Then, behind him as he reaches the wide, shallow steps to the west door of the church, the footfall of a swift, decisive tread – and the abbot is at his side.
“Colin,” he says, “did you hear my conversation with Brother Cormac?”
Mother of God! How does he know? All Colin’s life so far has been a training in expediency. The canny thing to do in response to such a question is feign complete innocence, puzzlement: I beg your pardon, Father – what conversation? Just now, you mean?
It’s as though he’s suddenly in a different place. Not in this open court bounded by the mellow stone walls of the abbey buildings, but somewhere altogether less domesticated. Some kind of wilderness, in which the eyes of Christ, only partly obscured by the tangled locks of hair, the sweat and dust, the drying dripped blood, the crowning thorns, ask him: “Well?”
Because if nothing else, even if all the rest is alien and new to him, this much is clear: whatever these men are doing, the basis of it is truth. Anything less they will detect and discard. He can feel it. The abbot asks him, “Did you hear my conversation with Brother Cormac?” and Christ asks him, “Well?” And he sees the fork in the road, knowing that his “Yes” or his “No” is not about providing information but about giving his consent to take this way, to himself be scientem infirmitatem.
He stands quite still. He looks at the abbot. He hears in his own voice an oddly similar humble honesty as he just heard in Cormac’s: “Yes.”
He feels the same raw exposure as he waits to be scolded. He bends his head.
“Oh,” says the abbot. “Then I think you will understand it was very personal and intended to be private. These things mean a lot to Brother Cormac. So, keep it to yourself, won’t you?”
And that’s all. The briefest of exchanges. But when he says, “Yes, Father, of course I will”, the abbot sees he can trust this to be true. And when they walk into the church together for Vespers, the postulant knows that because of this day something has changed in him forever. Before, he was seeking and enquiring: now, he knows his feet are on the road.
Chapter
Nineteen
“There! How’s that? Good as new!” Brother Tom is pleased with the work he’s done on William’s scythe. “Sturdy. Blade’s peened sharp as the Holy Spirit. I’ve made you a completely new snathe, fitted in the old grips – they were loose,. How you managed with those, God alone knows. I’ve wrapped them with twine, look; it’s helpful for when your hands get sweaty.”
“God bless you, Brother Thomas. I’m more grateful than I can say. That’s such a big help.” William examines it admiringly.
“Don’t leave it there, then,” says Madeleine, bringing the supper things through to the table; “at the foot of the stairs like that. Bound to be some lubberly dolt trips on his own feet and takes his leg off at the ankle.”
“Oh!” Tom grins at her. “I notice you don’t say ‘her own feet’.”
“Aye – right,” she says crisply. “There’s a reason for that. Women look where they’re going. Brothers, husband, if you want to wash your hands before we eat, I’ve left a bowl of warm water and a towel on the table in the scullery. You’ll see it. William and me, we don’t always bother, but I know it’s what you do in the monastery. Personally, I’m content to wipe my hands clean on my apron, unless I’m tending to somebody sick.”
William carries the scythe out to the shed, hanging it safely on the bracket he made for it high on the wall. His axes – both the big one for splitting wood and his little hand-axe – and his whetstone are out on the bench under the window. When he goes to investigate, he sees Tom has sharpened those for him as well. Grateful, he hangs them in their rightful places and tidies the stone away. It soothes his soul, having every tool well maintained, neatly stored and fit for purpose. “Everything in apple pie order,” Tom had remarked earlier in the day when William showed him where to find what he needed. “Not that I’d expect anything less of you.”
He finds them standing round the supper-table waiting for him when he comes back into the house. Tom asks him, “Will you say our grace, seeing it’s your house, Brother?” Again in his heart that lurch of gratitude still to be included as a brother – which in truth he is. His vows, his ordination as priest, they are for life. His defection into the married state merely suspends them.
He bows his head, and his guests do the same. “Oculi omnium in te sperant et tu das escam illorum in tempore oportuno aperis tu manum tuam et imples omne animal benedictione.”21 Over the table spread with food, quickly and unaffectedly he makes the sign of the cross. “In nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.22 Amen.”
“Amen,” respond Madeleine, Tom, and Cedd, and they sit down to eat.
“That’s a nice blessing,” comments Brother Cedd, proud of being able to understand the Latin. “It has all creation in it – ‘every living thing’. ‘Thou… fillest every living thing with blessing’. It’s beautiful. Did you make it up?”
“I did not,” says William, wary of allowing the novice to elevate him to some exceptionally exalted rank of piety. “It’s in the Psalms, but I’ve forgotten which one. Butter with that?”
“‘Thou fillest every living thing with blessing’?” Madeleine pauses, the bread board in her hand, arrested in her gesture of offering bread to Brother Tom. “Is that what we just said?” She knows hardly any Latin beyond the Pater Noster, the other prayers of the rosary, and the Mass.
“We did.” William takes the thing from her hand and sets it down in front of Brother Thomas. “Why?”
“Well, I agree with Brother Cedd the notion is beautiful – but I’m a little leery of you and every living thing. What does the rest of it mean?”
“The whole thing is ‘The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord; thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand and fillest every living thing with blessing.’ What could possibly be wrong with that?”
Seeing the eyes of all three men are fixed on her expectantly, much like those of creation on God in the psalm, Madeleine feels bound to reply. “My husband,” she says, her eyebrows raised in a prim expression of mock austerity, “gets up with first light to feed the beasts. He takes hay and grain to the cow, the horse, the goat, scraps to the chickens and the geese. Well and good – but he doesn’t stop there; not William.”
Now William realizes his secrets are about to be exposed. He turns his face aside, half embarrassed, his hand moves in a small gesture of remonstrance; but he doesn’t mind too much.
“When he’s fed and watered the creatures everyone would expect him to feed,” she says, “he turns his attention to the others. He’ll scavenge fish skin and meat fat as a treat for the crows. Crows, I say, you’ll notice, not crow – for they know where to come. The pair we had has raised four young ones successfully this spring and – I do not deceive you – those birds brought every one as it fledged on a slow fly past to show our William. Brought every one while it still had the fluffy grey feathers of childhood to show it the place on the fence you have to perch if you want tidbits. Aye – you can believe it.” This last she addresses to Brother Cedd’s incredulous grin. He’s not sure if she’s telling the truth or only teasing.
“But that’s not the end of it. Everyone else in the village throwing stones at the crows, our William saving them tidbits. But come the evening, he’ll milk the cow and shut the chickens in safe, then what does he do? He takes a little bowl of yesterday’s bread torn into scraps and soaked in milk – for the fox. Can you credit that? And if there’s gristle or skin he can snick from a joint of meat he’ll give that to the fox as well. Or the badger. Whichever comes first. In the dry days of summer he’ll leave them a bowl of water beside the well. That’s bad enough. Is it the end of it? No. I say to him, ‘William, wherever there’s water to drink put down, rats will make a home. If you leave scraps about like this’ – and he puts out bread and fat for the songbirds, the hedgebirds too, in the winter and when they have young – ‘we’ll be getting mice
too.’ And does he stop? No. What does he say to me? Soft and low. ‘I had a rat for a friend when I was a lad, Madeleine; when I slept in the storeroom, in the attic.’ What was it again? ‘Thou openest thine hand and fillest every living thing with blessing?’ Aye, tell me about it! You know what I think, Brother Thomas? He’s spent too much time listening to your Brother Cormac. He has much to answer for in my estimation, that man. Like that crazy visionary across the sea in Italy – the one that preaches to the birds and calls the mouse his sister.”
“Oh, yes.” William reaches for the ale. “When we know better, don’t we? We know she was really a shrew.”
He sees her face, shocked into silence, the sudden flush. “Oh, I’m sorry, Madeleine, I’m sorry,” he laughs. “I didn’t mean – I’m sorry, my love. Was that too barbed a shaft?” He holds her gaze, rueful, questioning, playful. Is she all right?
“I’ll warrant the fox knows to show her young where to come, the same as the crow,” says Brother Tom. “I’m surprised you don’t have every fox in Yorkshire joining you for dinner – bar the ones our Cormac’s slipping filched morsels to, exactly as you suspect.”
“What?” Brother Cedd looks at him in astonishment. “Brother Cormac feeds the fox? Does our abbot know?”
Tom and William both laugh. “Aye, he surely does. Our abbot,” says Brother Tom, “knows when to turn a blind eye. There’s not a lot you can do with Brother Cormac. The art of leadership starts with being realistic.”
“Truth there,” agrees William.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” Brother Tom observes, “a vision like a spark in the stubble, catching fire. First the moonstruck friar in Assisi, then our own crazy Cormac, now the paws and wings and twitching whiskers of all the vermin in England melting the heart of this hardbitten Augustinian.”
“Yes, but – what about the chickens?” demands Cedd. “And the geese? And the pigeons?”
“What about them indeed, Brother – that’s what I say!” Madeleine offers him some more cheese, and ladles pottage into his emptied bowl.
“You have to shut them in, that’s all,” says William: “and be watchful. The fox is shy and wary. She won’t come too close when we’re about, during the day. Besides, if all that’s on offer to eat is the geese and the chickens, surely that’s what she’ll take. Throw her some scraps and it might save the life of a goose. Anyway, we wax so indignant about it, foxes taking the poultry – what did we plan to do but eat them ourselves? If we can eat them, why can’t the fox?”
“Because the fox hasn’t paid for their food and housing,” his wife retorts. “And the fox will get excited in a hen coop and kill every bird for a laugh, then run away.”
“Oh, aye,” says William, “I know; but a fox will do that anyway. Is there any reason to think it encourages them when we feed them? I think: they have to eat something. If we put down scraps maybe they’ll be happy with that. And…”
“Yes?” Brother Tom is listening to him, amused, intrigued. It seems plain this man and wife have gone this circuit countless times.
“Well… sometimes, I sit outside in the dusk, once the hens are shut in. I take the food for the fox, and sit on the ground nearby. If I’m quiet and still, if I do nothing to alarm her, she’ll come and look at me – as near as I am to you. She stands in her russet, head lowered, gazing at me, curious, with her amber eyes. She… I think she’s beautiful. Why should I want to hurt her, or chase her away? Same with the crow. I’ll put out his food on the wall, but before he takes it he’ll come and find me, perch to greet me. We have a little exchange – and only then does he go for his breakfast. Oh, I tell you, there’s more civility and appreciation in animals than there is in much of the society of men. They…” He stops. He says so quietly they hardly hear it, “They are my friends. Besides, why shouldn’t I feed them? I know well enough what it is to be regarded as vermin, driven off, shut out, left to do without while others sit down to eat. I don’t care what animal they are. I just don’t like the thought of them being hungry.” He lifts his head again, defiant. “And if it’s Cormac put me up to it, well God bless him. It’s made my life gentler, made it sweeter, made me happier. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nay, husband, I’m only teasing you,” says Madeleine. “I wouldn’t have you any different, and you know it. So long as you get out there in good time before dusk, and see to it those chickens are shut in. Slip up on that and you might find me a tad sour. Because if the vixen’s been led to think what’s in our yard is her supper, who can blame her for her mistake when what she finds there is a laying hen?” She reaches across to pour more ale in the novice’s mug. “You look astounded, Brother Cedd. Are you not familiar with the ways of these men who call the beasts their brothers?”
The novice shakes his head. “I’m not,” he says. “In truth, I never heard anything like it in all my life. I’ll look differently at Brother Cormac from now on! At least… that is…” He hesitates. William and Brother Tom take note of his confusion, but pretend not to see. It sounds as though he will be coming home, after all.
Chapter
Twenty
The cardinal Office; the hinge that begins to close the door on the day at the end of the afternoon and the beginning of evening. The sun sits low in the sky, flooding in through the great west window and the open door to fill the church with hazy amber light, the colour of silence and gentleness, the colour of kindness and peace, the colour of friendship. The community rises, the reader asks a blessing, the cantor sets the swell of the chant flowing in rhythm from one side of the choir to the other. And so the day quests towards its end.
Brother Cedd’s stall is still empty. The abbot and novice master no longer question each other’s glance. They are just waiting, hoping.
Vespers sung, the brethren filter through to the lavatorium to wash their hands, then into the frater for supper. Today, Brother Cedd should have been serving: no comment is made, beyond the novice master asking Brother Robert to take his turn.
The servers have set the dishes out for them, and Colin inspects their contents with more interest than usual. The bread and salad they always have, and small beer. Butter, a very modest allocation of soft white cheese, half an egg. Sometimes they would have a whole egg; it’s only now Colin realizes he’s looking at the results of the kitchener’s efforts to make limited amounts stretch. Because they ate the eggs when they would have had chicken or fish, they’re short on eggs now. Because the big cheeses in store have diminished substantially, they’re on to what Brother Conradus can make in just a few days from their own herd’s milk as it comes in. Colin can see what he’s done to try and eke things out – given them a substantial portion of bread; made it with herbs and plenty of oil, so it tastes really good, and added to it a generous allowance of butter. There are big dishes of plums, baskets of apples, and bowls of blackberries on the tables. A really nice supper, in fact. The blackberries are shining, still wet. It took a long time to pick them, then, after he had, Conradus discovered in among them a considerable quantity of tiny, threadlike white caterpillars, hard to pick off. So he soaked them through the afternoon, then washed them through three waters; and he hopes that’s been enough. He’s set out bowls of whipped cream at intervals along the tables. His hope is that if any of the tiny larvae remain, they’ll be mistaken for minute stray splashes of cream. Provided no one watches long enough to see them wriggle, they’ll be none the wiser.
The tables range round the edge of the refectory, so the men opposite are some distance away; but this room is in the west range, and well lit at this hour of the day. As the reader – Brother Germanus, competent but rather quiet – goes through the biblical portion set for this evening, then on to the appointed section of commentary, Colin watches Brother Cormac across the room. Colin has his back to the wall set with tall windows to the abbey court. The rays of the low golden sun come slanting through; in some cases right into the eyes of the brothers opposite. This means he can watch Brother Cormac without the cell
arer noticing. An interesting man. His black hair, streaked with grey, tousles in disorderly curls around his tonsure. His mouth is firm, decisive, and his jaw has a resolute set. The contours of his face are steadfast shading through to stubborn. Even across the room the blue of his eyes pierces like shards of ice. His black brows and long eyelashes somehow combine with that fierce blue to give the impression of spikes. You wouldn’t argue with him, Colin thinks. You wouldn’t even bother to try.
The man’s hands, as he breaks his bread, are bony, long-fingered. But there is something fastidious in his touch, as there is also a quality in his face – something subdued… a… what? Colin searches for the feeling of it – nobility? Refinement? Dignity?… or… perhaps something more ordinary; that he feels chastened and unhappy. It could be that. As he watches, he sees the cellarer pick up his half egg and unobtrusively put it onto the plate of the man next to him – Brother Thaddeus. Colin wonders why he did that. Is it an objection to eating the egg – is this too a theft of life? Or is he feeling ashamed about the shortages he’s created, and doing what he can to put things right? He strongly suspects Brother Cormac is not allowed to do what he just did. You’re meant to eat what they give you. It’s part of being grateful; it’s about lowliness.
As Colin tears his bread, eats his own half egg, he reflects on the conversation he overheard standing outside the checker. Cormac’s notion that they should respect the lives of beasts and birds is entirely new to him. Did not God put them on earth solely for man’s use and pleasure, then? Could it be true that they have a point of view of their own? To slaughter the bull calves, to hook the fish from the stream, break the neck of the fattened capon – did that matter? He’s never met anybody in all his life so far who advanced an even similar opinion.
A Day and a Life Page 14
