Shadow in the Dark

by Antony Barone Kolenc

  That night the rains came again, heavy and cold, and continued into the next morning, carrying away the ashes and washing black stains from the stone buildings.

  Brother Oscar gave only indoor chores to the boys, putting them to work throughout the abbey’s buildings. The monk assigned Xan and John work on opposite sides of the abbey grounds. That was fine with Xan, although John had not spoken a word to him since their fight yesterday.

  In the afternoon, Brother Andrew escorted Xan across the wet meadow and granges to the abbey’s library for his first lesson as the monk’s pupil.

  “You will learn to love the library—a quiet place in troubled times,” the monk said. “’Twill be your place to learn, much like the schoolroom where novices are taught by our novice master.”

  Grasping the large handle, Brother Andrew opened the creaking door and led him into a plain room with a large, wooden table, two chairs, and four tall shelves filled with leather-bound books. Its most striking feature was an enormous painting on the back wall, visible upon entry.

  “What is that?” Xan said, pointing.

  The painting was disturbing. In it, a man’s bloody body lay dead on the ground, eyes closed but lips turned up in a smile. A semblance of the man’s soul rose from his body. The soul—almost transparent, with a yellow halo circling its head—had its eyes open and wore a peaceful expression. The soul seemed to stare down from the painting, its eyes meeting and holding Xan’s gaze.

  Brother Andrew looked at him with concern. “Do not be afraid, my son.”

  It seemed that everywhere he’d turned since his injury, death was present—in his dreams, in the stories of the boys, in Hardonbury and Chadwick, and now even in this library.

  “Why would someone paint this poor man’s death?” he asked.

  The monk pondered a moment. “Death is our companion. Wars, plagues—there is much death these days. By displaying it in art, we understand death better. That is why I painted this.”

  “You painted this?”

  “Indeed. I was well schooled in the art as a child. But ’tis not meant to frighten. That man is Saint Ignatius of Antioch, an early martyr for the faith.”

  “Well,” Xan said. “When I die, I don’t think I’ll be smiling.”

  The monk chuckled. “When our Lord died on the cross, He conquered death. That is the beauty of our faith. Death is a gateway to Heaven, and I hope to welcome mine one day as Saint Ignatius is doing here. He does not fear his death, you see.”

  The saint in the painting showed no sign of terror; it was like Mother’s face in his dream, when she let Death in through the cottage door. Maybe Mother was a person of great faith too.

  He stared at the painting again. The monk’s words sounded nice, yet hadn’t the monks hidden in fear from the bandits? Not Brother Andrew, though. He’d run toward the danger.

  “Now,” the monk said. “Let us begin.”

  He sat Xan at the table and placed a piece of goat-skin parchment in front of him.

  “First, you must learn your letters, Xan. Then you will see that these letters can form words in the two languages you must master: Latin and our common tongue here in England.”

  The monk picked up a pointed stylus that had been whittled smooth from a reed. He dipped it into a tiny, foul-smelling cup of ink—made from iron and the gall of an oak tree, he’d said—and scrawled a black letter on the rough parchment, commenting on how to shape the letter properly and what it sounded like in both English and Latin.

  “This is how we monks have preserved the Sacred Scriptures and great works of antiquity. A practiced monk who spends his days in the scriptorium becomes expert in writing these letters.”

  Eventually the page was filled with all the letters Xan needed to learn.

  “Our youngest monks make the best scribes,” Brother Andrew said. “When a monk’s eyes get too old, like with Brother Leo or Brother Oscar, copying manuscripts becomes too difficult.”

  After two hours of tedious work, going through each of the letters, Xan’s mind felt fuller than the fountain had been this morning, nearly overflowing from all the rain.

  Brother Andrew stood. “Excellent work, my son. You have done as well as any novice boy.” He placed the parchment to the side. “I will leave this here for you to use each day. The abbot has given permission for you to come to the library to study during any of your free time.”

  It would probably take Xan days to memorize the look and sound of each of these letters. Writing them perfectly would be even more difficult. But all these letters could not get him closer to his true purpose for being at the abbey.

  “Brother,” he said, as the monk put the ink on a shelf. “I think I might know why God has brought me to this place.”

  “Is that so?” Brother Andrew stopped immediately and turned to him.

  He told the monk his idea that no coincidence had brought a boy from Hardonbury to this abbey just when the same group of bandits had attacked both places. He explained his hope that, by solving the mystery, he might understand his situation and perhaps even find his memories.

  “Remarkable,” Brother Andrew said. “I feel in my heart that you are correct about this.”

  The monk stepped to one of the shelves and pulled a thick, leather-bound book down to the table. He opened its stinky leaves of parchment and paged through it.

  “This book records a history of our shire, prepared over the years by our archivists. I often consult it for research on matters involving local manors. Perhaps you will discover something of importance in here about Hardonbury or the abbey, once you begin to read.”

  Xan inspected the book. None of the words on the pages made sense yet, though some of the letters already looked familiar after just one lesson. Perhaps reading really would be helpful in figuring out the mystery of why his parents had been killed at the hands of the bandits.

  He flipped a few leaves, glancing at the words and diagrams within. Several line drawings were labeled. One set of sketches appeared to show Harwood Abbey at different stages of its construction. The book even contained an old map of the local area.

  He had nearly lost interest when he flipped the next page. There lay a drawing of a shield engraved with two swords that crossed together over images of a serpent and a cross. That was the same image Sire Roger had shown them on the tapestry at Lord Godfrey’s estate.

  “What does this say, Brother?”

  The monk squinted to read the words. The ink had been blotted on the rough page, which still contained some goat hair on the parchment skin. The ink blot obscured some of the letters.

  “Of course,” Brother Andrew said. “This section of the book sets out the history of Chadwick Manor. Here is the coat of arms for the Godfrey family—we saw it on that tapestry inside his manor house, you might recall. It says here that our archivist copied this drawing from a wax seal placed on an official document signed by Lord Godfrey in 1174.”

  A wax seal. Aye, Sire Roger had mentioned that to them.

  Brother Andrew closed the book and placed it on the table. “Come, Xan. See, the sun is finally shining. Let us go warm ourselves in its light.”

  They exited the library and strode down a long hallway and out the back door. Sure enough, the rains had finally gone, and the sun was high and bright in the sky.

  A tall servant in a brown tunic passed by, marching toward the abbey gate. He carried a crossbow in hand, with a quiver of quarrels on his back. A hairy brown dog walked by his side.

  Brother Andrew nodded in approval. “The abbot has asked three of our servants who can use the crossbow to guard our gates in case those bandits come back.”

  In one of Xan’s memories, Rummy was sneering down at a group of the Hardonbury men—Father included—trying to defend Hardonbury from attack. Those poor men had failed, so what could three servants with bows do to protect the abbey if the bandits returned with a vengeance?

  “And look, your new friend is coming,” the monk said, pointing at the cobbl
estone path.

  Two girls approached carrying a hefty, folded blanket. It was Lucy and a shorter girl—the same one who had delivered linens with Lucy the day Xan had met her. The younger girl wore a long brown tunic and had bushy eyebrows like caterpillars.

  Lucy smiled and waved as they drew near. Her hair seemed flatter and smoother than usual. Maybe she’d been caught in the rain earlier. It didn’t matter; she looked just as pretty either way.

  “Good day, Brother Andrew; Xan.” Lucy curtsied politely. “The sun is finally out.”

  “Praise God for that,” the monk said.

  “Hullo!” The younger girl’s long brown hair toppled over her face as she curtsied.

  “This is Maud,” Lucy said.

  They all exchanged greetings.

  “Sister said to bring this here blanket for poor ol’ Father Paul,” Maud said.

  “Is he still in the infirmary?” Lucy asked.

  “Aye, he is still recovering there,” the monk said. “And with all these cold rains, he could use an extra blanket. That was very kind of the sisters to think of him. Xan, would you show these girls to the infirmary, please? I must return to my duties in the scriptorium.”

  Brother Andrew had given him the perfect excuse to walk with them. Had the monk done that on purpose, or was he really in that much of a rush to get back to writing with smelly ink?

  After Brother Andrew had gone, Xan led the girls to the edge of the monks’ dormitory, where they entered and headed toward the infirmary.

  “’Tis good to see you,” he said to Lucy as they walked.

  She smiled, and her cheek turned red. “Maud has been a great helper with the deliveries today,” she said.

  “I’m always the best helper,” Maud confirmed.

  When they got to the infirmary, Father Paul was sitting up in bed, speaking with the abbey’s leech, Brother Lucius. The leech—whose head was entirely bald and bore a strange birthmark in the shape of an almond—smiled and nodded at the priest’s story.

  “Then I lunged for that bandit’s dagger,” Father Paul was saying, “but only got hold of his belt. ’Twas lucky for him; I am expert with a blade.”

  Brother Andrew had said Father Paul was a knight in the Crusades. He’d come back from war a changed man and devoted his life to God by becoming a monk. Yet, he often told tales of his knightly exploits—quite a contrast from most other monks, who barely spoke a word throughout the day.

  “Coins flew everywhere,” Father Paul continued. “And I grabbed a parchment from him—quite an important one, I think, with a wax seal and everything. Alas, then he kicked me and fled, the coward.” The monk’s story ended in a coughing fit.

  “Good morning,” Lucy said, walking into the room with the blanket. “This is for you.”

  Father Paul beamed with pleasure as Lucy and Maud spread out his new blanket over the bed, with the help of Brother Lucius.

  The priest’s story had been a bit exaggerated, of course, but it was essentially true. He had grabbed at a parchment that fell from Rummy’s pouch, and the bandit had ripped most of it from his hands. But how did Father Paul know the document had a wax seal? This could be a clue.

  “Father Paul,” Xan said. “Do you still have the parchment from that bandit?”

  The priest nodded. “Aye, a piece. Where did you put that cursed thing, Lucius?”

  Brother Lucius stepped to a small desk and brought over a jagged piece of parchment, about the size of Father Paul’s palm.

  “May I look at it?” Xan asked.

  The leech handed it to him. Sure enough, the edge of the page had been sealed in red wax—two swords, a serpent, and a cross.

  He handed it to Lucy. “That’s odd,” he said. “I know this seal. ’Tis from Lord Godfrey. I saw it in Chadwick and again today in a book.”

  She examined it. “The bandit had this with him? Whatever does it mean?”

  It meant that Rummy had gotten hold of an official document from Lord Godfrey’s estate. Had he attacked Chadwick or waylaid some poor traveler who carried the document? Or perhaps he lived right under Lord Godfrey’s nose. If someone had seen the bandit in Chadwick, with his jagged scar and swollen nose, they’d definitely remember him.

  That might lead to another clue, and then another.

  “I don’t know what it means,” he said. “But I aim to find out.”

  15

  Roger

  More rains came that evening—the fourth night since anyone had seen the Shadow. Of course, two of those nights had been rainy ones, and no one had ever claimed to see the shadowy figure in a rainstorm. That could be either because of the deep darkness of the storm or, more likely, because the Shadow truly was a monk who had no reason to walk outdoors in the pouring rain.

  Friday morning brought a clear sky and a frigid breeze. In a month it would be winter.

  Xan pulled a long-sleeved, woolen shirt over his tunic. It had been provided by the nuns yesterday, who had delivered to the abbey several bundles of clothes and linens: extra blankets for the night and brown, thick shirts for the day.

  Brother Oscar made all the boys stand beside their beds, as usual, as he led them in the Lord’s Prayer. Though Xan had not known the words of the prayer on the first few days of this ritual, he had memorized them by now, beginning with “Our Father, which art in Heaven.”

  While he prayed, he held the abbot’s whittled cross in his palm. As he repeated the words, “deliver us from evil, amen,” a familiar feeling settled upon him.

  He’d stood and prayed like this before, in his prior life at Hardonbury.

  There was no flash of light in his mind this time, no stunning vision, only the misty image of a man and woman on either side, holding his hands. Their faces became clearer: Mother and Father, lips moving in prayer. Mother had her eyes closed, her rosy cheeks still and peaceful.

  His heart sank. He would never know what that felt like, praying with his family. He’d lost that chance forever now. But this new memory—if that’s what this was—proved his parents had taught him to pray, though he might not be able to recall any specific prayers.

  “Now, boys, take a moment of silence to offer your day to our Lord,” Brother Oscar said.

  Xan squeezed the little cross. Help me remember them, Lord. Help me solve their mystery.

  When prayers had ended, the boys breakfasted in the refectory, where Brother Oscar assigned them chores. He told Xan, Morris, and several other boys to work with the lay brothers in the granges, helping with the harvest. He told Joshua to sweep the abbey church.

  “Not again,” poor Joshua said, real tears welling in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” Xan said to the boy. “We can meet up later this afternoon and have races.”

  As Xan exited the wide hall, John passed by him, bumping him with a rude shoulder that caused him to fall against the doorpost.

  “Watch where you’re going, clumsy,” John said, heading to clean the stables.

  Xan just shook his head and traveled to the granges, where he spent the morning with the other harvesting boys. They lunched with the lay brothers at midday, sitting on the wheat-covered soil as they ate their bread and green-topped carrots before being released from their labors.

  Yesterday, Brother Andrew had told Xan to find him in the scriptorium after his chores were completed. The monk intended to teach him lessons each day between the morning chores and nones, the monks’ mid-afternoon prayers.

  Xan found Brother Andrew and soon sat with him at the library table. But before his daily lesson began, he told the monk about Father Paul’s parchment and Godfrey’s wax seal.

  “Indeed, that is strange,” Brother Andrew agreed. “Perhaps you can ask Roger when he arrives. Maybe he has seen this Rummy at Chadwick.”

  “Sire Roger is coming here today?”

  “Aye. We received a messenger early this morning who said to expect him ere nones.”

  What might be bringing Sire Roger here today, so soon after Xan’s visit to C
hadwick’s sanctuary area on Monday?

  The monk lifted Xan’s school parchment up to the candlelight and reviewed the various sounds of the letter g. Over the next hour, he did the same for every letter and then wrote two letters next to each other, showing Xan how they could combine to make new sounds.

  A bell rang in the abbey church.

  “That must be Roger,” Brother Andrew said, setting the parchment aside. “Come.”

  He led Xan to the chapter house again, where it seemed all the most important meetings took place at the abbey. Sure enough, when they knocked and entered, the prior and Brother Leo were sitting across from Sire Roger, sipping water from wooden cups and talking about the rains.

  The edges of Roger’s mustache had dipped into his cup so that water was dripping from it onto the nobleman’s lap, while he squinted and wiped droplets from his deep-blue shirt.

  “Ah, that poor peasant boy,” Sire Roger said, when he glanced up and saw Xan.

  Xan gave half a bow. “Good afternoon, sire.”

  “What is he doing here?” Brother Leo said, pointing at Xan.

  “The boy has found another clue, Leo,” Brother Andrew said, patting Xan’s shoulder. “Go ahead and tell them, my son.”

  Xan explained about Father Paul’s attack, scar-faced Rummy, and the wax-sealed parchment. As he spoke, Sire Roger’s face went from interest to surprise to shock.

  “I cannot imagine how such a document could have come into the hands of a bandit,” Roger said. “Lord Godfrey and all of us on his high staff use that wax seal for official letters, contracts, and even proclamations. If this Rummy is the same bandit who attacked Hardonbury, as you say, then perhaps he found the parchment in the manor house ere he burnt it down.”

  That made sense. Lord Godfrey must have had regular contact with the lord of Hardonbury because, after the fire, he’d abandoned his claims on the manor and transferred it to Godfrey.

  “Actually, this boy’s news relates to the purpose of my visit,” Sire Roger said, slicking back a strand of brown hair behind his left ear. “I come with a message from Lord Godfrey.”