Talan's Voyage

By Lee Robertson

Talan is a young medic in dark ages Cornwall. Although he is tied to the church he is yet to make his vows, and is keen to travel and learn across the known world. Born of a Welsh mother steeped in folklore and mystical healing he treads a fine line between the old and new Celtic faiths. When a charismatic member of the newly growing castle of Tintagel asks for his help, he does so in exchange for assistance getting across the water to Brittany. The journey is not what he expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Robertson
• Release date: Jan 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463680650

Lee Robertson

Living by the coast in North Cornwall, Lee Robertson has worked as a chef, hotelier, and pub owner. More recently he works as a photographer, short film maker and location manager. He has been a lifelong surfer and currently enjoys teaching young people to be lifeguards. When he isn't by the coast he enjoys wandering the moors and lanes. The idea for Talan came from searching for the old Holy Wells and Celtic Crosses that crop up in obscure places over the Cornish landscape.

Book preview

Talan’s Voyage

Talan’s Voyage

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chaper 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 1

Stacking slates, building hedges, slow simple work under driving rain. High  above the cove of Trebarwith, creating fields for Petroc’s cattle and sheep, I lift slate by slate, stacking one way, then another until the hedge is high enough, and I move onto the next pile. Every day the weather is yet again wet; storm and rain lashed. I am out alone and it is not worth clothing, I wear a leather cape over my nakedness, rain constantly falling from my brow and sliding down my neck. The fields are as green as can be. The livestock stay still and unmoving in the heavy rain, nose into the wind, an occasional quiver to shake off collected water. It is not cold, we approach midsummer, we have not seen much sunshine in weeks.

I am enjoying the work, I lift, sort and straighten, and I keep looking out to sea, that grey ruffled ocean that forewarns me of the next shower approaching. Hopefully I look out for sails, one of the craft that ply this coast might be my chance to reach the continent. And if it looks like it is heading to Tintagel or Bossiney, I stop my work and follow it to its destination. These craft are infrequent, and usually traders plying the coastal villages of Cornwall, Devon and Wales. Occasionally a boat from further afield approaches with wines and cloth but up to now their Captains are heading north, or have no room for a couple of pilgrims keen to reach the Breton coast. And so I return to my work, stacking, sorting, and shuffling.

Now is the time for the plants to be collected, and when my back is feeling the pressure, and my spine feels like so many layered slates, I stretch my legs and search for herbs in the wet valleys. Collecting, sorting, drying in the eaves of my hut, or creating salves, ointments, and tinctures, My little cell in the valley of Trebarwith is filled with the odours of plant. Heady and pungent it is almost too weighty, and in the morning I am keen to get out into the air, and resume work.

Apart from checking on the boats that reach the harbour I have spent little time in Tintagel, town life is not for me. I find the constant interaction with people wearing. Down at Trebarwith the monastic life continues as ever. The other monks speak little, and work much as I do, gardening, tree felling, tending sheep. We pass on our journeys with a smile, and have our cells spread across the valley. Heavy breads and vegetables are shared out every three days, I am happy to spend time in quiet contemplation above the roar of the western shore.

Timothy remains in Tintagel, he prefers the company, he was ever thus, talkative, garrulous, he is being instructed in the intricacies of theology and philosophy. I am happy for him, but we have not seen each other for some weeks, he has little innate sense of medicines and plants, but he learns well enough.  To be honest I think he finds me boring, but then it is hard to say anything at all when he is in the room. Petroc had asked me to instruct him, with the hope that he will be the physician at Bodmin Abbey. My view is that he will be neither at Bodmin or a physician, or if he is, the pharmacopeia of plants will not be his main method of healing.

He has grown since our adventure on Dartmoor. His unruly hair is less prone to stick up, and his shoulders have widened. He tells me of life in the town at a rush. There seems to be a group of girls who are interested in the boy, and one in particular who he seems to like but he will not tell me her name. Her clothes match the colour of her hair he explains, which tells me nothing.

This morning I worked hard until the late afternoon. The wall I have been working on is now almost one hundred yards long, and I am reaching the cliff, where it will stop. It is a pleasure to watch the sea so far below, ever changing, each day brings a new colour, one day as grey as the walls of the castle, and the next with the wind from the east, a turquoise like the silks on the old King. Today it is greys and blues, white capped and tossed, with the clouds racing in from the sea, billowing high with stilted tones from dark grey to a pure heavenly white.

The sun shone through the clouds illuminating the sea below in three columns of light ranging from vertical to a half slant to a full slant. I was admiring the beauty in this, resting on the slates I had just laid when a deep cough came from behind me. I swirled around, my heart racing to see a tall older man standing among the green bushes. He had a leather hat stiff with age that balanced on his ears with a band of braid that held odd feathers and bone. A rough wispy greying beard, falling down over a leather breastplate, a long and large green cape around his shoulders and high leather boots.

I remained silent, staring at this strange looking man, who remained eyeing me.

‘It is the name of God’ He said, eventually.

‘What is?’ I asked

‘As it is written, and portrayed thus.’ He pointed to the western sky, and I turned to follow his pointing finger. The columns of light were impressive, Lighting up the sea in three pools of viridian.

‘In Ogham.’ He said, and I turned to see him now much closer to me. I had the horrible feeling he was going to push me off the cliff, and I moved closer but to the side of him. Ogham is a very old way of writing, my mother taught me the basics, and I had not used it for many years.

‘It is just the light through the clouds.’ I replied, feeling a little too literal.

‘Indeed’ he said, I noticed a Scottish intonation in his accent. ‘But which came first, the word or the symbol?’

My mind raced, trying to understand his meaning. It was certainly a good shape and symbol for God, a trinity of lines and angles, and I wondered if it was the old Jewish word ‘Jawheh.’

‘How does one pronounce it?’ I asked, at last I felt a little surer of myself. I could sense that the stranger was