Remember Me

by Penelope Wilcock

  The quiet settled around him, and he thought back over the afternoon. By hindsight he considered his decision to confide in Father Oswald to have been seriously foolish. He did not believe Oswald would have directly betrayed his confidence, but the more he reflected on it, the more sure he felt that somewhere, somehow, something would have leaked out and Oswald would have been the source.

  Thank God. Oh, thank God, his heart whispered as he sat in the stillness and tried to prepare himself for devotion. Brother Robert slid into his place. William closed his eyes. He felt appalled to find in his heart not one vestige of grief for Oswald’s passing—this brother with whom he’d travelled the monastic way for upward of two decades. He could feel only desperate relief that this afternoon’s impulsive indiscretion had been given no time to germinate in Oswald’s mind and begin to push its way up to the light and the open air. Relief, too, that Madeleine had reminded him of his duty to make that visit—otherwise now he would be even more harrowed with guilt than he already was.

  And he wondered, facing the fact that he felt so heartily glad Oswald was dead, if it might be possible for a man to be so engulfed in guilt and shame at his private thoughts that he lost himself forever.

  As he looked at the mess of his life, he saw only one candle of hope still shining. In the spring of the year, during Lent, he had made a financial transaction on his own initiative that he felt fairly certain, added together with the unremitting hard work he had put in through the course of the summer, would bring the community back into robust fiscal health. As he thought about himself, his relationships and responses, this began to feel like the one redeeming feature of his life.

  The tolling of the bell slowed and ceased. The prior’s ring knocked on the wood of the abbot’s stall. With a wave of subdued sound, the robed community rose as one.

  “Deus in adjutorium meum intende.”

  They responded, “Domine ad adjuvandum me festina.”

  “Oh, God, come to my assistance. Oh, Lord, make speed to save me.” Oh… yes, please… William’s heart pleaded silently as the brothers’ voices rose in prayer.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  October

  Brother Paulinus’s heart always gave a little lurch of excitement when one of his homing pigeons returned. They never failed to come back. Brother Paulinus loved his garden, and he loved the birds and would spend patient hours with them, crooning softly to them, gentling and befriending them until they would perch on his finger and he could do anything with them. Birds that have a sense of kinship will always come home, flying amazing distances through all weathers to the place where they belong.

  The one that came back today was a sturdy grizzle hen who would fly as far as was asked of her. Brother Paulinus, working out in the garden, watched her sail down, wings outspread, and stretched out his right hand like Noah, offering her a perch to land on.

  She had been taken way back in Holy Week. William de Bulmer had asked for a bird to send south with a London merchant with whom he’d done business on Maundy Thursday. Brother Paulinus privately took a very dim view indeed of anyone doing business on Maundy Thursday, but he understood that the cellarer’s work was unarguably fraught with challenges, so he chose to take a charitable attitude. He had given William the grizzle hen, with strict instructions as to her care, and had seen no more of her again for these last six months, but now on this October morning she had returned. He took the bird into the security of the pigeon loft, removed with care the message she carried, and went with it to Father William in the checker. William thanked him, took it eagerly, and read it; then his face went as white as a sheet. For a few moments he sat quite still; then, abruptly, without a word of explanation, he left his table at the checker and, with the rolled scrap of parchment bearing the message still held in his hand, walked out of the door. Brother Paulinus and Brother Ambrose looked at each other. Brother Ambrose shrugged. “Nowt so queer as folk!” he exclaimed. “No doubt we’ll be hearing soon enough what the matter is.”

  In the course of learning the craft of a physician, John had grown to recognize a particular look of desperate courage on a man’s face: he’d seen it in the eyes of a man waiting to have his foot amputated; of another receiving confirmation that the pox he’d caught would take his sanity first and his life afterward; of another who had just taken off his tunic so the surgeon could cut out a tumour; of another called into the room where his newborn son and the child’s mother lay both dead. He’d even seen it on the face of a novice—a delicate boy of aristocratic blood, barely eighteen years old—caught in some misdemeanour and required to strip to his breeches and kneel to be thrashed with the scourge in Chapter. John had long forgotten the offence, but he remembered the look on the boy’s white face. He had seen that look so many times over the years, and he realized he could see it in William’s face now.

  He addressed himself to the fear that lay behind it before he inquired as to the cause.

  “Sit you down,” he said gently, and he closed the door. He came to sit opposite William. “What’s amiss?”

  He saw that William was trembling, his face completely grey. In his hands he clutched a small scrap of parchment. John waited, but William did not speak; he just sat, shaking and looking down at the scrap of vellum. Then he buried his face in his hands.

  John moved from his chair, came and squatted by William, rested his hand on William’s knee. “For the love of God, brother—whatever is it? What’s happened?”

  Tense and shaking, his face hidden in his hands, William did not attempt to speak. Perplexed, John waited a while longer, then drew the scrap of parchment out from between William’s fingers, a tiny square that had been rolled and sealed.

  He held it flat to read what had been written there, in neat, cramped script: “Got home but storm at the last. Blown onto rocks at Lizard Point. Lady Eleanor is lost.” Putting out a hand to steady himself on the arm of William’s chair, John stood up. He looked down at William, still puzzled.

  “What is this?” he said. “Who is Lady Eleanor? Is this a relative? This has come with a carrier pigeon? William, speak to me. It will only be a matter of time before someone else is battering at my door. Who is Lady Eleanor?”

  “Not ‘who’,” William replied, his voice husky, willing himself to lower his trembling hands to his lap. He sat hunched, his head bowed. “‘What’. Lady Eleanor is a ship. I think I have just ruined us.”

  John sat down, very quietly, and gave William his full attention. “Please explain.”

  He did not need William to say how utterly wretched he felt; John could see it plainly. His hands gripped hard together, his voice low, his head bent, William told him what had come to pass.

  “On Maundy Thursday there came a merchant with the pilgrims here. I was looking for traders because we had a lot of things that needed sorting out. Columba was holy, and a good abbot—a wonderful man for the care of souls—but there had been too much cheeseparing; he was holier than the abbacy can stand. And Ambrose is good, and faithful, but he is old. He is not decisive, and has not a very tight grip on… anything.

  “We were short on essential things in every place—the infirmary, the sacristy, the robing room, the kitchens, the guesthouse, the scriptorium. Wherever I looked, I found work could not proceed because we were wanting salt for preserving, or spices for embalming, or pigments for inks, or sturdy cloth for robes, or silver and ivory and fine hides for the books that will bring us a good price. The buildings are all in good repair, but that’s the best can be said—and much of that due to Brother Thomas and Brother Stephen—dedicated hard work and skilled hands.

  “This man—this merchant—had an offer to make us that seemed too good to refuse. His ship, the Lady Eleanor, had gone out last year, overwintered, and was on her way home. She was loaded with everything we wanted. Bolts of woolen cloth for habits and silks for altar frontals—ours are in a scandalous condition. She had sandalwood, attar of rose, myrrh, frankincense, spikenard, ambergris—all the aromatics
we are short of in the infirmary, and also the resins: frankincense and myrrh from Araby. We have ample incense right now, but we can sell it on at a profit any time we choose. She had cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, saffron, ginger, mace—and the white sage for burning also, which we cannot usually get for love nor money. There was cassia and anise, too, marjoram and cumin. They had dried fruit—raisins, dates, figs and prunes, along with almonds aplenty, and rice. They’d olive oil and good wine—sacramental grade. They’d stopped in Venice and taken on glass and silver. I don’t know if you’re aware, but silver is rising steadily in price because the Venetians are bent on buying up all of it, and it’s becoming so costly. To get some that has been already bought before the prices go sky-high seemed prudent. They had come back leisurely, trading all the way, and they had on board the store cupboard of our dreams. They were stopping at Bruges for lace. They even planned to sail round to Ireland for some fair linen before finally coming into the Thames estuary, and then up the east coast to Scarborough with the goods we had asked for. They had also coarse linen—they had pepper, they had nutmeg, they even had some horses and a certain amount of marble. Bits from everywhere—and answering so many of our own needs.

  “The original idea had been to call at ports along the south and east coasts, trading as they went. But they—the man who owned the ship—had run out of money and needed to send out his next trading vessel before the monies would be in from the Lady Eleanor coming home. He was looking for someone who would pay up front for what he had to offer, and in return he would cut the prices of everything paid for by a good margin. There was a risk, of course: buying goods unseen from a vessel not yet safely home, especially as there was no guarantee she would be safely docked before the autumn tides and storms. She was on her way back though, and if I took this chance it meant we could have, before the end of the year, the things we needed to get to work and earn our living, instead of tinkering about keeping ourselves occupied and making do. We have men of such talent and skill here. We do Christ no service to restrict what their hands can do by giving them no materials to work with. So I struck the deal.”

  John frowned. “You mean—you paid him?”

  “Yes. I paid him.”

  “How much?”

  “The best part of five hundred pounds.”

  For a moment John stopped breathing.

  “We had it in store,” said William. “I had been round the farms and taken in a substantial amount in tardy rents still held over from last Michaelmas. Money was owed us here and there by a considerable number of people from our scribing and bookbinding and illumination work. I got it in. I knew that once the Lady Day rents were in and some more hardheaded agreements than previously reached over the work of the scriptorium and the school, we could recoup enough money at least for the next round of papal taxes; and we don’t have a visitation from the bishop until the spring. We’d be all right provided we had no unexpected demands from the Crown this year. And with what the five hundred pounds bought us, not only would our own stores be replenished for a long while to come, but we’d have the means to earn better than we presently do. So I gave him what we had—just about everything. I think we had about five pounds, eight shillings, and three farthings left in the chest once I paid him. I got a receipt.”

  “Did you consult Ambrose over this?”

  William shook his head. “No. I didn’t need to. I know what Ambrose would have thought. He would have thought it too risky and been horrified. Pirates. Rocks. Storms.”

  “Did you ask Father Chad?”

  William looked at him with a certain measure of disbelief. “No. That didn’t occur to me.”

  “So—you didn’t ask any of us. You decided to gamble five hundred pounds—being the entire wealth of a monastery where you’d only just been admitted. And our annual income is—?”

  “A hundred and eleven pounds, fifteen shillings, and sixpence. But after you take off the extra land we rent and various fees and such, last year we netted ninety-five pounds, twelve shillings, and tuppence—but that was before I got involved. I had it in mind that we can double that next year with increased output and what is owed us being chased up and coming in as it should.”

  “So… it would take us five years on present income to replace what we have lost.”

  “No. It will take us far, far longer than that because we have lost not only the money but the goods we needed to earn anything at all. And our earnings at under a hundred pounds a year only just about keep body and soul together; it goes out as fast as it comes in. Without an increase in income—and with no means now to increase our income—we can probably not even keep afloat, let alone claw back what we have lost. I meant what I said: I think I have ruined us. We are completely cleaned out, and we have nothing in store.”

  Abbot John sat transfixed, so many things going through his mind. He was appalled that William could have made free with what was not his to take. He was horrified that William had simply disregarded the absolute requirement not to act on his own initiative but always within the community’s framework of authority; this was not merely to safeguard the stability of the house but was part of the discipline of life for a monk. It was part of the renunciation of worldly goods: no more bright ideas; no more self-aggrandizement; no more self-will or disregard of others. William knew that; every monk did. Explicit in the holy Rule in black and white, Benedict insisted that a cellarer make no decision on his own initiative alone but act always with the permission of his abbot. He would have to take William to task for his outrageous disobedience at some point, but this did not feel like the moment for scoldings—besides which he thought if the lesson had not been learned after this, it probably never would be. As the implications raced through John’s mind he wondered what the responses of the brethren might be. He wondered if he would lose their confidence now, for good. It had been on his urging and entreaty that they consented to accept William—against their own better judgment—into their midst. He knew that Brother Ambrose’s mind was frankly unequal to this dilemma. He knew that his own inexperience could offer no help—and his prior was likely to be a positive hindrance. With reluctance he came to the conclusion that the only man with half a chance of getting them out of the predicament they were in was the man who got them into it in the first place.

  “So what do we do?” he asked simply.

  Curious, relieved, William looked at him. John saw him fractionally relax.

  “Is that all you’re going to say to me?” he asked.

  John shrugged. “I cannot think of anything to say that you do not already know full well. What has landed in our laps here is more important than any indignation of mine or remorse of yours. There remains a community to consider, and many who depend upon us. I’m afraid we have to fix this, and that won’t be accomplished by recriminations and apologies. I think we have to come up with something, fast. Who else knows about this?”

  “Nobody.”

  “You gave away five hundred pounds from our coffers and nobody noticed? What was Ambrose doing? Dozing?”

  William shook his head.

  “It was Holy Week, Father. We were all so busy, I should think Ambrose was meeting himself coming back. And besides that, I went through our accounts like a whirlwind, and I made inventories of everything. By Holy Thursday, if Brother Ambrose had seen me haul out our chests and empty the money into bags, he would hardly have raised an eyebrow. I could have sold the entire abbey out from under his feet and he’d never have noticed.”

  “Is there any possibility of getting some of our money back?”

  “No. That was the deal we struck. I listed what I thought would benefit us from what they expected to have on board once they had completed the voyage, bearing in mind their last stops would be in Ireland and then in Bruges. I gave the money for what was on our list, with the agreement that those items were then ours. The goods came cheap, but they were ours—so, our risk. Everything on the list was ours both to have and to lose.” />
  “But… if they were wrecked off Lizard Point, presumably they never made it to Bruges. And how do we know the rest of the items were even on board for sure, with such a mixed cargo?”

  “You’re right about Bruges. I think I can argue the point to get back the money for the lace—if he ever comes near us again—but the rest is known. They had their own carrier pigeons, same as us. The captain was able to send home reports at each stage. Apart from the Irish linen, when I saw the man in Holy Week he was able to show me a full inventory and let me choose from that.”

  “What do we want lace for anyway?”

  “The sacristy. Some of our altar linen has almost had it. And Father James’s stitching is exquisite. And Madeleine can embroider. I thought she might be glad to do a little work for us since she lives on our charity—she regards herself as part of the community in a way, I think. It was in my mind that we could produce some high-quality vestments and sanctuary linens if we had the materials. Anyway, never mind that, it’s all gone now.”

  “God in heaven, William! What are we to do?”

  “Well… we have no more cottages spare in the close, and because Chad filled up all the ones Columba had left empty, that means they’re relatively new tenants, so no chance of any revenue from there for years—only obligations to maintain the houses and supply provisions according to each agreement. I think I have only two suggestions to make. It is possible we could ask Sir Geoffrey d’Ebassier for a loan. He might stump up two hundred pounds. No guarantee, but we can ask. Then the other thing we can do is offer corrodies instead of regular tenancies on perhaps three of our farms. If we tell them we shall be raising the rents next year, that should bait the hook, because if they’ll buy a corrody of five years duration, that means they’ll have pegged their rents and have five years immunity from increases. We could try the same thing with the school. They’re paying two pounds a year at present; we could give them a choice between an increase to two guineas a year or a down payment for the whole five years at the present rate. Of course it also means we’ll raise capital but lose income, which is never good news in the long term. It’ll serve to get us out of a hole now, that’s all.