Shadow in the Dark

by Antony Barone Kolenc

  In the center stood a white horse so noble and tall that it must have been Lord Godfrey’s mount. Servants around it carried an enormous shield and an oversized sword, likely meant for Lord Godfrey to take into battle.

  The servant led them to a high, brown horse with a white stripe on its muzzle. “This is Meadow,” the servant said. “He is kind and gentle, but fast as the wind.”

  With a hop, Brother Andrew slid into the saddle as though he were an accomplished rider. The servant lifted Xan upon the horse’s back, directly behind the monk. He clung to the monk’s black robe and peered down at the dirt and rocks. A fall from Meadow easily could break his neck.

  “Brother, do you know how to ride one of these?”

  The monk chuckled. “Indeed, son. I was raised by my family to be a knight.”

  Brother Andrew a knight? The notion seemed unthinkable. He was a monk, worried about making all his prayers on time and copying the Scriptures in the scriptorium. Who had taught him to ride horses? Could he wield a sword, too? They might need one before days’ end.

  “Trust God, Xan,” the monk said, kicking the horse’s side. “He will have the victory yet.” Then they were off at a speed so sudden and swift that it would have pulled Xan from the horse and hurled him to the ground if he hadn’t clung so tightly to the monk’s robe.

  The noise of the galloping hooves echoed too loudly for Xan to speak to Brother Andrew on the journey. Nor could Meadow possibly run at this pace the entire way to the abbey. Surely the poor animal would need a rest at some point.

  Yet onward the horse ran, with the monk murmuring prayers or chanting as he rode.

  Xan just held on tight and thought about all that had happened. All his misery had been Sire Roger’s fault in the end, with the help of evil men who now threatened the abbey once and for all. They’d taken from him the ones he’d loved so dearly.

  He closed his eyes. There were Mother and Father. Their faces seemed clearer now, less clouded in a haze. Mother was beautiful, especially when she smiled. She had such a warm laugh, too. And Father, who had laughed much less, looked young—much too young to die.

  A tear welled up in Xan’s eye.

  But then other people’s faces appeared: Brother Andrew, Lucy, Sister Regina. Had they not become like another family? Though his old life had been torn apart, not all had been for loss. Yet, all might be lost today unless Brother Andrew and he could do something.

  They couldn’t possibly stop those bandits by themselves. But if God could do anything, dare he ask God to spare the abbey any more harm? Would God answer that prayer?

  “The abbey!” Brother Andrew cried, pointing as Meadow galloped down the final stretch of the trail. The sun had not yet set, though that time was fast approaching.

  Please, God, won’t you answer this one prayer and save these people? Save my new family.

  Harwood Abbey rose before them as the horse cleared the woodland and made for the meadow. From the looks of it, they had made it back before the bandits’ attack.

  They passed the hedges and halted Meadow at the top of the hill near the boys’ dormitory. The poor horse was sweating and panting. Brother Andrew dismounted and lifted Xan down to the dirt.

  “Good boy, Meadow,” the monk said, rubbing the white stripe on its muzzle. “You did it.”

  Xan had been riding behind the monk for so long that he could barely close his thighs and walk. He stumbled at his first steps, nearly falling to the grass.

  “Careful, my son. Get your legs back under you now. We will need you healthy.”

  Xan walked in a circle and stretched his arms and legs. “All right, Brother. I’m ready.”

  The monk gestured down the hill to the boys’ dorm and then to the convent.

  “Your job is to run like never before, Xan, and warn the boys and girls that the bandits are coming.” He pointed away to the east. “See that little trail back there? Tell Brother Oscar and Sister Regina to take the children in retreat up that trail. They will find a cave that we monks used for storage years ago. They can hide in there ’til we come to get them when ’tis safe again.”

  “What will you be doing, Brother?”

  “Alerting the monks and novices. We will evacuate the buildings and retreat up that hill to the south. There in a clearing lies an abandoned cottage, older than the abbey. We will be safe.”

  “But can’t we stop the bandits from burning down the abbey? We’ll lose everything!”

  The monk smiled. “Nay, Xan. We will lose nothing. Everything of value will be safe. Our Lord will help us rebuild. He will bring good from this, you will see.”

  Brother Andrew once had said that all the things of this world—buildings and books and beds and paintings—were temporary and passing, one day to be replaced by the greater glory of Heaven. With that kind of faith, no wonder the monk seemed at peace even in the face of this evil.

  “Now run, son! Run like your life depends on it, for it might. See, the sun is setting!”

  Xan reached around the black robe to squeeze Brother Andrew in an awkward hug. “Thank you, Brother. Thank you for everything.”

  Then he ran down the hill as the monk mounted Meadow and headed toward the abbey.

  Some of the boys were gathered on the grass near the dorm. When Joshua saw Xan running, he raced over with a joyous shout: “C’mon, Xan! You can play barres with us.”

  There would be no playing. Xan told the boys what had happened and found Brother Oscar on the steps inside. Though old, the monk could move as quickly as any novice when needed.

  “I’m heading to the convent,” Xan said, as he ran off again. “We’ll meet you in the cave.”

  He hurried down the path faster than before, passing several girls playing by a stone wall and ordering them to follow him. As he drew near, shouting, several nuns rushed out the door, including Sister Regina. They accepted his direction and quickly gathered the girls for the retreat.

  “Where’s Lucy?” Xan said, looking around.

  Sister Regina squeezed at her hands anxiously. “I sent her and Maud to deliver fresh washcloths to Father Paul. She should be back soon, but how will she know where we have gone?”

  “Don’t worry, Sister,” Xan said. “I’ll run and find them. You head to the cave.” Before she could disagree with him, he was off again along the path. He ran directly past Brother Oscar, who was leading a line of boys toward the convent. The monk shouted something to him, as did Joshua, but he didn’t pause to find out what they’d said.

  At the top of the hill, he looked down at the main abbey complex. It was already abandoned. Monks and novices, all in a line, were crossing the field toward the south hill.

  What about Brother Leo—had they released him from confinement? And were Lucy and Maud in that line too, or had they missed Brother Andrew’s alert? He had to find out. He sprang into the granges and headed toward the abbey.

  “Lucy!” he called, when he got to the cobblestone path.

  There was no reply, except for the distant sound of thunder. That must be the bandits already—the last rays of sunlight had just slipped below the horizon.

  He had no choice. He at least must check the infirmary to be sure Father Paul and the two girls had made it out safely. As the hooves drew nearer, he bolted through the infirmary door.

  Empty! Then they had probably made it out safely, thank the Lord.

  Foul voices hooted and screamed outside.

  Where had he heard that before? Of course, he’d heard it at the abbey the night of the attack, but hadn’t the bandits done the same thing at Hardonbury? Aye, he remembered now—Father running out of the cottage, leaving him with Mother.

  “Check in there!” one of the bandits yelled outside the window.

  “I will take care of this myself.” That voice: it was Rummy!

  If that bandit saw Xan, he’d be murdered no doubt. Rummy would finish what he’d started.

  Suddenly a crash—perhaps the door being kicked—followed by booted steps
in the hall.

  “No one is in here, Carlo!” Rummy yelled. “They must have known we were coming.”

  Outside, the darkening twilight was broken with the sounds of smashing wood and hooves upon cobblestone, and shouts of anger and surprise.

  Rummy’s steps approached down the hallway. In a moment, the bandit would see him. Xan pulled himself up and squeezed through the narrow window that led outside. He plopped to the ground hard with a grunt and jumped back to his feet.

  There stood Carlo on the path ahead, dressed in chain mail with a torch in one hand and an iron sword in the other. The bandit’s eyes went wide with surprise as soon as Xan sprang up.

  “You are that boy,” Carlo said. “I would run fast, child, if I were you. There is someone inside there who would kill to see you again.”

  Xan stooped down and picked up a stone from the path. Aye, he remembered now. He’d thrown a stone at Rummy back at Hardonbury. He’d knocked him from his horse into the mud.

  Carlo shook his head. The eyes of the green-eyed dragon on the thin rope around his neck shimmered in the torchlight. “If you throw that stone, boy, it shall be the last thing you ever do.”

  The bandit’s words brought only hatred and rage to Xan’s heart. This might be the very bandit who had killed Father. He once had thought Rummy must be the one, but now that some memories had returned, he knew better. Rummy had chased him far into the woodland before catching him near the abbey—near enough for Brother Leo to hear screams and find him on the trail. Surely some other bandit had already killed Father by then. Maybe this one.

  “Where is the abbot?” Carlo said. “Tell me and you shall live.”

  Carlo would find the abbot. He would kill him, along with any other monk in his way—just to collect a reward. The lives of all those holy men were worth but a few gold coins to him.

  The rage shot from Xan’s heart to his hands. He flicked the stone at Carlo’s head as hard as he could throw it, just as he’d done when he’d struck Rummy from his mount.

  In an instant, Carlo dropped the torch and easily caught the stone in his hand. “Why would you do that, stupid boy? You could have saved your life, but now you leave me no choice but—”

  The bandit stopped at the thunderous sound of hooves descending upon them. The light in his eyes flared with recognition. He spun around and held his sword high.

  “God wills it!” A sharp, clear voice had shouted out those words as some kind of battle cry, followed by a chorus of echoes in repetition shouting, “God wills it! God wills it! God wills it!”

  A bandit ran down the path. “Soldiers, Carlo! They shout the war cry of the crusaders!”

  “Sound the retreat,” Carlo said.

  The other man pulled out a horn and blew it three times. As if in response, an arrow flew through the air and pierced him in the neck. He dropped the horn and fell to the ground.

  At that moment Rummy emerged from the infirmary door. When he saw Xan, he took a step toward him but then seemed to rethink his plan. He spit at Xan’s feet, turned on his heels, and ran down the cobblestone path, away from the incoming hooves.

  Rummy had escaped just in time. Lord Godfrey’s men stormed the cobblestone streets on horseback, swords raised in the air. Several bandits ran in terror beneath the fury of the horses.

  One bandit plunged to the path as he fled, a deep wound across his back. His falling body tripped up Carlo’s feet, and the leader of the bandits crashed down, his sword flying from his hand.

  “God wills it!” Lord Godfrey cried out, covered in shining chain mail upon his white steed. Then he and his men hurtled down the road, slashing and yelling, “God wills it!”

  At their shouts, a blinding flash lit his mind. Agony like the strike of a serpent; throbbing that could split a skull in two. Sharp pain from the front of his forehead to the back of his neck. Twisting and crushing and grinding his brain to bits.

  Memories—so many memories. Maybe everything he’d ever done; ever seen; ever heard. Just like that monk the prior had known. Mother and Father; Hardonbury; the East Field. His true name: Stephen. Everything, as if God Himself had seared the images back into his brain with a firebrand.

  Dazed, he stumbled into the path of a mounted guard, still shouting and chasing at bandits.

  “Look out, boy!”

  The massive brown horse struck Xan’s body as it passed. Its impact sent him reeling backward, tripping over a cobbled stone and cracking his head against the wall of the infirmary.

  The last thing he saw was three of Lord Godfrey’s guards pouncing upon Carlo and pulling the old bandit to his feet by his gray hair.

  “Kill this scum,” one of them said.

  Then a voice—the prior. “Nay! Do not spill this man’s blood on this holy ground!”

  Then darkness.

  24

  Forgiveness

  Had it all been a dream? The screams, the Shadow, the monks, the bandits, Lord Godfrey: were they all part of a nightmare that wouldn’t end?

  He opened his eyes. He lay in the infirmary upon a straw mattress again.

  Nay, not a dream. It all had happened. Mother and Father were dead.

  I am Stephen, son of Nicholas.

  He was nothing but a poor serf who’d spent his life working with Father in the fields of Hardonbury Manor, much like the servants who labored at Harwood Abbey. Of course, he’d had friends in the village, but no other family. Before he was born, his parents had lost his brother and sister to a plague. And though Father had spoken of an uncle in a far-off town, that man hadn’t come back to Hardonbury since he’d been a child. Perhaps the uncle was dead, like everyone else.

  He was all alone in the world.

  “Look, he wakes.” The soft voice near his bedside belonged to Brother Andrew, the one who had become like a second father, giving him a new identity and a name: Alexander—Xan.

  “Welcome back, child,” the prior said, stepping to the bed with relief in his eyes.

  “You took a nasty fall,” Brother Andrew said. “By Adam, you gave me a dreadful fright.”

  Of course. The bandits had attacked. Lord Godfrey and his men had arrived just in time.

  “What happened to those horrid bandits? Rummy and that Carlo—did the guards kill him?”

  The prior shook his head. “Carlo dwells in our confinement cell, with two of his accomplices. Unfortunately, I think the one you call Rummy must have escaped.”

  “That’s a shame,” Xan said. “They all deserve to die.”

  The prior gave a disappointed look. “’Tis not good for you to speak so freely about the killing of human life, boy. Our Lord died for men such as that.”

  Except the prior hadn’t lost his mother to men such as that. Maybe then he’d understand.

  “What about the abbot?” Xan said, changing the topic. “Lucy and Lord Godfrey?”

  “All are safe, son, thanks to you,” Brother Andrew said. “Alas, three of Lord Godfrey’s men were killed in the battle, and most of the bandits perished, except for a few who fled.”

  So, Lord Godfrey had come and saved the abbey, and his men had paid the ultimate price.

  “I guess the lord will get Penwood Manor after all. Now that he protects the abbey, I mean.”

  Brother Andrew grinned. “Quite the opposite. The lord is ashamed his bailiff caused such tragedy to us. Indeed, yesterday he gave up all claim to Penwood to atone for Sire Roger’s sins.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Aye, son. You have slept a full day away. We were starting to worry again.”

  Xan yawned wide and sat up in the bed. “I know who I am,” he said in a whisper.

  The two monks exchanged concerned glances. “You can remember again?” the prior asked, his face drawn up in an anxious frown.

  He nodded. “All the memories hit me at once, just like the monk at your old abbey.”

  “Very good, child,” the prior said. “The abbot will be cheered by this news.”

  “Wait—what about Brot
her Leo? We have to get him out of jail!”

  “’Tis done already,” assured Brother Andrew. “And the abbot has confirmed what you have already told us: Brother Leo was innocent this entire time.”

  How close they’d come to hanging that poor monk for a crime he’d never committed. The only offense he’d done was being grumpy and walking around the abbey at odd hours with his cowl over his head, terrifying little boys who mistook him for the angel of death.

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand, Brother. Why was Brother Leo always wandering about like that at night? ’Twas so creepy and suspicious.”

  Brother Andrew looked to the prior, who gave him a nod. “You may tell him.”

  “It seems,” Brother Andrew said, “that the abbot gave special permission to Brother Leo to engage in . . . well, to discipline himself with a whipping rod upon his own back.”

  That sounded terrible! The old monk had talked several times about beating his body to make it his slave, but that had always sounded like a mere expression.

  Brother Andrew was still explaining. “That is why Brother Leo went to distant areas, where no one would hear him cry out. And that is why you boys saw him sneaking about at odd hours.”

  “And that’s probably why he was limping in pain. But why hurt himself like that, Brother?”

  “’Tis a dangerous form of penance to share Christ’s sufferings,” the prior said. “He wished to keep it a secret. That kind of self-punishment requires special permission from the abbot. Indeed, Leo did have his approval, but I did not know about that ’til the abbot awoke yesterday.”

  Xan lay back, already exhausted from the brief conversation.

  A woman’s melody rang in from the hallway. “Praise God! See who’s awake, Lucy!” Sister Regina and Lucy entered the room, escorted by Brother Lucius. The nun greeted the monks and squeezed the boy’s hand. “We have all been praying for you.”

  Lucy folded her arms and put on a pretend pout. “You’re always causing people to worry. Why must you fall down all the time?”