This begins Chapter 4, if you have navigated here other than by the Novel Progress Page you may want to have a look at it.  If this is the first part of the story you’ve seen you might want to begin HERE.

CHAPTER  4

The fresh sea breeze cooled his face, warm with the effort of rowing.  It was a beautiful day.  The sea was kind and the breeze was perfect for a sail.  They had no such though, so it was work on the oar and only glances at the shore as they passed the headland and moved into the bay.

Gospels sat the bench in front of Smoke.  Beside his friend, an ancient but still fit fellow named Ezekiel toiled.  Beside Smoke, now known to these men as Iamerge, was a talkative fellow named Hebrews and in the stern manning the tiller a gaunt, even among his fellow monks, man named Kings.  He spoke little, but seemed to eye Smoke with suspicion.

“So, Iamerge,” ventured Hebrews, “Where do you hail from?”

“The South,” Smoke said, focusing all his attention on his oar and volunteering nothing more.

“Don’t pester our guest Hebrews,” Gospels said. “There will be time enough to learn about Iamerge when we get to shore.”

“Pardon Abbott”

To port and starboard now there was land, draped in dark conifers, clinging to dark stone. It occurred to Smoke that everything seemed brighter in the South.  Greyer usually, and yet brighter.  Smoke had seen needle covered trees in his travels, they had a pleasant astringent smell, but most often these sorts of trees lived high in the mountains, in his experience.

They came along a boat not much bigger than theirs, two men hailed the monks.  They almost immediately turned back to their nets, drawing from the deep what it might give up.  Another boat came into view, this one piloted by one man with oars.  He pulled a cage from the water and set it on the gunnels, it appeared full of crab, and then waved, his boat hailed him in return save for the dower Kings in the stern.

Smoke glanced at the man who seemed intent on his tiller to the exclusion of all else, and then, as if triggered by Smokes gaze he put he tiller hard over and the skiff lurched to port.  It was a matter of moments to gather himself for another stroke, he glanced over the side and noticed that the stony bottom was very close.  Perhaps brother Kings had his reasons, there was even a few pillars that protruded out of the bay. 

The monks rowed with more determination now.  Smoke hoped the journey was nearing its end.  He was tiring, but it seemed that Gospels and the older monk, Ezekiel, were struggling even more.  He tried to keep his strokes even with the eager young Hebrews, but feared he could not hold out long.

They were embraced by a little cove.  Kings had steered them true and the rocky shore came up around close on both sides.  “Here we are!” exclaimed Hebrews.

“At last,” panted Ezekiel. “Praise God you and your friend were there to help us home, Gospels.”

The boat glided up into a landing, there was some fumbling as four unpracticed oarsmen shipped their oars and Hebrews blundered about trying to get on the quay to make them fast.  When they realized his plan they made way and balanced his efforts.  Soon enough, they were moored, “By God’s grace,” an exhausted Ezekiel said as he was helped ashore.

“Here they are then,” said Gospels conversationally if a bit breathlessly, “I will introduce you.  Gospels brow furrowed, “Odd to say, I don’t know your name.”

Smoke coughed, “uh, well I may have neglected to mention my name.  Indeed my name is both of no importance to me anymore and of very central in importance to what I am doing here.  You see, I mean to escape what I was most recently called and it is also true that I never knew what my parents, if I had them, may have named me originally.

“This is a bit awkward,” said the monk, he looked hard into Smoke’s eyes appraising, ”though it was not my parents that named me Gospels, but rather my vocation.”

“I’ve had many names like that, from vocations.  Now I want to start new and I don’t want to trouble old associates with it resurfacing.”

“Was it murder? Are you sought for some crime?”

“No, unless it be that I killed the old me.  I had a successful life, but there are expectations that I can not meet.  Over and over my life progresses and folk expect a certain path that everyone else takes, but not me.”

There was a shout from seaward as someone in the skiff noticed them standing above the landing, Gospels turned and waved to the approaching boat and then turned catching Smoke’s eyes again and staring hard for a moment before speaking, “We must speak of this further, but for the time I must call you something.  Sailor?  Something that speaks to your vocation?”

Smoke frowned, concentrating.  “No, not that.  What was the dark hour that I first awoke and you gave me a sip of water in the night?”

“I believe after Iamerge.”

“Call me Iamerge, perhaps it will seem familiar to your friends and. . .”

Gospels smiled but not kindly, “An excellent deception, but should I really deceive my brethren, participate in that even as you deceive me?

Smoke blushed, “No, I don’t mean to deceive as much as to ease.  I have no ill intent and much interest in your abbey.  I mean only good.”

“I will hold you to that.  I think you are my purpose, but I’ve been wrong before.” Without a word more Gospels walked down to the boat landing.

Smoke followed a bit more circumspectly, allowing Gospels to lead and staying in his shadow.  The approach for the boat was somewhat precarious.  It was relatively calm, but the berth was all sharp rock and unforgiving and the sea, even when it was not in a rage, was still the sea.

Four of the monks climbed out of the boat and held it while three remained in the skiff, their faces all turned toward Gospels.  Smoke could not see Gospels face but there was a range of emotion on the men who had just come to the little island.

“Gospels! How can this be?” Dark eyes and a heavy brow gave the first monk to speak a brooding demeanor,  “We committed you to God and the sea half a year ago.  Are you flesh or spirit?”

“Ah, Exodus, good to see you.  I am still quite corporial, still some flesh on these old bones.”

Smoke came to himself again to the sound of chanted prayers.  He drifted as he listened to the sing-song praises, and in bits and pieces he remembered. 

It was supposed to be just another death at sea like many others before.  There is nothing quite like being lost at sea for drawing another chapter, grown uncomfortable and confining, to a definitive end thought Smoke.  This time the end had almost been too definitive.

Having the bottom of his skiff torn out on rocks and being beaten, nearly to death, on the stony shore hadn’t been according to plan, nor the storm that had driven him to it.  Come to think of it, he wasn’t quite sure that he hadn’t taken a mortal hurt with the way his body ached, and he was thirsty.  He was hungry too, but mostly he was parched.

Still, there were worse things than being bruised and thirsty.  Smoke, for his part, had felt worse.  His youth had been an extended association with want closer than any partnership, or marriage.

He wondered what his wife’s reaction to his reported death would be.  She wasn’t a bad woman, really, but then she wasn’t a very good one either.  Likely she would be delighted to have the freedom of her lovers, her children, his estates, and the full control of the portions of his business he hadn’t hidden and left in the care of his lieutenants.

It would be a relief for her not to have to worry about him discovering her infidelities, as if the children hadn’t told him, as if his spies were all blind, as if he hadn’t seen it all before.  Soon enough she would be dust, her brood would have squandered all his wealth, and all would be forgotten. 

Well, not everyone would forget, he remembered them all.  He was due a vacation, a forgetting time, renewal.  But first he must learn where he was, and get something to drink, yes, he was so thirsty.

His eyes fluttered open, there was dim light coming in the door of what appeared to be a stacked drystone room.  There was no ornament or furnishing save a ledge around the perimeter of the room that he assumed was where he lay.  It looked as if he was saved from death into poverty. 

He could hear the wind against his room, the sea not far away, and the voice that he had heard in the night, the voice of White Hands.  A curious fellow, White Hands, a prayer, a holy man it would seem.