listened as Gospels explained how his order had its foundations over the great mountains to the East even though he himself had never seen those mountains or even met a person who had.  These monks knew things far beyond their experience.  A man, even a learned one, likely knew far less, because these monks had access to written records, books, documents they had a memory to be envied.

Smoke had wondered about the Gaels who supposedly lived on the other side of the great Eastern mountain range.  He had lived in the south, had traded with Nubia, travelled through the lands of the Great Khan, dealt with factors of the blood thirsty Corn Kings, hired guides from the tribes, and from these he had heard whispers of the Gael, of the Celts on their islands, even of stranger, more exotic places, but only whispers.  Smoke wanted to know about these places.

Smoke sat and thought about what he would do with this new life.  He wanted to at least say goodbye to Gospels before he left and perhaps he could impose for another night, with directions and a nights sleep.  Another sigh escaped, he did not relish sleeping again on a stone bench, but at least it would keep the dew off of him.

So engrossed was he with his plans that he didn’t hear the end of the monks chanting nor did he notice as Gospels approached. 

“I’m sorry my friend, I abandoned you.”

Smoke must have jumped, Gospels approached more slowly not wanting to cause alarm. ”No no, as soon as I heard the Psalms I knew what had happened.  Before the Golden One set I saw the town.

“At least now I can offer you a bit more hospitality,” said Gospels. 

“Will we share a stone bench or will I have one all to myself?” quipped Smoke.

Gospels laughed, “No, I shall have my old stone bench and you will have a bed, the best we have, though that isn’t saying much.  There is a guest house.  Hospitality is important to this order.  Though there is no evening meal for the brothers, you and I are being offered a repast, you as our guest and I get to share it for company and on account of my fast.”

“Thank you Gospels, I accept.  Will there be bird egg and moss gruel? I have to confess a growing fondness for it.”

“Perhaps if you must, that can be arranged tomorrow.  Tonight I think we will dine on more common fare.  I hope you will like it.”

“Common to you or to me, Gospels?”

“Come and see.  I don’t think you saw our hospitality at its best on the Skellig.  The larder was a bit bare.  All we had was not very much I’ll grant you.” Gospels turned and walked down toward the buildings. “I’ll show you the guest house.  I think there may be water for washing along with the dinner.”

Smoke followed, “I’m sorry I teased Gospels, I’m pleased to be free of that isle.  I pity those poor monks who took our place.”

“Just ahead here. See? There is light from the doorway.”

The day was dying, especially in the shaded landing, but the monks, Ezekiel and all, disappeared up a stairway leaving Smoke by the boat.  He pondered the meaning of this as he made his way up the same stairs but cautiously because of his unfamiliarity and the growing darkness.

As he crested the stairway and looked out over the abbey, for that is what he assumed it to be, he saw the greater sun at the horizon turning the clouds red and gold.  Across the fields he could see the small harbor he had hoped to reach when weather and bad luck had cast him up on Gospel’s shore.

Shining Star had not climbed much above that opposite horizon so it’s weak blue light did nothing to the magnificence of the light show.  Below him were more of the little huts that he’d found so uncomfortable on the skellig.  It seemed that the poverty of Gospel’s order extended to the mainland.  And then he knew why they had left him.  Psalmns began in the cool dusk, praise to a Creator that this moment of startling beauty made real.

Their voices were beautiful too, thought Smoke.  Oddly alien to his ear were harmonies that Gospel alone could not perform.  Did Gospels hear his brothers when he sang alone on the skellig?  Was that the secret of the solitary devotee?  This chorus, this night, was wealth that could not be bought.  And too, Smoke knew they had books.

Beyond the little abbey was the sort of world that Smoke had known.  The bustle of trade, of commerce.  This backwater would be a far cry from the cities he had mastered, but the challenge was the same.  What if his connection, his hold stake, secreted away in this far corner of the world wasn’t safe?  He’d started with less, but nobody wants to start from rock bottom if they don’t have to.

A sigh of relief burst out unbidden.  There was nothing for it but to make his inquiries and then his plans.  A new life awaited and he was master of his destiny again.