The Water of Life

2. Scotland, 1494

2. Scotland, 1494Friar Iain Fearmòr crossed himself and knelt on the stone-tiled chapel floor. The poor Benedictine monk’s body was frozen by the salty air of the Firth of Tay, a narrow bay on the North Sea that licked the north-east coast of Scotland. Despite the cold, he focused on his prayers. Ten other friars were doing the same in the uncertain dawn, trying to break over the Chapel of St Dionysus, one of three belonging to Lindores Abbey.

A few candles faintly lit this sacred place—a stone building established at the beginning of the 13th century, which made it almost as old as the abbey itself.

“Grant that I should be successful, because the salvation of so many souls depends on it.” The monk sought to invoke divine help in carrying out his mission, which could prove fatal. He had, for that reason, hesitated very much before accepting it. Was he even really sure the mission was worth the risk?

After an hour, the numbness in all his limbs told him that he had prayed enough, at least for now. He got up and, moving very slowly so as to allow the circulation in his legs to start flowing again, left the chapel. Outside, the October wind whipped the sea, pushing it to crash against the rocky coast with all its strength.

South of the abbey, the village of Newburgh seemed to be holding its breath while calmly waiting for sunrise. Hurrying, Friar Fearmòr entered the monastery stable, found a donkey already harnessed to a cart, and set out.

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at Robert Bruce’s house, where he greeted the farmer and handed him a paper covered with fine handwriting in Latin. The peasant, who couldn’t read, questioned the friar with his eyes.

“It’s an order placed by the Exchequer,” Iain explained. “I’ll read it to you: ‘To be handed over to Friar John Cor by order of the King, for the purpose of producing aqua vitae: eight bolls of malted barley …’ Present this paper to the King’s officers and you will be reimbursed.”

The commoner could only agree with a nod. Despite his frustration at losing a considerable portion of his barley harvest, the peasant hardly wanted to risk opposing the king’s bidding.

Friar Fearmòr followed the farmer to his barn. While he helped load the cart with barley, he reflected that taking what belonged to the king was a serious crime, and that in order to risk a venture like this, he must be mad.

* * *

Ten days later, Iain found himself, along with other monks, feeding the fires burning beneath three stills with dried peat—under the watchful eye of Friar John Cor, a man nearing fifty years of age. The men observed the vapour as it started to form inside the coils attached to the head of each still.

“This art fascinates me,” Iain exclaimed. “From where did we acquire it?”

The monk’s curiosity intrigued Friar Cor. “To tell the truth, no one knows. From Ireland, maybe. Apparently this art has existed for a long time, perhaps for even as much as seven centuries. Why are you so interested, brother Fearmòr?”

The monk, hiding his nervousness with difficulty, hesitated a little before replying: “Making aqua vitae fulfils a personal need, the need to … to create.”

The friar, the monastery steward, accepted this explanation, cleared his throat and continued his lecture: “The fundamental principle to keep in mind is that the boiling point of spirits is lower than that of water. For this reason, once heated, they separate from the water in the wort. When it comes in contact with the cold air in the coil, it turns liquid again.”

The monks had set up the stills outdoors, near a burn, one of the countless small streams that flowed in the Scottish countryside. But even in the open air, they were bothered by the foul smell produced by the stills and peaty fires. Nonetheless, Iain felt a certain kind of exaltation, like a believer communicating with God in a sacred place, enveloped in a cloud of incense.

Shortly afterwards, the process described by Friar Cor took place. As the precious clear liquid dripped from the coils, the monks carefully gathered it in stoneware jars. When Friar Cor judged that the stills had given up all their alcohol, he declared that they were done for the day.

While Iain and the others applied themselves to sealing the jars, Friar Cor expressed his satisfaction. “King James IV will be pleased with our plentiful output this year.”

“So how our aqua vitae is used must remain the king’s prerogative?”

This question unsettled Friar Cor. “It also serves to heal the sick at the monastery.”

Realising that he had sparked Friar Cor’s disapproval, Iain tried to hide his blunder with a second question. “Is the king really investigating the properties of our aqua vitae?”

“It seems so.”

Faced with Friar Cor’s curt reply, Iain decided to stop talking and apply himself conscientiously to his distilling work.

A few days later, in the evening, Friar Fearmòr made his way to the monastery storehouse. Among the numerous jars Iain found the object of his search: the perfectissima. The monks actually produced three types of spirits, known by Latin and Scottish Gaelic names: simplex or usquebaugh, distilled twice; composita or testerig, distilled three times; and usquebaugh-baul or perfectissima, the product of four distillations—and so strong that it was said drinking two consecutive spoonfuls of it could be fatal.

Iain chose five jars and decanted a little aqua vitae from each into a small flask, taking care to replace the stealthily removed liquid with water. By doing so, he could hope that no one would ever notice the disappearance of the stolen spirits, which represented only a tiny fraction of the three hundred and forty l****s distilled by the brothers. Besides, because of their high alcohol concentration, all types of aqua vitae were drunk only in small spoonfuls, or greatly diluted in water. There was, however, always a risk. And if his crime were ever discovered, Iain didn’t dare even to imagine the punishment he would receive.

Shortly afterwards, in the solitude of his cell, the monk contemplated the flask. After three weeks of taxing work, he had yet to taste the fruits of his labour; in fact, he would never be allowed to taste them. Even though he would soon have to part with these spirits, he began to think that, all the same, he had the right to a small reward—namely, the chance to satisfy his curiosity.

He lifted the jar’s lid. A strong smell invaded his nostrils. He dipped his index finger in the liquid and, after a few seconds of hesitation, put it in his mouth.

An intense fire overran his taste buds. Once the shock of this first contact had passed, he felt both dazed and strangely lucid. He decided to take a swallow of perfectissima—just one.

This time his entire body ignited, for ten whole minutes. The monk felt a divine euphoria and clarity of mind. He understood that the scope of his mission went beyond simply delivering the flask. No, he had to add an element to the elixir’s contents that would ensure its success.

In the reassuring silence of this tranquil spot, he rubbed his hands together and hiked up the lower part of his habit. Under normal circumstances, the act he was about to commit was a sin; tonight, however, through the intercession of His aqua vitae, God had just granted Iain permission to do it. And thus he did.

The friar had to wait a few weeks before he could venture to Newburgh without attracting suspicion. In the village, he found the house where he had been instructed to go. There, he handed the flask of aqua vitae over to a young man who left immediately for Dunfermline, the seat of the Scottish court, to deliver the precious elixir to the daughter of the chieftain of clan Fearmòr.

This young woman, Màiri Fearmòr, had been offered in marriage to Andra Haig, the son of clan Haig’s most influential patriarch. This union was meant to forge an alliance between the two rival families and bring peace to a large part of the country, torn between its various warring factions.

And yet, before agreeing to hold the wedding, the Haig family had invoked the right to resort to handfasting. According to this old custom, the husband had the right to take his future wife as a concubine for a year and thus ascertain her fertility. At the end of these twelve months, if the woman still wasn’t pregnant, the man could return her to her family and refuse the marriage.

Though loathe to do so, the Fearmòrs had no other option but to agree to this request. And so Màiri Fearmòr had lived among clan Haig for six months now, with no results. The Fearmòrs had therefore called upon one of their own, a monk of the abbey of Lindores, to obtain some aqua vitae. The uisge beatha, as the Scots called it in their language, was known for being able to heal a great many illnesses and, since its name literally meant “water of life”, everyone believed it capable of creating fertility.

If the aqua vitae successfully brought about the birth of a child and sealed the hoped-for union between the clans, the Fearmòrs agreed, in exchange, to assure the propagation and strictest possible observation of the Christian faith among their own.

Neither Iain Fearmòr nor anyone else ever found out how Màiri Fearmòr had used the uisge beatha. Had she drunk it herself? Had she administered it to Andra Haig without his knowledge? Had she perhaps done both?

Nevertheless, when Andra Haig took a three-months-pregnant Màiri Fearmòr as his lawful wife in May of 1495, Iain Fearmòr knew that his uisge beatha, and the few drops he had added to it, had brought about the unification of the clans of Scotland. More importantly still, they had assured the eternal salvation of his family. The monk felt an entirely paternal pride in these results.

Yet he hardly suspected that in the coming century, this beautiful unification of Scotland, land of the holy water of life, would collapse in the face of English invaders—and that the monks would lose their hold both on Lindores Abbey and on the science of distillation.